The Gift Who Comes to Make a Purchase

To the Gentiles, to those whose worldview was shaped by Greek philosophical thinking, the greatest scandal was the biblical claim that the Logos became flesh. To them the Logos was that rational principle that pervaded and that held together all reality. The apostle John therefore shocked their ears when he boldly and uncompromisingly published in his gospel that the Logos was not an abstract philosophical principle, a principle of reasoning or even (some aspect of) the divine mind but a person, a real person, the only, true God that took on human flesh. The Word became flesh meant that God’s highest Self-revelation took the form of the Person Jesus Christ. That God should don weak, human flesh was the supreme stumbling-block, the superlative paradox, the consummate assault on the Greek mind.

However, Christians are not ruffled by this apparent contradiction because in it we understand the physical outworking of the great promises and purposes of God in order to bring a radical redemption to those who were his radical enemies. Yet, this is not the only apparent contradiction that we find in Scripture concerning Jesus Christ. As we search the Scripture we find many such paradoxes concerning the Person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, some of which are listed below:

He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the One who is, who was and who is to come, Rev 1:7.

He, who was in the form of God, did not think that such equality was something to be selfishly grasped, but ".. made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men." Phi 2:6-7.

In him infinity has come into the finite world and in the form of a finite person.

On the other hand, he is the particular who has come to the universal.

He, who was rich became poor for the sake of his people so that they may become rich, through his poverty, 2 Cor 8:9.

God the Father made the sinless Christ to be sin for us, "so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." 2 Cor 5:21.

Jesus Christ is the Lord of life comes to die for sinners.

He is the Author of life (Acts 3:15) who comes to surrender his life for others.

He is the Great High Priest who comes to make the supreme, sacrificial offering of himself as a once for all sacrifice for sin, Heb 8-9.

The sacrifice of a docile, surrendering Lamb on Calvary's Cross was actually the triumph of the victorious Lion of Judah, Rev. 5:5-10.

And on and on.

Yet, there is one other correlation that we must take into consideration, especially as we contemplate on and celebrate Christmas, and that is Jesus Christ is both the gift and the purchaser. He is the gift of God, even that inexpressible gift, 2 Cor 9:15 – there are no human categories that are able to describe him adequately – who was at the same time the one who comes to purchase his bride.

Scripture is abundantly clear that Jesus Christ is God's gift to his people. Jn 3:16, the gospel in miniature, is perhaps the most popular text revealing the eternal truth that so great was the love of God for His people that He gave his only Son, Jesus Christ “that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” Our Lord continues to speak of himself as the divine gift in such places as Jn 4:10: "".. if you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, .."; 6:32 – ".. my Father gives you the true bread from heaven."; etc. Jesus Christ is God's gift to the church.

At the same time, the primary reason for his Incarnation is the purchase of the church, that is, those that the Father had given him in eternity past. Thus Paul admonishes the Ephesian elders to be especially vigilant in protecting ".. all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood." Acts 20:28. On other occasions, the term ransom, meaning to redeem, to pay the price for one's release, and so on whether used as a noun, ".. the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”" Mt 20:28 or as a verb, ".. you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. ", 1 Pe 1:18-19, is used. Moreover, Christ is said to have given himself "as a ransom for all, ..", 1 Tim 2:6. Our gift has come to purchase us, to ransom us from slavery to sin, death and Satan, with the currency of his blood.

This is the great gospel truth of Scripture – God descending from heaven in the veil and weakness of human flesh to dwell among us, to live sinlessly for us, to die for us, to purchase us as his own and in so doing, to restore us to himself. The truth of the gospel is that God the Father sends his Son on a purchasing mission-- Christ comes to seek and save the lost, Lk 19:10.

At Christmas Christ’s church celebrates the Logos, not the figment of the "wise" Greek mind but the Son of the living God who came down from heaven to the mall of the fallen world to rescue those the Father had already given him in eternity past. At Christmas Christ’s church celebrates the supreme divine gift of God’s Son who comes to purchase his bride. As such, there is an authentic, distinct commercial ring to Christmas, isn’t there? Surely, but this commercial aspect has been immutably defined for us sub specie aeternitatis (in the shadow of eternity, the way God views it). Its commercial dimension is not derived from the realm of secular economic enterprise but from the redemptive character of Christ's purchase, from the purpose of his Incarnation as God's only Son ".. who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works" Tit 2:14.

Ten Years Have Gone By

It's hard to believe that ten years have gone by since that most vicious attack upon American soil. It's hard to believe that ten long years have elapsed since together with an equally shocked world, we Americans beheld with a unique admixture of outrage, sorrow, helplessness and puzzlement as the northeastern corner of our country was blanketed in an ominous haze of smoke, death and ruins. Hardly had the curtains of the new, twenty-first century been lifted to welcome in the new millennium than we were greeted with the most savage terroristic invasion, a carefully foreplanned trifocal attack by sadistic forces converting the normal means of air transport into violent weapons of mass destruction. Yes, already, ten years have gone by. How true is the reflection that the events of 9/11 that changed the world! How even more compelling is the reality that these acts of reprehensible aggression have changed America!

The country and Western song "I Can't Stop Loving You" has among its lyrics "They say that time heals a broken heart, But time has stood still since we've been apart." But apart from the fact that time has not stood still for the past ten years, that is, apart from the fact that we have not been frozen by our pain or immobilized by our anger but rather, that we have redoubled our efforts in securing our borders and have increased our understanding of the nature and dimension of foreign aggression, we are aware that time has no therapeutic properties of its own. Thus, even the Roman poet Ovid's line,"tempus edax rerum," time, the devourer of all things, falls short in its wishful affirmation. With the passage of time comes the gradual reduction of the initial pain as we, through tear-filled eyes, broken hearts and mounting uncertainties, slowly make the necessary and unpleasant adjustments to live without our loved ones. With the passage of time come (perhaps) a necessary re-evaluation and reformation of our priorities in life, indeed, maybe even an entirely new perspective of life and even above and beyond that, a new understanding of the meaning, value and purpose of life.

Life. What has 9/11 taught us concerning this reality? As we reflect on the fearful images of crumbling smoke-filled buildings, as we revisit pictures of anguished faces, as we hear again the piercing shrieks of frenetic escapees, and as we contemplate the radical personal, familial, community and national dislocations and incomprehensible losses, many of which still evade our knowledge, what new lessons come to mind? What have we learned? Sadly, our nation as a whole has not learned much. Signs of the upsurge of patriotism following the attacks and of the nationalistic resurgence marked by loud cries of "God bless America," by the defiant display of American flags on homes and by misguided clergy misquoting and misappropriating 2 Chron 7:14, "if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land." are no longer perceptible. Ten years have gone by.

However, Christians should have learned and will do well to remember that we are citizens of two kingdoms. We are also citizens of this world. As such, we are under the law and are to obey our masters as unto the Lord. At the same time, we are those that have been born again by the Holy Spirit of God and that are a new creation, those that are being framed and fitted for heaven, we realize our citizenship is in heaven, where we are already seated in our union with Jesus Christ, Eph 2:6, and from which we await his Second Coming, Phi 3:20, to take his home with him to the ultimate Promised Land. We are in this world but are not of it. We are living in exile away from our home for which we have an ever-increasing longing. We understand and accept that all things in this life are under the sovereign hand of God and that while such punishing events as those of 9/11 are alarming and terrifying, yet we also know that these are under his sovereign control and are included in his immutable, eternal decree. No! The Lord God did not cause these events but in a strange way, he is working out his eternal purposes for his own glory through them. The harsh reality of these inexplicable truths of the mystery of divine sovereignty does not cause us to doubt his love, mercy and goodness. God forbid! In times of darkness, we do not deny what the Lord has taught us concerning himself and his purposes in times of clarity and light. Can this truth be distilled into compact and compelling brevity? Yes. ""For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."" Jn 3:16.

Life. If ever there was a time for Americans as a whole and for Christians in particular to grasp its meaning, it is now. A loving and mysterious God has bequeathed to his people, to his church, the gospel, that is, the message of life eternal through faith alone in Christ alone, so that those who believe on him will be granted this life and be rescued from an unimaginably greater conflagration than that of 9/11. Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, humiliated himself by taking on the weakness of human flesh and entering into a world of terrorists among whom he lived sinlessly and whose death sentence he absorbed in his own flesh on the cross of Calvary where he experienced the unyielding, consuming fire of the divine wrath. This was an event that far outstrips the dreadful horrors of 9/11 in every way. This same Jesus now offers himself to be received through the means of faith alone, not to good people but to terrorists who defame and deny him daily, to even Al-Qaeda terrorists! That's life! That's love!

What should we have learned from 9/11? That life, that is, our span on this earth is brief and uncertain and that “.. man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.” Job 5:7. We also learn that not even Christians are exempt from the ferocious attacks of brutish enemies. However, of one thing we can be sure: a loving God has given us, who at one time were ferocious rebels without a cause against him, murderers of his most beautiful Son, life through Jesus Christ and has also bequeathed to us the Christian responsibility to share this news of reconciliation, with even our most vicious enemies. This is the God to whom those who have been granted eternal life continually sing "I Can't Stop Loving You." ….. but only because he first sang it to us.

I Went To Church On Sunday

I went to church on Sunday.

As we gather together on Sundays, a dual reminder is placed before us: experientially, the struggles of the past week consisting of our progress and setbacks, our advances and reversals, our strengths and weaknesses, our salvation and our continuing sin, and hopefully, the glorious future that awaits us providing we hold fast (to) the Word that was preached to us, 1 Cor 15: 2; the hope that is set before us, Heb 6: 18; ".. the confession of our faith without wavering, for he who promised is faithful." 10:23; the Name of Jesus Christ, Rev 2:3; and what we already have, that is, the gospel of Jesus Christ, even Christ himself, 2:25; 3:1.

It is this latter dimension, the hope that is at once already ours in Christ and that yet awaits us, that enables us to embrace our daily struggles and trials. It assures us of our rest in Christ. This rest is confirmed, amplified and vivified when the gospel is preached to our ears and to our hearts, that is to say, when Christ and his saving work are placarded before our very eyes. For it is when we receive this Word, this gospel that was once handed down unto all the saints, whether audibly through its preaching or palpably in the partaking of the visible Word, the Sacraments, that our faith is strengthened and our hope increased. This assurance of our future heavenly rest already partly but properly received and enjoyed in the here and now, stirs us up unto greater faith that confirms its authenticity in love for the brethren expressed in dutiful, delightful and diligent service, Gal 5:6. Thus, the assurance of our rest has practical implications for Christian living. In this regard, this rest in the finished work of God in Christ establishes and undergirds the need for us to faithfully discharge our kingdom responsibilities.

This rest belongs to God's covenant people who share in the Sabbath rest he instituted and enjoyed upon completion of his work of creation, Gen 2:2. It is none other than the perfect peace of our justification, the consequence of God's reconciling grace to those who believe on Christ, Rom 5:1. It is a rest or a peace that we enter through faith alone in the sinless life, death and resurrection, ascension and return of Jesus Christ, indeed, a rest that is embodied in Christ himself, Eph 2:14. This rest has already broken into this present evil age and is now offered freely by God as his unique gift
"For all the saints who from their labors rest,
Who thee by faith before the world confessed,
Thy Name, O Jesus, be for ever blest.
Alleluia! Alleluia!" (From the hymn, "For All the Saints" by William W. How, 1823-1897)


Brothers and sisters, it is in church, God's assembled covenant, worshiping community, as we contemplate the Person and work of Christ and as we celebrate his works and cling to his promise of eternal redemption, that our rest is supremely embraced. The question I must now ask you is simply this: in view of the finished redemptive work of Christ and in view of the certain great promises secured by him for us, "What are you doing the rest of your life? The North, South, East and West of your life. I have only one request of your life. That you spend it all with me (no him!)." (A slight but necessary correction to Alan and Marilyn Bergman's classic ballad, "What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?")

I went to church on Sunday to hear and to rejoice in the rest of the story.

I Went to Church on Sunday

I went to church on Sunday.

At church we come together partly to experience, proclaim and witness to the rest we have already been given in Christ. By worshipping on the Lord's Day, the first day of the week which commemorates and celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, the church affirms its participation in the rest of Christ. Here, as the whole person is caught up in the Spirit, we are removed from the preoccupations of mundane living, divorced from existential pressures, protected from the expedient urge to fix our problems, and focused on the Person and work of our redeeming Lord, Jesus Christ. Here, at the effectual summons of the Holy Spirit, we have (been) assembled together in the presence of our Triune God in order to show forth praises to his holy name, to declare his worth among ourselves and to the nations, to ascribe the glory that is due his Name, in other words, to worship him in Spirit and in truth.

Though we are plagued by persistent remaining sins, because of our union with our Lord Jesus Christ, we are holy; we are saints; we have already entered the rest of Christ. Our date or point of entry was the time that we heard the gospel message and believed it, Heb 4:3, not according to our own doing and according to the exercise of our will but only through and after the regeneration of the Holy Spirit. We entered that rest when we placed our faith alone, the gift of God, in Christ alone. The rest that we have entered is none other than the rest that God himself entered and celebrated when he ceased from his creation of the universe, vv. 4, 10. Each Lord's Day when we gather together we are reminded of the three-dimensional perspective of our rest in Christ: past – we first entered it when he delivered us from our sins; present – we are currently enjoying the benefits and fruits Christ secured for us by his finished work on the cross and which are now being applied to our hearts and lives by the Holy Spirit; future -we will fully and finally enter this rest at the Second Coming of Christ when he gathers up all his covenant people for whom he lived and died, unto himself to present us to his and our Father.

In the meantime, our rest is interspersed with sin and with struggle against it. We live in a fallen world characterized by sin and rebellion against God, by chaos and unrest. Each day we are called to consciously wrestle against our chief enemies, ".. the schemes of the devil.. The rulers, .. the authorities, .. the cosmic powers over this present darkness, .. the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places", Eph 6:11 -12. Each day we are mustered into a battle on three fronts, against the world, the flesh and the devil.

We cannot wage this battle in our own strength but only in a synergistic dependence on God the Holy Spirit who equips us in this struggle. In this regard we, whom the Lord has redeemed from the Egypt of sin to be the people of his own inheritance, are the new covenant fulfillment of the children of Israel who, although sent and led into the Promised Land by their Redeemer God, Yahweh, Josh 1:13, were still required to fight against and drive out their enemies with the Presence and power of Yahweh: "The LORD your God will clear away these nations before you little by little. You may not make an end of them at once, lest the wild beasts grow too numerous for you. But the LORD your God will give them over to you and throw them into great confusion, until they are destroyed. And he will give their kings into your hand, and you shall make their name perish from under heaven. No one shall be able to stand against you until you have destroyed them." Dt 7:22-24. Like the faithful children of Israel who understood that their entrance into the Promised Land was only a type of the final rest to be enjoyed with God forever, "For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on." Heb 4:8, we, "on whom the end of the ages has come.", 1 Cor 10:11, also know that we have not yet attained our final rest. God's promise of rest still stands, Heb 4:1. "So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.” vv. 9-10.

Now, this begs the question, what does our eternal rest look like? To what can we liken it? Indeed, to what must we liken it? We compare it to the rest into which God enters after his creation, vv. 3-4. For this reason, the writer to the Hebrews calls it a Sabbath rest, v. 9. We will rest from our labors in the same way that the Lord God rests from his original creation activity. In this Sabbath rest the Lord God pronounces a cosmic benediction on the work of his hands. "And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day." Gen 1:31. "For everything created by God is good, .." 1 Tim 4:4. This Sabbath rest then has as its primary distinction the delight of God in himself and in his work. Theologians call this God's love of complacency. A. A. Hodge defines this love of complacency as ".. that approving affection with which God regards his own infinite perfections, and every image and reflection of them in his creatures, especially in the sanctified subjects of the new creation." and Louis Berkhof explains it as God’s "..delight in the contemplation of His own infinite perfections and of the creatures who reflect His moral image." It is true that our eternal rest necessarily includes rest from sin but far more than this, it is a rest in which we will be forever delighting in him and in his work of creation and re-creation, that is, redemption. It is a rest in which we, the unmerited recipients of God's love of complacency, will be basking in the unrestricted fullness of his glory.

The church at worship on earth eagerly anticipates this rest for which she is currently being framed and fitted. The church of Jesus Christ inwardly groans with inanimate creation to enter that rest. Each Lord's Day is both a reminder and a type of the Sabbath rest that is approaching as well as awaiting us. Each Lord's Day, those who have been justified by faith alone and who now have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, Rom 5:1, experience this rest and cry out with Saint Augustine, "Lord, thou hast made us for thyself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee." Confessions, Book I. The church therefore understands that the term "rest in peace" is truly not meant for those who have died but for those who are living, for those who have eternal life by God's grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone. Those who have faithfully responded to Jesus' command to come unto him and receive his rest, Mt 11:28, are the very ones who will experience this shalom and this rest consummately in heaven where they will always be with the Lord. No wonder then that the church's final recorded prayer in history is "Come, Lord Jesus!" Rev 22:20. No wonder then that we are restless until we enter our consummate rest.

I went to church on the Lord's Day. There I enjoyed, already but not yet fully, the rest of God in Christ. The rest is yet to come.

I Went to Church Yesterday

I went to church yesterday… the day before yesterday, really.

My current reflection on service has to do with rest, that holy and glorious gift of God symbolizing one aspect of his ultimate purposes for his creation. The biblical principle of rest stands in direct conflict with and in bold contrast to the thoughts and practices of contemporary society. We are a restless people. We belong to a culture that lives and moves and has its being in quickly moving pictures and scenes, in rapidly changing sounds, in fast and fanciful alterations in every aspect of life ranging from rituals to relationships. The outcome of this groundlessness is that we are the personification of the proverbial rolling stone that gathers no moss. We're shiftless in all our ways, very impressionistic in our thinking (?) and well-nigh incapable of having an ongoing, serious discussion. In this process, even our speech has been deconstructed into a series of Neanderthal-like disjointed sounds, grunts and utterances reflecting the pervasive shiftiness and stultification of our society. We are restless in all our ways. Our culture, regressing more and more into a state of abject childishness, has been overtaken by a regrettable malaise of intellectual ADHD.

In contrast to this pitiful state of fallen man, rest is a gleaming gift of God to his chosen people. Its biblical meaning is varied but its deeper significance goes beyond the simple notion of the absence of any spatial activity and the reality of being in a secured state. These are some of the meanings contained in the first primary Hebrew word for rest, nuach, found in such texts as Gen 8:4, "the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat." and from which we have such derived nouns as Noah and Manoah. However, the rest of God encompasses more than the non-existence of disturbances, whether external or internal.

Its full meaning is located in its soteriological significance stemming from the theology of the Sabbath. To this end the Scripture tells us that “..on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation." Gen 2:2-3.

In these verses we find the clear biblical teaching of the goal or destiny of creation: rest. That this is a unique day is emphasized by the threefold presence of the word itself: God rested from all the work that he had completed (in creation)- twice. This rest took place on the seventh day – the Hebrew word for seven is intimately related to the word for rest.

What does the Scripture mean when it says that God rested from his work? Clearly it does not and cannot signify that the perfect, omnipotent, independent Lord rested because he had need of physical recuperation. Exodus 31:17 is perhaps even more puzzling for here it states that the Lord God rested on the seventh day and literally took breath, that is, was refreshed. Rest, shabat, in the Genesis and Exodus texts, points to a cessation from labor, which when combined with the fact that the Lord blessed and sanctified this day (made it holy), denotes that God was therein signifying the divine intent and purpose for that day. Please refer to Dr. Joseph A. Pipa’s article "The Puritan Sabbath" in the June 2011 issue of Tabletalk. Accordingly, this rest in which the Lord God, who had just pronounced a cosmic benediction on all that he had created, "And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good." Gen 1:31; cf. 1 Tim 4:4, participated is a rest of enjoyment and delight in his work of creation. In other words, our Creator contemplated the work of his words and concluded that it was altogether good. Further, by blessing the day the Lord confers upon it further distinctives by which it is to be marked, i.e., fruitfulness and fulfillment. The implication here is that all those who obey God by observing his Sabbath, would experience fullness of joy, completeness of satisfaction and fruitfulness of life.

Moses expanded on the nature of this rest to the sons of Israel as he proclaimed to them the law a second time. In Dt 5:15 his parting words to his people were "You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day." Here we find that God commanded his people to rest on one day out of seven, not only because of his pattern in creation but also because of his gracious redemption of his covenant people from Egyptian slavery. The rest into which the Lord was leading them was symbolically located in the Transjordan territory and was accomplished, in the first place, by the taking of the city of Jericho. Upon entering the Promised Land therefore, Israel was said to have entered into its rest and its inheritance. This land was described by Yahweh himself as one that was flowing with milk and honey, signifying the stout riches of divine blessings, and as a place in which Israel would experience non-interference from and victory over all her enemies. All of these were a gracious gift of God. There she was to offer fit sacrifices to her Redeemer God. "But when you go over the Jordan and live in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to inherit, and when he gives you rest from all your enemies around, so that you live in safety, then to the place that the LORD your God will choose, to make his name dwell there, there you shall bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, and all your finest vow offerings that you vow to the LORD." Dt 12:10-11. It was into this land and inheritance that Joshua, Moses' successor, led his people. "So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the LORD had spoken to Moses. And Joshua gave it for an inheritance to Israel according to their tribal allotments. And the land had rest from war." Josh 11:23.

But this was not the final rest that God intended for all of his people, for all time. For God's covenant people, there yet remains another day of rest. "For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, .." Heb 4:8-9. This rest is to be found in the completed work of the Lord Jesus Christ who grants us a full-orbed rest, not simply a non-working on one day of the week and the absence of conflict but most importantly, a rest from the toil of sin. By his finished, substitutionary atoning sacrifice of himself for his covenant people on the cross of Calvary, Christ declares himself to be and presents himself as the fulfillment of all that redemption and rest in the old covenant typified. He is our rest. He, the Lord of the Sabbath, is our Sabbath rest. On the cross of Calvary, he cosmically disgraced and disarmed the rulers and authorities, by triumphing over them, Col 2:15. Then, by his resurrection from the grave, he ushered in a new order, a new age for the entire creation, a Sabbath rest for God's people, Heb 4:9. Herein lie the full meaning and significance of rest. Those of us, who by God's grace alone, have put their trust in Christ alone for their righteousness, have already entered this rest. However, its full benefits and blessings await the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ who will, at that time, grant us the fullness of our redemption, the completeness of our rest, as he ushers and leads us into the anti-typical Promised Land, the New Jerusalem, to present us as trophies of his awesome work of redemption, to the Father, as his spotless bride, fully rested from the toils, trials and troubles of sin. Christ is our rest. Christ is our peace.

Each time those of us to whom the Lord has been pleased to grant his rest, Mt 11:28(28-30), attend corporate worship, we demonstrate at least three great truths: we have already been the gracious recipients of this Sabbath rest; we are currently participating in this rest; and we are anticipating that day when our rest will be complete. In the meantime, we keep on drawing near to him by corporately partaking of his Word and sacrament. With each worship our longing for that day intensifies for we are increasingly tasting and seeing that the Lord is indeed good. With each worship our joy multiplies. With each worship we celebrate the victory, the rest of our conquering King, Christus Victor. With each worship we intensify our praise to our majestic Lord and King "… Till our ransomed souls shall find, rest beyond the river." (Emphasis added)

Would you believe that this was my experience in church yesterday?

I Went To Church Yesterday

I went to church yesterday.

While church attendance is a Christian duty required by God, Heb 10:24-25, it is also a delight, an enjoyment every believer should have in his heart. The Christian knows that God seeks those who are authentic worshipers of him, those who worship him in spirit and in truth, Jn 4:24. By this is meant that believers are to worship him according to the manner he demands, with (a) spiritual worship corresponding to his spiritual being or essence and according to the truth of his word which is now enfleshed in Jesus Christ, 1:1, 14, 17; 14:6. Thus, when the Samaritan woman reveals her ignorance of the true character of worship by expressing her doubt whether such worship is to take place on Mt. Gerizim, the sacred place of the Samaritans or in Jerusalem, the sacred place at which the old covenant Jews were commanded by God to observe their three annual festivals, the Lord Jesus Christ gently but firmly diverts her attention to the fact that in him (since his first coming), the essential character of worship has been changed. Accordingly he redirects the discussion from the place of worship to the mode of worship and then to the object of worship, himself. Under the new covenant therefore, true worship extends beyond cultural, racial or geographic bounds, corresponds to the spiritual essence of God and terminates on the Lord Jesus Christ who "In the beginning was the Word, [who] … was with God, and [who] …was God.. [and who] .. became flesh and dwelt among us,.." 1:1, 14.

Consequently, we understand that in attending corporate worship services, we are not really drawing near to God. Indeed, even the Old Testament saints were acutely aware of the immensity of God. (Louis Berkhof in his Systematic Theology states "In a certain sense the terms "immensity" and "omnipresence," as applied to God, denote the same thing, and can therefore be regarded as synonymous. ... "Immensity" points to the fact that God transcends all space and is not subject to its limitations, while "omnipresence" denotes that He nevertheless fills every part of space with His entire Being.") Therefore in his dedicatory prayer to God upon completion of the temple, King Solomon prays ""But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!" 1 Ki 8:27. Rather, when we go to church, we are affirming the reality that we have already been brought near to God. How? "But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ." Eph 2:13, that is, by the substitutionary, atoning death of Christ on the cross on our behalf, in our place and for our benefit. We are demonstrating that by God's sovereign grace alone, we are no longer separate from him, no longer afar off but have been drawn close to him by Christ through whom we have access in one Spirit to the Father, Eph 2:18, and who indeed is our access to the Father, Jn 14:6. After all, "For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, .." 1 Pe 3:18.

Further, by going to church we demonstrate, not only that we have been drawn near to God but also that we are continually coming to Christ, 1 Pe 2:4, that is, that we are progressing in our Christian walk. We understand and joyfully accept that corporate worship is an integral part as well as a defining aspect of our Christian life. Such a perspective protects us from misguided notions that, since worship is essentially a spiritual matter, then I can worship God however and wherever I want because "the Lord knows my heart"; that I don't have to attend church because the church is corrupt and besides, all the preachers want is my money; that the church is really neither the building nor a physical facility but really the people and all that really matters in the end is that I have "accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as my own personal Savior into my own heart." No! The entire testimony of both the Old and the New Testament is that worship is uncompromisingly, unquestionably and fiercely corporate in scope.

It is no wonder then that while the Holy Spirit indwells individual believers, 1 Cor 6:19 -20, He also dwells in the temple of God, the corporate collection of all believers, 3:16. It is the church that Christ purchased with his blood, Acts 20:28. It is in this body that Christ by his cross reconciles all believers vertically to God and horizontally to one another, Eph 2:14-16. It is his church, a holy temple in the Lord, in which believers are no longer strangers and stragglers but in which they are being built together as members of God's own household, into a dwelling place for God by the Holy Spirit, vv. 19-22. It is this very church, his bride, for which Christ gave himself, which he is now sanctifying, ".. having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word," and which he will present to himself at his Second Coming in all her splendor, "without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish." 5:25-27.

Therefore, in corporate worship, I delight in being among my brothers and sisters. I no longer regard them after the flesh, that is, from a worldly perspective, 2 Cor 5:16, but from the viewpoint of the gospel, as those with whom I am bound together by the blood of Christ with bonds that cannot be broken. It is a Christian axiom, therefore, that blood is thicker than blood. By this I mean that those who have been brought into the family of Christ through the Person and work of Jesus Christ enjoy an eternal union in him that far exceeds the relationship they share with the unsaved members of their biological family. In Christ, we are a new creation; the old has gone and the new has come, v. 17. The church at worship is the most dynamic evidence of this new ethnicity on earth.
Believe me, I did go to church yesterday. There, along with my fellow-citizens of the kingdom of God, I worshiped the Triune God in spirit and in truth.

Believe me, I did go to church yesterday. There, along with my fellow-citizens of the kingdom of God, I worshiped the Triune God in spirit and in truth.

I Went to Church Yesterday

I went to church yesterday.

The Scripture commands all believers to attend corporate worship. The book of Hebrew issues the specific and solemn admonition that we must not neglect "to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near." 10:25. This admonition comprises two elements:

• a negative prohibition against neglecting or forsaking or ceasing to meet together. In other words, corporate worship is of such a crucial nature that believers are to apply themselves to this responsibility and privilege with unrelenting dedication and unyielding commitment.

• a positive charge to incite or stir up one another in this endeavor. In this regard, two reasons are given. First, the undeveloped observation that some have already begun to ignore the need for church attendance. The text indicates that this practice was not a mere lapse into uncharacteristic inattentiveness but rather a sustained and continued custom. Second, we are to encourage one another to attend corporate religious services "all the more", that is, to an even greater degree than we would normally do, in view of the coming Day of the Lord. The urgent need to join the congregation of the righteous takes on its highest importance in view of the approaching eschatological consummation when Christ will come again to gather his own unto himself into a state of conscious, eternal heavenly bliss and to consign those that have rejected him unto an equally conscious and eternal state of condemnation and punishment in hell. Our awareness of this end time reality intensifies our need to encourage our brothers and sisters to attend corporate religious services.

Many times this verse is abstracted from its broader context. The immediate context incorporates the previous verse, 24, which exhorts us to ".. consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.” The writer’s emphasis is clear: encouraging our brothers to attend worship services is a part of our overall responsibility to stir them up (not to irritate or nag them) to do good works. These good works are the necessary proof that we have indeed been justified by faith alone apart from our works and that our faith in Christ Jesus is the authentic, Jas 2:14-17. Even further, stimulating our brothers and sisters to attend church is also a concrete expression of our loving our neighbors as ourselves. It confirms the biblical truth that we are our brother’s keeper and that therefore we are to encourage and build up one another, 1 Ths 4:18; 5:11, to exhort one another daily lest we become hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, Heb 3:13. It confirms and promotes our ecclesiastical unity as one body, the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, whose systematic and symmetrical development requires the effectual outworking of each part in a dynamic interdependence so that the entire body grows and builds itself up in love, Eph 4:16. Lastly, it affirms our status as an other-worldly people eagerly looking forward to the Second Coming of Christ at which time we will worship him, the Lamb on the throne, in unbroken continuance with all the saints from every nation, tribe people and language. This is the immediate context.

The larger context lies between Heb 9:1-10:18 whose verses expound the incomparable effectual self-sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Briefly and broadly, 9:1-10 addresses the limited dimension of the blood of animals repeatedly shed by the high priest under the Old Covenant which could only provide an external, ceremonial cleansing. By contrast, Jesus' blood, shed once for all in the sacrifice of himself as our great High Priest, is able to purify the consciences of those who trust him, 11-14. For this reason, Jesus is the mediator of a new covenant because his blood attains forgiveness of sins, 15-22. Sinners can find salvation only in Christ's once for all substitutionary, atoning sacrifice, 23-28, which is the fulfillment and substance of all the portraits, copies and shadows contained in the Old Covenant, 10:1-18.

In the light of this great indicative of Christ's effectual sacrifice come the three imperatives to draw near to God with a sincere hearts and full assurance of faith, 22; to unswervingly hold to our confession of hope which is rooted in the covenant faithfulness of God, 23; and, 24-25, the verses occupying our major attention, to encourage fellow believers to be faithful in attending worship.

In summary therefore, the urgency of corporate worship is reinforced by the effectual, atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Those that have had (and that are still having) the full benefits of Christ's redemption applied to them by the Holy Spirit, should therefore contemplate worship not as a disturbance of their rest, an interruption of their routine, a naked duty to be performed, an occasion for the public display of (contrived) piety, and so on, but as a sincere expression of joy, humility and gratitude in response to Christ's salvation of their souls and in anticipation of the unrestrained and unrestricted demonstration of such joy and piety when Christ gathers up his own in the great eschatological harvest. For these reasons, we must strive to experience these great truths in the fellowship of the saints and also to encourage our fellow-believers to do the same. The effectual atoning sacrifice of Christ constrains all believers to meet together in corporate worship and to exhort one another to so do.

But I would not have known these truths had I not gone to church. I went to church yesterday.

I Went to Church Yesterday

I went to church yesterday. For the past few weeks I've been vacationing and traveling.

Our church has a weekly custom in which one member family hosts the guests and visitors to our service on that day. The hosting family invites our guests to its home and shares a meal, time and glories in the Lord with them. Host families rotate every week. On those occasions that there are no visitors, other members are invited to that family's home. This practice has been met with much eagerness and great delight and from all that I can tell, it has universal acceptance. And why not? After all, hospitality is one of the many marks of a true Christian. For example, Paul urges the church at Rome to "Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality." Rom 12:13. Peter says that this should be without any grumbling, 1 Pe 4:9. Indeed, such hospitality should be extended to strangers because of the profound implications, "for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." Heb 13:2. [Note that the Greek word literally means demonstrating love to strangers]. Lastly, such acts of genuine love are required of the elders of the church, indeed, they are part of the qualifications for that office, 1 Tim 3:2; Tit 1:8.

However, I began to notice a pattern developing among our congregants. The term fellowship was being restricted to the after-service love feast or gathering. Thus, fellowship only began to take place after the benediction had been given. This was the emphasis of the remarks I overheard. As I began to reflect on this matter, I began to see that we were missing the mark. How? Because the entire church, the local church, the communion of saints meeting at a specific location, is a fellowship.

The word fellowship means partnership or communion. More specifically, it indicates a sharing and participating in something that is common to all its participants, all of whom are involved in a close relationship. In its verbal form it is found in 1 Cor 10:16 where Paul instructs us that in the celebration of the Lord's Supper, believers participate in the blood as well as in the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. As an adjective, common, it is used to refer to the general truth that all believers undergo all kinds of temptations, 1 Cor 10:13. In addition, Paul reminds Titus that together they share a common faith, Tit 1:4, and Jude tells his readers that they share a common salvation, Jude 3. From the latter 2examples, we are already beginning to detect a particularly evangelical nuance. Accordingly, we are compelled to ask whence does such fellowship emerge? What is its source?

It arises from the effectual call of God the Father, who, in faithfulness to his covenant promise, summons those that he chooses before the foundation of the world to be included into the fellowship of Jesus Christ, 1 Cor 1:9. Thus, according to this infallible apostolic teaching, all that were called in this manner by God share (in) a unique fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Trinitarian dimension of fellowship is more strenuously asserted in Rom 8:9: "You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him." Therefore, according to the clear testimony of the New Testament, all believers are indwelt by the Holy Spirit who himself proceeds from the Father and the Son, Jn 14:26; 15:26. And what is the task of the Holy Spirit? To apply to believers all the benefits that Christ has accomplished in his sinless life and in his death on the cross for their redemption and ultimate glorification. In this way, the Holy Spirit honors and glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ. To this end he is called the Spirit of truth who glorifies Christ by guiding believers "into all the truth" by declaring to them the things of Jesus Christ, 16:13-14.


Yet further in his first epistle, John tells us that the believer's fellowship is with the Father as well as the Son; it is a fellowship that results from believing and receiving the gospel of Jesus Christ: "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life-- the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us-- that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ." 1 Jn 1:1-3. Christian fellowship therefore, like Christians and the church, is birthed by the Word and by the Spirit. It is driven by and derived from the gospel.

All of these truths serve to remind us and to reemphasize that true fellowship is demonstrated by and located in the communion of the saints, that is, it is restricted to and circumscribed by the Triune God around those that are authentically Christian. As such, it is demonstrated when believers assemble in corporate worship under the God-centered, Christ-exalting and Spirit-empowered preaching of the Word of God and in the faithful administration of the sacraments of holy Baptism and the Lord's Supper which say the same thing as the gospel of Jesus Christ and which indeed are the gospel in palpable form. In this regard, the practice of the early church at Jerusalem is seminally instructive. There the believers portray four signs of the new Christian life: first, and foundationally, they devote themselves to the apostolic teaching (Calvin: the soul of the church), namely the deep truths concerning the Person and work of Jesus Christ; to the fellowship; to the breaking of bread (although commentators are divided as to whether this phrase refers to the Lord's Supper, to a common meal or to the agape love feasts preceding the eucharist, the greater weight of argument seems to fall in the direction of the Lord's Supper); and to the prayers, Acts 2:42. The point here is that this local gathering of believers came together in fellowship with one another, that is, in the fellowship of the church, in and during the course of official church activities.

Fellowship is therefore a gospel privilege granted to all believers. It takes place primarily during corporate worship but it is also evident when believers come together in a non-worship setting in which the Holy Spirit guides, instructs and illumines their conversation to, along and into the glories of Christ. By definition, unbelievers cannot have this privilege; they are said to hang out or roll or run together in floods of debauchery, 1 Pe 4:4. Their thoughts and declarations flow from themselves, into themselves and are bounded by the dark world whose prince, the devil. On the contrary, the content, tone and tenor of Christian fellowship flow from, outward and upward to Christ, the light of the world. "But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin" 1 Jn 1:7.

What an awesome benefit derived from an awesome gospel! What an awesome participation! What an awesome Savior who makes this possible by his mediatorial work on the cross for us while we were yet sinners!

I did go to church yesterday.

I Went to Church Yesterday

The thirteenth of an undetermined number in a series on the character and need for corporate worship.

I went to church yesterday.

Preaching through the book of Genesis has been exciting and rewarding. Exciting because it reinforces our need to view the earliest accounts of recorded history from the perspective of God's unfolding his redemptive purposes in history for his own glory through sinners like you and me. It is rewarding because it is a reminder of God's faithfulness to his own Name and of his hesed, his steadfast, unbreakable covenant loyalty to those he chose unto himself. It is a comforting reminder that the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, is our God, the trustworthy covenant-keeper who is the same yesterday, today and forever. As the Holy Spirit applies the preached word to our hearts, we joyfully affirm with the prophet Isaiah, "Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the LORD; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation." Isa 25:9.

Yesterday's sermon was from Genesis 40, the story of the imprisoned Joseph's service to the Pharaoh’s chief cupbearer and baker. In his marvelous Providence, the Lord God placed Joseph in the same prison unit with these two former confidants of Pharaoh. In his marvelous Providence, the Lord God caused them to have equally imposing and disturbing dreams, both needing immediate interpretation, on the same night. In his marvelous Providence, the Lord God enabled Joseph, disparagingly called "the lord of dreams," 37:19, by his brothers, to provide them with the requisite, separate interpretations. But how did Joseph, a Hebrew from the land of Hebrews, 40:15, end up in Egypt?

Briefly, Joseph was a daddy's boy and a spoiled brat. His brothers despised him because he continually taunted them with the fancy coat his father had given him and with his boastful claims of future lordship over them, predictions that he had dreamed. His offended siblings conspired against him, stripped him of his contentious coat, sold him to Midianite traders who took him down to Egypt and who later sold him to Potiphar, Pharaoh's captain of the guard. There Joseph quickly incurred the favor of Potiphar who entrusted all that he had to him. 39:5-6. Joseph was extremely successful and for his sake, the Lord richly blessed Potiphar's estate, vv. 2-5. All of this took place according to the marvelous Providence of God. Indeed, the Scripture affirms the hands-on Providence in this way, “The LORD was with Joseph,..” v. 2.

However, Joseph's lot suffered a swift, radical reversal. The scorned and scheming Potiphar's wife, whose brazen sexual advances Joseph consistently parried, viciously accused him of attempted rape. Potiphar believed his treacherous wife and summarily placed Joseph in the prison in which the king’s prisoners were kept. Yes, there he was, in the words of Gilbert O'Sullivan, "Alone Again (Naturally)" but also there he was, with the Lord. “The Lord was with him ".. and showed him steadfast love and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison.” As a result, Joseph was appointed a trustee supervisor over the other prisoners and the warden placed everything under his charge ".. because the LORD was with him. And whatever he did, the LORD made it succeed." vv. 21-23. In the marvelous Providence of God, all these ups and downs, these good times and bad times, were ordered for Joseph. The Lord was with him when his brothers sold him, when Potiphar bought him, and when Potiphar's wife persecuted him. The Lord was with him. This very Lord is with us now as he was with Joseph.

How often we tend to think that our suffering is in direct consequence to our sin. While it is true that the holy God cannot wink at iniquity and must punish evildoers, sometimes there is not a one-to-one correspondence between our sin and our suffering. This is one of the lessons of the book of Job – sin is not necessarily causal of our suffering; it may be a possible cause but is not always a necessary one. Sometimes the Lord God providentially orders our suffering for his own glory. This truth is amply verified in both the story of Job and of the blind man in John 9. From Job's experience we learn that God is often pleased to withhold the reason for our travail and will keep it in store for display in his heavenly trophy among the many cloud of witnesses in heaven.

Returning to Genesis 40, Joseph's interpretations of the chief cupbearer's and baker's dreams proved that the Lord was with him – they were true. Pharaoh "lifted up" the head of the chief cupbearer and the head of the chief baker, a very poignant pun, in different ways. The former was reinstated to his position in the king's court while the latter was ignominiously hanged. But the chief cupbearer did not ask Pharaoh to release Joseph as Joseph had requested of him. He did not remember Joseph… but the Lord was with Joseph. There he was again in familiar territory, imprisoned, disappointed, desolate and dejected, alone again (naturally). But the Lord was with him.

In the deep, dark night of Joseph's soul, the Lord God was working all things together for his own glory and for his good. The sovereign God was silently preparing him for his exaltation to the position of second-in-command in all Egypt, a position from which he would bring the Lord's covenant family into Egypt from which the Lord would later stage the greatest redemptive act in the Old Testament, the exodus. The Lord was with Joseph. Through the life of this individual, the Lord was sovereignly using secondary causes to effectuate his greater purposes of redemption in history. As he himself would later enlighten his brothers, "So it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt… As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today." 45:8; 50:20. God used his brothers’ sins against him sinlessly to promote the Lord's greater purposes of redemption that would expand from the confines of sibling rivalry to the dank prison cells in a foreign land to the palace of the world's reigning superpower to the stage of redemptive history. The Lord was with Joseph.

One great lesson from this story is this:
God moves in a mysterious way;
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm. William Cowper, 1774

When God is with us, we rejoice that the mysteries of his providence and the inscrutability of his ways are not occasions for doubt but are causes for worship. True faith (not perfect faith)in the covenant loyalty, the hesed, of the Triune God, impels us, not to seek explanations but to remember his character, to adore him and to praise him for his goodness, wisdom, beauty, etc. In times of darkness, in times of profound pain and intense suffering, our greatest comfort is not in the provision of answers but in the assurance of the presence of our great covenant God and King with us. The Lord was with Joseph. The Lord is with us. Christ our King is with us. He is Immanuel.

I learned this in church yesterday.

I Went to Church Yesterday

The twelfth of an undetermined number in a series on the character and need for corporate worship.

I went to church yesterday. I'm part of the body of Christ. In it the union between God and his people is sealed. Christ's body is the temple, the place in which God dwells with his people, Jn 2:19. It is a community, a communion of the saints. Now, it is true that the Lord saves us individually – each one of us must confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts that God raised Christ from the dead, in order for us to be saved, Rom 10:9. As Jesus Jesus taught the baffled Nicodemus ".. unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." Jn 3:3; see also vv. 5, 8.

However, the Scripture also goes on to tell us that our confession of Christ is neither something that we do of ourselves nor is it an action that is unto ourselves, that is, that it terminates on us. Our confession of the Lord Jesus Christ is effected by the Holy Spirit: ".. No one can say "Jesus is Lord" except in the Holy Spirit." 1 Cor 12:3. Secondly, the Holy Spirit sovereignly equips each person with different spiritual gifts, vv. 4-11. Thirdly, it is in (by) this Holy Spirit that "… we were all baptized into one body--Jews or Greeks, slaves or free--and all were made to drink of one Spirit., ", v. 13. The summary of these verses is that as man the sinner is regenerated by the Holy Spirit, he is at the same time equipped with at least one spiritual gift with which he is to glorify God and serve other believers, 1 Pe 4:10-11, in the context of the local church, into which he is divinely placed. In the same way that parts of the physical body are organically interconnected, so "God arranged the members in the body [the church], each one of them, as he chose." 1 Cor 12:18. Essential to the understanding of the word member is the notion of a relationship with others; to be a member is to be a part of a group, collective or community. "For the body does not consist of one member but of many… If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body." vv. 14, 19-20. The one church is constituted of many different members.

From the foregoing we can safely conclude that genuine faith is a faith that terminates upon the Person and work of Jesus Christ and that expresses itself in the communion of saints, which is also termed the assembly or congregation of the faithful. This community is the church. While the Scripture teaches that the word church may be used in a variety of ways – the company of believers in one house, Rom 16:5; 1 Cor 16: 19; etc.; one city, Acts 8:1; 11:22, 26; etc.; a particular province, Acts 9:31; and in a universal or catholic sense, 1 Cor 12:28; Eph 1:22; 3:10, 21; etc., "Very frequently the word is used in the plural to designate the plurality of churches, that is to say of units, scattered throughout a certain area of lesser or greater geographical proportions.. Acts 14:23; 15:41; 1 Cor 16:1, 19;.." (John Murray, Christian Baptism, p. 33). It is with particular reference to this latter application of church, that is, the local, visible church, that saving faith is expressed and verified. As the late Professor Murray elucidates, "Union with Christ and the faith through with that union is effected, though in themselves invisible and spiritual facts, are nevertheless realities which find expression in what is observable." p. 34. In other words, one cannot claim to have faith in Christ and thereby to be a part of the universal church without being a member of a local, visible community. Saving faith is anchored in ".. visible association and organization [which] are implicit in the very nature of what constitutes the church." Ibid. Membership in the local church therefore is an inevitable consequence of saving faith. As such, it is a privilege to be enjoyed, a responsibility to be willingly undertaken, a union to be displayed, for it is one of the "… far-reaching implications of faith and conduct." Such action necessarily follows our confession which is "… an intelligent and consistent profession of faith in Christ and of obedience to him." Ibid., 36. (Emphasis added)

Well, some would argue, what about the thief on the cross? Was he not saved? Did he not make a genuine profession of faith in Christ? Surely he was not a member of the local church! All of these are true. However, the major point of Jesus' extending saving mercies to this thief is to demonstrate, not the possibility of deathbed salvation – (note that of the countless biblical examples of sinners coming to faith in Scripture, this is the only one of its kind. Therefore, it can be correctly described as extremely limited- only one is recorded in Scripture, but nevertheless, real- it was genuine; Christ did save this sinner)- but his absolute faithfulness in honoring his promise that ".. Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame… For "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." " Rom 10:11, 13.

So what did I learn in church yesterday? I was strengthened in the truth that being a member of the local church is an immense privilege. I was fortified in the biblical teaching that the saving faith we are given and which ".. comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ." v. 17, is the very faith that directs us to the place where Christ dwells on earth, his church, his body, his historical community which he created and over which he rules by his Word and Spirit. In church I learned that membership in (t)his body is not a peripheral or incidental matter, nor is it simply a personal matter. On the contrary, church membership is one of the crucial evidences of true saving faith, the faith that is worked in the heart of the sinner by the Holy Spirit in conjunction with the Word of God but that which, essentially, is a faith that is evinced in corporate communion. In church I gained a deeper understanding of the fact that on the Lord's Day, all believers are to answer the Holy Spirit's summons to “Adeste fideles, .. Venite adoremus, Domine,” that is, to "Come all ye faithful.. Come and adore him, Christ the Lord." In so doing, we demonstrate our faith is genuine. In so doing, we demonstrate that in our corporate worship and in our service to our brothers and sisters, we are not living for ourselves but for him who lived, died and was raised for our sake, 2 Cor 5:15.

I learned all of this in church yesterday.

I Went to Church Yesterday

The eleventh of an undetermined number in a series on the character and need for corporate worship.

I went to church.. not yesterday, but the day before. Yesterday, I was out of town and could not post my blog because I was in meetings all day. But, I did go to church.

As I was doing some reading, I thought that I might approach this week's reflections from a different angle, from the perspective of a minister reviewing his last preached sermon. I think ministerial Monday morning quarterbacking does have many benefits; indeed, it is a privilege and honor with which the sovereign Lord presents us in order that we may review our sermons and detect ways by which we could (and should) improve them. How often have I neglected the glorious benefits of such an opportunity to prove myself faithful to the Lord! How often have I grieved the Holy Spirit by rejecting his loving nudges to return to the sermon and with the added insight that he provides through additional reading, reflection and prayer, stubbornly refused to apply myself to such a noble task! On the one hand, it shows the sinful extent to which I worship my own stubborn, fallen will and also the adoration with which I joyfully stroke the idol of my slovenliness. On the other hand, it evinces my very careless and callous attitude toward God's people, his sheep, the sheep of his pasture, those with whose care he has so graciously entrusted me. I neglect the truth that the spiritual gifts with which I have been endowed are to be directed toward the edification of God's people and the glorification of his Name, 1 Pe 4:10-11. Further, while it is true that our spiritual gifts are divine enablements, it is also true that, in some cases, like that of preaching, these abilities are also skills and as such, they need to be honed through diligent practice; constant revision; dutiful examination of the works of our predecessors and peers; a ceaseless resolve to learn and apply new insights; a determination to preach the whole counsel of God; copious reading and prayer; etc., all of which impel us to heightened faithfulness in the exercise of our duty to ".. preach Christ crucified, ..” After all,"..what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake." 1 Cor 1:23; 2 Cor 4:5

So what did I do yesterday? I reviewed my sermon that was based on the first seven verses of the book of Zechariah. The scene there is the heavenly council of God in which the High Priest Joshua, representing all Israel, is standing before the Judge, the Angel of the Lord, a synonym for Yahweh, with the prosecutor, Satan the Accuser, at his right hand. His ineluctable guilt is graphically symbolized by his dress –his clothing is filthy, as well as by his demeanor – he is silent; the charges are true and he is unable to produce any alibi; his mouth is stopped, Rom 3:19. He is condemned and helpless! Here the drama of redemption reaches its apex: at the last moment, when he is about to be consumed, the Lord God, abounding in mercy and goodness, graciously intervenes by silencing Satan, by delivering Joshua from the consuming fire of God's own just wrath and by ordering that his filthy garments be replaced with righteous and pure vestments taken from the heavenly wardrobe.

Clearly this is a pictorial presentation of the doctrine of justification by faith alone in Christ alone which the Westminster Larger Catechism # 70 defines as ".. an act of God's free grace unto sinners, in which he pardoneth all their sins, accepteth and accounteth their persons righteous in his sight; not for any thing wrought in them, or done by them, but only for the perfect obedience and full satisfaction of Christ, by God imputed to them, and received by faith alone." Although all the elements of this doctrine are not presented in the text, nevertheless, this teaching is sufficiently identifiable. For example, the Lord God efficaciously declares the guilty and condemned Joshua to be righteous, cf. Rom 4:5-6; 5:6, 8; Gal 2:16; etc. The great exchange of Joshua’s rags of wretchedness by pure vestments is a picture of the divine Lord's clothing the sinner with Christ's righteousness, cf. Isa 61:10 with Rom 3:21-28; 10:4; 1 Cor 1:30; Phi 1:11; 3:9; etc., indeed, with Christ himself, Rom 13:14; Gal 3:27. Throughout this entire procedure, the defendant makes no contribution; he is entirely passive. He is the unworthy recipient of God's saving mercies.

My broad sermon outline was as follows:

Text: Zechariah 3:1-7
Title: Justification: A Radical Change from Rags to Riches

I. THE MISERY OF DESERVED GUILT vv. 1, 3

II. THE MERCY OF DIVINE GRACE vv. 2, 4,-5

III. THE MANDATE TO DILIGENT GUARDIANSHIP vv. 6-7


Reviewing my sermon from the post facto advantage of the Monday morning quarterback, I realized that in the final division, vv. 6-7, I was not as effective as I should have been. I did not adequately emphasize that only on the basis of the Lord's once for all declaration are Joshua and indeed, all sinners, righteous in God’s sight. Secondly, I should have accentuated the fact that we, like Joshua, are mandated to do good works which prove and testify our justification. "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them." Eph 2:8-10. In Joshua’s case, the Lord re-commissioned and reinstated him to his priestly duties, perhaps with added privileges.

As a result my conclusion was weak. I really needed to drive home the point that our obedience to the law (sanctification) necessarily flows from our justification and that our good works are done in gratitude to the Lord for his justification and not as a prerequisite for our salvation. Further, I could have further sharpened this truth by placing it within the context of the indicative/imperative dynamic– the indicative of God's justification of sinners by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone necessarily leads them to carry out the mandate of presenting their bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable unto God, which is their reasonable service, Rom 12:1. God the Father did not snatch Jesus Christ, his eternal Son, from the consuming fire of his wrath on Calvary's cross. Instead, Christ the sinless suffering Servant, having fully obeyed the law and bearing the sins of those that he came to save and dressed in their filthy rags, willingly endured the full immolation of a fiery divine judgment for the very ones who now receive the benefits of his finished work, imputed to them by God and appropriated by faith alone. Who, being so super-abundantly privileged, would not commit his life to such a Savior? Who, being so honored as to receive the Lord himself, would not want to serve him obediently the rest of his days? Who, being saved by God's grace alone, would not live his life in such a way as to prove that God's grace reigns in his life through righteous works “leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Rom 5:21. This I should have done sparing no effort to present myself “.. to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.”2 Tim 2:15. This is how I should have ended my sermon.

These are my reflections on my paltry service to my risen Lord. However, Deo volente, I'll have another opportunity next Sunday on which I plan to go to church. Will you be there?

I Went to Church Yesterday

The tenth of an undetermined number in a series on the character and need for corporate worship.

I went to church yesterday. It was Easter, Resurrection Day, the day our Lord Jesus Christ was resurrected from the grave. Easter celebrates the cosmic victory of our triumphant King of kings and Lord of lords, who in his (life,) death burial and resurrection, soundly thrashed the evil forces of Satan, sin and death, for all those that are in him, boldly and consolingly declaring to his disciples, " "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me." " Mt 28:18.

What was my biblical text? My text for preaching on Christ's resurrection was Isaiah 25:1-12. You might ask why choose the Old Testament when the New Testament accounts of Christ's resurrection are presented with such clarity and detail in the four gospels? Why return to the old covenant when Paul gives us the most powerful, convincing theological defense, not only of Christ's resurrection but also of that of all believers, in 1 Corinthians 15, the locus classicus of the biblical doctrine of resurrection? Why go to the Old Testament which comes under the category of shades, shadows, prophecies and predictions concerning Christ and his Messianic ministry while the New Testament provides us with the fulfillment of our Lord and his work? To these just answers I answer: I chose the Old Testament because of the unity and continuity of the Scripture – the Scripture is one book comprising several books, with one unifying, controlling story, that is, the holy, righteous and offended God’s gracious provision of salvation for condemned sinners through faith alone in the Person and work of Jesus Christ, his eternal Son. Secondly, I selected an Old Testament passage because the doctrine of the resurrection is clearly stated there, as we will soon see.

Isaiah 25 falls within the larger subsection of chapters 24-27, which, because of their occupation with and portrayal of end time or eschatological concerns seen in such passages as 24:21-23; 25:6-12; 27:1-5, 12-13, and so on, are frequently and appropriately termed "The Little Apocalypse." A suggested broad outline of this section is as follows:

24:1-25:5 God's Universal Judgment of the Nations

25:6-12 God's Lavish Victory Feast on the Mountain of the Lord

26:1-21 The Joyous Song of the Redeemed on Their Way Home to
Jerusalem

27:1-13 The Final Gathering and the Security of God's Remnant on the
Mountain of the Lord in Jerusalem

The first five verses of chapter twenty-five complete Yahweh's universal judgment of the earth for its gross defilement by the ruthless nations. It is a judgment that highlights the Lord's destruction of the fortifications of the vicious nations which he transforms into a pitiful heap of ruins, while at that very moment presenting himself as the stronghold and refuge of his people. In the aftermath of and upon the foundations of this cosmic victory, the sovereign Lord of Hosts hosts a celebration, a lavish feast, on the Mountain of the Lord, for his redeemed covenant people from all the nations of the world, spreading a table before them in the very presence of their enemies.

Immediately we identify the prophet's reliance upon and fulfillment of the Exodus event when, after supernaturally defeating the Egyptian Pharaoh and his army, the Lord gathers his people on Mount Sinai to have a feast with his people who were represented by Israel's leaders and elders, Ex 24:9 -11. However, here in Isaiah this feast is unrivaled in scope-it extends to all nations; in opulence – it is a state dinner of matchless proportions; and in its location – it is held in the new city, the new Jerusalem.

Who is the chief enemy over whom the Lord has secured an eternal victory? Verses 7-8explicitly declare "And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken." Death, which the apostle Paul calls the last enemy, and its faithful, gruesome attendants of sorrow, disgrace and misery, are the primary foes that the Lord has crushed. This death, the justly imposed curse for breaking God's covenant, that once filled the land, 24:6, and that once was a veil, a dark shroud, a blight and a burden upon the people bringing reproach and disgrace upon them and causing them to live in abject fear, has now been swallowed up by the sovereign, omnipotent God. Then, in an unparalleled act of ultimate TLC, the sovereign Lord personally wipes away every tear of each of his redeemed covenant people. This act of sovereign condescension attains its consummation in the eschaton, Rev 7:17; 21:4.

The apostle Paul appropriates Isaiah's words, "death is swallowed up in victory," in 1 Cor 15:54, part of his climactic conclusion to the greatest exposition of the doctrine of resurrection which ends with these taunting words, " "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."" vv. 55-57. Here Paul teaches that by By his resurrection from the grave, the triumphant Christ has killed death, has swallowed it up and has removed its fangs and its teeth, its sting and its venom, for those that are in Christ.

To this end, the Scripture tells us that the reason for Christ's Incarnation was precisely this – to defeat Satan and death. For example, the writer to the Hebrews states that through his bodily death, Christ destroys "the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil," in order "to deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery." 2:14-15. In his first epistle John records “.. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil." 3:8. Indeed it was he who “.. disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.” Col 2:15, and who also "…abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel." 2 Tim 1:10.

Moreover, Isaiah’s phrase swallowed up is directly employed in the New Testament, not only by Paul in the above-mentioned text but also by Peter with reference to, none other than the devil himself, whom he fittingly describes as our adversary, likened unto a roaring lion, constantly on the prowl "seeking someone to devour." 1 Pe 5:8. Devour may also be translated swallow up or swallow down.

Thus, the New Testament clearly expounds that the victory over death foreseen by Isaiah on the Mountain of the Lord is fulfilled in Christ by his resurrection. Likewise, the festal celebration of which Isaiah speaks obtains its fullness in the resurrected Christ who bequeaths his supper, the Lord's Supper, to his people, the body of Christ, the church, as an act of proclaiming his death as often as it gathers in corporate worship, 1 Cor 11:23-26, until he comes the second time. Further, both Christ's victory over death and the ensuing celebratory, commemorative meal he institutes are foreshadowed in God's victory over his enemies in the Exodus event; are currently observed in the ordinance of Holy Communion; and are anticipated in the Wedding Supper of the Lamb in heaven, Rev 19:9. [The message of Scripture is one!]. Here John, the banished apostle, poignantly captures the triumphant dimension of this meal in the vision of ".. An angel standing in the sun, [calling] with a loud voice .. to all the birds that fly directly overhead, "Come, gather for the great supper of God, to eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all men, both free and slave, both small and great." " vv. 17-18.

Christ's resurrection from the grave thunders throughout history with a most authoritative, distinguishable sound vindicating his claim to be Christus Victor, the indisputable King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the Alpha and the Omega, the living One who died, and who is now alive forevermore, holding the keys of Death and Hades, Rev 1:18. Whereas believers view weekly corporate worship as a gathering on Mount Zion in the Presence of the Lord, Heb 12:22-24, in celebration of Christ's Person and work, as Resurrection Day, Easter is that special day memorializing Christ's resurrection as a decisive historic act, a victory over all authorities, thrones and dominions, which he will consummate at his Second Coming when "the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of Christ, and [when] he shall reign forever and ever." 11:15. Thus yesterday, we observed our resurrected King with a special regard. We especially delighted in singing Zion’s songs acclaiming Christ's finished work, one of which was Brian Wren’s "Christ Is Risen! Shout Hosanna!”, the third stanza of which affirms that:

Christ Is Risen! Earth and Heaven
Nevermore shall be the same
Break the bread of new creation
Where the world is still in pain
Tell its grim, demonic chorus:
“Christ is risen! Get you gone!”
God the First and Last is with us,
Sing Hosanna, everyone!

Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed!

I went to church yesterday.

I Went to Church Yesterday

The ninth of an undetermined number in a series on the character of and need for corporate worship.

I went to church yesterday. It is always a humbling privilege to be in the presence of the Lord with the rest of the saints. It is always a joyous and fearful experience to join with the members of our local congregation on the Lord's Day. There, in the congregation of the righteous, among those who have already fled for refuge in Christ alone as our only comfort in this life and in the life to come (Heidelberg Catechism Lord's Day # 1), we receive strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us, Heb 6:18. There, in the very presence of God, in the ark of his safety, he sweetly and sovereignly protects us from the chaos, hazards and evils of the world. There, we hear his voice in the preaching of the Word and as we eat and drink with the Lord Jesus Christ in the sacrament of the Lord's Table. There, we truly taste of the powers of the age to come. There, we are reminded of God's love for us, a love that reaches its highest expression in God’s sending his son to live a sinless life for us and to die for us, while we were yet sinners, Rom 5:8; see also v. 6.
Clearly the coming together in joyful, worshiping assembly is primarily an occasion for those that belong to God through Christ. Truly this is an event designed for God's people whom Christ purchased with his blood. Certainly this moment for those whom Christ states “Behold, I and the children God has given me.” Heb 2:13. Obviously this is a celebration for members only.

As I reflected on these truths, it began to dawn on me that to be a member of Christ's body, to be purchased by him and placed by his Spirit in his body, which receives its nourishment, strength and guidance from its head, Jesus Christ, is to be the recipient of an incomparable honor. There, unworthy in ourselves to be beneficiaries of Christ and all the benefits that he communicates to us, we are reminded that it is only by Christ's Person and work that we have been made adequate to receive such rewards.

I began to wonder again, that if all these are true, then why is it that some take church membership so lightly? Why is it that some regard it as an unpleasant, inconvenient option? Why is it that even among some professing true religion, they speak of the church as an unpleasant gathering that is full of hypocrites? Why do many perceive it to be a mere social and religious institution whose pastors are only out to get our money? I remember once having a discussion on this matter with a bank teller who stubbornly insisted that although she was not a member of a local, visible church, Christ still dwelt within her. In so doing she pointed to her heart. She was rather buxom.

Notwithstanding, the biblical witness is very clear: the Lord God has always been creating a people for himself. From the time of Adam and Eve, the first family, and from then on to Noah and his family, then to Abraham's family which the Lord expanded into a nation variously called the children of Israel, the sons of God, my people, and to which he often referred as his sheep, we understand that the Lord has always been concerned with sovereignly creating a people, a community, for himself. In this regard, Israel, the church of the Old Testament, was commanded by God to authenticate itself as God's own treasured possession by obeying his precepts regarding worship, diet and social/legal relationships. As Moses reminded his hearers "See, I have taught you statutes and rules, as the LORD my God commanded me, that you should do them in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, 'Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.' For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the LORD our God is to us, whenever we call upon him? The New Testament continues this pattern and principle. And what great nation is there, that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today?" Dt 4:5-8. In sum, God's people, the members of his covenant community, the members of his church, have particular God-given signs by which they show themselves to be separated from the rest of the world and unto God.

The New Testament continues this pattern. The apostle Paul tells us throughout 1 Cor 12 that the church is indeed a body consisting of many members. "For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ… For the body does not consist of one member but of many." If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body." vv. 12, 14, 19 -20.
How did the many members come to be placed in this body? By what means were they constituted as one body? By the sovereign work of God alone: "For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body--Jews or Greeks, slaves or free--and all were made to drink of one Spirit… But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose." vv. 13, 18. Thus, it is the Lord God himself who chooses us for our neighbors and who chooses our neighbors for us! We are his people! We are family!

Further, membership in the local church is based on the expression of our common confession of faith: "There is one body and one Spirit--just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call-- one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all." Eph 4:4-6.

In this era, the body of Christ marks itself off, rather, is marked off by God, from the rest of the world, not my keeping the law but by its members' Christ-like love for one another, Jn 13:35. "For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Gal 5:14.

It is therefore within the body of Christ, that the power, love and Presence of God in the Person and work of Christ as proclaimed through the faithful preaching of the Word and as received through the proper administration of the sacraments, come alive!

These were some of the great truths that were reinforced in church yesterday. As we sang together, prayed together, confessed our sins together and received God's pardon [on the basis of Christ's merits alone] together, we were reminded that we were God's covenant community, a corporate entity, his chosen people, his own treasured possession, that he is constantly forming and shaping, molding and growing, into the image of Christ, for his own glory.

I went to church yesterday. I am a member of Christ's body.

Next week, God willing, we'll continue this discussion on the topic of church membership.

I Went to Church Yesterday

The seventh of an undetermined number in a series on the character and need for corporate worship.

One of the joys we share in corporate worship is the singing of praise to our Triune God who commands his people to "Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth! Serve the LORD with gladness! Come into his presence with singing! " Ps 100:1-2. This we strive to do every time we assemble together. Yesterday was no exception.

As believers standing in covenant unity, continuity and solidarity with the Old Testament saints, we understand that we cannot and must not enter God's presence without a sacrifice. When our Old Testament brothers entered into God's presence, they never did so empty-handed. Such a concept was both unheard of and unthinkable to them. The worshiper would bring an animal, typically a domestic animal, one that was physically perfect, and depending on the nature of the sacrifice, after he had laid his hands on the animal’s head, either he or the officiating priest would sacrifice the animal and spread its blood on the sides of the altar, Lev 1:5, 11;
3:2; etc. On the Day of Atonement, the High Priest would sprinkle the blood of the sacrificed animals in front and on the mercy seat, 16:14 - 15. However, today, our sacrifice has already been made. Jesus Christ, the Lamb that takes away the sin of the world, Jn 1:29, 36, is our once for all sacrifice satisfying the holy justice of God for sin and sinners. "… But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." Heb 9:26. Christ our Savior is our final sacrifice for our sins who took our place on the cross of Calvary. Our sacrifice has already been made for us. It is his sprinkled blood that cleanses our hearts and purifies our consciences, 10:22; 9:13. However God has not repealed his command to always appear in his presence with a sacrifice. These great truths therefore beg the question, what kind of sacrifice must we now bring when we enter into God's presence for worship?

The writer to the Hebrews tells us in verse 15 of chapter 13 that through Christ alone we are to "… continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name." Jesus Christ is our sacrifice through whom we come to God to offer the sacrifice of praise as we confess (this is the literal signification of the word acknowledge) his Name. The phrase is taken from Hos 14:1-2 in which Yahweh makes a major plea through his minor prophet for his people to return to him with an earnest plea for full repentance of their sins, accompanied by their offering of the calves or vows of their lips. To confess God's Name is to say the same things that he says about himself, to declare his attributes back to him.

Therefore yesterday, we the congregated covenant community, we the New Testament priesthood, entered into God's presence through our Mediator Jesus Christ and responded to the Lord of the covenant by joyfully, thankfully, and fervently singing his words back to him, that is, confessing his Name. Like the rest of our worship service, our praise centers on the Word, attributes and acts of God in history and time, particularly as these are pre-eminently portrayed and personified in the Person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Indeed, is Christ not the very Word of God, Jn 1:1, through whom God the Father speaks perfectly, completely and finally in these last days, Heb 1:2? Further, is he not God in the flesh, Jn 1:1, 14, even as he has testified of himself, “I and the Father are one." Jn 10:30, and again, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father...”? 14:9. Yet further, is he not God's eternal Son who completes and perfects God’s work of redemption in history? Does not the Scripture speak of him in this way: “After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,.”? Heb 1:3. Certainly it is he who fulfills all the Father’s purposes “For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.” 2 Cor 1:20. Lastly, the Scripture clearly teaches "… he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." Heb 9:26


Undergirded therefore by these majestic and irrefutable truths, we affirm that, like the rest of our worship, our singing of praise is to be rooted in Christ's redeeming work, in the gospel which both forms and informs it. When I say that the gospel informs our praise I mean that God's redemptive work in Christ is the primary reason that he is the object of our worship. By saying that the gospel informs our worship I contend that Christ and his work are the content that we sing.

So, what exactly are our songs of praise? They are songs extolling the excellency of Christ – his birth, life, death, burial, resurrection, ascension and Second Coming- through which he attains redemption for his covenant people, songs which are at the same time, thank offerings to God for the sake of Christ.

What did we sing in church yesterday? Yesterday we sang the gospel of Jesus Christ. We sang the inspired Psalms and hymns of Scripture as well as spiritual songs composed by later Christians addressing and exulting in the incomparable majesty of God in Christ Jesus our Lord, Eph 5: 19 -20. We sang God's words back to him and the Holy Spirit used these very words to glorify him and to strengthen our hearts, sustain our faith and encourage our entire assembly as we anticipate (d) the eschatological victory of Christ over the powers of this world, the final establishment of his kingdom, and our full, unrestrained, unreserved, unrestricted joy in his presence, Rev 4-5. I went to church yesterday! Believe me, I did!

But precisely what did you sing in church yesterday? For our Hymn of Praise, that is, our opening hymn, we sang "All Glory, Laud and Honor," attributed in part to St. Theodulph of Orleans, 760-821. After the reading of the law and corporate confession, our Hymn of Thanksgiving was Horatius Bonar’s (1808-1889) "I Lay My Sins on Jesus" and our Hymn of Preparation, taken from the Trinity Hymnal, was Psalm 11:1-5, 7. For our Communion Hymn we sang a medley of songs comprising C. H. Spurgeon's (1834-1892) "Amidst Us Our Beloved Stands" and "I Know It Was the Blood." Our Hymn of Parting was John Fawcett’s (?) "Lord Dismiss Us With Thy Blessing."


So, yesterday, in response to God's immeasurable blessings to us in Christ Jesus, we assembled together coram Deo to hear from him in Word and sacrament and in return, to offer the sacrifice of praise to him for His Name's sake, for indeed "To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!" Rev 5:13 However, as Christians we know that our praise of God is not limited to a weekly assembly but that, according to the abundant mercies of God in Christ, our whole life is to be a sacrifice of worship, a song of adulation and and adoration, offered to God and our neighbor, demonstrated by our loving and selfless words and works, attitudes and actions. Rom 12:1-2. I went to church yesterday.

I Went to Church Yesterday

The sixth of an undetermined number in a series on the character and need for corporate worship.

I did not blog last week because I attended my first cousin's funeral in Hempstead, New York. On top of that, my computer broke and was not fixed until later in the week. Parenthetically, a frightening thought overwhelmed me: I realized to what extent my sanctification was tied to my functioning laptop! For several days, I was a fish out of water breaking all God's commandments against the sin of worrying, scarcely able to concentrate on matters of more importance, on such concerns that have enduring and eternal consequences! O wretched man that I am!!

At the time that all the saints go marching into the sanctuary, I was at LaGuardia Airport boarding my flight to return home to Stone Mountain. I felt strange and out of place and could not stop wondering what and how my brothers and sisters at All Saints Redeemer Church were doing; at what junction of the service were they; did they warmly greet the supplying preacher?; and so on. More worries, more sin! Yet, the truth was, I would rather occupy the last pew of my church than be at the airport on the Lord's Day. I would rather be a doorkeeper there than be at a hub of frantic busyness on such a day. I truly missed my family; I truly missed worshiping our Triune God with them in the sanctuary. I also did hate leaving my huge family back in New York but the family that was heaviest on my mind was my covenant family in Georgia.

My family on my father’s side is quite large and most of my cousins and their children and grandchildren are unsaved. While I did enjoy the brief time that I spent with them, notwithstanding the sad circumstances, I grieved over the condition of their souls and sought to use all opportunities to witness to Jesus, in word and in deed. But then I also began to reflect on the fact that my church family will be with me for a much longer time – even for eternity – than my family in New York. It was then I realized that those bought by the blood of Christ are bound in a much more intimate union, indeed, into an eternal community, than those family members according to natural generation. It is true that Blood is thicker and more long-lasting than blood. It was then that I also ruminated on the fact that the family is a wonderful gift from God granted in the context of his creation mandate to be a community – remember how he lamented that it was not good for man to be alone, Gen 2:18; recall how he created man and woman in his own image and blessed them and commanded them to be fruitful and multiply, that is to populate the earth, his stage of redemption, with offspring also made in his image, 1:27-28. I next cogitated on the gospel truth that those the Lord saves by his grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, he also adopts as his sons and daughters into his family through the work of his Holy Spirit, Rom 8:14-15, who also places them in the local church, the body of Christ, 1 Cor 12:13.

The church then is a covenant family comprising several covenant families. Though having many members, it has only one head, Jesus Christ, from whom it receives its life and livelihood, Eph 4:15 -16, and into whose image its members are being transformed from one degree of glory to another, 2 Cor 3:18. The church is the new covenant community of God, participating in his covenant of grace, enjoying his spiritual blessings, Eph 1:3, as well as material blessings, Mt 6:33-34. It is assured of Christ's sustaining, sanctifying presence in its midst, and above all, it is confident that it will bask in his glory forever and ever. In anticipation of and in preparation for this glorious redemption, the church reflects a commitment to holiness, a love for God and neighbor, a passion for heavenly matters, and a sanctified dissatisfaction with the way things are. My earthly family does not share in these blessings. My earthly family is not filled with this hope. They do not and cannot have this worldview until and unless they have been born again, born from above, into a new family, the family of God. Then and only then will we be family in the truest and most profound sense of the word.

So what did I do at church yesterday? I reminded our congregation that the task of the church is to teach families to become hallmarks of holiness, to carry out the creation mandate of filling the earth with holy seed, to leave legacies of righteousness and holiness, to live in such a countercultural way that they show themselves to be vessels of God's saving mercies in Christ and instruments of his blessing to others. In return, each family's responsibilities include the commitment to disciple its children and to bring them up in the fear and admonition of the Lord in such a way that members of each local household become members of God's unique, peculiar household. In other words, to ensure that there is a one to one ratio between the earthly family and the heavenly family.

What will eventually become of my cousins and their children and their children's children? I don't know but what I do know is that dum spiro, spero, while I breathe, I hope .. and encourage, exhort, reason, plead with and use all other means available in order for them to become my family in the Spirit. This is partly what I taught in church yesterday.