“The Case for Jesus Christ and the Glory of God in Him”

We have been seeing that the saving activity of God in this dispensation comes through Jesus Christ - Jesus Christ Who is the whole point of human existence - the One His Church is to proclaim in all of His truth and reality.

He is the absorbing center of a believer’s individual life and the absorbing center of the Life of His Church.

We cannot think and speak of God without including Jesus Christ.

And we cannot speak of Jesus Christ without seeing Him as the divine Being equal with God.

In other words, the revelation of the character of God has  been made complete by the revelation of His Son through the divine work of His Son. 

As I stated last week, the Old Testament revealed God’s wrath toward sin.

The coming of His Son completed the revelation of His character in love.

If we were to compare the unveiling of God’s Person in the Old Testament to the beginning of a spark of fire, then we can understand the progression of how the portrayal of the revelation of Himself moves from a seeming glint to the fullness and the brightness of the sun’s illumination. 

And when it reached the day of Christ’s Incarnation, that was the day that the full disclosure broke upon the earth.

And - each day, thereafter, became clearer, brighter, less complicated. 

It was then, of course, that His full character of love broke forth.

This progressive revelation does not mean that God’s people in the Old Testament were without any light - that His love was not evident in the Old Testament - it certainly was.

There is evidence all the way through the Old Testament of God’s love.

There were those who received it and lived in it.

And there were those of old who were also able to see it afar - to see something of how it was yet to be shown in a greater measure - as recorded in Heb 11:13.

They were given a shadowy outline of what we see today in the full, bright, shining Sunlight displaying God’s love in the Person of His Christ.

As we saw last week the Church must remain alive, true, and faithful to this one solemn point: that is, that Christ is the Divine Person through Whom God unfolded the complete revelation of Himself to the world.

It is curious to see that in Jn 5:39, Jesus said to the Jews, ‘You diligently study the Scriptures, because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify of Me.’ 

By ‘the Scriptures’, of course, Jesus was referring to the Old Testament writings. 

When Jesus was declaring this diclosure of God in   Himself to the Jews in this Jn 5:39 passage, they could not understand or grasp it.

‘God had revealed Himself as much as He ever would at that time,’ so they thought.

And, of course, having no absolute authority outside of themselves and their own reasonings about God, they could not appreciate the message God had given them about Himself in the Old Testament writings.

At this time, the same thing was happening to them that happened in Judges 21:25: ‘...every man did that which was right in his own eyes...’.

Even though we can easily trace the hand of God and the progressive revelation of Himself throughout all of the Old Testament history, human failure to understand and to grasp its meaning can still lead to this pitfall.

This could have been so for the disciples in the New Testament had Christ not intervened for them.

After Christ’s death, two disciples were walking on the road to Emmaus, discussing the weekend’s events of Jesus’ crucifixion, when the risen Christ met them along the way.

He challenged them, in Luke 24:25-26: ‘Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared. 

Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into His glory?’, He asked them.

They did not catch on to what He was meaning. 

The Old Testament Scripture was ‘dead’, so to speak, to their understanding.

They had come to a point of hopelessness.

It was after Jesus explained that they were able to connect what they had read of how God was to reveal Himself through the Messiah in the Old Testament with what took place over the last weekend.

That same night, Jesus met with His other disciples and opened their minds to understand those same Old Testament Scriptures.  

He said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in His name to all nations.’ (vs 45-47 of Luke 24)

Yes - now the light was getting brighter to their spiritual eyes!

God, through Christ, was giving them the understanding that the crucified Jesus was the loving promise of God of the coming Messiah. 

It was the crucified, risen, living Lord, Who would be the One Who would open the Old Testament Scriptures about Himself to them.

And when Christ did that, He was confirming God’s love in the revelation of Himself to man.

Yes - the disciples finally understood that the crucified, now-risen Christ was the living Lord they were to worship as their God and Lord. 

Notice that v 52 of Luke 24 ends with ‘...and they worshipped Him.’

From that faith perspective now, when they looked back at the Scriptures, they saw the many references to Jesus.

The Old Testament lit up for them!

In other words, they now read the Old Testament and could grasp and appreciate the expanded knowledge of God in the light of knowing Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Lord.

And, from that moment on, that is how they preached and taught Christ - looking at God from an increased, enlarged view of Him in Christ.

So, they could not isolate Christ from God nor God from Christ - they were equal - One with the Other - and, now, the disciples had in their possession the full revelation of the Divine Person.

In the subsequent writings of the New Testament, we see Peter was among the first to connect God with Christ in His Divine Being.

For example, Acts 11:17 reads: ‘For as much, then, as God gave them [that is, the Gentiles] the like gift as He did unto us who believed on the Lord Jesus, who was I that I could withstand God.’

Likewise, Paul never isolated Christ from God either, you may have noticed in your reading through the New Testament.

Notice Paul’s emphasis in 1 Cor 1:22 and 2:2-5: ‘We proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God...’

And, in 2 Cor 4:5-6, he said, ‘We do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord...the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.’

And we see it, also, when he spoke about Christ’s humiliation and exaltation in Phil 2:9-11: ‘Therefore God also highly exalted Him and gave Him a name that is above every name, so that...every tongue would confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.’ 

And, again in 2 Cor 5:18-20 and Eph 3:8-12: ‘All this is from God, Who reconciled us to Himself through Christ...in Christ, God was reconciling the world unto Himself...so we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making His appeal through us; we entreat you, on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.’

Moreover, Paul taught that Christ, on the last day, will hand over the ‘kingdom to God the Father...’ after the subjection of all things unto Himself.

You will find that in 1 Cor 15:24 and in Eph 4:6: ‘When all things are subjected to Him [the Son], then the Son Himself will also be subjected to the One Who put all things in subjection under Him, so that God may be all in all.’
 
John was another writer who related God with Christ.

In Jn 1:18, he wrote of Him: ‘No one has ever seen God. It is the only Son, Who is close to the Father’s heart, Who has made Him known.’ 

And, of course, Jesus made this so clear about His relationship to God, His Father, in the Gospel of John.

You have read those Scriptures many times, I know, but read them once more in the light of what we are looking at tonight, if you will.

For example, look at Jn 12:44 where He said: ‘Whoever believes in Me believes not in Me but in Him Who sent Me.’ 

And, again, to Jn 14:6: ‘I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’ 

And in Jn 17:1, He prayed: ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son so that the Son may glorify You.’ 

This is followed in vs 3-4 with: ‘...this is life eternal, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ [speaking of Himself] Whom You have sent. I glorified You on earth by finishing the work that You gave me to do.’

So - when we examine the Scriptures through and through, we see that the Good News of Jesus Christ has to do - first, last, and foremost - with God and His Son, Jesus Christ, Whose completed work was all for the glory of God, His Father, and Whose Person was revealed to men upon earth for the purpose of completing the full revelation of God to man.

He was the Essence, the Ultimate, Who showed Himself to be God, the completion of God’s unveiling of Himself to us.

God is to be seen in and through Him. 

With this in mind, let me also remind you once again, that the writers of the New Testament had no thought to present Jesus Christ as an alternative to other man-designed ‘deities’.

They did not have the thought of presenting God without the revelation of Himself through His Son, Jesus Christ.

Oh, no - worship of the living God is to pass through Jesus Christ to God - and that is His final Word!

In reading the Old Testament, we do find the significance of Zion, that is, His Church, the organic Body of the Lord Jesus Christ, in this revelation of Himself.

Take some time to study Isa 62:1-5 to see this, if you like.

Zion is where God has appointed the place of this disclosure of Himself in Christ.

This is His place of the only valid disclosure of Himself as the One, true God, the place where He is seen in the face of Jesus Christ. 

Paul verifed this in Col 1:15-19 when he wrote: ‘[Christ] is the image of the invisible God...And He is the Head of the Body, the Church...for it pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell.’

And, then, in Eph 3:8-11, he spoke of the many-sided
phases of God’s wisdom, which, from the ages of old, had been hidden in Christ, and are now made known through the Church.

Let me ask you: do we realize what we - His Church - have in our possession?

The Church has in its possession the fullness of God - God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, - the total Divine Being. 

Do we realize that the Church is the habitation of God, His spiritual dwelling place, a fixed abode through the Spirit?

Do we realize that its actual foundation stone is Jesus Christ Himself: He is the chief corner stone? (Eph 2:20-22)

Do we understand that this organic Body of the Living Christ is of divine initiative, of divine origin and is dear to the heart of God? 

God had spoken lovingly of it in Isa 62:3.

He said there: ‘Thou shalt also be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of Thy God’.

How much do we actually appreciate what we have? 

Do we recognize, and have we accepted that the Church, the community of believers founded by the Triune God, is a Gift to us all? 

That it is a Gift we ought not to take lightly. 

Something like this cannot be just made to happen - it is by the drawing of God unto Himself that His Church is born.

Think about that one truth sometime - it will transform the way you regard any given community of believers!

If we do consider it, I think Christians, in general, would stop regarding it as a convenience store - a handy 7-11 place - if it happens to be convenient to us, we will stop and shop occasionally. 

No - this is serious: the Church, the community of believers drawn together by God Himself through the living Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, is a Gift.

It is a Gift given to us by the Triune God - God, the Father, God, the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit are in it -     grasp this for yourself - let it sink in to do its good work in us. 

How, then, is the Church to behave in the light of this divine revelation of God’s fullness?

Now - there are certainly extenuating circumstances where a  person must live without the direct benefit of this special grace of physically being part of the community of His saints.

But, His saints who understand and appreciate His Church, will not fail to welcome the times to be together in His Name. 

We will always nurture it in the various God-ordained ways, to always hold it high in our esteem.

With this in mind, we go back to what is recorded in Judges 21:25; and, I ask: ‘How can God’s complete, full revelation of Himself lived in the face of Jesus Christ be seen in a member of His Body who insists on doing what ‘seems right in the sight of his own eyes’? 

That is a snare that, sooner or later, will take its toll exactly as it did in Old Testament times - to apostasy - to a falling away from the benefits the Triune God has given to His Church, from not understanding and not taking possession of the full revelation of God in Christ.

The sacrifice Jesus made to fully reveal Himself as God was God’s binding commitment to man - to blessing man with every spiritual blessing that can possibly be bestowed upon man.

This is God’s love to us in action.

And the Church corporate responds to this heavenly overture of His love through utter devotion - let me repeat, ‘utter devotion’ - to Him.  

It takes only the total simplicity of loving Him with our whole hearts and following Him according to His revealed Word of Himself. 

It takes us to the place where His constraining love becomes the means of the constraint in our personal lives and in the life of His Church.

Unless He has so filled us with an overwhelming love in and for Him, we are powerless to stay this course of becoming intimately involved as part of His Church.  

This is where we are prone to fall into the snare of ‘doing things according to what is right in the sight of our own eyes.’

When we fall ‘head over heels in love’ with Jesus Christ, we are responding to His persuading, inviting call of Eternal Love that exercises His constraining power in us.

We have swung from just a glimmer of light to the full illumination of the Spirit of God alive in us and never will such dishonoring of the Triune God take us off course again.

And as we carry on our business of each day, inwardly we keep pressed in toward that Divine Center. 

And - at every opportunity we place our minds and hearts before His loving Presence within us to keep and to protect and to guide and to live in quiet wonder and adoration before Him without interruption. 

Yes, we are besieged often with the disordered friction going on in our homes, in our schools, at our workplace, on the freeway, or any place else.

Yes - we are forced to face the pesterings and the varied demands our children put upon us.

Yes, we have to confront the frustrations and fears and pains of living with our spouses at times.

Yes, in a corporate community there are many irritating things that may cause us to want to ‘throw in the towel’, so to speak.

But - is not the fact that the Triune God - in all of His glory, in the full revelation of Himself in Christ Jesus - is not that fact enough of a reality to our hearts that we, in love of and for Him, can yield each one of these every day problems to Him and go on in His constraining love?

Or - will we continue to refuse to honor that constraining love of Christ in dealing with each one of these events?

Will we continue to dishonor Him by refusing to let the power of His Holy Spirit bubble up inside of us and respond to the call to let His Eternal Love cover and heal?

Do we continue regarding His Gift of His Church in an indifferent, slipshod way?

‘By much slothfulness, the building decayeth...’, Eccl 10:18; or perhaps, it may be better said in another translation: ‘Through continual neglect, the ceiling sinks’.

If we would but love the Lord so much that we dare not disgrace Him, we would find that, in time, we will see that it is the Triune God Who is influencing our hearts with a burning craving for absolute purity and for absolute devotion.

And - we would not fall into the snare of ‘doing that which is right in our own eyes’.

Instead, we would find that this complete knowledge of our God in the face of Jesus Christ only deepens and only brightens as the Way is walked on a daily basis.

Thank God for this - the proof of our going onward in Him.

‘O taste and see that the Lord is good...’, the Psalmist shouted out from the depth of his heart in Ps 34:8!

Dare I say, ‘O taste and see that the Lord is good’ every day, all day long, always, and forever?’

‘Behold, what manner of love He has shown us, that we should be called the sons of God...’ (1 Jn 3:1)

When we finally see this, we have become free and we are at ease because we are entering into the very Center of God’s Being - into the heart’s true Home.

Oh - how much I continue to pray this for my own heart, mind, and life, and - I pray this for all of us.

Praise God from Whom all this blessing of the full revelation of Himself in Christ flows so freely to, in, and from His Church!

“Unto Him be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.”

Let us pray: [Pray]

Sing the Doxology -  Amen!  So be it!