Well, welcome to our evening meeting. We're going to be looking at what it means for Christ to be our mediator this evening.
And so we're going to pray together. We're going to have a look at God's word together and have a chance for some questions and discussion as well.
So let me commit our time to the Lord in prayer. Let me pray for us.
Heavenly Father, we do want to pray and ask for your help this evening.
We thank you for the joy that it is to meet together.
And we ask, Lord, that maybe we're tired. Maybe we've been doing other things today.
Maybe we become distracted this evening. We pray, please, Lord, that you just might help us to focus and to think,
that you might minister to us from your word, that you might help us to encourage one another.
Pray that our time together might do us good and bring you glory, we pray in Jesus name. Amen.
So I was trying to think of a passage that would link what we were doing this morning with what we're doing this evening.
So we're thinking this morning, if you're with us, that Jesus is the saviour for all nations.
And this evening we're thinking about his work as our mediator or our hero, as we're going to think together in a moment.
So we're going to have a look at Isaiah 11, which is on page 697 in your church Bible, 697.
And I'm going to read it for us.
So see whether, as I read it, you can see Christ for all nations and Christ our mediator in these verses.
A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse.
From his roots, a branch will bear fruit.
The spirit of the Lord will rest on him.
The spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and of might.
The spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord.
And he will delight in the fear of the Lord.
He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes or decide by what he hears with his ears.
But with righteousness, he will judge the needy.
With justice, he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth.
With the breath of his lips, he will slay the wicked.
Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist.
The wolf will live with the lamb.
The leopard will lie down with the goat.
The calf and the lion and the yearling together.
And a little child will lead them.
The cow will feed with the bear.
Their young will lie down together.
And the lion will eat straw like the ox.
The infant will play near the cobra's den.
And the young child will put his hand into the viper's nest.
They will neither harm nor destroy on my holy mountain.
For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
In that day, the root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples.
The nations will rally to him and his resting place will be glorious.
In that day, the Lord will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim the surviving remnant of his people from Assyria,
from Lower Egypt, from Upper Egypt, from Cush, from Elam, from Babylonia, from Hamath, and from the islands of the Mediterranean.
He will raise a banner for the nations and gather the exiles of Israel.
He will assemble the scattered people of Judah.
But from the four quarters of the earth, Ephraim's jealousy will vanish.
And Judah's enemies will be destroyed.
Ephraim will not be jealous of Judah nor Judah hostile towards Ephraim.
They will swoop down on the slopes of Philistia to the west.
Together they will plunder the people to the east.
They will subdue Edom and Moab, and the Ammonites will be subject to them.
The Lord will dry up the gulf of the Egyptian sea.
With a scorching wind, he will sweep his hand over the river Euphrates.
He will break it up into seven streams so that anyone can cross over in sandals.
There will be a highway for the remnant of his people that is left from Assyria,
as there was for Israel when they came up from Egypt.
Okay, I know there's bits in there that you won't understand.
That's fine.
But with the person next to you, maybe you can spot how do we see Christ is for all nations,
and how do we see Christ is our mediator or our hero in that chapter.
I'll have a talk with the person next to you just for a couple of moments,
and then I'll get us back together.
Go for it.
Okay, you've all gone very quiet, so maybe you're all stumped.
But maybe not.
Anyone want to shout out anything that they found?
What about Jesus for the nations?
Christ our mediator.
Anyone think of anything?
Sorry?
The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
Yeah, end of verse 9.
Yeah.
Yeah, so he will bring, verse 4, he will bring justice and give decisions for the poor of the earth.
Yeah, so he's going to, his work is going to extend beyond Israel to the earth,
and he's going to gather up the poor.
Yeah.
Bring justice.
Right.
Okay, the language of the highway.
There will be a highway.
He's going to create parts.
Yeah.
Yeah, so he's going to kind of blaze a trail.
He's going to be leading us down a path.
Yeah.
Bringing us to somewhere else.
It does seem, doesn't it, like the nations get to join in with what looks a little bit like the exodus again, doesn't it?
Because when you look at the highway for the remnant of his people, it seems like everyone's involved in this,
and that we can cross over the river in sandals again.
I mean, in historical context, I was talking about, like, people think that, like, they lost 10 tribes and that they're sort of separate.
Yes.
And they're not part of genuine Israel.
Yes.
And this is showing that when the Messiah returns, people brought to help with these places of exile.
Yes.
It's really talking to people, it's describing really, I don't think, to Syriac, to places where they were.
Yes, yes, yes.
Yes. So in Isaiah, the nation's going into exile.
So the northern tribes have already gone into exile.
The southern tribe is about to go into exile.
And here the images are being brought back.
And Isaiah keeps telling these stories because these stories are types of the story to come,
as well as we're all brought back to the Lord.
Yeah.
Yes.
It will be a banner for the nations and gather the exiles of Israel.
He will assemble the scattered people of Judah from the four waters of the earth.
So that's what Mike's saying about how it's immediate.
In immediate context, it's bringing the people back from exile.
But it is the nations also coming.
So this is the chapter that gets quoted in Romans 15 as well.
In that day, the root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples.
The nations will rally to him.
Verse 10.
Bless you.
Don't put the cup on that.
Is that stressing me out?
It's not.
Great.
Why don't we pray?
And let's give thanks that the Lord Jesus is a rescuer for all who will come to him.
That the world will be full of the glory of the knowledge of the Lord.
That the Lord Jesus will be lifted up and draw all people to himself.
That he will bring us back from exile in the places that we are and bring us to himself,
just like he did with the people of Israel.
So if you've not been with us for these Sunday evenings, let me tell you what we've been doing.
We've been looking at the Baptist 1689 Confession of Faith.
So after the English Civil War, the Westminster divines were commissioned by Parliament to write down
the core doctrines of what would be the Anglican Church going forwards.
And so they wrote those and that became the Westminster Confession of Faith.
And then after them, the Savoy Declaration and the Baptist Confession took the Westminster Confession
and rewrote parts of it for congregational churches and for Baptist churches.
And so this is what you've got in 1689.
The Baptist Confession wasn't allowed to be published until 1689 because it wasn't until then
that those outside of the state church were allowed to publish books and that kind of stuff.
And so the people who wrote this, it cost them dearly to write it.
And what we've been realizing and seeing is that many of the questions or the concerns that we have,
the sort of thinking through what it means to be a Christian and what that looks like
and how that works out in practice, lots of those things have been discussed and answered
in years gone by these guys and by others.
And so it's good for us to learn from them.
And especially, I think it's really good that this is not the Bible, right?
So not everything in here demands your attention in the same way as the scriptures do.
But it's good to listen to people for whom it cost them something.
So the precision with which they write mattered to them because many of them were severely persecuted for it.
And so that's been good for us.
And we have come to chapter eight and on to Christ the mediator.
Whether we'll end up going all the way through all of it, I don't know.
If Lola keeps nagging me, we will.
But we might not.
So let me pray and ask for the Lord's help as we come to it now.
Father, we do just want to ask, especially now, for your help and your blessing.
We thank you that every time we open your word and we think about it,
we're not engaging in just a mental activity, but we're engaging with you.
And so we pray that you'd be at work, that you'd help us and speak to us.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Now, I wonder if just to kind of warm you up to the idea
and to think about what we're coming to study this evening,
whether you could think with me, why do we so like the stories of heroes?
Why are heroes so common in the stories that we tell,
in the movies that we watch, in the teams that we support?
Why do they all have heroes?
So talk to the person next to you.
Why are hero stories so popular?
Why does every story have a hero?
You've got about 25, 30 seconds.
So talk to the person next to you.
Okay.
Anyone want to tell us why do we have,
why do our stories often have heroes?
Why do we love a hero story?
Hope.
Yes.
Yeah, I think that's quarter, isn't it,
that we realise the situation we're in is not necessarily one that we want to continue,
so we want someone to take us somewhere better.
Yeah.
And I think in building that is the idea that we know we can't get there on our own,
right?
And so we need someone to take us there.
So Superman shows us what it would be like to fly.
Spider-Man shows us what it would be like to be able to stick to stuff.
Iron Man shows us what it would be like if we had a power source within us
that allowed us to be superhuman.
Heroes take us to new worlds that only they can get to.
And so we follow them, don't we, to their place.
The stories transport us into those places.
We go to Never Never Land, a place of eternal youth,
or a place of peace and security, the other side of war and conflict,
thanks to Die Hard or whatever it is.
Now, Herman Bavinck, who is a theologian,
was not really that interested in Spider-Man or Superman, I don't imagine.
But he does point out that in almost every culture, in every place,
there is some kind of religious devotion to a hero or a mediator.
Someone who is able by the force of their spiritual or moral prowess
to take their followers to a place that they want to be and long to be.
And so he concludes this.
He says,
Or perhaps you could put it a different way.
Where have all the good men gone?
Where are all the gods?
Where's the streetwise Hercules to fight the rising odds?
Isn't there a white knight upon a fiery steed?
Late at night I toss and turn.
I dream of what I need.
I need a hero.
I'm holding out for a hero till the end of the night.
He's got to be strong.
He's got to be fast.
And he's got to be fresh from the fight.
Now, I don't think Herman Bavinck and Bonnie Tyler
have been quoted together like that before, maybe.
But really, they're both saying the same kind of thing.
That built into us, into all of us, whoever we are, wherever we're from,
is this sense deep within us that we are not where we should be
or where we could be if only someone would take us there.
And we long to be there.
Someone to come alongside us.
Now, those desires have been twisted and corrupted by our sin.
Yet still, the universal nature of them show you something about the human condition.
And so when we get to chapter 8 of the 1689 Confession,
when we come to Christ the Mediator,
it's this instinctive human desire for a hero to take us to the place that we long to be
that has been adjusted and corrected and sanctified in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Robert Strivens, in his book, which I've mentioned a few times,
which is this, the 1689 handbook.
He's written a companion to the book.
And it's excellent.
Nathan thinks it looks like the Koran when it's on my desk
and keeps looking, why are you studying the Koran, Steve?
But anyway, it doesn't, it's not the Koran.
It is the book on the 1689 Confession.
And he notices here that it's interesting that the guys writing this start with Christ the Mediator.
When you and I are thinking about Jesus, we immediately jump to his work of forgiveness, don't we?
And things like that, justification.
But the Confession wants to start before that.
And it wants you to be really clear on who Christ is and why that matters.
Who is Jesus?
What exactly does it mean for the second person of the Trinity to be fully divine and fully man and our mediator?
And so the Confession, in other words, I think wants you to see Jesus the champion
before you see and understand what it is that he is championing.
And over the next couple of sessions, we're going to have a break for the Lord's Supper next week.
We're going to be looking at what it means for Christ to be the mediator.
And this week, we're looking mostly at his qualifications,
what qualifies Jesus to be this hero.
And next time, we're going to think about what is this hero doing?
What is his work?
And so I want to show you this evening four things, if I can.
His person, his appointment, his equipment, and his willingness.
So right, let's start with his person.
This is the longest of the four, so don't get stressed if I'm still going on for a little bit
and you're thinking, gosh, we're going to be here all night.
Right.
Paragraph two, chapter eight of the Confession reads this.
And if you've not been with us in these, the language of these is quite unusual if you're not used to it.
And you kind of get used to it.
And I realize that I am used to it.
And so that means that I'm sometimes not so good at explaining it.
But bear with it and think carefully.
The Son of God, the second person of the Holy Trinity, is truly and eternally God.
He is the same brightness of the Father's glory, the same in substance and equal with him.
He made the world and sustains and governs everything he has made.
When the fullness of time came, he took upon himself human nature with all the essential properties and common weaknesses of it, but without sin.
He was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary.
The Holy Spirit came down upon her and the power of the Most High overshadowed her.
Thus, he was born of a woman from the tribe of Judah, a descendant of Abraham and David in fulfillment of the scriptures.
Two whole, perfect and distinct natures were inseparably joined together in one person without converting in one into the other or mixing them together to produce a different or blended nature.
This person is truly God and truly man, yet one Christ, the only mediator between God and man.
Now, you might recognize there are various parts of the Bible which are just directly quoted in there.
And then it's synthesized at the end as he's trying to put it together to show the divinity and the humanity of Christ in one person.
So let's just deal with that.
Two natures, one person.
Christ, the mediator, is both fully God and fully man.
Let's start with his divinity.
Now, notice how careful the confession is to affirm the divinity of Jesus, right?
The second person of the Trinity, truly and eternally God.
He is the same substance as the Father and is equal with him.
Now, when he says substance, it doesn't mean that God is made of a substance, like God is spirit, not stuff.
See, he makes everything.
He is not made of stuff.
It's really, the idea is that Jesus is as much the divine essence as the Father.
You know, what it means for God the Father to be God the Father is what it means for God the Son to be God the Son.
They are identical in their divinity.
The Son is responsible also then for the things that God does.
So that the Son creates, the Son sustains, the Son governs.
And you'll notice that in the confession.
And you can think of passages of the Bible that talk like that, like in Colossians and various other places.
But then notice his humanity.
So, whilst in eternity past, the Son does not have a human nature, there comes a point in time that the confession calls the fullness of time when he takes upon himself a human nature.
So notice he doesn't fuse a divine nature with a human nature to make a human nature as divine as it's possible for a human nature to be, or a divine nature as human as it's possible to be.
It's not that.
He is taking to himself his full self, if you like, a full human nature.
And notice it's not a superhuman nature either.
It's got weakness.
He has a nature like ours with what the confession calls the essential properties and common weaknesses of it.
So he gets tired.
He gets hungry.
He experiences the human condition, but is without sin.
Jesus is conceived by the spirit born of the Virgin Mary, inheriting along with that the lineage of the kings of Judah.
So he is fully divine.
He is fully man.
Next step, really essential step, one person.
So God the Son is one person but has two natures.
And those two natures can't be separated from one another because they're in the one person, but they also can't be blended into one another.
You can talk about the divinity of the Son without implying his humanity and vice versa.
So Jesus is hungry in his humanity and not in his divinity.
The divine doesn't get hungry or tired, but Jesus does in his humanity.
But he does in his humanity in a way that is not entirely separate from his divinity because he is one person at the same time.
You might think, oh, this sounds like semantics, Steve.
This sounds like the kind of thing that you get excited about, but it's not really that important.
But it is really important because for Jesus to be the kind of hero that we need, he must be both of these things at the same time.
And they must be united together, but they must be unmixed.
If he mixes his divinity and his humanity, the Son becomes some kind of third type of person, right, who's neither fully divine nor fully man.
And therefore, he's not able to be a hero, to mediate God's presence to us or to take us to the place that we want to be.
Because that third person would be unfit for the presence of God because he'd be less than what it means to be fully God.
And he wouldn't be able to identify with our human condition because he would be less than what it is to be human.
And so they're not able to be mixed, but nor are they able to be entirely separate from one another.
Because then you've got really, I don't know, some kind of four person trinity, if that would work.
They are united in the one person.
Otherwise, there's no connection for the work of mediation.
I was trying to work out on Friday whether this was irreverent, but maybe you could put it this way just to think about heroes, right?
So, Jesus is more like the Hulk than he is like Spider-Man, right?
So, Spider-Man is the fusion of spider and humanity, right?
So, he gets bitten by the spider and takes on like the properties of a spider and a man.
So, he's like a fusion of them.
He's neither a spider nor a normal man, right?
Okay.
The Hulk, right, is both just a regular guy and the Hulk at the same time, in the same person.
Now, I'm sure if you pushed it too hard, it would totally unravel.
But where you get this idea is that in the person of the sun is both full divinity and full humanity,
at the same time, in the one person, and therefore he can be our hero, our mediator, and our champion.
And that's just really important.
It's really important because we want to know Jesus and we want to love Jesus.
And we want to talk about him rightly.
And we want to understand why he alone is able to do what we need to be done.
Okay.
So, that is the person.
Next, his appointment.
His appointment.
Paragraph one of chapter eight.
So, we're going backwards in the confession, but that's okay.
Paragraph one says this.
God was pleased in his eternal purpose to choose and ordain the Lord Jesus, his only begotten son,
according to the covenant made between them to be the mediator between God and man.
God chose him to be prophet, priest, and king, and to be head and savior of the church,
the heir of all things, and the judge of the world.
From all eternity, God gave to the son a people to be his offspring.
In time, this people would be redeemed, called, justified, sanctified, and glorified by him.
Now, here the confession wants us to notice that the plan for the mediator,
the appointment of Christ's role, if you like, was according to a covenant made within the Trinity.
The father chooses the son for the mission.
The son agrees to the mission, as we'll come on to think of.
They make a covenant together.
Now, really, this is kind of linking backwards to chapter seven of the confession,
which we've skipped over because, really, it's a bridge between the fall and Christ the mediator.
And I didn't want to spend too long on all of it.
So, chapter seven points out that because the fall, we are unable to obey God.
And the distance between the holy God and unholy creatures expands.
So, God descends to save, moves towards us, and reveals his plan of salvation in covenants.
A covenant that reflects this eternal promise between the father and the son to save,
which is then presented to humanity in the covenant of grace,
whereby he will save his people through his son.
Now, notice then that this appointment means that Jesus is quite unlike any of the heroes
that we've been thinking about this evening.
I mean, in lots of ways he is, but right?
He doesn't swoop down at the last minute to rescue us,
like Superman from a car falling from a flyover or something.
Rather, in eternity past, God covenants to save a people for himself
through Christ, who he's chosen to redeem.
And God the father appoints the son to be their prophet, priest, and king.
Rolls which get modeled in the Old Testament, but are ultimately fulfilled by Christ.
Now, we don't experience it like that, do we?
Because we experience salvation in time and immediately, don't we?
And we wouldn't know it like this unless it was revealed to us.
For us, our salvation feels like we were going in this direction,
and then all of a sudden the Lord intervenes,
and we then find ourselves going in that direction.
And our will is involved, isn't it?
We decide to turn and to trust the Lord and to go that way.
But what the confession is saying is that behind it all,
God's planned appointment of Jesus Christ, the person of the son,
to be the mediator of a promise to save.
Now, this is the plan all along, right?
God the father sees the plan coming together in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is what we planned.
This is what we promised.
God looks at history and sees the appointment of his son
and the work that he planned being accomplished in just the manner he decided it.
That's his appointment.
Okay?
Thirdly, his equipment.
Paragraph three of the confession.
The Lord Jesus, in his human nature,
united in this way to the divine in the person of the son,
was sanctified, that is, set apart,
and anointed with the Holy Spirit beyond measure.
He had in himself all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
The father was pleased to make all fullness dwell in him,
so that being holy, harmless, undefiled, and full of grace and truth,
he was thoroughly qualified to carry out the office of mediator and guarantor.
He did not take this office upon himself,
but was called to it by his father,
who put all power and judgment in his hand
and commanded him to carry them out.
Now, what I really want you to notice is this,
that according to the confession,
which is picking up the language of the New Testament,
is that Jesus does his work in the power of the Spirit.
So Jesus is anointed by the Spirit in his baptism, yeah?
As he goes down into the water and comes up out of the water,
the Spirit comes on him like a dove.
This is my son whom I love, with him I am well pleased.
And it is through the power of the Spirit
that the Son is qualified and empowered,
or thoroughly furnished,
as the original says it, not our modern English translation,
thoroughly furnished for the work that God has called him to do.
So that the man, Christ Jesus,
is empowered to do his ministry,
equipped to do it by the Spirit who dwells in him.
This is really important.
I think when you think about Jesus in the Gospels,
I think we often think that when Jesus does stuff,
it's just like he is allowing his divinity
just to seep through a little bit
so that he kind of escapes
some of the most difficult parts of the human experience.
Know what I mean?
So that, ooh, you know,
he can just kind of allow that to happen and do that.
But that's not how the New Testament talks about Jesus.
It talks about him being thoroughly human
and empowered in his humanity by the Spirit
to do the things that the Son is called to do.
So it matters, doesn't it,
that the Son fully submits to the human experience
in order to be a suitable mediator,
that he is indwelt by the Spirit
so that he's equipped for his ministry.
So he's able to heal the sick,
raise the dead,
feed the crowds,
resist the devil,
conquer sin,
rise from the dead
in the power of the Spirit.
Now, with the person next to you,
answer this.
Why is that good news?
Why is it good news
that God the Son
in his humanity
works in the power of the Spirit?
Okay?
Have a little go at answering that question.
Why is that important,
that Jesus works
according to the power of the Spirit?
What do we think?
To be honest,
I've wrestled with this for a long time
because it's taken me a long time
to get my head around this.
And I'm not saying
that I have fully gotten my head around this,
but I'm sure that I've made mistakes
in articulating this in the past.
And I'm probably going to make
some mistakes tonight.
But anyway,
so I'm not expecting you
to necessarily have all the answers,
but why is it important
that the person of the Son
in his humanity
is working according
to the power of the Spirit?
Charleston.
I don't know.
You thought
you were looking at him,
but even God
telling him to be good
and the devil,
we need the Spirit.
And you think,
God,
oh God,
we need God
to be better.
Oh God,
we need to be empowered by God.
Yes.
And then it's all about
this human side.
Yeah.
We need to be human as well.
And so it shows us
that we can have
the same experience as him.
Yes.
So there's a couple of things
you said there, Charleston,
both of which are really helpful.
One is,
why would God need God
to help him?
Well,
it's because he is fully human.
And so it preserves his humanity.
So he is working
in the power of the Spirit.
It's not that he is
just compromising all the time
and just letting his divinity
sneak through.
So he is fully human.
And that also,
and we're going to talk about this
a little bit more in a minute,
but it also gives us hope
that if Christ in his humanity
with the power of the Spirit
is able to do
all that he is able to do,
then surely also
we by the power of the Spirit
will also be able to live
for God and his glory.
Yeah.
I think the distinction is
that the Spirit
is appointing Christ
to be the mediator
of the covenant.
So he is exalted
to a level
that we are not.
And so there's not,
it's not exactly the same,
but it is similar.
Thank you, Charles.
That's brilliant.
Anybody else?
Ray?
The Trinity works together.
Yeah.
The Son of the Spirit.
So he shows the work
in the world of Jesus.
Brilliant.
It's the Trinity, right?
So the Trinity creates, yeah?
So the Father plans,
the Son creates
and the Spirit,
so the Son is the Word
and the Spirit
is hovering over the water.
So, and then
it's the same here, isn't it?
So that the Father
sends the Son
who comes in the power
of the Spirit.
Father, Son, and Spirit
are involved
in our redemption
and our salvation,
which is brilliant, right?
So we know God
to be Father, Son, and Spirit.
We worship him
as Father, Son, and Spirit
and we see that he is working
Father, Son, and Spirit
in our salvation.
And we're going to come
a bit more to the
fun bits of that
in a moment.
Anything else?
Pesh?
It's a fulfillment
of Isaiah 11
that's a few years
which is a lot of spirit.
Yes, yes.
It's the fulfillment
of the Old Testament promises.
So it's, yes, Isaiah 11,
which is why I read that.
And then I realized
I've been thinking about it
all afternoon
and you've not
and say, oh,
I was trying to expect you
to go from zero
to 100 miles an hour
straight away.
But yes,
the Spirit of the Lord
rests on him,
the Spirit of wisdom
and understanding,
the Spirit of counsel
and might,
the Spirit of knowledge
and fear of the Lord
and he will delight
in the fear of the Lord.
It's how Jesus speaks
in John's Gospel,
isn't it?
He says that he is
speaking the words of God
for the one whom God
has sent speaks
the words of God
for God gives the Spirit
without limit
to the Lord Jesus.
Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yes.
So there's a pattern there,
isn't there,
that God equips
and empowers
for the jobs
that he's called us to do.
Yeah.
And the job that he's
primarily called us to do
is to live for him
and his glory
and grow in our knowledge
and love of him
and speak of him
to others, right?
And so,
behold,
I will be with you always
to the very end of the age.
God is not sending us out
on our own,
but is with us
by the Spirit.
Yeah.
There is a,
there's a thing that I think
this is the bit
that I've really struggled with
to get my head around
is this idea that
although it is the,
Jesus in his humanity
empowered by the Spirit
who is doing the works
of the New Testament,
because he is one person
in those works,
you also see him
to be fully divine
at the same time.
And so we worship him
as God
and the disciples
worship him as God
because even in his humanity
they are seeing
the person of the Son
and worshiping him.
Yeah.
And these are written
that you may believe
that Jesus is
the Son of God.
Yeah.
I feel very affirmed.
It is difficult for us
mentally to grasp this.
Yes.
That is definitely
my experience.
So yeah.
It's only because
of our fallenness.
Yeah.
And the limits
of our human understanding.
So we will never ever
fully grasp God
will we even,
even in glory.
So in that regard
he is tangible
and yet in his mouth.
Yes.
That's right.
Yes.
We can both understand him
and not understand him
at the same time.
Yeah.
Great.
Finally then,
his willingness.
Now,
this is a preview
a little bit of next time
so I know that's going
to get you excited.
But this opening part
of paragraph four
says this,
the Lord Jesus
most willingly
undertook this office.
In other words,
in whatever we've understood
so far,
we must not think
that God the Son
is sent against his will
by the Father.
We must not think
that the Father
bullies the Son
into coming to
fulfill this plan
of redemption
as the hero
and mediator
of the covenant promise.
They are working together
and Jesus is a willing participant.
Now,
this means that
the divine Son
endures the humiliation
of the human experience
and even death
willingly for you and me.
Right?
Which means
Jesus loves us.
Right?
He loves us enough
to say,
yes,
I will do that.
Again,
this doesn't quite translate
because in the story
they love us
but you can imagine
kind of organ donation.
So,
to give
your organs
to somebody
that you don't really
know and you never meet
is one thing
but you
give them to someone
that you love
and you go,
well,
yeah,
of course.
Now,
we tend to love
the people who love us,
right?
Jesus loved us
while we were still sinners
and we were rejecting him
and he loved us
enough to give himself up
for us willingly,
joyfully.
John 10 says this,
for this reason
the Father loves me
because I lay down my life
that I may take it up again.
No one takes it from me
but I lay it down
of my own accord.
I have authority
to lay it down,
I have authority
to take it up again.
This charge I've received
from my Father.
You get it there,
don't you?
The Father is telling him
to do it
but he's doing it willingly,
he's not doing it
against his will.
He lays it down for us.
That means that
as the person of the Son
in the glories of heaven,
he loves us
and continues
to pray for us
as our mediator
before the Father
and we know
he won't give up on this.
He will keep going.
It's as if
the person of the Son
in the glories of heaven
is continually saying
to his Father,
showing the wounds
of the cross,
this is how much
I love them.
Don't leave them.
This is how much
I love them.
This is what
I have done for them
and we know
that he will keep going
in them.
Now just as I finish,
let's draw these threads together.
We saw at the beginning
that we love hero stories
because we know
we're not really
in the place
that we want to be
and we know
we can't get there
in our own strength
and so we need
someone to take us there.
That's right,
that's why we want heroes,
right?
Now then,
if the person of the Son
is the hero
of all heroes,
where is he taking us
and why is that so good?
Have a think
with the person next to you
about that.
Where is he taking us
and why is it so good
if Jesus is the hero
of heroes?
It's not never,
never land.
Okay,
I'm really sorry,
that is totally
not enough time
to discuss that
but it is nearly
half past seven
and I'm on a promise
to finish by half past seven.
So,
let me try
and wrap it up.
I don't know
what you said.
I think that
the big thing
that we need to understand
is it means
that the hero
of all heroes
is taking us
where he is
so that we will be
with him
eternally.
The good place
that we are going
is to be with
the Father,
the Son
and the Spirit.
Our destiny
to,
we often think,
don't we,
that heaven is kind of like,
you know,
or the new heavens
and the new earth
is kind of like this world
but just with,
you know,
just a bit better,
right?
The best thing
about glory
is that we are
with the Lord.
So,
we will,
it is physical
and we will experience it
because there is,
you know,
human flesh
is there
in the Trinity,
right?
Because he has a fully
human nature,
the eternal person
of the Son.
So,
it will be a
physical reality
and we will enjoy
the final fulfillment
of all that we've
glimpsed
and grasped now.
But the best bit
is that we will be
with him
and,
and Jesus
can uniquely
take us there
because he has
come from there
and has
joined our human
experience
in order to
take us there.
There's not enough
time to talk about that
and we did touch on it
this morning
if you were with us
but John 17
is this,
Jesus prays
in John 17
and he says this,
I do not ask
for these only,
that's the disciples,
but also for those
who will believe
in me
through their word.
That's you and me.
That they may
all be one
just as you,
Father,
are in me
and I in you
that they also
may be in us
so that the world
may believe
that you have sent me.
The glory
that you have given me
I have given to them
that they may be one
even as we are one.
I in them
and you in me
that they may become
perfectly one
so that the world
may know
that you have sent me
and love them
even as you love me.
Father,
I desire
that they also
whom you have given me
may be with me
where I am
to see my glory
that you have given me
because you loved me
before the foundation
of the world.
Now,
you will spend
a lifetime
trying to understand
exactly what Jesus means
in that prayer
but I guarantee you
it's wonderful
and this is
the kind of
the meditorial end
that he is working.
This is the place
that he is taking us
that we might be
with God
and one with him
that that eternal
relationship of joy
and love
and satisfaction
that the Father,
Son and Spirit
have enjoyed
for eternity past
will be ours
to enjoy with him
for eternity to come
and there can be
nothing more wonderful
or brilliant than that.
No other hero
could take you
to that place
only
the person of the Son
who is fully God
and fully man
at the same time.
Let me pray
as we close.
Heavenly Father,
we have touched
on many things
that we only really
understand the beginnings of
and so please
we pray
might you help us
just with tender hearts
to submit
even to what we don't
really fully understand
that we will be with you
that we will see the Son
and get to enjoy
with him
what he has enjoyed
in you for eternity.
Lord, help us, we pray
as we find ourselves
tomorrow morning
in different places
doing very different things
and these truths
will be a long way
from our minds.
Help us
even in those places
to know that you are
with us by your Spirit
empowering us
to live lives
to your praise
and your glory
as we pray
in Jesus' name.
Amen.