Study in the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession of Faith

The end of Matthew's gospel reaches not just back to the beginning of the gospel story, but to the beginning of all beginnings, back to the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth. Jesus rises on the day after the Sabbath, but that is also the beginning of a new Sabbath, the first day of a new creation. This is not just a return to the old creation, but an improvement on it. According to Matthew, the story of Jesus is about heaven coming to earth, heaven invading earth, heaven renewing earth. When heaven invades earth, the powers are shaken. Easter is about this fundamental shift in powers. Each Lord's Day we are announcing that the God of heaven is overthrowing the powers of earth. So our charge is to live accordingly. Seek Jesus while He may be found. He is the only answer to the sin which makes us weak, cowardly, and foolish. He and He alone has the key to new life.

(No video is available for this week's sermon.) Jesus the God-man was put on trial. Jesus the God-man suffered and died on the cross. Jesus the God-man went into the tomb, into Sheol. But death could not hold Him, and instead of being swallowed by death; He swallowed death in victory. He turned the tomb into a womb, death into a transition to new life. He turned the place of death and defilement into a Holy of Holies. Jesus proved Himself the Lord of death. And this is why Jesus emerges with all authority in heaven and on earth. His authority extends from heaven, where He reigns with His Father, to earth, where He reigns by His Spirit, to the world of the dead, the world under the earth, which He conquered in His burial. Our charge is to follow Him in this humiliation and death; to have the humility to die to ourselves, to be united to Christ in His death, and then to stay united to Him in new life. Christian, you are a new creation if you are in Christ. His life, death, and resurrection have paved the way for you. Death will not have the last word.

Study in the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession of Faith

(No video is available for this week's sermon.) When God first created the world, He spoke light to come forth out of the darkness. When He re-creates the world, He does it through the cross of His Son. The world is remade when God the Son enters into the darkness, suffers in the darkness, passes through the chaos of de-creation, and triumphs over it again. Being in union with Christ means that Jesus calls us to share in His cross. This means that we share in the darkness. When God gives us a cross to bear, our instinct is to try to get down. We want to remake our own personal world by leaving the cross, but this is impossible. So, Christian, your charge is to remember that the world is remade by those who have the Spirit, who bear their crosses after Jesus, who stay focused on the mission, who are willing to enter the darkness, and cry out to the Father from there. We are not wiser than God. Resurrection comes through death, and light comes through darkness.

Study in the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession of Faith

Putting Jesus to death is the human project. That is what we do. And this means that we are far, far worse than we let ourselves imagine. Left to ourselves, this would be our last word. But God has a different project, and He will not let us get away with ours. The cross of Jesus is the crux of history, but that means the cross of Jesus not only reveals the radical disorder of fallen humanity, but also that it discloses the meaning of the world, the point of creation, the damage done by sin, the hope of glory. The path of redemption does not bypass blasphemy and destruction, but faces it squarely, endures it, and remakes it from the inside. God does not avoid mockery. He accepts our mockery and turns it to truth. God is not mocked precisely because the mockers have served their purpose.

Study in the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession of Faith

The nation of Israel turned from her King, her husband, at precisely the moment He came to rescue her. She has chosen Barabbas over Jesus, the way of the sword over the way of reconciliation. She has accepted the innocent blood of Jesus on her own head, and on her children. If Israel is going to be saved, there will need to be a new and perfect Israel. Jesus Christ is that Israel of God. He is the perfect priest from this priestly nation, the sin-bearer for the sin-bearing people. The accumulated sin of the world was heaped upon Israel, but the sins of Israel are heaped onto King Jesus. He can bear it all away. By faith we are grafted into this new people of God, and by that same faith, we can declare the goodness of God to ourselves, to our children, and to all the peoples of the earth.

Study in the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession of Faith