1 downloads
232 Views
115KB Size
Did Not the Christ Have To Suffer? Rich Nathan December 22-23, 2012 Advent: Questions Jesus Asks Series Luke 24:25-26
I’d like to begin today by welcoming our Sawmill Campus as well as our Lane Ave. Campus and our East Campus. I’d also like to welcome our two campus initiatives in Circleville & Mansfield. We are glad to have you with us. If you were to ask people what is the central symbol of Christianity, most people would be able to answer: it’s the cross. Almost every church in America has a cross. Sometimes they have crosses on top of steeples; sometimes like us the cross will be inside the building in the sanctuary. The cross may look different depending upon the particular tradition. If you’re Roman Catholic you will have a crucifix. Picture of Crucifix The Body of Jesus will still be on the cross. If you’re Protestant, because of tradition, we talk about the empty cross of Jesus because he is raised from the dead. Protestant Cross There are Greek crosses that have arms of equal length. Greek Cross There are Eastern crosses in which the top line is said to represent the headboard and the bottom the footrest. Eastern Cross There are Celtic crosses… Celtic Cross …which is popular in the British Isles and Roman Catholic and Anglican churches. And there are crosses that people wear as jewelry around their necks. There are crosses that folks tattoo on their bodies; crosses the folks wear on their clothing or put on their dashboard.
© 2012 Rich Nathan | VineyardColumbus.org
1
There is no doubt that the cross is the central symbol of Christianity. cross? Why was the cross of Christ necessary?
But why the
I’ve been doing a series for Advent which is the four Sundays preceding Christmas where the church universal prepares itself for the coming of Messiah into the world. This Advent season I’ve been doing a series titled “Questions That Jesus Asked.” I’ve mentioned to you on multiple occasions that if you read through the gospel account of Jesus you will find that he is constantly asking people questions. Hundreds of questions. He even answers questions with a question. Today we’re going to tackle one of Jesus’ most important questions: Did Not the Christ Have to Suffer? Let’s pray. Luke 24:25-27 He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. What I want you to do is to take a look at Luke 24:26: Luke 24:26 Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” If you have a Bible circle the words “have to.” The New American Standard Bible translates Luke 24:26 this way: Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and then enter his glory? The King James Version says: Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory? The death of Christ was necessary. There was an ought-ness to it, a requirement, a have to, a must-ness. The necessity was not some external law imposed on God or Christ, you’ve got to do it – you, Father, must give your only son; Son, you must suffer and die. Rather, having freely chosen as an act of sheer grace and sheer goodness to save human beings, it became necessary for the Son to suffer. We see this echoed throughout the gospel. Mark 8:31
© 2012 Rich Nathan | VineyardColumbus.org
2
He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. In Luke 17 Jesus was talking about his return. Here is what we read in Luke 17:24-25, Luke 17:24-25 For the Son of Man in his day will be like the lightning, which flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other. But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. And finally, and there are so many texts like this, Jesus in his conversation with Nicodemus said in John 3:14-15: John 3:14-15 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him. Why is there a must-ness in the death of Christ? Why is it absolutely necessary for the Messiah to sacrifice his life in order to win salvation for us? Why couldn’t God, the Creator, who spoke the universe into existence, who said, “Let there be light,” and there was light, why couldn’t God the Creator, the Almighty, simply have been able to say, “Let there be forgiveness,” and there would have been forgiveness? Why did Christ have to die? Again, let me reiterate, it is important for us to understand that God did not have to save anyone. God is free to judge all of us and to condemn all of us for our sins. God was free to destroy the whole fallen universe and to start all over again. He wasn’t required by any power outside of himself to heal or to save. But having determined as a consequence of his own gracious act of love to save, the Bible teaches that it was absolutely necessary for Christ to die. There was no other way open, no other option. It had to involve the death of Christ, or there was no salvation. Why? To fulfill the Hebrew Scriptures Now, I could literally do a year-long series of how Jesus fulfilled the Hebrew Bible, how all of the sacrifices, all of the rituals, all of the stories, all of the laws, all of the prophecies find their ultimate fulfillment in Jesus, the Jewish Messiah. Jesus says here in Lk 24:27: Luke 24:27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.
© 2012 Rich Nathan | VineyardColumbus.org
3
But I will just give you one illustration from the gospel of John. From chapter 5 to chapter 10 the apostle John, who was one of Jesus’ disciples, arranges his materials according to the Jewish holidays. So chapter 5 is centered around the Sabbath. Chapter 6 is around the Passover. Chapters 7 and 8 are centered around the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles. And chapter 10 is Hanukkah. Now, what John is attempting to communicate is that everything the Jewish holidays in the Old Testament pointed to has been fulfilled in Jesus. These Old Testament holidays are like shadows on the wall, the substance that’s casting the shadow is Jesus, the Jewish Messiah. There was an old nursery rhyme that expressed the idea of the relationship between the Old and New Testament that goes this way: The New is in the Old concealed The Old is by the New revealed. The New is in the Old contained. The Old is by the New explained. That’s what Jesus was saying here in Luke 24:25-26: Luke 24:25-26 He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” …is that his death was necessary to fulfill the Hebrew Scriptures and what the prophets had prophesied. Perhaps he was referring to a prophecy like Zechariah 12:10-11: Zechariah 12:10-11 And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son. On that day the weeping in Jerusalem will be great, like the weeping of Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo. Or perhaps he was referring to the most often cited prophecy in the Old Testament, Isaiah 53:3-6, a prophecy about suffering and death of the Jewish Messiah. Isaiah 53:3-6 He was despised and rejected by others, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like
© 2012 Rich Nathan | VineyardColumbus.org
4
sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Why was it necessary for Jesus to suffer and die? To fulfill the Hebrew Scriptures. Why was it necessary for Jesus to suffer and die? To satisfy God’s honor and justice Back in the 11th century there was a Catholic theologian named Anselm. He wrote a very influential book titled “Cur Deus Homo,” which translated from Latin means “Why God Became Man.” And Anselm writes in the form of a dialogue between himself and a hypothetical disciple named “Boso.” Boso, in the dialogue, takes the role of an unbeliever. He raises objections to the death of Christ. He struggles to understand it. He poses questions, which Anselm then answers. Why God became man is written as a dialogue. One of the questions concerns sin. What exactly is sin? Anselm says that sin is stealing from God. Because God is our Creator, God is our Maker, we owe God honor. We owe God worship. We owe God gratitude. We owe God, our Creator and Maker, our total obedience and our total loyalty. But instead of giving God what we owe him – honor, thanksgiving, worship, and obedience, we rob God all the time. We offer to God complaining: God, why would you do this? We offer disloyalty. We give God disobedience and ingratitude. Anselm’s definition of sin is that we are stealing from God what we owe him. Simple justice requires restitution. You pay what you stole. If you steal my car and smash it up, it is not enough to say, “My bad. Oops, sorry man.” Paying what you owe is the very definition of justice. If we steal God’s honor, it is not enough to say, “My bad…sorry.” We owe God a debt. Because we regularly rob God of what we owe him, our debt is impossibly large. We regularly turn our backs on God. We often push God away. We repeatedly slam the door in God’s face. How will we pay this debt? Because of the infinitely great debt owing to God from all of humanity, it would take an infinitely great sacrifice to repay that debt. The person who paid the debt would have to be an infinite person, not only in size, but in goodness, purity and obedience. Here’s the way Anselm sums it up. [Salvation] could not have been accomplished unless man paid what was owing to God for sin. But the debt was so great that while man alone owed it, only God could pay it, so that the same person must be both man and God. Thus it was
© 2012 Rich Nathan | VineyardColumbus.org
5
necessary for God to take manhood into the unity of his person, so that he in his own nature ought to pay and could not, should be in a person who could. In other words, a human being should pay the debt for sin since it is human beings who owe it, but only God could make the payment for sin because only God is infinite. Human beings ought to pay, but only God could pay. Therefore, it was necessary for the sacrifice to be made by one who was both God and human, the Incarnate Son of God, Jesus the Messiah. Why was it necessary for Christ to suffer and die? To reveal God’s love This past week’s events in Newtown, Connecticut raised the question of God’s love for every sensitive person. How could the horror that took place in Sandy Hook Elementary School be reconciled with a God of love? As the people in Newtown buried 20 firstgraders and six adults who died in the mass killing at Sandy Hook Elementary School this past week. Anyone with a heart asked the question: Why does God allow these things? Does God really love people? As I said last week, Christianity offers no glib or easy answers to the problem of evil or suffering. There are so many personal tragedies and disappointments, broken relationships and broken hearts. Christianity doesn’t offer easy or glib answers for tough questions. But it does offer evidence of God’s love. It gives us a perspective of how the world’s calamities ought to be viewed. It gives us a set of lenses through which to look at tragedy or disappointment or heartbreak. There are two scriptures that I would point to concerning evidence for God’s love in the midst of great trial. The first is 1 John 3:16: 1 John 3:16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for one another. If you ask people what love is, most people would come up with a quick definition of love. They might say, “You know, love is self-evident. You just feel it. You just know that you know when you’re in love. Even children understand what love is.” But John the Apostle would say, “Don’t be so quick here to believe that we could easily define the word love.” John was saying, in fact, it is impossible to really know what love is apart from Christ and the cross. Of course, the vast majority of human beings have experienced love of some kind. But John says that there has only ever been one act of perfect love, one act of infinite self-
© 2012 Rich Nathan | VineyardColumbus.org
6
giving that wasn’t tainted by any ulterior motive – the self-giving of God in Christ on the cross. I love what the great preacher, John Stott, said about this. He said, If we are looking for a definition of love, we should look not in a dictionary, but at Calvary. The Apostle John said it was necessary for Christ to die to help us to know what love means. And the Apostle Paul said that it was the death of Christ which supremely revealed to us the love of God. Look with me at Romans 5:8-10: Romans 5:8, 10 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us…For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! God’s love is revealed by giving his own Son to die for us If God had sent a prophet to us, some man or woman, to speak to us we would have been grateful. If God had sent an angel like the Angel Gabriel who was sent to Mary, we would count it a great privilege. But God gave us his one and only Son. He didn’t give us a third party, a creature, even an angel. In sending his Son, he was giving himself to us. Love is self-giving. We know God’s love because of the cross. God’s love is revealed by giving his own Son to die for us Again, if God had simply come to earth and spoken to us in Christ, we would have been grateful. If God had gone beyond that and chosen to bless us with healing and answers to prayer, we would feel so privileged. But God gave his Son to die for us. That’s how we know what love is. Christ died on a cross; the supreme act of self-giving and selfsacrifice. And finally, God’s love is revealed by giving his own Son to die for us. If we were perfect people and Christ chose to die for us, we would be grateful. If we were good people and Christ chose to die for us, we would count it a great privilege. But we, being what we are, as the Apostle Paul says in this text, while we were sinners, while we were enemies of God, Christ died for us. Do you not see, friends, how much God loves you? Let me quote again from John Stott, one of my favorite preachers and the most influential evangelical Christian of the last century, other than Billy Graham.
© 2012 Rich Nathan | VineyardColumbus.org
7
The value of a love-gift is assessed both by what it cost the giver and by the degree to which the recipient may be held to deserve it. A young man who is in love, for example, will give his beloved expensive presents, often beyond what he can afford, as symbols of his self-giving love, because he considers she deserves them, and more. Jacob served seven years for Rachel because of his love for her. But God in giving his Son gave himself to die for his enemies. He gave everything for those who deserve nothing from him. “And this is God’s own proof of his love towards us” (Romans 5:8). Why did Christ die? As the ultimate demonstration to us that no matter what happened, whatever tragedy we personally experience, whatever great calamity happens in the world, no matter what happens, we would have absolute proof that God loves us. You never need to doubt the love of God because we have the cross of Jesus Christ. Why was it necessary for Christ to die? To be our Kinsman-Redeemer One of the most common words to describe salvation in the Bible is the word “redemption” or “redeemed” Redemption or Redeemed The word shows up 150 times in the Bible. 130 times in the Old Testament alone, and 20 times in the New Testament. Some of the most famous hymns in history speak about redemption and our Redeemer. So we sing: O for a thousand tongues to sing My Great Redeemer’s praise The glories of my God and King The triumph of His grace Or in “Crown Him With Many Crowns,” we have this verse: Crown Him the Lord above! Behold His hands and side Rich wounds yet visible above, In beauty glorified, All hail Redeemer, hail, For thou has died for me Thy praise shall never fail
© 2012 Rich Nathan | VineyardColumbus.org
8
Throughout eternity What is the meaning of the word “redemption?” The verb “to redeem” in Hebrew is “ga’al.” To redeem = Ga’al When we speak about a person who is a redeemer, the Hebrew word is “Go’el.” Redeemer = Go’el The Hebrew word Go’el which means redeemer, more literally means “kinsman redeemer.” Kinsman Redeemer The kinsman-redeemer is our family protector
In the Old Testament, the go’el was a family member whose duty it was to act on behalf of other family members who were in need. The go’el was the family protector, the family defender, the family champion. The go’el was the big brother who all of us wished we had had, the brother who doesn’t taunt their little brother or sister, but who protects them, the brother who watches out for their little brother or sister and beats up on every bully that tries to hurt them. The idea of redeemer in the Old Testament is rooted in the biblical understanding of family and family relations. See, the family that we find in the Old Testament was not the American individualistic family in which every family member is running in different directions. The daughter texts mom saying that after soccer practice she is going to grab a meal at Panara’s with a few friends; grandpa and grandma live in a retirement community in Arizona; sister has taken a job with a global corporation and is working in Hong Kong; mom stays late at the office; dad is on the treadmill at the gym. That is not a picture of family in the Bible. In the Bible, families were connected; they looked out for one another; they protected each other’s interests. Self-fulfillment as the goal for life was not a concept that would have been meaningful to people living in Bible days. Supporting the whole, being part of something bigger than you, being part of a family that provided you with a sense of place, a sense of belonging, a sense of rooting, a network of relationships, security for the future – that was the biblical understanding of family. And so the kinsmen redeemer as a family protector gives us a little bit of insight to some of the texts regarding Jesus as our Redeemer.
© 2012 Rich Nathan | VineyardColumbus.org
9
We read in Romans 8:29: Romans 8:29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. Jesus entered a family relationship us that he might be our Go’el, our Kinsmen Redeemer, our family hero, our big brother that looks out for us. Most of you know the story of the Prodigal Son. The youngest son, is the partier, the kid who drops out of school, and falls into the wrong crowd. He just wants to hang out with his friends. He gets hooked by drugs. The younger son is the kid whose life is spiraling down. He’s really going nowhere. The older son, his older brother, is the responsible one, the kid who always did well in school, who graduated from college and who has a great job, a great family. He’s involved in church and is leading a small group. In the story that Jesus told, the older son, the older brother, the responsible one, judges his younger brother and rejects him as a taker and a user. But Jesus, our kinsman redeemer was a different kind of older brother. Jesus was an older brother who went out into the far country to find his younger sibling, to rescue him. Jesus was the older brother who went to the pig pen and pulled us, his younger brothers and sisters, out of the pig pen. He didn’t wait until we made our way home. He went from the Father’s house to seek and to save that which was lost. Jesus comes to us not shaking his finger as a critical older brother, but in love, mercy and kindness. He comes and rescues us as a family member. And to do that he had to suffer and die. The kinsman redeemer buys us out of slavery I read a tragic story a few years ago. There was a 15-year old girl in Uganda named Diana, who was given a pair of shoes from an old man named Abu. Abu was married with four children. While he was estranged from his wife, Abu began making advances on Diana. Diana was grateful for the shoes and so she went to Abu’s house. He, in turn, locked her in a closet for 3 days and repeatedly raped her. Abu then took Diana to another house where he made her look after his four children. Soon after, Diana and the four children fell ill with food poisoning. The youngest child, a four-year old, died. When Diana awoke she was informed that she was accused of murder. At the police station, Abu claimed that Diana was his wife and that she was 18. Abu was an influential man in the community and so the police went along with his story. When Diana’s family learned that she was incarcerated, they were alarmed. Her brother went
© 2012 Rich Nathan | VineyardColumbus.org
10
to the police station to learn what charges were brought against his sister. The police locked him up as well and released him only after the family agreed to pay a fine. The family was intimidated against pursuing any further action to help Diana. So, Diana, a 15-year old victim of rape and abuse, was locked away in prison for life. IJM, the International Justice Mission, a Christian organization that works to help free people like Diana, who are enslaved, or ensnared by illegal proceedings, went to work on behalf of Diana. They brought some investigators, including a toxicologist who actually dug up the body of the little boy and proved that he was never poisoned. By pressuring the government, they began an investigation of the police force in this little village and Abu. Diana was set free and Abu now sits in the prison where Diana used to be. Diana said: Before this happened, I was hopeless. I stopped believing in God. But now I know that God is real because he rescued me from prison and abuse. IJM is a Christian organization that acts as a kinsman redeemer. That’s what churches like Vineyard ought to act like. Whenever we rescue people, pull them out of slavery – to drugs, to prostitution, to abuse, to porn, to sin, to the emptiness of life without God, we’re following in the footsteps of the great Kinsman Redeemer, Jesus the Messiah, who purchased you and me by his death on a cross. Finally, why was it necessary for Jesus to die? To be our substitute Throughout the Old Testament God prescribed sacrifices for people to pay for individual’s sins. There was an interesting ritual in the Old Testament. A person would go to the Jewish Temple carrying a lamb, or leading a young bull by a rope, or carrying two turtle doves, if they were poor. They would stand before the priest and in a highly symbolic ritual, they would put their hand on the lamb’s head, or on the bull’s head, or on the birds’ heads symbolically transferring their guilt and their sin onto the head of the animal. And the priest would say, “May it be done to this animal instead of you.” And the priest would then cut the animal’s throat. The animal would die as a sacrificial substitute in place of the sinner. But sensitive people recognized that an animal really could never be a complete substitute and stand-in for a human being. So in the second half of the book of Isaiah, Isaiah began to write about a servant who would come to suffer and to bear sin and to die. And Isaiah’s servant songs reached their culmination in Isaiah 53. I want to read to you again from verses 4-6 as Isaiah talks about God’s provision of a person to be our substitute and our sin-bearer.
© 2012 Rich Nathan | VineyardColumbus.org
11
Isaiah 53:4-6 4Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Let me close with a story. There is an extraordinary story of a sacrificial substittue that took place in WWII. A Catholic priest named Maximilian Kolbe organized shelter for 2000 Jewish people during the Nazi occupation of Poland. Because of his work on behalf of the Jews in Poland, Father Kolbe was sent to a prison camp. He was singled out for particular abuse because of his faith in Christ. A prison guard once saw him praying the rosary. He asked him if he believed in Christ? He said, “I do.” The prison guard struck him with the butt of his rifle. He asked him again, “Do you believe in Christ?” Again, he received the same answer. Again, Father Kolbe was beaten. It happened over and over again, until he was beaten unconscious. From the prison camp he was shipped off to Auschwitz. In the death camp, Father Kolbe was beaten into unconsciousness again by a horrible prison guard. One evening there was an escape from Auschwitz. Three prisoners were found missing. As a reprisal, the Nazis selected 10 prisoners to be assigned to the underground starvation bunker. One of the men who was selected to be starved to death began to cry, “My poor wife; my poor children; I will never see them again.” Father Kolbe, hearing this man’s cry, stepped forward and said, “I will take this man’s place.” And so Father Kolbe went into the starvation bunker and surrendered his life for the life of this stranger. Over the next two weeks people heard an extraordinary thing from that underground bunker. They heard men singing to Jesus. They heard men praying the rosary. They heard men offering prayers for the other prisoners. I visited Maximilian Kolbe’s underground cell a few years ago when I went to Auschwitz with my wife, Marlene. I looked into that cell where they now have a little Catholic shrine celebrating Father Kolbe’s life and his substitutionary death. The only thing I could think as I looked into that cell was this is what Jesus did for me. He died the death that I should have died. He paid the price that I should have paid. Why was it necessary for the Christ to suffer? To be our sacrifice and to be our substitute. Let’s pray.
© 2012 Rich Nathan | VineyardColumbus.org
12
Did Not the Christ Have To Suffer? Rich Nathan December 22-23, 2012 Advent: Questions Jesus Asks Series Luke 24:25-26
I.
To fulfill the Hebrew Scriptures
II. III.
To satisfy God’s honor and justice To real God’s love
IV.
A. God’s love is revealed by giving his own Son to die for us B. God’s love is revealed by giving his own Son to die for us C. God’s love is revealed by giving his own Son to die for us To be our kinsman-redeemer A. The kinsman-redeemer is our family protector B. The kinsman-redeemer buys us out of slavery
V.
To be our substitute
© 2012 Rich Nathan | VineyardColumbus.org
13
