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John, well, he’s different.  Jesus’ kooky cousin wears camel’s hair and eats locusts and wild honey.  His baptism is a little different too.  Christian baptism symbolizes and identifies us with the death burial and resurrection of our Lord (Romans 6:1-11).  That hasn’t happened yet so what is John’s baptism about?  It is the baptism of repentance (symbolizing repentance) in preparation for the coming King’s redemptive rule (Acts 19:1-7 emp. v. 4).

So if John’s baptism is symbolic of repentance, what is sinless Jesus being baptized for?  Matthew’s account is written to give an answer to that question.  All four gospels record Jesus’ baptism, only Matthew includes Jesus’ explanation,  “To fulfill all righteousness!”  That only seems to make things worse!  But notice Jesus says to fulfill, not because He lacks but to fulfill.  Not because he is repentant, but to fulfill.  Three interpretations have gained favor among evangelicals.  The first two fall flat to me, I hold to the third.

1. Jesus’ baptism is anticipatory of His death, burial, and resurrection whereby he will fulfill all righteousness and make many righteous.
2. Jesus’ baptism is merely His obedience as a man to the new command of God going out through John.
3. In Jesus’ baptism He is identifying Himself with the sinners for whom He came to fulfill all righteousness.

So Jesus is fulfilling all righteousness not for Himself, but us, as our substitute.  He doesn’t lack righteousness, we do.  He comes as the second Adam, achieving all righteousness in our place (Romans 5:18-19).

Theologians have a helpful way to understand this; it is called the active and passive obedience of Christ.  Christ not only passively bore your sins and the wrath of God, He also actively achieved all righteousness in your place.  The language is a little misleading for in going to the cross to bear our sins Christ was actively obeying, laying down His life and drinking the cup of the Father’s wrath down to the dregs.  The cross is both the ultimate, climatic act of passive and active obedience.  Christ fulfills all the obligations we shirked, and bears the penalty we deserve.  He didn’t just die in your place, He lived in your place.  He has become to you righteousness (1 Corinthians 1:30)!  In Christ you become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:20).

This is how the Holy God of heaven now sees you, righteous in Christ.  As God is well pleased with His Son, He is well pleased with us.  We are loved in the Beloved.  His love toward His beloved is His love toward us.  The rays of the Father’s pleasure that go out toward His Son are the very rays of bliss that strike us.

And what a comfort is this, that seeing God’s love resteth on Christ, as well pleased in him, we may gather that he is as well pleased with us if we be in Christ!  – Richard Sibbes

If the dynamic concept of the Kingdom is correct, it is never to be identified with the church. The Kingdom is primarily the dynamic reign or kingly rule of God, and derivatively, the sphere in which the rule is experienced. In biblical idiom, the Kingdom is not identified with its subjects. They are people of God’s rule who enter it, live under it, and are governed by it. The church is the community of the Kingdom but never the Kingdom itself. Jesus’ disciples belong to Kingdom as the Kingdom belongs to them; but they are not the Kingdom. The Kingdom is the rule of God; the church is a society of men.

In summary, while there is an inseparable relationship between the Kingdom and the church, they are not to be identified. The Kingdom takes its point of departure from God, the church from men. The Kingdom is God’s reign and the realm in which the blessings of his reign are experienced; the church is the fellowship of those who have experienced God’s reign and entered into the enjoyment of its blessings. The Kingdom creates the church, works through the church, and is proclaimed in the world by the church. There can be no Kingdom without a church – those who have acknowledged God’s rule – and there can be no church without God’s Kingdom; but they remain two distinguishable concepts: the rule of God and the fellowship of men. – George Eldon Ladd

One of the greatest dangers, it always seems to me, is to interpret the Scriptures in the light of our experience, instead of testing our experience by the teaching of Scripture.  So often this happens at the present time.  People lay down as the norm what they have and what they are familiar with, and test everything by that.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 12, Pg. 227

The “guy” on the corner yelling “repent for the end is near,” and holding a “turn or burn” sign might think he is carrying on in the spirit of Elijah, the spirit of John the Baptist, but I think he is missing something.  I have nothing against his open air public preaching, I admire his boldness, I am thankful for his commitment to the doctrines of repentance, hell, and the return of King Jesus, but there are some problems.

His message markets Jesus simply as char prevention.  Repentance becomes just another adventure in self-seeking for  our narcissistic culture.  By all means preach the ugliness of sin and the reality of hell, but only to preach the glories of Christ.  You must preach the heinous nature of sin and its consequences for the good news of Jesus to be good news, but it is not until you preach the good news of the cross that sin is seen in its most ugly, true form.  If you preach repentance without redemption you are not longer preaching the gospel, but law.

Our calling is not to preach an isolated hell or repentance but the gospel.

When the guy says “repent for the end is near” he is not saying the same thing John does when he says “repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

What is the “kingdom of heaven” that Matthew will reference 32 times?  Let’s begin with what it is not.  It isn’t the people of God, nor the church.  Just try replacing them sometimes and you will see the absurdity.

Your [church] come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.   - Matthew 6:10

The [church] is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.  – Matthew 14:44

The time is fulfilled, and the [church] is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.  – Mark 1:15

So what is the kingdom?  Lets narrow in on a precise definition in three steps.

1. The kingdom is here now but not yet, near yet far, present (Matthew 12:28, Luke 17:20-21) yet future (Matthew 6:10; Luke 22:18).
2. The kingdom primarily is the dominion, rule, and reign of God.  Edmund Clowney said it well, “In the Scriptures, God’s kingdom is the shadow of His presence; not so much his domain as his dominion; not his realm but his rule.  God’s kingdom is the working of his power to accomplish his purposes of judgment and salvation.”
3. Primarily the kingdom is the saving rule and reign of God that began radically to break in with Christ’s first advent and will be consummated upon His return.  It isn’t that God wasn’t working His plan of redemption prior to the coming of Jesus, but with Jesus’ advent our redemption was at hand.

The good news that we preach is the gospel of the kingdom (Matthew 4:23, 9:35, 24:14; Acts 8:12, 28:31).  The text says that the reason why John was doing what he was doing was to fulfill Isaiah 40:3.  He is the herald sent ahead of the king telling them to prepare for the coming of the King.  In Isaiah 40 the coming of the King is good news.  So the reason why the “kingdom is at hand” is because the king has come.  Now the question is why has he come?   Matthew has already answered that question in chapter one, “you shall call his name Jesus for he shall save his people from their sins.”

So we plead with people to repent not simply because sin is vile and hell is hot, but most deeply because Christ is glorious!  Our primary motivation toward repentance is not negative but positive.  There is sorrow in repentance, but there is also joy; sorrow over sin and joy over Christ.  Repentance is not the begrudging sacrifice of great pleasures to avoid dire consequences.  Repentance is seeing by faith the glories of Christ, and then comparing His promises and pleasures with those of sin and shouting, “No contest – Jesus!”  True repentance not only hates sin, it loves Jesus.

Though [repentance] be a deep sorrow for sin that God requires as necessary to salvation, yet the very nature of it necessarily implies delight. Repentance of sin is a sorrow arising from the sight of God’s excellency and mercy, but the apprehension of excellency or mercy must necessarily and unavoidably beget pleasure in the mind of the beholder. ‘Tis impossible that anyone should see anything that appears to him excellent and not behold it with pleasure, and it’s impossible to be affected with the mercy and love of God, and his willingness to be merciful to us and love us, and not be affected with pleasure at the thoughts of [it]; but this is the very affection that begets true repentance. How much sovever of a paradox it may seem, it is true that repentance is a sweet sorrow, so that the more of this sorrow, the more pleasure.  – Jonathan Edwards

Readability:  2

Length: 300 pgs

Author:  O. Palmer Robertson

Too many Christians fail at understanding the Scriptures because they don’t understand the Scriptures.  That is, they fail to understand a certain Biblical text, say Leviticus 4, because they don’t understand the larger context that Leviticus 4 finds itself in.  That is to say not simply that they haven’t thoroughly digested Leviticus, or even the Pentateuch, but the Bible as a whole.  Funny that we refer to the Bible as a book, fail to realize that it is composed of 66 books, and then further fail to recognize the great overarching, unifyingstoryline that binds it all together.  The fancy word for this big story is metanarrative.  We read all the mini-narratives forgetting to place them within the metanarrative.

To Johnny-pew-sitter I must say that preachers and teachers are primarily to blame for such ignorance.  People in the pew don’t get the metanarrative because the sermons are too small to contain it.

Towards understanding is understanding the concept of covenant.  Covenant frames all of Scripture.  It is the bones of Scripture.  Throughout Scripture God only relates to man within covenant, never outside of it.  Everyone stands in relation to God either as a covenant breaker, or covenant keeper.  You are either heir to the promises of the covenants, or under the curse for violating covenant.

In The Christ of the Covenants O. Palmer Robertson masterfully deals with the covenants of scripture.  In part one he deals with the nature, extent, unity, and diversity of the divine covenants.  In parts two and three he then goes on to treat each of the covenants we see in the Bible: the covenant of creation, the Adamic covenant, the Noahic covenant, the Abrahamic covenant, the Mosaic covenant, the Davidic covenant, and the New Covenant.

This book is not self-help, it is not immediately practical, it is not pragmatic, but it is epic.  You will be left stunned by the wonder of God’s one plan of redemption as it unfolds progressively through the covenants.  This ain’t no Little Golden Book, it is a book about the biggest story ever.

A covenant is a bond in blood sovereignly administered.  When God enters into a covenantal relationship with men, he sovereignly institutes a life-and-death bond.  A covenant is a bond in blood, or a bond of life and death sovereignly administered.

I saw a dude at the Robbie Seay concert the other night with INVICTUS tattooed on the underside of his arm.  It was inked such that the letters began at his wrist and read down toward his elbow.  That way it would be shown off when he held a microphone.   It looked cool, but I think the message is stupid, especially for a Christian.  It seems safe to say he professes Christ since he works for KXOJ.

Invictus, Latin for unconquered, could be tolerated if one meant to communicate that because of Christ they are victors, not conquered by sin, Satan, or death.  If that is what the aforementioned person means, my apologies for referring to his tattoo as stupid.  But that is not the popular idea behind the word today.

The word’s current popularity is no doubt due to the film, which, by the way, I really enjoyed.  I do admire Nelson Mandela, and I love Clint Eastwood as a director / actor, but Invictus, well, it’s a lie.  The popular meaning is informed by the poem by William Earnest Henley.

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

I think Herod would have loved this poem.  I bet he had an invictus tat too.

Outside of Christ we are not conquers but conquered – in bondage to sin and death.  Yes in Christ we have victory, but it is His victory, a victory that we enter into by grace.  Christus Victor!  – that is our chant, not Invictus!

So will you seek the King?  Will you bow? Will you submit?  Will you give your treasures?  Will you worship?

Don’t fail to recognize how you may be similar to Herod.  Do you look at the humility of Christ and see it as an opportunity to exploit Him?  Do you tolerate or excuse sin by presuming upon His grace?  Do you treat Jesus as a ticket to get to some other main attraction?  Do you think you can dissect Him and take Him only as Savior and reject Him as Lord?

Woe to those who think they can conquer the unconquerable King.  There is only one man who legitimately wears Invictus; it is written down His thigh, “King of kings and Lord of Lords.”

The unity that the apostle speaks of is a unity that can never be produced by human beings – never!  ‘So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members of one another.’  This, again, is something that follows of necessity from the illustration of the body.  As we have seen, the human body starts with one cell, which becomes impregnated and grows and develops.  The proliferations come out and form neck and arms and feet and trunk and so on.  And it is exactly the same with the church.  This is something supernatural; it is miraculous; it is the divine ‘something’.  And so the illustration proves to us that men and women can never produce this unity, and, of course, the Bible never exhorts us to.  What Paul does exhort us to do, is to maintain the unity – which is entirely different.  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 12, Pgs. 188-189

This Saturday Bethany and I will be having a garage sale from 7am to 1pm at our house.  Please help us get word around T-town.  Email it to your friends, post it on your blog or facebook, tweet it, text it, phone a friend…

Support Adoption Garage Sale
All proceeds go to help adoption.
Saturday, August 7th, 7am to 1pm.
3020 S. 72nd E. Ave Tulsa, OK.
Questions? 918.346.7022

Here is the ad I have referenced a few times and asked for people to hunt for in magizines.  Now I at least have a digital copy thanks to Dane Ortlund for guest posting it on Justin Taylor’s blog.  I would still like a paper copy if you happen to find one.

From page 5 of September 2007 issue of Backpacker; ad referenced by John Piper in a 2008 ETS talk in Providence, Rhode Island.

In order for Jesus to be Jesus (meaning “Yahweh is salvation”) He has to be Immanuel (meaning “God with us”).

When the angel commands Joseph to name the child “Jesus”, he also gives him the reason why, “for He shall save His people from their sins.”  This is an allusion to Psalm 130:8.  In this Psalm the “He” who redeems Israel from his iniquities is Yahweh.  Only God can forgive sins ultimately, it is His prerogative; He is the most offended party (Psalm 51:4).  You do not have the right to forgive a debt against someone else.  Who can forgive sins but God?  Only God (Mark 2:1-11).

In the 11^th century Anslem of Canterbury wrote an important book titled, Cur Deus Homo, loosely translated, Why the God-Man?  Why did Jesus have to be Immanuel to deal with sins?  Why must the second person of the Trinity take on human flesh?  His answer in short is that in sin we incur a debt.  Only man ought to pay for this debt, and only God can.  In order to pay this debt, a God-Man is needed.

In creation, the law, and our conscious we know God above us and against us.  Only in the gospel do we know God for us and with us.  God incarnate, born of a virgin, fully man, fully God.

Christ, by highest Heav’n adored;
Christ the everlasting Lord;
Late in time, behold Him come,
Offspring of a virgin’s womb.
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;
Hail th’incarnate Deity,
Pleased with us in flesh to dwell,
Jesus our Emmanuel.
- Hark! the Herald Angels Sing by Charles Wesley