| In a few weeks we will be through the gospel of Matthew. In coming to
this point, I am concerned to impress upon your minds and hearts the
extraordinary importance of the person of Jesus Christ.
The text for the morning is a starting point - from Paul's letter to
the Romans, the first chapter, these most significant words: "The
gospel of God - the gospel He promised beforehand through His prophets
in the Holy Scripture regarding His Son."
In approaching the subject of the importance of Christ, I will use
these particular divisions: Presuppositions, Particulars, Principles,
Problems and Resolution.
First the presuppositions. There are three, and they are basic to all
that we hold. The first is that the Old Testament and the New Testament
are in themselves the Word of God written. They are not words about God
written by men, nor are they the experiences of men with God written by
men. They are written by men, but in a unique and significant way,
they are the words of God to men, so much so that we can look at the
Bible objectively and say, "This is God's Word to me."
The second presupposition is that because this is so, we recognize the
Scriptures to be inspired. That means they are God breathed. God, by
the power of His Spirit working through the authors of the Old and New
Testaments, worked in them in such a way that as they wrote, they not
only reflected their personalities, their times and their problems, but
they wrote what God wanted written, in order for men to get a message
from Him. The Scriptures are also infallible. This means that they are
trustworthy and utterly reliable. We can read them with complete
confidence. And they are authoritative - they are to be the rule for
life. They are not a possibility or an option for life, they are the
rule of life for you and me, in our understanding of faith and in our
practice of faith and in our practice of human relationships.
The first presupposition is that the Scriptures are the Word of God
written. The second is that these Scriptures are inspired, infallible
and authoritative.
The third is that the gospel of Matthew is designed to lift up Jesus
Christ in the mind of the respectably religious person as the true and
only revelation of God and representation of God.
These presuppositions are those upon which we base our faith.
Now, the particulars. Scripture in general, and Matthew in particular,
present Jesus in four different respects. First, as the virgin born Son
of God, who left heaven to come to earth. By this we mean that his
entrance into this world was the entrance of God himself, the second
person of the Trinity, into humankind and human history by a
supernatural, miraculous process that we know as the virgin birth. And
as such Jesus is a unique individual in the history of man.
The second particular is that this unique individual in the history of
man is the only one who has ever been given divine approval from Heaven
itself before men and authorized to be God's final revelation. About
Him alone the Father did say, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am
well pleased, hear ye him." These credentials can be claimed by no
other man who is alive or has ever lived, but Jesus claimed them.
The third is, this very Son of God is the one who ministered to men,
suffered at their hands, was crucified, died, buried and rose again the
third day. The whole thrust of Matthew's gospel is to this extraordinary
objective in the history of man.
The fourth particular is so very important. In so suffering, dying and
rising, this Jesus of Nazareth, the God-man, offered himself to the
Father as a sacrifice for our sin, of his own free will. Of his own
volition, he gave himself up to the Father as a divine sacrifice for
human sin, your sin and mine.
The second element of this particular is that this divine sacrifice was
accepted by the Father and is attested to by the resurrection.
The third element is that Jesus Christ by his resurrection broke the
power and the bondage of both death and evil in the course of human
events. He was on one hand a sufficient sacrifice for the sins of men,
because he was God as well as man. And on the other hand, he broke the
power of death and evil so that man might be free to be what God
created him to be.
Because of these particulars, I present to you three principles. First,
if these things are true, then it is also a primary principle that
there is no other representative to show us God and bring us to Him.
Jesus Christ stands unique and alone as the only Savior and Lord from
Heaven, given by God for us. It was his claim "I am the Way, the Truth
and the Life, no man comes to the Father but by me." It was the claim of
his apostles, "There is no other name under Heaven, given among men,
whereby we might be saved." There is one mediator between God and man -
the man Christ Jesus.
The second principle is this: to take Jesus lightly or for granted, as
if he were of little importance, or to substitute another for him or to
reject him, is to refuse the only Savior and Lord that God will ever
offer mortal man.
Again, to take Jesus lightly or for granted, as if he were of little
importance, or to substitute another for him or to reject him, is to
refuse the only Savior and Lord that God will ever offer to mortal man.
Because of his uniqueness, because of his significance, because of his
accomplishments, we are obligated to view him as being that sole single
one through whom we can draw nigh to God.
And so the third principle is this: to treat Jesus lightly or take him for
granted, as if he were of little importance, or to substitute another
for him or to reject him is to reject God himself, for God will only be
approached through him whom He has sent. To reject him whom He has sent
is to reject God. Therefore, there is no other way that we can come to
God except through Jesus.
Therefore if God has given us His Son and we treat him lightly or take
him for granted or substitute him with another, or reject him, then God
is justifiably angry at this rejection and as nothing left but wrath
and judgment for us.
Again, therefore if God has given us His Son and we treat him lightly
or take him for granted or substitute another for him or reject him,
then God is justifiably angry at this rejection and has nothing left
but wrath and judgment for us.
You and I are faced with the necessity of recognizing that God in grace
and goodness has given to us His only Son. To reject this Son is to
close the door of graciousness from God and open the vents of wrath
from Heaven to be visited upon us.
Many of us, accustomed to the ways of the church and the language of
religion are prone to say "I would never do that." But let me lay
before you six problems or patterns of spiritual evasion that people
who are a part of the church often use in order to do just that.
The first is a refusal to consciously put personal trust in Christ and
follow that trust with obedience to him. They assume they have already
done it, whereas there has been no conscious action on their part to
put their personal trust in him.
The second is the awesome temptation to substitute good works for
salvation, to assume that as long as a lot of good things are done and
a lot of credits are laid up, the credits will outweigh the demerits,
and it will some way or another be all right with God. But that's an
evasion of the basic issue. That's not complementary to the basic
issue.
The third follows very closely on the second, and that's the tendency
to substitute an active church life for a dynamic relationship with
Christ by faith. It is easy and fun to become involved in the life of
the Church. We have found out in the Session in times past, that some
people came into the church saying yes to all of the questions, because
they wanted to be in on the fun, but they never believed what the
Church represented. This is a significant and serious danger for many
people.
Some people make the mistake of substituting a person for God, and all
of us are easily guilty of this. We all have our spiritual heroes. We
see someone who has impressed us profoundly, who has influenced us
joyfully, and we follow them, and it is not hard to move our affections
from God to them. And to assume that we get to God through them without
making the personal objective search for God and the personal
maintenance of the life of faith.
A great tragedy in American Christianity is this fifth evasion tactic,
which is to assume that faith in faith equals faith in Christ. We hear
so often people making the statement, "I believe. I trust in my
belief." For the Christian, the issue is never faith in faith; the
issue must always be faith in Christ. I hear people say from time to
time, "My faith will sustain me." That's putting the formula backwards.
Jesus is the one who sustains us - it is by faith that we lay hold onto
Jesus Christ.
And the sixth is almost as common, and that is the assumption that faith
in God equals faith in Christ. Even a cursory reading of the New
Testament will bring us to a realization that Almighty God is very
definitive. He does not permit himself to be spoken of in the New
Testament just as God. He is always the God who is intricately
related to Jesus Christ. Because of the tendency of the
world to put so many different personalities and principles under the
title of God, God insists that He be known through the person of Jesus
Christ. Therefore the formula, "I believe in God", is not sufficient.
It must be "I believe in God through Jesus Christ" or "I believe in
Jesus Christ for Jesus Christ is God."
And so how is this to be resolved if we find this to be a part of our
hearts?
First of all, we must correct our knowledge of Jesus, and sometimes
this means going deeper than just coffee cup conversation about the
person of Jesus Christ. It means studying his Word to know who he is
and how he has presented himself.
The second thing is to intentionally choose Jesus Christ as Savior and
Lord.
And the third is to follow this choice up with an exercise of faith in
him that is a part of life, as naturally as the way in which a child
would trust in the love of his or her father.
And the fourth is the consequence. Living with gratitude to God, with a
life of obedience to Him. Because He has loved us so, then we serve Him
well.
If Matthew in his gospel has presented Jesus Christ as being the one
who has done what he has done and said what he has said, then these
words also are worthy of consideration. You and I often think of the
imperative of faith, but we also need to consider the other side of the
coin.
Anyone who does not believe God, has made Him out to be a liar, because
he has not believed the testimony God has given about His Son. He who
has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have
life.
And this too we must consider.
John Neville August 7, 1983
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