THE REACH OF CHRIST'S WORK
Truth for Life • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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-On Wednesday nights to better our discipleship I am trying to expose us to different Scriptures and topics each Wednesday of the month, and on the first Wednesday of the month I want to continue what I had been doing, considering important Christian doctrines as they are based on Scripture, but summarized by the creeds and confessions of history.
-I have been on the subject of Christ as the mediator between God and humanity. We have beforehand stressed the necessity of Christ being both God and man if Jesus is going to mediate between God and man. Christ was fully equipped for the work that was set before Him, fulfilling the law, going to the cross, being raised in power.
-Tonight I want to consider what I will call the reach of Christ’s work or maybe you could say the application of Christ’s work. To whom is Christ’s work extended? We know that the Bible says that all who believe are saved, but you may have asked yourself: what about those who were born before Jesus accomplished His work? The Second London Baptist Confession gives us a summary of what we believe the whole counsel of God reveals.
8.6
The price of redemption was not actually paid by Christ till after His incarnation. Yet the virtue, efficacy and benefit of it was imparted to the elect in every age since the beginning of the world, in and by those promises, types, and sacrifices that revealed Him and pointed to Him as the seed that would bruise the serpent’s head and the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. He is the same yesterday and today and forever.
-The paragraph begins by confirming that at a certain point within the history of the world, Jesus Christ, the God-Man, took on humanity and fulfilled the plans of the Father for the redemption of humanity. The God who created space and time and is beyond space and time became a human within space and time to accomplish the plan of redemption that He had already determined before there was a space and time. So, there was human history that occurred before Christ’s coming and after Christ’s coming, but it was predetermined by God in eternity past.
-The paragraph then says that the virtue, efficacy, and benefit of what Christ accomplished in His incarnation (and via His death and resurrection) was given to all of God’s people throughout time, whether it was before or after His incarnation. What it is saying is that God’s people of all ages are saved in the same way—by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. But what about the fact that Christ had not yet come in the time of the Old Testament? Does that mean that they missed out? No. God’s Old Testament people were saved by grace alone through faith alone looking forward to what Christ was going to accomplish according to the revelation that they had at the time. We who are in the New Covenant era are saved by grace alone through faith alone looking backward to what Christ accomplished.
-That is all well and good, but is there any Scriptural proof of that. Well, first consider:
Hebrews 4:2 (ESV)
2 For good news came to us just as to them...
-The verse literally says the gospel came to us just as to them—the gospel was given to Old Testament people. However, it was not in one nice neat package as we have it now. As the paragraph from the confession says, that it was promises, types, and sacrifices that revealed Him and pointed to Him. And so those in the Old Testament believed in the revelation that was given to them that pointed to Christ and they were saved. The rest of the verse of Hebrews 4:2 talks about those in the Old Testament that did not believe, and thus were not saved.
-And so, in the Old Testament you had revelation like the seed that would crush the serpent’s head and other revelations that pointed to the Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world. That the gospel was preached in the Old Testament is testified by such verses as:
8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.”
-The Old Testament prophets would prophesy about the grace that was to come. Peter tells us:
10 Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully,
11 inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.
-The prophets were not given all the details, but they were given enough such that people could have faith in God and what He would do. Those who believed back then were written into the book of life just as we who believe now are written into the Lamb’s book of life. John testifies:
8 and all who dwell on earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain.
-And the paragraph from the confession that I read directly quotes Hebrews 13:8 to make the point that Christ and His way of salvation do not change:
8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
-Christ was not the Savior by works in the Old Testament and then the Savior by grace in the New Testament. All who would call on the name of the Lord by grace through faith would be saved whether looking forward or looking back. So, the Old Testament saints had a revelation of the gospel in the types and shadows of what God had established. As one author described it:
The Mediator does not appear unannounced or without preparation. The significance of the kind of death that Christ had to die needed to be systematically established before it took place, and God prepared the Israelites (and the world) for this in their everyday life and worship as God’s chosen people.
The principle of sacrifice needed to be established. The people had to understand that blood offerings were required. Identification with the substitute was the only way to find acceptance with God. Pictures of the work of the Mediator…had to be developed in the nation’s life and worship. They were to understand the functional and essential roles of the prophets, priests, and kings in order to relate to the Mediator who would take all three offices into one Person. This is true of all the pictures of the Messiah that are found in the Old Covenant life and worship: atonement, forgiveness, cleansing, washing, temple, altar, animals, etc.
-So, not only did law and prophecy point to Christ, even the sacrificial system that was set by God for the Israelites pointed to Christ, and gave the Israelites something to believe looking forward to God’s fulfillment of what He had established. And so, we find that standing justified before God has always been about grace through faith. Consider what is said about Abraham:
6 And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.
-Abraham had faith and believed in what the Lord had promised about His offspring and how the world would be blessed through the seed. This was always the plan even before the universe came into being according to:
18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold,
19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.
20 He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you
-The next two paragraphs then further clarify the work and reach of the redemptive work of the Mediator.
8:7
In His work of mediation, Christ acts according to both natures, by each nature doing what is appropriate to itself. Even so, because of the unity of the person, that which is appropriate to one nature is sometimes in Scripture attributed to the person under the designation of the other nature.
8:8
To all those for whom Christ has obtained eternal redemption, He certainly and effectually applies and imparts it. He intercedes for them, unites them to Himself by His Spirit, and reveals to them in and by His Word the mystery of salvation. He persuades them to believe and obey and governs their hearts by His Word and Spirit. He overcomes all their enemies by His almighty power and wisdom, using methods and ways that are perfectly consistent with His wonderful and unsearchable governance. All these things are by free and absolute grace, apart from any condition for obtaining it that is foreseen in them.
-To offset certain heretical teachings, the writers of the confession make it clear that both of Christ’s natures worked together to bring about redemption. As one author put it, “The human and divine nature of Christ act concurrently in the one person of Christ in ways proper to each nature.” Then in paragraph 8 it describes how the work is applied.
-First, Christ’s death was an intercession on behalf of sinners, and then Christ eternally makes intercession for those who are His as part of His priestly work:
34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.
-Next, Christ unites us to Himself by giving us His Spirit:
45 Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
-Next, Christ reveals to us the mystery of salvation—showing us what God had planned all along:
20 And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.
-Then it says that Christ persuades us to believe and obey—Christ leads us to His Word, gives us the desire to obey, and then empowers us to obey.
13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
-Then it says that He governs our hearts by His Word and Spirit—the Spirit that unites us to Christ fosters obedience within us:
14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
-Then it says that He overcomes all our enemies by His almighty power and wisdom—we need not fear any enemy because He will completely defeat them all:
25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.
26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
-What a wonderful Mediator and Savior we have who has done wonderful works for all who believe. For the Christian may this foster more trust in every area of your life. For those who have not yet believed, you have no mediator between you and God—your sins are are still yours. Believe in Jesus before it is too late.