Sermon Tone Analysis

Historicity

The Christian faith is neither mere philosophy, nor religion properly.

Christian faith is a belief in and a reliance on certain historic truth claims.

Aesop’s fables - 600 years BC

The moral of the story is...

No one confesses, “I believe there was a tortoise and a hare who both conversed and raced”

In contrast, Christians confess:

I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; [he descended to the dead.]

On the third day he rose again; he ascended into heaven, he is seated at the right hand of the Father, and he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.

Amen.

The historic claims of Christ are central, definitional, foundational to our faith:

For Christ to be raised, resurrected, this necessitates that He died and was buried; not merely swooned and hidden away

For Christ to be raised, resurrected, this necessitates that He died and was buried; not merely swooned and hidden away

In order to have been put to death, He must first have lived.

In order to have been put to death, He must first have lived.

Bart Ehrman

But as a historian I think evidence matters.

And the past matters.

And for anyone to whom both evidence and the past matter, a dispassionate consideration of the case makes it quite plain: Jesus did exist.

Thus if Jesus did exist, live, die, and raise form the dead, and we see in passages like that His purpose was to counteract the actions of Adam’s sin…

Legality

Law before the Law -

Adam’s Transgression

v15 - many died through his transgression

gen 3:

ja 1:14-15

The verdict is already in

Headship

What’s Law got to do with it?

antitype - a person or thing that is foreshadowed or represented by a type or symbol, esp a character or event in the New Testament prefigured in the Old Testament - Collins Dictionary

2 illustrations: Genetics and Light

1. Genetics - the science that explains why I like Zaccheus ()

Behind all of our depravity, behind all of our guilt, behind all of our personal sinning, there is this mysterious connection or union with Adam our father… It’s all about the superiority of the work of Christ for those who are in Him over against what happened to all who are in Adam.

But, how does one transfer from one lineage to another?

Sci-Fi genetics - at our rebirth, we have been ‘infected’ with the alien righteousness of Jesus and our DNA is being re-written, so that we will be human for the first time

2. Light

as by one prism, the light was refracted; divided, how much more by the recombination of another prism is the light made pure again

Praise be to God that Jesus is the second Adam.

The curse brought on by the first is broken for all who are in Christ.

May we be reminded and assured of this gospel as we show the Lord’s death in His supper.