Audio Transcript

Happy Monday, everyone. Thank you for tuning in and listening to the podcast as we move well into our tenth year now, 1770 episodes in. Here’s episode 1771. It happens to be on the theme of shame, of all things. It’s about healthy and needful shame — if there is there such a thing in the Christian life.

Here’s the question: “Pastor John, hello, and thank you for this wonderful podcast! My name is Phillip, and I live in College Station, Texas. I’ve noticed that a lot of Christians today equate shame with condemnation, thereby believing it’s wrong for Christians to feel shame. But Paul calls for shame in 2 Thessalonians 3:14, or so it seems to me. So what healthy role does shame play in the life of the church today? And who here is the object of the shame according to Paul in this particular text?”

One of the reasons this is an important question is that we can sometimes fall into the trap of thinking, “Well, if it’s always good to move beyond shame, then shame must always be a bad thing.” That would be a trap, I think. That would be like saying, “Since we should always seek healing from having our skin cut, therefore surgery is always a bad thing.”

You see the difference. Having your skin cut by a knife is not in itself a good thing, and neither is shame in itself a good thing. But given the reality of disease, being cut by a knife may become a kind of good thing because of what it leads to — namely, healing. That’s the way it is, I think, with shame in the New Testament.

“Sometimes shame functions like surgery to bring us to the healing that we need.”

Sometimes shame functions like surgery to bring us to the healing that we need, but that doesn’t mean that all shame has a healing function, any more than all skin cutting leads to health. There is surgery, and there is stabbing. So, we need to make distinctions, and the Bible helps us do this. So what Philip, in this question, is drawing our attention to is the fact that there is a proper function for shame in the New Testament — a healing, sanctifying function — and he wonders what it is.

So let’s follow the New Testament and draw out the distinction between what I have called misplaced shame and well-placed shame. So, there’s misplaced shame, the kind we should not have, and well-placed shame, the kind we should have, but only temporarily while it does its healing work.

Misplaced Shame

So here are some examples of what I mean by misplaced shame. If you are tempted to feel this shame, you should strive to throw it off by faith in Jesus. This is 2 Timothy 1:8: “Do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner.” So, there are two kinds of things in that verse that you should not be ashamed of, shouldn’t feel shame about:

speaking about the Lord Jesus
being associated with somebody who’s in prison for the Lord Jesus

It doesn’t matter how many people belittle you or make fun of you. Which shows us that, for the Christian, the source of shame should not come from the false opinions of other people, no matter how belittling they are. That takes a great deal of self-identity in and for Jesus to live through that.

Another example is when Jesus said, “Whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels” (Mark 8:38). If human opinion is more emotionally powerful than God’s opinion of us, and if the power of human opinion cripples us and silences us with shame because we claim to be a Christian, we are not going to stand in the judgment, Jesus says.

“Don’t feel shame for something that honors God, no matter how weak or foolish it makes you look in the eyes of others.”

And then Peter in 1 Peter 4:16 says, “Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name.” So, I conclude from these few texts — and there are others — that the biblical criterion for misplaced shame, the kind we should not have, is this: don’t feel shame for something that honors God, no matter how weak or foolish it makes you look in the eyes of others.

Well-Placed Shame

Now, what about well-placed shame — namely, the kind we ought to have, at least temporarily? Paul says to the Corinthians who were doubting the resurrection, “Wake up from your drunken stupor, as is right, and do not go on sinning. For some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame” (1 Corinthians 15:34). They ought to feel shame, he’s saying. And in 1 Corinthians 6:5, when the Christians were disputing with each other and taking that dispute into the secular courts, he says, “I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers?”

Or the text that Phillip, in his question, asked about: “If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter” — and these were people who were refusing to work in Thessalonica, refusing to work for a living because they thought the second coming was so near — “take note of that person, and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed” (2 Thessalonians 3:14). So, shame is a proper and redemptive step toward repentance and healing.

We see that in the very next verse. He says, “Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother” (2 Thessalonians 3:15). In other words, the cut that you make in his skin by withdrawing your fellowship is surgery, not stabbing.

So, from these examples, I conclude that well-placed shame says you should feel shame for having a hand in anything that dishonors God, no matter how strong or wise or right it may look in the eyes of men. Now, when I say that we should feel shame if it is well-placed because of our wrongdoing, I don’t mean that we should feel shame indefinitely, any more than we ought to spend the rest of our lives on the surgeon’s operating table. I call it well-placed shame because it ought to be there, but it ought not to stay there.

So the key question for both misplaced shame and well-placed shame is, How do we properly move beyond both of them? How do we get rid of both of them?

Beyond Shame

Now, before I give my basic biblical answer, let me acknowledge that there are some people who have been dumped on with so much misplaced shaming, perhaps when they were growing up, that their perspective is so distorted about God and about themselves, that they will need a lot of help from other Christians and perhaps counselors to see things clearly like they really are. In other words, I’m not claiming that the escape from misplaced shame is always easy. In fact, I would say it’s rarely easy.

But there is a way out of both misplaced shame that shouldn’t be there and well-placed shame that shouldn’t be there long or in any crippling way for the Christian. Here’s what Paul says about the way he escapes misplaced shame. Even though he endures mockery and imprisonment for Christ, which ordinarily would be very shaming, he says, “I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me” (2 Timothy 1:12).

So there’s the key phrase: “I know whom I have believed” — trusted, embraced, treasured, bowed to, loved. The key for Paul is believing. That is, he sees the glory of Christ. He embraces the glory of Christ, and he treasures it more than the opinions and persecutions of people. That’s the key: seeing and savoring and treasuring — believing Christ. With regard to putting away well-placed shame, it’s the same key: believing in Christ for the forgiveness of what you are ashamed of. Acts 10:43: “Everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

Let me give one more glorious promise from God that covers both cases of misplaced shame and well-placed shame, so that we can get rid of both of them appropriately, quickly. Here’s Isaiah 45:17: “You [namely, you who believe] shall not be put to shame or confounded to all eternity.” Which Paul then applies to Christians with these words in Romans 10:11: “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” No one, finally, will be shamed in the kingdom of God. It will be over.

You’ve done it again. Your conscience begins to stain. Here it is: that sin you vowed — you prayed — never to repeat. You feel the desperate urge to flee from yourself. You wonder, Does God feel the same?

You’ve read of that rocky ground that produces new life yet in the end falls away and dies (Matthew 13:20–21). You tremble at Demas, who, “in love with this present world,” deserted Paul to his apparent undoing (2 Timothy 4:10). You fear, after all your fighting, to finally fall prey to the sin at the door like Cain (Genesis 4:7). As Esau, do you wonder if you’ve sold your birthright so decisively that no power of tears can bring it back (Hebrews 12:17)? Was this your final chance? Will God leave you alone with your red stew?

Perhaps you wonder more specifically, Will he finally take his Spirit from me? You’ve already pled in David’s voice, “Cast me not away from your presence; and take not your Holy Spirit from me!” (Psalm 51:11). You wonder if you will end up being more Saul than David, for “the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul” (1 Samuel 16:14). What makes you any different from him? You know for certain that if the Lord’s Spirit leaves you, you will leave the Lord.

And so it gets your attention afresh when you happen upon Paul’s command to the church at Ephesus: “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God” (Ephesians 4:30). Do all sins grieve the Holy Spirit of God? And can you finally grieve him to provoke his leaving you for good?

How We Grieve the Spirit

How do we grieve the Spirit of God? Do all sins grieve his heart the same?

Does grieving the Spirit entail sins like “lying to him” and “testing him,” as with Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:3)? Does it mean “provoking him” with unbelief, like the wilderness generation (Hebrews 3:7–11)? To “resist him,” like Stephen’s hearers (Acts 7:51)? Is grieving the Spirit the same as quenching him (1 Thessalonians 5:19)?

Instead of first considering that grieving the Spirit means poking at him with our own personal, more isolated sins of thought and deed, it is worthwhile, especially in our day, to realize that the context of this command is primarily corporate. How we frustrate the Spirit’s work to unite his people is in view more than how we sin in the chambers of our mind or alone in our room (though we may rightly imagine these also grieve the Spirit).

Symphony of Unity

Consider the communal emphasis preceding the command.

The Spirit has now unveiled the “mystery of Christ” through the holy prophets and apostles to God’s people: “The Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (Ephesians 3:6). Christ’s blood has brought the far-off Gentiles near, leaving in the place of two people (two enemies) one new man (Ephesians 2:15).

To protect God’s magnum opus of diverse harmony, the church herself has a part to play: “Maintain the unity of Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3). The Spirit unites us in one body, with one call, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one Father (4:4–6). We must not aggravate that work by slander, bitterness, corrupting talk, anger, and lovelessness against one another (Ephesians 4:25–29). We grieve the Spirit, most immediately, when we publish nasty tweets against each other, willfully misunderstand and gratify anger, backbite and gossip, neither seek forgiveness nor extend it.

This oneness (or not) plays out before more watching eyes than those of an unbelieving world. The hidden plan of God went public “so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 3:10). We are placed on stage in a cosmic theater, before the eyes of the demonic forces and spiritual realms. The play is titled “The Manifold Wisdom of God,” and it stars one actress: the church. The theme of the play is God’s glory in the unity of his people.

How ugly, then, a shame for us, to refuse the union that the Spirit creates, that the blood of Christ purchased, that the Father planned before the foundation of the world. To sit on stage as devils and rogues, sneering as the church bites and devours one another. This, suffice it to say, grieves the Spirit.

Will He Ever Leave Us?

Can the Spirit be so grieved as to leave us? When Satan addresses us as Ichabod, saying, “The glory has departed” (1 Samuel 4:21), is he right?

Individually, we can wonder, What of Saul or Samson, or those who “go on sinning” and so trample underfoot the Son of God, profane the blood of the covenant, and “outrage the Spirit of grace” (Hebrews 10:29)?

Corporately, we can wonder, What of the unbelieving Jews that Paul alludes to in giving us the command? “They rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit; therefore he turned to be their enemy, and himself fought against them” (Isaiah 63:10). Will the Spirit who convicts and encourages us today become an enemy because of our sin?

Paul assures us, “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption” (Ephesians 4:30). This is Paul’s second mention of this glory. Consider the first:

In [Christ] you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. (Ephesians 1:13–14)

“After so many provocations, you would leave you — but God the Holy Spirit will not.”

If you have been indwelt, renewed, sealed by the Spirit, he will never leave you, nor us as a people. After so many provocations, you would leave you — but God the Holy Spirit will not. He is given as our down payment in a way Old Testament saints (and Israel at large) did not receive him. The Spirit came upon individuals, anointing them for kingship and other great feats, but he did not indwell them as promised in the new covenant (Ezekiel 36:27).

The apostate may outrage the Spirit and choose his darling sins over Jesus, but this proves he did not truly have the Spirit — for the Spirit seals us, marking us as God’s for the day of redemption, the day of Christ’s return.

Love-Sweetened Grief

So we grieve the Spirit of God by our sin, specifically our sins against the devil-shaming, God’s-wisdom-exalting unity of the gospel. But this is not a grief unto desertion. As God’s people, the Spirit is our guarantee until Jesus returns.

“As God’s people, the Spirit is our guarantee until Jesus returns.”

Perhaps one more question is in order: Does the Spirit dwell in us as we might dwell in a broken down, dirty motel? Is he only ever grieved by our sin?

Charles Spurgeon beautifully reminds us of the flower’s scent contained in the very word grief:

There is something very touching in this admonition, “Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God.” It does not say, “Do not make him angry.” A more delicate and tender term is used — “Grieve him not.” . . . For grief is a sweet combination of anger and of love. It is anger, but all the gall is taken from it. Love sweetens the anger, and turns the edge of it, not against the person, but against the offense.

Don’t miss the point: the Spirit is a Person. The Spirit himself loves us (Romans 15:30). He inspires the word grief here to communicate this grand love, even in view of our sin. A disapproval that is wrapped in undying care. May we not grieve the love of the third person of the Trinity, who has sealed us irreversibly for the day of our Savior’s arrival.

“They have taken the Lord out of the tomb . . . ” These words from a breathless Mary Magdalene were the first breaking of the news that Sunday morning. “. . . and we do not know where they have laid him” (John 20:2).

Just as Mary herself had run to inform Peter and “the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved,” they then ran together to check for themselves. That Jesus’s body was gone, they now believed. But somehow, even with Jesus’s words to them, on multiple occasions, about his coming death and resurrection (Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:33–34), they, like Mary, “did not understand” (Mark 9:32).

On this world-changing Sunday morning, Jesus’s closest disciples first assumed his body had been taken and laid elsewhere. “As yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead” (John 20:9). Must rise. In Jesus’s mind, and in the courts of heaven, and in the pages of holy Scripture, the suffering and subsequent resurrection of the Messiah were not just possibilities or likelihoods. These were not options. They were musts. Jesus had said it before, and later that day he would explain it again — that it was necessary, that it must have happened this way.

O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory? (Luke 24:25–26)

Everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. . . . that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead. (Luke 24:44–25)

But when Peter and John first looked into the empty tomb, that necessity had not yet struck them. Fresh off the devastating grief of the previous two days — doubtless the two worst days of their lives — they still were coming to terms with his death, and assumed with Mary that he was still dead and “they” — some undefined group — had moved the body. Having seen the empty tomb, John reports, “the disciples went back to their homes” (John 20:10).

Only Mary stayed behind, and soon found Jesus alive. Then, with his commission, she “went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’” (John 20:18).

Christ Must Rise

However slow his disciples had been to understand the necessity of his suffering and rising, they soon became convinced — not just that he did rise (that was indisputable) but that he had to rise. It was necessary. It must have happened this way.

“Death could not hold him, restrain him, keep him. It was not possible. Christ, the Son, had to rise.”

Just fifty days later, when Pentecost came, Peter would preach this in public — not just the resurrection but its necessity. At the height of his sermon, Peter declares about his Lord — “this Jesus,” who was “crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men” — “God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it” (Acts 2:23–24). Death could not hold him, restrain him, keep him. It was not possible. Christ, the Son, had to rise.

Why, we might ask on this Resurrection Sunday, was it necessary? Why did Jesus have to rise? Acts 2, together with other New Testament texts, give us at least five reasons why the Son had to rise again.

1. To Make Good on God’s Word

First, the word of the living God was at stake. Through his prophets, God had long promised to send his people a climactically Anointed One, the Messiah, heir to David’s throne and rallying hope of Israel. And essential to that Messianic promise was an eternal reign (2 Samuel 7:13, 16). Not only would David’s line continue one generation after another, but one great heir was coming who would reign without end (Psalm 45:6–7; 102; 25–27; 110:1–4).

Even in his own lifetime, David himself had spoken of God not abandoning his soul to Sheol — and not letting his “holy one see corruption” (Psalm 16:10), which Christians, including Peter, came to see as one of many old-covenant anticipations of the coming Messiah’s resurrection. Which is how Peter argues in that first Spirit-anointed sermon (Acts 2:29–32).

God’s anointed king would fulfill the promise of God’s word. Jesus was, and is, that Christ. Therefore, it was impossible for him to be kept from that eternal reign. Not even the last enemy could keep him from it. Strong as the power of death may seem, it was, and is, no match for the omnipotent God working for his Messiah.

2. To Vindicate His Sinless Life

Jesus’s life was without sin. He was utterly innocent, and rising again vindicated his perfect human life. Death and Satan had no claim on him because Jesus had no “record of debt that stood against [him] with its legal demands” (Colossians 2:14). With respect to Jesus, Satan and his minions never had been armed; they had no hooks in him because he had no sin or guilt. Rather, in dying, Jesus gave himself, nailing to the cross our record of debt, because of our trespasses, and disarming the demons against us (Colossians 2:13, 15).

Luke sounds the note of Christ’s innocence again and again — three times in the mouth of Pilate, then again by the thief crucified next to him, and finally by the centurion who saw him breathe his last (Luke 23:4; 14–15; 22; 41, 47). Jesus’s innocence — that he did “nothing deserving death,” before man and before God — would be, as Paul celebrates, “vindicated by the Spirit” in Christ’s resurrection (1 Timothy 3:16).

3. To Confirm the Work of His Death

The resurrection also confirmed that Jesus’s death on the cross worked. It counted. It was effective. His dying declaration, “It is finished” (John 19:30), was shown to be true by his resurrection. Had he stayed dead, what confidence would we have that his sacrifice worked, that it was sufficient for us and all who believe? What firm hope would we have that he indeed was not only innocent of his own sin but that his death could count for us, in our place?

“The resurrection confirms that his death on the cross worked. It counted. It was effective.”

Paul writes in Romans 4:25 that Jesus “was delivered up” to death “for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” The resurrection shows that his work was effective — not only in covering our sins with his death, but in rising to be our righteousness — our justification — before the holy God. Which leads to another distinct but inseparable reason.

4. To Give Us Access to His Work

Not only did our sins require a reckoning — by Christ, outside of us — but we also needed to have access to his work, to have it applied to us. Potential salvation is not enough. We need actual rescue, which comes through the instrument called faith which unites us to a resurrected, living Lord.

However sufficient his self-sacrifice might have been to cover our sins, we have no access to that rescue if he is not alive that we might be united to him. But he is alive. As he says, “I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades” (Revelation 1:17–18). There is no great salvation for us if we are not united by faith to a living Lord to have the benefits of his work applied to us.

5. To Be Our Living Lord and Treasure

One final must or necessity is the final necessity: Jesus is alive to know and enjoy forever.

There is no final good news if our Treasure and Pearl of Great Price is dead. Even if our sins could be paid for, righteousness provided and applied to us, and heaven secured, but Jesus were still dead, there would be no great salvation in the end — not if our Savior and Groom is dead. At the very center of the Easter triumph is not what he saves us from, but what he saves us to — better, who he saves us to: himself.

Our restless souls will not find eternal, and ever-increasing, rest and joy in a Christ-less new earth, no matter how stunning. Streets of gold, reunions with loved ones, and sinless living may thrill us at first — but they will not ultimately satisfy, not for eternity, not on their own. We were made for Jesus. He is at the center of true life now, and he will be forever. If there is no living Christ, there is no final satisfying eternity. But he is alive indeed — to know and enjoy forever.

The most widely recited Christian creed, the Nicene Creed, confesses faith in the divine person of the Holy Spirit in its third article:

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets.

While every part of this confession about the Spirit is worthy of attention, the focus of this article is on the rich biblical truth communicated by the words “Giver of Life.”

By confessing the Holy Spirit to be the giver of life, the Nicene Creed ascribes to the Spirit the divine work of creation, acknowledging that the Spirit gave life to all things in the beginning. The Holy Spirit was active in the same work of creation that is also ascribed to the Father and the Son. In the first article of the Nicene Creed, Christians confess faith in the divine person of the Father, designating him as “Maker of heaven and earth.” In the second article, the faithful confess that Jesus, the Son of God, is the one “by whom all things were made.”

The Nicene Creed, then, attentive as it is to biblical categories, is a confession of faith in the triune God, who is the Creator of everything that exists that is not God. The creed presents the divine work of creation as an undivided work of all three persons of the Trinity. Therefore, throughout the rich history of Christian confession, Christians have affirmed that the Holy Spirit is the Creator of the world, along with the Father and the Son.

“The Holy Spirit is the Creator of the world, along with the Father and the Son.”

But what is the biblical basis for this confession of the Holy Spirit as giver of life? Furthermore, is there anything in particular about the person of the Holy Spirit in the work of creation that might enrich our worship and contemplation of the triune God? I hope to answer these questions by demonstrating from the Scriptures that the Holy Spirit is the perfecter of every undivided work of the triune God in the world, a truth that can be known, in part, by examining the biblical teaching on the work of the Holy Spirit in the Genesis account of creation.

Trinity in the Old Testament?

Before turning to Genesis, though, some may question the legitimacy of reading an Old Testament text in explicitly Trinitarian terms. After all, the doctrine of the Trinity could not be confessed by the people of God apart from the incarnation of Jesus Christ, the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, and the subsequent apostolic testimony to these events contained in the New Testament. Therefore, the doctrine of the Trinity is New Testament doctrine, properly speaking.

That said, the doctrine of the Trinity belongs to the New Testament category of “mystery,” meaning that it is always true, once concealed, now revealed (Romans 16:25–26; Ephesians 1:9; 3:1–6). Since the one true and living God always has been the triune God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — it should not surprise us to find in the pages of the Old Testament the revelation of the doctrine of the Trinity. Benjamin Warfield wisely stated that the Old Testament doctrine of the Trinity is like “a chamber richly furnished but dimly lighted” (Works of Benjamin B. Warfield, 2:141). The New Testament provides the necessary light to discern the location and beauty of the Trinitarian furniture that was there all along. With this in mind, we turn to the Genesis account of creation.

Holy Spirit in the Beginning

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). In the first moments of space/time/matter, the earth was not yet a suitable dwelling place for mankind or any other living thing the Lord God would make. It was “without form and void” (Genesis 1:2) because it was covered with darkness (no light) and water (no land). The six-day creation narrative tells of how God subdued the darkness and the water (in the first three days) and filled the newly formed heavens and earth with heavenly bodies and living things (in the last three days). At the end of the sixth day, God declares the finished work of creation to be “very good” (Genesis 1:31), a far cry from “without form and void” at the beginning of the first day.

For our purposes, the most important observation is the fact that this six-day work of creation was brought to completion according to a specific pattern of divine operation: God worked through his Word and by his Spirit. As such, the Holy Spirit is portrayed as the perfecter of the divine work of creation.

Hovering Over the Wasteland

Though the earth is “without form and void” at the beginning of day one, we are given hope that the earth will not remain in this condition for long. “The Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:2). The Hebrew word translated “hovering” (rachaf) is instructive here. This same verb is used only one other time in the Pentateuch. In Deuteronomy 32, Moses says that the Lord’s presence with Israel in the wilderness was “like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters [rachaf] over its young” (Deuteronomy 32:11). Strikingly, the wilderness is described as a “wasteland” one verse earlier (Deuteronomy 32:10), and “wasteland” is the same Hebrew word translated as “without form” in Genesis 1:2 (tohu).

“By the work of the hovering Spirit, God is going to tame the darkness and the water of the chaotic earth.”

Each of these Hebrew words (rachaf and tohu) occurs only in Genesis 1:2 and Deuteronomy 32:10–11 in the entire Pentateuch. It is remarkable that they occur together in the same context both times. This kind of linguistic correspondence, especially in texts from the same author, is not mere coincidence. Rather, Moses is teaching us to read these two accounts in light of one another. When Genesis 1:2 reports that the “Spirit of God was hovering” over the darkness and the waters, we are to imagine a bird hovering over a nest where new life is brought forth. By the work of the hovering Spirit, God is going to tame the darkness and the water of the chaotic earth and bring forth life of many kinds.

‘And God Said’

But the picture is not yet complete. Creation is also brought about through the Word of God. Immediately after we read of the Spirit of God hovering, we are told, “And God said” (Genesis 1:3). This phrase is repeated on each of the six days of creation, with two occurrences of the phrase on days three and six. The point is clear: God creates through his Word. Christians who read the Old Testament Scriptures in light of the New Testament know the identity of the creating Word of God in Genesis 1. The apostle John declares,

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. (John 1:1–3)

John goes on to declare that this same Word “became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). The Word of God in Genesis 1 is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

In the light of later revelation, the Trinitarian furnishings of the creation account come into clear focus. God creates the heavens and the earth through his Word (“and God said”) and by his Spirit (“hovering over the face of the waters”). In fact, the Trinitarian pattern of divine operation is repeated with every creative utterance of God. The repeated pattern of divine speech, followed by the actualization of what is spoken, is a Trinitarian pattern. Consider the first creative utterance on day one: “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light” (Genesis 1:3). The words “God said” refer to the Father, who speaks forth his Word. The spoken words themselves, “Let there be light,” invite us to contemplate and adore the Son, the Word through whom the world was made. Finally, the statement “and there was light” invites us to worshipfully recognize the Holy Spirit hovering over the earth and bringing to completion the word of the Father.

This same Trinitarian pattern can be discerned in every divine utterance throughout the six-day work of creation. The work of creation is an undivided work of the triune God that follows the pattern of the eternal relations of the three persons: from the Father (“God said”), through the Son (“Let there be”), and by the Holy Spirit (“and there was”). Thus, the Spirit of God who hovers over the waters is the perfecter of this divine work.

Perfecter of Divine Works

By saying “perfecter,” I do not mean that the Spirit improves upon some deficiency in the work of the Father and the Son. Rather, I mean that he brings the undivided work of the triune God to completion.

In any divine work, we can speak of the Father as the beginning of the undivided work because this notion is fitting to his eternal identity as the source of the Son and Spirit. Similarly, we can speak of the Son as carrying forward the undivided work because this notion is fitting to his eternal identity as the Son of the Father. Finally, we can speak of the Holy Spirit as the one who perfects every undivided divine work because this notion is fitting to his eternal identity as the Spirit of the Father and the Son. In his magisterial work on the Holy Spirit, Pneumatalogia, John Owen beautifully articulates this truth:

Whereas the order of operation among the distinct persons depends on the order of their subsistence in the blessed Trinity, in every great work of God, the concluding, completing, perfecting acts are ascribed unto the Holy Ghost. . . . Indeed, without him no part of any work of God is perfect or complete. (Works of John Owen, 3:94)

The biblical portrayal of a threefold pattern in the undivided divine work of creation (and all other divine work in the world) is not merely a threefold manifestation of the work of a mono-personal deity. Rather, the threefold “order of operation” is the external revelation of the triune God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit eternally.

Once we understand the Genesis account of creation in Trinitarian terms, we clearly perceive the place of the Holy Spirit as the perfecter of the divine work of creation. And since his place as perfecter owes to his eternal relation to the Father and the Son, we can expect to see the Spirit operating as the perfecter of every other divine work in the world. Furnished with this understanding, our worship and contemplation of the triune God is enriched so that we can all the more profitably confess with the church through the ages, “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life.”

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15225437/how-to-defeat-the-defeated-forces-of-evil

Audio Transcript

Happy Friday, everyone. Do we need church traditions? And what are church traditions? Questions we must answer, and they come in today from a listener named Jerome, who lives in Singapore. “Hello, Pastor John. What specifically does Paul mean by ‘traditions’ in 2 Thessalonians 2:15? Does Paul have in mind the apostolic traditions, or broader historic church traditions, or some other type of tradition?”

Well, this is good. One of the reasons that I’m glad this question is being asked is because it gives us a chance to step back and, I think, address an issue that we haven’t really addressed, at least in a focused way — namely, What is tradition? How should we think about traditions as Christians? A good place to start is, yes, in 2 Thessalonians 2:15, and in Paul and the apostles, but also in Jesus. We’ll get there.

Hold to the Traditions

Let me just start with the word itself to get a definition clear in front of us. Tradition has two halves: tra-, “across” or “along”; and -dition, the Latin word for “give.” The two halves together, then, would mean “to give across” or “to give along” from one generation to the next.

Now, that’s relevant not just for English, because in 2 Thessalonians 2:15, the text that Jerome is asking about, Paul uses a Greek word, of course, for “tradition,” which also has two parts: paradosis. Para, also like the Latin tra, meaning “across” or “along”; and dosis, meaning “gift.” So, it’s the same meaning in the Greek word as in the English word. So we’re really tracking here with Paul when we ask the question, What does tradition, what does paradosis, actually mean? And why does he use the word?

In fact, I would say that’s a great place to start with probing into the New Testament understanding of traditions — namely, in 2 Thessalonians 2:15. Why did Paul use that word here? He says, “Stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us.” Why didn’t he say, “Stand firm and hold fast to the teachings” or “to the truth” or “to the commands that you were taught by us?” Why did he use the word traditions?

Servants of Revealed Truth

The answer seems to be that Paul wants to call attention to the fact that his teaching is in harmony with the teaching that has gone before — namely, from Jesus and from the other apostles. The effect of the word traditions here is to make us realize that Paul does not want to be seen as a maverick apostle, a rogue apostle, a cult leader off on his own establishing a new religion. Rather, he wants to be seen as a faithful part of a larger body of teachers with roots firmly in the ultimate authority of Jesus and his word.

So, the first signal that we get from this text is that there is great value in tradition in the sense that it protects us from novelties that come out of individuals’ own heads with no necessary correspondence to what Jude called “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3).

In other words, tradition, first and foremost, declares that there is such a thing as truth. There is such a thing that our statements ought to correspond to or agree with. Tradition requires us to be humble and to admit that we are not the originators of truth.

“Tradition, first and foremost, declares that there is such a thing as truth.”

Wisdom and right views of reality do not begin with us. We are servants of a reality outside ourselves. It originates in God. It becomes incarnate in Jesus. It is inspired in the mouth of the apostles. If anybody comes along — even an apostle, Paul says in Galatians 1:8 — who declares another truth, beside the one that coheres with Christ and his word and his apostles, “let him be accursed.”

Now, that’s the fundamental reason, I think, why Paul uses the word traditions in 2 Thessalonians 2:15 — namely, there is such a thing as truth, and it doesn’t originate with me. I am its servant, not its creator, not its lord. To believe in tradition in this sense, then, is a mark of humility and faithfulness to the way reality really is.

Received, Delivered

Now, let me give maybe just one example of what Paul calls tradition — namely, his preaching of the gospel. So in 1 Corinthians 15:1–3, he says, “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you. . . . For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,” and then he finishes it.

Now, those two words are the way Paul talked about tradition: “I received something. I delivered it — I handed it on to you.” In other words, when it comes to the gospel, no apostle is called to be creative. He’s called to be faithful. The gospel is not a reality that he is making up. It is a reality outside himself. It has an objective reality. His job is to preserve it, to preach it, to pass it along to another generation. This is the great preciousness and the great necessity of tradition.

Gospel Harmony

Now, that may remind some of our listeners, including Jerome, of a text that sounds almost like a contradiction — namely, Galatians 1:11–12, where Paul says this: “For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.” Now that sounds almost like the opposite of 1 Corinthians 15, but it’s not a contradiction.

What was at stake in Galatians 1 and 2 was the validity of Paul’s apostleship. Was he, in fact, commissioned by the risen Christ, and was he a direct recipient of divine revelation, or was he a pretender to that authority and, just like any other Christian teacher, totally dependent on human tradition? Like me, I’m dependent on tradition — namely, the New Testament, a divinely inspired tradition. Paul’s answer is this: “I’m not dependent on Peter and James and John, but I am in harmony with them on the gospel.”

Now, both of those are crucial: Paul’s non-dependence and Paul’s harmony with them. “I went to visit Peter, yes,” he says, “not because I had no revelation from Jesus, but to make clear to Peter and to everybody that Peter and I are on the same page. We preach the same gospel. There is one apostolic word, and we are in harmony on it” (see Galatians 1:11–2:10).

Dangers of Tradition

Let me make one other crucial observation about tradition. Just as there is good tradition that reflects reality and preserves truth, there’s bad tradition that distorts reality and preserves mere human opinion as though it were an authority — an opinion that often nullifies the very true tradition, the word of God.

“We measure merely human tradition by the tradition that we call the New Testament.”

We know that because Jesus said in Matthew 15:3 to the Pharisees, “Why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?” And then he gives them an example of what he’s talking about. He says, “Many such things you do” (Mark 7:13).

And Paul himself, before his conversion, was totally committed to those very word-of-God-nullifying traditions. He said in Galatians 1:14, “I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers.” And with that zeal for tradition, he was imprisoning and killing Christians. So clearly, tradition in and of itself can be very destructive.

Here’s one more example of false tradition. Paul says in Colossians 2:8, “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, . . . and not according to Christ.” So, all tradition is to be measured by whether it accords with Christ.

The sum of the matter is that we measure merely human tradition by the tradition that we call the New Testament, which is rooted in Jesus and his word and his apostles and their teaching. So the answer to Jerome’s question, then, is that 2 Thessalonians 2:15 is Paul’s referring to the truth that Jesus and the apostles had taught, and that he himself, under divine inspiration, was confirming by his own letter.

A man is hanging on a wooden cross from stakes driven through his hands and feet.

This is the most widely recognized and revered image in human history. Billions of people over twenty centuries have venerated it. Countless thousands of artists have depicted it. Countless millions have mounted these depictions in their homes, carried them in their pockets, hung them from their necks and ears, even tattooed them into their skin. This image of a dying man.

And he is not merely dying; he is being executed. By crucifixion, no less. Does that strike you as odd? That the most famous image of all time is of a man in the horrific throes of death by one of the most barbarous, hideous forms of capital punishment depraved minds ever devised? It’s typically not a sign of good mental or moral health when people fixate on gruesome torture and death — not to mention wearing depictions of it as jewelry. It’s a strange phenomenon.

What is it about Jesus’s agony that has captivated so many? Why has it captivated us? Why are we engrossed in the very moment of his utter humiliation, when he’d been betrayed and deserted by those closest to him, accused and condemned by those in power over him, mocked and taunted by those who gathered to watch the grisly spectacle of his death?

This is what we want most to remember about him? This is the most memorialized moment in history? What kind of people are we?

Morbid Memorial

It’s an important question. This is not the typical way people have historically honored their greatest martyred heroes.

Think about it. How many of the most iconic memorials to our most honored and beloved martyred heroes are graphic depictions of their violent deaths? Why don’t we hang framed prints in our homes and schools of Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King Jr. with fatal head wounds? Why didn’t ancient Greek sculptors create busts of Socrates in the throes of suffocation from hemlock poisoning? Why aren’t the most inspiring portraits of William Wallace of his disembowelment? Why not Mahatma Gandhi being shot in the chest? Why don’t our memorials to fallen soldiers feature images of mangled bodies?

And wasn’t Jesus’s death penultimate? Isn’t the climax of his story and the Christian hope his resurrection? Wasn’t his death on the cross a prelude of apparent defeat that was swallowed up by the victory of his emergence from grave? Why don’t we feature depictions of an empty tomb at the front of our church sanctuaries? Why don’t we hang that in our houses and around our necks? Why have we chosen to remember and memorialize his terrible crucifixion, an event so horrid to witness that it would have made most of us nauseous and some of us faint?

Either we are a very strange people or there is something very strange about Jesus’s death.

How Jesus Wanted to Be Remembered

If we are a strange people for making Jesus’s torturous death a central focus of our private and public remembering of him, Jesus himself made us so. It’s how he wanted to be remembered.

“Either we are a very strange people or there is something very strange about Jesus’s death.”

Before the dreadful event, he repeatedly told his disciples that he must “suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised” (Matthew 16:21). His death was necessary.

More than that, he told them, “I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32). And to make sure we understand what he meant, John adds, “He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die” (John 12:33). His crucifixion would be the great draw.

More than that, on the night Jesus was betrayed and deserted, accused and condemned, during his Last Supper, he instituted a tradition to help his followers remember what was about to take place. He broke bread to symbolize the intentional sacrifice of his body, which, he said, “is given for you.” And he poured out wine to symbolize, as he said, “the new covenant in my blood.” Then he said, “Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19–20). His death is what he wanted memorialized.

And more than that, after his resurrection, Jesus captured in one sentence why his death was necessary and why it would draw all people to him:

Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. (Luke 24:46–47)

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son to be the final Passover Lamb of God, whose willing, necessary, sacrificial death would take away the sin of the world — necessary, because without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin. And henceforth, whoever would believe in the Son would not perish but have eternal life (John 1:29; 3:16; Hebrews 9:22).

The apostle Paul captured in one sentence the connection between the memorial meal Jesus instituted and the gospel proclamation to the nations: “As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26).

The Kind of People We Are

What kind of people are we who are so captivated by the image of a crucified man? The kind of people who have good reason to be so. A supremely good reason. A reason we glimpse in words this man uttered in his moment of utter desolation, words of life he used his dying breath to say on behalf of people like us: “Father, forgive them” (Luke 23:34).

“Our only hope before a holy God is that, in love, he will mercifully provide a way to righteously forgive our sins.”

The kind of people who need forgiveness are sinful people, and that’s the kind of people we are (Romans 3:23). We are the kind of people whose only hope before a holy God is that, in love, he will mercifully provide a way to righteously forgive our sins. And “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

This is what makes Jesus unlike any other martyred hero in history. All other martyrs laid their lives down for a cause they believed worth dying for, but their deaths weren’t inherently necessary to their cause. Given different circumstances, their aims conceivably could have been achieved through other means. But Jesus’s death was inherently necessary to achieve his aim: “to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15). It was a strange death, for it was a moral, judicial, merciful necessity at the very core of ultimate and eternal reality.

We do not remember Jesus’s death at the expense of his resurrection, for the cross would have been in vain without the empty tomb (1 Corinthians 15:12–19). The two are inextricably connected. But this is why Jesus’s death is so central in what we remember about him. This is why it’s the most memorialized moment in history. Because of the kind of people we are.

Behold the Man

Behold this man hanging on a wooden cross from stakes driven through his hands and feet.

It’s a horrid image. And it’s beautiful. It’s tragic. And it’s hopeful. This man is the tortured Paradox. His execution was simultaneously history’s most despicable act of injustice and most noble act of justice, an utterly merciless death and an utterly merciful death, the supreme display of hatred and the supreme display of love.

This is why people like us paradoxically call the day Jesus horribly died Good Friday. This is why we find the cross so wondrous, so captivating. This is why it moves us to sing,

Behold the man upon a cross,My sin upon his shoulders.Ashamed, I hear my mocking voiceCall out among the scoffers.It was my sin that held him thereUntil it was accomplished;His dying breath has brought me life,I know that it is finished. (“How Deep the Father’s Love for Us”)

Have you ever found yourself in a night so black that you nearly stopped hoping for morning?

Some guilt feels so deep that you wonder if you should just lie down and die. Some mental or spiritual midnights feel so thick, and the sky so starless, that a step in any direction seems useless. Sometimes, you not only walk through the valley of the shadow of death, but you collapse partway through, and don’t rise.

Maybe you’ve been there, as I have. Maybe you are there right now. If so, Holy Week offers a fellow failure, an anguished friend, a brother in the darkness. If anyone has tasted the bitter salt of midnight weeping, he has. And if anyone can testify to the miracle of dawn and the drying of tears, he can.

What was happening in those dreadful hours on Holy Saturday, as Peter, sobbing and beating his breast, remembered his three denials, remembered Jesus’s final look (Luke 22:61), remembered how it all ended, and yet somehow did not go hang himself like Judas? A scene from Maundy Thursday gives us the answer: the prayer of Jesus was holding him.

Against the accumulated powers of sin, Satan, and despair, a praying Christ was Peter’s only hope. And ours.

Satan Roars

Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat. (Luke 22:31)

Earlier in Luke’s Gospel, we read the foreboding words, “When the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from [Jesus] until an opportune time” (Luke 4:13). As night falls on Thursday, the time has come, and the devil knows it (Luke 22:53). And so, Satan, after devouring one of the twelve (Luke 22:3), roars for the other eleven.

For three years, Jesus had stood between Peter and the dragon’s mouth, keeping him, guarding him (John 17:12). But now he was leaving, and Peter, like Job before him, would discover how much his strength rested on the hidden shield of his Lord. For the first time, he would walk the valley without the familiar comfort of his shepherd.

Satan demands to sift the disciples: to throw them on the sieve and shake, shake, shake until Simon Peter was only Simon again — clay and not rock (Luke 6:14), a fisher of fish and not of men (Luke 5:10). Here is the real terror behind our darkest nights. We feel like we’re unraveling, as if our testimony is being told in reverse. We fear we’re falling back into a Christless past.

We would, if Jesus left us alone in Satan’s sieve. Thank God he doesn’t.

Jesus Prays

But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. (Luke 22:32)

What words could overcome the horror of “Satan demanded to have you”? These: “But I have prayed for you.” I have prayed for you, Peter. I, Jesus, the storm-stilling, sickness-healing, demon-destroying Son of God. I, Jesus, the Father’s beloved, his Chosen One, whom heaven hears with pleasure (Luke 3:22; 9:35). I, Jesus, have prayed for you.

Peter will still be put in the sieve. But Jesus asks that, in all the shaking, Peter’s faith will not fall dead to the ground. He asks for an ember to burn under the ashes of Peter’s failure — a secret comfort in his weeping, a buried warmth beneath his anguish, a hidden hope that would compel him come Sunday to sprint to the tomb rather than follow Judas (Luke 24:10–12).

“Your night, no matter how black, is no sure sign that your faith has finally failed and fled you.”

In all likelihood, Peter could neither see nor feel the ember. He may have felt inconsolable, sure that this darkness would never see the dawn. Maybe you feel similarly. Know this: Jesus has seen embers of faith in his saints where they saw only ash. Your night, no matter how black, is no sure sign that your faith has finally failed and fled you.

Jesus still held Peter, even from the tomb. So he holds all his people, even when a stone seems to have rolled over the heavens. And we can feel him holding us when we, like Peter, stubbornly refuse Judas’s despair, and labor to believe even on the bleakest Saturday.

In the coming hours, the sun’s light would fail (Luke 23:45). But in answer to Jesus’s prayer, Peter’s faith would not.

Peter Turns

And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers. (Luke 22:32)

When Jesus looks at Peter, he sees the three denials hiding in his heart (Luke 22:34). But he also sees something deeper than his denials, a threefold “I love you” that will survive till Sunday, sustained by his own prayers (John 21:15–17). He sees a man who will plant his feet in the same footsteps of his denials, this time walking in the opposite direction.

And even now, Jesus wants Peter to see himself beyond the coming misery. And so, he doesn’t say, “if you have turned again,” but when. Peter’s perseverance does not rest on the slender thread of his own power, but on the unbreakable beam of Christ’s own prayers. And so it is for all Christ’s disciples. Our deliverance — whether from our own sin or from a darkness not our fault — may seem uncertain on our side; we wonder if our faith will fail along the way. But on Jesus’s side, our deliverance is as certain his own intercession (Romans 8:34; Hebrews 7:25). If we are truly in Christ, our turning is a when, not an if.

And in the matchless mercy of Jesus, we will find, as Peter did, that he welcomes us back as not a slave but a son, reassured and recommissioned. “When you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.” The one who was too weak to stand with Jesus will now strengthen others, his failure having fitted him for a wiser, humbler, more Christward ministry, resting on a power not his own.

Peter now knows the weakness of Peter, the strength of Satan, and the overpowering redemption of Jesus. And the restored Peters among us, who know the same firsthand, are often best suited to strengthen others.

He Prays for You

What might Jesus have prayed for Peter on that darkest of nights? We get a clue in John’s Gospel.

I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. (John 17:15)

“Don’t come undone, and don’t despair, if the sky above you looks black as Peter’s. Instead, hope.”

Jesus did not ask that Peter be removed from the world, where the devil prowls. Peter felt “the power of darkness” on Maundy Thursday (Luke 22:53), and the darkness nearly broke him. But Jesus did ask that Peter be kept from the devil’s devouring jaws. And the Father answered: Peter did not become a Judas.

We may find, too, that Jesus’s intercession does not keep us from nights whose darkness nearly swallows us. Don’t come undone, and don’t despair, if the sky above you looks black as Peter’s. Instead, hope. Pray. Huddle together with the other disciples, and wait for Sunday morning.

In time, something will stir on the horizon of this midnight: a light beyond hope, a magic deeper than the misery of sin or the mercilessness of Satan. Jesus prays for you.

Let’s begin by asking the “So what?” question. So what, if Colossians 1:15–20 is one of the greatest exaltations to Christ in all the Bible? Maybe the greatest. There are a few that come close.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. . . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:1–3, 14)

That’s close.

In these last days [God] has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. (Hebrews 1:2–3)

That’s close. But Colossians 1:15–20 may be the greatest. So, you are about to listen to me for the next thirty-five minutes or so wave my little expository finger, and point toward this Mount Everest of Christ-exalting Scriptures, and then you’ll go home. And the crucial question will be, So what?

I’m going to give you two answers to that question here at the outset from Colossians so you can be testing while I preach, and then when you go home: Is this happening? Is this text having this God-appointed effect on me?

Vaccine Against Error

Here’s my first answer to the “So what?” question. False teaching has begun to infect the minds of some of the believers in Colossae, and Paul intends for the clarification and exaltation of the majesty of Jesus Christ to be the theological vaccine that protects the Colossian Christians from the disease of Christ-diminishing, Christ-distorting error.

Turn with me to Colossians 2 to get three glimpses of the false teaching in Colossae. Notice that in every case the failure to embrace a clear enough and big enough Christ is what makes the church vulnerable.

Colossians 2:8: See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

If you don’t embrace a Christ that is big enough and clear enough, you will be a sitting duck for Christ-diminishing, Christ-distorting philosophy, empty deceit, and human tradition.

Colossians 2:16–17: Let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

If you don’t embrace a Christ that is big enough and clear enough, you easily mistake shadows for reality.

Colossians 2:18–19: Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, and not holding fast to the Head.

If you don’t embrace a Christ that is big enough and clear enough, you will stop holding fast to Christ as the great, all-supplying Head of the body, and take up sectarian strategies of self-improvement.

So, the first answer to the “so what” question is this: if you embrace a Christ who is big enough and clear enough — the way Paul shows him to be in Colossians 1:15–20 — you will have a theological, spiritual, biblical vaccination against a hundred Christ-diminishing, Christ-distorting errors — and they will not be getting fewer in the last days.

Endure and Give Thanks with Joy

Now, the second answer to the “So what?” question. Back to chapter 1. Last week, Pastor Kenny walked us through Paul’s prayer for the Colossians — and for us — which starts in Colossians 1:9. It’s the connection between this prayer and today’s text about the supremacy of Christ which clarifies the second answer to the “So what?” question.

Paul prays in Colossians 1:11 that we would be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience. And then that little phrase “with joy” could go either way, forward or backward. Endurance and patience with joy, or, with joy giving thanks to the Father.

Experientially, I can’t see any difference. We are enduring with patience the pandemic, the political acrimony, the war in Ukraine, churches in conflict, the sexual debauchery of the culture, the heartbreak of lost loved ones. Does it make any difference whether you say: “We are enduring with joy” or to say, “We are enduring, giving joyful thanks to God the Father”? In both cases joy marks our patient endurance in these days, and, God willing, to the very end. Serious joy, thankful to our heavenly Father to the very end.

“Joy marks our patient endurance in these days and, God willing, to the very end.”

But how can we have thankful joyful hearts as we patiently endure these days? Paul answers in Colossians 1:12, because God the Father “has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.” We are not going to be cast into outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 8:12; 22:13; 25:30). Our inheritance is a new world where night will be no more. And there will be no need of sun or moon, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb (Revelation 22:5; 21:23).

And then Colossians 1:13 adds that we have already entered into this kingdom of light: “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son.” And Colossians 1:14 adds that the reason that we guilty sinners can enter that kingdom of everlasting light and joy — it’s because “in [Christ] we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” He paid the ransom with his blood for our forgiveness. By faith we are united to him. And his sacrifice covers all our sins.

Greatest Tribute

Now, follow the flow of thought to see the connection with today’s text. Paul’s prayer in verses 11–12 is that we would endure with joyful thankfulness everything this fallen world throws at us until Jesus comes. The reason we can do that, he says, is because he has qualified us for an eternity of light and love not darkness. And the way he has done that is by paying the redemption price for the forgiveness of all our sins and bringing us already into the kingdom of his greatly loved Son.

“The supremacy of Christ is meant to sustain our joy through patient endurance.”

And at this point Paul is so full of awareness that our thankful, joyful, patient endurance depends on the greatness of the redemption of Christ and the greatness of the reign of Christ that he launches into the greatest tribute to the supremacy of Christ in the Bible (Colossians 1:15–20). In other words, the second answer to the “So what?” question is that, if your mind and heart are captured with the greatness and the beauty and the worth of Jesus Christ in verses 15–20, you will endure the hardships of this life with patience and joyful thankfulness. The supremacy of Christ is meant to sustain our joy through patient endurance.

Supremacy of Christ

So let’s look at the supremacy of Christ in Colossians 1:15–20.

I see at least five ways Christ is supreme in relation to creation — and then three ways he is supreme in relation to the church. Or if you prefer, you can use the word “preeminent,” since that is the purpose of God stated at the end of verse 19: “that in everything he might be preeminent.” That’s the immediate goal of this passage: to show that in everything Christ is preeminent, or supreme — that he is the greatest, most excellent reality that exists.

Supreme over Creation

First, then, in relation to creation — five aspects of his supremacy.

1. Christ Is God

Colossians 1:19: “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.” Even more clearly in Colossians 2:9: “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.” Remember, in verse 13 Christ is called God’s beloved Son. Now we see that the Son is said to possess the fullness of God-ness. He is fully God.

And this divine Son came to earth and clothed himself with humanity. He has a body and a human nature. So Colossians 2:9 says, “In him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.” We call this the incarnation of the divine Son of God. There is now, and forever, a God-man. God the Son never lays down his body. He rises from the dead with it. He ascends with it. He possesses it in heaven today glorified according to Philippians 3:21. And he will return visibly in his body.

They could see him and touch him while he was on the earth. And we will see him when he comes again. I think this is what Paul means in Colossians 1:15: “He is the image of the invisible God.” God is invisible. He is spirit. But Jesus is not invisible. He is the visible God. In John 14:9, Jesus said to Philip, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”

So I would ask you very frankly, Do you worship Jesus Christ? Matthew 28:17 says, “When the eleven saw him they worshiped him.” Do you? Is your Christ big enough and clear enough and supreme enough that you treasure him more highly than any other reality, as very God of very God?

2. Christ Is Before All Things

Colossians 1:17: “And he is before all things.” Why would Paul say that? It is so obviously implicit in virtually everything else he says about Christ in this paragraph. Well, sometimes it is very good to make implicit, glorious things explicit! Things that we just pass over and don’t ponder. I invite you to ponder the fact that before there was anything else, Christ was.

For example, this draws our attention to the fact that Christ’s relationship to things that are not Christ is very different from our relationship to things that are not us. We think that we are creators. We’re not. Not the way Christ is. When we make things, we just rearrange what’s already there. We rearrange chemicals and make a medicine. We rearrange molecules and make an atom bomb. We arrange materials and make house.

When Christ brought creation into existence, he didn’t rearrange anything, because he was before all things. There wasn’t anything to arrange. Christ is absolute reality. Everything else is secondary.

3. Christ Created Everything That Is Not God

Colossians 1:15–16: “[He is] he firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things were created through him and for him.”

“Firstborn of all creation” does not mean he is part of creation. Four reasons:

He is God — not part of what God made. We have seen that already.
The ground of 15b in verse 16 contradicts that he is part of creation: “He is firstborn of all creation. Because by him all things were created.” It would make no sense to say, “He is part of creation because he created all things.”
The word “of” in “firstborn of all creation” does not have to mean he is part of creation any more than my saying, “David is the coach of his son’s little league team,” means he is a little leaguer on the team. “Coach of” means “coach over” and that’s what Paul means here — he is the firstborn over all creation.
The word “firstborn” came to mean, alongside its biological meaning, “having the highest rank,” as in Psalm 89:27 where God says to David, “I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.” That is, not having his origin from the kings of the earth but highest over them.

So I say again, Christ created everything that is not God. And I suspect Paul listed the particular creations that he listed to make sure that the Colossians did not try to make exceptions by saying, “No, no, the thrones and dominions and rulers and authorities do not include evil powers.” Yes, they do! And that’s the point! Verse 13 just said we were delivered from the “domain (Greek exousias) of darkness” and that word “domain” is the same as the “authorities (exousiai)” in verse 16. He made them. And he delivered us from them. They have no independent existence or power.

No exceptions, Colossians. No exceptions, Bethlehem. Christ is the creator of all that is not God. Including all the demons and their political echoes in this world. Is it any wonder that Jesus simply commands fevers, and wind, and water, and demons, and they obey? As then. So now.

4. Christ Holds Everything Together

Colossians 1:17: “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” Christ doesn’t just bring everything that is into being. He holds everything that is in being. This may strike home to help us feel the way we ought, even more than knowing that he is our Creator.

Hour by hour the reason you do not fly apart into a billion fragments and then vanish is because Christ holds you together. And this is true of everything in the universe. Everything that man has ever made, and every body of every man and woman and child. And every mountain and ocean and cloud and supernova — all would cease to be if Christ did not hold them in being.

He holds together the metal on the tanks rolling into Ukraine. He holds together the cellphones in Ukraine that connect the resistance. He holds together the pew you sit on, the clothing you wear, the food you eat, the skin that covers your bones. As your Creator you might think he is distant, having done that work some time ago. But to confess that in him you’re very body and soul, millisecond by millisecond, are held in being is another matter. He is not distant. You are personally and radically dependent on Christ, even if you don’t believe on him.

5. All Things Were Created for Christ

Colossians 1:16 (at the end): “All things were created through him and for him.” What does for him mean? It can’t mean, in order to meet his needs. To be God means to have no needs. Acts 17:25 says, “God cannot be served as though he needed anything.”

“Christ created everything and sustains everything for the glory of Christ.”

One clue is found in Colossians 1:18 at the end: “that in everything he might be preeminent.” Creation exists “for him” in the sense of putting his preeminence on display. He does everything he does in order put his supremacy, his glory, on display. Christ created everything and sustains everything for the glory of Christ! This is why the universe came into being — to put the preeminence of Christ’s glory on display.

Supreme over the Church

Lest you think that makes an egomaniac out of Christ, we turn now, all too briefly, to three acts of Christ’s supremacy in relation not to creation but to the church in verses 18–20.

I’ll name them quickly:

He is supreme as the head of the body. Verse 18a: “And he is the head of the body, the church.”
He is supreme as the beginning of the new creation as he rises first from the dead, the first of millions. Verse 18b: “He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.”
We’ve already looked at verse 19, so I skip to verse 20: He is supreme as the one whose blood secures a new heaven and a new earth where everything is reconciled and at peace with God. Verse 20: “And through him to reconcile to himself all things whether on earth or in heaven making peace by the blood of his cross.”

Apex of Glory: Grace

Here’s what changes the whole idea of egomaniac. When we say that Christ has created everything for the glory of Christ, the apex of that glory is the glory of grace toward his people.

It’s the glory of being the head (v. 18a) that supplies every need that the church ever has for everlasting holiness and joy.
It’s the glory not of being the only one to rise from the dead, but the first one to rise from the dead (v. 18b), bringing with him millions upon millions of people who will be delivered from the bondage of death and brought into a new world of everlasting joy with Christ.
It’s the glory of shedding his blood (v. 20) so as to make peace — to make a new world of only reconciled people in two ways: one is to supply the forgiveness of sins for everyone who believes, and the other is to strip from the hands of God’s demonic and human enemies all grounds for condemning God’s people and dismiss those enemies into outer darkness where they will not in any way infect the new heaven and the new earth.

Bethlehem,

Jesus Christ is our God.
Jesus Christ is before all things.
Jesus Christ created all that is not God.
Jesus Christ holds everything together.
Jesus Christ created everything to display the supremacy and the glory of Jesus Christ.

This is not egomania. It is love. Because the apex of that glory is the glory of grace. It’s the glory of Christ’s supplying everything his church needs to be holy and happy forever. It’s the glory of triumphing over death in bringing millions of believing sinners to everlasting life. And it’s the glory of establishing a new heaven and new earth of peace and reconciliation by the blood of his cross.

What he wants from us is the answer to Paul’s prayer — that we would find strength for all endurance and patience with thankful joy because we have embraced this Christ.

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15221446/dont-we-still-wrestle-with-flesh-and-blood