Written by W. Robert Godfrey |
Saturday, January 29, 2022
Jesus was perfectly obedient to the Law of God. In this way He is the Second Adam. As Adam was created in the image of God to be the obedient and faithful image bearer of God, so the eternal Son of God came in the flesh and was born under the Law to do what the first Adam failed to do. Jesus kept the Law completely so that He was fully holy in Himself and perfectly righteous in the light of God’s justice. Jesus also satisfied God’s justice for sinners who could not help themselves. Although Jesus was perfectly holy and not personally liable for the curse visited on sinners, He took the place of sinners on the cross and bore the penalty and curse for all those in Him.

“Why do we need to talk about sin? We ought to just talk about the love of God.” This comment was not made by a dedicated liberal. Rather, it was made by a woman who is a member of an evangelical church and has enrolled her children in a Reformed Christian School. She does not seem to have grasped much of the character of Calvinism.
Regrettably this comment is not just a strange aberration. In a recently published book, sociologist Alan Wolfe argues that this attitude is wide-spread throughout American religious groups and denominations, including evangelicals. In The Transformation of American Religion Wolfe states, “Talk of hell, damnation and even sin has been replaced by a nonjudgmental language of understanding and empathy.” Most American churches and synagogues today are characterized by attitudes and practices which are “joyful, emotional, personal and empathetic on the one hand, impatient with liturgy and theologically broad to the point of theological incoherence” on the other.
Wolfe is fundamentally sympathetic to this new development. He believes that this common attitude serves the interests of a diverse society that values toleration, cooperation and civility. Religions that are too exclusive in their claims undermine social unity and must be seen as somewhat dangerous and bigoted. For Wolfe, true Calvinism must be a problem for a tolerant society because of its stress on the seriousness of sin and on Christ as the only way to God.
The concern of Wolfe and many others is not new. Such criticism has been directed against Christianity since its beginning. In the Roman empire, Christians were called traitors and atheists because they would not worship the Roman gods. Christians were bigots and dangerous to the unity of the empire because of the exclusive claims they made for their faith.
Faithful Christians have always rejected the call to conform their faith to the desires of those who want to say that all religions are equally true and useful. As Christians we insist that we must talk about sin if we are to be truthful about the human condition. If we do not understand our sin, we will not understand the kind of savior we need. vOur sin creates two problems for us as we stand before God. First, we need to have the guilt of our sin taken away. Adam’s original sin and our actual sin have made us guilty before God and worthy only of condemnation. We need to be forgiven and so we need a savior who can ensure our forgiveness. Second, as sinners we need to have a positive righteousness with which we can stand before God. Adam was not created as a morally neutral being, but was created righteous and holy. So as sinners who want to become new creatures, we need righteousness and a savior who can make us righteous.
The Reformation was a recovery of the biblical doctrine of sin and salvation. Sin was again seen as a problem that could not be solved by human action. Salvation was again seen as entirely the work of God. God in Christ pays the penalty of our sin. And God through Christ justifies and sanctifies the sinner. In justification the sinner becomes perfectly holy in the judgment of God. In sanctification the sinner by grace becomes progressively more holy in his own life.
The Reformation doctrine of justification in particular is under serious attack in our time and we need to be renewed in an understanding of that doctrine and in our commitment to it. One way to do that is to meditate on the teaching of the great Reformation catechisms. For example, the great Reformation doctrine of justification was beautifully captured in a ques- tion of the Heidelberg Catechism. This catechism, published in 1563 in the Palatinate in Germany, was designed to clarify the doctrinal commitments of the church there and to instruct the people of God in the true faith.
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In Christ, we are loved by God with an everlasting, never-failing love, because everything worthy of love in Christ is everlasting and never-failing. The thing that many people seek and never find has found us: true love, “with which [God] has blessed us in the Beloved” (Eph. 1:6). Our “in Christ” identity is also formed by this declaration: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). Without this reality, life is but an extended stint on death row before the inevitable judgment. It’s being in Christ that alone frees us from the prison of sin, death, and hell. When Christ stepped out of the grave, He took us with Him. Our sins are forgiven, our debt is paid, and our guilt is removed.

In Christ. This tiny two-word phrase contains all the comfort, security, peace, and hope that a Christian could ever need. It is the key that unlocks the New Testament’s teaching on the blessings and benefits of salvation. Once you start looking for it, you will find it all over the place—“in Christ” (or its variations, such as “in him” and “in the Lord”) occurs more than 150 times in the New Testament. It is the Apostle Paul’s favorite way of describing our redeemed status, and if you’ll allow it to, it’s a phrase that will shape your identity.
By “identity” I mean the way that you see yourself and how you live in light of it. Of course, the most important thing isn’t how we see ourselves but how God sees us. In fact, the Christian’s aim is to conform his perspective to God’s. We want to share God’s view in all things, including what He has to say about our personal identity. In an individualistic age such as our own, this is becoming increasingly difficult. In recent decades, the world is suggesting subjective and plastic answers to those big questions in life, such as “Who am I?” and “What am I here for?” But in response to the modern and muddled “I identify as” way of thinking, we must assert a definitive “my identity is” mindset informed by the Scriptures.
Here is where our two-word phrase comes into play. The Scriptures attest, over and over, that God views or considers the believer as being “in Christ.” When we understand, believe, and live out what God says is true of us in Christ, we will find objective, unshakable answers to those big questions in life. We will find a true, pure, and satisfying identity—one that isn’t found in us at all, actually, but is found in the person of Christ Jesus.
Union with Christ
Before we unpack exactly what it is that is true of us in Christ, we should ask how it is true of us. How can God view us through the lens of the person and work of Christ? How can Christ’s accomplishments be credited to us? The answer is found in our union with Christ, a mysterious work of the Holy Spirit (Eph. 5:32). As the Apostle John writes, “By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit” (1 John 4:13). The Westminster Shorter Catechism explains that the Holy Spirit applies “to us the redemption purchased by Christ, by working faith in us, and thereby uniting us to Christ in our effectual calling” (Q&A 30, emphasis added). It’s a profound reality: through Spirit-wrought faith, all that is true of Christ—even Christ Himself—comes to us. We are so united to Christ that there is actually a mutual indwelling: He in us and we in Him.
John Calvin, in his comments on Ephesians 3:17 (“that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith”), made this jubilant observation:
What a remarkable commendation is here bestowed on faith, that, by means of it, the Son of God becomes our own, and “makes his abode with us!” By faith we not only acknowledge that Christ suffered and rose from the dead on our account, but accepting the offers which he makes of himself, we possess and enjoy him as our Savior!
The Christian actually possesses Christ and all His benefits. To be united to Christ, therefore, is the sum and substance of our salvation.
Although this union is mysterious, we should stress that it is not speculative or merely intellectual and cognitive. It is actual and vital. Believers live in Christ the way a fish lives in water or a bird in the air—we have no life apart from being in Christ (Col. 3:4). Admittedly, our union might not feel as natural as that. At times, the Christ in whom we live and move and have our being feels distant. Our objective union in Him is not met with an equally fervent communion with Him. When that happens, we search for meaning and build identities on things other than Christ: career, fame, sexual expression, our children—all things that will leave us empty if we try to find ultimate meaning in them. To quote Calvin again: “Our whole salvation and all its parts are comprehended in Christ. We should therefore take care not to derive the least portion of it from anywhere else.”
An “In Christ” Identity
This means that for a lasting identity, we need to return to the sufficiency of our Savior, basking in the truth that all He is He is for His people. There is nothing that I need that I don’t have in Christ.
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Martin Luther once taught us that this is to place all that opposes our God’s dominion into a pile and pray: “Curses, maledictions, and disgrace upon every other name and every other kingdom. May they be ruined and torn apart, and may all their schemes and wisdom and plans run aground” (Luther’s Works [1956], 21:101). “Thy kingdom come” is the positive way of praying, “Destroy every other kingdom that resists your will or stands in your way.”

As the Author reads the final sentences of this world’s story, as the final sheep steps into the fold, as the last martyr’s blood spills to the ground, we hear heaven suddenly swell — with silence.
The hallelujahs halt. As a “darkness to be felt” stretched over the land of Egypt (Exodus 10:21), now a silence to be felt stretches over heaven itself. The burning ones bite their tongues from screaming “Holy, holy, holy!” Saints momentarily quiet their songs about the crucified Lamb. The apostle John reports “silence in heaven for about half an hour” (Revelation 8:1). Heaven, that place of highest praise, sinks into the solemn stillness of an army on the eve of battle.
As all quiets onstage, trumpets are distributed to seven archangels, and the spotlight shines on a priestly angel (possibly the Lord Jesus himself), who wades through silence to stand at an altar with a golden censer and much incense. He is to burn the incense before the throne. He performs what the Old Testament priests once did in the temple, when the gathered people went silent, and the fragrant smell of burning incense rose into heaven. But what cloud of aromas now rises before the Lord? Incense from the golden bowls, the prayers of the saints (Revelation 5:8).
At the end of this world, heaven quiets itself to solemnize the prayers of God’s people, rising as worship before God. John writes, “And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel” (Revelation 8:4).
And for what do these prayers plead? In one word: justice.
Appeals of the Apocalypse
The hushed scene picks up from the intermission of chapter 6, where John sees the ascended Lamb break the seven seals one by one. The breaking of the first four seals unleashes different horsemen, who bring violence, famine, and sickness (Revelation 6:2–6). Hades gallops close behind (verses 7–8). Saints are slaughtered during this period of broken seals.
At the breaking of the fifth seal, John sees their host, “under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne” (Revelation 6:9). In silence, overhear the theme of their prayer:
They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” (Revelation 6:10)
“Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been” (Revelation 6:11). That moment arrives in chapter 8. Silence to hear solemn appeals of murdered saints now crying out for God to avenge their blood.
Commentator Grant Osborne strikes the vital note: “The silence in heaven is an expectant hush awaiting the action of God, but that is not to be just an outpouring of wrath but God’s answer to the imprecatory prayers of the saints (6:9–11 recapitulated in 8:3–4). Thus there is worship (the golden censer with incense) behind the justice” (Revelation, 339). The scent of worship will soon rise from the wrath. God’s sentence against the impenitent persecutors is not just a response to sin’s penalty, but to his saint’s prayers.
Before this volcano, mouths do not open, eyes do not shut. How does God respond?
Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth, and there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake. (Revelation 8:5)
Fire falling, thunder crashing, rumblings, lightning lashing, earth quaking — “Be silent, all flesh, before the Lord, for he has roused himself from his holy dwelling” (Zechariah 2:13). And so begins the final judgment, for verse 5, writes G.K. Beale, “is to be interpreted as the final judgment, not as some trial preliminary to that judgment” (Revelation: A Shorter Commentary, 169).
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