God’s uncompromising nature is grounded in nothing less than His immutability. God does not change, nor can He without ceasing to be who He is. Wrapped up in this amazing truth is both God’s demand for perfect justice as well as His perfect patience and mercy towards His image-bearers. Join us as we explore this uncompromising Word of the Lord and how it is designed to engender within His people a proper fear of the Lord and stir our affections for Him for the great love He has lavished upon us.
Romans 1:18-32 Corruption of the Image
I invite you to turn to Romans 1. This is week 3 of our series in Recovering the Image. We began this series by looking at what it means to be Created in God’s Image. Last week we looked at the Casting aside of the Image. This week is the Corruption of the Image.
So, if you came in here this morning hoping for some warm fuzzy talk, looking to be entertained, seeking unquestionable affirmation for your every pursuit, to hear about just how wonderful you are, well, this isn’t that message. In fact, if that’s the message you came in looking for, then this is likely the message you need to hear. Because I assure you, Paul has recorded this first chapter of Romans, as the emergency cardiac MRI needed to diagnose our failing heart condition before it’s too late.
Our focus is going to be on verses 18-32, but we’re going to begin our reading from verse 16. So, if you would stand in honor of God’s Word as I read from Romans chapter 1 beginning at verse 16.
READ: (Romans 1:16-32)
After introductions and expressing his obligation to preach the gospel to all peoples, Paul launches into the longest, most systematically organized and reasoned articulation of the gospel in all of Scripture. It’s important that we grasp this because the next eighty-some verses—the bulk of these first 3 chapters—are the case against mankind. And it is horrific, condemning, and hopeless… if the letter merely began in verse 18 of chapter 1 and ended with verse 20 of chapter 3.
But Paul’s goal with these verses isn’t to condemn. It isn’t to leave his readers hopeless. It’s to show us our desperate need for the gospel, and the world’s desperate need for the gospel. So, if we get the purpose of these verses wrong, we’ll use them wrongly. They aren’t given to us to condemn others but to show us the dreadful state of our condition, that we might take the gospel medicine made available through the blood transfusion of Jesus Christ.
Paul is not ashamed of the gospel. Because the gospel is the only cure for the horrific state of mankind. So, let open heart surgery begin.
Verse 18. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. God’s wrath isn’t against nothing. God isn’t angry over nothing. God isn’t some short-tempered father, who is set off by the wrong word or look that just happens to offend him, and so he starts hurling objects upon the earth to show his uncontrollable frustration.
God is indeed patient and slow to anger. But just because God is love, doesn’t mean God is absent of wrath. His wrath is His settled righteous disposition against sin and the harm it causes, especially to His image-bearers.
Imagine a young child being bullied, or worse, molested on the school bus by an older kid. What kind of father finds out about it, and simply smiles saying, “don’t worry about it honey, I love you. And I love the kid that did those things. So, you know, I really can’t be angry, because love doesn’t get angry.” You and I both know that is a sorry excuse for a father. Righteousness requires anger at such an act.
For God to fail to show His wrath, as if sin is really no big deal, would demonstrate God to be indifferent regarding justice. Remember, God is the perfection of every good quality, and it is good to be angry over the harm done to others. God must display His wrath against sin. God is indifferent about nothing.
Now, we look around, we see injustice taking place all the time. We have court systems because we’re concerned with justice. And even as divided as our nation might be, neither side wants to set aside justice, even if we might not agree on what justice is. So, to ever think we don’t want a God of justice is contrary reality.
But we don’t just want justice, we want people to be upset about injustice along with us. So, what would make us think we don’t want a God who is upset about injustice. That doesn’t even make sense. The difference is that God’s anger is always perfectly righteous. Our anger rarely is.
But what could have gone so wrong? How have we become so corrupt?
Verse 19-23, explain how we exchange the glory of God for the lesser glory of created things, and that such an exchange is utterly inexcusable.
God created us in His image to image Him. Sounds simple enough. We covered that for the past 2 weeks. But instead of seeking to image God, we decided to do our own thing, actually reflecting the image of the serpent instead of the Creator. In fact, look at verses 22-23. Claiming to be wise, they became fools.
Do you remember the first instant of this? In the garden. Eating will make you wise like God. Verse 23. And they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. That word, creeping things, can just as easily be rendered reptiles, or things that slither.
In the Garden, Adam and Eve, formed in the glorious likeness of God Himself, decided to reflect the thoughts of the beast. And when we decide we’ll live according to our own wisdom, rather than submitting to God’s, we do the very same thing.
I know there are things in this Book that some of you don’t agree with, some things I’m going to touch on in just a minute because it’s part of our text. But the problem isn’t this Book, the problem is that you’ve decided you’re somehow wiser than God. And so, when we find our opinions in opposition to God’s Word, we need to repent.
Moving on. The case Paul makes, isn’t that we don’t know what God looks like, so well, it’s understandable that we just aren’t sure what we’re supposed to reflect. I mean, no one’s ever seen God. So, therefore, I guess we’re off the hook. It must be God’s fault that we’ve strayed so far from the Image. Not even close.
Verse 19. Paul makes the case that we know exactly what we are to look like, because what we need to know about God has been perfectly revealed to us, because God Himself has revealed it to us.
Verse 20. God’s invisible attributes… Paul knows we can’t see God… but that which can’t be seen of God, has been perceivable through God’s workmanship throughout all of creation, in order that all of mankind would be without excuse, or beyond defense.
This is where we get our word apologetics from. Mankind has no reasonable defense to offer for failing to know God and thus reflect God. The issue is not that we have no idea of what God is like, but verse 21, having known God, we didn’t glorify Him as God or give thanks to Him.
The issue isn’t informational. O we just need more proof. Perhaps someone can fashion better arguments for God’s existence. Then maybe we’ll believe. Listen. If you won’t believe God’s plain revelation of Himself within the created order, you’re not going to believe, even should you see someone rise from the dead.
You see, the case Paul is making, is that you don’t need a Bible, you don’t need God’s Word to know the most essential spiritual truths. What can be know about God, that which is most essential to know, God has made plain in creation.
Remember, I’ve been saying how we need the physical in order to comprehend the spiritual. That’s exactly what Paul is stating. God gave us the physical created order that we might know something about Him through it, that we might be in awe of Him who created all of this. From the beginning of creation God has been revealing Himself through the created order.
The atheist who denies the existence of God is without defense when he stands before God. Even should he never have access to the Bible. Because he doesn’t need a Bible to know that which is most basic regarding God. The heavens declare God’s glory. All of creation shouts God’s magnificent workmanship, His power, His goodness, His order, His grace, and His loving-kindness. In fact, the Bible doesn’t even argue for the existence of God. Scripture assumes… or better, asserts that everyone already knows. The world knows; it just suppresses the truth.
Now, let me back up, just so I don’t have to answer a dozen questions about not needing our Bibles. First, you didn’t see me just toss my Bible aside, did you? That’s good.
Here’s what I mean. God’s fingerprints on creation are enough to render everyone inexcusable for their sin. But creation can’t save, nor can it point anyone to salvation in Christ. We don’t need our Bibles to know the most essential truths about God. But we do need our Bibles to comprehend the breakdown and what the remedy is. Apart from God’s Word, we can’t know the gospel, and we can’t know Christ.
So our sin isn’t due to a lack of information, that we somehow didn’t know what we were to reflect. Our sin is due to a heart issue. From our lack of gratitude stems spiritual blindness. Turning away from God’s glorious splendor leaves our hearts in darkness. We’re unable to discern spiritual truths because we can’t see anything clearly apart from the light of God’s glory.
To see how this works, let’s return to the Garden. Thinking that eating the fruit would somehow make us wise, proved to demonstrate our foolishness. Eating was an act of turning from the wisdom of God and trusting in the wisdom of the creature.
Someone might say, But I wasn’t even in the garden! Well, let me ask, do you submit to God’s wisdom? Or do you seek to call your own shots? Only those in submission to Christ, are even capable of submitting to the wisdom of God. Outside of Christ, not only can we not submit; we’re hostile to God. Even in Christ, we still wrestle with this as believers. Otherwise, we’d never sin.
The church is full of episodes when people seek to reason that in this or that situation, they know better than God. I mean, I’m not entirely dismissing God. I’m sure He’s right on most things. And for others, well, they’d probably do well to listen to God a bit better. But as for me, this situation is different. I know my situation and what’s best for me. And God’s Word on this matter just isn’t it.
Perhaps it’s a relationship that’s clearly against God’s will. Well, my wife doesn’t pay the same attention to me as that girl at the office. Maybe it’s taxes. The government has no right to take my money.
But the issue is that we exchange the incorruptible treasure of serving and glorifying God for the corruptible treasure of earthly wealth. We’ve exchanged the imperishable beauty of the King of the universe, for the beauty that will fade.
That girl at the office may have your attention now. But it’s a relationship that won’t last no matter how many years you both have left. But loving your wife to the glory of God as a reflection of Christ and His Bride… that represents something eternal.
That money you supposedly saved yourself by fudging just a little on your taxes, whatever you buy with it will one day rot. But honoring the immortal God by finding your satisfaction and sustenance in Him will endure into the ages.
In our idolatry, we’ve sought to fashion the God who can’t be contained into images that need us, rely on us. But a dependent god is no god whatsoever. But that’s what we have sought to reduce God to… a god that can be contained so that we might have our own way. But do you know what the greatest act of judgment is this side of hell? God giving us over to our sin.
Verses 24-25. Because mankind had exchanged the truth about God for a lie, worshiping and serving the creature rather than the Creator, God handed them over to the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves. Mankind, buying into a lie, has corrupted his glory bringing utter dishonor upon himself.
Verse 26-27. God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Women exchanged natural relationships for those contrary to nature. And men likewise departed from natural relationships with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
God gave them up carries the idea of putting into custody, handing over to authorities, or even delivering to prison. It is important for us to realize that the sexual perversions and its culture of death is in a very real sense an act of God’s judgment. Although God has restrained much sin, He hasn’t restrained all sin. God gave people over to their lust, and the consequences of those lusts.
They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, now they live out a lie. And the most obvious lie is that which runs contrary to God’s created order. O the suppression of truth it takes to live contrary to what is so obvious in creation.
It doesn’t take science to know that male and female bodies bear uniqueness that allows them to fit together in a particular way in which they are unable to do in their sameness. It doesn’t get more basic than that. No sane person could possibly argue that male and female body parts weren’t obviously designed to fit together, whether they choose to use the word “design” or not.
Male body parts are not designed to fit with other males. Female body parts are not designed to fit with other females. The world even proves its recognition of this fact in its naming of hardware and plumbing. Two ends bearing male threads do not make a union. Period.
God designed male and female union to produce life. There is no life created by entering a waste canal full of decaying matter. The only thing such acts produce is shame. The text says that shame is the due penalty for such unseeming behavior. That’s not Josh’s opinion, that’s the Bible!
Even a Darwinist who buys into natural selection is forced to recognize the logic that going against certain natural norms puts one on a path to their own destruction. Simply because technology has enabled a woman in a same-sex relationship to be impregnated apart from heterosexual intercourse does not negate the need for a male partner. That’s true regardless of whether the male partner is known by name or simply a numeric code that identifies the source of the sperm.
The same is true regarding that of two men in need of an egg cell… and a uterus for that matter… which neither are able to provide.
Back to the beginning of our text. God has made this plain to everyone! God’s created order testifies that a society of same-sex relationships will lead to the extinction of that society. Do we now simply justify such relationships because technology has allowed us, in some measure, to bypass this natural order to accommodate our passions that go against that same order?
A society that promotes the validity of same-sex relationships is ultimately a society turned against its own existence, a society waging war against the natural ordering of life… human life… that God has fashioned after His likeness.
There’s no greater evil than defacing God’s image, because to do so dishonors God and is a crime worthy of an infinite penalty. As such, shame, stigma, and dishonor are woven into the fabric of sin’s natural consequence.
Try as it may, society will never remove the stigma and shame that comes from such sexual confusion and distortion. O they may seek to normalize it. But creation itself testifies against it.
Now get this. Paul’s not singling out the LGBT crowd in this letter, although some of the aberrations today, the apostle Paul likely couldn’t have imagined. Paul’s point is not that these perversions are worse sins than others. But he is making the point that such distortion of the natural order should serve as a wake-up call as to just how far we have gone astray.
Because you likely don’t struggle with this particular sin. But that’s not the point. The point is that your sin is every bit as disordered and unnatural as trying to reproduce life through the waste emitting anal canal. Our sin is just as disgusting. Our sin breeds the same destruction and death, because our sin fails to reflect the One who is life.
O how so much of the church prides itself in condemning certain sins yet fails to recognize that the sin of homosexuality is a portrait of sin’s unnatural nature.
Paul’s case is that the exchange we see in sexual relationships between men and women is a picture of the exchange we have made in our worship of the immortal God, exchanging the truth for a lie.
Paul will go on in chapter 2, further making his case that we have no excuse, because we who judge practice the same. The point isn’t that we shouldn’t judge, but the exact opposite, that we obviously recognize some behaviors to be wrong, to be against the God’s glorious image we are to reflect, and that such discernment is self-condemning because we know better. You teach others; shouldn’t you teach yourself!
Paul is about to give a list in the next few verses, a list that is by no means comprehensive, but that is representative of the corrupted image.
Our boastful demeanor, seeking one’s own advantage, the desire to be noticed, seeking the spotlight, disobeying your God-appointed parents, quarrelling, hatred, explosive anger, speaking ill of your neighbor, slandering Biden or Trump or any other image-bearer… is every bit a distorted reflection of God as same-sex unions.
It's not enough to condemn abortion, as obvious an evil as killing the most innocent and vulnerable is. Our sin is just as evil, and just as obvious, because God has made such plain to us. Every sin requires a suppression of the truth we plainly know but hate, because it stems from a hatred of God, finding God unacceptable in our sight.
So we’ll play god! We’ll eat this fruit!
Outside of Christ, mankind is guided solely by the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life. Because man has rejected the God of creation, he has no guiding light, but only darkness. The image has become corrupt beyond recognition.
Lives that disorder God’s image become disordered.
Verse 28. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. The Greek carries the idea that mankind examined God and found Him unacceptable to hold in recognition. Therefore, God handed them over to unacceptable minds to do that which is unbefitting of image-bearers.
You see, if you find the God who is total perfection in all His attributes to be unacceptable, then the only thing left for you to find acceptable is that which is not a reflection of God, and all that remains is that which is debased.
Last verse, 32. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. Paul ends this passage where he began. The world knows. We are without excuse. We know that the God who created all of this, will bring people to account for disordering His good creation. And yet, even knowing, our sin suggests that we find God unworthy of our approval.
And anytime we defend someone’s else’s sin, we are giving approval to the defacement of God’s glorious image. But that’s exactly what the world does. It offers approval to those who practice rebellion against God. Why? Because the fallen human nature hates God. The flesh is hostile to God. We have believed a lie about God, believing that casting off God’s image offers freedom. But instead, we have become slaves to our own passions, passions that will destroy us.
Please don’t hear me as attacking those enslaved by such passions. The world doesn’t need our attacks. It needs our tears. Our hearts should break for such individuals who are on a quest for happiness that ultimately leads to their own misery and destruction. Trying to supposedly find themselves, they run everywhere but to the One who created them.
That’s why Paul has recorded this horrific account of man’s corruption. So that we might see the dreadful state of our fallen condition and turn to the hope of the gospel. That we might be reminded of the horrific consequences of sin, not only for ourselves, but for the weak and vulnerable.
We can’t sit idly by on the sidelines, watching the sick and wounded perish. We have an obligation just as Paul did, because we have the only medicine, the only gospel. The world needs to hear this, no matter how unpopular it might be! Because it is the only hope, the only remedy!
God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of mankind. And that wrath will be finalized in hell. Time is running out. For many, their time will run out today.
But God’s revealing of His wrath against sin will never move a single soul to long-term repentance. Revealing His wrath won’t restore the image that has become so corrupt, that it’s almost unrecognizable.
The only hope of restoration isn’t God revealing His righteous wrath to an even greater degree, but in displaying His perfect mercy by venting the fullness of His wrath on His Son instead of on us who deserve it.
That’s the gospel. That’s the remedy for our heart condition. That’s the only hope for this lost and dying world. The immortal incorruptible Son of God came and endured for you and me and the world the full fruit of our corruption… by taking on a corruptible body in the likeness of our sinful flesh, that He might take upon Himself… on the cross… the fulness of the wrath and judgment we alone deserve.
PRAY
Genesis 3:1-8 Casting aside God's Image
I invite you to turn to Genesis 3. We’re continuing our series: Recovering the Image. Today, we’re looking at the casting aside of God’s image, in which we’ll look at one of the most devastating passages in all of Scripture, and the most fundamental passage for our understanding of what went wrong.
READ (Genesis 3:1-8, 20-24)
There’s no greater calling than the call given to all of mankind, to image God throughout creation. No more exalted calling exists. This is the highest call of any creature. Period.
But in Gensis 3, we see mankind cast aside their call to image God.
FAIRYTALE
To the world, Genesis 3 reads like a fairytale, with a talking beast. The world certainly writes it off as such. But Genesis 3 captures more succinctly than all of man’s best attempts, what went wrong.
You see, if all this brokenness is simply the product of evolution or some other natural physical explanation, then we can’t rightly call any of it broken or wrong. Every moral foundation has been gutted if the world is nothing more than a series of accidents and physical events. Even one’s perception of right and wrong is nothing more than electrical and chemical synaptic transmissions between nerve endings if the physical is all that’s needed to explain why the world is the way it is.
Next week, we’ll look at the suppression of truth that it takes to hold to such a worldview. Most of the world hasn’t bought into that particular lie, but the lie that we can be like God in a particular way other than how God created us. But don’t think this isn’t the same lie that stands behind the atheist’s worldview. They may seek to write God out of the picture, but for the exact same reason, to cast aside God’s image in an attempt to take God’s throne, the one thing that has not been granted to us.
PHYSICAL AND SPIRITUAL UNDERSTANDING OF THE TEXT
Moreover, Genesis 3 isn’t simply capturing the physical. Yes it’s a historic event that happened in time and space. But it’s more than that. Just as man was created as both a physical and spiritual being, there is both a physical and spiritual aspect to Scripture.
God’s Word is written in such a way that our finite minds can put flesh on that which we can’t see. As finite beings constrained by time and space, we can’t comprehend the spiritual apart from the physical.
So whatever you want to make of the serpent, whatever your hermeneutic is for reading this passage, it must take into account that what’s recorded here is more than mere history; it’s a theological rendering of history. The author of Genessis has recorded history in such a way that we might understand history’s theological significance. That’s the case with every passage in this entire book. That’s why it’s in here!
The significance of Genesis 3 is that from this single willful volition to displace God, stems a history of grave consequences for the entire human race.
CREATION MANDATE
Recall the creation mandate from chapter 1:28. Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over all of it. I have found it helpful to summarize the creation mandate as spreading God’s righteous reign throughout all of creation for creation’s good and God’s glory.
DOMINION OVER THE SERPENT
Now, God gave mankind dominion over all of creation and every creature, including this serpent that slithered into Adam’s newly appointed dominion, the Garden. In fact, verse 1 of our text makes it a point to inform us that this beast, this serpent, is under Adam’s dominion. The word translated “beast” is the same word used for the living creatures God gave man dominion over in Genesis 1:28.
WORK AND KEEP
What’s more, in chapter 2 we find that the Lord God places Adam in the Garden to work and keep it. Both of those terms display an aspect of what Adam’s exercise of dominion entails. Adam is not to be passive in his role, but an active agent. He is to work and subdue creation. And the word, “keep,” carries the idea of guarding and maintaining.
So Adam was to actively work to further subdue creation as God’s vice-regent. Adam was also to keep, that is, guard and maintain the order which God had established. But in the first 5 ½ verses of this most catastrophic event, Adam appears to be altogether absent.
So, the serpent, as cunning as he is, is a beast, a living creature under Adam’s dominion. And the fact that Adam has taken a backseat shows that the stage was set for the dismantling of God’s rule and order before Eve ever took the first bite, because Adam had already, at least in part, abandoned the role God had given him.
DISMANTLING
So, let’s see how the dismantling of God’s rule unfolds, leading to the dismantling of the image itself. In your outline, I used the following progression: Questioned, Distorted, Contradicted, Cast aside.
Questioned:
First, we see God’s command called into question. Verse 1, Did God actually say, “You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?”
So subtle. The snake doesn’t come right out in opposition to God’s Word. Rather, the serpent raises doubts as to the woman’s understanding of God’s Word, what it actually means, and how to apply it. This may seem small and insignificant at this stage, but it had the exact effect the snake intended, as we’ll soon see.
Distorted:
After calling God’s command into question, we see God’s command distorted.
Verses 2 and 3. We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God did say, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden… neither shall you touch it, lest you die.”
The woman’s given interpretation of God’s command is clearly distorted. And there are a few possibilities for this.
One: Adam could have failed in communicating God’s Word to Eve accurately,
Or two: Adam could have failed in making sure Eve understood the command. (This has everything to do with discipleship.)
Three: Adam could have misunderstood God’s command, though doubtful. I’m confident that God would have left Adam with the perfect example of discipleship as He communicated His commands to Adam.
Four: Adam himself may have distorted God’s Word when communicating it to Eve, as a means of supposedly fulfilling part of his call to keep the garden.
Think of it like this. If I’m called to guard something, but I tend to be passive in my duties, I might add some extra deterrents, so I don’t have to constantly concern myself with the daily duty I’m charged with.
This happens all the time. So much of our innovation comes from a desire to sit back and relax, so that I can enjoy a little more ”me time,” rather than always taking an active role. Of course, this often proves futile. Nothing is truly maintenance free. Often, the effort that goes into sparing future effort doesn’t spare as much effort as hoped.
(Consider the thief who exerts so much time, talent, and energy to do that which is dishonest, rather than putting that towards lawful and honorable ends.)
Five: It’s possible that Eve could have been seeking to stay the serpent’s hand—in a metaphorical sense, of course—in her correcting the snake and then adding her own addendum.
We tend to do this ourselves. We apply God’s Word in a way we think right, and when others have a different application or interpretation, we’ll quote Scripture… plus some. But God’s Word doesn’t need our addendums. If our applications and interpretations rightly stand upon the Word of God, then God’s Word is sufficient to back them up. I’m not suggesting proof texting. But rather, rightly dividing the Word of truth.
Whatever the case, in seeking to make the point that every other tree was good for food, the truth regarding the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was distorted.
Why does this matter? Because the point of the tree was the recognition that while mankind was given dominion over all of creation, there was still a sovereign over man.
PSALM 8
I find Psalm 8 helpful. When I look at Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have set in place, what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You care for him? Yet You have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings. You have crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet.
You have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings. Is that saying that mankind is actually under the authority of angelic hosts? I don’t think so. I understand that the author of Hebrews quotes the Septuagint, and it does read in that way. And that’s too long of discussion than we have time for here. But the Hebrew actually reads, You have made him just a little lower than God.
God established mankind’s reign over everything… just a little lower than God himself. Why? Because God made man His image-bearers.
JOSEPH
Remember Joseph, after he is sold into slavery in Egypt, he later rises to power, installed by Pharoah himself. This is what Pharoah has to say. You shall be over my house, and all my people shall order themselves as you command. Only as regards the throne will I be greater than you…
Then Pharoah takes his signet from his hand and places it on Joseph’s. He even clothes Joseph like royalty and has Joseph ride in his second chariot, with the people calling out before him, ”Bow the knee!”
Pharoah continues, I am Pharaoh, and without your consent, Joseph, no one shall lift up a hand or foot in all the land of Egypt.Pharaoh even gives Joseph a wife, just as God gave Adam.
It’s really a striking parallel. And that’s the authority God assigned to Adam. Adam was to represent God. Only as regards the throne, was Adam placed lower than God Himself.
Even Paul says, writing to believers, Do you not know that you will judge angels? The only thing not put under the reign of Adam was God Himself. And that’s exactly what the tree represented.
But the serpent’s question causes Eve to distort the meaning of this tree for that of food, rather than that of authority. What? Is the tree poisonous? Why would God create such a thing? Well, yes, Eve. To eat from the tree is to ingest poison, but not at all in the way you’re thinking.
Contradicted:
The serpent’s not finished. The third step in dismantling God’s rule is that of contradiction. Verse 4-5. The serpent responds, You shall not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God.
DEATH
Now, with the woman already distorting God’s good command, the serpent moves the issue back to that of authority. O Eve, forget what God said about death. Have you even seen death? How do you know death is a thing? Or what death even is? Whatever the consequence is for eating, you needn’t bother yourself over it.
This is all too familiar. O how we go about casting aside any concern for the consequence of sin, But that’s exactly what’s taking place when you give into sin? You set aside your concern for sin’s consequence, as if my action here is worth whatever consequences may follow. Otherwise, we wouldn’t do it. We fall for the same lie Eve fell into.
BLIND
The serpent continues with blindness. Eve, God’s rules have blinded you. But eating, defying the command of this God of yours will open up a whole new world of possibilities that you haven’t even imagined. Forget all these rules about this or that being off limits. Reach out and take it! Show your God what’s truly off limits to you! You can have it all!
That same tune resounds today. Rather than deny yourself and take up your cross, the world sings, Take it! Don’t deny yourself. You deserve this!
LIKE GOD KNOWING GOOD AND EVIL
And the serpent has one last thing to say. Eve, the real reason God doesn’t want you to have this, is because eating will make you like Him`, knowing good and evil. You don’t have to live under God’s thumb. You can determine good and evil for yourself. You too can be like God!
GOD’S ESSENCE
Isn’t that what we often boil God down to? The One who gets to determine what’s good and evil? As if God is nothing more than some Being who determines what’s right and wrong. Yet that’s so often how we view God, even as believers.
ASEITY
So, let’s back up. I mentioned it last week, but it bears repeating. The essence of God isn’t found in His prerogative to determine good and evil; it’s found in His aseity, His self-existence. God simply is. He’s in need of absolutely nothing. He is utter perfection and cannot be added to. Hence, the reason God is unchangeable.
We even covered that God exists in community, which means that God isn’t lonely. God didn’t create for companionship. You and I have nothing to offer God that benefits Him in the least… not even our obedience. And yet, out of the overflow of who God is, He created all that is.
In fact, I don’t even think it’s accurate to say that God determines what’s good and what’s evil. Rather, God declares what good and evil.
What’s good is God Himself and everything that flows from Him. God’s sovereign reign emanates from who He is, and likewise, the tree that represents God’s reign is good so long as it is not eaten from. But to eat from it is evil, because to eat doesn’t reflect who God is.
Determining good and evil wouldn’t make mankind like God. Adam and Eve were already like God in the way in which they were able to be like God. They couldn’t be anymore like God than they already were!
CAST ASIDE
But the seed of discontentment was sown. God’s righteous rule, displayed in not eating from the tree, was cast aside, and the woman ate. Sin always takes place in the heart before it is acted upon.
DECLINE
We see this same progression, this same pattern again and again. God’s commands are questioned, then distorted, then contradicted, and finally cast aside. And with the dismantling of God’s rule, we see the decline of God’s image follow the same progression.
Verse 6. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
QUESTIONED:
The question is raised in Eve’s heart. She saw that the tree was good for food. Why would God hold this back if it’s good for food? Is this what it means to image God? To hold back from others that which is good?
DISTORTED
After questioning comes distortion. Eve finds desirable that which God finds abhorrent. O the tree could very well have been beautiful to the eyes. Indeed, what the tree represented was nothing short of beauty. And so long as its fruit remained uneaten, it represented submission to God’s rightful authority. So, in that sense, the tree was a thing of beauty.
But Eve was now looking at the tree through a distorted lens, no longer imaging, no longer reflecting the righteous thoughts of her Creator.
CONTRADICTED
The questioning of God’s image, the distortion of God’s image, now, the contradiction of God’s image, that eating would somehow make her wise like God. But eating would be the exact opposite of wisdom, and the opposite of what it means to image God.
To image God’s wisdom is to think God’s thoughts after Him. God gave us His Word, not for us to determine good and evil for ourselves, but so that we might think like God does, appreciate what God does, desire what God does, recognize good and evil as God does.
But instead of seeking to think God’s thoughts after Him, Eve sees an opportunity to determine wisdom for herself. Rather than reflecting God, Eve begins to reflect the beast. O how we trust in our own finite wisdom rather than the wisdom of the All-knowing One.
CAST ASIDE
And with the decline of the image comes the act that fails to be a representative of God at all. In fact, we can define sin in reference to the image. Sin is any act that fails to reflect God to His glory… a failure to represent the One we are imaged after… image-bearers acting contrary to who they are to image.
Whatever Eve is representing at this point, she may still be God’s image-bearer, but she isn’t reflecting the God she’s been created to image.
And in our sin, neither do we.
ADAM’S ROLE
End of verse 6. And she gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
Before Eve ate, Adam had already failed at his responsibility to represent God well, to image God well.
Adam didn’t speak up when the serpent questioned God’s command. Adam didn’t correct Eve’s distorted representation of God’s command. Adam didn’t step in when the serpent flat out contradicted God’s command. Adam didn’t even stop his wife from casting aside God’s command and eating.
In fact, he doesn’t even rebuke her after the fact! Far worse, he accepts the rebellion directly from her hands, and eats too!
EGALITARIAN COMMENTATORS
I’ve come across many commentators recently, who seek to negate Adam having any responsibility to protect Eve. Perhaps it’s due to our ultra-egalitarian society that seeks to dismantle any perceived gender roles, completely casting aside God’s complimentary roles for men and women. But to set aside Adam’s role to protect his wife is to fail to do justice to the text, especially Genesis 2.
And Scripture doesn’t hold Eve responsible for the Fall; it holds Adam responsible. Jeremy read earlier from Romans 5. Sin came into the world, not through one woman, but through one man! And because of that one man, death has spread to all of mankind.
DEFACED
It’s through Adam, that the defaced image has been passed on to all mankind.
QUESTIONED
When Adam received the fruit from Eve and ate, he obeyed the voice of his wife rather than God. The complimentary gender roles, both of which bear God’s image, were called into question. Rather than leading and protecting, the husband follows the lead of his wife. Rather than being a helper fit for the man, Eve has become a stumbling block.
And what’s true here in the account of the Fall, is prominent in countless households today, even among those of the church.
DISTORTED
Verse 7. Their eyes were opened, and they knew they were naked.
Upon eating, Adam and Eve now have a distorted view of the image. God will ask, who told you that you were naked? The man and woman now see the image of God as a shameful thing, which leads to…
CONTRADICTED
…the contradiction of the creation mandate to fill the earth with the image of God. Instead, what do they do? They cover the image, seeking to hide their beautiful God-given complimentary differences. They already distorted those differences in their roles. Now, they’d hide their physical differences too.
This is becoming quite scary in many public sectors today. You go out to eat at Red Robin or shopping at Lowes, and you’ll be hard pressed to make out whether this person’s a male or a female. God’s image has been severely defaced.
CAST ASIDE
But worst of all, Adam and Eve seek to cast themselves out of God’s sight, and God from theirs. Verse 8. When they hear the sound of the Lord walking, they hide themselves from His presence among the trees.
They hide themselves from the One they are to image! The world hides itself from the one we’re called to image. But so long as we hide ourselves from God, how are we to image Him well? It’s only in gazing upon the Lord that we can even know what we’re supposed to look like. And yet, we hide!
The only way to recover the image is to recover the relationship with the One whose likeness we’re created after. But as the Psalms and Romans make clear, no one is out there seeking after God, not the true God. Instead, the world hides behind idols set up in the place of God, even if such idols are godless such as the atheist’s worldview.
QUESTIONED
At the end of the chapter, we find the man and women clothed in animal skins. They listened to the beast, they acted like the beast, they might as well be clothed as one. That’s how questionable the image has become. In listening to the beast, we have become more beast-like than God-like.
DISTORTED and CONTRADICTED
We’ve become like God in the exact wrong sense in which God created us. We’ve became like God in a distorted way.
We know good and evil in a way that completely contradicts what God intended.
CAST OUT
And now, those who cast aside their call to image God, were themselves cast out of the Garden sanctuary God had prepared for them. Others, cherubim, would now take the position man had rejected, that of guarding God’s earthly sanctuary.
CONCLUSION
So, how do we wrap this up? If nothing else, the Fall shows our desperate need for a Savior if this defaced image to be recovered.
The first Adam, passively stood by as his wife ate, and then passively received the fruit of disobedience from her guilty hands.
The second Adam, Jesus Christ, stepped in as the active husband who defends His Bride—not passively receiving the fruit from her hands, but actively taking the fruit of His Bride’s sin from her guilty hands along with all of its consequences.
“Can you drink the cup I drink,” Jesus asks his disciples. Jesus drinks the poison from the cup of sin, not in passive neglect, nor as falling for the lie of the serpent, but as an act of obedience to the Father in order to save His Bride. And he drains that cup of the curse of sin to the dregs.
Jesus didn’t hide from his Father, covering himself with fig leaves like Adam did to hide the shame of sin. Instead, Jesus allowed himself to be stripped naked on the cross to bear the shame of sin.
And Jesus received the scourging and blows that marred the very face of God. At the end of that scourging, Pilate marches Jesus out and announces, “Behold, the man.” That’s what we had done to the image. That’s the marred image Jesus came to crucify, in order that the image might be restored in us. We’re not quite there yet. But that’s where we’re headed.
PRAY
Genesis 1:26-28 Created in God's Image
PAINTINGS:
My family and I have grown fond of painting over the past few years. Our latest was of a large sailboat or maybe it’s a ship, on the sea reflecting a purple and orange sunset. We’d pull up a video where someone walks us through step-by-step. By the end of the process, while not looking anywhere near as incredible as the original, we’re generally fairly pleased that our paintings look quite similar to the original they were modeled after. They’re not the original. But in many ways, they bear a likeness to the original. Well, you and I… we are the image of God.
SERIES OVERVIEW
We’re beginning our July Series, Recovering the Image. Now, the title, Recovering, implies that something has been lost or damaged, misplaced or forgotten, and to a degree, I think that’s a fairly accurate depiction of the effects of the Fall.
Mankind was created in God’s image. But something happened to that image that requires repair, restoration, recovery. We need to understand what went wrong and what the solution is. But before we can get there, we need to back up and look at just what it is that needs recovered in the first place. So, we begin at the opening chapter of Genesis.
READ (Genesis 1:26-28)
CENTRALITY OF THE DOCTRINE
Few doctrines are as central as what it means to be created in God’s image. Apart from it, we don’t understand who we are or our purpose in life. We talk about it often. But how well do we truly understand what it means. Can you explain it or summarize it to your kids, your neighbor, your co-worker, your friends you do sports or jujitsu with? Now to be honest, this doctrine isn’t any easier to comprehend than that of the Trinity. But the fact that this doctrine challenges our finite minds doesn’t let us off the hook. Because apart from this doctrine, there’s no need to concern ourselves with the gospel. In fact, if you’re not created in God’s image, you have no reason to concern yourself with sin or any moral norms. Because it is only in our being created in the God’s image that sin is so horrific, and that sin can even be called sin.
Our understanding of being image-bearers undergirds absolutely everything about us and how we are to live our lives—from how we spend our waking hours, to how we sleep; from how we live in community, to what we do in isolation; from how we treat others and the environment. And it has everything to do with our relationship with God.
CREATED
In fact, we can start there, with our relationship to our Creator, because what is perhaps most essential to our being created in God’s image is the very first part of that phrase, the beginning of verse 27, So God created man… We are created, meaning we are creatures, and therefore dependent… dependent upon our Creator for our life and being.
We talk about God’s holiness a lot, and how the thing that sets God apart from absolutely everything else is that God is the only uncreated being. God is self-existing. Everything else is created, including us. You and I are first and foremost creatures dependent on God for our existence.
EVOLUTION’S DOWNGRADE
Now, that might strike some of you the wrong way. The world certainly finds such to be repulsive. How much better it is to think we evolved from some cosmic sludge and bacteria over billions of years, than to be even the slightest bit dependent on another! But look around, and you’ll quickly see the fruit of such narcissistic autonomy.
But such a worldview is an infinite downgrade from what we actually are—what we’re created to be! Because not only are we creatures dependent on God, we’ve also been fashioned in God’s very likeness! No other creature can say that—even if they were given the power to speak!
MASTERPIECE
Our sailboat paintings weren’t originals. But they were fairly decent representations of the original. And here’s the thing! They only look as good as they do because of what they were modeled after. And these were done by amateur artists. God is by no means an amateur painter. He paints perfection with every stroke and word. And the subject for His masterpiece… His subject for humankind… is Himself.
Can anyone truly think it’s better to be modeled after sludge and lower life forms than fashioned after God! The only reason for such thinking—which we’ll look at next week—is because we want to be accountable to no one. It’s not enough to be made in God’s image. We want to be God. And we won’t settle for less than that which is utterly impossible.
NOT GODS
God created us in His image. He didn’t create us as God or even as little gods. First, it’s impossible to create God, even for God to create God, for God in His essence is uncreated! This is why idolatry is so absurd! To make a god is for it not to be God.
Nevertheless, what God created was nothing short of a masterpiece, designed to display His glory, unlike anything else. All creation radiates with God’s glorious fingerprints. But only mankind bears the marks of God’s image. So, while mankind is a creature, he’s the most exalted of all creatures. You’re not just made in the image; you are the image of God.
PERSONS
So, we’re creatures, meaning we are created and therefore, dependent on God. But we’re also persons, meaning we have a type of independence, especially as regards the will.
FREEWILL
Now, the term many prefer is “freewill.” I don’t particularly care for the term because it’s rarely defined, and the way most use it often suggests something beyond the freedom Scripture assigns to humanity. However people may seek to define freewill, it does not entail absolute freedom. That’s not just because of the Fall. That’s true in Christ. And it will be true in glory.
Such neglects the fact that we’re also creatures who are, in many ways, dependent. Still, there is an independence in our wills, even if free might not be the best word to describe our wills, especially after the Fall.
ACCOUNTABLE
Because we’re persons, we’re accountable for our actions in ways the rest of creation isn’t. We live in Middle TN, and we face some unbearably hot days. But the sun isn’t accountable for making the days too hot. The sun is simply doing what God designed it to do, all to the glory of God.
DOGS
What about dogs? Many of you have pets. When your dog tears up your slippers, even after clearly teaching him, don’t eat my slippers, you might seek to prevent him from doing it again. You might even try to help the dog equate some form of discipline or consequence with chewing up your slippers. But we all know that the dog isn’t accountable for its actions. He’s doing what dogs do. And he does it to the glory of God.
The dog doesn’t have personhood, no matter how much you may want to treat it as a family member. Some of you might be offended by me saying this, but if you are, then your idea of humanity is warped. And every time, as a society, we seek to exalt animals to the position of humans, we don’t exalt the animal at all. But we do profane the image of God.
OCTOPUS
We recently watched a couple episodes of Secrets of the Octopus. Let me say, octopuses or octopi whatever you call more than one octopus, they are fascinating. They are fascinating to the glory of God. But those producing the documentary gave the impression that the octopus is quite a bit like us, constantly comparing the intelligence of the octopus to that of humans. But here’s the thing. The octopus wasn’t making a documentary on us!
We can be in awe about how the octopus has such a level of intelligence that it uses “tools” such as using an old, abandoned shell for a shield or a means to ambush its prey. But the octopus wasn’t holding a multi-thousand-dollar video camera underwater recording the marine biologist! God created the octopus for His glory. And the octopus lives out its purpose perfectly. But the octopus, as fascinating as it is, doesn’t have personhood. It doesn’t bear the image of God. It bears God’s fingerprints, but not God’s image.
CREATURES AND PERSONS
So, in one sense, we’re creatures, which means we’re not like God in every respect. But in another sense, we’re persons, which means we’re like God in certain respects, which set humanity apart from the rest of the created order. Indeed, being a person lies very much at the heart of what it means to be the image of God.
God is personal. He is a person… or actually three persons in one essence. God possess personhood in perfection and has created us in His likeness to possess and express personhood. So, our personhood seems to be at the core of our being the image of God.
COMMUNITY
In verse 26, God said, “Let us make man in our image.” Let us reveals something about God that has been communicated to us in our personhood. God exists in community: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. When God creates mankind, He fashions us in His likeness to exist how? In community. Verse 27. Male and female… He created them.
GENDER
Gender is not irrelevant to the image of God. God didn’t create us as nonbinary beings. He created us male and female in order for us to reflect an aspect of the Godhead, that God exists in community. God designed us as male and female as a portrait of community. And do you know what the first community is that God created? Marriage! Marriage is the first community in creation. And from marriage comes family—the expansion of community. Marriage is necessary for us to fulfill a major aspect of the creation mandate to be fruitful and multiply.
OVERFLOW OF COMMUNITY
In fact, it’s from within the community of Himself that God creates us to be in community. The text doesn’t say, “let me make man in my image.” It’s not just the Father who made man in His likeness. The entire Trinity, out of the overflow of the Godhead’s community, created mankind in the likeness of that community. And only through the community of marriage do we reproduce what God has created us to be.
MARRIAGE AND GENDER
So, for a culture that has sought to diminish and destroy the concept and import of marriage… for a society that has sought to distort and redefine male and female… marriage and gender are essential to displaying the image of God. Male and female together display the image of God more fully than man does by himself.
NOT GOOD
If we jump into Genesis 2, the first thing in all of creation said not to be good, is that of man being alone. By himself, man fails to image the intimate community of the Godhead. With that said, neither male nor female is any more or less the image of God. Both image God because both male and female have been created in God’s image.
MALE AND FEMALE
So, we’re creatures—not completely like God. We’re also persons, making us very much like God. And our maleness and femaleness are essential, but not in a way that makes one sex more or less the image of God than the other. Which raises the question of physical characteristics. Because obviously, men and women have different physical features. And if we look around the room, at the person beside you, in front of you, and behind you, you’ll notice that while we have many similarities, there are quite a few differences too.
PHYSICAL FEATURES
Although those physical features we’ve been designed with aren’t irrelevant to the image, we need to recognize that the physical is not what makes us the image of God. We can ask it like this: Does God have physical features? No. At least not until the incarnation.
God is Spirit. We learn that from John 4, and the account of the woman at the well. This Samaritan woman seeks to debate with Jesus as to where the correct place to worship God is, as if God is somehow confined to a locality. But what is Jesus’ response. ”God is spirit, and those who worship must worship in spirit and truth.”
DISPLAY THROUGH PHYSICAL
So, it’s not our physical features that make us the image of God. Still, we do display the image through our physical features, through the members of our body. Or we might say, the physical is not in and of itself the image but is for the manifestation of the image.
The Bible often speaks of God’s arm as in His might; or God’s hand as in His works; or God’s face as in His presence; or as Sherif has taught us, God’s nostrils, which depending on whether they’re long or hot, lets us know something of God’s anger and longsuffering.
So, while God may not have a body, your body is part of your being created in God’s image. You display God through your body. But that also means that the absence of any physical feature doesn’t make you any less the image of God.
FAMILY PHOTOS
One of the things I love to do when visiting anyone’s home is to look at their family photos. We were over at the Comb’s house a few months ago, and like most they had their family photos throughout the living room. And in some of the photos was a handsome young man with a full head of hair. Now, imagine Gayla, having a photo she carries around of Steve from his younger days, staring at that photo throughout the day, talking to that photo, hugging the photo, spending as much time as she can with this photo. But the photo isn’t Steve! It’s an image!
PORTRAIT VERSUS PERSON
There’s no community Gayla is going to enjoy with an old photo. O I’m sure it brings many fond memories to mind. But I guarantee, Gayla would rather spend time with Steve the person. The hair doesn’t make Steve who he is. Steve is no less Steve with or without hair. But that photo is no less the image of Steve. And get this, every picture of Steve in that house, regardless of the amount of hair, is every bit the image of Steve.
INFANT AND EMBRYO
You might find this a silly illustration. But we have a young couple who just had their first child, Mallory Elaine. Now, Mallory didn’t always have that name. There was a time she was awaiting her name. But even before the name was given, she was every bit Mallory Elaine then as she is now.
With today’s technology, you know what we’re able to do? We’re able to take pictures… images of little girls like Mallory before we even know she’s a girl, long before all her physical features have developed. Even then, the ultrasound was no less the image of Mallory. From before the earliest ultrasound… until the last breath of the 90-year-old dementia patient, a person is never more or less the image of God.
VALUE OF HUMAN LIFE
While the world may want to devalue life based on cognitive ability or one’s ability to contribute to society, the Bible places the value of human life as most precious at any stage of life, simply because mankind is the image of God. Which is why the Bible promotes capital punishment for capital crimes. Because it is a capital crime to do violence to the image of God. Even after the Fall, God says, “whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in His own image.”
VIOLENCE TO THE IMAGE
Whether murdering that image in the womb through abortion, or taking a life through euthanasia, to do violence to the image of God is to do violence to God Himself. To mutilate a girl or boy who is confused because of the godless rhetoric filling their young minds is to do violence to the image in which God created them. And those who commit such violence against God will be held accountable.
JUSTICE AND MERCY
O we praise the God of justice. Don’t ever think we don’t want justice but only mercy. That’s nonsense. We need both! God forbid that violence to His image-bearers would go unpunished! But praise be to the God who has meted out that justice at the cross. Because we are all guilty of doing violence to the image of God to one degree or another.
So, while God is spirit, our bodies are not irrelevant to the image of God. Rather, your body’s been designed in such a way that through it, the image of God is displayed outwardly and manifestly to creation.
BODY AND SOUL
But we’re not just bodies. We have souls. We’re not simply physical beings, but also spiritual. The term theologians use is psychosomatic. Psycho, meaning soul, and soma, meaning body. We are embodied souls. Or as Anthony Hoekema puts it, we are a psychosomatic unity. We aren’t divided between a body and soul as if there are two parts to us. We exist—body and soul—as a whole being.
Regarding this body/soul aspect, Calvin says, and I think he’s right, “The seat of the image of God is found in the soul. The inner person—that of the soul—shines forth in the outer person—that of the body.” In fact, due to the Fall, we will all , one day, unless the Lord returns first, shed these bodies for a time. But we’ll be no less who we are.
IMMORTAL SOUL
God created our souls to be immortal. Not self-existing as God Himself is, but immortal in the sense that the soul will continue on into eternity. Our persons will reap eternally the fruit of the works done in the body, whether for good or for ill.
I believe it’s safe to say that our personhood, we discussed earlier, is found in the soul, which is why, regardless of what happens to the body, or any of your physical abilities, you are no less you.
PERSONALITY
I have a dear friend, Eddie, who’s had his leg amputated. And although getting around may be more difficult for Eddie than in the past, he is still fully Eddie. Because his leg isn’t what makes him who he is. Eddie is a person who has a personality, and a beautiful personality at that. I think of the things that I tend to grumble and get frustrated over. And here, I have this friend who has it far more difficult than me. And yet, Eddie’s one of the most grateful and hopeful people I know.
NONPHYSICAL
Because God is spirit, and doesn’t have a body, many have equated or linked the image of God solely to the nonphysical attributes such as our rationality, creativity, self-awareness, ability to communicate and have intimate relationship with other image-bearers rooted in knowledge of personhood. And while I find all that helpful, let’s take one of those attributes, such as rationality, and test it.
RATIONALITY?
Is the image of God that of rationality? We can indeed rationalize like no other creature. That’s true. God is no doubt a rational being. The Son of God, the Logos, as in the Word became flesh, implies logic. But is rationality the all-important quality of our Creator?
God is many things beyond wise and rational. As such, our imaging of God goes beyond man’s intellect and rational capabilities. In fact, we could argue that with sin entering the world, man is quite irrational. And yet the Bible, even after the Fall, holds mankind to be the image of God, even if that image is severely marred. (Next week.)
PURPOSE
Which really means, if we are to understand what it is to be the image of God, we need to look at, not so much what exactly the image is, as much as what’s the purpose of the image. Because the answer to” what is the image of God” is quite simple. You are! What we need to know is why this matters. What’s the purpose of making us in God’s image? The answer is found in both our being and our function.
ONTOLOGICAL
As God’s image, we are, ontologically, a representation of who God is and what God is like. More than anything else, that’s at the core of what it means to be made in God’s image. The reason for the second commandment, not to make any carved image to represent God is because God has already carved His representation. You!!!
God created a mirror in which to reflect His image upon the earth.
MAKE GOD VISIBLE
In man, God becomes visible on earth. To quote Hoekema again, “To be sure, other creatures, and even the heavens declare the glory of God, but only in man does God become visible. … No higher honor could have been given to man than the privilege of being an image of the God who mad him.” (p. 67.)
To see what God is like, all creation should have needed to do was to look at you! Now that’s a high calling! And that’s the calling we shunned.
REPRESENTATION
But that’s what you are—a representation of God. And what you are goes hand-in-hand with your purpose, your function. Because you are God’s image, you are to image God. Because you are a representation of God, you are to represent God… and represent Him well.
To do anything less is to fail to live up to your purpose in life. Why do people often find life meaningless, running here and there looking for purpose? It’s because they reject the purpose for which they were made. We were made to image and represent God.
CREATION MANDATE
We see this in the creation mandate. Verse 28
When God created, He brough order out of that which had no order. And so God designs mankind to subdue creation, bringing order where there is no order.
As Creator, God has dominion over all things. So, as God’s representatives, He has given us dominion over the works of His hands. And that dominion extends to the heavens where the birds fly, to the depths of the sea where the fish swarm, to the ends of the earth and every living creature that roams upon it.
And just as God reproduced, creating in His likeness out of an overflow of His being, God calls us to reproduce image-bearers so that His image might fill the earth as the waters cover the sea.
HIGHEST CALLING
The creation mandate has everything to do with us being image-bearers. To whom much is given, much is required. Don’t neglect this most exalted of callings. Whether you head a nation or a household, whether you save lives as a paramedic or nurture lives as a newborn’s mother, whether you clean gutters or toilets, whether you change another’s diapers or find yourself at an age in life beginning or end, where someone has to assist you in changing, don’t be ashamed. The call for each is the same… that of imaging God, including His humility!
FASHIONED AFTER CHRIST
You see, when God fashioned Adam out of the dust of the ground in Genesis 2, we read later that Adam wasn’t simply patterned after some abstract idea of God, but that he was patterned after Jesus Christ himself. How could that be?
Well, Romans 5:14 tells us that Adam was a type, a copy, a pattern of the One who was to come. Even before Jesus was born as a babe in Bethlehem, God patterned all of mankind after the person of Jesus, the God-man himself, who is the exact imprint of God.
RECOVERING
You were fashioned after the likeness of Christ! O I hope you get that! Everything Jesus is in his humanity is what you and I were created to be! Everything! And O how far we had strayed from that image. But the story’s not over. The image is being recovered. So hang with us until the end. Because the goal is for Christ to be formed in you and me. And by God’s grace, we’re going to get there. Let us pray.
Jeremiah 29 - Seeking the Shalom of Babylon - part 2: Pray
I invite you to turn to Jeremiah 29. We’re continuing to look at this chapter with a view to seeking the welfare or the shalom of Babylon. Last week we looked at God’s sovereign hand being the hand that ultimately sent His people into exile, and that exile, in a very real sense was a mercy. The rest of Israel and Judah are not so fortunate. We also looked at the initial part of God’s commission to the exiles to build, plant, marry, have kids, and multiply, not as citizens of Babylon, but as resident aliens. Today, we’re going to focus on verses 7 and 11, looking more closely at what it means to seek the welfare of Babylon.
So in honor of God’s Word, please stand as your able, as I read from Jeremiah 29, beginning at verse 7.
READ: Jeremiah 29:7-14
PRAY
Now, I’ll often post highlights of Sunday’s message throughout the week, and I mentioned, as I did last Sunday, that CONTEXT MATTERS. Jeremiah 29:11, I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope, is written to elect exiles commissioned to seek nothing less than the comprehensive welfare of Babylon, the land of their exile. In other words, the way Jeremiah 29:11 is often used, is completely removed from its context.
Well, not surprisingly, there were those who took it as me suggesting that Jeremiah 29:11 has nothing to do with the church, or believers in general, as if the promises of the Old Testament are for Israel, and the promises of the New Testament are for the church. But such couldn’t be further from the case. Every promise of the Old Testament, including Jeremiah 29, finds its YES in Christ and is therefore applicable to the church (2 Corinthians 1:20).
But we can only apply the promises of the Old Testament, rightly to the church — we can only apply the promises the way Paul himself does, if we read our Bibles — our Old Testaments — the way Paul read his, the way Peter read his, indeed, the way Jesus interpreted His Bible. And if we are to trust anyone’s interpretation of the Old Testament, it best be the Author Himself, who says, “It’s all about ME!”
The whole of the Old Testament, including Jeremiah 29, is about Christ, the ultimate seed of promise, and His offspring. In Christ, you and I are elect exiles called to seek the welfare of Babylon.
1 PETER
In fact, 1 Peter is an excellent place to see this. Perhaps you should jump there so you can put your finger on it. Peter has Jeremiah 29 very much in mind when writing his first epistle. To give a glimpse of what Peter’s doing, 1 Peter 1:1, he opens with the greeting: “To those who are elect exiles of the dispersion.” The dispersion simply refers to the scattered church, just as Israel was scattered among the nations when she was sent into exile. Turn to the end of Peter’s letter, 5:13, and you’ll notice he wraps up his letter, further capturing the thrust of Jeremiah 29. “She who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings.”
Now, Babylon, in Peter’s letter, in one sense, likely refers to Rome. But when we understand the canonical context, that all the cities, nations, kingdoms of man are represented by Babylon, which, as we’ve covered, goes back to Babel in Genesis 11. We recognize that the entire church is in exile in Babylon. The main point of Peter’s letter is a call to suffer for the sake of righteousness—for doing good in a world hostile to God and His people, in order that we might have a testimony to the world for the hope that is in us.
The life of the believer is not first and foremost about seeking your own personal welfare. Instead, just like Jeremiah 29, we are to seek the welfare of wherever exile finds us until Christ brings us home. The promise that helps us to persevere in seeking the welfare of none less than our enemies is that we can trust the Lord’s plans for us, because those plans are always good.
Now, if you’re living for yourself, then the promise of Jeremiah 29:11 is not yet yours, because you’re not in Christ. The promise is for God’s elect exiles, those who are in Christ, not for those who are at home in Babylon. When you come to Christ, you are immediately placed in exile, no longer at home in the world. Your citizenship is not in heaven.
So this passage, if you’re in Christ, very much applies to you. But in applying it, we don’t set aside the original context, we allow the fullness of Scripture—the whole of redemption history—to fill up what this text means, and in particular, what it means for us as elect exiles in Christ.
ADDING IT ALL UP:
So, that’s the angle I’m approaching our text. I’m not setting aside the rest of redemption history and isolating this passage from the rest of what the Bible teaches us. That would be like us trying to figure out how many screws we needed for our new gaga ball pit we just put together and saying, “I’m going to forget how to multiply for a minute because we’re not there yet.” So, lets see, we have 20 screws on each end of 8 frames. So we need to add 20 plus 20 plus 20, 16 times. Or maybe we’ll set aside addition too and just individually count the places where each screw goes until we get to 320.
That would be absolutely ridiculous, but that’s how some people suggest we are to read the Bible. Let’s set Christ aside until we get to Him in the New Testament. If that’s the case, we can just rip out the first 4/5ths of this book because it really has little to do with us. NO!!! All Scripture is profitable, and it’s profitable because it applies to us in Christ.
Now, that’s a very long introduction, just to say, Jeremiah 29 indeed applies to us today, every bit as much as it did to the people of Judah who were far removed from their homeland. In Christ, we are far from our homeland. We’re in exile in Babylon. And we’re called to seek the welfare of the city where God has sent us into exile, for—verse 7 says—in its welfare, you will find your welfare.
ILLUSTRATION: BLOWING LEAVES
Over the winter, almost immediately after cleaning up the fallen leaves from our yard, our neighbor removed the leaves from their yard. But they did their leaves a bit differently than we did ours. Our leaves were blown and gathered into the woods and the compost pile. Our neighbor’s leaves were blown into the street directly across from our house, awaiting the next blustery winter gust to provide us an opportunity to re-remove the leaves from our front lawn all over again.
Now, you could be like me and grumble about the leaves poised to raid our yard. (Yes, your pastor is still very much a sinner who finds plenty to repent of daily.) Or you could be like my much more sanctified wife, who reasoned with our then 14-year-old. We can pick up the leaves while they’re somewhat piled together along the street, or we can wait and have the whole yard to clean up again later this week. So, with wheelbarrow and rakes in hand, Jenny and Chase took to the street, and in a matter of minutes the leaves were no longer arrayed against our freshly cleared front lawn. (I’m making it sound as if we keep our yard all that manicured… we don’t!)
Now, in one sense, this was a kind gesture to our neighbors, not just the ones who blew the leaves, but all who would enjoy cleaning up the leaves once the wind caught hold of them. But understand, the motive wasn’t so much our neighbor’s welfare, but ours.
BETTER CURB APPEAL
That’s not at all the call here in Jeremiah 29:7. Hey, clean up the mess in the city, so that while you live as resident aliens across the street, you’ll enjoy better curb appeal.
Many have equated seeking the welfare of the city to be that of helping further the city’s economy, the education systems, civil justice, and so on. You help aid the economy; you’ll tend to be wealthier too. You keep the neighborhood clean and welcoming, the value of your home will increase, and your quality of life will be more pleasurable. Better schools mean better education for your kids too. And of course, who doesn’t want to live in a more just society. Partner with the city—partner with Babylon—and you’ll be a beneficiary of what Babylon produces.
But here’s the problem. Babylon has a vastly different take on these most basic structures of life than God and His people do. For starters, the world’s view of welfare, peace, shalom, is not at all aligned with God’s. The world sees peace and welfare as that of affirming and supporting others in their agendas and ideologies regardless of how displeasing to God they might be. And if you don’t want to affirm, at least keep quiet and stay out of the way.
WORLDLY PEACE VERSUS WELFARE
Well, let’s consider it like this. Your toddler likes playing with the electrical outlet, sticking whatever she finds in it. Who’s going to suggest that non-interference is the way to go. I’ll just let her make up her own mind. It’s her body. It’s her life. Now, allowing her to do what she wants might prevent a tantrum, if that’s what you want to call peace, but it’s not seeking her welfare.
Your teen wants to hang with his girlfriend at the house while no one else is home. Do you think honoring his wish is truly seeking his welfare? O it might provide some superficial peace between you and him, but only superficial. There’s no true peace inside for the parent who desires the genuine welfare for their teen son. And there’s no peace for your son in his pursuit of ungodliness. Far from it! It will leave his soul in turmoil.
Your child wants uninhibited unsupervised access to the internet and pushes back at the boundaries you set. Do you really think giving into her desire is seeking her welfare? You may find life a bit easier in laying aside your role of training her up in the way she should go; you may find less hostility towards you by not standing in the way of her supposed freedom; but don’t ever think that supporting others in their godless pursuits is a means of seeking their welfare.
Your female student wants to be called “he.” Your nephew wants to take on a girl’s name. You’re not seeking their welfare by catering to their wishes. It takes a love that far surpasses the world’s understanding of love, to love them enough to say, “I can’t support you in this. I can’t support you in this because I love you, and I desire the best for you. This may cause you to think I’m against you, but I’m not. I’m against the pursuits that bring harm to you, even if you don’t recognize the harm.”
COMPREHENSIVE PEACE
You see, shalom, in a sense, means peace, but it’s more than simply peace between you and your neighbor, as in easing their hostility towards you for not getting onboard with their pursuits. It’s a comprehensive peace that impacts the whole person, including their relationship with their Creator.
Aiding and abetting others in activities and pursuits that lead them deeper into love for the things of Babylon and further from the God who created them is not at all seeking one’s welfare but assisting in their destruction. We’ve got to love our neighbors more than that.
BABYLON’S HOSTILITY
Now, we have a great dilemma, just as Judah did when they were sent to Babylon. How are they to seek the shalom of the nation that took them captive? Babylon has torn down and destroyed everything Israel and Judah valued and held dear, including the temple. The problem is that Judah and Israel’s values were every bit as misaligned as Babylon’s. Otherwise, they would have never gone into exile to begin with.
Israel was to be a light to the nations, but they were anything but. They may have worshiped in God’s temple, but they didn’t worship the God who caused His name to dwell there. In fact, they worshipped the same things Babylon worshiped. So what did it matter if they were removed from one plot of ground to another. Their hearts couldn’t be any further removed from God than they already were while in Jerusalem.
And that’s the boat we were in when Christ came and found us. We were as far from God as we could possibly be. So, how are we to seek the shalom of a nation hostile to God, a nation that celebrates immorality at every level, a nation that is self-righteously opposed to God Himself?
FIRST PRAY
The first thing we need to do is found in the text itself. We are to pray. The first thing we should do in our seeking the shalom of Babylon, is to pray to the Lord on its behalf. We pray for the city’s good, recognizing that worldly flourishing and godly flourishing are not the same.
It’s so easy to grumble over the city. It’s so easy to read and watch the news and grumble over the state of our nation. It’s so easy to grumble over our neighbor’s leaves. It’s so easy to grumble over the world’s godless ideologies. But we’re not called to grumble. We’re called to pray. They’re lost! Did you forget that? And there was a time your Shepherd had to come and find you because you were lost too.
But I assure you, before you were found, there was someone praying for you, for your welfare, for your greatest shalom—peace with God Himself. Now that you’ve been found, it’s your turn to pray.
ACT ON BEHALF
And those prayers should also turn into action. It’s not enough to pray and pray, yet never lift a finger. God has called us to a faith that works. While shalom means comprehensive peace and wholeness, we can err on exalting the spiritual needs so much that we completely neglect the physical. Now we have to be careful in discerning what’s truly a need for someone’s welfare, especially in prosperous America.
I find James 3 helpful. If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?
We’ve got to care for people’s physical needs, especially when they cross our path. That’s what love does!
I was so encouraged recently to see this in action when such a physical need was presented to our church. In all honesty, at first, many of us weren’t quite sure how we could even manage this. Our congregation isn’t very big. Some of the need would require strong backs for heavy lifting, of which we were limited.
One Saturday morning, I stepped away from a meeting where the consensus was that this need was really beyond our capacity. But we prayed. The next day, Bill assessed the situation personally, and came up with a game plan. And here’s the thing, we proceeded in faith, unsure how it would all work out. We ended up with plenty of bodies, assisting on multiple days, from at least four different churches. God is so good.
PHYSICAL OR SPIRITUAL
The physical needs matter, along with the spiritual. And in our seeking the physical welfare of our neighbors, we let them know our motivation is Christ. Why? Because we don’t just care about the physical. We care about the physical and the spiritual, the temporary and the eternal.
I think John Piper captures our call to seek the welfare of the city best. “Christians care about all suffering, but especially eternal suffering.” Seeking the shalom of Babylon calls us to respond to human suffering.
FIND YOUR WELFARE
Now, we have to deal with the end of verse 7. For in seeking the city’s welfare, you will find your welfare. We pour out our lives for the welfare of the city, because in its welfare we find our welfare also. How so?
To live is Christ, a life poured out in service to others for their good. Our gain is in heaven! That’s where our reward is! It’s not here!
But how many “Christians,” rather than seeking shalom for Babylon, are seeking their own little shalom, their own personal welfare in the city first. “Self-care” is a popular thing among Christians today. Someone shared the other day that “Whilewe run the streets taking care of others, make sure you take time to put your feet up too... Today… just be good to yourself. You are worth it!”
But the text doesn’t say, make sure to seek your own welfare. It says, in seeking the shalom, the peace of the city, that is, the people who make up the city, you will find your peace. What peace! What shalom can you possibly have living in a society marching to hell while your legs are propped up, and you’re kicked back in your easy chair thinking, “Hey, I got my shalom. I got my Jesus. So, I’m kind of good with whatever happens to you guys. Go find your own shalom. I found mine.”
That’s not a heart of one who knows the sovereign grace of God, that rescued you from the deadness of your trespasses and sins. That’s not the disposition of our Savior. He wept over the city! He served and got His hands dirty! He proclaimed the hard words people needed to hear despite their hostility towards Him! And He bled for the city, all so that some might be saved and find everlasting shalom.
So, as resident aliens, we have a purpose—seeking the shalom of Babylon. We’ve been planted right here, right where we are at this particular moment in history to be a living witness of God’s goodness that people might come to know the shalom of Christ. God’s sovereign placement of you has a goal… a plan… a plan for a future and a hope.
A FUTURE
Exile is not the end game! It may seem bleak at times, but God intends your exile for good. Now, this most famous of verses, Jeremiah 29:11 is often taken as a promise given to individuals, but this is a word to the collective whole. God’s plans for good are for the exiles collectively. They’re not so much plans for who you’re going to marry, what house to buy, what career to pursue. Not that they’re irrelevant, but it’s not the point of the promise.
The promise is for a future more than any particular future. These plans are for a future rather than an end. Those who didn’t submit to God’s chosen king and go into exile, they had no future but the sword, famine, and plague. Those who remained in Jerusalem, verse 17 says, were reckoned as vile figs, so rotten they couldn’t be eaten.
So, while the exiles were under God’s rod of discipline, they weren’t condemned. They were chastised that they might be preserved and restored to a right relationship with the Lord. And part of that right relationship includes being aligned with God in His mission, the welfare of the people who dwell in Babylon.
What the people deserved was destruction, not exile; condemnation, not chastisement. And that’s what we deserve. But God set His love on us despite ourselves, that we might have a future.
I mentioned Joseph last week. God’s plans appeared to be anything but good when Joseph was sent into exile in Egypt. But Joseph was sent for the welfare of God’s people, that they might not perish, that they might have a future. And yet, we’ll tag on our ideals of worldly success and prosperity to this word of promise and make it personal regarding us. But this plan for a future is more about preservation than prosperity, that there’s more to come after your time in Babylon. Babylon’s not the end.
A HOPE
Plans for a future and a hope. Now, hope falls in line with what is meant by a future. But this word, “hope,” has what I find to be a truly incredible use. It’s the word תִּקְוָה (tiqvah). Used 34 times, all but twice it is translated as hope, longing, or expectation. But the first two occurrences of tiqvah are translated “cord.” And both are found in Joshua chapter 2, referring to a cord of scarlet thread.
When Rahab spared the spies, she pleaded with them, “When the Lord gives you the land, please deal kindly with me and my house as I have dealt with you.” In other words, consider the welfare of my family, just as I considered your welfare in not handing you over to certain death. And Rahab asks for a sign that they will indeed spare the lives of her family.
This is the sign she was given. Joshua 2:18. Behold, when we come into the land, you shall tie this scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down, and you shall gather into your house your father and mother, your brothers, and all your father’s household.
So long as they don’t go out the door of your house, they shall be spared. But if they go out the door, their blood shall be on their own head.
Now, if we were to translate tiqvah as “hope” it would read, thread of scarlet hope. Now, I didn’t have time to trace out the history of the usage of this term. You can see Sherif for that. But here’s the thing. That scarlet thread, at the very least, represented hope—hope for a future, that her family would live on and not perish along with the rest of Jericho.
God’s plans for His people are for them to live on and not perish. God’s plans for us—His church—is for us to live on and not perish along with Babylon and the rest of the world. The walls are coming down. But there’s a door of hope, Hosea 2 says… same word. (Hosea ties together Joshua 2 and 7 with the Exodus.) There’s a door of hope in which we are, not just to hide behind, but in seeking the welfare of others, we’re to bring them behind this door of hope with us… a door of hope marked with scarlet, as a sure sign that those who seek refuge behind this door, might not perish but have a future… everlasting life. And in John 10, we find that door is Christ.
But our hope isn’t a thread of hope, as if it might snap under the weight of our sin. The promise, the guarantee of our hope is a sure cord that holds and sustains us, a scarlet thread that marked the lintel and the posts of none less than the door of the cross—a scarlet thread, a scarlet line that ran down the lintel and post of this door we take refuge behind. It’s scarlet in that it was marked by the precious blood of Christ, who came, not seeking His own welfare, but the welfare of those in Babylon, where we once found our citizenship. But we have now been ransomed by that crimson blood for a future… and a hope. And that’s the welfare we seek for others, to bring them with us, safely behind the door of Christ.
PRAY
Jeremiah 29: Seeking the Shalom of Babylon
I invite you to turn with me to Jeremiah 29. We are continuing our series: The Uncompromising Word of the Lord. So, I have a question for each of us to wrestle with. What do you do when God’s uncompromising Word calls you to seek the peace, the welfare, the shalom of none other than Babylon? That’s the question I want us thinking through as we work through this passage.
Now, Jeremiah 29 holds what is likely the second most popular verse of Scripture in all the Bible. And it’s more than we’re able to cover in my allotted time up here before Steve sends Samuel and Eli to cart me off into exile. So in order to save myself that unnecessary embarrassment… and what would surely be embarrassing for you as well, we’re going to divide this over the next couple weeks.
Follow along as I read. (Read Jeremiah 29:1-14.)
PRAY.
As mentioned, and we also covered this when we first set out to study the book of Jeremiah, Jeremiah 29:11 is easily the second most popular verse in all of Scripture, second only to John 3:16. If you have a single verse of Scripture somewhere in your house or at the office, the chances are very high that it’s: For I know the plans I have in mind for you declares the Lord, plans for good and not for harm, to give you a future and a hope. It is the most used verse on journal covers, Bible cases, and wall art. In fact, for the dozen years I’ve been following Jesus, I’ve received at least as many journals as gifts, and not one of them, that I can recall, failed to have Jeremiah 29:11 on the front cover.
But as popular as this verse is, how often is it considered in context? This letter that takes up the space of Jeremiah chapter 29, is a letter to exiles. In fact, the entirety of chapter 29 is written to exiles, even God’s words to the false prophets, which we'll get to next week, Lord willing.
This is a reminder that the Bible is primarily to and for God’s people, even when the message concerns Those coming under God's judgment. You read the oracles against the nations, those oracles aren’t so much written to those nations as a warning as much as they are to God’s people concerning the fate of those nations.
Sherif has walked us through Jonah over the past five weeks. Jonah was sent to Nineveh, but the book of Jonah was for God’s people.
Many will read the Bible, hear the Bible, check out the Bible, at least bits of it, but the Bible is first and foremost for the people of God. Three times in his letters, the apostle Paul reminds us that the words of Scripture were written down for us, the people of God in every age, for instruction, endurance, encouragement, and hope.
Take the book of Revelation for example. Most read Revelation as if it primarily concerns events surrounding some future church, completely missing the fact that it is every bit as relevant for the church in every age because it is a book that concerns the church in every age.
I begin here, because context matters. This letter, this chapter is to elect exiles, and it concerns God’s elect exiles. And in case you’re not aware, if you’re a member of Christ’s church, that is you. We are elect exiles, and we’ll remain elect exiles until Christ brings us home.
Yes, there were original recipients of this letter, but this letter has been preserved as instruction, endurance, encouragement, and hope for us who are also elect exiles.
Something else that we need to consider: the 8 verses of promise and hope found in this chapter are couched in the same warnings and judgments we’ve seen concerning the false prophets and the disobedient. In fact, more than half of the chapter is devoted specifically to addressing the fate of false prophets.
Still, the emphasis of this chapter is God’s good plan for His elect exiles, the remnant, or as the King James says, the residue of God’s people. This chapter is about God's commission to them, His word of promise, and His word of warning. And as elect exiles, especially when we understand the theological thrust of the redemption history, this chapter very much concerns you and I today.
So, the setting is one of exile. That’s where the recipients of this letter find themselves. Why? Because Nebuchadnezzar carted them off to Babylon. Why? Because the Lord sent Nebuchadnezzar to cart them off to Babylon. Why? Because they had neglected their calling in the land of promise. Why? Because they had rejected the Lord of the promise.
You see, technically, the people had been in exile long before God sent them off to Babylon. Their hearts had deserted the Lord long ago. O they clung to the location of the Lord, the place where His name dwelt; they clung to the land the Lord gave to them. In Jesus’ day, we’ll see that the people even clung to the ceremonies and rituals. But they didn’t cling to the Lord. Their hearts were far from Him.
[Illustration of Numbers 9:17-23 — following the Lord in locale only.]
Because the people’s hearts were far removed from the Lord, the Lord, through Nebuchadnezzar, removed the people far from the City called by His name. Because what matters is not the physical location of where your feet are planted and your home is constructed. What matters is not so much the position of your body but the disposition of your heart, whether such is directed to the Lord or toward yourself.
Now, I know we’ve discussed God’s sovereignty quite a bit over these last few chapters, but that’s because it keeps coming up. And such is the case here in Jeremiah 29.
When I was first interviewed for this church, I was asked my position on this question, specifically in regard to that of Calvinism. For those of you who don’t know the term or what it means, I’m not going to take time to cover it this morning. Nevertheless, I think it’s helpful to express my stance on the issue here, so that as we walk through passages like this, hopefully it will help you to understand my heart on the issue.
Now, it’s not my position on this that matters, but God’s. My goal is to align myself with His Word. So this is what I shared:
In order to remain faithful to Scripture we must not over emphasize any doctrine beyond the degree in which Scripture emphasizes it. This means, at times, certain doctrines of grace will be more articulated than at others. It also means that we take care never to negate anything that Scripture clearly affirms. So, while I hold that God is absolutely sovereign, including over the hearts and wills of men, I also affirm that Scripture teaches that man is responsible for his every thought, word, and deed, and can never blame the Potter for the failures of the clay.
While I affirm the doctrines of grace to be a clear and accurate articulation of the gospel, I have no desire to disciple a people to march around with CALVINIST branded on their chests but rather CHRIST written on their hearts. To confuse the two distorts who it is we seek to glorify. So, it is doubtful that my Calvinism will ever be more overt than the Scriptures emphasize — but never less pronounced either.
I bring this up, because God’s good plans are for those fortunate enough to go into exile. The fate of the rest is that of Judgment.
While the exiles failed to see God’s plan for them as good, the exiles are the ones who find themselves under God’s sovereign grace.
In Christ, we are immediately moved into exile, which places the world at enmity with us. But it is the elect exiles that are the recipients of God’s sovereign grace of salvation.
So, to be faithful to our current text, we need to deal with this. In verse 1, we’re told the people went into exile because king Nebuchadnezzar had taken them into exile. Nebuchadnezzar came into Judah with his military might and took captive those who chose to surrender over that of being slayed by the sword.
This included, verse 2, the previous king, Jeconiah, and his mother, along with eunuchs, officials, craftsmen, metal workers, priests, prophets, and more.
But in verse 4, we see that ultimately it was the Lord who sent His people into exile. Both are true. Nebuchadnezzar and Yahweh both sent the people into exile. But Nebuchadnezzar is an instrument in the hand of the Almighty. God is the sovereign hand behind this sending the people into exile. In fact, the text makes it a point to tell us 4 times over the course of this chapter that He is the One who sent the people into exile. (Verses 4, 7, 14, and 20, and that He did so for good, verse 11.)
Now, some have equated God’s sovereign rule over the hearts and actions of man to be nothing more than that of knowing all the possible outcomes and adding His little piece to the mix in order to get the outcome He desires. Sort of like playing expert level chess against a computer. The computer knows not just every possible move, but every possible series of moves, and compensates accordingly.
But that’s not at all the picture painted in the Scriptures. God not only knows every possible move on the chessboard of history, but also plans and purposes every move of the opponent as He sovereignly sees fit. God takes the Nebuchadnezzars of this world and moves them exactly as He sovereignly purposes.
It’s kind of like a well written book where the author weaves so many various threads into the story that just happen to place every character of the script in the exact place of the author’s choosing so that the story comes together for the perfect climax—every piece in perfect position.
The difference between Nebuchadnezzar’s sending the people into exile and God’s sending is that of a character in a Novel and the author of the script. And in case you have noticed, we call this book, “Scripture.”
Now, we can quickly find ourselves questioning God’s goodness, if He is truly sovereign over the events of history, such as sending Nebuchadnezzar as a judgment and as a chastisement. Doesn’t that make God the author of evil? But such a question fails to recognize that God’s intentions are always for good. Such is not always the case with the characters of the script.
A perfect example of this is the account of Joseph being sold into slavery in Egypt by his brothers. Joseph rightly comes to the conclusion, speaking to his brothers long after their ill treatment of him, “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.” God meant Joseph’s being sold as a slave for good. God had one intention; the brothers had another.
Joseph will even say of his brother’s selling him into slavery, that it was not you who sent me here, but God sent me ahead of you to preserve life.
God sent the exiles into a foreign land, yes due to their disobedience, but God’s intentions for doing so was for good—their good—in order to preserve life—to preserve a remnant.
Now, if you recall Jeremiah’s commission in chapter 1, verses 9 and 10, God puts His words in Jeremiah’s mouth, saying, “See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”
Jeremiah’s commission was one of uprooting and overthrowing nations—nations which included his own people of Judah and the city called by God’s name—Jerusalem. And that’s exactly what has taken place. Nations and kingdoms have been destroyed and overthrown. Cities lie desolate, and more desolation is on the way.
But this breaking down and uprooting was for good. Just as when the Lord sent Joseph to Egypt. But now that phase 1 of breaking down and uprooting is in its final phase, it’s time for the next phase to begin—the phase of building and planting.
So, after providing the context of the letter, the very first words to the exiles is a word of commission, verse 5. Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease.
God calls the exiles to build and plant… not in Jerusalem, but in the land of their exile. Why? Well for one, it’s going to be a while. In fact, it’s going to be a lifetime for most. In verse 10, we’re told that their exile will be seventy years.
Now, a lot of theologians seek to demonstrate how the dates given in the prophetic literature are so scientifically precise, arguing for specific dates that just happen to land at the number we’re looking for, down to the very day. I’m just going to say, a lot of that math is quite fuzzy.
The point of the seventy years is not meant so much as to be precise, but rather, there’s a theological thrust involved. The number 70 carries a fullness of time. And when the 70 years of physical exile is over, understand, there’s still 70 weeks of years to follow. We get that from Daniel, but I’m not going there right now.
My point is, our sin and rebellion places us in exile—exile for a lifetime. On this side of the cross, believers are called elect exiles. And our exile will last until the Lord calls us home. For most of us, that will be approximately 70 years—shorter for some, longer for others, but nevertheless, one’s lifetime. And, while I plan to cover it later in the passage, just in case I forget, our time of exile is not punitive but a season of discipline to train us up in righteousness.
Anyway, the people are called to build, plant, marry, and increase. This is Israel going down to Egypt 2.0. Just as when the Lord, via a famine, sent Israel to Egypt in order to grow them into a nation for the time of the Exodus, so now, God’s people had been sent to Babylon that they might increase, as they awaited a New Exodus.
But this really takes us back to Genesis 1 and 2 and the original creation mandate of being fruitful and multiplying, and Adam’s commission to work and keep the garden in which he was placed. But the context of Jeremiah is reversed. Adam was to work and keep the land of paradise. Here, God’s people are to work and keep the land of exile, which tells us, this isn’t going to be easy.
If your view of exile here in Babylon is one of ease and comfort, you’re either not truly living in exile, but have found your citizenship in Babylon, at home in the world—OR—you’re not living out the commission to which God has called you—seeking the welfare of Babylon.
Now notice these verbs in verses 5 and 6: build, dwell, plant, eat, take wives, give wives, have children, increase, do not decrease. These verbs represent growth, production, fruitfulness. This is not a portrait of stagnation, just getting by, killing time. The Christian life isn’t a time for passivity, nor is it a call to make the best of the situation. That’s not what’s going on here.
This isn’t a time for binge watching Halmark or Pureflix. It’s not a time to shut down and hide away in our houses. We are called to actively contribute to society. We’re not called to some Air B&B get away, nor a patio garden of grow bags, but to build and plant, plow and sow, working and keeping the land of our exile until our 70 years, or whatever your lifetime may be, is over, and you’re called to your eternal home.
O how many Christians live out their exile in a state of depression. Woe is me! And I get it. Mankind has brought exile upon himself. We have brought exile upon ourselves.
But God has a plan for His elect exiles. And that plan is restorative in nature. But restoration isn’t going to happen with you and I remaining in a state of disobedience, refusing to jump in and participate in God’s commission for us. So long as you remain in a posture of disobedience, you have no reason to hope in God’s restoration, because you are flat out rejecting His restoration.
In fact, your posture shows that you have no desire for the kind of restoration God offers, a restoration of a right relationship with Him. Instead, you show the only restoration you care about is that which you feel you’ve been cheated out of by being placed in this exile to begin with. You want your kingdom restored. You don’t truly desire being restored to God’s.
And if that’s where you find yourself today, God’s call for you is to come to Christ. The call for you is to humble yourself before God and receive the mercy He’s provided in His Son. The call for you is to be restored to God, that your affections might be reordered to align with His.
Now get this. We are called to build and plant and marry in Babylon—the city of our exile. Yet so many of us—myself included—have dreams of that home far outside the city! Get me as far away from people and their mess and brokenness as possible. But that’s not what God has called us to. That’s not why God planted you where He has.
As believers, we can err on one of two extremes. One is making our home here in Babylon as if it’s our forever home. But Babylon is destined for destruction, as we’ve seen in previous chapters. Babylon isn’t home for the elect exile. We’re simply resident aliens. This is temporary… a long temporary… but nevertheless, temporary.
We passed by a monstrosity of a house being built on our way home yesterday. And I’m not about to suggest what size home you and I should have as believers. You’ll have to work through that yourself. But I can’t help but wonder if such was a home being built by resident aliens who know their time here is short, or if their hearts are set on staying in Babylon.
And just so you know, before you think I’m passing judgment on people I don’t even know, my heart struggles with becoming too attached to Babylon also. I can quickly lose sight of the fact that I’m a resident alien. And I’m just guessing that many of you are a lot like me.
But we can also err on the other extreme of living in exile with our bags packed! Did you forget? When you’re finally called home, you’re not taking anything with you. Unpack those bags because they’re staying here.
Notice, the text says build houses to live in. Plant gardens to eat from. Marry and raise kids. There’s no storing up of material treasure in these verses. There is a simplicity to the resident alien’s life in Babylon.
Not only will you be taking nothing with you, but don’t expect the call home to be tomorrow. Yes, it’s coming. And believers should have their eyes fixed on eternity—gazing upon the hope and promise of heaven often. But our eyes are also called to look upon the brokenness and the needs of the here and now. Which takes us to verse 7: Seeking the shalom or the welfare of the city in which you’ve been planted.
We’re going to cover this next week, but for now, understand the ultimate reason for our exile is to seek the welfare of Babylon. Countless millions are destined for destruction apart from some intervention. And God has sovereignly planted you in Babylon—in Middle TN—as a witness of God’s grace and mercy to those around you. And if you simply live out your exile tucked away, living on the furthest outskirts of the city, you won’t have much of a witness to offer.
You see, God sent His Son, not to build his forever home here—at least not yet. Nor did Jesus come with bags packed waiting to get the hell out of Babylon. Jesus came to endure the hell of Babylon, the hell Babylon is destined for, in order that those in Babylon might be saved from hell.
Jesus didn’t dwell on the outskirts of creation. He moved in close, right in the midst of our brokenness. Indeed, Jesus came to build, laying the foundation for a new temple, a new home for God to dwell with His people. Jesus came to plant a new garden, far surpassing that of Eden, for us to enjoy nothing less than the fruit of heaven, the Tree of Life itself—to enjoy Christ!
Jesus came to take a Bride, who would in turn bear offspring for the kingdom, not of Babylon, but of Heaven—multiplying His church until it fills the earth as the waters cover the sea—all to the glory of God.
PRAY
Jeremiah 28:1-17 God's Uncompromising Yoke for Compromising Prophets
I invite you to turn with me to Jeremiah chapter 28. This chapter is really a continuation of chapter 27 and the appointed yoke of the Lord’s discipline. This week, we look at the arrogant response to that message. Follow along as I read from Jeremiah, chapter 28, beginning at verse 1. (READ 1-17)
ARROGANCE OF UNFOUNDED HOPE
Well, it would appear that most of the cicadas are gone. For several weeks, these large insects tormented my wife and kids to the point there were days they wouldn’t even venture outside. People were not without opinions as to their thoughts concerning these creatures. Many found them to be a nuisance. One of our friends suggested she might be going to go to Florida for a month until they were gone. Maybe a bit extreme, but I get it. In fact, I think half of my household was ready to join her.
Then there was another crowd, who took to the web, seeking to defend these poor innocent creatures, pleading with everyone to just leave them alone. But my absolute favorite post was a picture of someone dressed up in a cicada costume leaning against a tree with the following caption: “You can help your neighborhood cicadas feel more comfortable by dressing up like them and sticking yourself to the nearest tree.”
Now, there’s something biblical about comforting others. 2 Corinthians 1, Paul seeks to comfort the church by letting them know that the afflictions they experience enable them to comfort others. But don’t confuse comforting others with making others feel comfortable, especially at the cost of truth. Well, our passage today has a guy who seeks to do just that—making others feel at ease at the cost of truth.
Chapter 28 piggybacks off of chapter 27, which called the nations to submitted to God’s appointed yoke of discipline due to their rebellion. Now, here in 28, we have this guy, Hananiah, in the house of the Lord, in the presence of the priests and all the people, speaking in the name of the Lord.
Verse 2: Thus says the Lord, I will bring back and restore, not only the vessels of the Lord’s house, but even the rightful king, Jeconiah, along with the rest of the exiles. Indeed, Hananiah doubles down that his message is from the Lord, beginning with “Thus says the Lord,” and ending with “declares the Lord.”
This message, as you might recall, is in direct contradiction to Jeremiah’s message we looked at last week in chapter 27. Not only are the vessels and exiles not going to be restored anytime soon, but the rest of the articles in the Lord’s house will soon be carried off. And all the nations, including Judah, will come under the yoke of Babylon—God’s appointed king, Nebuchadnezzar.
In fact, 3 times in chapter 27, Jeremiah warned the people not to listen to anyone who contradicts this message, to beware of false prophets, for they will only lead you astray. But just like today, people love false prophets like Hananiah. Why? Because false prophets love to make people feel comfortable with their sin. It’s what makes them popular.
Wait Josh! What makes you think that’s what Hananiah’s doing? I mean, he’s just trying to be positive. He’s optimistic. Isn’t that a good thing?
Well, first, the Christian life isn’t one of optimism; it’s one of hope. And the two are not the same. Second, Hananiah may be seeking to be positive, but he’s doing so in direct opposition to the Lord. And if that’s not enough, he’s speaking as if from the Lord.
But an unfounded hope in God’s favor apart from repentance is not being positive, it’s being naïve and arrogant. Hananiah spoke of God’s assured favor without calling the people to repent. But so long as people are in rebellion, they have no claim on God’s favor. Rather, they are rejecting it.
I had Samuel read James 4 earlier because it shows the arrogance of even planning tomorrow apart from recognizing God’s sovereignty over whatever takes place.
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit.” Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. And all such boasting is evil.
There’s an arrogance in thinking things will work out in such and such a way, without any sound basis for such. Hananiah’s hope is unfounded, and thus it is arrogant to suggest that God will show particular favor to a people in rebellion.
Now, notice Jeremiah’s response in verse 6. Amen! May the Lord do so. May the Lord make the words that you have prophesied come true. To Hananiah and everyone else listening, I’d love for Hananiah’s word to be the case. I’d love for that to be the decree of the Lord, that the vessels and exiles would soon be restored. Do you think I desire to see my loved ones carried off into slavery? Lord, bring them back! Restore them to the land!
But here’s the problem, Hananiah. The people have yet to repent. So, verse 8, “The prophets who preceded you and me, even from ancient times, have prophesied war, famine, and pestilence against many countries and great kingdoms.” In fact, here’s a test, as to whether yours is a word from God. Verse 9, As for the prophet who prophesies peace, contrary to the prophets of the past, only when the word of that prophet comes to pass, will it be recognized that the Lord sent him. Hananiah, in time, God will reveal you to be the false prophet that you are.
BREAKING WOODEN YOKES
This past week the largest protestant denomination in the U.S., the Southern Baptist Convention, wrestled through the usual inner turmoil. The constant debate tends to be in regard to emphasizing doctrine over and against emphasizing the Great Commission, and vice-versa , as if the two are pitted against each other.
The controversy in the church, throughout the history of the church, not just the SBC, goes like this: Doctrine weighs down. And we’re supposed to be about the gospel, promoting God’s love to the world. If we want to do that effectively, we must remove—even break—this yoke of doctrine from off our necks.
You see, the average person doesn’t give a rip about doctrine. It only leads to endless debates and division. Can’t we just talk about God’s love? One person summarized the debate at the convention as follows: In 100 years, doctrinal precision won’t matter, but only the advancement of the gospel.
But here’s the problem. Sound doctrine and the Great Commission can’t be separated. Remove sound doctrine from the mission of the church, then the mission ceases to be God’s mission. Separate the mission of making and being disciples from that of doctrine, then our doctrine ceases to be sound.
Hananiah was on a quest to promote good news absent of sound doctrine. If we just do away with this weighty yoke of the Lord’s discipline, we can continue in our way of life all hunky-dory, as if everything’s just fine, expecting God, because, well, you know, He’s love, He will only act in ways we deem loving. So knowing God’s character of love, we can be confident that He won’t really allow Nebuchadnezzar’s yoke to remain. In fact, verse 10, the Lord will break Nebuchadnezzar’s yoke just as easy as I can break this wooden yoke.
Now, I get, that people genuinely wrestle with the question: How can God be loving and good and allow bad things to happen? Much less, how can a good God ordain the bad things that happen, such as sending a tyrant king upon His people?
Those are real questions. But we best take care not to formulate our view of God based on our feelings, or you’ll be like Eve who was deceived by her feelings that questioned God’s goodness and wisdom.
Our culture has no issue with compromised Christianity that’s tolerant of sin; it’s uncompromised Christianity that the world hates. Tolerant Christianity goes about singing, God wants you just the way you are. Don’t go changing, to try and please me, might be fine for Billy Joes to sing, but it’s not the gospel.
Hananiah sang his song, Don’t go changing on account of God. He’ll bring back the articles and exiles, because He loves you just the way you are. No, Hananiah! God calls you to repent! Which means He expects you to change—to turn from your sin—not remain in it.
But much of the church tends to sing the same tune. We want fellow image-bearers to feel comfortable, not convicted. We have entire denominations dressing up in ridiculous cicada costumes just so their neighbor doesn’t feel any kind of discomfort in pursuing a lifestyle that the Bible clearly condemns. But get this! If you seek to make others feel comfortable with their sin, you are part of the problem.
And yet they sing, Don’t go changing. God wants you just the way you are. After all, He made you like this. And because He loves you just the way you are, He’ll break every yoke that hinders you from pursuing your heart’s every desire!
The United Methodist Church just voted to that effect. You want to pursue a same-sex lifestyle. Go for it. God obviously approves, or He wouldn’t have made you with those inclinations.
Well, I’m inclined to be short-tempered, a habitual liar, an adulterer, and a pedophile. Are you saying God’s okay with that? God’s not okay with the way you and I are. That’s why He sent His Son. Jesus came and died to indeed break every yoke of bondage! But not to leave you as you are! But to free you from it. The gospel is good news that frees you from you!
And so one of our duties as believers is to call out those who compromise God’s truth.
CALLING OUT THE COMPROMISED
Verse 12: Sometime after Hananiah had broken the yoke off of Jeremiah’s neck, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah. “Go tell Hananiah, “Thus says the Lord: You have broken wooden bars, but you have made in their place bars of iron.”
Now, we can learn a lot from Jeremiah here. If you noticed, when Hananiah first spoke in clear contradiction to God’s uncompromising Word, Jeremiah spoke up, pointing out the conflict between Hananiah’s words and the prophets who had come before. But Jeremiah didn’t continue in some back-and-forth heated debate. Once it was clear that the sound reasoning of God’s uncompromising Word was arrogantly rejected, Jeremiah stepped away in peace, until a more opportune time, made clear by the Lord.
Now, in Jeremiah’s case, he received a more direct revelation from God. But don’t think that means our Word from God that we possess in the Bible is any less authoritative. So, verse 13, along with Jeremiah, we call out to the Hananiah’s of the world, You may have broken wooden bars, seeking to cast off the yoke of the Lord’s discipline, but in its place you have made for yourself bars of iron. In other words, God’s uncompromising Word still stands no matter how arrogantly false prophets seek to suggest otherwise.
Verse 14. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, I have put upon the neck of all these nations an iron yoke to serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and they shall serve him, for I have given to him even the beasts of the field.
False prophets can break all the wooden yokes they want. God’s Word stands stronger than iron. But here’s the thing, Hananiah. Not only has the Lord not sent you, you have made this people trust in a lie. And you will be held accountable.
We need to have the courage to call out the compromised. Otherwise, they will lead others astray after them, making people trust in a lie.
Now, I’m not suggesting that we are nitpicky with every single issue—that every issue carries as much weight as the next. None of us are infallible in our theology. But to the extent God’s Word is clear and vocal concerning doctrinal issues, especially salvific issues, we need those leaders who will call out gospel compromisers for the protection of the flock.
But notice. Jeremiah wasn’t on the attack. We can get this wrong if we’re not careful. The Christian should never find him or herself in attack mode, whether against scoffers, the culture, or even within the church.
But as I say that, understand that I’m not suggesting that the believer doesn’t play offense. We offensively move the ball of the gospel—taking it to those yet to hear, understand, and receive it.
But we’re also to play defense, every bit as much as we play offense—guarding the good deposit entrusted to us—holding the line of sound doctrine—even when much of the church has appeared to cave—to move the line with that of the culture.
This means, when sound doctrine is contradicted or compromised by influential voices among the flock, we must confront it. Why? Because if no one speaks up, if no one confronts false doctrine, then people will be left to trust in lies that lead them further from God, and very likely towards permanent exile at that.
Now, there can be a tendency for some to think that our faith doesn’t pervade every facet of life, that as believers, we should refrain from speaking out on sexuality, politics, taking a stance on the appropriateness of certain types of entertainment, art, sports, dress codes, seeking to think biblically concerning science, technology, genetics, and IVF treatments. I mean, genetics? What could the Bible possibly have to say on genetics and IVF? Well, if you understand what your Bible is and who God is and who we are as image-bearers, you understand that no area of life is outside the jurisdiction of God’s uncompromising Word.
Whatever sector of life, wherever the enemy seeks to gain a stronghold in the hearts and minds of God’s people, we must, if we are to be faithful in our witness to the world, apply God’s Word carefully to it. And to varying degrees, none of us are exempt from this. Which is why we all must be students of God’s Word. Or we’ll have nothing to say, no sound reasoning for those marching on a trajectory to hell. Apart from this Word, we have no gospel to offer. As goes sound doctrine, so goes the gospel itself.
DISDAIN FOR THE YOKE OF GOD
Okay. Last two verses. Verse 16. “Therefore, thus says the Lord: Behold, I will remove you from the face of the earth. This year you shall die, because you have uttered rebellion against the Lord.” In that same year, in the seventh month, the prophet Hananiah died.
If you recall Jeremiah’s first response, he reminded the people how to discern a true prophet from a false one, when their words seem to be at odds with those who came before. Verse 9. Only when the word of that prophet comes to pass, shall his ministry be validated.
So, in part, verse 17, and Hananiah’s death, is given us to demonstrate which of the two was the true prophet and which one was false. Jeremiah’s word concerning Hananiah’s death came about just as Jeremiah had prophesied. This year, Hananiah, you shall die. And it he did!
And note when Hananiah died. It was in the 7thmonth. Now, I don’t want to read too much into this, but after just coming out of Leviticus, we’d be remiss to not consider this seventh month having something to do with the Day of Atonement. You see, the consequence, verse 16, for leading people astray from the truth is not only removal from the face of the earth. False prophets shouldn’t expect atonement for their sins, but death, because like Hananiah, in their compromising of God’s Word, they are uttering rebellion against the Lord.
Now, I want to try to help us get to the heart of the issue in this passage—the arrogance of unfounded hope, the attempt at breaking wooden yokes in God’s name, the so-called minor compromises of God’s Word, all of these come down to a disdain for the yoke of God.
This disdain of God’s yoke reaches all the way back to Genesis 3 and our disposition to the tree in the midst of the garden—the tree that served as a reminder as to who was God and who was not. You see, partaking of the forbidden fruit was nothing less than a hatred for—a casting off of—the yoke of God.
It’s at the heart of every compromise of God’s truth. Churches compromise on biblical sexuality. Why? Because we’ll decide what’s best for our bodies. Not God! Churches compromise on God’s design for the family, how Christ’s church should be ordered, the degree to which we’ll trust the Bible. Why? Because we’re going to call our own shots. We bow to no one but ourselves, and those who give us what we want.
You see, what really took place in the garden and in the heart of every person born in the likeness of Adam since, is a rejection of God’s sovereignty. That’s ultimately the central issue of sin. The doctrine of God’s sovereignty is the doctrine we rebel against more than any other.
We seek to cast off the yoke of God’s sovereignty in the name of our freewill, only to become anything but free. God’s sovereign reign has been called into question ever since Genesis 3, and it remains, perhaps, the most divisive doctrine in all the church, not just in our day, but throughout history. Trace out every compromise, you will likely find at the heart of such compromises a compromised view of God—a God who is weak and impotent, at the mercy of man’s so-called “free” will.
We’ll speak in behalf of God, because, well, we’re not really sure He knows what to say on this or that situation. I mean, He said something, but He obviously got it wrong. We’re so much wiser now. The God of creation is treated as if He’s some created idol who bows to us and our supposed sovereignty.
What Hananiah and every false prophet has sought to do since the Fall is cast off and break God’s yoke from off His creation. And the world loves these false prophets, because our flesh hates God’s sovereign yoke too.
Our flesh finds the God who leads us out to pasture, who supplies us with our every nourishment, to be distasteful. So we’re always looking for greener pastures. Something more than what God has offered us. But get this. There’s nothing more, there’s nothing greater out there. God has offered you the best. Himself.
We can tend to see God’s yoke as oppressive, which is completely insane if you think about it. Every good thing comes from God’s hands. He is nothing but generous to us.
How could we possibly view God’s yoke as burdensome? Well, because we’ve been deceived by a much more cunning false prophet than Hananiah. We’ve been deceived by a snake. And the harsh yoke we have found ourselves under in our sin, isn’t God’s, but our own self-inflicted yoke we have place on ourselves because we bought into the serpent’s lie.
You see, the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar is intended, at a minimum, to show that we’ve exchanged the kind and loving yoke of our Creator for the harsh and heavy yoke of man, as if the yoke of man’s rule and supposed sovereignty is somehow preferable to that of God’s.
Shame on us for thinking so callously of God’s yoke.
Last week, we ended by recognizing the yoke of our Savior to be easy and light. Do we really think the Father’s yoke to be heavier than the Son’s?
Wednesday, Katie hit on the perfect illustration, with king Solomon’s son, Rehoboam. The people asked Rehoboam to lighten the heavy yoke of his father. Rehoboam responded, You think my father’s yoke was heavy? My little finger is thicker than my father’s thigh. My father disciplined you with whips, but I’ll discipline you with scorpions.
But Jesus came bearing the harsh yoke of mankind in order to free us from that yoke—to break the yoke of our sinful pride. Jesus wasn’t just whipped. He was scourged, which is a whip with barbs and shards of bone that tear the flesh with each lash. Jesus might as well have been whipped with scorpions! Receiving each lash as a lash our rebellion deserved.
And after having his back flayed open with such harsh discipline, he stooped beneath the heavy yoke of the cross, bearing it upon his neck like an ox to the plow, as he marched it up the hill to Golgotha, plowing open a path for the seeds of love and new life to sprout and grow.
That is your Savior. Come under His yoke. For His yoke—His commands—are not burdensome, because He already bore the weight of all our burdens and cares in our place. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.
Let us pray. https://youtu.be/BB5vNxxmLE8
Jeremiah 27:1-22 The Appointed Yoke of the Lord's Discipline
I invite you to turn with me to Jeremiah 27. We’re continuing our series: The Uncompromising Word of the Lord. Follow along as I read from Jeremiah 27 beginning at verse 1.
(Read- Jeremiah 27:1-22)
WW2’S UNLIKELY ALLIANCES
This past Thursday marked the 80th anniversary of D Day and the invasion of Normandy, France, one of the most decisive battles of World War 2. On June 6th, 1944, the Allied forces of the U.K., the U.S., and Canada, along with troops from Australia, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, France, Greece, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Poland, launched the largest amphibious invasion in military history.
But this victory was made possible due to another unlikely alliance between the U.K. and U.S. with that of Russia’s Soviet Union under the regime of Josef Stalin. President Roosevelt recognized that Nazi Germany, and not the Soviet Union, posed the greatest threat to world peace at the time. So, after Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Roosevelt signed the Lend-Lease Act to supply Stalin’s Soviet Union with military supplies and other goods essential to winning the war on the Eastern front.
By the end of June 1944, the United States had provided the Soviets with more than 11,000 planes, over 6,000 tanks, and 300,000 trucks and other military vehicles. In addition to combat vehicles, the Soviets received some 350 locomotives, 1,640 railroad cars, and close to half million tons of rails, axles, and wheels, all for the improvement of the railways feeding the Red armies on the Eastern Front. Miles of field telephone wire, thousands of telephones, and many thousands of tons of explosives, machine tools, and other supplies, not to mention some 3,000,000 tons of food helped equip this unlikely ally to not only stay Hitler’s assault, but to push back the Nazi front.
This weakening of Hitler’s forces allowed for a decisive victory in Normandy and eventually the end of a war. But such an outcome would have been doubtful without the alliance of nations so opposed to one another.
Their only common bond was that of a common enemy. As such, these alliances were very short lived, and with the end of one war, came decades of what would be known as The Cold War.
A COMMON ENEMY
Few things bring people and nations together like a common enemy. That’s exactly what’s taking place here in Jeremiah 27 with the visiting envoys in verse 3. The ambassadors of these surrounding nations came to Jerusalem, not to discuss the weather or exchange recipes, but to ally themselves against Nebuchadnezzar and the growing Babylonian threat.
But this Babylonian threat is quite different from that of Nazi Germany. The conquest of Nebuchadnezzar has been guaranteed by God Himself. Look at verse 1. (Read 1-7.)
FUTILE ALLIANCES
These alliances will prove futile. Whatever numbers these nations might amass to fend off Babylon will only add to their own losses. Align themselves as they may against their common enemy, they will ultimately fail because what’s needed is not alignment against a common enemy but an alignment with God.
This is why every earthly treaty will prove to be short-lived, whether such are military in nature or otherwise. We can make pacts for “climate change” but ultimately that’s an example of forming an alliance against a common enemy, rather than seeking an alignment with God.
You see, the problem with saying, “I align myself with the democratic or republican party,” is that it’s entirely backwards. As believers, we align ourselves with God. Period. And only then, to the degree the common goals of an entity align with that of God’s, can we support that entity’s goals. But that also means, to whatever degree that entity or party doesn’t align itself with God and His uncompromising Word, we must, if we are to remain faithful, distance ourselves from that entity’s stance, which means, for those of you who have bought wholesale into one party or another, the Christian has no home in either party. Take care of the alliances you make. For you may find yourself aligned against God.
THE LORD’S SOVEREIGN CHOICE
The Sovereign Lord gives the nations to whomever He chooses. And He has chosen to give them to Nebuchadnezzar… for a time.
Now, there is nothing in Nebuchadnezzar that makes him worthy of reigning over the nations. In fact, if there even is a qualification that Nebuchadnezzar has making him suitable for this assignment, it’s his ruthlessness, not his righteousness. The fact that Nebuchadnezzar is such a ruthless and cruel king, tends to raise the question of God’s sovereign choice and righteousness. But there are a couple of things we need to understand regarding God’s sovereign decision.
First, verse 5, It is by God’s great power and outstretched arm that He has made the earth and all that is in it… including you and me! And as such, everything belongs completely to Him. And because it all belongs to God, He has the right to do whatever He deems appropriate with that which is His.
We have no place to question God’s decisions. Rather, we have a duty to understand, to the best that our finite minds are able, why the Lord has ordained this or that… realizing, that we’re not always given a reason, nor are we owed one.
Therefore, so far as we are biblically able, we need to mine the unfathomable depths of the wisdom of God’s Word. And while it might not be as readily noticeable in this particular chapter, the whole of Jeremiah makes clear that these nations are coming under the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar as a form a discipline due to their idolatry. All nations are in rebellion against God, not just Zedekiah’s Judah and exiled Israel. All nations have sought to make a name for themselves. And that goes back all the way to Genesis 11 and the tower of Babel.
DIVINE PATIENCE AND JUSTICE
So, if the nations have been in such rebellion against God, why is God just now doing something about it? Why has He let these nations walk in rebellion for so long?
Well, as we covered last week, God’s uncompromising nature stems from His immutability. And wrapped up in God’s immutability is His perfect patience. God’s perfect patience doesn’t waver any more than His perfect justice. The two are never at odds. God is patient not desiring that any would perish. But to suggest that God is just now doing something would be highly inaccurate. God has been working out His plan for the redemption of the nations long before the nations even fell.
Realize, God doesn’t operate according to our timetable. His plan is perfect, and it is perfectly good. And His plan may indeed involve setting up unrighteous and ruthless rulers, whether kings or prime ministers, or presidents, as a yoke of discipline.
Now, God doesn’t owe anyone a warning. God could skip His yoke of discipline designed to show the nations the horrors of continuing in rebellion. God could simply take every nation and every individual who has ever rebelled against His sovereign reign and cast them into the abyss… …But who’d remain!
So, in His great mercy and patience, God appoints the king of His choosing as a rod of discipline for the nations. In the case of our text here, it’s Nebuchadnezzar. But the same is true throughout all of history.
Whatever takes place come November, understand that God is going to put in office whomever He deems most appropriate according to His sovereign all-wise plan. And it is doubtful that the one appointed to office will be so due to any righteousness in himself, but rather the reverse.
But get this. Even the appointment of a tyrant king such as Nebuchadnezzar was for the good of God’s faithful. We can trust that whatever happens with this government or any other government, it will be for the good of God’s people, even should every government on the planet become increasingly hostile to His Church, which Scripture affirms will indeed happen. But such discipline will be for the purification of Jesus’ Bride, preparing her for her Groom.
THE UNPOPULAR MESSAGE OF DEFEAT
Now, last week we saw just how unpopular it must have been to serve as the Lord’s prophet. And now, here comes Jeremiah wearing this yoke upon his neck, proclaiming defeat before the battle even begins. And no one wants to be assured of their guaranteed loss before they come onto the field or take their seat across from their opponent.
I had the pleasure of playing Josiah in a game of Othello Wednesday after watching his wife, Krissy, crush another member of our congregation who will remain nameless. Krissy was kind enough to inform me, as I agreed to play her husband, “I taught Josiah had to play, and now he sometimes beats me!” Well, I knew I had lost before placing the first piece. But loss is really an understatement. I was slaughtered.
Jeremiah was sent to warn the nations, through their ambassadors, that they’d be wise to surrender now. Otherwise, they’re going to get slaughtered. Verse 8. (Read 8-11.)
THE OPTIONS
The consequence of refusing to heed God’s Word of warning is utter disaster—sword, famine, pestilence, and exile. But exile is only for those fortunate to survive the first 3 woes. Those who submit to God’s chosen king and serve him, however, they have the opportunity of remaining in their own land, working and keeping it. You don’t need to be destroyed or carted off. You only need to surrender.
That’s what repentance looks like at this stage of the game. The yoke of discipline is coming like it or not. So, don’t listen to those who claim to have had some vision or a divine word from God that suggests otherwise. Their message that everything’s going to be alright will ultimately lead to your removal from the land, and likely a permanent removal at that.
THE YOKE OF BABYLON
But what does submission to the yoke of this unrighteous king look like? Well, Silas read from Romans 13 for us at the beginning of service. Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.
Why? Because those authorities have been instituted by none other than God! You want to grumble over election results? The people might have voted, but God is the One who appoints those in office—every office, in every locale—without exception. You want to take it up with someone, you take it up with Him. And do so on your knees as you pray those appointments to govern justly.
Rather than grumble, the call for us as believers is to do good. Then we’ll have no reason to fear the sword of those whom God has appointed.
SUBMISSION DOES NOT MEAN:
Now, we need to address what submitting to the yoke of God’s appointed officials does not mean. It does not mean that we fall in line with their ideology or morality. It does not mean that we heed their godless decrees. But it does mean, when we are called to stand against their dictates that we readily accept whatever consequence their rod may bring.
The perfect example of this is Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They refused to obey not just any king’s decree, but that of Nebuchadnezzar, the king God has commanded the nations to submit to. Nebuchadnezzar set up a golden image, and anyone who refused to bow down to it was to be thrown into the fiery furnace. These three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, refused to bow. But get this, they understood the consequence of refusing the kings command, and entrusted themselves to the sovereign care of their God.
O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But even if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.
If we do what is good and upright in God’s eyes, we need not fear the rod of any earthly authority. Our deliverance is guaranteed. Jesus purchased that for us. And those earthly authorities will, in turn, give account too. Verse 7. Babylon’s own time will come.
UNWITTING SERVANTS
You see, even the world super-power, Babylon, unwittingly serves the sovereign Lord and His plan. And when God is finished with this chosen vessel of His discipline, this vessel will be disposed of accordingly.
It’s a reminder that all are God’s servants whether willing or not. Not in the same way, of course. But when You’re the sovereign Lord who rules heaven and earth, even Satan ultimately serves God’s sovereign purpose, despite how much the evil one may seek to thwart it.
For any who may find this reality a bit concerning, let me console you by saying, this is a good thing. I mean, think about it. What’s the alternative? That God is somehow at the mercy of the enemy? Not even close!
You face trials like Job, the author of Job wants you to know that God was sovereign over the activity of Satan and that Satan’s attacks could only go so far. But more importantly, they were for Job’s good. Like Babylon, Satan will soon be called to account and permanently removed.
TO ZEDEKIAH
Moving on to verse 12. (Read 12-15). With Zedekiah, the message is the same. Verse 12, serve God’s appointed king and live. Verse 13, why will you perish? Verse 14, Don’t listen to false prophets. Verse 15, the Lord hasn’t sent them.
Israel and Judah have faired no better than the nations around them despite having access to far greater revelation. But God’s special revelation, in and of itself, has benefited them not.
Paul makes this point in Romans 3. What advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God… But the Jews proved themselves to be every bit as unfaithful as the nations.
So Paul continues. Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks are under sin. None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.
All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Thus, there is no distinction between Jew and Gentile. Both are called to repent and surrender to God’s chosen king.
Zedekiah, don’t think that because you are among God’s chosen people that you are somehow exempt from obeying His Word.
TO THE PRIESTS AND THE PEOPLE
And by the way, you temple priests and the rest of you people, says Jeremiah, I have a message for you as well, because, while your king, Zedekiah, may refuse to heed my warning and bring disaster on himself and this nation, each of you will be individually responsible for whether you heed God’s uncompromising Word of warning and repent.
Verse 16. (Read 16-18.)
You need not perish. Do you hear the refrain? You don’t need to come under the sword. Surrender to the yoke of my chosen king and you will live!
Don’t listen to the prophets who say the sacred vessels shall soon be returned. If they are truly prophets, instead of prophesying false hope, why aren’t they interceding on the city’s behalf. Why aren’t they pleading with the Lord for the vessels that remain, that they might not be carted off.
O how easy it is to set our hopes on sacred items rather than holiness. It’s so much easier to strive for a righteousness based on ritual, than to pursue the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. O how easy it is to offer up the prescribed sacrifice on whatever day. But it takes faith and humiliation to drop to your knees and cry out, pleading with the Lord on behalf of His holy vessels. And I’m not at all referring to the pillars and stands in the temple, but to the holy vessels of God’s people.
But false prophets aren’t going to offer up true intercession, but instead, continue to promote false hope, speaking pleasant things rather than calling the people to repent, because to call people to repent is unpopular!
So, verses 19-22. (Read 19-22.)
The remaining vessels will soon be carted off to Babylon and remain there until the day the Lord visits them. Then I will bring them back and restore them to this place.
Exile is not the end. At least, not for everyone. A hope and a promise are coming. It’s merely hinted at here, but we’ll soon enter some of the most glorious chapters of Jeremiah.
BABEL AND BABYLON
Thinking through this passage as it fits the bigger narrative of Scripture as a whole, it’s fitting that the yoke of discipline that comes upon the nations of the world is none other than Babylon. Now, in the Hebrew, it’s simply the word Babel. Yes, the same Babel as Genesis 11 where the people built a tower to the heavens in the plains of Shinar in order to make a name for themselves.
Well, not much has changed since the nations were scattered. Every nation without exception seeks to promote its own glory, making a name for themselves.
Now, Babel and Babylon book end the Old and New Testaments for a reason. Babel and Babylon are nothing less than the city of man, mankind seeking to make a name for themselves. The Babylon recorded in Revelation isn’t any specific city; it’s all of them. And it’s rightly referred to as the Great Prostitute because of her idolatry.
Babylon represents the city of man and his pursuit of his own glory. As such, mankind has been in subjugation to his own ruthless quest that will forever fall short. No amount of conquest will ever suffice.
So long as the cities of man continue in their idolatry, defying the creation mandate to promote God’s righteous rule on the earth, then those cities will find themselves in subjugation to Babylon. In other words, so long as man pursues the likes of Babel, seeking any agenda other than that of God’s, then mankind will find himself enslaved to the mess he has made on this fallen earth.
Mankind has ruthlessly rebelled; mankind will be subjected to ruthless rulers. This is the appointed yoke of the Lord’s discipline. And this yoke will remain until the Lord overthrows Babylon completely and all the nations of the earth become as Sodom and Gomorrah with the smoke of their judgment ascending as a burnt offering.
Everyone shall submit to the yoke of the Lord’s discipline. And everyone will indeed submit to God’s appointed King. The question is whether you submit willingly.
For those who submit to God’s appointed king, will be as holy vessels carried into exile. But exile won’t have the last word. The Lord will soon visit them. The Lord himself will bring them out of exile and restore them to His holy sanctuary.
You see, in His mercy, God didn’t appoint Nebuchadnezzar as the final king to reign over all the earth, nor as the final yoke of justice. God sent His Son, who, rather than a tyrant king, is gentle and meek. Rather than riding on a war horse armed for battle, Jesus announced his kingship by humbly riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, completely unarmed, offering terms of peace.
Rather than a harsh yoke of subjugation, Jesus’ yoke is easy and light.
The Medes and Persians will soon displace Babylon as the next superpower, followed by Greece, and then Rome. But these superpowers were short-lived, at least in light of eternity. The might of the United States and Russian too will one day vanish.
Whose yoke will you find yourself under? The yoke of Babylon, the fallen cities of man. Or the loving yoke of Christ.
Submit to God’s appointed King, king Jesus, and live. Take his yoke upon you. For his yoke is easy, and his burden is light.
-Pray-
Jeremiah 26:1-24 The Lord's Uncompromising Servant
INTRODUCTION:
I invite you to turn with me to The Book of Jeremiah chapter 26. After a brief six-month detour, we’re resuming our study in this longest book of the Bible. And so, due to its length, we’ll jump right in. Please follow along as I read from Jeremiah chapter 26, beginning at verse 1.
(Read Jeremiah 26:1-24)
THE BEAR AND THE ATHEIST
Many of you are likely familiar with the story of the atheist and the bear.
An atheist was walking through the woods when he happened upon a 7-foot grizzly. Running for his life, the atheist soon tripped and found the bear towering over him with teeth bared and razor-sharp claws drawn. With what he expected to be his final breath, the atheist cried out, “God, help me!”
Suddenly, time paused. And there came a voice from heaven. “You have rejected My authority to the point of even denying My existence. And now, when the jaws of death are at your throat, you’re finally ready to submit to my authority and become a Christian?”
“Well, not exactly,” replied the atheist as he quickly pondered the situation, “But perhaps you could make the bear a Christian!”
With that, time resumed. And the giant grizzly dropped to its knees, folded its front paws in a posture of prayer, and in a low deep growl of a voice, the bear spoke, “Lord, for this meal I’m about to receive, thank You.”
UNCOMPROMISING VERSUS PRIDE
I use this somewhat silly illustration because some would likely commend the atheist in his uncompromising commitment to his godless worldview. But most are wise enough to recognize that an uncompromising commitment to a worldview one knows to be a lie has nothing to do with compromise, but everything to do with pride—a refusal to admit error even to the point of severe consequences, and sometimes not just consequences to oneself but to others as well.
Our passage today, and indeed the remainder of the Book of Jeremiah has us looking at the uncompromising nature of God and His Word, and that of the foolish pride of man that refuses to bend to that reality.
IMMUTABILITY
You see, behind God’s uncompromising nature is God’s unchangeableness, what theologians refer to as His immutability. God cannot change who He is.
Sure, some scoffers will argue, “Why must we be the ones to bend and compromise. Is your God too proud to compromise? I thought the willingness and ability to compromise was supposed to be a virtue.”
Well, first, compromise has to do with opinions and preferences, not truth. And God is ultimate reality. He is true in all His ways. For God to compromise would make Him untrue. It would make God less than God which cannot happen.
Still, our pride insists that if there’s ever to be peace between us and God, God must be the One who compromises because we sure aren’t going to. In fact, the thing our flesh detest most about God is His immutability. Why? Because it automatically puts our desire to call all the shots, our desire for unbridled autonomy, in opposition to God Himself. And we despise those in opposition towards us. It makes us enemies! That’s what an enemy is.
We’ll work through this great dilemma as our series unfolds. Today, we’ll simply look at what God’s uncompromising nature does and does not mean.
GOD’S WORD: UNCOMPROMISING and UNCHANGING
For starters, since God is uncompromising, then so is His Word. God’s Word is unchanging. All flesh will perish like grass, but the Word of the Lord… endures forever. Or as Jesus says, Heaven and earth will pass away, but … my words will not pass away.
From the very beginning, even before the Fall, God’s Word was, Trust Me. Heed My voice and you will live in My blessing. That blessing, which we covered over the past several weeks is communion… fellowship… Sabbath rest with our Creator. BUT! Fail to trust Me, disregard My Word, and you will surely die, being exiled from My very presence.
That was the Word before the Fall, and that’s the same Word post-Fall. O it takes various expressions based on where we find ourselves in history. But the meaning is the same. For example, on this side of the Fall, God’s Word is expressed in His calling us to repentance. But realize, it’s the same uncompromising Word that calls us to trust the Lord. Heed His voice and live OR continue in rebellion and perish.
CONTINGENCY
But don’t take uncompromising to mean that there’s not an aspect of contingency in certain expressions God’s Word, specifically God’s words of promise and His words of warning. Which is where we find ourselves in Jeremiah 26. Look again at verse 1. (Read 1-3)
Notice the contingency in verse 3. It may be they will listen, and every one turn from his evil way, that I may relent of the disaster that I intend to do to them because of their evil deeds.
Perhaps you’re out there, and your heart has been hardened to the commands of God because they interfere with how you feel things ought to be or ought to have been. Let me just say, the one in error is you. God’s Word is given right now that you might listen and return to Him.
FULL COUNSEL
Also, notice what the Lord requires of Jeremiah. Verse 2. Speak all the words that I command you to speak. Do not hold back a single word. Why? Because it’s God’s full counsel that is designed to sway hearts.
So many are out there, whether in pulpits or in the breakroom, whether on your neighbor’s front lawn or online, who think they are sharing the gospel when they never get beyond the most palatable aspects of the gospel. And if your version of the gospel isn’t both bitter and sweet, offensive and hope-filled, you haven’t shared the gospel, because the gospel is indeed bitter and offensive to most! Why? Because they refuse to repent! But for those God has awakened by His Spirit, the gospel is the sweetest most hope-filled message that there is.
WE DON’T CHOOSE THE MESSAGE
Don’t you determine what part of the gospel is appropriate. Share the full message, the whole counsel of God, as Paul says. Don’t hold back a Word! Because it’s the entirety of the message that’s meant to bring about repentance.
Jeremiah, don’t just go out there to the temple and nicely request that the people try a bit harder, do a bit better. You know, live up to your potential! God has big plans for YOU! O how many “Christian” messages take that form!
But that’s not at all the gospel. That’s not the message we’re sent to proclaim. We’re to call people out of darkness, from where they’ve been walking in a lie. We’re to call them from the destruction they’re marching to and plead with them to turn to God for refuge, that they might find life in Him!
WORD OF WARNING
Our good news has a word of warning to it. The gospel is only good news because it speaks into our dreadful situation. Warn them how severe the consequences will be for those who refuse to repent. That’s what Jesus did. Unless you repent, you will likewise perish. It will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Sodom and Gomorrah than for those who refuse this only hope of salvation we have to offer.
HELL?
And yet, there are people who try to explain away the concept of Hell. Well, you know, it’s just a metaphor. Lake of fire, Eternal punishment. They’re just hyperbole, you know, an exaggeration.
Well, that may be so, but if Jesus felt the need to express the horrific judgments coming upon the ungodly with such illustrative language, why on earth would you seek to downplay it? Those horrors are meant to wake people from their drunken stupor! And you want to lull them off to sleep with some lullaby that suggests hell won’t be that bad. Are you kidding me!
A half gospel saves no one because it fails to move people to genuine repentance!
So, what’s the message? Verse 4 (Read 4-6)
Repent or perish; that’s the message. Which implies, if you repent, you won’t perish.
Now I understand, Jeremiah is preaching to the people of Jerusalem. But we’d be gravely mistaken to think that this message doesn’t apply to Lebanon TN or the United States. We’ll get to the nations at the end of the book. They all face judgment for the same reason Jerusalem does, forsaking Almighty God. Israel simply serves as an example of just how fallen the world is. Because if those to whom God has directly revealed Himself refuse to repent, how likely are those from whom God has hidden Himself going to avoid judgment.
Now this particular message Jeremiah is given to preach is in abbreviated form. You can find the whole message in chapters 7-10. Yes, four long chapters. And we covered them in a single message last year if you want to look it up online. The fact that we’re just given a summary of the message here clues us as the reader that the point of chapter 26 is not so much the Word Jeremiah was given but the people’s response to it.
So, just how is God’s message received? Verse 7. (Read 7-9)
ENRAGED
Led by the religious elite, the priests and prophets, all the people became enraged, calling for Jeremiah’s death.
Why the hostility? It’s not as if Jeremiah has come proclaiming something new, something they hadn’t heard before. In fact, Jeremiah’s really proclaiming what the message has always been since the Fall. Jeremiah is preaching what every human heart instinctively knows to be true regardless of how much we might try to suppress it, that the Righteous Judge will call every deed to account. That’s pretty much Jeremiah’s word to them. Be warned and repent.
And it’s that Word, the uncompromising Word of God that increases hostility from the rebellious, because they know that God can’t be bent or molded into our liking or preferences.
ANTICIPATE HOSTILITY
When God’s uncompromising Word is proclaimed uncompromisingly, we should anticipate the response of either repentance (hopefully) or hostility. Now that hostility might seek to show itself as indifference, but there’s no true neutral response to God’s Word. So, it shouldn’t surprise us that Jeremiah was met with such hostility. “You shall die. Because you spoke against this city.”
ALLEGIANCES
I hope you realize this calls for a right balance or a nuanced understanding of Christian patriotism. Our allegiance as believers is not first and foremost to any earthly nation or city. Our citizenship is in heaven. We await a city with foundations, the new creation that Sherif preached on last week. [We’ll look at seeking the welfare of the cities of our sojourn in weeks to come when we get to chapter 29.]
For now, understand that Judah is about to go into exile—at least those fortunate enough to survive sword, famine, and plague. Why? Because their allegiances were misaligned. And as such, they failed to benefit their city, their nation, or anyone else. Their unchecked patriotism for worldly nations and cities will ultimately lead to the destruction of those nations and cities.
Jeremiah spoke against the city in hopes of sparing it! Do you get that? Jeremiah didn’t pick this party’s side or that party’s side. He chose God’s side, speaking out against the corruption of the whole system. None have innocent hands.
HOSTILE TOWARDS GOD’S SERVANTS
And when you take your stand on the side of God, proclaiming God’s truth, those hostile towards God will undoubtedly be hostile toward His servants… that is, if those servants are faithful. Not only will people show hostility towards you. They will seek to gather others to their cause in order to silence you. Just like they tried with Jeremiah. Verse 10. (Read 10-11)
CANCELED
Hey! Let’s cancel Jeremiah! Did you hear what he said about this place, how he confronted us, how he questioned our morality!
Just in the past few weeks, critics were calling for a pro football player, Harrison Butker, to be canceled, to be removed from the NFL because he gave a commencement speech on catholic values at a catholic college. And if you stand on your Christian values, people are going to try to cancel you.
This month especially, you’re going to come face-to-face with opposition to your Christian faith, hostility to God’s design for sexuality. We are called to be gentle, loving, and kind in our responses, but don’t mistake those for compromising the truth of God’s Word. Love people enough to speak the truth to them. They’ll argue, well I was born this way. Will you tell them, there’s a reason Jesus says that we all must be born again.
So, the moment of decision. The leaders have risen against you, threatening the ultimate form of canceling… DEATH! Now’s the time to recant and save any bit of your reputation or possible future. Fall in line with the mainstream. Make sure you’re on the right side of history. OR, stand firm in faith.
So, what does Jeremiah do? Verse 12. (Read 12-15)
UNCOMPROMISING SERVANT
The uncompromising servant of the Lord doubles down on his word. Why? Because it’s not his word; it’s God’s. Yet this God is merciful. Repent and the Lord will relent. But understand this. There are no other alternatives. Repent or Judgment. There’s no compromise in God’s Word. And no compromise from God’s servant.
This house and city face utter destruction. And what’s more, any harm you bring upon me, Jeremiah says, will further your guilt. But so be it, verse 14, I’m in your hands. Do as seems good to you. But be warned.
FEAR OF THE LORD
You see, Jeremiah feared the Lord. So, he had no need to fear the threats of men. What could they do? Take his life? That doesn’t remotely compare to his having to give account to his Creator for his faithfulness or lack thereof. What about you?
I think of how often we seek to defend ourselves. I’m not speaking of defending others, but that of defending oneself. We’ll carry in the name of self-defense. But you’ll find no such self-defense from God’s faithful servant, nor from our Lord Jesus. Instead, we find them entrusting themselves to God’s providential care rather than taking matters into their own hand. And God may, in His providence, either deliver from physical harm or not.
Verse 16 (Read 16-19)
A REMNANT
As lost as the nation had become, God preserved a somewhat faithful remnant—a remnant that, to some degree, has retained the truth of Israel’s history. The Word of the Lord had not yet fully vanished from Israel.
And what we see, is that God delivers Jeremiah by the hand of a few sensible and discerning individuals. Remember Micah? He prophesied against this place as well. But Hezekiah, rather than putting him to death, entreated the favor of the Lord!
Do you see the stark contrast between the two groups? You rebuked us, so we’re going to cancel you, versus weighing the words of warning, the accusation, to see if there’s any truth to it, and then entreating the favor of the Lord accordingly. One heart is motivated by a proper fear of the Lord, the other, in unrelenting pride, seeks to silence any opposition to its set ways.
RELIGIOUS PROFESSIONALS?
Notice also, that the preservation of God’s Word is not to be left in the hands of a few religious professionals. It wasn’t the prophets or priests who spoke up in Jeremiah’s defense. I hope you understand your role as members in both the church universal as well as the local church. We’re all called to guard the truth of the gospel.
URIAH
But we’re not quite finished. We need to understand the purpose of these last few verses and the account of the prophet Uriah. Verse 20. (Read 20-24)
Why is this account of Uriah here? A few things.
1) It shows the ruthlessness of king Jehoiakim. We are to see the great danger Jeremiah was in for prophesying such messages. Jeremiah wasn’t looking at empty threats, but down the barrel of a loaded and cocked rifle.
2) It shows us that physical deliverance is not guaranteed. The Lord will continue to keep us in His service as long as He sees fit. But understand, Jeremiah’s being spared death at this time was by no means the easier road. He will endure great grief and suffering over the next several years of ministry.
3) The account of Uriah shows the courage and faith required to be the Lord’s messenger, the great faith it took for Jeremiah not to compromise. Your years aren’t guaranteed, but it takes us back to the question, who will you fear when you’re threatened in some way, whether real or perceived. But I might offend my unbelieving neighbor. They might think poorly of me. My coworker might go around slandering me to my peers, calling for me to be canceled.
Will you stand fast or compromise?
4) It’s not just our proclamation of God’s Word that must be uncompromising. Our lives must be uncompromising as well. Otherwise, our witness to others will be compromised. Uriah’s witness was compromised due to the fact that his fear of man trumped his fear of the Lord. The text says, He was afraid and fled!
Now, I want to be careful here. There’s nothing biblically wrong with fleeing imminent danger. In fact, that’s what the call of the gospel is—to flee imminent danger—flee the wrath that is to come and flee to the outstretched arms of Jesus. But notice, this account is meant to contrast Uriah’s cowardice with Jeremiah’s faithful resolve.
GOD’S SOVEREIGN HAND
Matthew Henry writes, “Uriah was faithful in delivering his message, but faulty in leaving his work. And the Lord was pleased to permit him to lose his life, while Jeremiah was protected in danger. (Now catch this.) Those are safest who most simply trust in the Lord, whatever their outward circumstances may be, and that since the Lord has all men’s hearts in His hands, He encourages us to trust Him in the way of duty.”
So, I guess it comes down to this, whether you truly trust God as sovereign and that He does indeed have all the hearts of men and women in His sovereign hand. Or do you believe that God is at the mercy of the free decisions of men and women? Unless you believe in God’s absolute sovereignty, you’ll likely compromise, because you believe that God is only so able to defend you.
But if you know that your every breath is in God’s hands, that the number of your days depends not on what mere men might do to you, that the One who numbers the hairs on your head—some easier to number than others—and that even should you be put to death by the sword, not a hair on your head shall ultimately perish, you can stand bold and secure on God’s Word. And you’ll find yourself far less likely to compromise in both Life or Word.
PREPARING FOR THE BATTLEFIELD
O there’ll be lapses of faith along the way. But that’s why we remind ourselves of these truths now, applying God’s uncompromising Word around the strategy board now, so that when we’re on the battlefield we’ll be prepared and able to recall our only line of defense, which is not fleeing from worldly fears, but fleeing to the refuge of God Himself.
NOT SENT?
Now, I’m going to venture to say that the real reason Uriah failed to entrust himself to God’s sovereign care is because Uriah was never sent by God. Notice verse 20. It says, Uriah prophesied in the name of the Lord. Well, many false prophets were doing just that! (We’ll come to that next week.) Here’s Uriah. Catch this. He’s prophesying against Jerusalem in words like those of Jeremiah.
At first glance, we might recognize Uriah as one of the Lord’s prophets, but it’s likely that the opposite is actually the case. You see, Jeremiah has gained some notoriety for his outspokenness. And many seek to garner fame at all costs. There’s only so much recognition one can gain in going along with the crowd. But this Jeremiah, while many despise him and want to cancel him, even to the point of threatening him with death, well, they haven’t yet. And his popularity continues to grow.
COMPROMISED CHURCH
Don’t think that this sort of thing doesn’t happen in the church, those who seek to proclaim merely the most controversial aspects of God’s Word, solely because of the attention it brings them. We have it here in our community. And it fills the virtual cloud.
But one can proclaim the words of the gospel without proclaiming the gospel, because the gospel is not a message of condemnation, but a desperate plea for people to be spared. Remember, Jesus didn’t come to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him. If your message lacks the fruit of the Spirit, it’s not God’s message! Period!
There’s a mood, a demeanor among certain groups of “Christians” that are not remotely Christ-like. They do not reflect the Jesus of Scripture because they don’t have a heart for lost people, but only themselves and their self-perceived piety. They’ve made the gospel primarily about promoting themselves.
LIKE CHRIST
But Jesus wept over the destruction of Jerusalem. Do you find yourself weeping over Lebanon, Mount Juliet, Gladeville, Hartsville, Watertown, or wherever the Lord has planted you?
Yes, Jesus spoke against the city. But he did so because of His love for the city, for its people.
And because he had spoken against the city, they exiled him, leading him outside the gates in order to permanently cancel him, to set him up as an example of the shame that shall come upon anyone else who might speak against this city and its ways.
But do realize that those who sought to cancel Jesus, didn’t have the last word. With the resurrection Jesus was vindicated! And if you persevere to the end, holding to God’s uncompromising Word, those who seek to cancel you for your uncompromising faith in Christ won’t have the last word either. The Lord shall deliver every one of His faithful servants, vindicating us before every one of our enemies.
Decide this day who you will serve… so that you find yourself tomorrow… an uncompromising servant of the Lord.
PRAY
Read Leviticus 18
I ran into a bit of a problem preparing for today. My intent was to cover Leviticus 19 this morning, but I got hung up on the chapters on both sides of 19 instead. So here we are. Leviticus chapters 18 and 20. But I assure you, these chapters are not at all detached from chapter 19. Nor are they detached from all that came before. The first 16 chapters focused on the provided means for God’s people to dwell with Him in the land of His choosing, a good land flowing with milk and honey, which is a way of saying, overflowing with abundance.
MOST QUOTED VERSE
Now, since we’re a Bible believing church, I’m confident that many of you are familiar with what is, the most quoted Old Testament verse in the entire New Testament: Leviticus 19:18, You shall love your neighbor as yourself, directly quoted 8 times.
Why do I bring this up? Because as we survey chapters 18 and 20, both of which mostly deal with the category of sexual ethics, it’s important to understand the structure of this section of Leviticus.
LOVING NEIGHBOR HINGE
While chapter 16’s Day of Atonement is the center or climax of the book as a whole, the subsections each have their own center. Chapters 17 through 22 are most often understood as the holiness code, with Leviticus 19 forming its climax, and verse 18’s “loving your neighbor” serving as the hinge of this larger section.
One way we can easily notice the centrality of chapter 19 from the repeated sexual ethics in chapters 18 and 20. No, Moses hadn’t forgotten what he wrote two chapters earlier. He has a purpose for doing so.
CHIASTIC MOUNTAIN
1) is the literary device the biblical authors often used called “chiasm” where an author would record a set of ideas and then retrace them in reverse order.
Think about it like this: As you walk up a mountain and then turn around and come down, you see many of the same things. But you’re seeing everything from a slightly different perspective than you did on the way up.
The peak of that mountain is the climax, where you can see the most complete view of the surroundings at one time. Loving your neighbor is that summit, that allows us the best view of the whole of this holiness code.
LOVING NEIGHBOR SANDWICHED BETWEEN
There’s a second reason for Moses presenting these same laws on both sides of Leviticus 19? If you look closely, you’ll notice that as similar as chapters 18 and 20 are, they aren’t the same. The list of sexual ethics in chapter 18 can be understood as the thou shalt nots, and chapter 20 as the consequences. Chapter 19 is likely sandwiched between because breaking the sexual ethics of chapter 18 is a failure to love your neighbor as yourself, making chapter 20 not so much a list of consequences for particular sins as much as the consequences of not loving your neighbor as you ought.
Rather than loving your neighbor, the refrain of chapter 18 is that sexual immorality uncovers your neighbor's nakedness; it shames your neighbor.
LAY A FOUNDATION
My goal this morning is not to articulate the individual statutes set forth. The sexual ethic of the Bible is quite clear. The only reason we have debates on such issues is because we suppress the truth because we don’t like the truth. So, we all know what sexual immorality is. My goal is to lay of foundation of why this matters.
TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
Now, many in our society would argue, Hey Josh, in case you haven’t noticed this is the 21st century. We’ve come a long way from the oppression of the patriarchal era. All this stuff about sexual ethics, well, isn’t that a private matter? I mean, it’s personal. It’s my body, and so long as it only involves me and other mutually consenting partners, then what’s the harm. Isn’t mutual consent a form of loving my neighbor?
STEWARD
1) That body, you call yours, only partly belongs to you. In fact, it would be more accurate to say that you are a steward of that body, not an owner of it, because our bodies, and our souls for that matter, ultimately belong to the God who made them.
CARRIES OVER TO ALL OF LIFE
2) As private and personal as you may deem your sexual activity to be, it carries over to other aspects of your life, impacting your witness to the world. [1 Corinthians 6:18, sin against the body — the church]
GOD SEES ALL / ANGELIC WITNESSES
3) There’s no aspect of your life that is absolutely private. There is a God who witnesses every detail of your life, and not just your actions, or even your words, but your every thought, dream, and imagination. And He demands that all of it be kept holy.
But here’s also a host of angelic beings, who, while not privy to a front row seat of your thoughts, are witnesses of your outward behavior. When you and I fail to act according to God’s design, we dishonor the One who fashioned us for His glory, before the rest of creation.
DEVIATION IS NOT LOVE
4) Deviation from holiness is NOT loving your neighbor well. Forget all of this nonsense about mutual consent. You’re supposed to be an image of God’s holiness to your neighbor. Mutually consenting to sin robs your neighbor of the very witness you are to display. In fact, you’ve become a stumbling block, leading others on a path to hell. And affirming others in their disregard for holiness does the same. And people will give an account for their causing their neighbor to stumble.
REST OF THE WORLD
Okay, Josh. So, maybe this whole idea of sexual ethics isn’t as personal and private as we pretend it to be. So, what! The rest of the world’s okay with it. So, what’s the big deal.
Look again at chapter 18, verse 3. You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their statutes.
PERVERSIONS
You’re right! The rest of the world is okay with perversions of God’s good design. That’s how the rest of the world lives. But you’re supposed to be set apart from this world!
EGYPT WHERE YOU LIVED
Notice—Egypt—where you lived! And Canaan—where I’m bringing you!
Let’s start with Egypt, where you lived. God ransomed His people out of bondage in Egypt. Now, in one sense, the people were in bondage to a ruthless king who oppressed them and put them to forced labor.
SPIRITUAL REALITIES
But the Bible rarely records events solely as a means of telling history. The Holy Spirit has a theological agenda. The recorded events are meant to convey something about God, ourselves, and our need for a Savior. Thus, it’s important to recognize that these historical portraits are intended to portray spiritual realities.
RANSOMED FOR HEAVEN
In the case here, with Egypt, Israel’s big issue wasn’t so much their physical bondage in Egypt. Rather, it’s the same as ours. We are oppressed and enslaved by our sin, much more than any pharaoh ever could. That’s where we lived before being ransomed by Christ. You and I no longer live there. We don’t live in Egypt anymore. Our residence is in heaven where Christ currently dwells. So, now, live as citizens of such.
CANAAN WHERE GOD IS BRINGING US
So, what about Canaan, where God is bringing us? God is driving the peoples who live there out because of their detestable practices. Jump down to verse 24. Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean, and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants.
DRIVING OUT DUE TO WICKEDNESS
God is driving out the people of the land from before the Israelites that they might inherit the land. But get this! God is not driving the people out because Israel just so happened to be more righteous than the current inhabitants. He’s driving out the peoples because of their wickedness. God isn’t giving Israel the land because they somehow deserved or earned it, but solely on account of His good pleasure and grace.
WARNING
But understand! There’s a warning to Israel in this passage. Verse 28: If Israel makes themselves unclean by following the example of the peoples of the land, Israel too will be vomited out.
JOURNEY TO SANCTIFICATION / POLLUTE THE NEW
Christian, get this! You are on a journey to the promised land. But the journey is not so much to a location as it is to a sanctification. Your sojourn here—your pilgrimage—is for the purpose of developing a holiness that befits the promised paradise to which God is bringing you, which will be this very earth made new, free from all the corruption of sin and wickedness. But if you’re not sanctified, then to put you in this new purified creation will only serve to pollute it, placing us right back in Genesis 3 and the Fall all over again.
PAID PENALTY, NOT SO CONTINUE TO SIN
In Christ, holiness is not optional. Yes, Jesus paid the full penalty of the law on our behalf. But he didn’t pay the penalty for sin so that you and I could continue to live contrary to the law. Rather, his paying our penalty frees us from the penalty of the law so that we might actually uphold the moral demands and character of the law.
WITHOUT HOLINESS
You think that’s Old Covenant talk? Turn to Hebrews 12. Hebrews 12 hammers home this very point. Hebrews 12, verse 14. Strive for peace with everyone, and (here it is) and strive for holiness without which no one will see the Lord. You fail to be sanctified—conformed to God’s holy likeness—you won’t see Him! You won’t be allowed into His presence. Those first 16 chapters of Leviticus and the Day of Atonement won’t matter, if after the fact, you continue to walk in sin.
WALKING VS WAGING WAR
Now pause. By walking in sin, I mean, going along with sin, as a way of life. The expectation is not that you and I would be sinless this side of eternity. But we aren’t to walk in sin, like you would walk a dog. We’re to walk according to the Spirit. And that Spirit wages war against sin; it doesn’t go for walks with it.
OBTAIN GRACE
Continuing in Hebrews 12:15. Listen to this expectation. See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God. Fail to obtain grace? What? Am I now supposed to somehow earn grace? Doesn’t that make grace something other than grace? No! The text doesn’t say work for grace or earn grace but obtain grace. Grace has been freely extended to you. Don’t neglect it by failing to allow it not to have its desired effect in you. If you fail to be transformed by God’s grace, then you haven’t received it. You’re still of the world, not of the Spirit of Christ. You belong to the nations God is driving out of the land, which He’ll soon cast down into a fiery abyss.
MANNER THAT SENT JESUS TO CROSS
You and I can’t say we truly believe God sent His Son to pay the penalty for our sin, so that we might be forgiven every single act of rebellion and live an eternity with him in unimaginable bliss, and then go on living in the same manner that sent Jesus to the cross.
GRATITUDE OR REJECTION
That’s not a heart that’s been moved by love, that would do anything to express the overwhelming gratitude bubbling up from within like a fountain that can’t be contained. No! That’s a heart that spits in the face of the man on the middle cross, while he suffers in agony, pouring out his blood for the sinners who deserve to be up there in his place.
TRANSFORMATION / BITTERNESS
People fail to obtain the grace of God by spitting in the face of that grace. And anything less than utter transformation by such grace is evidence that you don’t truly get it. The author of Hebrews continues with bitterness. You hold on to bitterness, then Scripture’s clear. You have no genuine clue of the grace God has shown in the giving of His Son. Oh, you might intellectually be able to articulate some verses and doctrines. But this grace has never penetrated your hardened calloused heart.
Don’t fail to obtain God’s grace! You continue to walk in idolatry—covetousness—you’ve failed to recognize an inkling of God’s worth and the preciousness of His mercy.
SEXUALLY IMMORAL
In line with our text, Hebrews continues, see to it that no one is sexually immoral. You think the sexual ethics of Leviticus don’t matter for a New Testament Christian, then you’re not worshiping the God of the Bible. You’re worshiping the false gods of the nations God is vomiting out. And He’ll vomit you out too.
LOVE IS LOVE?
Our society is seeking to do everything possible to convince you and me that sexual norms are parochial and oppressive. I was at a house Friday, and the neighbors had a rainbow yard sign with a list of their personal maxims. One line read, “Love is love.” Of course, it sounds good to the undiscerning. But it suggests that I have the right to love whoever I choose, which they infer to mean marry or live with or, to be frank, participate in sexual acts with.
OBLIGATION TO LOVE
Let me just say, you and I don’t have the right to love whoever we choose. We have an obligation to love them! The issue is a distorted view of “love.”. The world tends to demote love to something like “feelings for someone.” That’s not even close to what love defined biblically is. If you truly love someone, you desire the best for them, and you behave in a way that demonstrates such by doing good to them. That’s loving your neighbor as yourself. And the best thing for everyone is a restored relationship with their Creator.
SELFISH LOVE / BEING LIKED
Any act that damages their relationship with God is not an act of love at all, but rather a selfish act on the individual’s part.
The current upheaval over gender falls in this same category. Someone recently shared that “any group telling you who you can love and what gender you are doesn’t give a rip about freedom.” But again, if you affirm people in their deception, you aren’t loving them; you’re being selfish. Selfish? How does that make me selfish when I’m just trying to make people feel good about themselves? Because you care more about being liked than loving them well. You make it about you.
SPEAK TRUTH
If you truly love someone, you speak truth to them for their good—especially for their eternal good. You don’t affirm them in a lie, especially a lie that’s marching them straight for hell.
VOMITED AND DETESTED
At the end of chapter 20, which allows us to see how these two chapters parallel each other, the Lord says, beginning at verse 22, You shall therefore keep all my statutes and all my rules and do them, that the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out. Verse 23, and you shall not walk in the customs of the nation that I am driving out before you, for they did all these things, and therefore I detested them.
GOD OF LOVE, GOD WHO DETESTS
Those are some pretty strong words coming from a God who is love. In fact, many have a difficult time reconciling that this same God who is love detests the wicked. This is why so many paint the God of the Old Testament as somehow a different God from the God of the New Testament. I mean, in the New Testament, God so loved the world! He doesn’t detest it!
SO LOVED THE WORLD
John 3:16 is certainly a perfect portrait of biblical love. For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. God sent His Son so that our sins might be forgiven, and we might be restored to Him for eternity. In the context of Leviticus, God sent His Son to atone for sin so that His people could dwell with Him. What greater act of Love is there? God paid the highest possible price in expressing His love, giving His very own Son.
NOT BECAUSE PLEASED WITH HUMANITY
Now, get this! God didn’t send Jesus to die on a bloody cross because He was somewhat pleased with humanity. God sent His Son to die on the cross because He detested the works and practices of the people He created in His image and how they corrupted that image.
RESTORED IMAGE / TO BELONG TO GOD
God sent His Son to restore that image. To receive that love necessarily entails a separation from the people of the world. To reject that love is to remain among the detested who will be cast out.
Verse 26. You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine.
SEXUAL ETHICS NOT AN END
The sexual ethic of the Bible is not an end in itself. It goes back to creation, where God fashioned us in his likeness but as male and female for complimentary union, or we might say, for marriage.
PORTRAYS RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD
This holiness code on sexual ethics is meant to portray something of our relationship, not just to one another, but our relationship with God.
MARRIAGE / SEXUAL IMMORALITY
One of the most common ways God’s relationship with His people is described is that of a marriage—both in the Old Covenant and the New. Yahweh was like a husband to Israel. The Church is the Bride of Christ. And the most common way the Bible refers to the breach of that relationship is sexual immorality.
IDENTITY
The media and the pundits have little regard for faithfulness. Rather, they’re more concerned with personal autonomy disguised as freedom. They put a great deal of effort into trying to convince you and me that our identity is found in determining our own preferred form of sexuality.
BROKEN RELATIONSHIP, BROKEN WORSHIP
This is completely upside down. Our sexuality is to be found in our identity as image-bearers of God, making this a relevant discussion for everyone.
The world’s sexual ethic is broke because its relationship with God is broken. And its relationship with God is broken because its worship is broken.
DISTORTED IDENTITY BY DISTORTED WORSHIP
And our identity is either found or distorted by what you and I worship, meaning our sexual ethic and practice has everything to do with worship. We were created to worship. But in our sin, we exchanged our worship of God for the worship of the creature. We tend to worship created things such as pleasure, entertainment, food, comfort, and yes, sex. And this idolatry has warped our identity as image-bearers.
CREATED SEX
Now, none of these created things are evil in themselves. Sex is not evil. God created sexuality. But God designed it that we might praise Him, not the act. God also designed it to communicate something about His holiness and His love for His people.
PURCHASE / SAVING HIMSELF FOR A BRIDE
Jesus came into the world to purchase a bride, to purchase her through the most costly means, his life. For thirty years, Jesus abstained from what is a good, natural, and godly desire, what some would call one of the greatest physical pleasures. But Jesus denied himself many of life’s physical pleasures, because what gave the Son the most pleasure was pleasing His Father. Jesus kept his body holy and pure, saving himself for his Bride, the Church—us in this room, that we might enjoy the most intimate union possible with the One who knows us inside and out.
CONCLUSION
Instead of casting the sinful nations out of the land because of their wickedness, Jesus allowed the sinful nations of both Jews and gentiles to cast him outside the camp. The Jews vomited out their king because they detested him. But while Jesus’ death on the cross declared God’s detestation of their adulterous practices, it also revealed God’s immense love far beyond any other act ever could.
Jesus allowed his nakedness to be uncovered on the cross, in order to cover ours. This is the Bridegroom of the church. This is the One you and I are to keep ourselves pure for. The Wedding Day isn’t that far off. Find your identity in Him.
INTRODUCTION: Leviticus 16:2-4
For many, access to God seems pretty irrelevant. So, I can easily understand their question: So, why are you guys studying the book of Leviticus? But I assure you, there are occasions, more than they’d like to admit, when the question of standing before God’s presence does come to mind, and it does so with force. And likely such occasions aren’t all that hopeful, because they have little, if any, assurance that such will be a good thing.
For the believer, we have already dealt with that question of whether we will stand before a holy God. And such a thought has caused us to flee to Christ to cover us, because we know, on our own, to stand before God is a terrifying prospect.
But here’s the thing. Life continues to distracts us. The serpent continues to deceive us. And our own flesh is weak and prone to wander. So we need to, not only be reminded of the assurance we have in Christ. We also need constant, fresh portraits of that assurance—of what Jesus has accomplished and how. If such wasn’t the case, we wouldn’t have such a large book of various portraits of our Lord.
Josh, last time I checked, there were only 4 gospels, and 3 of them are quite similar. Well, that may be true. But even the most similar aspects of each gospel are seeking to portray complimentary perspectives of the same Christ. And all 4 of them are drawing those portraits from the Old Testament and showing how Jesus is the finished painting, as it were.
And surprise! Leviticus, 16 is one of those primary texts the gospel writers grab hold of when they seek to present what Christ has accomplished and the glory of his accomplishment!
So, as the very least, I hope this short series helps bolster your assurance in what Christ has done on your behalf, that it would show you! And I hope you see all the more clearly, how this book we open Sunday by Sunday, is a literary masterpiece authored by One who is no less than Divine, that you might be in greater awe of Him.
So, why are we still looking at Leviticus 16? First, we haven’t come close to covering all that’s in this chapter, and we won’t. I can’t express enough the import of this book, and especially this chapter, which has been deemed by many to be the central text of the entire Pentateuch.
As a brief refresher of what we’ve covered so far: In our overview of chapters 1-9, we looked at the challenge of entering God’s presence, and specifically at the whole burnt offering, which is better translated and understood as the ascension offering.
In chapter 16, we quickly found that the tabernacle and the priesthood had become defiled, and thus the need for the annual cleansing that took place on the Day of Atonement. We also looked at the idea of atonement as covering: covering over sin and covering over wrath.
Last time we were here, we looked at atonement as both expiation—the removal of sin, and propitiation—the assuaging of wrath, God’s wrath. And we saw how such was illustrated in the two goats.
Today, we’re returning to chapter 16 to look at the approach of the priest, with a focus of his clothing, and the cloud of incense he was to carry into the Most Holy Place. We’ll wrap up by looking at how Jesus satisfies both of these.
READ: Leviticus 16:2-4
MEDIATORY ROLE
When we consider the priesthood, one way we can think about the priest’s role is its mediatory function, or how he serves as an intermediary. Take Moses for example. At the end of God declaring the Ten Commandments from atop of Mount Sinai, what did the people say? They told Moses, You speak to us, and we’ll listen. But don’t let God speak to us lest we die. Moses served as a mediator between God and the people. Now, it’s important to recognize that a mediatory role goes both ways. God to the people, and the people to God.
The priest mediates God’s presence to the people. Although Adam isn’t outright referred to as a priest, there are sufficient clues to affirm that he was. One of Adam’s roles was to mediate God’s presence to the rest of creation. That’s one of the reasons Adam was formed in God’s likeness.
ORNATE GARMENTS
One way in which the high priest did this, was in his ornate garments described in Exodus 28, which were fashioned for glory and splendor. Some of the items for the priest’s apparel were ornamented with gold and precious gems. These were the priest’s outerwear: the breast piece, the ephod, the robe, and the golden crown with the inscription, Holy to the Lord, which would be attached by a blue cord to the priest’s linen turban. In his usual dress for daily service, these are the items the onlooker would see. The priest would look very much like a king in all his glory.
When the people brought their gifts and sacrifices, they brought them to the priest who would offer them to God on their behalf. This was the priest representing God to the people.
But the priest was also to represent the people to God.
AMBASSADOR APPAREL
Now, if you and I were to gather a diverse group of individuals and brainstorm regarding what the proper apparel to approach the God of the universe should be, what kind of responses would we get? Forget the Sunday school answer for a moment, and let’s say, you’re asking people off the street.
Now, some would immediately start to think about what we wear in church. And we can look at that. But I’m saying, we are sending someone—tomorrow—to meet God on our behalf, to represent us. How might we dress such an individual?
Well, for starters, we’d likely tailor this person up in a fine Italian suit, so as to exude power, wealth, sophistication. If he’s representing me, I want him to impress! We know that’s the case, because when countries send out their diplomats, they don’t send them out in casual wear. (Or at least we didn’t until recently. But I’m not going there this morning.)
DRESSED AS A SLAVE
If someone’s representing us, we want them to represent us well. So, we’d likely take that high priest array of ornate garments and notch it up a bit for the one day a year we actually send the guy into God’s presence inside the Most Holy Place. But that’s the exact opposite of what God had prescribed. This priest who most days was dressed like a king, on the day he was to enter God’s presence, wore clothing more typical of a slave.
Look at verse 4. I’m going to read it from the CSB because the ESV and NASB add the definite article four times where there isn’t one. He is to wear a holy linen tunic, and linen undergarments are to be on his body. He is to tie a linen sash around him and wrap his head with a linen turban. These are holy garments; he must bathe his body with water before he wears them.
GLORY SET ASIDE
The high priest, in order to enter behind the curtain into the Most Holy Place, had to lay aside his garments of glory and splendor, and pretty much enter in his undergarments, with a simple tunic, sash, and turban. [You know that story of the priest who went into the Holy of Holies with bells and a rope? Stories like that come about from people who become disconnected with the text of Scripture. That robe with the bells on the hem doesn’t even get to go behind the curtain. The ephod with the onyx stones stays outside too, as does the breast piece with the twelve gems and the holy crown of gold. None of the ornate apparel gets to enter God’s presence!
IMPRESS GOD?
Josh, why does this matter? Well, let me ask it this way. What could you and I possibly present ourselves in that would even come close to impressing Him? There is nothing in any of us that can impress the One who made us.
All year long, the priest would be decked out in his more kingly attire. But when he approached the Lord of all the earth, he did so in humility, clothed in God’s prescribed fashion, and with the blood of another, a substitute, in this case, the blood of a bull.
The only thing in himself which the priest could bring before the Lord was his obedience, an obedience wrought by faith. And that’s all you and I can bring before the Lord. Your finest clothing will get you nowhere before a holy God. He sees right through it all. The same with your achievements, your skills, your bank account. Don’t come in here thinking you made a little contribution to a fake gold-plated bowl which we call an offering plate, and thing that you somehow impress God. You can drop $50,000 in it or $5. To the One who owns it all, it makes no difference. What matters is whether you come with a humble and contrite heart, led by faith that trusts this holy God will accept you, not on the basis of yourself, but on the basis of another.
To seek to enter God’s presence on his own terms, the high priest would go out like Nadab and Abihu—carried to his grave. God provided a humble dress for this priest, as a necessary covering to hide his nakedness, in order that he might enter God’s presence. You and I enter clothed in the humility of Christ, or we won’t enter. Or rather, it will be an entry we’ll regret.
CLOUDS
But even with such humble garments and the blood of a substitute, the priest’s entry into God’s presence was still limited. He entered behind the curtain, all right, but a cloud was stationed between the priest and the Lord; a veil of sorts remained.
Back up to verse 2. The Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron your bother not to come at any time into the Holy Place inside the veil, before the mercy seat that is on the ark, so that he may not die. For I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat.
This cloud over the mercy seat was a sort of theophany, a manifestation of God’s presence, much like the Shekinah glory in miniature. But the cloud wasn’t God. Aaron couldn’t truly see God and live.
So, verse 12 and 13. The priest was to take a censor full of coals of fire from the altar and two handfuls of sweet incense beaten small and bring it inside the veil. And he was to put the incense on the fire before the Lord, so that the cloud of incense would cover the mercy seat that is over the testimony, so that he does not die.
MERCY SEAT
Let’s unpack this a bit. First, the mercy seat is the atonement cover that sat on top of the ark of the covenant which held the tablets of stone, the Ten Commandments. That’s the testimony referred to here. On the mercy seat, we have the two cherubim. Remember that. It’s important. This mercy seat is the place where God meets with His people. However, the high priest was the only one to ever venture that far, and only once a year.
INCENSE
Throughout the year, when incense was placed on the altar of incense, it would be a handful at most. Here a double portion is placed on the altar, so that the cloud would shield the mercy seat from view. Now, I don’t have time to trace out all the implications here, how incense is related to prayer, and the fact that this incense is beaten small; it’s finely crushed. Suffice it to say, that where the prayers of the priest were lacking to provide a necessary shield between him and God, here the sweet-smelling incense provided a sort of substitute.
Josh, how do you know the priest’s prayers were lacking?Because Romans 8 says you and I don’t know what to pray for as we ought. Do you think the priest was any different. Let me ask, do you feel your prayers are adequate before this holy God? Jesus isn’t up in heaven interceding on our behalf as a sort of redundancy. The Spirit isn’t interceding on our behalf because you and I got this thing down. The priest, even with the weight of the responsibility to pray for the people, fell short. Just like you and I do when we intercede for our family, our friends, our church.
Like the prescribed clothing, this prescribed method of approach was so that the priest wouldn’t die, wouldn’t be consumed by gazing on the Lord without something to shield him from God’s glory.
NO ONE MAY ENTER
Jumping down to verse 17. No one may enter the tent of meeting from the time the priest enters to make atonement in the Holy Place until he comes out and has made atonement for himself, his household, and all the assembly. And afterwards—after making atonement, slaughtering the bull and the goat for the sin offering, and then sending the second goat into permanent exile…
Then, verse 23, Aaron shall come into the tent of meeting and shall take off the linen garments and leave them there. After which, verse 24, he shall wash and put on his own garments and come out and offer the ascension offering for him and the people.
ASCENSION OFFERING
We covered this before, but it’s important we understand that the whole burnt offering is literally an ascension offering. It’s root is the word for ascend. It’s the thing that goes up. This will matter as we tie all that we’ve covered thus far with the work of our Lord Jesus.
So, here’s our dilemma. You and I can’t enter God’s presence in ourselves, with any gift we have to present. Our sin has made us unclean. And we have no satisfying gift to bring.
If you don’t recognize that as a problem, you either have a way too low view of God or a way too high view of yourself. And to be content with the separation that keeps us from God’s presence is to be robbed from our greatest joy, satisfaction, and happiness.
So we need a high priest who can go into God’s presence, not symbolically by moving a fabric curtain to stand before some ornate box that holds a couple stone tablets with chiseled writing, as significant as those words might be. We need a high priest who can enter the true tent not made by hands. We need a high priest who doesn’t require a cloud created by two handfuls of finely crushed incense because he falls short on his prayers. We need a high priest who comes on the clouds of heaven to the very throne of the Ancient of Days. That’s the kind of priest we need as our intermediary. One who paves the way for us to follow after, that we might be assured entrance into God’s very presence.
And that’s exactly the kind of High Priest we have in Jesus Christ.
CHRIST OUR HIGH PRIEST
The letter to the Hebrews draws this out so beautifully for us, especially chapters 6-10. Jesus enters the true tent, the inner place behind the curtain as a forerunner on our behalf. Forerunner means we get to follow after!
DANIEL 7
We don’t have time to address sufficiently how our text relates to Daniel 7, but recognize that Daniel 7 draws off this Day of Atonement for the language of the Son of Man approaching the Ancient of Days. I understand that the Son of Man is the title for the coming Davidic King, but this King is also a priestly figure. When Jesus stands before the council and declares, from now on, you will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, it’s because Jesus is about to enter this Day of Atonement as the true high priest who will enter into the true temple to present his sacrifice—Jesus being both the priest and the sacrifice.
JOHN’S GOSPEL
What I want to do now is show how John presents Jesus as the priest who completes the final Day of Atonement. John displays Jesus as the glorious one, opening his gospel with the incarnation of the Word, who is God, and stating, we beheld his glory. But as glorious as our Lord Jesus is, it wasn’t his outward appearance that was so glorious. Rather, the flesh he took on served as a curtain that veiled his glory.
In taking on fallen human flesh, Jesus had laid aside the glorious garments that only the 3—Peter, James, and John—were privileged to witness. And just to make sure we understand that Jesus set aside his garments of glory to make atonement for his people, John records, as does the other 3 gospels, that Jesus was wrapped in linen for his burial.
LAID ASIDE GLORY
Now, if you wonder what Jesus was doing between his death and resurrection, I think, at the very least, he was satisfying the portrait of this Day of Atonement in Leviticus 16. Remember, Jesus is stripped of the royal robes the soldiers had dressed him in to mock him, relating Jesus to the high priest who laid aside his more kingly garments and stripped down to the clothes of a mere servant.
Much like when Jesus stripped himself down to his undergarments to wash the disciples’ feet. Here in his burial, Jesus dressed in plain linen.
WHERE I’M GOING
Recall earlier in John’s gospel, Jesus had told the disciples, where I’m going, you can’t follow now, but you will after. Just as no one could enter the tent while the priest made atonement, neither could Jesus’ disciples until he finished his work of atonement, laid aside his clothes, and came out.
FOLDED UP CLOTHES
So, when Peter and John heard from Mary Magdalene that the stone had been rolled away, they raced to the tomb. And what do they find? John 20 verse 5. Stooping to look in, John saw the linen cloths lying there. And verse 6. When Peter enters, he sees the linen face cloth folded up by itself, apart from the other clothes. At the very least, this suggests that this high priest had finished his work of atoning for sin, and has now, as we read in Leviticus 16:23-24, took off the linen garments and set them aside. From the cross, Jesus declares, It is finished. And here the laid aside garments demonstrate such to truly be the case.
ANGELS AND MERCY SEAT
But there’s more. When the men leave, and Mary herself stoops to look in, John 20 verse 12, what does she see? Two angels, one at the head and one at the feet of where Jesus had lain. Why angels? Well, again, let’s think of the Day of Atonement. The priest was to go before the mercy seat. What’s on the atonement cover of the mercy seat? Two angels, or cherubim to be precise. John is showing us, in his narrative, that Jesus isn’t just the high priest. Jesus himself is the mercy seat that covered over the testimony of the Law that demanded the penalty of death.
ASCENSION
But there’s more. On the Day of Atonement, once the sacrifices for sin have been completed, and the high priest took off the linen garments and put back on his own clothes, what was he to do next? Leviticus 16:24, He was to come out and offer up the ascension offering. In John 20 verse 17, do you recall what Jesus tells Mary, when she finally recognizes the Lord and mistakes him for a gardener (though that shows Jesus to be a new Adam in a new garden). Jesus says, Don’t cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. That will take place in the first chapter of Acts. But John didn’t write Acts, so he records it here for us to see the entire portrait here.
FORERUNNER
Jesus continues, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God. My Father and your Father. My God and your God. To quote Hebrews 6:19-20, In Christ, you and I have a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf. Jesus is our great High Priest, who perfected the Day of Atonement. And as such, Hebrews 7:25 says, He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.
TWO HANDFULS OF FINELY CRUSHED INCENSE
Unlike the priestly line of Aaron, Jesus’ prayers are in no way deficient. He doesn’t require an incense cloud to shield him from the face of God. Jesus enters directly into the presence of the Ancient of Days upon the very clouds of heaven. That reference is to show the incomparable difference between Aaron’s priestly approach and that of Jesus’.
Instead of two handfuls of finely crushed incense, Jesus opened those two hands on the cross as he himself was crushed and poured out on the fire of god’s wrath on our behalf, as a pleasing aroma to his Father. This is our royal great High Priest who always lives to intercede for those who are his.
Hebrews 10:19-23.
Let’s close with Hebrews 10:19-23. Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.
Is your heart sprinkled clean? Do you have that full assurance of faith? Let’s demonstrate such by holding fast the confession of our hope without wavering. We know God is faithful. He’s proven such through His Son. Let’s lean into that faithfulness of God and Christ as we prepare to partake of the Lord’s Supper.
INTRODUCTION: Leviticus 16:7-10
Well, it’s Palm Sunday, and we’re in Leviticus 16. I debated whether to do a message geared specifically towards Jesus’ triumphal entry and passion week, and if you want that message, it’s on our YouTube channel, titled: The Arrival of the King. But I hope you realize that the Day of Atonement is not all that detached from Palm Sunday and what takes place on Good Friday.
In fact, if you look with me in Matthew’s gospel—jump to chapter 21 to where Bill just read—you’ll notice that the triumphal entry is immediately followed by the account of Jesus cleansing the temple, which is, as we discussed last week, the context of Leviticus 16 and the Day of Atonement.
RECAP
Recall that due to Nadab and Abihu’s unauthorized entry and sacrifice, the tabernacle and priesthood had both become defiled. Leviticus 16 was put in place as a sort of temporary resolution for this defilement. But as we saw last week, this entire sacrificial system was somewhat deficient to deal with that defilement. The system was deficient, but only to a point. It was deficient to truly atone for sin and the pollution caused by sin. But what this system was not deficient to do was to portray the high cost and the means by which God himself would ultimately—once and for all—atone for sin.
PALM SUNDAY
Jumping back to Palm Sunday, while Jesus is riding into Jerusalem, the crowds are shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” Now, one of the things the crowd is doing is quoting Psalm 118, which we read in our call to worship. The very next verse is about binding the festal sacrifice to the altar. Why? Because it’s through the festival sacrifices that God has provided atonement for sin. And Jesus comes as the sacrifice to which all other sacrifices pointed, including those offered on the Day of Atonement.
ATONEMENT
Even article 21 of the Belgic Confession, which Sherif read, goes by the name: The Atonement. So, I hope you’re starting to grasp just how central this event is.
Last week we looked at the priest’s need to first atone for his own sin before he could do so for the people. We also looked at atonement at a very basic level under the idea of covering— 1) atonement covers over the trespasses of one party, and 2) atonement covers the justified wrath of the other party due to those very trespasses. So, this atonement deals with covering both our sin and God’s wrath.
Today, we’re looking more directly at how Leviticus 16 deals with atonement for the congregation. We’ll look at by way of two goats and their opposite trajectories. We’ll also deal with the propitiation and expiation and how these goats address both.
READ: Leviticus 16:7-10
Then [Aaron] shall take the two goats [these were the goats two goats taken from the people for a sin offering] and set them before the Lord at the entrance of the tent of meeting. And Aaron shall cast lots over the two goats, one lot of the Lord and the other lot for Azazel. And Aaron shall present the goat on which the lot fell for the Lord and use it as a sin offering, but the goat on which the lot fell for Azazel shall be presented alive before the Lord to make atonement over it, that it may be sent away into the wilderness to Azazel.
A SMALL THING TO COME BEFORE A HOLY GOD
I wonder what Charlie, some guy who likely lives down the street, might think concerning the book of Leviticus, this entire sacrificial system, and specifically this annual Day of Atonement.
Most likely Charlie isn’t thinking about it and hasn’t thought much about it. He slept in today. It’s Sunday, and he just happens to work a job where he has weekends off. Later he’ll perhaps mow the grass and watch some March Madness college basketball. But I doubt that Charlie’s thinking about Leviticus. And perhaps many who just happen to be in churches this morning aren’t thinking about it either.
Our culture tends to see it as a small thing to come into God’s presence. Being a God of love, God just naturally accepts everyone. He’s automatically pleased with you.
We know such is how most people think because if you go to any given funeral, odds are that regardless of how the deceased spent their life, regardless of whether they had any relationship with God at all, much less a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus, the conversation in most circles will be something like:
Well, aunt Sally’s in a better place. Ole Bob, I bet he’s up there playing the round of his life. Miss Betty’s finally free of that pain and suffering. It’s assumed by most, at least verbally, that if there’s a heaven, everyone’s going. And when they get there, they’ll be doing whatever their favorite activity here on earth was.
So, when Charlie and the rest of the world, and even many in church this morning come across such an elaborate sacrificial system, not to mention the hundreds of laws recorded right here in Leviticus, they scoff. “What God would ever command or devise such jumping through hoops. And if there is such a God who requires such jumping through hoops in order to appease him, then He doesn’t deserve my attention, much less my affection.”
Such an attitude is because they think it a light thing to come before a holy God, that is, if they give any thought to God at all.
EXPIATION AND PROPITIATION
But let me just put this out there in case any of you wrestle this. If it’s such a small thing to come before this holy God, then why did Jesus have to die on a gruesome bloody cross? That’s where our two goats come in, as well as our two terms: expiation and propitiation.
Expiation has to do with removal. We can’t come into God’s holy presence with our sin. God is too pure. We’d be disintegrated. Our sin must be cleansed. It must be completely removed.
Propitiation, on the other hand, has to do with assuaging God’s righteous wrath towards the sinner. Now, if we merely think of sin as making a mistake, then this by no means makes sense. How could God be so incensed by your and my mess ups? Talk about someone who has a serious issue with temper and patience!
But sin isn’t a mistake. Sin is blatant rebellion. It’s treason. Sin is a willful act to overthrow God’s order and thus His kingdom. And because He is loving and righteous, He better be angry about it, because my rebellion harms others. And so does yours. The father who doesn’t get angry about the deliberate mistreatment of one of their kids, is a sorry excuse for a father. Don’t tell me that such a father is loving. But our heavenly Father refuses to turn a blind eye to such behavior because He indeed loves His children.
CASTING LOTS
So, back to our goats. Notice in Leviticus 16:7, that both the goats begin at the entrance to the tent of meeting. That’s significant, and we’ll return to it. Then, in verse 8, Aaron casts lots over them to determine which goat is for the Lord and which goat is to be sent into the wilderness.
First, what’s the purpose of casting lots? Casting lots, for those who might not know, is a sort of rolling of dice to determine who gets to go first. In our case here, with the two goats, most are probably thinking, if the one who gets to go first is the one who gets slaughtered, then I’ll pass. Let the other one go first.
SOVEREIGN CHOICE
We often think of casting lots as leaving something up to random chance. The Bible, in Ecclesiastes specifically, does say that time and chance happens to all. But the writer is not suggesting that time and chance is random and outside of God’s sovereignty. In fact, the same author makes it clear that God has set a time for every matter under heaven. So whatever time and chance mean, they don’t stand outside of God’s sovereign purpose. Even in Proverbs we read that the lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.
Thus, the entire purpose for casting lots, of which the priest would have pulled out their specially consecrated pair of dice—the Urim and the Thummim—was to determine God’s will in the matter. So, casting lots for these goats was to get God’s answer as to which goat was to be for the Lord and which would be sent away. There was nothing in the goats themselves to distinguish one from the other, only God’s sovereign purpose.
FIRST GOAT: SIN OFFERING
The first goat, to which the lot fell to, would be presented as a sin offering for the people. If we jump down to verse 15 and following, the blood of that goat was brough inside the veil to the Most Holy Place and that blood would be sprinkled on and before the face of the Mercy Seat. The blood would also be sprinkled on the tent of meeting itself, and it would be sprinkled on the four horns of the altar.
So, what does this first goat have to do with expiation and propitiation? Well, for one, the blood is used for cleansing. In chapter 17:11, we’re also told that it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s soul. So, there’s something, at least symbolic, about the blood of an innocent substitute being used to cleanse the guilty sinner. That’s expiation, the removal of sin.
But also, because the wages of sin is death, justice has been done, and God’s wrath has been satisfied. That’s propitiation. God’s righteous disposition is no longer against but for the sinner because the penalty has been paid.
SECOND GOAT: EXILE
So, what about the second goat? Well, he got to go free right? Well, perhaps. But more likely there’s something else going on here. To get a better picture of what that is, let’s look at verses 21 and 22.
And Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins. And he shall put them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who is in readiness. The goat shall bear all their iniquities on itself to a remote area, and he shall let the goat go free in the wilderness.
The ESV likely doesn’t capture the end of verse 22 very well by stating he shall let the goat go free. While the word used here can mean that, it’s likely better translated, and he shall send the goat into the wilderness. The second goat isn’t set free so much as it is sent away.
We can better understand this, by considering the major themes of the Bible’s storyline, which we’ve been seeking to do on Wednesday evenings.
BIBLICAL STORYLINE
Look back at verse 7. Where do these goats start out? At the entrance of the tabernacle. Now, if we were to back up to Genesis 3, after they sinned, what happened to Adam and Eve? They were driven out east of the Garden Sanctuary. Do you remember which way the tabernacle faced? East. The entrance was on the east side. So, to enter the tabernacle would be towards the west.
In Genesis 4, we find that Cain and Abel were likely bringing offerings to the Garden entrance. But they could go no further because of the cherubim. After Cain rose up and killed Abel, however, he ended up further from the Garden, further east into the barren wilderness.
OPPOSITE TRAJECTORIES
Well, that’s what’s going on with these two goats. They’re on opposite trajectories. They both begin at the entrance outside the tabernacle. But the first goat enters by its blood into the very presence of God. While the second goat, loaded down with the sins of the people is driven further into exile, further east into an uninhabited or literally, a cut off land—a land completely cut off from God’s presence and all the blessings that come with such. Do you know what such a place is? Hell. Hell is absolute exile from God. Those living apart from God now, have no clue just how horrifying complete exile will be.
2ND GOAT PROPITIATION
So, how does this goat affect propitiation and expiation? Similar to the first goat, this second goat bears the penalty sin deserves but in a fuller sense. Understand that physical death is not the full penalty for sin.
God told Adam that on the day he ate from the forbidden tree he would surely die—or literally, he would die-die. How was that penalty enacted? Exile. Adam was removed from God’s immediate presence. But in God’s mercy and grace, Adam didn’t receive the fullness of the penalty he deserved. Yes, physical death is part of it. But physical death is nothing compared to what Revelation refers to as the second death. So, God’s wrath is portrayed as being satisfied in this goat’s complete exile.
2ND GOAT EXPIATION
But the second goat didn’t just receive the punishment of exile, it symbolically removed the people’s sin by carrying their sins away. That’s expiation. When this goat went into exile, it carried away the people’s sin as far as the east is from the west. That’s Psalm 103.
Psalm 103 points back to what the Day of Atonement anticipated, as well as points forward to this event finally realized in the person of Christ. As far as the east is from the west, so far does the Lord remove our transgressions from us.
JESUS’ PROPITIATION AND EXPIATION
That’s what Jesus accomplishes on the cross—satisfying the wrath of God towards sin and completely removing our sin from before God’s face. It’s symbolized in the stretching out of his hands on the cross but actualized in His Father turning His back on the Son. My God, My God, why have you forsaken me. Jesus endures the fullness of the exile you and I deserve, and in doing so, he carries our sins away completely.
So, if you’re in Christ, when God looks on you, He doesn’t see sin. He sees Christ. Your sin has been removed.
BUT!!! There are two things that must be said regarding this.
ARE YOU IN CHRIST
First, are you truly in Christ. Is it evident in your life? Are you bearing the fruit of the Spirit? Because this removal of sin and satisfaction of God’s wrath towards sin is only for those who are truly in Christ, who come in recognition that they not only need to be cleansed, but that God’s wrath needs to be removed. If you are among the camp that thinks such is light thing to come before a holy God, it’s very likely you’re not in Christ. The Bible is quite clear of God’s stance towards sin. And get this, God doesn’t throw the sin into hell; He casts the sinner into hell. Jesus opened wide his arms inviting you to receive his payment in your place, so that you need not be utterly exiled for all eternity.
NEED FOR SANCTIFICATION
Second, while God doesn’t look on you in your sin, it is understood that you and I still sin and need to be conformed to the image of Christ. We are to progressively move toward the image which God sees in us in Christ. As Paul says in Colossians, You have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Now, put to death what is earthly in you. In other words, you and I need to start genuinely looking like we truly are in Christ. Sanctification is not optional.
RESPONSE
The Day of Atonement was marked not only by the sacrifices God himself provided, but there was to be a response from the people. Verse 30, it was to be a day of solemn rest and denying oneself, likely in the form of fasting.
The first half of this response was to be a solemn remembrance of the sin that required the Lord to go to such lengths. So, whatever this looks like for us, at the very least it suggests that we should have regular occasions where we enter a time of confession and mourn over our sin and the sins of others.
The other half of the response is that of dying to self. Whether that means a regular practice of fasting, I don’t know. But what I do know, is that the only way your life is hidden with Christ in God, is if you have died to self, meaning you’re no longer living for you; you’re living for Christ.
FEAST OF TABERNACLES / PALM SUNDAY / CELEBRATION
But the Day of Atonement was not a stand-alone event; celebration always followed. If we jump to chapter 23, we find that the Day of Atonement took place on the 10th day of the seventh month. Then, beginning on day 15 of the same month, there was the feast of tabernacles. Verse 40 reads as follows: And you shall take on the first day, the fruit of splendid trees, branches of palm trees and boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days.
While Palm Sunday took place immediately before Passover, Jesus’ triumphal entry cried out that the true Day of Atonement was here. Not only had the Messianic King arrived, but so too Our Great High Priest. He had come to make the once for all sacrifice for sin. But he wasn’t bringing bulls and goats. He was coming as the Lamb, offering up his own body.
As High Priest, he would carry his own blood through the veil of the true tent in order to secure eternal redemption for us. And as the man in readiness, he carries our sins away as far as the east is from the west. For that, you and I celebrate!
THE DOOR
I mentioned at the beginning, how some look at this elaborate sacrificial system and see it as nothing but a bunch of unnecessary hopes to have to jump through in order to appease God.
Well, there’s no elaborate set of hoops you and I must jump through. Only a door. And there’s no jumping involved. Because this door lies in the lowest place of all—the valley of humiliation. This door is nothing other than the entrance to a grave—the very tomb in which our dear Savior was laid.
TWO GOATS RESPONSE
There were two goats for which lots were cast. The one entered God’s holy presence, but to do so, it had to die. The other was sent into permanent exile loaded down under the tremendous weight of sin, never to come into God’s presence again. That exile is nothing short of hell.
Let me ask: which goat are you?
To enter God’s presence, you must die with Christ and die to sin.
Sadly, most will choose exile rather than dying to self.
Lots were cast. There was nothing that made one goat more acceptable than the other. Just as there is nothing in you that makes you more or less acceptable to God than someone else. Your sins aren’t greater; they aren’t less.
Lots were cast. There was nothing to differentiate one goat from the next… except this: one goat died; one goat wandered.
Your response will show which one you are.