Lord, become before you as the mighty God and king, and tonight as we prepare to enter your word and petition again that we might not meet simply words and indeed Lord not even simply living words that we would meet you and your truth, your majesty, your power, your glory, and learn again to bow before you and to understand all that that means for us. We pray Lord that as we do, consider your deity and your service for us, that we would indeed give you the obeisance that you deserve, give you the obedience you deserve, and with our hearts, with our minds, and as you show us with our hands as well, a praying Christ name. Amen. A tonight we are in Matthew 19 and 20, and you may recall the last time we're together, we just got to the tail end of Matthew 19. I want to just review briefly with you where we were, and then that'll make it a little bit easier for us to understand exactly where we are. In Matthew chapter 19, we saw that there was a theme of service for the kingdom, and the service for the kingdom would be shown in love toward one spouse, toward children, actually back in chapter 18, care for the little ones, respect for everyone in the Christian community. Very specifically, we noticed that that came across through anithetical questions. In chapter 19 verse 3 and following the Pharisees asked, how little can I give? What is the minimal service that I can render to my spouse? And Jesus gave his answer. You shouldn't be asking that question. You should ask rather what's God's plan for marriage? And then shortly after that a rich young ruler came and he asked, if I give the maximum to God, can I be sure that God will notice that and will in some way reward me or give me my due for this form of service? That was the question arising there. After that is over, the rich young ruler trudges off and Peter says, you know, essentially, or he wouldn't give up everything. He wouldn't sell all for you, but we did. What then will there be for us? What reward will we have? And Jesus answers and says, there will be a reward for you. At the regeneration of all things, you will sit on 12 thrones and judge the 12 tribes of Israel. That's your reward. But Peter, beware, because your attitude is perhaps suspect. Specifically, Jesus is concerned that he is too interested in rewards and says, but many who are first to be last and many who are last will be first. That is to say with an attitude like that. You may be serving God for the sake of your own benefit instead of for God's sake. And if you serve God for your own benefit, then your heart is beginning to stray from God. And although you will not be lost or condemned if you've ever truly given yourself to God, he will keep you. But you may find yourself drifting away from him and indeed eventually last. And the kingdom not necessarily strictly dead last in some zone of heaven, you know, like the, you know, row 86 Z in heaven, but rather losing your first passion, losing your first love. Now, Jesus in 1930 says, many who are last will be first and many who are first to be last. If you're looking at the gospel of Matthew, you may notice that in chapter 20 verse 16, the same statement is made again. So the last will be first and the first will be last. Do you remember what that's called? Inclusio. Right. Inclusio or inclusion depending on whether you want to speak Italian or whether you must be English, either inclusio or inclusion. And that device that Matthew uses a number of times tells us that the two things that go on between those two virtually identical statements are related to each other. So we need to read what happens next as a further answer to Peter. And that gives us the parable. We all love to hate the parable of the workers in the vineyard. You know the parable. You know the way it goes. One morning at landowner hires, a group of men to work 12 hours for Daenerys. How much is Daenerys? Days wage. So it's just a fair deal. You work a full day at full days work and those days was 12 hours. You work a full day. I'll give you a full days wage. Everybody makes that agreement and it's acceptable to all. But then a little while later he realizes that his human resources are not sufficient to bring in the harvest. So he hires some more who work nine hours, some work six, some work three, even at the 11th hour of the day to get the harvest in. He's still hiring people who work only one hour. The end of the day it gathers the people together to receive their pay. And as he does, Jesus, this didn't really happen. You understand Jesus tells a story. And so when Jesus tells a story it always turns out just right. And it has to be this way that the people who are hired only at the 11th hour and worked only one hour paid first. And those who worked all day we can make it maybe the people on this side of the room are delighted to see that five or six or ten people over here receive a full days wage for working one hour. And they say to themselves, we have been hired by the right man. They're delighted. They can't wait till their term. But meanwhile some people over here who worked three hours have to get paid and they get paid one in areas of full days wage. And that of course places everybody over here so far. And you all over here so you still think you're with a generous man but you're not quite sure. Then some work six hours and they get a day's wage and some work nine. And they get a day's wage. And then you're beginning to spot a trend here. And when the time comes and you are paid a day's wage for a day's work you virtually explode. Look at what it says in the parable. When those who have been hired first each received an area's verse 11 they began to grumble against the landowner. These men who were hired last worked only one hour and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day. But he answered, friend, I'm not being unfair to you. Didn't you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don't they have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous? So he concludes the last will be first and the first will be last. Now what's this all about? What's the point? How about if I tell you another story? Now once upon a time there was a college professor who gave a difficult test. The scores were a little bit low. In fact the average for the class was 73 percent which seemed low with everyone. And so the professor decided something need to be done to make the grades a little bit higher. And yet on the other hand he'd given a very similar test the year before and the average score was 80 percent which seemed fair. And so since he wasn't quite sure as to whether the test was harder or the students were less diligent he decided to mingle justice and mercy together and decided upon it this way. He said the grades a little bit low but I think the test was fair. So to get the grades up it still showed that the test was fair. I'm going to give every woman in this class an extra 10 points. And as for the men they will get whatever they earned. Now what do you think happened in the class?
The women the women said the women said that's a wonderful idea. That's perfectly sensible you've preserved your principles that your test is fair and yet you've also raised the grades. You are the most wise and wonderful teacher. And the men said the men said what do you think they said? They said that's not fair. And I said because I'm telling a parable by myself and it really happened. I didn't do it. I said I was going to do it because we were talking about this parable that day. And I said what do you mean unfair if you earned a 73 you get a 73 that's fair. If you earn a 96 you get a 96 if you earn an A you get an A if you earn a D you get a D that's fair. They said that's not fair. I didn't know exactly how it wasn't fair but it seemed wrong. When we talk about not fair and fair there are two senses of justice we talk about distributive justice and retributive justice. Retributive justice is giving everybody exactly what they deserve. If you want retributive justice in my class you can have it. You get what you deserve. If you want retributive justice from God you can have it. It's called punishment for your sins. People regard God when he is gracious to someone and not to another as being unfair because they are stuck on the concept of distributive justice. That is to say that everyone should be treated exactly the same way. God is always going to give retributive justice. He will always give everyone at least what they deserve. We should not grumble but give thanks that he gives others more than they deserve or better than they deserve but he does not have an obligation to give an equal amount of grace to every last person. God is God and he can do as he pleases as long as he is fair as long as he is just for his nature is just. Distributive justice is treating everybody exactly the same way. Retributive justice is giving people what is there do. That's the true sense of justice. Always to be fair. Never to give truly fair. Never to give anyone less than they deserve or to be harsh to anyone who deserves kindness or justice. One more time. Retributive justice is giving what people deserve. God always does that. At least that. Distributive justice would be giving everybody the same thing. God does not give everybody the same thing. He always gives people at least what they deserve and often or usually maybe even always you might say in some ways gives them more. Now of course here's the issue that when someone who's been a disciple for a long time watches God be generous to someone else they are prone to say how can you be as generous to them when I worked for you for all these years and I was a Christian at the age of 10 and I poured myself out in Christian ministry for 70 years or 20 or 30 years and here's some person like the thief on the cross who's only a believer for a few hours and he gets every bit the same reward eternal reward in heaven as I do. And of course you see that when you start to think that way or to put it differently in the parable in real life nobody says how wonderful that the master gave them as much as he gave us. No one says that and when you don't think that way and you think simply in terms of grumbling and what I would like to have then of course you are grumbling against God and when you're grumbling against God then you are in danger of being last in the kingdom. Even disciples, this is the point. Even disciples can lose their appreciation of God's love and God's grace and dwell too much on works and merits and rewards. There is such a thing as reward but if you dwell upon reward you may find yourself leaving God as you worry too much about yourself. Well this leads very very naturally into the next section chapter 20 verses 17 and following where Jesus now speaks to his disciples about the price that he will pay. Some of them aren't sure they want to pay the price or want to get a reward. Jesus says chapter 20 verses 17 and 19 that he is going up to Jerusalem and he is going to the Son of Man will be betrayed into the hands of the chief priest, the teachers of law that will condemn in the death, turn them over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flagged and crucified. So Jesus teaches. The disciples, particularly James and John and their mother whom they apparently put up to this, don't seem to pay any attention to that teaching whatsoever and in the very next scene in one of the most sad sequences in the Gospels. The mother of Zebedee Sons comes and says to Jesus in verse 21, I want you to do a favor for me. I want you to grant that these two sons of mine can sit at your right and at your left in your kingdom. Now to sit at the right and the left is to sit as to sit at the positions of highest honor. We talked earlier in the semester about the tri-clinium and the idea that when you have a banquet or something of that nature you ordinarily have three tables and the closer you are to the master the more honor you have to sit at the right and the left is to ask for the positions of highest honor. You might say she's being a little generous. She's saying, Jesus you can decide whether James is on the right or on the left but you know that's up to you which one is number one in which numbers but I want you please to declare that they will sit there. Now it's easy to be hard on them for this and in fact I've just been hard on them for this but it's also true that this is precisely a believer's error. Only a believer could make a mistake like this. After all, didn't Jesus say in chapter 1928, you will sit on 12 thrones and judge the 12 tribes of Israel. So in a sense this is a mistake that they make precisely because they believe Jesus was telling the truth and they expect them to do something. So it is an act of folly but it's also an act of belief and we should not be too hard on them for that and indeed Jesus is not too hard on them. Jesus approaches not with a direct rebuke but rather in verse 21 he says simply you don't know what you're asking. Can you drink the cup that I'm going to drink? Some people think that leadership is a matter of giving orders and making decisions and giving commands but that's not leadership. Leadership is seeing what needs to be done, giving orders and then doing everything you can to get it done. So when you ask to be a leader, what you're asking for is the privilege of doing more of doing more of what needs to be done. So to ask for greatness, to ask for example for great wealth, to ask for great cares and anxiety and stewardship responsibilities. To ask for a lofty position of authority is to ask for the responsible to care for a great number of people. To ask to be the center of attention is to ask to be the center of attention and you may long to be the center of attention but then when you are the center of attention all of a sudden it doesn't seem like adulation anymore. It seems like everybody wants a piece of my hide and everybody wants me to do my favor. To ask for a great rank is to ask to be very useful. To be very useful you have to pay a price. You have to serve longer and harder than others. I have to tell you I think one or two of you here may have heard this. An illustration of this took place just about six days ago in my family's life. My daughter Abigail is in ninth grade and she took up cross country running to my surprise, my wife's surprise. We thought we had one child who was fast and that was the middle child and Abigail is the oldest and so when she went out for cross country we said great you know hope she meets some friends and sure enough the first time they ran 30 kids ran 15 finished. She was one of the 15 who finished and she was also dead last of the 15 who finished their first preseason race but in the second third race she started to move up and then you know after about three races she was at the top of the freshman team 40 kids in the team varsity JV and freshmen. So she was at the top of the freshman team and they moved up to junior varsity and then a few weeks later she finished just about the top of the JV team and the last time she ran she beat a couple of varsity runners her time was better and some of the varsity runners noticed that there's only seven kids on varsity so when a couple the seniors on the varsity team noticed that her time was better than some of the kids then to say well Abigail should get to run varsity that means somebody else has to be moved off varsity and a couple of the girls talked about this with a coach and had a little private meeting with a coach and then they called a team meeting and as a team meeting one of the girls spoke up in front of everybody right before the district championships so for a team comprised mostly of seniors to be the last race for some of these girls one girl said you know Abigail's been putting some pretty good times up and we I believe she needs to be moved up to varsity and then she said this and she can have my place that's leadership that is senior leadership to say I see what needs to be done and I will do what needs to be done whatever it may cost me to get us there that's why Jesus said when you ask for leadership and for greatness you don't know what you're asking about now to get out of the 20th century and back to the first century for a minute Jesus said to them this can you drink the cup that I am going to drink now the cup in the Old Testament is a symbol of God's wrath you can read about it if you like in Isaiah 51 and in Jeremiah 25 and in Revelation chapter 18 it is a curiously a cup of God's wrath the wine of God's wrath and the statement that is often made in the Bible is I will make the nations who are sensual and self-indulgent and live for pleasure to drink the cup until they're drunk to drink and drink down to the drags and drink all the alcohol and to drink the bitter parts that were at the un you know they didn't have distillation as we do so there be twigs and roots and branches at the bottom of the cup the drink the bitterness and you also have to drink the alcohol until you are staggering and drunk and as the prophets say falling down vomiting and lying in your vomit one of the prophets says can you drink that can you drink the cup of God's wrath towards sin well they answer curiously enough we can can you drink we can Jesus says well you will indeed drink my cup you'll drink not the way Jesus drank Jesus drank of course on the cross they drank by persecution their life for example John being exiled to the island of Patmos in his old age they of course didn't understand that Jesus said you will drink my cup but the sit at my right or left is not for me to grant these places belong to those for whom it has been prepared by my father that is to say that is not mine to give at this time the other 10 heard all this and they were indignant now they may have been indignant because John and James beat them to it they may have been indignant because he used you know they used their mother how unfair but one way or another they were it says indignant with the other brothers and so Jesus calls them all over and says let's use this as an occasion for teaching and so he teaches them and you study climactic parallels and parallel construction and if you notice it's not lined out as poetry in your translations but it is actually the poetic form of parallelism and you can see it if you look at your translations it's even stronger in the Greek but you can get it still in English whoever I'm going to give you just a literal translation here but whoever wishes among you to be great so there's the first to be great must be your servant second and whoever wishes among you to be first must be your slave we could put it up here on the board if you want to be great then you have to be servant if you want to be first that's of course greater than great you have to be slave and that's lower than servant just as the one who's greatest of all son of man that's higher yet was not simply a slave but he gave his life as a ransom for many he gave not his life and service but he died the higher you want to be the more you have to pay so Jesus teaches he's being very plain about this this is the way it is in the world the Gentiles think that rulers lord it over and that's largely the way it is in the world the higher you are the more orders you give the more lackeys you have but not so with you with you true leadership and even in some ways in some faint ways some people in the secular world understand this as well true leadership is in the number served not the number serving now there's something else that's very interesting in this passage and that is the little word just as in verse 28 the little word just as notice what Jesus says here he says two things he says that his life is a pattern for ours notice verse 28 you whoever wants to be great should be servant whoever wants to be first would be a slave just as the son of man so if you want to be great you have to follow the path of the son of man your life just as mine and yet there's another sense in which Jesus is teaching them that their life is cannot be like this now I want to just pause and think about the imitation of Christ motif that we've looked at several times thus far in the course the imitation of Christ motif is this that several times even in the gospel Matthew we have hints or suggestions that Jesus life is a pattern for ours we saw it first in the Beatitudes remember looked at those when we said as you look at those traits peacemaker and meek and so forth those are all except maybe one either all are all but one are traits of Christ so the blessed character of a disciples also the blessed character of Christ second we saw in Matthew chapter 10 that the traits of Jesus as he performed his ministry in chapters eight and nine are the traits that we should have when we conduct our ministry Jesus gave freely so you give freely Jesus didn't have a supply of money as he went so you don't have a supply of money as you go Jesus moved from town to town so you moved from town to town Jesus said the kingdom is coming you said the kingdom is coming so Jesus life is a pattern for ours and here it is again Jesus life a pattern for hours you find greatness as I do in service and yet on the other hand in this passage and one of the things we always need to distinguish as Christians is when Jesus is our pattern and when he isn't sometimes people like to make their decisions as Christians well what would Jesus do well maybe Jesus would read minds maybe Jesus would just see into the future then he would know that's not an option for us right so we can't make our decisions simply what would Jesus do and sometimes to try to do what Jesus do would do would be even blasphemous and that's the other side of this it says just as he gave his life as a ransom for many notice even carefully just as the son of man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many that little statement Jesus says he did not come reminds me that there's a little theme throughout the gospels it's a group of sayings in which Jesus tells why he came now each time it implies that he was in heaven and deliberately came to earth let me just read you a few of them for example Jesus says I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentant so I came to call sinners the son of man came to seek and to say what was lost he came to seek I have not come into the world sorry I've come into the world as a light so that no one who believes in me should stand darkness nor do I come to judge the world but to save and I came to save the world that was John chapter 12 46 and 47 we could also think the others were from Luke 532 and 1910 think also of Paul who says Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners each time it's implying that he existed in heaven and came for a reason to earth he came here he says to give his life as a ransom for many and that my friends we cannot do that is something only he does ransom is one of the four great words Jesus uses to describe his sacrifice we'll take a little interlude and just talk about those make sure I understand them the term ransom is a word that comes from the realm of commerce one of four great words the Bible uses to describe Jesus sacrifice force would ransom comes from the realm of commerce in the realm of in that analogy of commerce the Bible says that we are like slaves the Bible says we're slaves the sin slaves to death say slaves to the devil those three things the scripture asserts about our slavery and as it looks to us it looks at us as if we're hostage is held against our will and unable to do a thing about it therefore someone needs to come and to buy us out of slavery it's as though we've been taken hostage by our sin by death in the devil so Jesus comes and not that he actually pays it to anyone you understand there's nobody who actually has that power but it's a metaphor the Bible uses that Jesus comes and pays a price to buy us back to himself you know that statement that Paul makes you are not your own you are bought with a price so you belong now to Christ that's the idea of a ransom Jesus has bought us back to himself second great word that the Bible uses to describe our redemption and our atonement so that we're united to God again is the word justification the word justification does not really appear hardly appears i'll put it this way in the gospels i just want to talk about it a little bit the idea is there even if the word isn't and here if if we could say the marketplace is what we should think of when we consider the word ransom so we're slaves on the market and God buys us back when we think of the word justification we should think of the law court and we are now in front of the judge and the evidence is brought in there are great stacks of it videotapes audio tapes not only what we actually did not only what we said but we thought that'll that'll make you run for cover what you thought what you would like to have said what you would have liked to have done on various occasions and there it all is and the judge is going to pass his judgment he's going to make his decree as to whether we are guilty or not guilty but the judge instead of condemning on the basis of all this evidence strikes all the evidence and brings in other evidence and the other evidence is the life of christ and all that he said and all that he did and all that he thought and that is reckoned to our account god is the judge in this case god is the judge and he's also our defense counsel and he also takes care of the evidence so that instead of declaring us guilty as we deserve he declares us innocent what's minister confession of faith which some of you in your churches would many of you would use as a way of understanding scripture we call a subordinate standard under scripture says this justification is an act of gods free grace towards sinners it's an act of grace towards sinners in which he pardons all their sins and accepts them as righteous in his sight only because of the righteousness of christ imputed to them and received by faith alone and what that's saying is this there is a double exchange Jesus does not simply wipe out our sin it does that sin is gone and righteousness is imputed we're not taken back to zero by the work of christ and then told now you go be good i won't count your sins and now go be good our sins are wiped out we're back up to zero and then his righteousness is imputed to us reckoned to us or given to us legally the third word maybe i'll pause for a question even though i said i wouldn't third word that the Bible uses his propitiation propitiation propitiation now is in the realm of the temple or the place of worship before god and the idea is that someone who is held to account by god or of course the Greeks use the word too and they have their idea that the gods held people accountable for things as well that god is angry and that something must be done to appease his anger namely a sacrifice needs to be rendered you might remember the story of all sun and alludes me it's Odysseus right it's the Odyssey in which they go to rescue Helen and they invade Troy anyway the story of the Trojan horse they go down to rescue Helen and the ships are be calmed and they decide that this is happened because the gods must be angry and so King Agamemnon who leads the expedition goes order sent somebody back and orders that his only daughter be sacrificed to placate the evidently angry gods and she is indeed sacrificed and then the winds return that's the pagan concept of propitiation namely gods get angry because you've ignored them and you have to buy their favor by giving some really costly sacrifice the biblical concept is different of course but the idea remains that god is angry at sin or angry towards sinners and that something must be done the difference of course is that god's anger is a just anger and then we are truly liable to his anger and that Jesus comes and says I will do what needs to be done I'll present myself as the sacrifice the
the fourth term is reconciliation and that is from the realm of social relationships friends or family members and the idea there is that some estrangement has taken place that two people are friends or would have been friends or would have been members of the same family and something has happened so that there's been a breach in the relationship and that relationship needs to be healed brought back to peace and back to fellowship obviously a human relationship that will often start by a sin and the sin can cause a strangement on two sides if one person defends another you know I could say well Jennifer can I borrow your pen and it's a beautiful cross pen it's actually a 10 cent big pen but let's just suppose a beautiful cross pen and I borrow it and then while I'm borrowing and also chew on it a little bit and then I drop it and maybe I step on it and I throw it in my thing and I leave talking to the student and you know that'll cause some estrangement between us it could at least and it could on two sides she can be angry with me but I could also want to avoid her because I remember what I did were pen and I also look inside my briefcase and here it's been stepped on it's leaking all over the place and and I can hardly bring myself to tell her about it so I would avoid her and she'll be angry with me and now that's actually both things are true in our relationship with God due to sin we want to avoid God and God also is angry at our sin depending on which passage one side or another of that may be emphasized but the thing you have to understand is that in God's relationship with us when the reconciliation takes place it is not me and Jennifer here it's not the person who borrowed the pen broke it and goes back and says I'm sorry but rather the one who's been offended says I see there's been a I see that your sin against me has caused a breach in our relationship and I'd like to get us back together and I will do what needs to be done to bring us back together he doesn't wait for us to take the first step toward him he steps toward us then we respond then we're no longer afraid of him so those are the four great terms you understand of course that there they don't all appear in the gospels at least not that way but that the concepts are certainly all through the four gospels let me just pause see if it has a question or comment about that okay let's move on then 90 chapter 20 verse 28 and following I want to just say one more thing about this as we look at the life of Christ and and what it says to us I think it's it's very important that we recognize that this command that Jesus gives and this idea we have to serve each other is something is very easy to be trite about it's very easy to say I want to serve the way Christ taught us to serve and it's it's a little bit of a different thing to do it I've already given you one example I want to give you another one from my life tonight just to help you think about this issue when I was extra eating this passage to develop this lecture for the first time about two and a half years ago the one of my students here at Covenant Seminary at the same time I was working on this passage came and asked me to do a junior high u3 treat now I was a junior high youth leader once when I was about 22 23 years old it was an unmitigated disaster the only reason I could tell why the kids came was to torture me and and if that was indeed their goal which I think it was they they succeeded they achieved their goal that's one I mean really it was eight you know eighteen years later I was still in recovery from from that experience and so when I was asked I wanted to avoid it and candidly I hadn't worked with you know even senior high for a while and I felt like a little bit you know this is not only my afraid of this but this is you know I don't do junior high I do adults I do I do retreats and conferences for adults and leaders that's that's who I do so when this particular student asked me if I would do this I didn't do the two things that speakers do when they're asked to do something they don't want to do the two things are if you're ever looking for a speaker just a little inside tip one is you say I'll pray about it and the others you say I'll check my schedule and those two may if there's nothing else stated they may very well mean and I sure hope there's something on my schedule and I sure hope God leads me away from this particular calling but I didn't do that I just said no
and the student in question was somebody who might do pretty well and so he didn't take no for an answer and he persisted and it went something like this I wrote it down he said now if you come your daughter who's oldest daughter now ninth and seventh grade can come for free and I said well why would she want to come when I'm not there so he said well if you came and if she came you couldn't meet her friends you know junior high you want to know what junior highs like and get acquainted with that I said well you know you do have a point there but the answer still no and he said we'll pay you lots of money and I said that's a lie and you know he said the food will be really good I said that's another lie and you know he said we'll get you an isolated cabin at least a quarter mile away from a nearest junior high kid and you can hide out there all the time except meals and when you're speaking and he persisted this lasted really several weeks and eventually I said yes and just about the time I said yes I then realized that I was working on this passage and I was just doing just about the opposite of what I've been preparing to lecture on it strikes me that Jesus if I could have said I don't do junior high you know Jesus could have said I don't do crucifixions and you know when he came to earth he didn't he didn't ask for an isolated speakers cabin he didn't even have a place to lay his head and he didn't as we saw last week he didn't wait for the offer of great food he had barley loves they were eating horse food sometimes so let's not just use the words let's be careful that we are sincere when we use the words how did the retreat turn out it was all right it was all right it out to be honest I mean they were the first night they were so wild they were just bouncing off the walls so I you know I did what you do a junior high you tell a story for three minutes and then you make a point for 30 seconds and then you tell a story for three minutes and you tell make a point for 30 seconds and that was all right and I mean I wasn't comfortable I will tell you I was not comfortable and then you know then we kind of got to know each other a little bit it went all right I wouldn't call it the most amazing weekend of my life but the the leaders were pleased they thought it was good so that that was good enough well Jesus in this passage makes some claims implicitly when he says he's the son of man when he says he gives his life as a ransom for many when he says his life is a pattern for hours it was all three things that I call implicit Christology implicit claims of deity and to that I would like to turn next implicit Christology in the Gospels however it's time to take a break so we'll we'll turn to implicit Christology but before you take off let me give you one more invitation to ask any questions you have about the passage or about terms for Jesus' toning work and so forth before we take a break questions or comments 105 people in this room I know that somebody has a question yes Donna how did my daughter do you know the truth is she didn't really do all that well no fairy tale ending actually the whole team kind of had a bad day and she was one of those who had a bad day so it was still the right thing to do it was still a wonderful thing to do yeah she was kind of amazed at how fast the varsity ran and it took the wind out of her sales just a little bit so I mean it wasn't a fiasco but it wasn't her best how about a theological biblical question how did the youth retreat grow how did your daughter run yes please Linda okay good question which of the four terms redemption justification reconciliation best describes the work of Christ in the cross my answer is all four describe different aspects of it justification is the legal aspect that he did this so that we would not be liable to God's judgment and you know Jesus died as a covering for our sins God is angry with us as sinners and you know he has a just wrath and Jesus sacrifice absorbed that wrath he might say Jesus
bought us and brought us back to himself by a sacrifice sort of twice over once to to break the power of death and sin especially by the giving of Holy Spirit but also so we would we would recognize what he did for us so we would be glad to live for him because he gave himself that we might live which one that I leave out reconciliation of course it's there is it not supremely on the cross that we see how much God loves us how much Jesus loves us how much he will do in order to have fellowship restored and that draws us back to himself so they all describe the one their four words for metaphors for theological descriptions of the one thing that Jesus does namely and might say he did what was necessary to bring us back to himself in terms of dealing with sin and our strangeness from God I put it this way the umbrella concept is atonement and under the umbrella concept of atonement these are four ways of describing that work for aspects of the work of atonement yes or the question common is the idea of ransom is unsettling because it implies that there's some creature that has some hold not only on us but on God so that God has to do something I'm simplifying you said it very nicely I said let me just emphasize one thing that I said these are not exhausted no one of these is adequate by itself to describe what God did for us each one of them describes an aspect and each one of describes it through metaphorical language that if pressed could lead to this understanding the idea of propitiation which is just the biblical word it's there in the Bible and you know it's not like I chose these the authors of the New Testament chose these words but the way Greeks used it at that time imply that God was the gods were angry in an often in a capricious way so they said look we're going to use a word that people know and we're just going to make it clear that that God's anger is anger is not capricious it's just and and try to get the valid part of propitiation while removing the erroneous part of it so we all understand that a judge ought to have anger towards sin and what we're establishing to make the word clear is he's a just judge not a capricious or foolish or poor judge who judges according to his mood in that particular day similarly with ransom it can be misunderstood because it's just an ordinary word it's a word from human language human language comes from human customs and human patterns and human pastors patterns are shot through with sin misunderstanding following all the rest but it is something we understand we understand what it means to be in somebody's hold we understand it's not a pretty picture but what a hostage isn't so forth and God says look in some ways you weren't literal hostages like Satan had you often some sell somewhere and the God had to pay money to Satan no but or as if death is personified and money had to be paid to death but your situation was a lot like that it wasn't literally that that's what a metaphor as I used the word metaphor your situation was much like that in that you were in a desperate position you were not able to deliver yourself and so God delivered you he did what had to be done for that deliverance and that is valid even if we don't you know even if we are not comfortable and we shouldn't be comfortable with every possible deduction that could be made from the word ransom the Bible tells us what to deduce and sin is not sin is is not some being out there you know the Bible sometimes as we're slaves the sin sold the sin you know that language what's not like there's some entity off somewhere it's just a personification to let us know that that sin is sort of this wild dangerous thing that we can't control almost like a wild animal and that is true it isn't a wild animal but it feels sometimes like we're in the grip of sin and we can't get away and God delivers us so we use the word and that's what we have the four together because each one by itself could be this construed but the four in the together give us a pretty complete picture of what God has done for us it's a really good question thank you for asking that one more yeah sure uh yes um thank you as I have it my notes but I hadn't said it the Greek word and family there's several words kind of like well I don't want to put it we have the word redeem and we have the word redemption and actually that's though the words redeem and redemption and ransom all translate the same Greek words so I used them a little bit interchangeable that I didn't explain it to you redeem ransom redemption are all from the same family and it's kind of like that in Greek there's actually a group of similar sounding words I'm not going to go into them but a group of similar sounding words it all had the common root LUTR and then there's different prefixes and suffixes and so forth and they all convey the idea that we're bought out so whether you like the word redeem or ransom doesn't really matter you're talking about the same group of texts and biblical information okay well let's take a break and when we come back we're going to talk about the Christology of the New Testament