Hopefully they'll get used to this new normal, as I've said before. If you would, please stand for the reading of God's Word, our passage today, John 20, verses 30 to 31. Let me pray for our time. Our Heavenly Father, this is your Word, as we've been reminded already. It's the Word above all words, and we can't give it the honor that we should without your help. And so we ask that by your Spirit we would see things more clearly, that the work of the Holy Spirit would be performed in our hearts to see Christ more clearly, to see his work more clearly, and that we might be conformed to the image of your Son. with greater depth. We pray all this in Jesus name. Amen. Hear the Word of God from John 20 verses 30 to 31. Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples which are not written in this book, but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. Amen. Please be seated. As our brother Mark was reading various parts of the worship service before I came up, I thought about our confession. I thought about how hard it is to read the word with empathy in some sense, as we talked about Christ's sufferings in our confession of faith, as we don't think about that enough. There's a positive side and a negative side to the whole COVID time, I think. The negative side is isolation and faces hidden. And I want to say to our friends on Zoom today, if you particularly have felt isolated, I understand. I have people in my neighborhood in the same situation. And so if you would like a visit, if you'd like for someone to come see you, I have some time. And if it's possible, I'd be glad to come and just go for a walk with you. Or I'll bring a lunch and we can just have lunch together. Whatever you feel comfortable with. various comfort levels on this. But I think that's one thing we really miss is just that physical contact, being with one another. So please just contact the church via the elders and let me know. And as I'm able, I'd be glad to come out and possibly do some visitation there with you. The other thing that's been striking to me about the COVID is that it makes us slow down. And as Mark was reading, that's the whole point is that oftentimes we've heard these verses over and over and over and over. but they haven't sunk in like we really need to hear them. And part of it is our sin, but part of it is they're so deep. They're so poignant that we won't even start to glimpse it to glory in some sense. We scratch the surface even here in this life till we get to glory when we've been there for 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun, we're still marveling. at Christ, still marveling at His love for us. And so if there's a good side to this COVID situation is that we have to slow down. And slowing down is not always bad. I'm sure we have lots of things on our schedule, but there's nothing more important than considering the Word of God as we do here on the Lord's Day. And so as I prepared for this sermon, I felt once again, what do I say? There's so much to be said about even these two verses. I mean, I could probably spend a month or a couple of months just on these two verses, trying to parse them out to make sense to us, so we really have them sink in. And so I have to limit what I say. I understand that. Some of you are, I'm really glad. No. But I have to limit what I say, but I have to have it as full as possible with content. And so that's my hope today. That's my goal today. As we consider once again these two verses, so far we've already considered them. that these two verses that I just read are John's purpose statement in writing his gospel, that everything else that's in there to that point has been to the end, that his hearers might be persuaded that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, but that was not the end of it, but then that we would believe in Him and have life in His name. That the end goal is life in His name, not just knowing some facts, but having life in His name. And last week we reviewed, just a real quick review, we said that this gospel, just like the rest of the Word of God, is a historic gospel. that this news that he tells us about Jesus is historic. You could go back in time, and you could stand where Moses stood by the burning bush, or you could, whatever, any aspect you look at in history, unless it's just figurative poetry, it's an accounting of history in the world since the creation of man. And there's some beautiful, glorious things about that, just in terms of aesthetics. But this also, it's factual. As God goes through history, he is relating facts to his people, realities to his people, built on previous facts. And so these are binding. They're not binding just on the people of Israel. They weren't just binding on the people of Israel. They're binding on all mankind. Because the God of Israel was the God of all mankind. Even though he did not share the oracles that he shared with Israel to every nation, they were absolutely true for all the other nations. And as I said last week, it may seem unfair, and yet at the fall everything was forfeited. We have nothing to stand on except for sheer mercy. And God, in His mercy, was pleased to choose a people for Himself, set His love upon Abraham, make this great, incredible nation that rose to power, had great glory for a time, and then they, too, were exiled. Israel first, and then Judah. And so, as we thought about this, we remind ourselves, this is significant. When we come every Lord's Day to hear the Word, it's significant for us because we are subject to the God of Israel. Later in John's gospel, or earlier in John's gospel, he'll say, Jesus himself says in so many words, you have an appointed date with me in the future. Every man who ever lived has an appointed date with me where it's gonna be basically face to face and you will hear your eternal destiny espoused to you. And so it is very sobering, as beautiful as it is, and it is, as glorious as it is, and it is. It's a sobering glory. It's a sobering reality. And so that's the historic aspect. Because it's historic, it's significant for us even today, because it's the god of reality. It's the god of mankind. Secondly, we said it was a life-giving gospel, which might seem like a surprise, because We're all here alive today. Why would we need to hear more about life? Well, some of us, as Marcus said, have been granted a new life, a life that is alluded to all through L. John's gospel that's different than just physical life. And we even see in the gospel, we even see people turning away from the light, turning away from that life in their blindness. But that's the promise that it holds out and continues to hold out and continues to strengthen his people with, no matter how many times you read through the book of John. It's to that end that that's what it has its effect for the elect. That it's constantly building them up in their most holy faith. Which is not a surprise as the Holy Spirit is the author behind this author, who's the spirit of light, who's the spirit of truth. And so the more clearly we see the things of Christ, the better. And that's why we come every Lord's Day in part two, is to have those visions of Christ, those visions of his work, clarified in greater and greater measure by the light of the word. And so today, as we continue on with this introduction, it's a simple point. The signs that John records verify that indeed Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. The signs that John records in his gospel verify that indeed Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. And I'd like to look at two things. The first one is, what does Christ mean? And secondly, who is the Son of God? What does Christ mean and who is the Son of God? And that's very simple, but we need to take this to heart. We need to be deepened in our understanding of these two realities. First of all, I think that my little friends out front, my young friends out front who are taking our temperatures really helped us in our understanding of the term Christ. I assume if you're in this building, somebody put a little temperature gun, I guess that's what you call it, a temperature gun to your head and they gave you a number. They gave you a number. And because you're here, I know that you all are not anointed ones. I know that you're not anointed with COVID or probably not. I know there's a systematic, I know. But you're here because you're not one of these people who has been anointed with COVID. If your number was, At a different place, they would have said, oh, I'm sorry, you can't come in, I assume, politely. But you can't come in because you're anointed in a bad way. But the term Christ comes from the Hebrew Messiah, which is anointed one. And to be an anointed one means that you're anointed, that something has happened to you. That you are set apart in a unique way. You're authorized or set apart for the work or service of God. And in the history of redemption, we have three particular offices that get this anointing. There's other cases as well, but the three primarily are prophet, priest, and king in the scriptures. And that every one of these offices at one time or another had this anointing with a certain type of oil, a unique oil that we see really in a chemical way, in a sense, in Exodus 30, 22 to 26. It was a holy oil. And they were to continue to keep that right combination. And it was very special. It says, not a common person should be anointed with this. But there were certain offices, certain things that would have this anointing, this application of this oil. And so as we look through the history of redemption, we see these three offices where these officers are declared. But in each case, God gives us a hook. He gives us a hook to hang on future information in his revelation about these offices. Now, chronologically, we start with Moses. We start with Moses. In Deuteronomy 13, Moses talks about who is a true prophet. And if you have time, it'd be worth just to go through there and look at the qualifications, what a true prophet is and does, and who is a false prophet. And these regulations shed light on who really is a prophet because if you follow the wrong person, you're in great danger. And if somebody speaks in the name of the Lord and they're lying, they're in great danger. And so God gives parameters as to how you can tell if this is the right type of person to listen to as a prophet. This is an anointed person. In Deuteronomy 18, 15 to 22, we read the Lord speaking here, it says, Moses speaking to the people, the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers. It is to him you shall listen, just as you desired of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, or see this great fire any more, lest I die. And the Lord said to me, They are right in what they have spoken. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers." That's a historical hook. It's a historical time in God's plan of redemption that He would promise to do something for His people. Probably, in a sense, we could say Genesis 3.15 was the first historical hook, where God said that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. And Moses goes on, he says, and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command. And whoever will not listen to my words, that he shall speak in my name. I myself am required of him. But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name, that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die. And if you say in your heart, how may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken? When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him. If he tells the truth, if he says things will happen and they do, be afraid of him. If he says things that don't happen, don't be afraid of him. This is one of those indicators that we have in the history of redemption that would play out later in time. Now God had this kind of conversation with his people as time moved on. And last week I mentioned my friend that are 46 years almost and we have these hooks of our own that we know about in our own lives that we've learned over history, and we can expound upon them. But at some point, my friend and I, one of us is going to die. It'll be a different situation. We won't have that same relationship that we had, because in God's providence, one of us will die. Maybe we'll be like we said last week with JFK and C.S. Lewis. and Huxley all died on the same day. Maybe that would happen, those things happen. But what limits our continuing on in our conversation is that we're not eternal. And that's one of the sadnesses of this world, is death itself. We know from our own experience, we've had a loved one die. But because God is eternal, he can continue on the conversation with the next generation, or the next generation, or the next generation. And so as time went on, Israel becomes a kingdom. They have a king named David. And we hear about the king in 2 Samuel 7, 12-14. God speaks to David. He says, "'When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up offspring after you who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son." This is a promise from God, initiated by God alone, that he would extend David's kingdom, even when David himself had died and passed and went to be with the Lord. Eventually, he would raise up this other king, this other king who follows in the kingship line, the kings who get anointed, another anointed one. I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son. But we also see this in the matter of the prophets. And Eli and his sons were not very good, I'm sorry, in the priesthood, and Eli and his sons were not very godly in many ways. And God is speaking to Eli in 1 Samuel 2, 34 to 35. He says, And this shall come upon your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, shall be the sign to you. Both of them shall die on the same day. And I'll raise up for myself a faithful priest who shall do according to what is in my heart and in my mind. And I will build him a shore house, and he shall go in and out before my anointed forever. that Eli and his sons had desecrated the priesthood. But God would raise up another priest, and we see in the book of Hebrews, where it's expounded upon, it would be according to the priesthood of Melchizedek. A different type of priesthood, but still binding. And the priests, as well as the prophets and the kings, were anointed with oil. Three types of anointed ones we see in these three passages over the history of redemption. The prophet, the king and the priest, or actually the priest and the king in that order chronologically in God's Word. And they're all anointed with this special oil. Now, the oil was a symbol of the Holy Spirit. and the power of the Holy Spirit and the consecratedness of that position. And these men were anointed with oil at some point, and then sometimes the Spirit came upon them violently. When Saul is anointed king, the Spirit rushed upon him, we read, the Spirit rushed upon him. A number of chapters later in the book of 1 Samuel we see David is anointed and the Spirit rushed upon him as well. And so the oil is a symbol but it also shows that God's Spirit is at work in a special way in these people because they are special servants of God. But when we come to the Lord Jesus Christ we see all of these three lines converge on him. He is the prophet, priest, and king. And one of the signs that comes early in John's gospel, we don't really probably think of it as a sign in some sense, because we think of raising from the dead, or healing an invalid, or healing the blind, which are incredible, glorious acts of God. But it's in chapter one of John's gospel, John the Baptist has been privy to something very unique and special. In chapter 1, verse 29, it says, The next day he, John the Baptist, saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. This is he of whom I said, After me comes a man who ranks before me. This is John the Baptist, who Jesus will say is the greatest up until this point. John says, because he was before me. I myself did not know him, but for this purpose I came baptizing with water that he might be revealed to Israel. He came baptizing with water that this anointed one, this Messiah, might be made known to Israel. Now when we think of John's baptism, we probably think of it was a baptism of repentance, and it was. But it was also a baptism that would bring about the identification of that Messiah figure. It goes on, and John bore witness, I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove and it remained on him. The Holy Spirit descended onto Christ. Jesus was not anointed with a mere oil. He was anointed with the reality to which the oil pointed. He goes on, I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, he on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God. John's purpose statement, a witness to this purpose statement here early on. This is the Son of God. A unique sign that as glorious as Moses was, as glorious as Samuel was, or the priest, as glorious as David was as a king, they didn't have this happen to them. They didn't have this descending of the dove of the Holy Spirit like a dove upon them to rest upon them. And it's interesting, John's gospel is kind of mild about this incident with John the Baptist. He's kind of mild because if you go to Mark's gospel, Mark 1, 9-11, we have a more graphic picture, kind of along with what our brother Mark was saying about, when we think about the Word, we have this more graphic picture. It says this, In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And when He came up out of the water, immediately He saw the heavens being torn open, the heavens being torn open, and the Spirit descending on Him like a dove. and a voice came from heaven, you are my beloved son. With you I am well pleased. A voice from heaven, who is speaking? It's the Father. One of those rare times that we hear in the New Testament where men hear the Father speaking from heaven. You are my beloved son, with you I am well pleased. There's that Father-Son idea. God the Father says to God the Son, you are my beloved Son, a witness to the reality of who Jesus was, this purpose that John has in his gospel. It's not the only time that we read of the Father speaking into the world. He speaks in other times as well. In Matthew 17, 1-13, we have the transfiguration of Jesus. It says, And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John his brother, and led them up on a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light. And, behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, these two major Old Testament figures, talking with him. And Peter said to Jesus, Lord, it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah. He was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them. And a voice from the cloud said, this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him. Jesus is verified by the voice from heaven from the father's voice himself. Listen to him. He is like that prophet that I promised to Moses. When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were terrified. But Jesus came and touched them saying, rise and have no fear. And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only. And as they were coming down the mountain, Jesus commanded them, tell no one the vision until the Son of Man is raised from the dead. That is an incredible gag order. You've just heard the voice of the Father speaking. And Jesus says, I don't want you to talk about it until I'm raised from the dead. Now, we don't know from Scripture if they talked to each other about it, or maybe even if they were allowed to talk to each other. I mean, I would assume maybe they weren't. But if you think about this in any kind of a pedagogical way, sometimes When you've learned something for the first time, if you start to talk about it, it kind of dissipates. For some reason, you lose the fullness of it. But when you have to internalize it, it's like, wow, that was a major event. And you have to think about it and think about it until the release of that gag order. Those men are going to have to have really pondered this for a while. And it probably went into them very deeply. And then later on, when we come to that greatest miracle, as D.A. Carson says, at the end of John's Gospel, I feel like it's one of those government teams that goes in after a plane crash. And there's like data points. It's like we know where things are. We're trying to piece it all together. And then for John and the others, they had to kind of piece together. There's a lot of information here. We've seen a lot of things. How do we put this together with the Old Testament? And I would assume that John and Peter and James probably had an edge because of that unique experience they had. but they still had to work it out. And as you read John's gospel, you kind of get that idea. He'll say, this happened, but we didn't know what it meant at the time until later. There's some indicator of some time thing later that they finally kind of understood it. And in part, maybe John delayed writing his gospel because he had to figure it out himself. He had to know what he was talking about. And so he's trying to shed light for the people of God, his original audience, but for us as well, to say, look, here's all that I saw. Here's all that I heard. And it all points to the reality that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. He's the one that we read of in the Old Testament. All these data points converge on him. And he's the Son of God, we heard it. John the Baptist heard it. We've heard it. It's hard to think of a greater testimony than the things that John saw and heard. But he relays them to us for us to know as well in his gospel. And as we read through the book of John, I hope you have a chance just to kind of read it and reread it. You see these people, they're so close in terms of just facts, but they don't do the research. and they go off with an error, and they don't come to Christ. It's like, no, no, no, don't you, you know, I'm looking at this, don't you see? Go back to the Old Testament, it's all there. Follow the storyline, follow it, but no, and I think what John's helping us do is when we read it to say, where do I stand here? Am I receiving the testimony of the Old Testament that seems so obvious? as a support that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. And so we have this early on sign that John the Baptist had experienced, hearing the voice of the Father regarding the Son, and the Holy Spirit descends upon him, the Trinity. But as I said last week, D.A. Carson says the greatest sign is at the end of John's gospel, as the resurrected Christ comes to his disciples. Because if he hadn't risen from the dead, we wouldn't be here today. We'd have no reason to be here. We would be still in our sins. But we have hope because he did rise from the dead, as we see at the end of John's gospel, never to die again. Seated now at the right hand of the Father. And in John's Gospel, we see that there is a time where people want to make him king. It's like, let's make him king and Jesus flees from it. What an odd response. Any politician says, hey, we want to make you this. Like, all right, let's go. But Jesus was the right and proper king But he wasn't going to be a king according to the way of the world. Because in order for him to be the king that he was supposed to be, not the king of some small village or some country, but the king of glory, the king of the cosmos, he had one thing left to do that we see this change in chapter 12. He has to go to the cross. And I think it's clear that people didn't understand that. Well, wait a minute, the kings are glorious and victorious and pomp, and it's like you're going to the cross, even Peter rebukes him when he starts talking about it. But this is how glorious this king is. Because he would come so that he might truly reign in his people. that he might earn eternal life for us. He would bear our penalty. He'd be raised from the dead. He would ascend into heaven and be glorified and pour out the Holy Spirit so that he might be the king, as we've heard earlier. He gives us a new heart so that we really are his subjects and we really will be subdued by the work of the Holy Spirit as we look at the scriptures. I would assume the frustration of any king or ruler is that they don't listen to me, they don't obey me. And that's no different than we see in the Old Testament. Everyone disobedient somewhere in judgment because God is holy. But the glory of the cross is that this King we have has paid our penalty. He's borne our sins in his body once for all. and is able to give us the Holy Spirit to make us new, to give us eternal life. So we won't be man-pleasing in the worst sense servants. We won't be those who are insincere, but we have hearts that really want to please God when we're made new creatures in Christ. It might be a seed form, it may not be fully formed, but over time it grows and We want to please the Lord. Paul says in 1 Thessalonians, this is the will of God, your sanctification. This glorious process where we become more and more obedient to our Lord from the heart by the work of the Spirit. Where the darkness of the remaining corruption is dissipated by the light of the Holy Spirit and the Word. And so these are like the bookends of John's gospel. This great amazing experience that John the Baptist has, and then we have this great amazing death and resurrection of Christ at the end. And as Christ is the perfect prophet, that means that everything in between, everything in between is absolutely true. Everything he ever said came to pass and will come to pass. He is the truest of true prophets. And he didn't get his message from God in the way the other prophets did. He was with the Father in glory and ascent here in this world, this other realm of sorts. It still is his to deliver the message and to pay the price of our sins. And so it is a glorious thing, as we've already sung, that Christ came into the world. Why did he do this? He didn't have to do it. But God is a glorious God. He's a merciful God. He's a gracious God. And he sends the Son. The Son willingly comes, bears our penalty, earns eternal life and gives it to us. And this is the life that John wants us to have. This light that is in Christ and Christ alone. The one sent from heaven. The one that, although John the Baptist was a great man and a great speaker, a prophet, even he said, he's from above, I'm not. He's way above me. I just get to be with the bridegroom. He's the bridegroom. And that's what John is declaring to us throughout his gospel, that this has been done. It's been done. It's finished. And for us to enjoy by faith, by God's grace, that these signs, even this first sign and all the other signs, keep pointing to that, reinforcing that and strengthening us in our faith. That we might not have a little bit of life, but it might grow. to the fullness, to that day when we will see Him face to face in glory. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your Word. And we ask that You would bless these considerations to our hearts, that as we leave, they still might, by Your Spirit, be speaking to us. And Father, we confess that apart from the light of Your Spirit, we don't understand, but we ask that You would be merciful for Christ's sake, that we might know this great high calling that we have, that we might know this great love that You have given to us in Christ, and that we might be conformed to the beauty of Your Son. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.