My name is Noel Jew. This is study number seven in the 2011 New Creation Teaching Ministry, Ministry School. It's on page 7.1. And before we get to it, let me say two things. One about some books. I've quoted in or referred to a couple of these in footnotes. One, T.F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ. It's something that Dean was alluding to just in his previous study. And if you want to understand what we need to understand, which is the connection between Christ and Israel and the Church, then that book is a superb exposition of that theme and helps us in a post-Holocaust world. You cannot preach the Gospel ignorant of the very things that Dean was just speaking to us about in the last session. A second book to recommend with caution, Jürgen Moltmann, Son of Righteousness Arise, God's Future for Humanity and the Earth. Again, Dean has referred to this in some of his, this is not a collusion, I was reading those two books independently and we both referred to them, but God's Future for Humanity and the Earth. Some bits, if you've read Maltman, your heart will read one sentence and just sing and the next sentence you'll read it and you'll think, where in the world does that come from? But overall there is a magnificent sense of hope and expectancy and forward-lookingness and great encouragement in the resurrection of Jesus Christ that that book brings to us. And two from the shelf at the back, both by P.T. Forsyth, The Cruciality of the Cross, cannot understand the work of Christ on the cross without understanding his person. This book touches on that. Forsyth does a more thorough job of the person of Christ elsewhere, but also the preaching of Jesus and the gospel of Christ. We are living in a day again, a hundred and something years on from when this was put together, when there is a contrast being made between the moral teaching of Jesus and the Gospel of Paul, as those two things are in contradiction. The Word of God as active revelation. Somehow in the exchange of emails about the shape of the studies for this year. I missed the fact that they're supposed to be limited to four pages and so forth. So this study and the other one that I've got on Friday morning are just so last year. They read like one of the old-fashioned ministry school papers. Good. This paper focuses on the active revelation of the Word of God. Word with capital W. This necessitates some clarification as well as some distinction. We need to clarify what we mean by the Word of God and distinguish that word from other things. To do this, we'll take some material from historical theology, some from biblical theology, and see how our comments comport with the testimony of John's Gospel. which Ian said in his note to focus on mainly. Jesus, God's living voice. Karl Barth, student, don't you think that God has revealed himself in other religions and not only in Christianity? Barth, no. God has not revealed himself in any religion including Christianity. He has revealed himself in his son. We might have expected such a response from Barthes given his consistent and incessant Christocentricism, but his pithy reply shines an intense spotlight on the unique treasure that is the Christian doctrine of revelation, as opposed even to Jewish and certainly Islamic doctrines of revealed religion. Barthes was nothing if not a faithful witness to God's voice. In the theology of the Reformers, the Word always preceded the Word. The Word of God, that is the Son of God, was always primary. Not simply chronologically, like Christ existed before the Scriptures, but theologically. A mere chronological primacy would still allow for a form of dualism, alien to the witness of Scripture. What do I mean by that? I mean the Eternal Word, who is Christ, has no deistic relationship to the Bible, the Church or the world. In other words, the Bible is not something which exists as an entity outside of Christ which you can mine for information by Christ and think by doing your exegesis you hear the Word of God. Christ himself is the Word of God. He is God's active revelation. There is no sort of secondary relationship that we have with a book or with the creation or with the world. In this regard, Barth bore faithful testimony not only to the Reformation but to the living Word of God in whom alone God speaks. For the Reformers, Christ was the hermeneutical key to God's active revelation and to the response of worship that that revelation created. Notice the worship is created by God's revealing himself to us. God's revelation was inseparable from his saving deeds in Christ, in and through whom we have been firmly grasped by the grace of God. Both Lutheran and Reformed theology was essentially doxological, but doxology from grace rather than towards it. Lutheran and Reformed worship retained a liturgical richness which preserved the best elements of earlier centuries but which removed the mediation of infused grace via a sacramental priestly conduit that had necessitated the Reformation itself. In other words, there's no mediation of God through a human agent except that person is Jesus Christ. We don't receive a dollop of grace when we come to church, either through a hyped-up worship service or through a long sermon or even through our participation in a sacrament. We receive Christ. And that issue about worship arising from the revelation of Jesus Christ is very relevant and real to us in our churches today. We know, I won't use names, but very well perhaps, the story of a very famous contemporary songwriter, a worship leader in Australia, whose crisis in his own life and other things had led him to understand the grace of God in a completely new way. and realised everything he'd written up until that point had us trying to reach up to God in our worship instead of declaring God having come to us. In other words, the worship is not a religious activity which brings us up to a level. Worship is a gift which comes down by the grace of God in Jesus Christ. So, in the Reformation, the Word was placed in the centre of the revised liturgies, with the sacraments taking their place only in connection with listening to the Word, as heard in the reading of Scripture and in the preaching of the Gospel, all in the vernacular. But what of Scripture then? We are justified in speaking of Scripture as God's Word in written form, but only in such a way that exalts their testimony to Christ. While in one sense the written word reveals the things of God, the scriptures themselves, along with the whole creation, have their origin and purpose in Christ. All things come into being through Him, even biblical propositions about Him. Without him nothing came into being that has come into being. The written word bears destiny to the eternal creator word. Thus we live under his present and active lordship rather than under the regime of a book per se. That is one of the great differences between Islam and Christianity. We do not live under the regime of a book. He speaks and listening to his voice new life the dead receive. Jesus preaches his gospel. The word of God speaks to the world through the scriptures, but essentially, especially as they are preached. Take footnote four. Luther referred to the importance of hearing the word in the preaching of the gospel even more than in the reading the text of scripture. Lutheran theology historically maintained a strong emphasis on the auricular nature of the Gospel, captured in Bonhoeffer's quote. The death and life of a Christian are not determined by his own resources. Rather, he finds both only in the Word that comes to him from the outside, in God's Word to him. The Reformers expressed it this way. Our righteousness is an alien righteousness, a righteousness that comes from outside of us. They were saying that the Christian is dependent on the Word of God spoken to him. He is pointed outward to the Word that comes to him. The Christian lives wholly by the truth of God's Word in Jesus Christ, which assures him salvation and righteousness. He is alert as possible to that word because he daily hungers and thirsts for righteousness. He daily desires the redeeming word. You just don't hear that and your life shrivels up. It is the darkest place in the universe to go. And it can only come from the outside. And it has come. And daily comes anew in the word of Jesus Christ, bringing redemption, righteousness, innocence, and blessedness. But God has put this word into the mouth of men in order that it may be communicated to other men. When one person is struck by the word, he speaks it to others. God has willed that we should seek and find his living word in the witness of a brother, in the mouth of a man, Notice the auricular nature, not just reading the Bible in your little corner by yourself. Because unless you're hearing the words speak in the gospel, every verse that you read will condemn you. Therefore the Christian needs another Christian who speaks God's word to him. He needs him again and again when he becomes discouraged, for by himself he cannot help himself without belaying the truth. He needs his brother man as a bearer and a proclaimer of the divine word of salvation. He needs his brother solely because of Jesus Christ. The Christ in his own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of his brother. Wonderful statement, almost a direct quote from Luther, and that's the one I couldn't find. The Christ in his own heart, the Christ in your own heart, is weaker than the Christ in the word of your brother. His own heart is uncertain. His brother's is sure. And so that also clarifies the goal of all Christian community. Beloved, we are not, and I don't use this in a theological sense, I use it in a sort of common pejorative sense. We are not to be Puritans, trying to purify the world. That's what Dean was just telling us about in the last study. The goal of Christian community is to meet one another as bringers of the message of salvation. not as planners as to how we're going to clean it all up and get it all right and make it all pure and then patrol the boundaries to make sure there's no one who gets in and out. As such, God permits them to meet others, meet together and gives them community. Their fellowship is founded solely upon Jesus Christ and this alien righteousness, and if you try and found your fellowship on anything other than that alien righteousness, it will go rancid in about two minutes. All we can say, therefore, is the community of Christians springs solely from the biblical and reformed message of the justification of man through grace alone. This alone is the basis of the longing of Christians for one another. You take that away and you don't long for your brother anymore, except as someone that you stand in criticism of or judgement of. So Jesus preaches his gospel, that's the point. The preached word in the power of the Spirit beats with the heart of the Word become flesh. Preaching is the prolongation of the voice of the Father in the world through the Church. But there is no revelation in the passages of Scripture or in the preaching of the Gospel without Christ. Luther and no less Calvin were no bibliologists. The true authority of the text lay in its witness to the saving work of God in Christ. While Luther especially was vilified for creating a canon within a canon, he would not admit of any authority other than the apostolic gospel itself. In this regard, he was one with Paul, who said, if I come back preaching a Christ who is not crucified for you, don't listen to me. In other words, the authority has nothing to do with the personality, the position or the moral shape of that person. It lies in the message. But what then of natural revelation? You can read actually footnote 6 to yourself later, all of them are all there. Wonderful little gathering that Luther had to translate the Bible. What then of natural revelation? It's not a paper on apologetics, but broadly speaking, apologetic approaches fall into two types, evidentialist and presuppositionalist. For the first, think Josh McDowell. For the second, think Cornelius Van Til. The one approach presents evidence for the reasonableness of faith. The other assumes an inherent knowledge of God, albeit opposed and suppressed by sinful humanity. Both have something to say. We do give a defense, an apologia, for the hope which lies within us. But the hope is Christ. We also recognise that God speaks in and through the creation, and that all people have an innate knowledge of Him. But such revelation only confirms us in our need for Christ, since that revelation, like the law and the conscience, simply condemns us to death. That's the point of Romans 1 verse 18. Whichever way we pose the question, the answer is Jesus. Natural revelation is not saving revelation. So how does the Bible help us understand the appearance of the Word? The Emmaus Road is always ours. Over recent decades, many writers have helped to revive our vision of the inherently Christological nature of the Old Testament. Like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, we are learning again to see Christ in all the Scriptures. How? A few brief examples. In terms of typology, fallen out of favor over recent years, but shouldn't be tossed out. Tabernacle and temple, cultus, that is the sacrificial system, cultus and priesthood, exodus and Passover, land and kingdom, as well as the Lord's providential dealings with individuals such as Noah, Abraham, especially at Mount Moriah, Jacob, Joseph, Ruth, David, Solomon, et cetera, all point beyond themselves to Christ. He is the ark in whom we are saved. He is both Abraham's seed and the ram in the thicket. He is the Israel of God who, Counter Jacob, inherits the promise by faith instead of by conniving. while at the same time being the gate of God for the nations. Remember Jacob sleeping with the rock as his pillow, surely this is the gate of God. Jesus is the saviour of his brethren, like Joseph, sent ahead to prepare a place for us. He is the king, like David, after God's own heart. He is the sage, the wise man, Solomon, who rules the kingdom. He enacts the redemption of which Ruth's story is but one example. In like manner, images of Israel abound. Israel as the vine, as God's son, as the servant of the Lord, as his flock, as his segula, that is his treasured possession, as his wife, as the theatre of his glory, as the object of his covenantal hen and hesed, that's faithfulness and loving kindness or mercy and grace. Among others, all are fulfilled in Christ. He is the vine, the sun, the servant, shepherd, and from one point of view, he's the true sheep. He is the treasured possession. He's the bearer of God's glory. He's the covenant faithfulness of God, both as covenant head and also as covenant partner. He fulfills both sides. He is the bridegroom, and in one sense, the bride, because your faithfulness won't get you anywhere. if we understand him as the true Israel, and so forth. Moreover, the descriptive names of God, God our rock, our provider, our righteousness, God as the one who sees, to have mercy, that is in particular, remember the story of Hagar. God is our champion, God the Holy One, God the Lord of hosts, the Most High, all are met in Christ's person and work. In terms of prophetic witness, for the testimony of Jesus has always been the spirit of prophecy. The entire Old Testament corpus testifies to the coming seed of Genesis 3.15. Can't understand the Old Testament without understanding the question about who is the seed and from where does the seed come. The many aspects of messianic expectation which arose out of the conjunction of God's prophetic promises and Israel's experience of exile, though universally misunderstood by Israel, were nonetheless fulfilled in Christ. Just take footnote 8 because I want to refer to it a little later. What sort of elements were there of that messianic expectation? The coming Messiah would vindicate God's holy name, he would exalt God's chosen people, defeat God's enemies, he would rule over the nations and instruct them in Torah, establish an eternal zionic kingdom, redeem Israel from exile, gather the scattered flock and settle them in the resting place of the land forever. With Messiah's appearance, Yahweh would return to the temple. He would pour out the Spirit. He would establish his new covenant. He would bring justice to light. He would bestow forgiveness on his people and regenerate the whole creation. All of those were in Dean's talk. Curiously enough, it is men with expectations such as these who crucified Jesus because he did not fulfil any of them. Yet that very crucifixion was the means by which they were all secured. The risen Jesus then announced peace to those who crucified him through the proclamation of his Gospel. His word is still so, peace to those who are far off and peace to those who are near. Plenty of material to preach there, isn't there? The apostolic proclamation of Christ is but the expression of all these things in the light of Jesus' death and resurrection. So focusing down even further in the general context through the general witness of the Old Testament to how does all of this work out in John's Gospel. John's Gospel founds all Christian revelation on the incarnation. The prologue, that is John 1 verse 1 to 17, beginning with the word become flesh and so forth, connects with the narrative beginning with John's testimony. John is the one who testifies to the light coming into the world. And the hinge of all of that is verse 18, no one has seen God at any time. The only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, he has explained him. The remainder of John's Gospel recounts how God has revealed himself in Jesus. God has revealed himself in Jesus. God has revealed himself in Jesus. The emphasis is important. Jesus is not just a perfect man reflecting God. Nor is he God only acting out the role of a man. Jesus is God in our nature. John's Gospel, therefore, is essentially treatise on the person of Christ by which God reveals himself to the world. How does he do it? It's multifaceted. I've got five different aspects. There's more you could add. Firstly, John's Gospel demonstrates that the work of creation and the work of redemption are inseparable. The creator of the prologue, is the lamb of John's testimony. The light of the world shines in the darkness redemptively. The shepherd who owns the flock dies for the flock. The bread of heaven is broken for the life of the world. The resurrection and the life is crucified, dead and buried. These patterns reflect a consistent theme in Old Testament theology whereby God the Creator is known in and through his acts of redemption. He creates Israel. Just think on that for a minute. Genesis 1, 2, 3 and 4 were written from the point of view of the Exodus. You don't read Genesis 1, 2, 3. There was no one there watching that. except God the Father and the Son and the Spirit. Moses wrote it and after God redeemed Israel, then they understood who the creator of the world was. You see the point? You can't understand who the creator of the world is unless you're redeemed. He creates Israel not by divine fiat, that is just a divine word, but by the exodus, redemption. He is the Father Redeemer, their heavenly progenitor and their true Goel, that is the Redeemer and Kinsman at the one time. He is the Creator of the world who at the same time seeks the lost Adam in the garden and promises a seed to destroy the works of the serpent. In Israel's cultus he came with his own propitiation in his hands to meet his wayward son in a new Eden which the tabernacle was understood to be. The pattern of Old Testament theology is preserved in the very structure of John's Gospel, where the prologue informs our reading of every part. The Creator, the Word incarnate, comes to seek and to save, to heal and restore, to gather, to feed, to die and to rise, to intercede, and to come again in clouds of glory. Yes, tis mystery all, the immortal dies, but John's Gospel will not let us hold to a mere Aryan view of Jesus' passion. He's not the best of humanity doing his best. In Jesus, God atones, bearing our sins in his body on the tree. In Jesus, God raises up a new temple. That's a very important little personal pronoun. Destroy this temple and I will raise it up. Who does he think he is? God? When Jesus rose from the dead, God arose, that his enemies might be scattered. With the raising of Jesus, God himself has arisen to fulfil his promises to all he has created. And there's a whole series of sermons in footnote 10. Secondly, by the means of the I AM sayings, John coordinates God's works in and through Jesus with God's nature embodied in Jesus. The predicate I am statements, that is, I am the bread, they have a predicate, I am the light, I am the way. Exegete, the absolute I am statements, those statements where sometimes our translations say do not fear, I am he, or I am, it is me. In fact in the Greek it just says do not fear, I am. Not I am the light, I am the bread, nothing, I am. In other words, all that Jesus describes himself to be, as the bread of heaven, the light of the world, is so because he is who he is, as I am incarnate. These I am statements are linked to the actions of Christ, not least in his seven signs. He is the bread who has fed the multitude in the wilderness. He is the good shepherd who has come to seek and gather the flock and atone for their sins. He is the light of the world who has caused the blind to see. In Jesus, God actively reveals himself by exegeting his own nature through the humanity of the Son. The works reveal the person. At every point, Jesus testifies that he has been sent into the world. And the I Am absolutes, together with the knowledge of his own eternal nature, he says, before the foundation of the world was, glorify me with the glory we had before the foundation of the world. They make it clear that Jesus knew who he was and what he'd come to do. The revelation he brings is not passive but active, redeeming humanity to its proper state. In Jesus, the dwelling place of God is with men. Jesus, the God-man, is the one mediator between God and man. He unites God to us and us to God in his person, only by virtue of which he can effectively accomplish his work. Being God, he brings God to us. Being man, he brings us to God. There is no passive revelation involved as if Jesus says, look at me and copy me if you can. His being as the incarnate son of God is God's revelation and his work is God's salvation but you can't have the latter without the former. In him, the revealing of God and the understanding of man fully coincide. The Word of God and the perfect response of man were indivisibly united in one person, the Mediator, who was received, believed and worshipped together with God the Father and the Holy Spirit by the apostolic community, which he creatively called forth and assimilated into his own mission in the Father. Thus both as the incarnate revelation of God and the embodied knowledge of God, Jesus Christ constitutes in himself the way, the truth, and the life, through whom alone access to the Father is freely open to, coming back to Dean, all the peoples of mankind. That is to say, the incarnate word and the truth of God, Jesus Christ, his own person being, is identical with the revelation which he mediates. There's a lot in that quote which we won't try to unpack now. It's beyond me to do it anyway. Thirdly, John shows how he fulfills every element of Old Testament messianic expectation, albeit in complete contradiction to the widely held ways in such expectations were viewed. The point of the whole gospel is to show, that is John's gospel, is to show that Jesus is the Christ and that in believing we might have life in his name. through the seven signs of chapter 1 to 11, into the direct teaching about the cross in chapter 12, via the good news of the coming spirit in chapters 13 to 16, in and by the magnificent intercession of chapter 17, and through the account of the passion, resurrection, and subsequent appearances in chapters 18 to 21, every element of legitimate messianic expectation is shown to have been fulfilled. Moreover, it is God who has done it. He has fulfilled every promise in His incarnate Son on our behalf while we were yet sinners. And He has done so fully, freely and abundantly. In different ways, the seven signs correlate to the elements of the Old Testament narrative, but adorned now with an overarching stress on superabundance and transformation. For example, the water of the old Jewish rites of purification is changed into wine by the bucketload. Sorry, Martin. Jesus is the living bread from heaven, not manna simply to sustain biological life. Christ is the good shepherd fulfilling Ezekiel 34. I myself will be their shepherd, not just a Davidic shepherd. Simply, Jesus raises the dead to eternal life beyond even the reviving of Israel to die only again. Fourthly, we hear from Jesus' lips his utter dependency upon God the Father for all things. In his deeds we learn that the Father has been the active agent. The Father who dwells in me does his works. In Christ we see the face of the Father, not simply because of who Jesus is as God incarnate, because of how he does what he does. His oneness with the Father is relational and thereby the Father is revealed for who He is. That is, as the Father always in relationship. This revelation in time corresponds with the nature of God in eternity. It means the triune life of God is now opened up to us in Jesus and the eternal life the Mediator brings to us is relationally defined. That is just so important but we can't stop. Fifthly, the mystery of God's redeeming work in Christ is expounded in a wide variety of Old Testament themes and concepts, all of which place the primacy on God and His work rather than on us and ours. Passover lamb, propitiatory sacrifice, scapegoat, The scapegoat coalesces John's description of Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away. That description of taking away is a sort of scapegoat statement. Temple and priesthood regeneration and redemption New Exodus terminology, sanctification and intercession, redeeming king and atoning shepherd, the justifying judge, these and many other allusions to the Old Testament narrative and cultus mean that we are not mute when called to expound the work of God in Christ. There's plenty of material. But at best they can only give indications of that work. We cannot know in all its height and breadth and length and depth, for it is the work of God. Do you think you can ever understand, beloved, my God, my God, why have you forsaken us? Do you think the best preaching can ever, can't even begin? Christ's work on our behalf, sorry, at best they give only the indications of the nature of that work. We cannot know it in all its height and breadth and length and depth for it is the work of God. Christ's work on behalf of the elect is but a witness to the saving work of God and not its extent. need to hear that in the light of what Randall was saying last night. So many of the debates about election revolve around extent but not purpose. Israel was elected to be witness and it's never really engaged in the debate about who was in or out in Israel. It's a wrong question. The whole of the cosmos has been affected by his work because of the death and resurrection of the Son of God is the death and resurrection of the Creator. By the nature and extent of that work, like the work of the priesthood in the Old Testament temple remains out of sight of prying eyes. When you came to worship in the Old Testament temple, you stopped at the door. You brought your lamb or whatever, but everything else happened behind the veil. Everything. You saw the altar of holocaust, you might have got a little glimpse, but everything else was out of your, you didn't come in here. And so when we understand the work of Christ, we stop at the door and we look in and we've got glimpses, but what actually had to happen, we've got no way of plumbing. The Athanasian necessity in the last few minutes. In all of this, we have no paradigm. Jesus is not like anything or anyone. Thank God. Jesus is the embodiment of Israel as also Israel's Lord and God. He is the priest as also the lamb. He is the temple as also the people. He is the great prophet and apostle as also the message, he proclaims. Beautiful picture, isn't it? He proclaims himself. He is the beginning as also the end of all things. He is the creator as also the creature. He is the sower as well as the seed who is put into the ground to die. He is God as man, he is God for man and he is man for God when all others were against him. The person of Christ is a singularity. The work is unique because of his person. How do we understand this one? What can we say of him, from him and in him to the world? Who do we say that he is? What we must say is this, God meets us in Jesus. In his book, The Four Great Heresies, J.C. provides a compact overview of the swings and roundabouts of the early Christological controversies. It's a disturbing book. When you read it you realise one time or other you've held each or all of the errors he's described. But the point is thereby well made. The Church needed to give full attention to the person of Christ in such a way that his work was not undermined. A docetic Christ, cannot save us any more than an Aryan one can. Orthodox Christology alone is adequate. The sinner's reconciliation with a holy God could only be effected by God, and I press the effectuation of it. With God, to will is to do, and the God who willed man's salvation must himself effect it. not accept it. That's just bare evangelicalism, which is more Aryan than it is orthodox. Must affect it, not accept it, not contrive it, but affect it. Only he who had lost us could find us. Only he who had wronged could forgive. Only the Holy One could satisfy His own holiness. To forgive, He must redeem. Fully to forgive the guilt, He must redeem from the curse. And only the Creator knew the creature so as to redeem. And to know mankind, He must live in mankind. To offer for man, He must be man. In Jesus, we meet God as man. God in man, God with man, or God for man, are all true enough and they apply to all the saints of God. Man with God, man for God, man under God, man representing God, or even man as the son of God, always likewise are true. but not sufficient to describe the Incarnate Word. Only in Christ do we see God and only in Christ, therefore, do we hear the saving Word of His effective mediation. This is what constitutes God's active revelation in the Word. Therefore, beloved, we preach nothing but Christ and Him crucified. and we worship the Triune God in, with and through Jesus Christ our Lord, who together with the Holy Spirit is blessed with the Father in all eternity. Amen.