Amen, you may be seated. If you would turn with me in your copy of God's Word to the book of 1 Timothy 3. We will meditate on verse 16, and in fact, just one line of that verse. And as we turn to 1 Timothy 3, essentially what I want to do this evening is give a very long footnote to the sermon last week. As I talked about the resurrection justifying Jesus, I had several good conversations about it and thought, well, maybe we should talk about this a bit more. So we'll look at 1 Timothy 3, verse 16 this evening in this great confession of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, preparing us for His table. In 1 Timothy 3, verse 16, it is written, Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness. He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray. Our Father, we pray that even as we've sung, You would answer our prayer to show us Your glory in the face of Jesus. You would do so as Your Spirit works through His Word that comes forth to us by a sinful, infallible man, and yet by Your grace, Your Word to Your church. We pray You would be with hearers and preacher, that You would be honored and glorified in Jesus' name. Amen. Why did Jesus need to be vindicated? And what does it have to do with any of us? A couple of years ago, the president of a liberal seminary did an interview in the New York Times and made this remark. For Christians for whom the physical resurrection of Jesus becomes a sort of obsession, that seems to me a pretty wobbly faith. What if tomorrow someone found the body of Jesus still in the tomb? Would that then mean that Christianity was a lie? No faith is stronger than that. Hmm. Faith is stronger than the resurrection of Jesus. I wonder what his faith is in. And his conception of Christianity seems to be that the moral virtues that we exert, faith and love, are somehow meritorious on themselves. have no connection to what the Lord has done. What is the strong basis of faith? As we see right here in this verse, it's what we confess. And here in verse 16 in Scripture, we have another one of those irrelevant dry listing of precepts and doctrines that have absolutely no practical value. I'm just kidding. Paul didn't believe that modern distaste for doctrine, of course. But notice this is a summary. He says in verse 16, in the introduction of this early hymn or creed, this is the mystery of godliness. And what's more practical than godliness? What has more real world value? In fact, the reason that godliness is a key term in 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy and Titus is because it was a common term already in Ephesus. The apostle here, if you will, is redeeming a word. He's taking a word that the Romans would have been familiar with and using it to expound the truth of the gospel. Godliness just means piety. We'd probably today just say religion or devotion maybe. Devotion to one's God. Now what that would have meant in Ephesus, and especially if you note up in verse 15 where Paul just describes the church as a pillar and buttress of the truth, he refers to columns and the Ephesians knew about columns because one of the seven wonders of the ancient world was there in Ephesus. the temple to Artemis. And there was a rabid allegiance there to the idolatry in Ephesus. In Acts 19, their godliness nearly got Paul killed because he was taken into their amphitheater in the midst of a riot because by people becoming Christians, it's hard on the idolatry business. And so they chanted for hours, great is Artemis of the Ephesians in Acts 19. Now, if you'd have pulled an Ephesian aside and asked them, what would you call that riot there with all those Christians, they would say, godliness. They'd say, devotion to our gods. And it was merely external. And this external conception and idea of godliness was influencing even the church in Ephesus. If you glance over to chapter 4, the very next chapter, we see Paul having to deal with, in verse 3, men who forbid marriage and abstinence from foods. And godliness was just external acts of ritual and impurity. But as Paul wrote to the Colossians in Colossians 2, while these have an appearance of wisdom, they look like godliness. They're of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. And the same is true today. One writer observed we have the same confusion about godliness. He said, we've removed the God from godliness, added an O and made it goodliness. And often when we say godliness, what's the first thing that comes to mind? Well, the first six things I need to do. Not the six things Christ has done. Paul deals with this again in chapter 4 here, in verses 7 and 8, when he says, train yourself for godliness. Now, I think the language would be better as the Christian Standard Bible in chapter 4, verse 7, train yourself in godliness. It's not what you work outside in, it's what you work from the inside out, working upon God's work in Christ, faith in the work of Jesus. And in our verse here, this is what the church confessed, perhaps sung, the work of Jesus portrayed in six lines or three couplets, unpacking the mystery of godliness. And each one of these, if you notice, links heaven and earth. You have in the first the flesh and spirit. You have in the second angels and nations. You have in the third the world and glory. You have Christ our Savior, mediator of heaven and earth. And so he was incarnate in the flesh and raised by the spirit. He was seen by the angels out of the tomb. He is now proclaimed among the nations, believed in the world, and one day will return to be taken up in glory. You have this early confession essentially just walking through the gospel. The gospel accomplished, the gospel announced, and the gospel eventually accepted. And so in its accomplishment, in the first two lines, we have Jesus manifested in the flesh, the fullness of deity dwelling in bodily form in Jesus. And then he was vindicated or justified by the Spirit. Now what vindication did Jesus need? I want to think of this in two ways. He needed to be vindicated as the Son of God, and secondly, the Lord our righteousness. Jesus was vindicated by the Spirit in his resurrection as God the Son and the Lord our righteousness. Let's think first about him being declared God the Son. We think about the Lord Jesus Christ in his ministry, he made many claims. The most astounding of which is that he is in the flesh the one who is. He said, for example, in John 8, before Abraham was born, I am. And they knew what he meant because they tried to kill him afterwards. He was claiming to be the God of the burning bush, the God who has no beginning or end, who's infinite, immense, eternal, immutable, there in bodily form. Elsewhere in the Gospel of John, Jesus declared in chapter 2 verse 19, destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up, referring to himself. He will bring himself out of the dead. He goes on later in chapter 10 of John in verses 17 and 18 in the same line. He says this, for this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again, this charge I receive from my Father." Who in the world has authority to take up their life out of the dead? Well, no one in the world does. That's God's authority. Or even when Jesus told Martha, as they wept in grief over the passing of Lazarus, who was only temporarily dead, as we know, Jesus said in John 11, I am the resurrection and the life. I am the life. I am life. I am. The only one who can claim to be life and the giver of life is God. Jesus made astounding claims. And they are either bottomless wonders, God in the flesh, or the height of blasphemy. And those who thought it was the height of blasphemy condemned Jesus for making these claims. This condemnation was foretold by the prophet Isaiah. And if you have your Bible, turn with me briefly for Isaiah 50, as we have a connection here with the vindication of Jesus. Isaiah 50 is the third servant song. Isaiah has four. They begin in Isaiah 42. These are songs or poems about the promised servant of the Lord who would come. We're probably most familiar with the fourth in Isaiah 53. Here in Isaiah 50 is the third servant's song. And this one is the most vivid and personal because it's in the first personal pronouns, I, me. We have, we could call this the servant's soliloquy. He speaks of himself. And in verses 4 and 5, he talks about his meticulous obedience to God. God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with the word him who is weary. Morning by morning he awakens, he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught. The Lord God has opened my ear and I was not rebellious, I turned not backward. That is to say, he speaks perfectly because he hears with perfect obedience. He is the servant of the Lord. And for this, he would suffer. Verse 6, I gave my back to those who strike and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard. I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting. Isaiah foretells the one of whose perfect obedience before the Lord would willingly give himself to flogging, to striking, to being struck like a criminal. This is the public treatment of one who's been condemned by his society. And it comes with social mockery and shame, spitting, an angry mob pulling out the beard. This is exactly what Jesus promised his disciples on the road to Jerusalem. He said in the Gospels in Mark 10, that the son of man, they will mock him and spit on him and flog him and kill him. But what he says here is he does it willingly. I gave my back. He has authority to lay it down. He gives himself willingly in obedience to God. Willingly, verse seven, he set his face like a flint. He's confident. Luke says in Luke 9, 51, when the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up on the cross, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. He marched in willing obedience to the Father. His face was set to scorn, to shame, and willing obedience to God without resentment, without bitterness, without sinful withdrawing. He willingly gave himself. He has authority to lay it down. He was obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross. But what's his confidence? Verse 8, he who vindicates me is near. Now, vindicate, again, was the same word as justified. It means to be declared right. When you're vindicated, you're declared to be in the right. When you are justified, you are declared to be just, the same thing. And his confidence in willingly giving himself to condemnation and mockery is, the one who vindicates him is near. Therefore, he says in verse eight, who will contend with me? He says, let us stand up together. Who is my adversary? Let him come near me. And here he's using court language. He's using the language of go ahead. He's inviting scrutiny. Let's get into the courtroom and get on the stand. Bring the evidence. He's beckoning his adversary to come near him. And he says, with God's help, verse nine, the Lord God helps me. Who's going to declare me guilty? The one who vindicates me is near. How will I ever be declared guilty? The vindication to be declared right is contrasted with condemnation. And when Jesus was brought to trial to be vindicated or condemned, only one charge stuck. And that was the charge that he claimed to be the Christ, the Son of God. He blasphemed. He claimed to be God in the flesh. Is he guilty for that? Well, Jesus went there with this promise, he who vindicates me is near. Now, who was near to the servant of the Lord in the flesh? Well, earlier in Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 11, he promised of the servant, the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him. The Spirit is near to him. It is the spirit in the gospels we see who conceived Jesus in Mary's womb, that the God, the Son, would exist in a human nature, very God and very man in one person. It's the spirit that at his baptism descends like a dove and anoints Jesus as the Christ, the prophet, priest, and king of his people, that he would go and proclaim himself as the king and the kingdom of God coming in him. And then Jesus will say in Matthew 12 verse 28, if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. God works by his Spirit and his Spirit is working in him. So much he goes on to say that to deny my works is to blaspheme the Spirit. Because they're coextensive with his. The Holy Spirit anointed Christ in his human nature to reveal him as God the Son in the flesh who has God's power, God's authority. And yet for that claim, he was condemned to die as a blasphemer. And even then the Spirit was near. Even on the cross, as Jesus was dying, his condemnation didn't end. People mocked and condemned him and said, he saved others, he cannot save himself. They did not reason to think that the reason he didn't save himself was so he could save others. Peter remarks on Jesus' vindication in 1 Peter 3.18. He said, Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit. What did the Spirit do once Jesus fully suffered condemnation in his death on the cross? He raised him from the dead. The Spirit who was near vindicated Jesus' claim to be God the Son by raising Him from the dead. He was, as we see in 1 Timothy 3, vindicated by the Spirit. Or as Paul will write in Romans 1 verse 4, He was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by His resurrection from the dead. He can't be just a mere man who was condemned for blasphemy, but proven as God the Son, the God-man for us, by being raised by the Spirit. Thomas Boston, the Puritan, said this, if Jesus had remained in the grave, it would be reasonable to believe him just an ordinary person, and that his death was the just punishment of his presumption to call himself the Son of God. but the resurrection proved that he was who he claimed to be. His grave was empty, so truly in Jesus the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily. His suffering on the cross and his dying on behalf of sinners and rising again is the irrefutable proof of his divine nature, that he is God the Son in human flesh. Your friend and mine, Gerhardus Voss, he put it like this. Voss said, the fact that Christ could bear eternal death without succumbing in the struggle is itself irrefutable proof of his divine nature. A mere creature would be swallowed up by that death and would never again be able to hold his head high. He, Jesus in contrast, could not be held by that death. Is Jesus God in the flesh? To answer that question, you just have to answer one other. Is He still dead? And if the answer to that is no, then the answer to the first question is yes, He is. He is God in the flesh. Death could not hold Him. He is who He said He was. God come for us, the Son of God, vindicated by the Spirit. Secondly, not just God in the flesh, His divine nature, but the Lord, our righteousness. vindicated as the Lord our righteousness. Scripture says, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. And that curse that Jesus bore, was it the fitting judgment on his earthly life? The condemnation he received in his court and that judgment, that trial was wrong. But if Jesus had remained dead, then we could only conclude that he received the just penalty that any sinner deserves. Because what do we deserve for our sins? Death. That is the wages of sin. But if Jesus is not a sinner, if his perfect life fulfilled all righteousness before God, lived as man was always supposed to live but never has, that needs to be vindicated. That condemnation needs to be overturned. So Jesus, by his resurrection, was vindicated by the Spirit. In other words, it's not wrong to say that the resurrection justified Jesus. And Jesus needed justification because He died condemned. What justifies His righteous life? The fact that death could not hold Him. Now the ground of Jesus' justification, unlike yours and mine, was His own works, His own merits. It just needed to be declared publicly. And the resurrection of Jesus does that very thing. Demonstrates his perfect righteousness. A man who didn't deserve to die, but died on behalf of others. No wonder Isaiah asks, as the servant reflects here, who will declare me guilty? And he goes on in verse nine and says, all of them will wear out like a garment. The moth will eat them up. The contrast there is poignant. Where are all of Jesus's accusers? They're dead, buried, by now far decomposed. Jesus is alive. Who will declare him guilty? Those who did have perished for the wages of their sins. Jesus had no sins, no wages to pay. He rose from the grave. Jesus is alive justly, so no accusation against Him could be sustained. They were overturned. He was raised from the dead by the Spirit. And so if Jesus cannot be condemned, then what must be true of everyone who is joined to Him spiritually and separably in union with Christ? This is the reasoning Paul makes in Romans chapter four. In Romans 4, verses 24 to 25, Paul argues this very thing. He says, righteousness will be counted to us who believe in him, who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. Think of the apostle's logic. Jesus was handed over to death for our trespasses. Because what do the wages of sin deserve? Death. So Jesus died on behalf of others as a substitute, as our vicarious sacrifice on our place. He was delivered over and died for us, but was raised for our justification. That is, in his resurrection, Jesus's righteousness was vindicated. That his condemnation was not for him, but in the stead of others. And so then, if you're united to Jesus, What happens to you in His resurrection? You're vindicated. You're justified. Not because of your works, but because of His. What vindicates Him? That's why the Bible says He was raised for our justification. A justification is a legal term. It just means declaring someone right. And again, its opposite is guilt or condemnation, declaring someone guilty. That's why Paul will say in Romans 8, verse 33, it is God who justifies who is to condemn. To be justified is to be out from under condemnation. Justification and condemnation are judicial pronouncements. So for God to justify, it means the judgment of Almighty God. That future final decree is moved from the future into the present and is declared upon all who belong to Jesus because Jesus's judgment was rendered when he rose from the grave righteous, vindicated, justified. If there's no body in the tomb on Sunday morning, then Jesus was vindicated as righteous. He was justified. And so, all those in Christ Jesus are vindicated as righteous as well. And there is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ, because he rose from the grave. Again, our friend Gerhardus Voss explains it like this. He says there's a causal connection between the justification of Christ and those who belong to him. Remember, we reflected this last week. If you're united to Christ, what's true of him is true of you. And Vos goes on to say, what comes to pass with the individual believer and his justification is nothing other than the personal realization of the justification of Jesus. You hear that? So what happens when you're justified is the personal appropriation and realization of the vindication of Jesus himself and his resurrection. It's why the Bible says he's raised for our justification. It's why we rejoice that he's vindicated. So everyone who trusts in Jesus is vindicated before God and needs not fear any condemnation. In the 16th century, Caspar Olivanus, Caspar the friendly German, he put together the Heidelberg Catechism. This is what he said, Christ's resurrection is our righteousness. Remember that. Christ's resurrection is our righteousness because God regards us in the perfection in which Christ arose. Previously, He regarded the Son in our sins as a sinner, but He's regarded Jesus in our sins on the cross. But He regards Him now and us in Him as the person which He is, righteous. This is why the resurrection is so foundational and fundamental to even the most basic confession of Christian faith. A passage most of us have probably have memorized that we share with others, Romans 10, verses 9 to 10. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart what? What proves he's Lord? God raised him from the dead. You will be saved. Our faith is not stronger than death, but Jesus is, and so we have our faith in Him. We confess Jesus is Lord because we believe God raised Him from the dead, and there is no stronger basis for faith than the fact that the tomb was empty on Sunday morning. So dear Christian, we stand justified before the Father because we are vindicated by the Son who was vindicated by the Spirit. The Son of God and the Lord our righteousness was vindicated by the Spirit who raised Him from the dead. What does this mean then for our assurance now, our assurance looking for the future, and then our message to the world? For our assurance now, Too many Christians address their doubts or their discouragements, struggles, first with what I call, I just theology. I run into I just theology all the time as a pastor. I just need to fill in the blank. I just need to pray more. I just need to read my Bible more. I just need to stop that, this. And usually, it's entirely true. You do need to pray more, read your Bible more, and stop what you don't want to tell anyone else and start what we all know we should be doing, yes. But that's not first. Our access to God is not founded upon nor does it begin with what you just need to do. But rather, you are just in Jesus, who's been raised from the dead and vindicated as our righteousness, God the Son in human flesh. And we begin in all our doubts and struggles and discouragements with that fact. Christ was justified by being raised from the dead, so by faith alone in him, I am just as well. Because what's true of Jesus is true of me. I've been vindicated. certainly not on the basis of my works, but on his, and his were ratified by being raised from the dead. So beloved, if the tomb of Christ is empty, and it is, so then are our own fears of condemnation and the accusations of the devil. Whatever of which we're guilty of, we are just if we're in Jesus. Now what does this mean then about our assurance for the future? As we look ahead, In 1 Corinthians 15, we're told, verse 20, Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. In the Old Testament, you brought your firstfruits as an offering. And as firstfruits, it's a part representing the whole. By bringing your firstfruits, you're saying everything belongs to you, God. My whole harvest belongs to you, and I'm bringing this portion to represent that. So Jesus' resurrection is just a part of the whole. It's the first, it's the beginnings, it's not the whole thing. That's why the Bible is saying in Romans 8, 29, He's the firstborn of many brothers. Jesus is the pledge that everyone who dies in Him will be raised and will be like Him. He was vindicated by the Spirit, and so we will be raised by the same Spirit. Romans 8-11, if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, then he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you. If the spirit raised Jesus from the dead and vindicated him, guess what he's going to do with everyone who is righteous in him and does not deserve to remain dead because of him? Raise them from the dead in the end. give life to everyone in Jesus. And this is our encouragement in the face of all our fears, especially the king of terrors, death itself. In 1 Thessalonians 4, Paul writes, And then he says simply in verse 18 after this, How do we encourage one another to persevere, to be faithful, to hold fast to the hope of the gospel, to hold fast to God's order and instruction for life and godliness according to his word and law? God will raise everyone with Jesus in the end. We encourage one another with the resurrection. We can encourage one another. We can live our lives as those who have another one coming. And so we don't have to worry about being vindicated in the court of this world, because we've been vindicated by Jesus, who was raised from the dead, and so will we. Now, what do we think about this in terms of our ministry and message as a church? Or even if you're here this evening and you're not a Christian, how ought you to think of this? Well again, the Bible instructs us when Paul went to another Greek city, Athens, and he preached to the Gentiles the very fact of Jesus' resurrection, but made an entirely different point. He said this in Acts 17. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed. And of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead. Why does everyone on the planet obligated to repent, to turn from their sin? Because Jesus was vindicated as God the Son and the Lord our righteousness, the one who can be trusted to judge all of humanity. He's risen from the grave. So we are called then to reckon with Him. Our world is not wrong that there is a right side to history. They're wrong about who sets it. And it's not the world who's unrighteous. None of us can be trusted to set the right side to history. But the Lord our righteousness, the Lord whose righteousness is vindicated by His resurrection, He can. Here's the truth. Jesus was justified by His resurrection. So either we must be justified by faith in Him or be judged by Him. But His authority for both is proven by His resurrection from the grave by the power of God's Spirit. So what goes out to you this evening, friend, if you're not a Christian, is trust the Lord Jesus Christ for your righteousness. You have no other hope in His judgment but Him. Run to the one you're running from and rest in him. And beloved, our message to the world is that. The tomb is empty, so there is a judgment. And there's righteousness for all who trust the one who was raised from the grave. That is our main message. The main thing the church is here to do. Our main thing is not fixing this world, though we should help where we can. The main thing we're doing is pointing to the one who will, who will reckon perfect righteousness one day because he was raised from the dead. That poor seminary leader lost his ever-loving mind. We don't have faith in faith. We have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, risen from the grave. And before we ever consider what we do in response, and there's much, we consider first what He has done. We remember this counsel from our friend, the Reformer Martin Luther. He said this, the gospel teaches me not what I ought to do, but what Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has done for me. We should know this well, teach it to others, and beat it into their heads continually. Amen. Beat this into your head. Jesus Christ was raised from the dead, vindicated by the Spirit. Therefore, He is God the Son and the Lord our righteousness. And so, if you are in Him, you are righteous in Jesus. You start there for everything else in your life. Amen. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank You for the hope of the Gospel and the work of Your Son for us. We praise You in Your triune glory and being. As the Lord Jesus, God the Son in the flesh, perfectly obeyed you, our Father, and in the dwelling of the Spirit was risen from the grave. The same Spirit who is with us now as His church, who assures us of your Word, and will one day give us life everlasting in our resurrection. Help us, our Father, to hold fast to these, to continue to encourage one another in these truths, and to preach and to minister this hope and also this warning to the world faithfully around us. We pray this in Jesus' righteous name. Amen.