THE LORDSHIP OF JESUS CHRIST, Part 4 - He is the Divine Promise Keeper

 

Throughout the Old Testament, God made certain promises to the patriarchs (Abraham, Issac, and Jacob/Israel) that their descendants, the nation of Israel, longed to see fulfilled. These promises centred on having a holy Homeland and a Messiah. Over the centuries that followed their expulsion from their Land which sent them into exile into Babylon initially and then into Persia, the Israelites became known as Jews. Their expectations of how these divine promises would be fulfilled then became greatly embellished with the promise of a homeland being interpretted to mean that the Romans would be overthrown and expelled out of ‘their’ land,  by the promised messiah who would then have to be a powerful military commander. These embellished expectations then gave rise to the Jewish sect known as the Zealots; and, prior to the Zealots it led various other unsuccessful Jewish revolts. But when the messiah actually appeared, He was not the military commander that the Jews were expecting. How could this carpenter’s son from Nazareth be the heir to King David’s throne and the one who would ultimately fulfil the promises of God to Israel? So how justified were the first-century Jews in their expectations of how God would fulfil His promises to them? How obligated was Jesus the Messiah to fulfil the promises of God? And what implications does this have for Christians today who are committed to claiming the promises of God?  

 

KING DAVID PROPHETICALLY IDENTIFIED
THE MESSIAH AS HIS LORD

¶ And as Jesus taught in the temple, He said,
“How can the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David?
David himself, in the Holy Spirit, declared,“‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet.”’
¶ David himself calls Him Lord. So how is He his son?”
And the great throng heard him gladly.
Mark 12:35-37

The answer to Christ’s question is grounded in how the Jews referred to someone as their father, and how they referred to someone as a son. In English we have the ability to identify our ancestors as our: father; grandfather; great-grandfather; great-great-grandfather, and so on. Inversely, we can also refer to their male descendant as their: son; grandson; great-grandson; great-great-grandson, and so on. The Jews through the ensuing centuries could refer to Abraham as “our father” (Lk. 1:73; 3:8) and as it turns out, with such an emphasis on respecting elders, it was unusual for someone to refer to their eventual descendant as their ‘Lord’, yet, David could refer to his descendant, Jesus, as his “son” (Matt. 1:1). Thus, King David was prophetically declaring that the Messiah would be the divine Lord (Psalm 2). This then forms the background to the angelic announcement to the shepherds on the night the Jesus was born –

¶ And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field,
keeping watch over their flock by night.  And an angel of the Lord appeared to them,
and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear.
And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold,
I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
Luke 2:8-11

The angel announced that Jesus was: (i) a Saviour; (ii) the Christ (Messiah); and (iii) the Lord. Significantly, the angel also specified that Jesus was born in Bethlehem (Luke 2:4) which fulfilled what the prophets had foretold (2Sam. 7:12-13; Mic. 5:2). The angelic designation of Jesus as ‘saviour’ may well have been understood by the shepherds to mean what the Rabbis had long told their congregations about the coming Messiah as a military commander. But it wasn’t just these shepherds who probably held this expectation, even Christ’s own disciples expressed this understanding to Jesus immediately prior to His ascension:

¶ So when they had come together, they asked Him,
“Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”
Acts 1:6

By the time of Acts 1, Christ’s disciples had already come to understand that Jesus was Christ, Lord and GOD who was worthy of the worship only due to GOD. It is therefore reasonable to understand why the disciples expected that Jesus would fulfil the promises that GOD had made to the patriarchs and which the nation of Israel expected the Messiah would deliver. This is why Christ’s response to His disciples’ question is so revealing (Acts 1:7) and it then leads us to reconsider how we understand “the promises of God.”

 

UNDERSTANDING THE PROMISES OF GOD 

The brief exchange between the disciples and the risen Lord prior to Christ’s ascension reveals three important insights:

1. Sometimes our expectations of GOD are misunderstandings of what the Scriptures actually say.

2. Understand that GOD always keeps His promises which may then invite us to consider how He has done so with a fresh perspective.

3. Recognise that often it takes the passage of time for us to realise and understand that GOD has kept His promises in a way that far exceeds what we had actually expected.

Paul’s statement to the Corinthians that Jesus had fulfilled all of the promises to Israel is an application of the above three insights. Paul, a converted Jew to Christianity grew up longing for God’s promises to Israel to repossess its Biblically-prescribed borders under the military leadership of the promised Messiah. In his consideration of these divine promises to Israel he had come to realise that Jesus had indeed fulfilled all of these promises which then confirmed that Christ was LORD of Lords (1Tim. 6:15) because He was the Divine Promise-Keeper.

In relation to these promises, Dr. Munther Isaac in his book, From Land to Lands, From Eden to the Renewed Earth (pps. 193-4), cites Dr. Peter W.L. Walker’s book, Jesus and the Holy City (p. 117)- “Moreover, Walker argues that the phrase ‘all the promises’ would necessarily include those concerning the land.” “In other words, the story of Israel, in its totality, including the part related to the land, must find its fulfillment – its Yes – in Jesus. Therefore, the land cannot but be a major themes in the story the NT writers are telling — a story that is continuing on the story of the OT, in which the land was such a central theme. Furthermore, some themes in the NT — like the selection of the twelve disciples, Jesus’ interaction with the temple, and the covenant with Abraham — are strongly tied with the theme of the land. If the land is a major them in the OT, then it is inherently a major one in the NT.” And Dr. Isaac goes on to point out that Jesus Himself was the fulfilment of what the Land promise was ultimately all about – where God and man could meet and worshipers of God could display God’s light of holiness to the world.  

 

THE PROMISES OF GOD IN THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS THAT BELIEVERS CAN ‘CLAIM’ TODAY

God’s promises to Israel was not just about a Messiah and a homeland. His promise was that He would establish a new covenant that would be open to both Israelites and gentiles. 

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD:
I will put My law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God,
and they shall be My people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbour and each his brother, saying,
‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest,
declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
Jeremiah 31:33-34

God’s promise of a new covenant to supersede the Mosaic Covenant, was to be a covenant in which He would forgive sins without the need for ongoing sacrifices. This would be made possible by the promise of His Son acting as the atoning sacrifice (Isa. 53:4-5). And long before this, GOD had promised that His Son would be born as the Seed of the woman who would vanquish (conquer and destroy) the source of evil by striking the serpent’s (representative of the devil) head (Gen. 3:15). The patriarchs also understood that GOD’s promises also included resurrection from the dead (Job 19:26; Psa. 16:10). And, rather than being limited to a specific small piece of land, God’s promises also included the Lord dwelling forever with the righteous in a new heaven and earth that He would make (Isa. 65:17; 66:22). All of these promises the prophets declared – uncertain of what GOD was actually revealing:

Obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
¶ Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace
that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully,
inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating
when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.
It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you,
in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached
the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.
First Peter 1:9-12

We are now in the New Covenant foretold by the prophets and expounded by Christ’s apostles. Since all of these promises have now been fulfilled, or at least now set in motion, the New Testament believer can now stand on the promises that Christ will ever be with them by the infilling of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:20). The believer can stand on the promise — which means, pray to the Lord with confidence — that Jesus was indeed the Messiah who came to atone for their sins and redeem those who confess their sins and turn to Him through faith and repentance (1John 1:8-9). The believer can also pray with the assurance of the promise in First Peter 5:7 that we can cast all of our cares onto Him – because He cares for us. He is therefore, not just the promise-keeping Lord, He is the One who promises to always love us and cause all things to work together for our good and His glory (Romans 8:28).

Your Pastor,

Andrew

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WHY GOOD CHRISTOLOGY MAKES CLIMATE-CHANGE LESS ALARMING

I am a student of theology. Even though I’m often introduced at my speaking engagements as ‘a theologian’ and written theological books, articles, papers and lectured for four theological colleges, I still consider myself a theological student rather than a theologian. I have a similar outlook toward pastoring. I have been trying to do it for three decades and served pastorally in three churches, I still regard myself as a student of my craft. Yet, in a very natural way, theology and pastoring are nearly identical twins. My posthumous mentor, Dr. F.W. Boreham, regarded the work of pastoring as a theological exercise. The main responsibility of the pastor, Dr. Boreham contended, was to show people who God was and what He was like. This is the essence of theology. I recall that Pastor John Piper once said something like this at a pastors’ conference when he spoke of every pastoral problem — marriage difficulties, relationship difficulties, financial difficulties, employment difficulties — each being caused by a theological problem. It might take me longer than you need me to be to explain this more fully, but needless to say, when we have a clearer vision and understanding God and how relates to us, it has a profound salutary effect in how we live, relate to others, handle money, and resolve life’s challenges.

With this in mind, it has become increasingly obvious to me that the greatest challenges that we (all 7 billion of us) face – including African poverty, Middle Eastern wars, Mexican drug cartels, shooting deaths in Philadelphia, domestic abuse in Tasmania, and global-warming, are all theological problems that can be solved by correcting poor theology. To illustrate this I will consider how climate-change is an example of how a good Christology (the foundation for all sound theology) provides hope and solutions.

¶ The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.
In them He has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber,
and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens,
and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat.
Psalm 19:1-6

 

Dr Hugh Ross and my family having lunch at our old Tasmanian home.

WHY CLIMATE-CHANGE ALARMISTS ARE ALARMED

 While theology is my passion and discipline, I’m also extremely interested in various fields of science and serve as a visiting scholar at the Science-Faith think-tank, Reasons To Believe. I do not regard science as an enemy of theology, and therefore take what scientists claim with appropriate acceptance. The scientific case for recent global-warming is barely contestable. If the modelling is correct about the rate of global-warming continuing to increase there can be no wonder that so many people are alarmed at what the future may hold. The Australian government’s ‘Future Climate-Change’ website states a range of temperature increases over the next 30 or so years ranging from rising sea-levels engulfing many Pacific Ocean island nations, and temperature increases in the range of 1°C to 4.8°C.

Swedish environmental activist, Greta Thunberg in 2019

 According to the World Wildlife Fund website this level of unabated human-induced climate change will wipe out most of the world’s wildlife and devastate many of the rainforests in which this wildlife depends. The Swedish teenager, Greta Thunberg, went further suggesting that human-induced climate-change would cause mass extinction of wildlife and echoed the growing fear that governmental inactivity that could even lead to the extinction of the human race. She was given the opportunity to raise her concerns in an address to the United Nations in which she stated (September, 2019) –

“How dare you? You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words!”

In his book, Weathering Climate Change — a fresh approach, Dr. Hugh Ross affirms that the data does indeed reveal that the planet has been warming over the last century. He points to the growing concern about it among Americans.

“The percentage of those surveyed [by Gallop] indicating that they ‘personally worry about this problem a great deal’ stood at 35 percent in 1989 and seesawed between a low of 24 percent in 1998 and a high of 45 percent in 2017… Since the turn of the twenty-first century, the percentage of Americans who concur that scientific data affirm global warming has risen to more than 70 percent. The percentages of those who see human activity as the cause of global warming and who believe the effects of global warming have already become apparent have risen to nearly that same level” (pg. 18).

Dr. Ross goes on to report that “the younger the adult respondents, the more they ‘worry a great deal/fair amount about global warming.’” Many of these young people are convinced that climate-change will inevitably lead to human extinction and the death of our planet. No wonder they are so alarmed!

 

EARTH’S KNIFE-EDGE FINE-TUNING ENABLES LIFE ON EARTH

For those who understand just how finely tuned our planet is to enable life, they quickly recognise that the slightest increase in the rate of CO2 in the atmosphere, or the slightest increase in global temperature, could have a devastating impact for the possibility of life on earth. This is why they are so concerned (“alarmed”) about human-induced global warming due to increased CO2 emissions. Many of them understand that our Earth needed around 660 at-the-same-time fine-tuned parameters to an eye-watering precision of ‘millimetre-perfect’ exactitude, that physicist Dr. Freeman Dyson stated, “The more I examine the universe and the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known we were coming” (Freeman J. Dyson, Disturbing the Universe, New York: Basic, 1979:250). What Dr. Dyson was probably referring to is our exquisitely fine-tuned atmosphere which is perfectly composed for life on earth to be possible – consisting of 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, 0.9% argon, and several other gases comprising 0.1% (which includes carbon-dioxide). One of our planet’s unique parameters is its precise distance from the Sun which places us perfectly in a zone where we are not too close to be over-radiated, and yet not too far away to be a frozen wasteland. This is why astronomers refer to earth’s location in our solar system as being in the “Goldilocks Zone”. Added to this fine-tuning for life is our precise rate of gravity; our distance from our moon enabling our earth’s stable and consistent rotation and tidal rhythms; and, the composition of our earth’s crust on tectonic plates which facilitates our life-giving waterways and enables access to minerals and nutrients necessary for it.

¶ And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Genesis 1:28

Strangely, it is this miraculous fine-tuning that makes life on earth possible that has caused so many people who ignore its implications to regard it all as a luck-of-the-evolutionary-draw that mankind may well destroy within thirty years or so. They therefore speak of human-induced global-warming as humanity’s greatest crisis in language that almost sounds biblical in its use of apocalyptic forecasts and warnings. Several science commentators have noted this religious fervour and its accompanying Old Testament sounding woes.

The difference between that earlier and half-forgotten surge of alarmism and today’s is in the more emphatically religious character of our present [Environmental] movement. There is an ethical dimension…[requiring] political action too. 
-Tom Stacey, science journalist (p. 16)

Science journalist, Tom Stacey, speaking about this religious fervour of the Green Movement mimicking ‘genuine religion’ which lays the blame for earth’s woes squarely at the feet of humankind, wrote, “A factor of what I venture to call genuine religion had come into play, in that it is present in the Abramic traditions. We recall Adam who in eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil attained to consciousness and chose to disobey; and hence his inherent sense of original sinfulness” (Climate: The Counter Consensus, 2010:17). But, Stacey cautions, the idea that mankind’s greatest problem is global-warming, ignores the point of the Genesis creation of Man account – “For although Man may feel himself to be made in the image of God as the Book of Genesis avers, he at once discovers he cannot be God.” Which is why Stacey found it incredulous that despite the extremely complex nature of climatology (which involves over “100 scientific disciplines” according to Palaeoclimatologist Professor Robert Carter) that any politician “could presume to promise that he would see to it that the rise in global temperatures would be restricted to 1.5 degrees Celsius” as UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown did at the Earth Summit at Copenhagen in December 2009 (p.18).

 There is a deeply religious worldview that undergirds this widespread concern about climate-change which is grounded in the idea that mankind is not just the cause of Mother Earth’s problems—but that mankind actually is the problem! That’s probably why the spirit behind this religious-environmental movement often describes earth as being over-populated and so heavily promotes such things as widespread abortion of babies; euthanising the elderly/infirmed/disabled/‘defective’/depressed; intentionally sterile sexualised relationships; and, suicide for those who have lost hope. 

because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
Romans 1:25

In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
Second Corinthians 4:4

 

THE SCOPE OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE & THEOLOGY

Keble College Chapel, Oxford University, founded in 1096.

 Theology used to be commonly referred to as the Queen of the Sciences. It was the unifying field of study that tied all of the various fields of academic diversity together. This is why all of the world’s oldest universities were established originally as schools of theology which then branched out into other academic arenas. It is also why these schools became known as uni(fying)+(di)versities. Over time though, ‘the pursuit of knowledge’ (which is what the word science means) came to mean that which can be known objectively, physically, materially, by testable, repeatable, measurable methods. This is now known as methodological naturalism. It limits the scope of knowledge to the natural realm and ignores the realities of the subjective realm (psychology, human emotions and relationships), and, the supernatural realm (the immaterial, the spiritual, philosophy, religious claims). This is why Theology is regent over the physical sciences (chemistry, physics, biochemistry) because views knowledge as not being limited to just the material realm. 

At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne. And He who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald. Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders, clothed in white garments, with golden crowns on their heads.
Revelation 4:2-4

And herein lies the problem with how most of those in the so-called Environmentalist Movement see the world: they view the universe comprised entirely of material particles as the result of a series of unguided, undirected, naturalistic uncaused events that has somehow evolved its own impersonal god-like soul (“Gaia”) which is now present in everything. But this is a lie. The universe, let alone our planet, does not have such a soul, and is most definitely not Mother Earth or Mother Nature. The universe, and especially earth, is the deliberate, intentional creation of the One True GOD, Yahweh, the God of the Bible (Gen. 1:1; Jn. 1:1). In the worldview of the leaders of the environmental movement it’s not just that no-one is seated on the throne of the universe and ruling the world, it’s that there is no throne upon which to rule from! Therefore, in this view, there is no God, and therefore there is no one ruling and regulating the universe. But this too is a lie. The truth is, there is One who rules over His creation, and He is seated upon the throne from which He does so!

¶ “Worthy are You, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for You created all things,
and by Your will they existed and were created.”
Revelation 4:11

 

WHY GOOD CHRISTOLOGY MAKES CLIMATE-CHANGE LESS ALARMING

 Dr. Hugh Ross is not a climate-change denier and makes a compelling case for why mankind should steward (manage) the earth and its resources responsibly. There are many parts of the world that are largely deprived of clean air or clean drinking water. We should be doing all we can to collectively resolve these dangers to human life, including the appropriate reduction of CO2 emissions. When God originally created mankind, He placed them in a garden He had planted (Gen. 2:8). After showing Adam and Eve around Eden, He told them to –

¶ And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food.
Genesis 1:28-29

God never surrendered the earth to mankind. He entrusted it to mankind. He demonstrated what all the earth could be by showing the original two members of mankind what Eden consisted of. When the environmentalist weeps because forests have been cleared and the edges of the Gobi and Sahara have now spread their barrenness even further, he may be living out his pantheistic worldview. But perhaps we should weep too because the divine vision of an Edenic Earth has been set back even further (again). 

¶ The earth is the LORD’S and the fullness thereof,
the world and those who dwell therein,
Psalm 24:1

 What the naturalist (the environmental materialist) misses, it that the earth is remarkably resilient because its Maker has made it so. All of the fine-tuning involved in the necessary conditions for the biological life on earth, were not the chance result of mere random, unguided, undirected, laws of physics (where do laws come from anyway??). No, all of the incredibly, eye-watering precision involved in the fine-tuning of our universe and especially our planet, was the result of an All-powerful, All-good, All-wise, All-present, All-knowing eternal and unique Being we call, God. He is guiding our universe toward its climatic conclusion because it was always His plan to display to glory through the ultimate triumph over evil so that the original vision of creation could finally be fulfilled — a dwelling place for God and man.  This is why Jesus, the eternal Son of God, referred to His Father as the Lord of heaven and earth.

¶ At that time Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children;
Matthew 11:25

 Ultimately it is God’s desire for dimension of the seen (the material world) and the dimension of the unseen – the dimension where He is seen clearly, becomes the dwelling place of God and mankind together (Rev. 21:3). 

¶ We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing Him directly just as He knows us!
First Corinthians 13:12, The Message

In the meantime, we rest in the knowledge that this universe is the creation of Jesus the Christ, the Lord of Heaven and Earth. (Acts 17:24). He is the One who holds and sustains this earth and will never allow any opponent to destroy it until His plan of redemption and triumph over evil is finally culminated — and even then He will redeem it, rather than destroy it. This is good Christology, and understanding it should cause anyone who is fretting over man-made climate-change to cease being alarmed and begin to turn their attention to the One who is the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, and the Lord of Heaven and Earth and everything in it!

He [Jesus] is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature, and He upholds the universe by the word of His power. After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name He has inherited is more excellent than theirs.
Hebrews 1:3-4

 

Your pastor,

Andrew

Let me know what you think below in the comment section and feel free to share this someone who might benefit from this Pastor’s Desk.