Latest / Reformed Thinking / Christ at the Center: The Coherence of Paul’s Theology | Thomas R. Schreiner

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Christ at the Center: The Coherence of Paul’s Theology | Thomas R. Schreiner · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to the deep dive. This is where we try to break
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down some pretty big ideas so you can walk away with a solid
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handle on them. This is our deep dive called
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Reformed Thinking. And today we are getting into a
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huge topic. We're looking at the theology of
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John and Paul. Right, but not just separately.
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We're reading them together. Together to show that even
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though they used, you know, their own distinct words and
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phrases, they were really describing one single, unified
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supernatural reality. And that reality is the kingship
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of Christ and, well, the whole picture of salvation.
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The whole thing from start to finish.
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OK, so let's set this up for everyone listening.
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You often hear the New Testament sort of carved up, right?
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You get Matthew, Mark and Luke over here and they're all about
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the Kingdom. Then you have John and he's the
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eternal life guy and. Paul is the justification and
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church guy. And that separation can make
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things a little confused. Our sources today argue that
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these aren't separate boxes of truth at all.
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Not at all. They're more like different
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camera angles on the same glorious event, the fulfillment
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of all of God's redemptive promises.
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Right, so the main goal for you, the listener, is to see how
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God's promises from way back in the Old Testament are all
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fulfilled in Jesus Christ. The lens we have to use to see
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this clearly is something called inaugurated eschatology.
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That's a big phrase, but it is the absolute key to unlocking
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all of this. For anyone maybe not as familiar
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with it, how do we how do we define that?
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It's the conviction that the age to come, you know, the time of
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God's direct rule of new creation, has already broken
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into our world. It's already here.
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It arrived in Christ's life, his death, and especially in his
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resurrection. But, and this is the tension we
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live in, it hasn't reached his final stage yet.
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It's not complete. The famous already, but not.
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Yet that tension isn't some minor detail.
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It's a basic framework for the entire New Testament.
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We're going to show how it sheeps everything from how John
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talks about eternal life to how Paul explains being made right
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with God. OK, that's a great place to
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start. Let's begin with John's Gospel.
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The sources are clear that compared to the other three
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gospels, John just doesn't use the word Kingdom very much.
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He doesn't know and that's the first thing people notice.
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He picks a different vocabulary to talk talk about the very same
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thing. So were the Synoptics.
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Matthew, Mark and Luke talk about entering the Kingdom of
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God. John talks about having life,
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specifically eternal life, but we have to be careful not to
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think John is somehow less interested in Christ's rule.
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It's not a different subject. No, we need all four gospels to
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get the full picture of Jesus. If you only read the synopsis,
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you might miss the sheer height of John's view of Christ.
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But if you only read John, you might miss the the very grounded
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ethical demands of the Kingdom. OK, but the language is
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different. So if John is all about getting
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eternal life, where's the kingship?
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How do we connect life to Christ's rule right now?
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It all comes back to who Jesus is.
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It comes back to Christology. John's whole reason for writing
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his gospel is not just so that people might have life.
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But that they might have it by believing something specific.
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Right by believing that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the
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King and the Son of God. So to believe in Jesus for life
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is, by definition, an act of submitting to Him as your
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rightful King. So life in John is a royal
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concept. It's not just a private
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spiritual feeling, it's life under a specific ruler.
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That's it. The substance is the same as in
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the Synoptics. They demand repentance and
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belief in Jesus as Lord to be saved.
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If Jesus is the Christ, he's the King from David's line.
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And receiving life from that king means you've entered his
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Kingdom. You just can't pull the gift of
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life away from the identity of the one who gives it.
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That's a really helpful point for anyone listening.
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Look past the specific words to see the single theological
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reality underneath. So what's the evidence in John
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that this life he talks about really is life under a King's
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rule? The evidence is what happens
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next. It's transformation and
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obedience. People sometimes misread John
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and think it's about a kind of passive mental belief.
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Just believe a fact and you're in.
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But for John, true belief always, always translates into
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active discipleship. He describes his new existence
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with a whole list of of action verbs believers have to obey,
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keep his commands, abide, love, follow, enter, go, come here,
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eat, drink, see. That's a very active kind of
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life. It sounds like the description
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of a loyal subject. This is John's way of describing
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what it looks like to live under the King's law.
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It is. Think about that word he uses
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all the time. Abide.
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Abiding in Christ isn't passive. It's a picture of loyal, active,
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dependent living inside the King's domain.
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It implies this constant sustained connection to the King
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himself. So this act of obedience is
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John's proof. It's his proof that the people
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who say they believe Jesus is the Messiah are actually living
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under his Lordship. And we can nail this down even
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more by looking at some specific verses where the Gospels seem to
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use these terms life and Kingdom almost interchangeably.
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Yes, we have to. A perfect example is the
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conversation Jesus has with Nicodemus in John chapter 3.
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Right. Jesus tells him that to enter
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the Kingdom he must be born again.
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He uses the explicit Kingdom language there.
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But then you flip over to Matthew 19.
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The rich young ruler comes to Jesus and asks what he needs to
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do to get eternal life. And Jesus answer is that he has
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to become a disciple. He has to sell everything and
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follow the king. So you see, the Gospels treat
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the concepts as meaning the same thing.
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Entering the Kingdom is getting eternal life and both demand
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your total allegiance your whole life.
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The same requirements to enter the same reality.
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Now what about that already but not yet tension?
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How does John fit that into his idea of life?
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John really leans into what some people call realized
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eschatology. His language is so focused on
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the present. You have eternal life now.
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He's saying the life of the age to come has crashed into our
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present age. Through Jesus and his
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resurrection, yes. That's why John 5.24 is so
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powerful. Whoever hears my word and
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believes him who sent me has eternal life.
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He has passed from death to life.
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It's a done deal, a present possession.
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That's a huge claim. It means the believer is, in a
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real sense, already living in the new age.
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It is, but John doesn't throw out the future entirely.
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That already but not yet framework is still there.
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He holds on to a very strong future hope alongside the
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present reality. OK, so where do we see that?
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Just a few verses later, in John 5.28 and 29, he talks about a
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future day when everyone in the tombs will hear Christ's voice
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and come out, some to a resurrection of life, others to
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a resurrection of judgement. So eternal life is a gift you
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get now, but it's fullness, the resurrected body, the final
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judgement, that's all still to come.
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The life is started, but it's not finished.
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That's it. The resurrected life is in you
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now by the Holy Spirit, but the physical reality of the new
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creation, a world with no more decay or death, that's still
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future. This tension keeps us
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celebrating what we have while we eagerly wait for the King to
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return. I think we need to spend a
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minute on John's view of Christ himself, his Christology,
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because the kind of Kingdom we're talking about depends
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entirely on who the King is. It does, and John starts his
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gospel at the highest possible point.
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Jesus is the word of God, fully divine.
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The Logos. He existed in the beginning with
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God, and He was God. And he's the one who makes the
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Father known, something no one else could ever do.
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When Jesus tells Philip in John 14, anyone who has seen me has
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seen the Father, he's making a claim about his very being, his
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ontology. So we can't separate who Jesus
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is from what he does to save. His divine nature is what makes
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his saving work, well, work. The connection is absolutely
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essential. Jesus saves because of who he
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is. He gives life because he is the
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source of life. The I AM sayings are all about
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this. I am the bread of life, the
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light of the world, the Good Shepherd.
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Right, those aren't just nice metaphors for spiritual help,
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their sovereign claims. They are claims of divine power
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and kingship. They are If he's the Good
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Shepherd, he has the right to command the sheep.
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If He is the Way, then there is no other path to the Father.
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Life comes through His suffering, which shows His
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obedience, and through His resurrection, which proves He is
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the sovereign Lord over death itself.
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And this incredibly high view of Christ then shapes what the
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ultimate goal of the Kingdom is. It's relational.
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It's a joyful conclusion, isn't it?
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The Kingdom is so desirable not just because it's a place of
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perfect justice, but because the citizens will get to see the
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king in his beauty. As first John 3 says, we shall
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be like him because we shall see him as he is.
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The joy of eternal life is seeing and enjoying God's
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presence forever. It's getting back to that
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unhindered fellowship with our Creator.
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It was lost in the garden. And before I move on to Paul,
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it's worth noting that while people often read John as being
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very individualistic, his vision for God's people is actually
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corporate. It's a group.
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Oh, absolutely, John is clear. Belief in Jesus gathers people
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into one flock. Jesus is the true vine, and
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everyone who abides in Him, whether they are a Jew or a
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Gentile, is connected to that single vine.
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And in John 10 he says he has other sheep that are not of this
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fold. He's talking about the Gentiles
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who will be brought in. The whole idea of a restored,
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unified people of God is completely centered on Christ.
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John shows that the gathering of the nations, a key prophetic
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promise, is fulfilled when Christ built his flock, A flock
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that hears and follows it's one true King.
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That's a perfect pivot to Paul, because that move from life in
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the King to the person of the King himself leads us right into
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Paul's letters. It does.
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Paul takes that same high Christology and gives us this
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this synthetic, wide angle view of all of redemptive history.
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His 13 letters are like the theological architecture.
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Explain how all the Old Testament promises are
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fulfilled. Yes, and we have to say it
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again. This fulfillment is inaugurated,
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but not yet consummated. That already, but not yet
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tension is what powers Paul's thinking on every subject, from
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who Christ is to how we're justified to what the church is.
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So the place to start with Paul has to be Jesus's identity as
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the promised King, the Messiah. Absolutely.
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Paul's Christology starts with that title, Christ the Messiah.
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He uses it something like 375 times.
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Wow, and that title identifies Jesus as the fulfillment of the
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promised dynasty of David. Paul just assumes this is
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central to the gospel message. He states it plainly in Romans
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one that his gospel is about Jesus who was descended from
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David according to the flesh. And that's so critical because
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it connects Jesus to the whole story of Israel's hope for
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restoration. The prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah,
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Ezekiel, they all promised that the real return from exile, the
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real restoration of God's people, would happen when the
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new David, a new shepherd king, arrived.
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And Paul is announcing that those promises are now happening
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in Christ. In Christ, yes, the new exodus,
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the restoration, it's all realized.
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And the consequence of that is that Jesus's reign is not some
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far off future event. It is a present and decisive
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reality. That's the already part of it.
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That's the already Jesus is reigning now as the Davidic
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Messiah from heaven. His resurrection and ascension
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were his coronation. Ephesians one says Christ is
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seated right now with massive authority over every other,
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rule, power and dominion, all the spiritual forces, and that
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he rules absolutely over the church.
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But that reign is not yet complete.
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The not yet is so important for understanding the world we live
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in. Paul uses Psalm one hand to
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explain this. Jesus is reigning at the right
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hand of God, and he's waiting for the time when God puts all
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his enemies under his feet. He explains this in First
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Corinthians 15. He does.
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He says that Christ must reign until he's put all his enemies
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under his feet, and the very last enemy to be destroyed is
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death. So the final destruction of
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death is still future. Still future, but the final
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victory is guaranteed because he's already reigning now.
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But Paul doesn't stop with Jesus as the new David.
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He takes it even higher, showing that Jesus is superior to both
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David and even Adam. That's right, He's the new
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David. But he's also the last Adam and
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the true offspring of Abraham. Adam's the one who brought sin
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and death into the world. He started the old condemned
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age. And Christ, as the last Adam
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reverses that he. Reverses it.
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He brings life and righteousness through his resurrection.
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He defeated the powers of sin and death that held sway ever
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since Genesis 3. And the big difference between
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the two is their response to God's command.
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Completely. The first Adam wanted to be
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independent. He broke the one command he was
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given, but the last Adam was the obedient one.
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Paul says in Philippians 2 that he humbled himself, becoming
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obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
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So he succeeded where Adam failed.
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And brought righteousness and life where Adam had brought only
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condemnation for everyone. Then there's the connection to
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Abraham which is so central for Paul's understanding of how the
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gentiles, the non Jews, get included.
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This is foundational for what the church is.
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Paul argues in Galatians 3 that Jesus is the one and only true
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offspring of Abraham. The seed was singular.
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So all the promises of land, of offspring, of a worldwide
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blessing, they all find their yes in Him.
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Exclusively in him. The promises were never
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ultimately about being a genetic descendant of Abraham.
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They were about being united to Christ, the singular seed by
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faith. Which explains the shift from a
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purely ethnic Israel to the international church.
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It's the only way it makes sense.
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It supports Paul's conviction that Gentiles, when they are
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united to Christ by faith, become true children of Abraham.
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Your ethnic background doesn't get you in in Christ.
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That worldwide blessing promised in Genesis is now a reality,
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which tells us that the time of fulfillment, the end times, have
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arrived. And then, as if that weren't
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enough, Paul gives Jesus the highest possible status.
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He applies the status of Yahweh, of God himself, to Jesus.
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This. Is one of the most stunning
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parts of Paul's theology. It's this powerful, undeniable
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claim for Jesus's deity. Paul consistently takes Old
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Testament passages that refer only to God to Yahweh, and he
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applies them directly to Jesus. Philippians 2 is probably the
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most famous example. It is after describing Christ's
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humiliation, Paul says God exalted him and gave him the
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name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus
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every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ
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is Lord. Which is almost a direct quote
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from Isaiah 40. Five it is.
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And in Isaiah it's Yahweh declaring that all creation will
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bow to Him. By applying that to Jesus, Paul
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is putting Jesus on the very throne of God.
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So Jesus shares God's absolute sovereign status.
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He does. Paul calls Jesus the Lord you
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have to call on to be saved. Quoting a verse from Joel that
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was about calling on Yahweh and beyond just the titles, Paul
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gives Jesus the actions of Yahweh.
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He's the Lord of glory, He gives grace and peace, He receives
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prayer, He will judge the world, and He's the Creator.
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Even the great day of the Lord from the prophets is now called
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the day of Christ. The evidence just piles up for
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Paul. Jesus is the sovereign King of
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everything. OK, so once we establish Jesus
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as this sovereign king, the last Adam, the new David, even
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sharing Yahweh's status, that has to radically change how Paul
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sees reality itself. It marks the dawn of the new
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creation. It does.
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The resurrection Jesus is the one event that signals the
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arrival of that new creation. It's not just a stand alone
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miracle, it's the event that fulfills a whole bundle of
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ancient prophecies. Which prophecies are those?
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How is resurrection connected to cosmic renewal?
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Well, and Isaiah 24 through 27, you have this picture of the
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defeat of Leviathan, which is a symbol for cosmic evil, for
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Satan, and it's tied directly to resurrection, the cleansing of
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sins and the return from exile. And Ezekiel 37, the famous
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valley of dry bones, connects resurrection to the outpouring
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of the Spirit and the rule of the new David.
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So when Jesus rises from the dead, it's not just a personal
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victory, it's the physical proof that the final age is broken in
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and God's redemptive rule has started.
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It's the first fruits. It's the sign of what the rest
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of the harvest is going to look like.
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That's the perfect word for it because Jesus conquered death.
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The age to come has invaded history now.
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The full resurrection of all believers is still future.
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That's the not yet. But Jesus's resurrection is the
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guarantee that the new creation is here now, even while we're
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still living in the old decaying creation.
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And to really understand why we need a new creation, we have to
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look at Paul's diagnosis of the old creation, which is defined
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by the problem of sin. The old creation is, as Paul
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says in Romans 8, groaning. It's been subjected to futility
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and corruption because of what Adam did.
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Through Adam, sin entered the world and death began to reign
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over all humanity. And Paul drills down to the root
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of the problem. For him, sin isn't just a list
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of bad deeds, it's a failure of worship.
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The fundamental sin, the one that spawns all the others, is
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idolatry. He lays this out in Romans One.
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It's the refusal to give glory and praise and thanks to the
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Creator. Instead of worshipping the
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living God, humanity exchanged the truth about God for a lie
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and worshipped and served the creature rather than the
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Creator. So all the other sins that Paul
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lists, they're not the root 'cause they're the consequences
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of that primary sin of worshipping the wrong thing.
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They are the inevitable fruit of suppressing the knowledge of
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God. When people refuse to honor the
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One who made them, God gives them over to the logical end of
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worshipping created things instead.
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And this refusal to glorify God is directly linked to human
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pride, the desire to boast. Absolutely.
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Since sin is basically a refusal to trust God's provision, the
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default human instinct is to try and establish our own
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righteousness. We place our confidence in what
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we can do, what Paul calls the flesh, instead of in the Spirit.
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That desire to have a righteousness of 1's own, that
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comes from the law, as he says in Philippians.
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That is the ultimate rejection of the gospel, and the tragedy
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is that it always fails. As he says in Romans 3, all have
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sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
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Which brings us right to Paul's great conflict.
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How does a person get from trying to earn their own
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righteousness to receiving God's righteousness as a gift?
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And we should probably clarify what Paul means by works of law.
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We should because some people try to narrow that down and say
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Paul was only fighting against, you know, ethnic identity
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markers like circumcision. But the traditional view is that
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he means much more than that. It's much broader.
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While those boundary markers were definitely part of the
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fight, especially in Galatians, Paul's real target is bigger.
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The traditional view is correct. He's contrasting the desire for
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self righteousness achieved through any kind of law keeping
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with the righteousness that is received only through faith in
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Christ. So how do we know he means the
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whole law, not just the cultural parts?
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Well, Paul himself tells us in Romans 2.
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He calls that his Jewish kinsman for breaking moral laws,
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stealing, committing adultery, robbing temples.
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He uses their moral failure to show that the law as a whole
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cannot justify anyone. And then in Romans 4, he
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broadens his terms even more. He does.
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He moves from talking about works of law to just works in
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general when he brings up Abraham and David.
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And they lived long before the Law of Moses was even given.
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That's the point. Paul says that if Abraham was
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justified by his works, he would have had something to boast
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about. But Scripture says Abraham
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believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.
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No works involved. None.
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And then he quotes David, who describes the blessing of the
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man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works.
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So Paul's attacking that universal human instinct to
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secure our standing with God through our performance.
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Doesn't matter what the specific rules are.
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Salvation has to rest on grace, which means human effort is
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completely excluded. So let's define the solution to
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this problem justification Paul presents.
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This is more than just forgiveness.
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It's a legal declaration from the future.
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It is righteousness is a totally free gift from God to believers
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because they are united to the crucified and risen Christ.
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The verb he uses decayu. It means to declare or pronounce
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righteous. It's a forensic term.
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A law court verdict from God. So God declares a person
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righteous, even though in themselves they are still
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sinful. That's the wonder of it.
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And this verdict is only possible because what's called
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the substitutionary exchange. This is the heart of Paul's
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gospel. It is Paul says in 2nd
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Corinthians 5 that Christ became sin for us, which means he took
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on himself the punishment and the curse we deserved, and in
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return believers receive God's righteousness.
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Our sin is credited to Christ's account, and His perfect
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righteousness is credited to ours.
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So if this verdict is a law court declaration, what are the
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practical effects of hearing that verdict now before the
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final judgement day? The effects are immediate peace
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with God and total security. Because the verdict is
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eschatological. It's the final end time
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pronouncement brought into the present.
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It can't be overturned. The future has broken in.
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Believers now share the status of the resurrected Christ.
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They are already declared righteous, and they're standing
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before God is permanently secure, grasped by faith.
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That present assurance is the ground for everything else.
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Everything, all Christian confidence, all Christian
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obedience, flows from that. Which leaves one last question
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in this section. What was the point of the law in
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the 1st place? If it couldn't justify anyone,
21:16
what was it for? Paul explains that the law was
21:18
temporary. It was an interim measure, the
21:21
covenant God made it. Sinai came 430 years after the
21:24
promise to Abraham, and it was designed to be in effect only
21:28
until the promised offspring, Christ, arrived.
21:30
It was like a guardian or a tutor for a specific period of
21:33
time. Exactly, holding Israel in
21:35
custody until the age of faith arrived.
21:37
So it's limitation wasn't a flaw in the law itself.
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The law is holy and good. But it was limited in its
21:43
purpose. Its purpose?
21:45
It had no power to rescue or give life because of human sin.
21:49
The law acted like a mirror. It revealed sin.
21:51
It made it obvious, and by doing that it actually made sin
21:54
increase. It multiplied transgression.
21:56
It poked the bear, so to speak. It made the problem worse, not
22:00
better. In a sense, yes.
22:02
It defines sin, which activated its guilt.
22:04
So the whole period of being under the law is the same as
22:07
being under sin. That's the old age.
22:10
But with the coming of the new creation in Christ, that era is
22:13
over. Christ is the goal and the end
22:16
of the law all. Right, so the new age has come.
22:18
The believer has been declared righteous in Christ, but that
22:21
new reality has to be applied, It has to be experienced, and
22:25
the agent who does that is the Holy Spirit, the.
22:27
Spirit is the undeniable sign that the New Age is here.
22:30
The outpouring of the Spirit was promised all of the Old
22:33
Testament, Ezekiel 36, Joel 2 as the great sign that the last
22:37
days had finally arrived. For Paul, the Spirit's presence
22:41
is the proof that someone has been truly converted.
22:43
And this connects right back to the idea of the new Israel and
22:45
the New Covenant. It does.
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Jeremiah 31 promised a new covenant where God would write
22:51
His law on His people's hearts. The Spirit is the one who does
22:55
that writing. Titus Three talks about the
22:58
washing of regeneration and renewal by the Spirit.
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So true members of God's people are those who have a
23:04
circumcision of the heart performed by the Spirit.
23:07
Fulfilling those ancient promises, the Spirit gives the
23:10
life that John talked about and applies the righteousness that
23:13
Paul defined. And what role does the Spirit
23:16
play in giving us assurance that our future is secure?
23:19
The Spirit acts as the first fruits or the pledge of our
23:22
final salvation. Ephesians one says the Spirit is
23:25
the guarantee of our inheritance until we finally take full
23:28
possession of it. So the Spirit is like God's down
23:31
payment. A down payment, a personal
23:33
deposit from God, assuring us that He will finish what he
23:35
started and that the resurrection of our bodies is
23:38
certain. And of course, the Spirit is the
23:39
source of new power, enabling us to fight against the flesh and
23:43
actually live a life that pleases God.
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Which brings us to a really practical tension in the
23:48
Christian life, the relationship between what we are in Christ
23:51
and what we should do because of it.
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The indicative and the imperative.
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The indicative is the statement of fact, what God has done for
23:58
us. The imperative is the command,
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how we must now live. And that is the already but not
24:04
yet tension played out in our lives every single day.
24:07
And the. Order is critical.
24:08
The status, the indicative, always has to come first.
24:11
It's the foundation for the imperative.
24:13
Always without that solid indicative that we are justified
24:17
in Christ, the imperative just becomes another law, another way
24:21
of trying to earn our righteousness.
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We'd be right back where we started.
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A great example is in First Corinthians 5.
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It is, Paul says, cleanse out the old leaven, that you may be
24:30
a new lump as you really are unleavened.
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The command is to remove the evil from the church.
24:35
But what's the reason? The reason is the indicative you
24:39
are already unleavened because Christ, your Passover lamb, has
24:42
been sacrificed. So you act like the clean people
24:44
you already are. It's a call to live out in your
24:47
experience the reality that is already true of you in Christ.
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And this pattern is all over Paul's letters.
24:53
Philippians 2 is another classic example.
24:56
Paul gives the command Work out your own salvation with fear and
25:00
trembling. And that's where a lot of people
25:02
stop reading. But the next word for is the
25:04
most important word in the sentence.
25:06
It's a theological hinge. The command to actively pursue
25:09
holiness is immediately grounded in the indicative, for it is God
25:14
who works in you, both to will and to work for his good
25:18
pleasure. So any effort we make is
25:20
actually the result and the evidence of God's prior work in
25:23
US. Grace comes first, and it
25:25
secures the very obedience that it commands.
25:28
That takes care of God's sovereignty.
25:29
But what about the fear and trembling?
25:31
If God guarantees the outcome, why the strong warning?
25:34
Because the imperative is a test of what's real.
25:37
While Paul promises that sin will not have the final say over
25:40
those who are under grace, he still gives serious warnings
25:44
against letting sin reign in your body.
25:46
He's clear that those who live in unrepentant sin will not
25:49
inherit the Kingdom. The warnings are real.
25:51
They carry eternal weight. They're meant to make us take
25:54
holiness seriously and to show that the reality of the
25:57
indicative being saved by grace will always show up in a genuine
26:01
striving to obey the imperative. The grace that saves you is the
26:05
same grace that makes you want to be holy.
26:08
Moving from the individual to the cosmos, Paul talks about
26:11
Christ's work in terms of reconciliation, and this is a
26:14
much bigger idea than just personal forgiveness.
26:17
Reconciliation is about restoring friendship with God.
26:20
That friendship was broken by Adam, and the restoration
26:23
depends completely on the cross of Christ.
26:25
Paul is clear that we were enemies of God, so the work of
26:28
repairing that relationship had to be done entirely by Christ.
26:31
We were the passive recipients of his active work.
26:34
But then Paul extends that reconciliation horizontally to
26:37
human relationships. Which is so critical for the
26:39
Church. He says in Ephesians 2 that the
26:41
dividing wall of hostility between Jews and Gentiles has
26:45
been torn down by the cross. The law which it acts as a
26:48
separator is set aside in Christ.
26:50
So the union of Jews and Gentiles in one body fulfills
26:53
that promise to Abraham, that all nations would be blessed in
26:56
him. It does.
26:58
And then there's the almost staggering cosmic scope of it
27:02
all. Colossians 1.20 that Christ has
27:05
reconciled all things, whether on earth or in heaven.
27:09
Now that doesn't mean universal salvation.
27:12
It means that the entire universe has been pacified, and
27:15
Brock under the submission of the sun, the spiritual warfare
27:18
in the heavens has been decisively 1 The whole cosmos
27:22
will one day acknowledge the rule of the king.
27:24
And winning that war, triumphing over evil powers, is a key part
27:29
of that reconciliation. Absolutely.
27:31
Satan, who Paul calls the God of this world, was dealt A fatal
27:35
blow at the cross. Colossians 2 says Jesus disarmed
27:38
the rulers and authorities and made a public spectacle of them
27:41
triumphing over them at the cross.
27:43
So Jesus is ruling over all demonic powers right now.
27:46
He is. Believers have been rescued from
27:48
the dominion of darkness and transferred into the Kingdom of
27:50
God's beloved Son. The victory is 1, even if the
27:53
final battles are still being fought.
27:55
So as we enter this Kingdom, we enter as a group, as a corporate
27:58
body. Paul spends a lot of time in his
28:00
letters talking about the nature and the structure of this new
28:03
people of God, the church. He uses the word ecclesia, which
28:07
means assembly or church, about 62 times, and that word is
28:11
directly connected to the Quahal, the congregation of
28:14
Israel in the Old Testament. So what used to be the Lord's
28:17
assembly under the Old Covenant? Is now the assembly gathered in
28:20
Christ, and it's made-up of both believing Jews and believing
28:23
Gentiles. The church is God's chosen,
28:26
beloved people. Which means the Church can
28:28
rightly be called the true and new Israel.
28:30
It can. The prophecies that were given
28:33
to national Israel are now being fulfilled in this new
28:36
international body. Gentile believers are grafted in
28:39
and become children of Abraham through their union with Christ.
28:42
The division is gone. Now a common question is what
28:46
this means for ethnic Israel. Has the church simply replaced
28:50
Israel? Paul addresses that head on in
28:52
Romans 9 through 11 and he says no, God's promises to ethnic
28:56
Israel are not cancelled. He actually promises a future
28:59
and time salvation for Israel. He says all Israel will be
29:03
saved. And they will be grafted back
29:04
into the olive tree of God's people.
29:06
Right when they're converted, they join the Church, uniting
29:09
with Gentile believers into one body.
29:11
Paul uses 2 main pictures or metaphors to describe this
29:14
community. Let's start with the Church as
29:18
the body of Christ. This picture is all about unity
29:21
and dependence. The Church is Christ's body, we
29:25
are incorporated into Him. He is the Head and the Church is
29:28
the expression of His fullness in the world today.
29:30
Which demands A functional unity.
29:32
It has to. Every member no matter their
29:35
gift or status is essential. The hand can't say to the eye I
29:39
don't need you. So disunity in the church is a
29:42
flat out contradiction of who we are in Christ.
29:45
The second metaphor is the temple.
29:47
This one is about holiness and the presence of God.
29:49
The church is God's temple. The indwelling Holy Spirit means
29:53
that God has literally taken up residence with his people, which
29:56
fulfills all those Old Testament promises about God dwelling
29:59
among. Them.
30:00
And because God lives there, the temple must be holy.
30:03
That's the implication. Paul warns the Corinthians that
30:05
if anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him.
30:08
The corporate presence of God requires a rejection of impurity
30:12
and a pursuit of genuine holiness.
30:14
Let's talk about the specific practices, the ordinances that
30:16
define this community. What does Paul say about
30:19
baptism? Baptism is the initiation rite.
30:22
It's how you formally enter the eschatological people of God.
30:26
Romans 6 explains that it signifies our death and
30:29
resurrection with Christ. We die to the old age and we
30:33
rise to walk in a new life. It also signifies the washing
30:36
away of sins and, crucially, our unity.
30:39
Our unity. We are all baptized into one
30:42
body by 1 Spirit. And the Lord's Supper that
30:45
focuses more on covenant renewal and our responsibility to each
30:48
other. It's a powerful reminder of our
30:50
relationship with God and our unity with each other, which is
30:53
symbolized by sharing in the one loaf.
30:55
It proclaims the new covenant in Christ's blood, and Paul gets
30:59
very practical with the Corinthians about this.
31:01
He does. He rebukes them for how they are
31:03
abusing it. Because their mistreatment of
31:05
the poor at the meal showed they weren't participating in a
31:07
worthy way. They failed to discern the body
31:10
of Christ, both his physical body broken for them, and the
31:13
corporate body, the Church that they were a part of.
31:15
This new community also needs structure.
31:18
Paul talks about leadership and spiritual gifts.
31:21
The spiritual gifts are given to all members by the Spirit, but
31:23
they are never for showing off. They're given for one reason, to
31:27
build up and strengthen everyone else.
31:30
But alongside that charismatic work, Paul affirms the need for
31:33
structured offices, elders or overseers and deacons.
31:37
And a primary job of those leaders is to guard the truth.
31:40
To guard the gospel. Paul is absolutely inflexible on
31:44
this. He says anyone, even an apostle
31:47
from heaven who preaches a different gospel, is to be
31:49
accursed. And this whole system, the
31:51
justification, the new life, the corporate assembly, it all rests
31:55
on one and final foundation, the gift of electing grace.
31:59
It's all a gift from beginning to end, and it's rooted in God's
32:01
sovereign choice from before the world even began.
32:04
Ephesians one says God chose believers in Christ before the
32:07
creation of the world. Why does he stress that so much?
32:09
What's the purpose of election? He has two main reasons, first,
32:13
so that it would all be for the praise of His glorious grace,
32:16
and 2nd to make sure that no human being can ever boast in
32:19
God's presence. God chose the weak and foolish
32:22
things of the world so that it would be undeniable that
32:25
salvation comes from His mercy, not from our merit.
32:28
And Paul argues that election is what preserves the very idea of
32:31
grace. He does.
32:32
In Romans 11. He makes an airtight argument.
32:35
If salvation depended on our works in any way, then grace
32:39
would no longer be grace, because our status as justified
32:42
people depends on God's free choice.
32:44
It's secured entirely by grace. It has nothing to do with God
32:48
foreseeing that we would be good or that we would choose Him.
32:51
And for the listener, that golden chain in Romans 8 is the
32:54
great summary of this whole sovereign process.
32:56
That chain 4 known, predestined, called, justified, glorified.
33:01
It cannot be broken. It proves that salvation is
33:04
God's work from start to finish, and we have to pay attention to
33:07
how Paul uses the word called there.
33:08
It's an effectual call. It is.
33:11
Everyone who is called is justified, and everyone who is
33:14
justified will be glorified. The call isn't just an
33:18
invitation that we can reject. It's the supernatural summons
33:21
from God that actually creates the faith.
33:24
We need to be justified. It's God calling into existence
33:27
something that wasn't there before.
33:29
That's a great way to put it. And this is what secures the
33:32
believer status completely. We are brought into Christ's
33:35
Kingdom not because we were smart enough to choose Him, but
33:37
because He was merciful enough to choose us.
33:40
And that certainty is what should fuel our worship and our
33:43
obedience. So this deep dive has really
33:45
shown us the single, unified, and frankly massive scope of the
33:48
New Testament's theology. We've traced this one reality,
33:51
Christ's kingship, from John's focus on having eternal life
33:55
right now, all the way through Paul's teaching on sovereign
33:57
justification and the new creation.
34:00
And the critical tension we live in every day remains the new
34:03
age. The Kingdom has decisively
34:05
arrived in Christ's death and resurrection.
34:07
It's secured by God's sovereign grace.
34:09
And yet we still live physically under the pressures and the
34:12
opposition of the old decaying age.
34:14
And this whole framework gives us a new way to think about our
34:17
future hope. In the Old Testament, the hope
34:19
was so often focused on inheriting the land, a physical,
34:23
geographic place, a. Place where God would dwell with
34:25
his people. Right.
34:27
And Paul confirms that believers are heirs of the whole world.
34:30
But he gently refocuses our final expectation.
34:33
The ultimate hope is not defined so much by a redeemed place, but
34:36
by a redeemed relationship with the King.
34:39
The inheritance is, at its heart, a person, Paul says.
34:43
A transformed new creation is coming, for sure, but the
34:46
deepest reward? The thing that makes it all
34:48
worthwhile? His fellowship.
34:51
After his huge discussion of the resurrection, he lands the plan
34:54
and why it all matters. And so we will always be with
34:57
the Lord. That's it.
34:58
That focus on seeing and enjoying the King forever is
35:00
what makes salvation so completely satisfying.
35:03
And as we wrap up this deep dive, here's a final thought
35:06
that builds on what we've seen. If the ultimate good, the
35:09
ultimate blessedness, is this unhindered fellowship with the
35:12
king, then the ultimate horror is being excluded from that
35:15
presence. Paul describes the fate of the
35:18
wicked as eternal destruction away from the presence of the
35:22
Lord and from the glory of his might.
35:23
So since our final destiny hinges on whether we see the
35:26
King in his beauty now, a seeing that happens through faith, how
35:30
does the certainty of Christ's return reshape the seriousness
35:34
and the joy with which you approach obedience and life
35:36
today? Thank you for joining us for the
35:38
Deep Dive. Until next time.