Him We Proclaim Podcast

I Am With You Always

January 28, 2024 Dr. John Fonville
Him We Proclaim Podcast
I Am With You Always
Show Notes Transcript

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" We look back across the past week, past month, the past years, and we look at the failures that have plagued our life. And we need this assurance that we have the forgiveness of our sins. And so the Holy Spirit who is the Lord and Giver of Life makes Christ who has separated from us, by virtue of His ascension, present with us by uniting us with Christ. And so that through that union, we derive life from Christ. Why, because where there is the forgiveness of sins, there is life and salvation. "

John Fonville’s new book is called Hope and Holiness: How the Gospel Enables and Empowers Sexual Purity.  It comes out this Fall and was based on the current series. We hope you will take the time to pre-order and invest in your spiritual growth library.  

Hope and Holiness: How the Gospel Enables and Empowers Sexual Purity

https://www.amazon.com/Hope-Holiness-Gospel-Enables-Empowers/dp/0802428894/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=hope+and+holiness+john+fonville&qid=1670792509&sprefix=hope+and+holiness%2Caps%2C128&sr=8-1

About John

John Fonville is Pastor of Paramount Church in Jacksonville, Florida. Paramount Church is part of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA). 

The Him We Proclaim Podcast features the preaching and teaching ministry of Dr. John Fonville at Paramount Church. This resource aims to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to all people. The gospel cannot be assumed. An assumed gospel will, in time, become a denied gospel. Thus, each generation must rediscover the paramount truths of the gospel and apply the gospel's implications to their own day and age. Him we proclaim (Col. 1:28)!

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 Turn to Matthew chapter 28. And let's look at verses 18. Through 20 says, Jesus came up and spoke to them saying, All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

1:05  
I want us to look at this last part of the Great Commission and how Jesus concludes the Great Commission with this promise, his enduring promise to be with his church.

1:18  
Look what he says, and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Now in the context of the Great Commission, as we just begin to look at this for a second, we need to understand that Jesus, when he's promising, I'm with you. It's no less than i that is the resurrected, exalted Sovereign King of all nations, who has authority over all nations. I'm with you forever. That's very comforting. And so the church's mission is ensured by Jesus's continuing presence, the presence of Christ, with his church is a great gift to his church.

2:01  
Now, while Jesus's promise is comforting, it also creates an immediate problem

2:09  
or a parent problem. Jesus promises to be with his church, right before he leaves

2:19  
right?

2:21  
Before he ascends bodily to heaven,

2:25  
and since Jesus inside of his disciples a sense bodily into heaven, Acts chapter one, verse nine, how can Jesus be with his Church on earth now?

2:36  
Right? by ascending into heaven, did Jesus abandon us and break his promise to be with his church? And did he leave us as orphans? So the question this morning for us is this? How is Christ present with us?

2:53  
How do we have his presence with us?

2:58  
It's always helpful to study church history because church history has a lot to teach us because the Bible says there's nothing new under the sun. So this isn't the first time that we have entertained this question. How is Christ present with us? And it's a tragic irony that the most divisive question among the Reformers revolved around the sacrament of Holy Communion. And the reason it is ironic is because this sacrament is given by Jesus to form believers into one unified body to the sacrament of unity.

3:32  
But yet while that is tragic, it also shows us how seriously these believers in the 16th century took the Lord's Supper.

3:41  
Very important questions were raised at the time of the Reformation concerning the person of Christ and His presence with us post ascension.

3:52  
There were four major views back in the Reformation, and these four major views are still with us to this very day. Nothing has changed. Let me just quickly give you a little history lesson about this. On October the first 1529 Martin Luther met with the Swiss reformer over Zwingli and they had what was known as the colloquy of Marburg, I'm sure most of you have enjoyed studying the colloquy of Marburg this week.

4:23  
They met these two reformers met together to try to settle their differences over communion.

4:31  
Remark remarkably, they agreed on 12 out of 13 propositions,

4:36  
but the one proposition they didn't agree on was Christ presence and the Lord's Supper.

4:45  
Both Luther and Zwingli, who were Protestant reformers rejected the Roman Catholics view as Transubstantiation. The Roman Church taught and still teaches that in the ceremony of the mass, the priest is given special power

5:00  
hours so that the bread and wine are literally transformed into the literal Body and Blood of Christ on the altar.

5:09  
Both Luther and Zwingli found this teaching unacceptable not supported by scripture, but yet they still could not agree with one another on how Christ is present in the church at the sacrament.

5:25  
So whereas the Roman church located Christ true presence in or as the elements

5:34  
singly said we'll have, we're just gonna deny it all together. He's not there.

5:40  
Zwingli held to a memorial view of the sacrament. This is the most common view among most evangelicals in the church today.

5:49  
Zwingli believed that the sacrament of communion was nothing more than the memorial of Christ's death for us. So first Vinglish it was very simple. Listen carefully. This is how you summarized it. He summarized it says Jesus is said to live bodily to the right hand on the father. His body is in heaven and he's not on Earth.

6:10  
And then He will come again on the last day physically, but until he comes again, Jesus is absent from us physically, he's not here.

6:19  
But he said, That's okay. Because Jesus's divinity is what saves us.

6:26  
Jesus Christ is God and God is omnipresent. And because Jesus says divinity is omnipresent, we don't have to worry about his physical absence, because he's he's here with us and His divinity.

6:39  
Martin Luther saw the problem without immediately,

6:43  
Martin Luther objected to that view. And he argued that without a connection to Jesus, His humanity without a connection to the flesh and blood of Jesus Himself, we can't be saved.

6:57  
He's exactly right.

7:00  
So Luther over again singly affirmed that we have a true sharing, and I hope Christ, we share in Christ's divinity and in his humanity for our salvation.

7:12  
Jesus says one under one person with two natures, human and divine, that can't be separated.

7:22  
So Luther rejected Transubstantiation via but nevertheless, he argued that Jesus is physically omnipresent. Lutherans like to call this the doctrine of real presence.

7:36  
Luther taught the Christ body was present quote, in with and under the bread and wine.

7:43  
So this is how Jesus can be present in every observance of communion with the bread and wine. And so while Luther correctly affirmed that we have a true sharing in the whole Christ, Luther had a problem.

7:56  
And so here comes John Calvin with the fourth view.

8:01  
Cow, Calvin rightly argued that Luthers view undermines the reality of Jesus's unity with us as a true human. What is a true human, a true human is not omnipresent.

8:16  
Were localized.

8:19  
And so Calvin said, If Jesus is in a form, where's divinity absorbs his humanity? What does that say about us?

8:28  
Where does this leave our bodies?

8:32  
Then concerning think Lee, John Calvin disagree was mainly he said, Xinwei quote is pernicious.

8:39  
In other words, he's extremely harmful. And he's erroneous, they were really kind to each other back then they had ways of speaking that we don't do that anymore.

8:52  
Calvin actually preferred Martin Luther XView.

8:56  
But Calvin understood that Luthers view had a definite problem about Christ and His humanity and Christ's humanity, His continuity with us as a human.

9:07  
So John Calvin presented this fourth view,

9:11  
the presence of Christ in communion that took seriously both the humanity and deity of Christ the unity of the person of Christ, the God man,

9:20  
because Jesus is for ever after the Incarnation forever in a body, he's forever the undivided God, man.

9:31  
So Calvin rightly emphasized that Jesus is not only divine but also human. In the Incarnation, Jesus comes to fully shared our humanity in every way. Gregory Nazianzus what Jesus did not assume he has not healed.

9:46  
He became 100% like you and me human. He took on our DNA they say.

9:55  
So Jesus shares in our humanity by his incarnation by his descent to us well

10:00  
The power of the Holy Spirit

10:02  
and Calvin and said that the Holy Spirit is, quote, the bond by which Christ effectually unites us to Himself.

10:14  
And then he goes to First Corinthians chapter one, verse nine. And Paul writes this God is faithful, through whom you are called into fellowship, Koinonia communion with His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. And Calvin begins to reflect on this fellowship, what is this communion? What is this Koinonia this fellowship that we have with Christ?

10:36  
And he says, he writes this, he says, What I say is that the moment we receive Christ by faith, as he offers himself in the gospel, we become truly members of his body.

10:50  
And he said in life flows from him is from the head. Thus we draw life from his flesh and blood, do you see that? Not just from his divinity, we receive life, from the flesh and blood of Christ Himself by whom we are united to through the bond of the Holy Spirit.

11:10  
And he says that his flesh and blood is not undeservedly called our food. How it happens, I confess is far above the means of my intelligence. Hence, I adore the mystery, rather than labor to understand it.

11:24  
We come to faith in Christ and the Holy Spirit unites us to Christ. vitally united to Christ. Paul uses that phrase over and over in the Bible where we are in Christ.

11:36  
And so for Calvin, it is the secret energy of the Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit, who is the act of agent that unites us to the whole Christ, His humanity and his divinity for our salvation.

11:52  
He says that apart from the working of the Holy Spirit, both the gospel and the sacraments profit as nothing.

11:59  
He goes on to say that the sacraments properly fulfill their office only when the Holy Spirit the inward teacher comes to them, by whose power alone our hearts are penetrated, and affections moved in our souls open for the sacraments to enter in.

12:18  
If the Holy Spirit be lacking, their sacraments can accomplish nothing more in our minds than the splendor of the sun shining upon blinding eyes,

12:29  
or a voice sounding in deaf ears.

12:35  
The sacraments are but a ministry of empty and trifling apart from the action of the Holy Spirit, but charged with great effect when the Spirit works within and manifests His power.

12:50  
And so Calvin, along with other reformed theologians since Calvin and Calvin by the way, his nickname in the Reformation, was the theologian of the Holy Spirit.

13:02  
Calvin and since Calvin, other reformed theologians have argue that the whole Christ, His deity, and his humanity is actually given to us in the Lord's Supper by the powerful working of the Holy Spirit unites us to the whole Christ.

13:19  
And so article 35, and the Belgic confessions, beautiful statement, it says this, it is beyond any doubt that Jesus Christ did not come in his sacraments to us in vain.

13:31  
Therefore, he works in us all that he represents to us by these holy signs.

13:38  
We do not go wrong when we say that what we eat and drink is the true natural body and the True Blood of Christ. However, the manner in which we eat it is not by mouth, but in the spirit by faith.

13:53  
And that way, Jesus Christ to always remain seated at the right hand of God, His Father in heaven, yet he does not cease to communicate himself to us by faith.

14:03  
This banquet is a spiritual table, at which Christ makes us partakers of himself with all His benefits, and gives us the grace listen to enjoy both himself and the merit of His suffering and death.

14:23  
And so when Jesus ascended into heaven, he didn't abandon us, he didn't leave us as orphans.

14:30  
Jesus has already prepared his disciples for his departure in John 1415 and 16. Listen to what Jesus says in John chapter 16, verse 28.

14:42  
Jesus says to His disciples, I came from the Father, and have come into the world and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father. So Jesus says I'm leaving the world.

14:54  
He's preparing his disciples for his physical departure. He's leaving

15:01  
But yet Jesus promised them that He would not leave them as orphans. He assures His disciples in John 14, listen, I will ask the Father and He will give you another advocate, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, who in the world cannot receive but it neither sees him nor knows him, you know Him, for He dwells with you, and will be in you.

15:26  
I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you.

15:33  
He's leaving.

15:36  
But I'm coming to you.

15:38  
Do you see that? Through the advocate the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth.

15:44  
John 16 Seven, I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away.

15:51  
For if I do not go away, the advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.

16:00  
Believers are not orphans. The church is not abandoned in our mission. He is with us always. Even to the end of the age. We are not abandoned. Why? Because God is not one person.

16:15  
Because God is not two persons. Because God is three persons, he is a trinity.

16:23  
And the good news is that God is a trinity, the Spirit whom Jesus promised is a person I will send him. He is not a force. He is a person, the eternal God with us now.

16:39  
And although Jesus is absent from us in the flesh, the Spirit is present with us and He unites us to the whole Christ, humanity and deity who is in heaven, and He does it by the power of the Holy Spirit, mysterious, powerful, but real.

16:56  
And so Jesus, the god, man is with us. Matthew has been telling this, us this throughout the whole gospel, Matthew, chapter one, he has Emmanuel, God with us, Matthew chapter 18. In a matter of church discipline, when the church rules on unrepentant believers in the church, he says, Where two or three are gathered, I am with you.

17:18  
And now he says, I am with you always at the end of Matthew's Gospel.

17:24  
Listen to the Apostles Creed when it says I believe in the Holy Spirit says What do you mean? The Heidelberg Catechism is interpreting this the Apostles Creed, what do you believe concerning the Holy Spirit when you say I believe in the Holy Spirit?

17:39  
First, that the Holy Spirit is CO Eternal God with the Father and the Son, He's God.

17:47  
But second, he's given to me to make me a true faith partaker in Christ in all of his benefits, to comfort me and to be with me forever.

18:00  
Question 55 What do you understand by communion of saints? I believe in the communion of saints, the HOLY CATHOLIC APOSTOLIC church, I believe in the communion of saints, what do you understand by the communion of saints,

18:12  
that believers all in every one as members of Christ, have communion in him, and in all his treasures and gifts?

18:24  
Jesus with all his treasures and gifts is present with us. And He is present for us by the Holy Spirit who works this in us.

18:35  
He does this to the methods that Jesus has already given to us in the Great Commission. We don't have to make this up. We want the Holy Spirit to come in power. Jesus just taught us in the Great Commission, how he comes word, sacrament and discipline. He promises to be there and to be there for you.

18:54  
And so Jesus has simultaneously bodily absence to be with the Father and His true presence by the spirit and our persons and through the Word and Sacrament. This is a grand truth.

19:05  
The apostle Paul in Romans chapter 10, says that Jesus is as near to us as the word that we hear.

19:16  
When we hear his word, the gospel of Paul says in Romans 10, we hear Christ it is the word of Christ.

19:26  
We hear him

19:28  
when we see the water and the bread and the wine we are seeing him in his promises signified and sealed guaranteed to us. We are seeing him

19:41  
and so Jesus has promised to make disciples to build his church to to extend his mission to all nations, and to bless us with his presence. And he does it through the means that he's instituted word sacrament and discipline in the Great Commission. We don't have to make it up wherever he promises wherever these means of grace are found. Jesus has no doubt

20:00  
To be found there and saving grace.

20:04  
So here's what I want us to reflect on as we finish. What was the history lesson for her? What was the theology lesson for? And what was the exposition for this is what it was for. What is the whole point of discussing the presence of Christ and Holy Communion?

20:23  
Listen to what John Calvin said about that, he said, it is to assure trembling consciences.

20:33  
It is to assure trembling consciences that communion is not a bare figure, but it is joined with the reality and substance let me put it very simply for you. Communion is not an empty sign that makes us remember something 2000 years ago that is not present with us now.

20:53  
He's saying that the signs of bread and wine are guarantees of a present reality.

21:00  
What is this present reality? What is the substance in reality that is with us now, listen, Jesus, in both his humanity and his divinity is the reality of the substance of this meal. That's what is present. And he is present in this meal for us for the forgiveness of our sins.

21:23  
How do we know this because he has attached His Word of Promise to it. Listen to what he says. Taking the this is my body drink from it, all of you for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins.

21:43  
We cannot possess full assurance of salvation. We cannot have our troubled consciences quieted.

21:53  
Listen, until we are fully assured that we're united to the whole person, both his humanity and his divinity.

22:05  
We cannot receive salvation apart from being united to a hole Christ.

22:13  
And so in communion, the Holy Spirit, the bond of union, he unites us to Christ humanity and to his divinity and does his full saving work that is for us, because it was the whole Christ who accomplished our redemption for us. We're not just saved by Jesus, His deity.

22:33  
We are also saved by his humanity.

22:38  
And you must be vitally united to both to be saved. And if you do not receive a whole Christ, you can never have your troubled conscience that plagues you for your failures this past week, ever assured and collided.

22:56  
The whole Jesus must be present to save us.

23:00  
This is what the Heidelberg Catechism teaches in question 15 What kind of mediator and Redeemer must we seek? We must seek one who was a true and sinless man, and yet more powerful than all creatures, one who was at the same time TRUE GOD.

23:16  
Jesus must be 100% Man, he must be 100% God. He must be a true and sinless man. Why? Because God's justice his law requires that the same human nature that has sinned should make satisfaction for that sin. The problem is no man who has himself a center can make that satisfaction neither for himself nor anybody else.

23:44  
Why must Jesus also be God? Because it is by the power of His divine nature, that he is able to bear in his human nature, the burden of God's wrath, and be our propitiation and exhausted fully on the cross for us so that we could be restored to your righteousness in life in him.

24:07  
And so, yes, in his divinity, Christ is omnipresent. That's not the issue. The question in Scripture is whether and where is Jesus present for us in salvation for the forgiveness of our sins?

24:24  
You know, we we live at the beach and we like to watch sunrises on the East Coast. If it's the West Coast, it's sunsets, right. But in a sunrise or in a sunset, we see the beauty of God and His creation. But as wonderful as those things are, there's no word of promise and a sunrise or a sunset that tells you Jesus is here for you for the forgiveness of your sins.

24:50  
In fact, the apostle Paul says in Romans chapter one that the creation is telling you the exact opposite. He's here to judge you.

24:58  
That word of

25:00  
promise of the forgiveness of sins is not attached to a sunset or a sunrise or a mountain range. As wonderful as creation is, creation doesn't give us the gospel.

25:15  
Without the word of Gospel, Jesus might not be here for you and forgiveness, he might be here in judgment.

25:26  
But the good news through Holy Communion is the Holy Spirit not only makes Christ divinity, but also his humanity, His true and Natural Body and Blood present for us for the forgiveness of our sins.

25:40  
And the Lord's Supper the Holy Spirit gives to us Christ crucified, buried, risen and ascended for us.

25:48  
And how how we need this assurance, don't we?

25:53  
We look back across the past week, past month, the past years, and we look at the failures that have plagued our life.

26:04  
And we need this assurance that we have the forgiveness of our sins.

26:10  
And so the Holy Spirit who is the Lord and Giver of Life makes Christ who has separated from us, by virtue of His ascension, present with us by uniting us with Christ.

26:26  
And so that through that union, we derive life from Christ. Why, because where there is the forgiveness of sins, there is life and salvation.

26:36  
Listen carefully, where there is the forgiveness of sins, there is life, and salvation.

26:45  
Exactly how this happens is a mystery

26:49  
is a mystery that exceeds our capacity to understand in the Belgic confession is helpful. It says we do not understand the manner in which this is done.

26:59  
We don't understand this.

27:02  
Just as we do not comprehend the act, the hidden activity of the Holy Spirit of God.

27:09  
Yet we do not go wrong when we say that what we eat and drink is the true natural body and the True Blood of Christ.

27:19  
And so let us know that this morning as we come to this table that the Lord has given to us the sacrament let us know that this holy mystery is something to be marveled at, and enjoyed, rather than explained and fully understood.

27:35  
By the mysterious, powerful working of the Holy Spirit, we Paul says in Ephesians, two are in heaven in Christ, and he is on earth in us for us now.

27:52  
Thanks be to God, for His indescribable gift, amen. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this gift. We thank you for this wonderful mystery, this great gift that you have given to us that we can through the power of your Holy Spirit commune with a whole Christ,

28:10  
a risen Christ who has been given all authority in heaven and on earth, a Christ who is both God and man, and we are united to him.

28:20  
And we thank you for it. We don't understand it. We thank you for this gift. And we thank you for the gift of your table now that assures our trembling consciences that all the promises in the Gospel are yes and amen. For us in Christ.

28:40  
So be with us now in serve us we pray,

28:44  
the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.