[Sunday School] Christ, the King (WSC 25)

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:01

Heavenly Father, thank you for this morning and thank you for this class. Thank you for these people. Thank you for the church. Thank you for our great Redeemer, our prophet, our priest, our king. Help us this morning as we reflect on what it means for Christ to be king. Lord, give us a deeper sense of his majesty, of his royalty, what it looks like for him to subdue us to himself, to rule and defend us, to restrain and conquer all his and our enemies. Pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Alright, these past several weeks we have been considering the threefold office of Jesus. Jesus our prophet, Jesus our priest, Jesus our king. The prophet who reveals to us by his word and spirit the will of God for our salvation as our priest. He once offers himself up a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice and reconcile us to God and to make continual intercession for us. And third, today, he is our king. So question 26, how does Christ execute the office of the king? Christ executes the office of a king in subduing us to himself, in ruling and defending us, and in restraining and conquering all his and our enemies. So what we're going to do this morning is basically what we've done the past couple weeks. We're kind of look at a biblical theology of the office of a king. Then we'll consider those three clauses: how he subdues us, how he rules and defends us, how he restrains and conquers all his and our enemies. So the office of king, like everything else, it starts in the garden. We've talked about how the image is, the image of God is an image of God's royalty. In the ancient world, it was said that only the king was created in the image of God. But in Genesis, we see that human beings, male and female, all of us, we're created in the image of God. And part of our function as the image of God is to represent the rule and reign of God wherever we are, wherever we go. Abraham. In him, we see something like a king. Genesis 14, where this coalition of world superpowers basically is going and conquering and pillaging, and they capture Abraham's nephew Lot and his family. What does Abraham do? He puts together his own coalition, and with God's help, he goes and he routes those kings and he rescues his nephew. So we we see something like a king as early as that. As we go through the history, we start to see the office of a king become something more formal. In Genesis 49, when Jacob, or when Israel is blessing his sons, he says to Judah, Judah is a lion's cup. From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down, he crouched as a lion and as a lioness, who dares rouse him. The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him, and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples. Binding his foal to the vine, and his donkey's colt to the choice vine. He has washed his garments in wine, and his vesture in the blood of grapes, his eyes are darker than wine, and his teeth whiter than milk. The scepter shall not depart from Judah. This is a promise of a king. This is a prophetic word spoken over Judah to say, From your line will come a line of kings, and that line of kings will rule over the nation of Israel. In Deuteronomy 17, we see regulations for the office of a king. Specifically in verses 14 through 20, God talks about uh what uh just read it. When you come into the land that the Lord your God has given you, and you possess it and dwell in it, and they then say, I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me, you may indeed set a king over you, whom the Lord your God will choose. One from among your brothers you shall set as king over you. You may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother. Only he must not acquire many horses for himself, or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses, since the Lord has said to you, You shall never return that way again. And he shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold. And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests, and it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes and doing them, that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandments, either to the right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children in Israel. So Israel was meant to have a king. The promise was spoken over Jacob, the law provided for it in what I just read in Deuteronomy 17. And things were pretty rough in Israel, so long as they didn't have a king. You remember the book of Judges, what's the line that gets repeated a couple times? In those days there was no king in Israel, and everyone did what was right in their own eyes. So in the judges themselves, you have these kingly figures who rule in a sense, and they start off good, but it's this one long downward spiral until the end of Judges. Everything is just a hot mess. And that's where that line comes up. There's no king in Israel. Everybody's doing what's right in their own eyes. And so they're right to long for a king. God promised them a king. But what happens in 1 Samuel? They long for the wrong kind of king. 1 Samuel 8, 4 through 7. All the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah and said to him, Behold, you are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations. But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed through the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, Obey the voice of the people and all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. So the problem wasn't that the people wanted a king. The problem was that the people wanted a king like all the other nations. The problem was that they didn't want God to be their king and to rule over them by way of a righteous king. And so what did they get? They get a king like all the other nations. Saul from the tribe of Benjamin, who's said to be a head and shoulders above everyone else in Israel. Well, kings, you know, what do you look for in a king if you're one of the nations? You look for the biggest, strongest, most imposing God. And that's what Saul was a head and shoulders above the rest. I mean, he didn't really want the job. He hid among the baggages and the and whatnot instead of being anointed the way he was supposed to. But so they give him a king like all the other kings. Now what's Saul's story? Anyone want to summarize Saul's story for us, how his uh his reign goes for him?

SPEAKER_07 7:52

He disobeyed God.

SPEAKER_02 7:53

He disobeyed God.

SPEAKER_03 7:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:56

He he not only not only was not a good king, he tried to usurp the role of a priest and offering sacrifices when Samuel delayed his coming, and that was all such a weird character. Yeah. Because you think he doesn't have very much, very good self-esteem, but then he had a terrible twisted self-esteem.

SPEAKER_02 8:24

He quite literally failed to wait on the Lord. If it's meant to be, it's up to me. That was Saul's way of ruling things. And he he was. He was horribly insecure, which explains his behavior after God takes the kingdom from him and gives it to David. Saul was just a piece of work. And so, 1 Samuel 13, 13 through 4, Samuel said to Saul, You have done foolishly. You have not kept the command of the Lord your God with which he commanded you. For then the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought out a man after his own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be prince over his people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you. And so God takes the kingdom away from Saul, and he engages a process of giving it to someone else. We know that process involves Samuel going to anoint a son of Jesse. And when Samuel goes, he goes kind of with the same expectation that all the other people of Israel had with respect to a king. It's like, okay, let's go have a look at Jesse's boys. Oh, here's the oldest, he's the biggest, he's the strongest. Surely, this is the one that God has in mind. 1 Samuel 6, 6 through 7. But the Lord said to Samuel, Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected. For the Lord sees not as man sees. Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. So Samuel runs through Jesse's sons, and he lands on the smallest, the youngest, the runtiest, the ruddiest. In 1 Samuel 16, 13, it says, Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers. And the spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward. And Samuel rose up and went to Ramoth. And so David becomes the anointed king of Israel. There's quite a story about all he has to go through in order to rise to the throne, but eventually he does rise to the throne. And God ushers in a golden age, or at least the precursor to a golden age. Really, we see the golden age under Solomon. But in David, you know, the kingdom is consolidated, the kingdom is grown, the kingdom is strengthened in all kinds of ways. And it gets to the point where before or near the end of David's life, he wants to build a temple. He wants to build a house for God. And God sends Nathan to tell him, Hey, I didn't ask you to do that. But guess what? I'm going to build a house out of you. Second Samuel 7, 12 through 14, when your days are fulfilled, and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of men. And it goes on to talk about how God makes this promise to this son, this future king from the line of David. And Psalm two actually reflects on the enthronement of that king, on the enthronement of that son of David. Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and his anointed, saying, Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their corns for their cords from us. He who sits in the heavens laughs. The Lord holds them in the derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath and terrify them in his fury, saying, As for me I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill. I will tell of the decree, the Lord said to me, You are my son. Today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Now therefore, O kings, be wise, be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the sun lest he be angry and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. So that is a psalm, really looking at the enthronement of the sun. In historical context, probably Solomon. But we know where it lands. You have Solomon, he failed. You have Rehoboam, he split the kingdom, and so on and so forth. You have king after king after king, and sometimes they're pretty good, but even the ones who are pretty good, they only last so long. And they're not perfect. Hezekiah, he's prideful. Josiah, maybe a little too big for his britches, even though he was the good king. Uh a little too intemperate, a little too hasty, gets himself killed. So king after king after king, you're waiting for the one to whom this psalm truly refers. You're waiting for the one that 2nd Samuel 7 promise, that king, this king who would rule in such righteousness that he could truly, truly be said to be the Son of God, that wouldn't need to be disciplined with the rod of iron or the stripes of God. You know, this king whose throne would indeed last forever. Then what do you get in Matthew 1:1? The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Romans 1, where Paul is talking about how he's the son of David with respect to the flesh, but he was declared to be the son of God in power by the Spirit of resurrection from the dead. So Hebrews 1, 3 through 4, after making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. Acts 2, all over the place. Hebrews 10, talking about in the ascension, you have enthronement. Jesus takes his seat at the right hand of the Father. So you have Jesus as the culmination of this story about royalty in Israel, but not just in Israel, but the provision of a king who rules and reigns over the entire world. And that's what happened in the ascension. So now I want to ask a really obvious question based on what I just said. Is Jesus the king right now? Yeah. Is he ruling and reigning right now?

SPEAKER_03 15:12

In the midst of his enemies.

SPEAKER_02 15:14

In the midst of his enemies. Have any of you been raised to believe otherwise? Maybe not. We have no dispensationalists here or recovering dispensationalists. Because, according to dispensationalism, and I've talked about it before, I'll talk about it again. I don't want to paint with too broad a brush because it's got a lot of different shades and flavors and all of that. But according to at least classic dispensationalism, Jesus is actually not reigning right now. God has dealt with his people at different times and in different ways. There was a time of law under Moses. The present is a time of grace. And Christ is not yet king because the Jews refused him as king. And the kingdom is delayed while God does basically executes plan B through the church. So what we look forward to in the future is God as Jesus kind of coming halfway down, whisking the church off of the scene, and then coming the rest of the way down, instituting a millennial kingdom. And that's where we'll see the reign of Christ. And then Jesus will rule from that point forward with different details here and there.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

In the words of John MacArthur, we're losing count here. Yeah. I just can't.

SPEAKER_02 16:44

Yeah, yeah, and that's why. I mean, that's it's your view of eschatology can really impact your view of the relationship of Christ to culture. And if you have a view where Christ is not king, not yet, uh, it's really easy to take on a very pessimistic view of your role and the church's role in culture today. And hence you get things like what John MacArthur said. We lose down here. We should not expect to see any sort of discipling of the nations as nations or any sort of transformation of the culture due to the gospel witness. That's one take, right?

SPEAKER_07 17:26

What if denominations would be considered like dispensationals? Baptists.

SPEAKER_02 17:32

You could say Baptists, for a large part, a lot of Baptists, not Reformed Baptists. General evangelicalism, non-denominationalism in a lot of places. Uh the evangelist. Yeah, yeah, it's it's kind of a mixed bag. I mean, dispensationalism is one of the most popular sort of influences on modern American evangelicalism, primarily through books like The Late Great Planet Earth or The Left Behind series. Yeah. Ask your average evangelical about the rapture, and they're going to have some views about the rapture that are probably going to involve Jesus coming, whisking the church off the scene, us meeting him in the air, right, and going to hang out for a while, and then there being a tribulation, there being in the a millennial kingdom, that kind of thing. Right? So that's that's just straight up dispensationalism.

SPEAKER_03 18:31

And there's pre-trib, mid-trib, post-trib. I mean, I just yeah, I've been exposed to that, but I've always been a covenant person that that um the church, as Paul says in Romans, is grafted in the church and Israel have become a one house, one household of God.

SPEAKER_05 18:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:56

And uh so the dispensation was that I've heard of all kinds of strange ideas about Israel, the political people of Israel. Yeah. And um God has a plan for all people. And I mean, maybe there's something special for Israel, but I that's way beyond my pay grade, so I don't trouble myself about that.

SPEAKER_02 19:20

Yeah, the one of the core, core beliefs of dispensationalism is that there are not there is not one people of God, there are two peoples of God. And that plan A is Israel, plan B is the church. Now that's that's a more classical view of dispensationalism, that uh there are lots of different kinds of dispensationalists. A progressive dispensationalist might not put it quite that way, but that still very much lies at the heart of it, where there's not one people of God, there's there's two peoples of God. And we can go all day talking about dispensationalism and critiquing it, but the thing that the specific point of critique that I want to make for the purpose of like this class is that Jesus is not waiting to take his throne at some point in the future. Christ is king. Not Christ will be king, Christ is king, and he's ruling and reigning right now. He's seated at the right hand of the Father right now. So he's ruling the world, and he's ruling particularly in the church. And so that's important for us to think about because when we talk about Christ as our king, we are not envisioning some future reality. I mean, there's future elements to it, right? His rule will be consummated. Uh we pray that his kingdom would come in the Lord's prayer and his will would be done on earth as it is in heaven. So there's a way in which the kingdom is advancing right now, but we don't yet have it and see it in all its fullness. So that future element is there, but he is still the king. He's still on his throne. He's enthroned in the midst of his enemies, right? So, when we ask, how does Christ subdue us to himself? Uh we're not asking about like how he will in the end. We're actually asking about right now. How has Christ the King uh come into our reality and subdued us to himself? How would you answer that question?

SPEAKER_03 21:23

First, make every thought captive to Christ. Every thought captive to Christ is where I would start. I forget uh Galatians or Philippians or first Corinthians.

unknown 21:38

2 Corinthians.

SPEAKER_03 21:40

That's a subduing of a great enemy that is in me.

SPEAKER_04 21:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:45

Because my natural self is very self oriented. Yeah. And that that self orientation has to be broken because of this anti God, anti Christ state of mind, and replaced with The where Jesus Christ is my the center of my universe. Yeah. And then I am subsidiary, I'm subject to that.

SPEAKER_02 22:09

Yeah. So that that rebellion, that self-centeredness, that uh that willfulness, how is that broken? How how indeed does he subdue us to himself? At the point of a sword? While looking down the barrel of a gun.

SPEAKER_07 22:32

And not I can only speak for myself, it's more like guidance and it's like flowing down the river, and it's just as like so what we're getting at here.

SPEAKER_02 22:49

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_05 22:50

I think he changes our heart.

SPEAKER_02 22:52

Changes are heart. Yeah. So there's an in inward internal change that happens, right? That cannot be externally forced or compelled or coerced. So when we talk about Christ subduing this to himself, what we're not talking about is some sort of uh physical uh coercion. We're not talking about conversion under the threat of violence or a threat or you know death. What we're talking about is God making a change in us. And it's really interesting because the New Testament uses all kinds of language of conquering, but it's applying it to spiritual realities. So Paul in 2 Corinthians 2 14 through 17, thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God's word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God in the sight of God, we speak in Christ. What Paul is talking about is the advance of the gospel by way of preaching. The preaching, you know, narrowly talking about the preaching of gospel ministers, but broadly the preaching of the church. Uh the image here is of a conquering general going through town, leading a parade of captives, basically, you know, announcing that their empire has conquered your city. And when it talks about fragrance, right, they would spread incense, right, along as they go. And for the victors, that incense is the fragrance of victory. And for the captives, for the ones who have been defeated, it's it's the smell of defeat. And so, you know, what does that look like for us? We have been conquered by Christ. He's leading us in triumphal procession, and we're spreading the fragrance of him everywhere by the preaching of the gospel. For some people, that smells like death because they want nothing to do with it. For others, it's the word of life, it's the fragrance of life. They're like, yes, thank you. Let me join the parade. So, you know, it's it's we do not conquer by way of force, we conquer by way of speech. 1 Corinthians 2. Paul talks about the folly of the cross, the weakness of the cross, and how when he was among them, he chose, he, you know, he didn't come with a great display of power in his own self or with a great demonstration of eloquence. He came in weakness and he came with the worldly, foolish to the world word of the cross, so that through it God might shame the wisdom, the so-called wisdom of the world, and the so-called strength of the world. That's how Jesus conquers us to himself. It's the cruciform shape of his victory over us. On the cross, we know it looked like the greatest defeat ever in history. I mean, human beings killed God. And yet, that's his victory. That's the means by which Jesus accomplishes victory. Uh Colossians 2, putting his enemies to open shame. So, for the spiritual powers and principalities, for Satan, for uh for the enemy and his servants and all of them, you know, they're host. That's what the cross means. They are utterly defeated. Christ is victor, Christ is the victor. Uh for us, that means that the principle of enmity within us that opposes us to God is the thing that's defeated, and we're one to him. Romans 5, 6 through 11. While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the underground. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die. But God shows his love for us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

We haven't gotten to the Oracle Solutions yet, have we? That comes shortly hereafter. The shorter catechism follows the confession, like we're basically chapter seven-ish right now.

SPEAKER_02 27:56

More or less. Sometimes more, sometimes less. We'll get there when we talk about the application of salvation. Yeah, right now we're right now we're basically looking at the person of Christ before we get to the work of Christ and its application to us.

SPEAKER_01 28:12

Because that's essentially the realm in which we're kind of speaking to right now, essentially of how that comes to be, or how we're, you know, um subdued to him.

SPEAKER_02 28:23

Yeah, we're talking about the mode of his subduing us, what that looks like.

SPEAKER_03 28:29

Well, the subduing of demons in the gospels is not very politically correct by Jesus. He basically tells them to get and they have to go. Yeah. And the rebuking of the storm was an act of kingly power over the natural world. So if you look for all the little, you ask yourself, where did Jesus insert the power of his kingship over the spiritual world and the natural world? You find examples of it all through the gospels. Yeah. Rebuking disease, rebuking death, rebuking the the uh, you know, he ruled without any question.

SPEAKER_04 29:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:23

So he subdues us to himself, but he also rules and defends us. So what does it look like for Jesus to rule and defend us today? What do you think?

SPEAKER_01 29:45

Well, something I was thinking of when you talked about the uh subduing part. Um this is no easy task, right? Like to not to skip over that too quickly. Um the subduing, you know, in chapter nine with the free will part, you've kind of touched on that it's not done by we're not forced to submit, right? We're not forced to lay it down by an external force, but this subduing process is, and the New Testament talks about, you know, we've done it, right? Romans 6. Um, and that in a sense we are explained before we are risen, right? So that's that subduing process. Um our our rising with Christ is not a um uh it's not an easy process. You know, it's different for everybody, and you know um, depending on what time and period in your life that this happens, when God intervenes in your life, when the application of redemption happens, how much guilt and sin stain you have in your life, where you're at, but that process is not an easy process. And there is an actual slaying, so to speak, that takes place. This is all, and to answer your question, your the spirit is this is done via his spirit, right? Both the subduing and the ruling. Um and um but the the subduing part of it and the slaying part of it, the law plays a big part of this, right? Um, and you know, with our natural corruption and our you talked about the um enity that's between us and God and his law. Um but uh I just wanted to kind of touch on that that process is not an easy process. Um and that we, you know, um, but when we see and when we understand the significance of that of what God has done to quote unquote you know slay us or to you know um that part of where we've died, then when we talk about how we've risen in Christ and how He is, you know, um how we're reigning with Him in this spiritual aspect, it really um it makes it a um that kind of that head down one you know there's there's a there's a there's a um what's the word I'm looking for humble and uh humility starts with a Crit Uh contrition, right? Right, because that's part of this process where we've got to come to terms with our sinfulness and our ugliness, right? And and and that's this is how we're slain. We have to, you know, a holy God comes in our presence, and when we and we sense our guilt, and we only feel this guilt when when the holy God comes in our presence, right? That's when we this is when we feel and sense our guilt and it slays us, it takes us to our knees, and that's where we die, right? And then obviously, then at that point, God doesn't do that because he's mean and um bad, he does that because he's getting ready to raise us, right? Holy, yeah. Well he's getting he's getting ready to offer us mercy, right? We gotta feel and sense our guilt first, uh, and then then comes the mercy, then comes the rising, right?

SPEAKER_02 33:00

And so, but yeah, that's all great. It's uh yeah, there I mean it's a process, it's a point and a process, right? We need to die uh in order to come alive, and then we are continuing to come alive through the process of sanctification. We're made more fitting and willing subjects and citizens of God's kingdom through the work of the Holy Spirit within us.

SPEAKER_05 33:25

Justification, Toro? Will you say that that's justification?

SPEAKER_02 33:28

Justification, that's sanctification more. Oh, it's both, right? Dennis, what were you gonna say?

SPEAKER_06 33:33

Oh, the way we think about rules and defense, um how we there's a few ways to interpret that, but I think biblically, as far as ruling goes, he's a living God and he obviously determines all things for our good. Yeah. That would be ruling.

SPEAKER_04 33:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 33:53

And then in terms of defense, I think of it in a judicial way and philosophical way, in the sense that the application of objective truth. Um we, especially given our current culture, constant uh pushing of the idea that we should pursue quote-unquote awkward truth, that kind of thing. And I think uh our best way, our best defense against that is to constantly argue for object and truth and that which determines what truth is.

SPEAKER_02 34:35

Yeah, that's good. When uh transitioning to the rule and defend peace, you know, you might have heard of something called two kingdom theology. Yeah. Uh classical, there's something known as reformed tooth kingdom theology today. It gets taught by professors from Westminster, California, where it's basically like this hard parting of the civil and ecclesial spheres. That's not quite what we're talking about. What Martin Luther and John Calvin talked about as the two kingdoms was basically an internal and external means by which Christ rules the world. So Christ rules internally, particularly in our hearts by way of the Holy Spirit. Uh, the application of the Word of God to us, changing us from within, making us more willing, fitting, subjects, citizens, all that sort of thing. But he also rules externally by way of institutions. Uh, how does Christ rule and defend us? One answer to that question is that he entrusts the state with the power of the sword, so that no, if someone were to come here and try to do something violent against us, the police would come and do something violent against them. That's one way in which Christ defends and rules his church. The other institution, external institution that he uses to rule and defend us as Christians, is the church itself. You know, this is, you know, the kingdom of God is not coterminous with the church. They're not identical. Like that's the Roman Catholic error, right? The Roman Catholic Church is where the kingdom of God is, and therefore you need to be a part of the Roman Catholic Church if you want to be a part of the kingdom of God. Right? That's a mistake. That is a mistake. But still, the church is significant and vital within the on the moving forward of the kingdom of God. But Christ the King uses the church in order to rule and defend us in all manner of ways, right? Church discipline. That's ruling and defending, right? Church discipline understood broadly is basically just discipleship. Us encouraging and admonishing one another, uh, elders and pastors leading the church, teaching the word. You know, that's Christ actively ruling in his church. Uh more narrowly, it's the process of judicial process, you know, church discipline where he entrusts the keys of the church to the elders of the church, to inflict censures, to even at the limit, you know, uh go through with excommunication, to declare that this person, by way of their behavior, by way of their refusal to repent and be reconciled to Christ, they're actually demonstrating themselves to not be a believer. And so in our judgment as the church, we are putting them on the outside in the hope that they would turn and come back and be restored. That's Jesus ruling and defending his people through this external institution that is the church.

SPEAKER_01 37:43

Yeah, one has to be subdued to Christ Himself or external church discipline, and they're connected.

SPEAKER_02 37:51

Right, they are absolutely connected because, you know, uh, you know, let's say we uh bar someone from the table. All right, what's being accomplished in that? Uh the the ends of discipline that we talk about in our book of church order and in the Westminster Confession, and this is biblical, you know, the glory of God, the vindication of the honor of Christ, the reclamation of that sinner, and the uh protection of the peace and purity of the church. So, let's say there's someone in the church who is kind of a notorious sinner, like everybody knows what they're getting up to, and the church leadership just isn't doing anything about it. Uh, what happens when you and that person come up to the Lord's table together? That was part of what's the problem in Corinth. And that's part of why Paul had to explain to the people there that, hey, when you go into a brothel, you take Jesus in there with you because you're one in Christ. And then when you come to church on Sunday and you come up to the table, you bring that with you. And you scandalize the people of God, you detract from the unity of the people of God in allowing the table to become that kind of a mess, right? I'm paraphrasing heavily, of course.

SPEAKER_01 39:14

Oh, glorious.

SPEAKER_02 39:16

Yeah, right. So, what does the church do in barring someone from the table? I mean, they convey the serious nature of the sin to that person, and hopefully they kind of, you know, by God's grace, knock some sense into them. That's an internal thing, though, right? I can't just say, or as a session, this has to come from the session, we can't just say, hey, you can't come to the table anymore and expect that to that proclamation to affect their repentance. But even as we do that, and even if that repentance never comes, we're still protecting the table for the sake of all the other people in the church. Yeah, so there's the external and internal thing happening all the time. And when it's done right, when it's done according to the word and the power of the Spirit and with the blessing of God, that is how Jesus rules and defends his people.

SPEAKER_05 40:11

Through his people.

SPEAKER_02 40:12

Yeah, yeah. Through the institution, through the leadership, through the sacraments, through all the things that he gives us. And so it's it's important when we think about the reign of Christ right now, that we don't over-spiritualize it to the extent that we miss that King Jesus actually has visible, physical, physical, tangible means by which he rules and reigns right now. Does that make sense? And that affects, you know, that that affects how you think about the place of the church and your place in the church. It also affects how you think about the state and the role of the state.

SPEAKER_01 40:54

Yeah, God rules out there too. That's why our doctrine of common grace is so important. And another thing that kind of distinguishes us from other evangelical sects is that um, you know, our our that doctrine that we have is really strong and solidifies exactly what Kenny's talking about because he rules out there too. So yeah. There's not a domain, there's not a domain. We have a really high view of God in here, right? And so God's ruling everywhere.

SPEAKER_02 41:20

Yeah, there's a Abraham Kuyper quote that I heard you alluding to in his lectures at Princeton that he gave in the early 20th century, he said, There is not a square inch in the whole domain of existence over which Christ, who is sovereign above all, does not declare mine.

SPEAKER_03 41:37

Yeah, that's beautiful. I love that.

SPEAKER_02 41:40

Jesus looks at every square inch and he says, mine.

SPEAKER_01 41:44

The Dutch Reform have made great contributions to the church.

SPEAKER_02 41:49

Yeah. Yeah, they have if you're not Dutch, you're not much.

unknown 41:54

You're you're right that it's difficult. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:58

It's progressive. Okay, I I spent some time hanging out with the Wesleans, and they have you know God's initial work of grace, and then they have a second work of grace that's supposed to totally sanctify you. That seems so inadequate to me because I need multiple, multiple works of grace every single day. You ask me today, do you really, Ruby, do you really love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind? And to be honest, I'm saying, I hope I do, I wish I did, but I can't say, I want to, but I can't say 100% that there's not a piece of Ruby that will just, you know, somebody crosses me or criticize me or makes fun of me. Something in me that just won't automatically matter. But that means there's still something in me that's still very me. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. We all have that. We all have it, and guess what? When we see Jesus, it'll all melt away like like uh like mor with but not before. Not before, so we have to still wrestle with it, yeah. And there's the whole thing about God being some um enity within Israel that they had to wrestle with. You know, that the they didn't completely wipe out all the pagan tribes, so they became a source of marine and so forth. But God also wanted them to learn to fight. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:41

So just editing in real time here. We've talked about how Christ subdues us to himself. We've talked about how he rules and defends us. Now the last clause and the catechism answer he restrains and conquers all his and our enemies. So That restraint, you know, if another internal, external thing, right? We talk about this the place of the state, we talk about the place of the church. We also, you know, we could also talk about his providence. Um, things could be much worse for us than they are. You always can. Uh, but God is kind to his people, he's kind to his church, and even in those places where the church suffers persecution, and we see plenty of that. I mean, kindness does not mean the absence of struggling and the absence of suffering. In his kindness, in those circumstances, it's like Tertulliancy, the blood of the martyrs said the blood of the martyrs becomes seed, the seed of the church. We've seen that. And that's not contrary to God uh, you know, restraining and conquering. That just shows that sometimes restraint means he won't let them touch your body. Other times it means he will let them touch your body, but he will use that to strengthen your soul and to grow the body of Christ. So God never takes a break. The king, you know, King Jesus, it's not it's not like an earthly war where the king is the strategist, right, and he's got units all over the map, and just he's got to sacrifice this unit in order to accomplish an objective somewhere else. Uh, that's not how it works for the the king who sits on the throne of the universe. He doesn't sacrifice any of his units. Uh, from our perspective, maybe that's what it looks like. But even for the ones who are lost, it's for their good. So he restrains and conquers. What will it look like for Jesus to finally conquer all his enemies?

SPEAKER_01 45:55

Well, I think that picture starts with us individually. I mean, this whole lesson and what we're talking about is like, you know, the way God deals with this with us in this category is he doesn't sit us down and put a you know DVD in and show us, you know, the sun and his reign and all these notional facts, which are an objective truth, right? And that that's a part of it. We're kind of talking about it here today to understand it intellectually. But we actually, this happens subjectively in our souls, in our wills. So the subduing of ourselves, the rising in Christ, becoming the new creature, this gets fleshed out individually and we experience it, right? So we have a notional understanding of it, but we also have a subjective real life, tangible. This is our relationship with Christ, right? And so we learn it within ourselves in our the first, and so how do how do I know that Christ is going to conquer all his enemies and that we're gonna reign all together forever? Because I'm experiencing and do it with doing it first with my greatest enemy, which is my evil will, right? He is you know subduing it, restraining it, overcoming it. He's given me, he's renewed my will, and so I'm going through this subjective experience, sanctification, and the you know, I'm seeing it done within me, you know, within me first, and that is you know, my real that's that is how I'm getting to know Christ. Um, this is how I'm getting to fall in love with him and his you know reign. And so it starts kind of there first, right? Yeah, and goes from there.

SPEAKER_02 47:25

Yeah, it starts there and goes from there. Because the question, I mean, we kind of we have a lot of luxury as Americans, a lot. Like we can we can wrestle with the reality of spiritual warfare, which is essentially what Tyler's talking about here, and what's the battle within, we can wrestle with that as a purely spiritual, psychological, emotional, internal exercise. Uh, but what happens when we live in a place where it's internal and external? Where like how I respond to my enemies isn't me responding to the guy who cut me off in traffic or the dude at work. He's just got a horrible attitude, but it's responding to the guy who killed my neighbors last week. It's responding to the soldiers that have occupied my village, or to the people who are threatening me to convert back to Islam or whatever the case might be, under pain of death. So, yes, it's the internal, and the internal is always there because we have to respond well to that. But the Bible actually speaks into that particular political situation, maybe more than it speaks into what we enjoy today as comfortable American citizens. Especially the book of Revelation. All of that stuff about what's going to happen in the end is stuff that really doesn't just apply to the end, it applies to right now. This vision of Jesus conquering his enemies does not just mean conquering our spiritual enemies in our hearts, but it actually means conquering the enemies out there who would seek to do violence to us, who would seek to undermine and degrade everything that's true, everything that's good, everything that's beautiful. And that's part of why Revelation holds that out to us. It holds out to us the picture of a kingdom where all the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our God and of his Christ, when every tear is wiped from every eye, when every disease is cured, when death is no more, when there's no need for weapons of warfare because they've all been melted down and refashioned into tools of agriculture and human flourishing. You only get that when Jesus comes in his fullness to fulfill the work of restraining and to conquer. When that Psalm II vision is realized and the nations no longer rage against the Lord and his anointed because everyone bows the knee, and everything becomes the kingdom of God in its fullness, in its consummate state, where you have no more sin, you have no more rebellion, you have no more people trying to do away with all of the good things that God has placed in his world. And we as Christians, we're we're given that image. I mean, we don't want to see discreet individuals placed under the foot of Jesus. Right? Our heart should not be when we encounter someone who's mean, nasty, anti-Christian, doesn't have any time for us. You know, our heart posture ought not to be, you know, I can't wait for Jesus to come with a sword coming from his mouth and to chop your head off. I can't wait for that. That's gonna be great. You're gonna get yours in the end. That's not, you know, scripture doesn't cultivate that heart attitude in us, and yet it does present that picture for us to know that in the end justice will prevail. So, what do we desire? How do we act toward these people who are our enemies in the world? We earnestly seek their repentance, we seek their conversion, we pray for them, we pray for those who persecute us. I think that's in the Bible somewhere, right? All right, we we do that and we desire that, we earnestly desire that. And yet at the same time, we have the comfort and assurance to know that if that doesn't happen, if their hearts and souls are not subdued, their bodies will be. And in the end, they will no longer be given license to hurt the people of God or to fight back the kingdom of God as they do now. And that's that's a part of our eschatological hope. We can argue about the timing about when Jesus comes and all that sort of stuff, but at the end of the day, Jesus comes and Jesus wins. And if Jesus wins, that means there's no more enemies. And if there's no more enemies, it's heaven. I mean, imagine the garden if the serpent weren't there. Alright, any any questions or comments before we wrap it up? Alright, let's pray. Lord, thank you for our eschatological hope. That we look forward to a king in his kingdom, where we will be glad subjects and citizens, where we will enjoy a perfectly righteous, perfectly benevolent reign, something that no human society has ever seen. We've only known kings who have been uh deficient because of their sin and their own finitude. And Lord, we look forward to getting to see the perfect king who has no limitations, who has no sin, in whom there is no darkness whatsoever, who we can worship without hesitation, who we can follow without reservation, who we can love and serve not because we have to, not because we're afraid of him, but because we genuinely do love him as a response to the love with which he first loved us. So help us, Lord, to look to our King Jesus and hope. Help us to live now as citizens of both heaven and earth. Help us to love our enemies well, help us to submit well to the authorities that you have placed in your own sovereign wisdom here in the civil spirit. And Lord, help us to serve our neighbors well and to love well as an anticipation of this coming kingdom so that we can show it forth in the way we live here today. Be with us this morning as we worship. Lord, fix our eyes on Jesus. It's in his name that we pray. Amen.

SPEAKER_05 53:49

Amen.

SPEAKER_02 53:56

Where did the clipboard end up?