Today we will be thinking about what is perhaps the most important Christian doctrine. (The word ‘doctrine’ refers to those bodies of truths that make up the content of our faith. For example, the Bible reveals a number of things that are true concerning the Church. Those truths together make up what we would call the doctrine of the Church. We have the doctrine of angels, the doctrine of sin, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, and so on.)
In the past couple of weeks we have turned to the doctrine of Christ, first his deity, then his humanity. Now we turn to the work of Christ: what he does. It is this doctrine that is of greatest importance to us, in the sense that the doctrine of the work of Christ has the most direct bearing on our lives. Let me put it another way: All other doctrines (the doctrines of the Holy Spirit, the Bible, sin, heaven, God the Father, who Jesus is) intersect our lives and become not just theory but real, and that point of intersection is this doctrine of the work of Christ. It is through the work of Christ that Christian doctrine has any meaning for us at all.
What is unusual, though, is that this doctrine is almost universally misunderstood. Not many of us understand what Christ came to do.
If we were asked this question: ‘What did Jesus Christ come to earth to do?’, most of us would answer: ‘He came to die on the cross for the sins of the world.’
That is true in and of itself, but it is not the right (certainly not the complete) answer to the question: What did Jesus come to earth to do?
The work of Christ is this: Christ established God’s kingdom on earth. Our participation in that kingdom is, in every way, the best life.
The Kingdom of God is the rule of God. The Kingdom of God is present whenever and wherever God’s values are lived, God’s will is done, God’s character is honored. When light comes and darkness is pushed back, there is God’s Kingdom. Where evil is thwarted and righteousness prevails, there is God’s Kingdom.
See, for thousands of years, the history of humanity has been the history of a kingdom at odds with God, the kingdom of the world. It had been a kingdom with puppet rulers called ‘self’ (but under the ultimate lordship of the one the Bible calls ‘the god of this age’: Satan). The marks of that kingdom were war, godlessness, spiritual darkness, fear, and selfish ambition.
Even when God chose a nation of people to be His own people, they refused him and preferred darkness over light. He delivered them out of slavery and they grumbled and wanted to go back to it. He made a covenant with them when they accepted his good Law, but they forgot him and did what was right in their own eyes. Later, he brought them out of exile and they reduced their relationship with him to a cold, sterile, and empty religious ritual.
Except for a few shining individuals, all of humanity, even God’s own people, had proved unwilling and unable to experience God’s kingdom.
Then Jesus came, and in Jesus of Nazareth, the Kingdom of God was established on earth and became available for all people to live in.
Everything that Jesus did – not just His death – but His entire life and ministry brought the Kingdom of God to earth, to humanity. Jesus Himself put it a number of different ways. He said, ‘I came to give me life as a ransom for many’, ‘I came to seek and save the lost’, ‘I came that they might have life’, ‘I came to do the will of my Father’, and so on. But in all of these things, the theme is that Jesus came to bring to earth God’s kingdom.
The Church has traditionally understood Christ’s work according to his three offices. That is, as Messiah (Hebrew) or Christ (Greek) both of which mean ‘anointed one’, Christians have understood Jesus to have been anointed or commissioned to three offices: he is Prophet, he is Priest, and he is King.
But I’d like to follow the lead of Millard Erickson, who in his theological textbook called Christian Doctrine, discusses the facets of Christ’s work under different categories, each beginning with ‘R’.
The first facet of Christ’s work is his role as revealer. This corresponds to his office as prophet.
A prophet did not only foretell the future, but a prophet spoke the words of God to the people: words of love, of warning, of judgment, of hope, of command, and so on.
Jesus was a prophet. He referred to himself as a prophet. When he responded to the criticism of the people of Nazareth, he said, ‘Only in his hometown and in his own house is a prophet without honor’.
The people considered him a prophet, ‘powerful in word and deed’, according to Luke 24:19.
But Jesus was not only a prophet, Jesus was the Prophet. The Jewish expectation was for a Messianic figure called ‘the Prophet’. This hope arose from Moses’ prophecy in Deuteronomy 18: ‘The LORD will raise up for you a prophet like me.’ (Remember how the people asked John the Baptist: ‘Are you the Prophet?’) Peter in Acts 3:22 identifies Jesus with Moses’ prophecy. Jesus was the consummate prophet.
But he was more than that too. He was the revealer, He not only spoke the words of God, he revealed God Himself. Hebrews 1 says, ‘The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being.’ ‘He is the image of the invisible God’, says Colossians 1. And in John chapter 1 these wonderful words: ‘No one has ever seen God but God the one and only Son has made Him known.’
The high and holy God, so distant, so out of reach, suddenly he walked among the people. They could touch him, talk to him, watch Him, and as they spent time interacting with Jesus, they experienced what God was like.
When Jesus touched a leper, wept at a funeral, welcomed and blessed little children, he revealed God’s tenderness and compassion.
When he blasted the self-righteous religious people, he revealed a God who is not put off by show, but is deeply concerned with the heart and character of His people.
When he prayed for the forgiveness of His murderers, he revealed God’s mercy.
When he preached, healed, exorcize demons, spent hours in prayer, and taught, in all these things he was opening the window on God and showing us God.
One of the facets of Christ’s work was to reveal God.
He did this supremely on the cross. On the cross we see the wrath of God, his hatred of sin, and his judgment against sin. We see just how deeply our selfish thoughts and actions offend his holiness. But on the cross, too, we see the depth of God’s love and mercy: that he would surrender his own Son unto death in order to reconcile us to himself.
Christ is the revealer of God.
The second facet of Christ’s work is that he is the reconciler.
A part of that concerns his office as priest. Hebrews chapters 5,7, and 8 devote themselves to this theme: that Christ acts as a mediator, or intercessor, between man and God.
But Jesus was not only a priest, Christ is himself the sacrifice, and it was by his own death on the cross, in our place, that people can be reconciled to God.
Let us take a few moments to outline what Christ’s work as reconciler means for us, by considering some of the pictures the Bible uses to convey that truth.
We know that somehow our sins have created a huge problem for us, and that because of our sins, things between us and God are not right. There is no place for us in his kingdom, because his kingdom is goodness and perfection and purity, and we are sinful, corrupted and tarnished. And we know that somehow Jesus took care of the problem of sin. But that truth is so deep, so profound, that there are no words to lay it out for us. We can’t state it in a sentence or two and have us go: ‘O.K. I get it.’ Even the Bible doesn’t attempt it.
What the Bible does is paint some pictures for us, and as we see those pictures, or metaphors, then we begin to understand the nature of the problem, and the astonishing mercy behind God’s solution in Christ. The Bible uses metaphors to describe how Jesus’ death reversed the effects of sin. Briefly considering these metaphors or pictures, will bring into focus the work of Christ as reconciler.
In the legal arena of the courtroom, we are guilty of sin. Jesus took our punishment and now God treats us as if we were innocent. This is what is meant by ‘justification’. But even the ‘calling card’ of the Reformation (‘Justification by faith!’) is incomplete.
In the metaphor of life and death, we were dead in sin. Jesus came to bring life (abundant!) to us. This is regeneration.
In the metaphor of relationships, we were enemies of God but he, in Christ, reconciled us to himself and we have the right (!) to call ourselves ‘children of God’.
In the metaphor of cleanliness, our sins have made us unclean or dirty. Jesus has purified us from our sins. Our sins are like scarlet said the prophet Isaiah that God has made us ‘white as snow’.
In the metaphor of the marketplace, our sins have enslaved us. But Jesus paid the ransom and bought our freedom. This is what is meant by ‘redemption’.
In the metaphor of water, sin has left us thirsty, like plants in the desert. Jesus, the Living Water, has satisfied our thirst not only for a moment but for eternity.
So Christ established the Kingdom of God by reversing the effects of sin. By his death, he reconciled us to God, brought us into God’s kingdom.
God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, says Colossians 1.
Christ is the revealer. Christ the reconciler…
Third, Christ is the ruler. Part of his work, his role, his function, is as King.
We normally think of the Kingship of Christ as a future event, that he will reign over heaven and earth into eternity. But on earth, too, his own kingship was a theme throughout his life. When Gabriel announced Jesus’ birth to Mary, he said: He will be great and will be called the son of God. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.
The wise men recognized the significance of the star indicating the birth of The King of the Jews’.
By his miracles, he demonstrated his Kingship, his sovereign authority, over demons, diseases, over nature, even over death.
He was called, ‘Son of David’, a term that referred specifically to the kingly aspect of the Messiah’s identity.
After he miraculously fed the 5,000 with two fish and five loaves of bread, the people talked of crowning him political king.
His triumphal entry into Jerusalem on a donkey fulfilled Zechariah’s prophecy: ‘Behold, Jerusalem, your King comes to you, righteous, and having salvation. . . gentle, and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’
Wherever Jesus went, the reign of darkness was pushed back. Demons submitted, and God’s kingdom broke in. Diseases released their grip, and God’s kingdom touched bodies. Jesus’ teaching was with authority, and God’s kingdom was communicated. In Jesus the Kingship of God was reasserted on earth.
When Jesus died as our reconciler, the reign of sin was forever broken. We often think the world is getting worse and worse, more and more wicked, that sin is stronger, and to an extent that is true. But the reality is that since the cross, the power of sin has been weakening. The Kingdom of God has been forcefully advancing. You who are Christians are evidence of that. You have been brought from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. Sin has lost ground.
Colossians 2 says that on the cross, Jesus ‘disarmed the powers of darkness.’
One facet of Jesus’ work is that he is ruler, exercising divine authority and power over sin, darkness and all that is wrong in the world.
Jesus established God’s kingdom on earth, and he did so by work as Revealer, as Reconciler, and as Ruler. God’s Kingdom has been permanently established, and it is available for all people to live in even now.
Our participation in that Kingdom is, in every way, the best life. Here too, we often misunderstand. We typically think of our participation in God’s kingdom as a future thing, that heaven is God’s kingdom. But God’s kingdom is a present reality. ‘It’s in you’, Jesus said. And every moment of every day we make choices to participate in God’s kingdom, or not.
When we choose to honor my employer with a good day’s work, we are participating in the Kingdom of God.
When we choose to not speak the word of gossip, or unnecessary criticism, the Kingdom of God is there.
When we choose to sacrifice part of the comfort of our future for the sake of someone in need now, the Kingdom of God is there.
When we adjust our schedule so I can love my family better, or when we respond in kindness, not anger, or when we honor people of character, over beauty or skill, then the Kingdom of God is present. In each choice we make, we choose to (or not to) participate in God’s kingdom.
Participation in God’s kingdom is the very best life. It brings the most joy in this life. It elevates the better values of integrity, love, compassion, forgiveness, wisdom, and community over the lesser values of beauty, selfish ambition, fame, wealth, which are all fleeting. Participation in God’s kingdom holds out better hope for the future: eternity with God, not separated from Him.
Christ came to establish God’s kingdom on earth. That was his work, and everything he did was a part of that. Jesus is revealer, reconciler, and ruler of God and his kingdom. Our participation in that kingdom is, in every way, the very best possible life.
Amen.