Every week Christians gather around the world to worship the true God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Their songs and prayers ascend to heaven as incense, and God’s word and grace fall to the earth like thunder, lightning, and rain. God speaks, and his people answer. God blesses, and the saints are renewed. God judges, and the Church is vindicated. God appears in his glory, and the Body of Christ shines with reflected radiance.
What happens on Sundays in Christian churches cannot be understood merely by what we see with our eyes. In fact, many believers do not realize the supernatural event that they participate in every Lord’s Day. We walk in the midst of angels. We sing praise with saints who surround heaven’s throne. We are strengthened as the Spirit moves upon us and in us, arousing love, increasing faith, and deepening hope.
The Church does battle every Sunday against the world, the flesh, and the demons. The spiritual hosts of wickedness are arrayed against us, but they are vanquished through faith exercised in worship and obedience. We pray against the darkness, and those prayers become beams of light, penetrating dark spaces and frightening the fallen sons of God. We sing psalms, and the walls of the enemy’s stronghold crack and fall. The war is not over. In some ways it has just begun. But the victory is assured having been won by our Savior who destroyed sin and Death’s power from the inside.
The Church is Christ’s Bride, but it is also his Body. She is both the one whom he rescues and the hands and feet by which he makes war. The Church is a Dragon-Slayer, not passive, not effeminate, but embodying the risen and ascended Christ who lives, reigns, rules, and judges in and through his people. The Church sings war psalms because she is at war. She sings royal psalms because she serves the world’s true King.
The Church is an army, and worship is war. But the weapons of our warfare are not carnal or earthly. They are psalms and prayers, confession of sin and confession of faith, the word preached and believed and obeyed, the sacraments applied, the covenant lived in our homes and communities every day. When the Church forgets who she is, where she is, and what she is doing in worship, she becomes worldly, effeminate, passive, and ineffectual. But the spiritual reality persists. On the Lord’s Day God descends to meet with his people, and his Church ascends Mt. Zion. Prepare your heart with joy to meet the living God.
How many times have you faced an overwhelming and seemingly hopeless scenario, only to look back later and recognize the kind (though difficult) providence of God at work in that situation? Most of us have probably had moments in our lives that we imagined we could not endure, when despair had a death grip on our hearts, when sorrow and fear seemed certain to drown us. But God. The Lord is rich in mercy, and he promises to work all things together for the good of those who love him (Rom. 8:28), but that sovereign good does not always appear dramatically. In fact, sometimes we may miss it entirely. God is there, but as in the book of Esther, he stands hidden amid the shadows. Somehow we survive. Somehow we begin to breathe again and move on. We did not perceive the moment of rescue. We cannot put our finger on a sudden deliverance. We simply came to the moment of defeat and despair, and then the moment passed, and we were still alive.
When did you look back and realize you had survived? Was it the next time you faced an unwinnable trial or unendurable adversity? Did you think back to the last time you were in a similar situation and only then reflect on the fact that God had brought you safely through it, even though you took little notice at the time?
I was reflecting on this recently while lying awake worrying and praying in the middle of the night. It was almost a moment of deja vu, but this wasn’t a glitch in the Matrix. I realized I had prayed to the Lord in the midst of similar anguished anxiety, many times before, and often in the middle of the night. You’ve probably been there too. “It’s me again, Lord. I’m worried about something, and I’m not sure you can fix this one.” Because this new worry is so different from all those that came before, right? We are justified in our sin of unbelief because the Lord has only delivered us 7,327 times, and everyone knows it is the 7,328th that is the really hard one.
If we are lying awake at night praying in bed, it’s probably not because we are praying the psalms. Sometimes we may do that too, but more often those middle of the night prayers are both prompted and dominated by the worry and fear from which Christ’s victory and sovereign rule have set us free. But there we are again, doubting his ability to rescue us, returning to the slavery of fear that is so familiar to us because we wore its chain so long. Anxious prayer usually centers on my worries, fears, and concerns. Even if they are not about me, per se, but my wife, my children, my family, or brethren, those prayers still focus, in large part if not in whole, on the immediate crisis that drove sleep away and compelled fervent prayer.
There was a man in the first church I pastored who related to me the story of when he first spent an entire night in prayer. He had never attempted or thought to do so until his young daughter was injured and taken to the hospital where doctors worked to save her life. Her father found it easy to stay awake and pray all that night.
Personal prayers in times of crisis are good and appropriate, a means of grace for battling doubt and fear. It is right that we pray earnestly, even if fearfully, because even when we are sinfully anxious, praying about it is an act of obedience to God. Such prayer confesses that I am a sinner who cannot cope with or carry this burden of sorrow. I cannot withstand the temptation to doubt in such cases, so we pray, “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief!”
Our prayers in the midst of crisis are important, but they ought to arise within the larger context of a life devoted to prayer. If the only time we pray is when we are fearful, we will find our prayers weak, and we may discover little comfort in them. This is when we open the Psalter, retrieving lines from our memories if praying in a dark bedroom, or stumbling downstairs and opening the prayer book of King Jesus, reading, singing, and praying God’s word and promises back to him. Suddenly we discover that our fears and trials are nothing new. No temptation has overtaken you except such as in common to man. God’s people have been here before, and we are praying with them. It is not only my children who need God’s gracious intervention; it is God’s children in India, Eritrea, North Korea, Sudan, and Canada. I am neither the first nor the last nor the only one at this present time who faces a seemingly unbearable situation. I am praying with the saints throughout the world. We are interceding for each other: I for them, and they for me, even if we have never met and do not know each other’s names.
These prayers in private crisis grow out of lives of ordinary, everyday prayer. Morning and evening sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving, confession and intercession, supplication and meditation on God’s word, works, and wonder. On the Lord’s Day God summons his people to worship in order that he might bless us. Together the Church offers her prayers to the Father in the Name of the Son with the help of the Holy Spirit. God knows the needs of every individual. He heard your prayers at midnight and the deep and unutterable cries within your heart even now. But now we are not praying alone in our bed or closet. The Church has gathered and entered the Holy Place. Together with one voice we cry: “Lord, hear our prayer!” And he does. And he will. Not just our prayers on Sunday. Not just our prayers at the family dinner table. Not just our prayers in the middle of the night. Our faithful God hears all of them, and accepts them, not because we are righteous in ourselves. We are the doubters and unbelievers who imagine this hardship will be different. Maybe the Lord won’t show up this time around. But he always has. He always will. He is patient with us, even though we are often impatient with him.
It takes faith to see God’s faithfulness in our lives, and perhaps that is why we so often fail to perceive it. The same lack of faith that fills us with fear and despair in crisis makes us unable to recognize the quiet but powerful providence that has delivered us time and time again. Those prayers in the middle of the night are a means of grace. They change the world and events in our lives, to be sure, but they change us most of all. Someone once said we cannot pray one way and live another for very long. So as we confess our fears and doubts and beg God for mercy once again, his Spirit strengthens us, enabling us to see the past providence that we had overlooked or forgotten and assuring us that the Lord will be near us this time as well. I will never leave you nor forsake you. This is God’s promise, so we can continue to pray with boldness, even in the midst of anxiety, and be confident that he will hear and, once again, come to bless us.
The Christian does not discover his election by means of rigorous introspection. He finds it in the experience of faith and obedience as a baptized member of the Church. Peter said, “Be even more diligent to make your call and election sure” (2Pet. 1:10). Do you know that you were chosen by God for salvation before the foundation of the world? Are you sure? How can you be? Maybe your recurring temptations, frequent weakness of faith, and besetting sins are an indication that you were not chosen by God, are not born from above, and will not be acknowledged by Christ on the last day. How can you have assurance of grace when you fail so often and so miserably, and if you think you do not, how could anyone so arrogant imagine they are saved? Assurance may be theoretically possible, but a truly humble Christian would know it is practically impossible. In fact, to claim to have assurance of salvation would be presumptuous, right?
Just in case you lost the thread above, the position that assurance of salvation is presumptuous was an argument the Roman Church made against the Protestant Reformers. Contrary to this faux humility, the Westminster Confession boldly affirms: “such as truly believe in the Lord Jesus, and love him in sincerity, endeavoring to walk in all good conscience before him, may, in this life, be certainly assured that they are in the state of grace” (18.1) and that with an “infallible assurance” (18.3). Will there be hypocrites who are self-deceived? Of course, but they are not the ones who agonize over their salvation and doubt their possession of grace for grief over their sins. Only born again people do that, because Jesus takes all the fun out of sin. Hypocrites are still able to enjoy their rebellion, at least, for a time, but the believer feels overwhelming guilt and shame over his transgressions, overwhelming but for God’s mercy.
Look again at Peter’s exhortation to “make your call and election sure.” How do we do so? By a Protestant version of penance and self-flagellation? No, by exercising our faith in obedience and growth in grace. After reminding the brethren that God’s power has given to us “all things that pertain to life and godliness” and “exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature” (2Pet. 1:3-4), the apostle then enjoins us: “for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love” (2Pet. 1:5-7). Then Peter thunders:
For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins. Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. (2Pet. 1:8-11)
Christian, you have been baptized in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You belong to your faithful Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. You have died with Christ and been raised with him. You no longer live for yourself; you live for the One who died for you and rose again. These are objective truths, not subjective maybes. Live in light of your covenant status and of what God says you are in Christ.
The Lord’s eternal decree with regard to your soul and mine is inaccessible. You cannot look into the Book of Life, nor can I. We perceive his electing grace by its persevering work within us. We gain assurance through the means of grace, the Word of God—as he is read, heard, learned, embraced, prayed, sung, eaten, and obeyed. “Make your call and election sure.” How? By believing in Jesus, and disbelieving the idols in which men trust. By repenting of your sins, but never of your decision to follow Jesus. By loving your wife, children, brethren, neighbor, and enemy, and laboring in prayer that the blessings of heaven might be poured upon them. By taking dominion in the Name of Christ: building, planting, watering, working, and waiting without growing weary in well-doing. By going to Church and being the Church: singing, confessing, praying, heeding, and rejoicing as the elect person you are.The Christian does not discover his election unto salvation by means of rigorous introspection. He finds it by faith, in the exercise of obedience, as a member of the covenant. Assurance does not come in a flash of prophetic insight at a moment in time, but every day in the disciple’s prayer and practice: Thy will be done, on earth, and in my life, as it is in heaven.
J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings is a work of Christian imagination structured and permeated by a biblical worldview that will ensure that series of books endures for many generations as a true classic. Many books and essays have been written over the years discussing the Christian worldview in the Middle Earth trilogy. One of them, Donald William’s An Encouraging Thought, takes its title from Gandalf’s remark to Frodo in Chapter Two of Book I in The Fellowship of the Ring:
“Behind that there was something else at work, beyond any design of the Ring-maker. I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its maker. In which case you also were meant to have it. And that may be an encouraging thought.”
Tolkien was a devout Roman Catholic and inarguably my second favorite papist next only to Chesterton. If you asked Tolkien whether he was a Calvinist, no doubt he would have scoffed and denied it in an inimitably British sort of way. (I trust that Tolkien, Chesterton, and Calvin have made up their differences by now, and if not, will eventually do so in the dazzling brightness of the beatific vision.) Tolkien, like Chesterton, knew only the desiccated form of joyless puritanism, just as many of the Reformers saw the worst expressions of Roman sacerdotalism and reacted, rightly, against it. But what Calvin, Chesterton, and Tolkien’s Middle Earth trilogy share is a cheerful vision of divine sovereignty.
Tolkien was not, self-consciously, a Calvinist. He was a Christian, and as such, he could not help but be Calvinistic when he thought of divine providence. Calvin was not self-consciously a Calvinist either, and he would probably be offended, dismayed, and inclined to righteous invective if he saw us using his name in such a sectarian way. What these men had in common, besides a genuine love and reverence for Christ, was a sense of the Maker’s grandeur. They served a God who is not only in charge but actively and irresistibly in control of all that is and ever will be. God’s sovereignty did not preclude Sauron’s wickedness, Saruman’s treachery, Gollum’s sin-induced insanity, Boromir’s idolatry, or Denethor’s despair. Yet over, above, behind, and around all of these actors on the stage stood the Maker, standing in the shadows, guiding the story “by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will… yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established” (WCF 3.1). Tolkien would not have appreciated me citing the Westminster Confession in interpreting the events of Middle Earth — he did not intend it to be an allegory, and it is not — but read Chapter 5 of the Confession on Providence and then try to explain that The Lord of the Rings is not an epic myth about the providence of God. You cannot do it, because that’s exactly what the Ring trilogy is.
It seems to me we need a wee bit less (by which I mean a whole lot less) theological sectarianism and a greater sense of the size, strength, and sovereignty of the God we serve. Reformed Christians have far more in common, in this regard, with traditional Roman Catholics like Tolkien and Chesterton than any of us have with the evangellyfish in our community and their worship leader who paints his fingernails. I say this not as someone who is less committed to the tenets of historic Calvinism but as someone who has become more convinced the longer he has been a self-conscious Calvinist that those tenets of divine sovereignty are simply biblical and christian and are shared, implicitly if not explicitly, to a greater or lesser degree, by all those who love Christ and take the word of God seriously. Tolkien was not a Calvinist, and one day when we all have died, none of us will be either. We will be simply followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, children of God, and brothers and sisters in his household.
The Enemy who forged the ring of power did not intend for it to fall into the hands of a hobbit from the Shire or to come into the possession of his nephew. Readers of the trilogy will remember that it was not the strength or goodness of either Frodo or Bilbo that saved the day in the end. It could not be. Both eventually fell under the ring’s power, but another hand not only guided but determined its destruction. It was the same hand who placed the ring in Bilbo’s palm inside a dark cavern and on a chain around Frodo’s neck on that long, cheerless journey to Mordor. It was One greater than Sauron and Saruman and Gollum and Wormtongue all combined. And it was this same power that led to the denouement, which happens not on Mt. Doom and in the destruction of Mordor but later in Book VI of The Return of the King when Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin return to their beloved Shire.
We serve a mighty God, the Maker of heaven and earth, Lord of creation, Master of history, Author of the Future, who holds eternity in his hand. Tolkien was a literary master, but he was only a sub-creator, as he himself admitted. What makes The Lord of the Rings true and timeless is not his creativity but the story’s resonance with biblical revelation. It reflects the glory, power, and wisdom of the true Myth-Maker, the God who wrote the story of cosmological history, and whose breath gave us life as characters on that stage.
C. S. Lewis wrote about the “deeper magic” in The Chronicles of Narnia. The idea first appears in the first book of the series, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. There, immediately after Aslan’s resurrection, the Great Lion explains that the Witch’s apparent triumph was destined to fail because, although she knew and could use some magic, “there is a magic deeper still which she did not know” since “her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of Time.” Lewis is contrasting the demonic powers of this age with the eternal power that belongs to God alone. Evil may seem to gain the upper hand, and it certainly appeared so to the disciples immediately after Jesus’ death on the cross, but there is a “deeper magic” which stretches back beyond time, before the foundation of the world, when God chose a people to save by the sacrifice of his Son.
I suppose I am at risk of alienating some of you since I have been informed by more than one Reformed brother that discussions of “magic,” in general, and Lewis’s horrid allegory, in particular, are incompatible with a biblical, orthodox, and Reformed understanding of the faith. I do not wish to offend or quarrel with any of my brethren, I would only point out that their antipathy is not the result of a pre-modern, biblical worldview but actually is the influence of “very up-to-date and advanced people” who wear “a special kind of underclothes.” Modernists, like Eustace Clarence Scrubb, can be saved, but their salvation will involve not only the forgiveness of their priggishness but also the restoration of their imagination. But I digress.
Other authors have addressed the question of weekly communion here at Kuyperian Commentary before, including Pastor Uri Brito earlier this year. I do not presume to improve upon their work but would like to add a few thoughts in arguing for the Church’s weekly celebration of the Eucharist.
An increasing number of Reformed churches are embracing weekly communion at the Lord’s Table. This is a good thing, in my judgment, and a more consistent expression of our Reformed heritage and the desire to be always reforming in light of Scripture. But this is very different from what many Christians are accustomed to. Many evangelical Baptist and Reformed congregations have never eaten the Supper weekly. It is only celebrated infrequently in many Presbyterian churches and not without prior warnings and extensive preparation by the members of the congregation. On what basis is the weekly observance of the Lord’s Supper to be advocated?
There is no question that the early Church partook of the Supper every first day of the week. The historical evidence is beyond dispute. The Didache, written between A.D. 50-150, provides explicit evidence of the Church’s weekly communion.
But every Lord’s day do ye gather yourselves together, and break bread, and give thanksgiving after having confessed your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure. But let no one that is at variance with his fellow come together with you, until they be reconciled, that your sacrifice may not be profaned. For this is that which was spoken by the Lord: In every place and time offer to me a pure sacrifice; for I am a great King, saith the Lord, and my name is wonderful among the nations.
Self-destructive. I don’t know a better way to describe our nation’s current policies, governing ideology, and trajectory. There are many other words we could use to describe it: stupid, demonic, wicked, unbiblical, harmful, corrosive, etc., but self-destructive is as good as any of them. There seems little doubt that if the United States remains on its present course, it will permanently and irreparably undermine every good thing our country has enjoyed as well as its long-term prospects for liberty, prosperity, and survival.
I say all of this as someone who in the last few years has slowly, and rather timidly, admitted to becoming a postmillennialist. Some may hope the bleakness of the prior paragraph might dampen my foolish cheerfulness and make me a more sober, godly, and dour amillennialist once again. Thus far the cheerlessness of America’s condition seems ineffectual in correcting my theology. Maybe a few months in a concentration camp for refusing to use feminine pronouns for God will snap me back into a more realistic appraisal of the powerlessness of the gospel. (I jest… but not about my refusal to use alternative pronouns.)
This might be an appropriate moment to remind each other that the future of God’s kingdom, Christ’s conquest of the world, and the glorious consummation of redemption and history does not depend on these United States or the United State she is becoming. As much as we can (and should) love our nation, America is not the new Israel, she is not the last hope for liberty in the West, she is not the location of the Church’s last stand before the Angelic Air Force sends in the stealth helicopters and airlifts us all to safety before the Tribulation gets underway. America has been, and may yet be, God willing, a great nation, one founded on Christian principles, committed to broadly (though very imperfectly formed) biblical laws, and generous to her citizens and neighbors. But she is just a nation, a political entity founded by men, governed by men, and lately run into the ground by men. Our best leaders have only been men at best, and some of our favorites had a rather sketchy commitment to Christ and consistent Christian governance. Even the most conservative were more than a little compromised in the areas of faith, knowledge of God, and moral conduct.
I wrote this originally for our church’s weekly, Lord’s Day Eve devotional, but what does all of this have to do with the Lord’s Day? Nothing in particular, and everything. We do not gather on the Lord’s Day as Americans, per se, but as Christians, first, foremost, and fundamentally. But we are also Christians who belong to particular nations, and we ought to love, pray for, and grieve for our nation insofar as it is disobedient to God’s Son. The Lord’s Day is not about the nation, the flag, or current policy debates. It is a day of celebration, declaration, and demonstration that Christ is Lord and King. We are not separated from our social, national, and ethnic identity in worship, but neither do those historical features define us. The Church worships in the context of a higher, eternal fraternity that transcends every temporal social marker. My neighbor may be a combat veteran who gave sweat and blood for our country, and I am grateful for his service. But the Lord’s Day is a reminder that I have more in common with my brother in Christ in Afghanistan than I do with a fellow American who refuses to worship the Lord.
Some of us may get a little too wound up about the current state of affairs—though some of you are a wee bit too lackadaisical about it—but the Lord’s Day is a solemn, sovereign, spiritual reset that reorients our vision and values and reminds us of what is true and lasting. The West’s current madness is neither. It is not true, and it will not last. But the Church will, Christ’s kingdom will, the gospel will, Christian families will, the word of God will, faithful preaching will, and the plan of God ordained before the first day began will.
Our hope is in the Lord. There are no political solutions for spiritual problems. Electing conservative leaders is a good idea, akin to putting pressure on an arterial wound. It’s a good idea, but it’s not solving anything. What will? Preaching the gospel. Preaching God’s Word, the whole counsel, not just the “how to get saved” parts but everything, including Christ’s Lordship over all the nations and God’s plan for righteous government. Baptizing your children, catechizing them, teaching them to sing the Psalms and to say, “Amen!” when we pray, and training them how to live as Christians and showing them the way by your example. These are the things that God’s people must do, not just in this nation but in every nation, on the Lord’s Day and every day so long as we live in this world.
The kingdoms of men are temporal, not eternal. Wicked governance will not last, because the future belongs to Christ. He will shake every kingdom that can be shaken until only the unshakable remains. Build your house—your heart, your habits, your household, your hope—on the Rock. Don’t forsake the gathering of the Church, and don’t show up for weekly assemblies but let your heart remain elsewhere. Come, sing, pray, confess, receive, listen, learn, love, and rejoice like you mean it, because Christ is King, and nothing can ever change or thwart his sovereign rule and the future he has planned for all of creation.
Darkness first appears in Scripture in relation to primordial chaos. All was dark when God made the world, but out of the darkness, God created light. Let there be, and there was. It was not merely dark before, the kind of darkness you have when the sun goes down. This was complete darkness, perfect darkness, because light did not exist in the world. There was no indirect lighting. It was not merely dim. It was darker than a cave when you journey underground and the guide turns off all the lights. Even there, light exists; it is simply too low for you to perceive it. But the world at the beginning of Genesis 1 was a world without any light at all. Until God spoke, the whole universe remained in perfect darkness.
The sun, moon, and stars are not the sources of light in the universe; God is. He is the light that shone on Day 1, long before the heavenly bodies were brought into existence on Day 4. The Word of God, the Logos, shines forth on Day 1: Let there be light, and the Word brought light into this world. The Son of God began to shine, and order began to appear in the universe. God’s Son, the Word, is the light of the world. The sun in our sky is only his representative, a placeholder to remind us of the true Son who gives light to the world. The sun is a creational symbol of the uncreated God who is, himself, the source of light and life.
In the Bible darkness represents disorder, ignorance, and estrangement from light and life and truth. It is used to portray God’s wrath and just judgments. The enemies of the Lord live in darkness and will be condemned in the end to the outer darkness, but those who receive mercy and peace in Christ are brought from darkness into light, out of death into resurrection life, spared from wrath and given reason to rejoice forever.
The Creator built a resurrection sign into the rhythm of every day. Every morning, light dawns, awaking the world from the slumber of death. Every night, the world dies and descends into darkness, awaiting the voice of the Maker who the next day will once again say: Let there be…. The heavens declare the glory of God, and so too they declare the gospel. Yahweh has brought light to the darkness, life to the dead, and gladness to the sorrowful. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.
We do not perceive the gospel presentation painted across the screen of the sky every day because we all took science classes in school and are too smart to believe in such absurdities. We learned about the rotation of the earth and its orbit around the sun. We understand the sun doesn’t really “rise” and “set.” It is only our perception of a mechanical process, created by God, to be sure, but of no more theological significance than the metamorphosis of a butterfly. Ahem. We have learned so much that we have become useful idiots, promoting the propaganda of a godless Darwinism while missing the creational ritual being performed before our eyes every day. The rising and setting of the sun is a play—like a Bridegroom coming out of his chamber… rejoicing like a strong man to run its race. Are you watching closely? It is so familiar you may miss it.
The Son of God, the Logos, is the light of the world. It is true in Genesis 1; it is affirmed again in John 1. He comes to bring light and life and truth to this world, but then like the sun, he passes out of sight and into darkness. He descends into the ground, just as the sun does every night, buried beneath the horizon, and the world lies in darkness. The light of the world dies, and creation sleeps in death, awaiting the Word to speak in the darkness once more: Let there be….
Commentators tell us of a solar eclipse that accompanied the crucifixion of Christ two thousand years ago. Maybe that is how the Lord did it. However it happened, the Lord turned out the lights in the land of Israel just as he had done in Egypt many years before. This is not a piece of fiction. As Jesus hung on the cross, darkness covered the land. It was not the perfect darkness of Genesis 1 nor the paralyzing darkness of the plagues on Egypt. It was the darkness of a setting sun, the twilight in which one can still see but only dimly, and it happened in the middle of the day.
Wrath had come upon the Son, to be sure. He was suffering, for our sakes, the penalty of our sins. By his stripes, we are healed, and he had to be struck so that we might be delivered. But the darkness is not merely wrath. It is death anticipating new creation. The old world is dying on that cross. The Law is nailed there with Jesus. The Mosaic system is coming to an end, and a new creation is about to appear. The resurrection would take place on the 8th day, Sunday, the first day of a new creation week, the day when the Son rose from the earth, when the Word of God, the Logos, once again cried out in the darkness: Let there be light, and behold, there is light.
We now live in the new creation, though its fullness is not yet seen. The light has appeared, and God is now working to put the new world in order. The sun is up, if we have eyes to see. The day has dawned. Life has begun anew, new and everlasting life with God in the heart of every believer, and new life to be realized on the day of redemption when Jesus sets creation free from the curse of sin under which it has suffered for so long.The sun set on Calvary that day, but it set in order to rise again. Each day reenacts the Gospel story. Faith enables us to see it for what it is. God is reminding us of our history, he is preaching to us about our future, and he is fixing our minds on Christ, the eternal Son, the Logos, whose voice has cried out in the darkness of our hearts and caused light to appear. Amen.
Marriage is an act of death and resurrection. It will not be surprising to many worldlings that marriage is a type of death. There is no shortage of jokes that have been made to illustrate that point. But in the Bible, death is always followed by resurrection, judgment gives birth to salvation, and the inglorious and perishable is transformed into glory and imperishability. So it is with marriage.
The man who comes to be married must first die. He must fall asleep, the kind of sleep from which he will never awake on his own—he must be awakened, raised, by the Lord. In order to be married, he must first be broken, broken open, torn apart, so that from brokenness, new wholeness may be created. Marriage does not involve the union of two individuals. It is a new creation, a covenantal unity in which those who were formerly two are now one by grace.
Adam was given two responsibilities as the lord of creation. He was to tend and guard the garden. Work is not a result of the Fall; it is a creational ordinance. God made man to work, and man will never be happy or fulfilled so long as he remains idle. He was made to care for the garden, to prune the trees, gather the fruit, plant seedlings, fertilize, weed, and extend the bounty and beauty of the garden to transform the surrounding wilderness. The trajectory of creation was not for the garden to remain an isolated oasis and for the rest of the world to remain untamed wild lands. Adam was to follow his Maker’s example as a sub-creator. Just as rivers went out of the garden, so life and abundance were to extend beyond the garden as well. The wilderness would become a garden, the garden would become a city, the family would become a nation, then many nations, until the glory of God covers the face of the earth as the water covers the sea.
God put Adam in the garden as a warrior caretaker, but the Lord saw immediately that Adam could not fulfill his task alone. He needed a helper, one suited for his need and mission. Adam could master the animals. He could make yokes and harnesses for the oxen and horses. He could fell timber, pull out stumps, and plow new fields for orchards using animals already at hand. What he needed was something no horse or ox or dog could give him. He needed a companion, a fellow image bearer with whom he could share intimacy and fellowship, with whom he could bear children—be fruitful and multiply—and raise successive generations to carry on and finally finish the mission the Lord gave to humanity. It is not good for man to be alone. The creation mandate cannot be fulfilled in isolation. Some are called to singleness, but that is not the pattern for mankind. Singleness can never fulfill the creation mandate. Only covenanted households building the kingdom of God through childbearing, discipleship, and sanctified labor can.
Adam’s need could not be met by any of the beings created thus far. They all belonged to different kinds, and what Adam needed was someone like him with whom he could bring forth more divine image bearers after his own kind. He needed a wife, but in order to have a wife, Adam first had to die.
This might seem a little extreme. After all, Adam was still less than one day old. The 6th day hadn’t come to an end yet. His life had barely started. He hadn’t even put in a full day’s work, and already the Lord says it is over. Adam could not do what had to be done next. Man is only a sub-creator, and what was needed was the sovereign action of the true Creator. So the Lord put Adam to sleep, but not for a nap—he put him into deep sleep. How asleep would you have to be for me to cut your chest open, remove a rib with a saw, and sew the muscles and skin back together without disturbing you? The Lord put Adam to sleep and then broke him. His flesh was torn open, his body was divided, and out of that division, God created new unity.
This is the pattern throughout the Bible. Years later at the Tower of Babel Yahweh spoke a curse, broke humanity, divided the people, and then from that division, created new unity in the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost. On the cross Jesus’ side was pierced, his body was torn open, blood and water poured out, the elements of cleansing and consecration, covenant and communion, and from division, God created new unity. The two shall become one flesh. In the holy Supper, bread is blessed, broken, and divided, and by that division of Christ’s Body, we who are the Body are united. Christ’s Bride comes from his side, just like Adam’s. And he sanctifies and cleanses her, just as husbands are commanded to do to this very day.
In Ephesians 5 the apostle Paul gives us a lesson in ecclesiology, the doctrine of the Church, by using the analogy of marriage.
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. (EPhesians 5:22-33)
Marriage is a covenantal analogy of Christ’s relationship to his Bride. Marriage is the type, the shadow, and Christ’s relationship with the Church is the fulfillment, the substance. That does not make our marriages less important; it makes them far more important than they otherwise would be. Our society views marriage as an arrangement of convenience, and when it ceases to be convenient or to contribute to personal happiness, it can be easily discarded. But the Bible says marriage is a picture of salvation. We are not saved by being married. If anything, we may see our sin with greater clarity in our relationship with our spouse! But marriage works the same way salvation does—by grace through faith, by sacrifice and service, by perpetual cleansing and consecration, by love and loyalty—and it helps us understand salvation better than we otherwise could.
Jonathan and Gillianne, you already know this, but let me remind you, neither of you are marrying Jesus. Your spouse cannot be your Savior. You will not be able to do for each other what only Christ and the Holy Spirit can. But you are already united to Jesus. He gave himself for each of you. It was not good for you to be alone, and your need will not ultimately be fulfilled by each other—it will be met by your faithful Savior. The Church’s marriage to Christ is the marriage we all were made for.
Both of you are sinners, and you will need patience and grace to deal with each other and with yourselves for as long as you both shall live. Ultimately it is not your love for each other that will hold you together: it is the love of Christ that will do so, the love of the Father poured out in your hearts by the Holy Spirit. Your marriage will not succeed by relying on your works. It will not flourish by insisting on your own righteousness. You must rely on Christ, on his righteousness, on his work. The gospel is not merely for your sins; it is for your relationship with your spouse. Christ is Lord of all, including your life together.
Now to say that marriage will not save you is not to say that it is devoid of spiritual value. It may not be ultimate, but it is certainly instrumental. God works through means, and marriage is a means of bringing God’s people to greater faith, humility, holiness, and joy. The Lord is bringing wholeness out of your brokenness. He is helping you to know his love more deeply by learning how to love and to be loved by each other. He will show you your sins more clearly in the context of marriage: your pride, selfishness, pettiness, impatience, resentment, and the evils of squeezing the toothpaste tube in the middle… or insisting that it is only properly squeezed from the bottom, the way we will do it in the new heavens and earth. And in the discovery of your sinfulness, you will more clearly perceive, deeply love, and fully enjoy Christ Jesus, your Lord and Savior. Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, he was buried, and he rose the third day so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. God has called you to joy in Christ, to wholeness from brokenness, to life from death, and to glory.
Jonathan, to receive a bride, you must die. You cannot remain who and what you have been any longer. You are no longer a single, solitary person. You are now a public person, a head of household, a warrior caretaker, a man charged to love and serve his wife in the same manner Christ has loved and serves his own. That means you not only die once here today as the Lord presents Gillianne to you. You must die daily, sacrificing yourself for her, giving your life for hers. She is your glory, and you must be torn for that glory to shine forth.
Gillianne, the Lord is crowning Jonathan with glory and beauty by giving you to him. You are the radiance of his life and his companion in mission. He is incapable of fulfilling God’s will alone. Sometimes, like his father Adam, he will be cowardly and selfish, resentful and quick to criticize. The Lord will rebuke him, correct him, and help him to grow to maturity, just as he will do with you. Sometimes, like your mother Eve, you may be a stumbling block to him. You will sin together, repent together, grow together, and glorify God together.
Who is sufficient for these things? None of us are. And it is in realizing our insufficiency, that we learn to see the sufficiency of our Savior. May you see God’s grace of new creation working wholeness from the brokenness by which he joined you together.
Plutarch reports that Alexander the Great slept with a copy of Homer’s Iliad and a dagger under his pillow. Whether this is historically accurate or not—and I have no good reason to doubt it—it illustrates an important feature of “great men.” They love learning, they pursue strength, and they always keep the instruments of virtue and success close at hand. Alexander was, undoubtedly, a “great man” by the world’s measure, though he was not “great” according to the standards of the kingdom of God. We might say he was a “son of this world” who proved shrewder than many of the “sons of light” (cf. Luke 16:1-13). Alexander understood his place in the world by continually meditating upon a story that communicated the worldview, values, and goals by which he sought to live his life.
Human beings learn who and what we are, why we’re here, and what we’re supposed to do through stories. It’s always been this way. Virtually every human civilization has communicated worldview, values, and goals by means of story. They may have been oral traditions, written legends, or epic poetry, but the story encodes what members of the society are supposed to know, believe, and practice.
The Scriptures characterize our lives as a “story” God wrote in a book before the first day began (Ps. 139:16). The Church gathers to worship on the Lord’s Day, in part, to hear again, share, and celebrate the stories of creation and redemption. The Nicene Creed is the recitation of a story, the story of the true hero, the Christ, who came into the world to slay the Dragon, save his Bride, and establish a kingdom which will last forever. The Table is a ritual commemoration of the story, a reenactment of the Last Supper, a foreshadowing of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, and a place where God’s family gathers to laugh and sing, to remember and anticipate, the glorious consummation of the story God wrote before the first day.
Stories are important in the Christian life, first and foremost the Scriptures themselves, but also the stories (both historical and mythological) that help us understand our place and purpose and part in this world. I have often suggested The Pilgrim’s Progress is the “Christian Iliad/Odyssey” that ought to lie under our pillow at night. It is the Church’s myth that we ought to read again and again throughout our lives. I read it once every year, but Spurgeon reportedly read it more than 100 times. I don’t expect I’ll even come close to that number. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia and The Ransom Trilogy are also helpful tales which serve a similar purpose in communicating worldview and a righteous perspective. The Iliad and The Odyssey are, rightly, regarded as masterpieces, and their narratives may be profitably sanctified and re-purposed for use in the Christian’s battlefield tour, even if there is a good bit of transformation that must occur in the adaptation. Many other titles could also be named that may serve a similar purpose in our sanctification and journey in grace.
Stories are not merely meant to be read; they are to be lived. We are characters in the tale which God has written, and we find our place in it by remembering, reciting, and ritually engaging narratives of redemption that have been left to us by our forefathers. Every Lord’s Day is like a visit to the House of the Interpreter, where our hearts are refreshed, our minds instructed, and our hands and feet strengthened for the journey that lies before us. God’s children gather in the sanctuary and lift our hands to our Father asking him, “Tell us the story again.”
There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, ‘Mine!’Abraham Kuyper
