Word of Salvation – Vol.32 No.45 – December 1987
How Christ Makes Men Whole
Sermon by Rev. M. P. Geluk on Lord’s Day 12a
Reading: 1John 1:1-2:6; 2:18-29
Singing: Ps.H.120:2; Ps.H.120:3,4; Ps.H.384:1,2,3; Bow.8:2,5,7; Ps.H.286:3, 4
The Son of God is not only called Jesus which means “saviour” but He is also called Christ, and as every Catechism student should know, that means “anointed”. Jesus is the Lord’s personal name and Christ His official name. In the church we have the offices of minister, elder and deacon and sometimes we also speak of the office of evangelist. These are all official names. They indicate the kind of work a person has been called to do. The name Christ indicates that the Lord was called to do the work of salvation. He was anointed to be Christ. It means He was set apart to be a prophet, priest and king. In all these roles He worked out our salvation.
Lord’s Day 12 looks at Scripture’s teaching as regards Christ’s work as prophet, priest and king. It also goes on to spell out what the result of His saving work is. That is, in Question and Answer 31 it is explained why Jesus is called Christ and in Q.& A.32 it is explained why the believer is called a Christian. First it is shown how and why Christ is prophet, priest and king, and secondly, how and why we as Christians are also prophets, priests and kings. First, how Christ works out our salvation, secondly, how the Christians can show that they are saved.
Perhaps it is better not to deal with all of this in one sermon. So today we will give our attention to the work of Christ as He makes men whole, and next time we look at the result that follows when Christ makes men whole.
What we now deal with then is: How Christ Makes Men Whole.
1. By showing what is wrong with man.
2. By being Prophet, Priest and King.
- In the first place then we see Christ making men whole by showing what is wrong with man.
If we do not see what is wrong with man then there does not seem much point in learning from Christ how He makes men whole. Imagine an artist who has made a beautiful painting. It’s hanging in an art show and the artist is proud of his work and people are impressed with it. Overnight, however, there is a break-in and some vandals have splattered paint on the picture and it is ruined. The next day some people look at it not knowing that the painting is ruined, and they remark how real it is. They somehow see value in it. When the artist comes along, he has to explain that originally it looked completely different and he proceeds to take it down in order to restore it.
Now a lot of people look at the way people are now and the way the world is now and they think that what they see is normal. They may realise in time that many things are not quite what they should be but they do not know how things would be if all things were right. But God knows! As almighty Creator He made everything good, but sin entered and ruined His handiwork. And now in His Son Jesus Christ, God is busy restoring His creation to its original beauty.
A very important part in this work of restoration is God making men whole. Just like the painting was ruined by vandals splattering paint on it, so also is man ruined by sin. And like the artist, God wants to repair the damage done by sin. But many people look at the way man is now, and, not knowing how man was before sin came, they wonder what it is that needs changing. And if they do happen to agree that something needs changing then they have all different ideas and theories of how to go about it.
Take yourself. You must have asked yourself sometimes what kind of person you ought to be because you are not always happy with what you see in yourself. Or you have wondered how things would be it your wife or husband, your brother or sister, your friends, work-mates, were different. What is man really? What is the meaning of life? Is it like something I read the other day?
“Life is eating, drinking, mating, growing old, seeing the doctor, paying the bills, keeping going until we are finally let down into a hole, six by three feet.”
For some that’s all life is. It’s the same old routine every day, week, month and year. Many generations have gone before us but people are still asking about the meaning of life. Is man simply a product of nature, here today and gone tomorrow? What meaning is there to our existence? The preacher in Ecclesiastes spoke at length about how he examined everything under the sun and found it meaningless. Wisdom, pleasure, folly, toil, it was all meaningless he said.
Of course, people have tried to give meaning to life in many different ways. Eastern religions say that we must turn our thoughts inwards for it’s there, somewhere in our inner consciousness that we can unite with the consciousness of God, and then we will find the meaning to life. But the many hours of meditation that it needs to find this meaning are seen as a literal waste of time by western civilization. Time is precious and many things need doing. In fact, many feel that they don’t control time, time controls them. Man is like a product on the assembly line called life. First a lot of time is spent on training him, then he spends a longer time in producing things. Then when his span of usefulness is over, he is discarded and put into homes for the aged. Others feel that man will only find meaning in life when he is constantly aware of the changes going on around him. Society is seen to be continuously evolving into new behaviour patterns and new thought processes, and the key to life is to stay with it. To be with it is to be modern, to lag behind is to become old-fashioned.
Then there are those who feel that the meaning of life comes only to those who honestly face up to life’s failures and disappointments. Humanity is just one big mass of people into which thousands are born and from which thousands depart. In between birth and death people toil, sweat and struggle for life. Whilst they are doing this, they squabble, argue and fight. They scramble over each other for whatever advantage they can get. There are victories and defeats, vanities and humiliations, loves and hates, strengths and weaknesses, health and sicknesses. But the burden of age catches up with all and in the end ambitions are dead and life’s purpose is gone. The world was a place where you existed only for a while. In the end there is nothing. But not quite everyone is so pessimistic. In the advertising world and in the movie industry, a different image is projected on our T.V. screens and magazines. An image that is positive, eye-catching and breath-taking. Dr. Nederhood in one of his Back to God Hour sermons speaks about a magazine carrying an advertisement featuring a full-colour picture of a woman looking for a partner and describing herself as, “Luscious and looking divorced, 40, feminine, sexy, slender, 5’2″, athletic, successful, great cook, cuddler,” and a lot of other things that Dr. Nederhood was not prepared to mention. And what hope has the girl next door got who is just ordinary looking and works in the supermarket, compared with the beautiful blond? Dr. James Dobson says in one of his books: “The image of women now being depicted is a ridiculous combination of wide-eyed fantasy and feminist propaganda. Today’s woman is always shown as gorgeous, of course, but she is much-much more. She roars around the countryside in a racy sports car, while her male companion sits on the other side of the front seat anxiously biting his nails. She exudes self-confidence from the very tips of her fingers, and for good reason: she could dismantle any man alive with her karate chops and flying kicks to the teeth. She is deadly accurate with a pistol and she plays tennis like a pro. She speaks in perfectly organized sentences, as though her spontaneous remarks were being planned and written by a team of tiny English professors sitting in the back of her pretty head. She is a sexual gourmet, to be sure, but she wouldn’t be caught dead in a wedding ceremony. She has the grand good fortune of being perpetually young and she never becomes ill, nor does she ever make a mistake or appear foolish. In short, she is virtually omniscient, except for a curious inability to do anything traditionally feminine, such as cook, sew or raise children. Truly, today’s screen heroine is a remarkable specimen, standing proud and uncompromising, with a wide stance and hands on hips. Dobson then adds: “But she is unreal -·just as phony as the masculine superheroes played by Burt Reynolds and Roger Moore. It is sheer fantasy on either side of the line of gender.
But it is no wonder that people are confused about the meaning of life. With all these different and conflicting images of man thrown at us, how can we really know who man is and the purpose of his existence? But God’s Word tells us! He says we are to know Him and to love Him. And we are to love our fellowman. We are to obey His will and serve Him humbly and reign with Him over all that He has made. Women’s liberation movements complain that it is a man’s world, men complain that it’s a world where power and control are in the hands of only a few, and children complain that it’s an adult world. But they are all wrong, the Bible says that it’s God’s world and man is to live in that world, not for his own selfish gains, but to the glory of God. That’s what life is all about. Being truly human is not to have yourself in the centre of things but God. Not a god as imagined by men but the true God who has revealed Himself in the Scriptures. In knowing God and confessing Him, in loving God and neighbour, in serving God and reigning with Him, lies the real aim and purpose of life. It is not doing your own thing and minding your own business but it’s doing God’s thing and being involved with His business. The purpose and meaning of life lies in being a child of God. Man is a creature of God, made in the image and likeness of God. Our life is to consist of reflecting God’s character. God has left in us traces of Himself and life is full and rich when these godly traces are visible and recognisable. We are to be true prophets, in that our speech is to truly reflect the greatness of God and His will for man and His world. We are to be true priests, in that we give ourselves in unselfish service to God and fellowman. We are to be true kings in that we fight against all that is wicked and perverse in life around us and in our own selves. But as we all know, man does not possess that kind of wholeness. It’s a broken humanity, gone crooked like a ship without a rudder. The glory and beauty of our humanness has been lost through sin. Our speech no longer reflects God’s greatness, instead man brags about himself. Our service is not to God and others but to ourselves. Our fight is no longer for things that are right and true but it’s to advance our own selfish gains. Man has become а false prophet, a false priest and a false king. In the world oi politics and unions, оf industry and labour, of movies and advertisements, truth is mixed with lies and falsehood. Man himself says that you just don’t know anymore whom to believe. Therefore, in all this wrong there is nothing left to do but to turn to Christ.
- In the second place, we see Christ who makes men whole by being a true prophet, priest and king.
The eternal Son of God became man in order to save man from his brokenness and falsehood. Christ clothed Himself with true humanness. He is God in the flesh in order to be true man. Christ is the sinless man and therefore the perfect man. He came into man’s existence in order to restore man’s broken and crooked image of God to its original beauty. God set Christ apart for this work of salvation. He was anointed with the Holy Spirit so as to be able to do this work of restoration and re-creating; to turn men into Christians, making men whole again.
How did Christ do it?
Well, He does this work of salvation in three ways. Actually, it is one way but we can see three sides to it. One side shows Christ making men whole by bringing the message of salvation. This side shows Christ as the true prophet. For our purpose here we can simply say that a prophet is a spokesman for God. He brings God to the people by speaking about Him. Thus Christ brings the good news of salvation. He is the chief prophet and teacher about this whole work of restoration. In the time that it took to write the Bible there were of course many prophets. But they did not bring a message of their own, it was really Christ speaking through them. Christ who has always existed, spoke through the prophets and used them to prepare the people for His coming into the world of man. In the work of making men whole, we see Christ as prophet revealing to man God’s plan of salvation.
But it’s not sufficient to just tell man that he needs a repair job done to him. Man can hear the message, know about it, but he is unable to put himself together again in the way God made man originally. All those thousands of years of man messing things up should easily convince us that he cannot restore himself to the way God created man. So there has to be another side to this work of salvation. There is also the side that shows Christ as priest. Whereas the task of a prophet is to reveal God to the people, the task of the priest is to represent the people before God. The O.T. priests, as you know, sacrificed animals and made offerings to God on behalf of the people. In their work, these earthly priests could not take away sins. They, like the prophets, pointed to Christ. Christ was a real priest. He sacrificed Himself and through His death men were forgiven of their sin and made fit to enter into God’s presence. As prophet Christ spoke of restoration, as priest Christ made restoration happen.
Then there is still the third side which shows Christ as King. The task of the O.T. king was to rule and watch over God’s people. In this they also pointed to Christ’s work of salvation. The restoration Christ spoke of as prophet, and which He actually brought about as priest, has to be guarded and watched over so that men who have been made whole do not lose it. As King, Christ protects and keeps all those who have been restored. How does He do this? By governing us through His Word and Spirit. There are all sorts of dangers and temptation in the world that seek to ruin Christ’s work of restoration. Especially Satan who goes around like a roaring lion seeking to break what God in Christ has made whole. But Christ the King won’t let it happen. Through His Word and Spirit He warns and guides us.
When you see these three sides as all belonging to Christ, then you see a perfect and complete Saviour. Christ turning sinners into Christians, making men whole. He does it as prophet, priest and king.
And is this what you can see? Just go back again to the illustration of the artist whose painting was ruined by vandals. He has to tell the people looking at the picture that what they see is not the good picture it was originally. In this the artist is like a prophet. Then the artist takes the picture down and restores it to its original state. In this he is like a priest. Then, having fixed it all up again, the artist is going to take some steps to ensure that no further harm can come to it. In this he is like a king. In a similar way Christ works out our salvation as prophet, priest and king.
Now is this the Christ you confess as your Saviour? Do you look to Him as the One who really gives you the true picture of what man should be? Do you take time to hear Him still speak to you through the Word as the true prophet? Can you see, in the light of what He says in His Word, the false aspects in those other messages about the nature of man and what man should be? Yes, these pictures of man in today’s philosophies, religious advertisements, movies, give you a false picture about man.
And do you receive comfort in that Christ who offered Himself as priest in order to pay for your sin, still prays for you in the presence of the Father in heaven? You may fail in your obedience to God, you may be pressed down because of your shortcomings, but remember Christ in heaven pleads for you. He remains your priestly intercessor. Through His death on the cross He made you a new person and now before the Father He still claims you as His very own and seeks to constantly renew you. Are you therefore comforted by what He does for you as priest?
You still have to live in this world. There are many things that could threaten the restoration wrought in you. Some of these dangers arise in your own heart, like ending up marrying someone who is not prepared to turn to Christ. Or constantly filling your mind with films or literature that will do you more harm than good. Or worrying about world events that threaten you and your family. Indeed, there are many things that could dim the light of salvation which Christ has caused to shine on you. But do you confess Him as your King, who wants to rule over you? Do you turn regularly and faithfully to Him who seeks to keep watch over you through His Word and Spirit? Do you trust Him who rules over all things and people in the world so that His children are eternally safe? Truly, because Christ is King, no one and nothing can pluck God’s children out of the Father’s hand. Indeed, there is no greater and more complete Saviour than Christ who is our prophet, priest and king. In Him we find meaning to life, in Him we are no longer lost, in Him we are the new man and a new creation.
Amen.