Jesus, The Prince of Peace Bears a Bloody Sword

There are some traditional biblical texts that are used whenever the Christmas story is retold (I am writing this the day after Christmas). One of those is Luke 2:14: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." That is the King James Version of the verse, which is what is usually used. Why? Look at it in the ESV: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom He is pleased!" The second phrase of the two is strikingly different! And other modern translations, such as the NIV, NASB, and CSB, are the same as the ESV here. That second phrase is necessary to a correct understanding of the coming of Jesus. 

In the same book, the writer quotes this comment from Jesus: "Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division" (Luke 12:51; "sword" in Matthew 10:34). If you compared those words to the KJV version of the verse above, you would have a conflict. Did He come to bring peace to the world or not? The KJV of this second verse is the same as the ESV. In either case, we see that it is to one class of men that Jesus brought peace, but to another He brought conflict. 

Look at these words from the Apostle Paul: "Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 5:1). Ah, here was have the distinction explained. Where the unbeliever is in conflict with God (Ephesians 2:3), the believer has been brought into a relationship of peace with God (Romans 5:10). Jesus becomes his Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6) by grace alone through faith alone.

In apocalyptic language, the Apostle John also tells us about this conflict: "From His mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations" (Revelation 19:15; cp. Isaiah 49:2 and Hebrews 4:12). This is the distinguishing between the sheep and goats, of which Jesus tells us (Matthew 25:32ff), achieved by the preaching of the Gospel (Romans 10:8-15), which further distinguishes between men who will believe and men who will not (II Corinthians 2:16). With the former, it is a message of peace; but to the latter it is a message of war.

"The kingdom which He came to establish consists in joy and peace, and the great blessing which He communicates to all who are sprinkled with His blood is that peace which passeth all understanding, and which abides unshaken amid the agitations and tumults, the glooms and convulsions of the world. ThroughHim, God becomes the God of peace, the Gospel the message of peace, preachers of righteousness the heralds of peace, and the two great results of His work, according to the rapturous song of the angels, are glory to God in the highest and peace on earth" (James Henley Thornwell, "The Necessity and Nature of Christianity).

A Washed Conscience from a Baby in a Manger

This is being posted for Christmas, 2019. We will talk a lot about the birth of Christ today. But I want to talk about why it matters that Jesus was born. Why did God the Son come into this world to live among us?

"Baptism, which corresponds to this [Noah and the Flood, verse 20], now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ" (I Peter 3:21). If you saw that verse and assumed that I would be talking about baptism, then you experienced what I am about the describe, the frequent failure to read the rest of the verse. Notice that Peter mentions baptism, but then adds " not the removal of dirt from the body." Note that he compares it to Noah, who avoided being in the water. So, his point is not about baptism, but about what baptism represents, "a good conscience." How does the sinner achieve a good conscience, as represented by the water applied to his body?

Why?

The writer of Hebrews makes a similar point: "Since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins" (Hebrews 10:1-4). The Old Testament sacrifices were insufficient because they had to be repeated. The blood of the sacrifices never removed sin or changed the nature of those who performed them. Instead, "we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all" (verse 10). And "by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified" (verse 14). 

That is why Christianity, though built on the foundation of the Old Testament religion of Moses, is far superior. The types and shadows have been removed, so that we can have a direct view of the one-time sacrifice of Jesus: "So let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water" (verse 22; see also Hebrews 9:14). Notice that the writer of this epistle uses the same baptismal imagery to describe the application of the blood of Christ to the believer by faith.

"When God can be just and faithful in blotting out his transgressions, then, and not until then, is his conscience sprinkled with clean water and purged from dead works. Christianity must take away our guilt, or it leaves us under the curse of nature" (James Henley Thornwell, "The Necessity and Nature of Christianity").

The Substitutionary Atonement by Jesus Our Surety

One of the things that distinguishes Christianity from all other religions is the doctrine of the substitutionary atonement. This is the doctrine that says that the elect sinner, through faith alone, is justified in the eyes of God, not because of anything he has done, but because the justice due to his sins has been applied instead to his surety, Jesus Christ. A surety is like the co-signer on a loan. When the insured person fails in his responsibilities, then the surety steps in and settles the debt on his behalf. The elect sinner is the failed borrower, and Jesus is his surety. No other religion has such a concept of salvation. Every non-Biblical religion contains some system of actions or rituals for the believer to do, to make himself worthy of forgiveness of his sins. Therefore, Christianity is not merely a separate religion, but is, instead, a different kind of religion.

I am not going to discuss here the judgment due to our sins. I have dealt with that elsewhere, such as here.

Rather, I want to deal with some Scriptures that address the substitution of Jesus for the elect sinner.

The best passage, in my opinion, is that of the Suffering Servant: "Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all" (Isaiah 53:4-6). These verses have been turned into a beautiful hymn.

"Jesus, in the name of His people, and as their federal head and representative, has endured the curse, and the justice of God is now solemnly pledged to Him to exempt them from personal subjection to its woes. He has died the death of the law, and, upon an obvious principle of justice from the relations in which they stand to him, His death is their death. If one died for all, then all died" (James Henley Thornwell, "The Necessity and Nature of Christianity").

The Affliction of Conscience in the Unbeliever

The Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 2:15, "They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them." He is talking about Gentiles (verse 14), who have not had the advantage that Jews had in having a written copy of the Law. The Gentiles were not then freed to live as they wished, as if they were autonomous while Israel was subject to the rule of God. The Gentile, or the unbeliever today, has the moral law recorded in his heart, which is the basis for conscience. This is an aspect of what Paul had told us in the previous chapter that all men have a knowledge of God and our accountability to Him. That awareness in the unbeliever afflicts his conscience with guilt and the knowledge that he deserves judgment. 

Then one of two reactions occurs. 

In Romans 1, Paul tells us of the first, the hardened unbeliever, who finds some means to suppress his conscience, so that he can continue in his sin. The other is the person who is driven by his conscience to find absolution in the only place that it can be found, by grace alone through faith alone in the shed blood of Jesus alone. "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" (II Corinthians 2:14-16).

"This obligation to punishment, this righteousness of condemnation, must cease to press, or the need which guilt creates cannot be relieved. The sinner feels, in other words, that the justice which calls for his blood must be satisfied, or that blood be yielded to its demand. It is, accordingly, the glory of the Gospel that the blood of Christ who, through the eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot to God, purges the conscience, dispels all its distracting fears, and imparts peace and serenity where despair and guilt had held their troubled reign" (James Henley Thornwell, "The Necessity and Nature of Christianity," emphasis in the original).

Unbelief Is Ingratitude

In Romans 1:18-25, the Apostle Paul gave this description of the unbeliever: "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen." 

He tells us several surprising things. First of all, unbelief is not ignorance. God has so revealed Himself that no man can claim that he does not know about God (see, for example, Psalm 19:1-4). There is no such thing as an atheist. Every single human being who lives now, has ever lived, or will ever live, knows that God exists and that he is accountable to Him. 

Which leads us to the second surprise, that men hate that knowledge, and try to suppress it. That is the origin of both pagan religions and atheism, the heart of the unbeliever's effort to bury the knowledge of God, in order to remain free to imagine that he is sovereign over his life and can decide right and wrong for himself. 

This hatred of God, commonly called unbelief, expresses itself in the use of God's gifts, such as the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink, while crediting it to ourselves or to some other source apart from God. Unbelief is founded on ingratitude! 

"Such a conduct as the generality of men are guilty of towards God, continually and through all ages, in innumerable respects, would be accounted the most vile contemptuous treatment of a fellow creature, of distinguished dignity. Particularly men's treatment of the offers God makes of Himself to them as their friend, their Father, their God, and everlasting portion; their treatment of the exhibitions He has made of His immeasurable love, and the boundless riches of His grace in Christ, attended with earnest repeated calls, counsels, expostulations, and entreaties; as also of the most dreadful threatenings of His eternal displeasure and vengeance" (Jonathan Edwards, "Original Sin," Book 1, section 5).

 

 

Conscience, Social Order, and the Kingship of Jesus

Years ago, the pastor I had at that time told a story of one of his daughters, about 5 years old at the time. She customarily took an afternoon nap, as most children do at that age. However, on one particular day, she said that she wasn't sleepy and didn't want to take a nap. So her parents decided to allow her to remain up with them. Yet, later, she started to get drowsy, and told them, "You should have spanked me." My pastor cited this as an example of children's awareness that their contrary actions deserve punishment, and that they benefit from such discipline.

In our day, even adults have adopted an attitude that everything we do is justified, and never deserving of punishment. Yet we expect actions done to us to be punished. That means that we have not lost a sense that wrong action deserves correction. We merely exempt what we do from the standard of right and wrong that

Patrick Henry

we apply to everyone else. The result is chaos, with every person having some sob story to explain why his actions should be tolerated.

This is why we are seeing in our day what Scripture tells us about Hebrew society before the establishment of the monarchy: "In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes" (Judges 21:25). No king? But we have never had a king, have we? On the contrary, though we live in a Republic, the Founders built their Republic with a king in view: "It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ!" While the quote has been challenged, it is attributed to Patrick Henry. Whether or not he did say it, it still represents the attitude of the Founders, who, though they created a republic, based it on the presupposition of the kingship of Jesus, and that alone can be the basis of rebuilding a moral basis for a peaceful society.

"The feeling of ill desert drinks up the spirits, and 'conscience makes cowards of us all.' This, then, is the peculiarity which distinguishes guilt - it is a conviction that punishment is due, that it ought to be inflicted, and that , under a righteous government, sooner or later, it will be inflicted; and it is precisely this sense of guilt which the truths of natural religion are adapted to produce within us. It is the echo of our own hearts to the fearful condemnation of a holy God.."

James Henley Thornwell, "The Nature and Necessity of Christianity"

Apostasy and Its Leaders

We live in a time where the culture has returned to a pre-Christian stage, in which every man does what is right in his own eyes (Judges 21:25). Things which were considered too shameful for polite company within the lifetimes of man of us living today are now common fare in entertainment or taught to our children in government schools.

While it is true that the American government has been on a crusade to scrub the Christian presence from public society, I don't blame government. And while it is true that there are influencers in government and the media who hate the Gospel and seek to silence it, I don't blame them. Unbelievers must be expected to hate the Gospel (Romans 1:18). That's what makes them unbelievers.

However, when I see the church complacent in its own suppression, then I find cause for blame.

We have public religious figures - I don't call them Christians - such as Joel Osteen, who refuse to talk about sin because they don't want to offend anyone. That is who deserves the blame.

In 586 BC, Judah, the Southern Kingdom, was conquered by Babylon and carried away into exile. Why? Because they had abandoned the faith on which their kingdom was established, and turned to pagan deities and practice.

What did their religious leaders say about that apostasy? Did they denounce the sin of the people, and fight against that apostasy?

"Your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions; they have not exposed your iniquity to restore your fortunes, but have seen for you oracles that are false and misleading" (Lamentations 2:14). No, no denunciations; no warnings of judgment. Rather, the religious leaders joined in that apostasy, soothing the apostates with assurance that God was happy with their perverted worship and lives. Does that sound like today's religious world? I think so.

But what does God say? Is he bound by the soothing words of apostate preachers? "If I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, in order to save his life, that wicked person shall die for his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand" (Ezekiel 3:18). Not in the smallest bit. Rather, He promises that judgment of sin will come, but it will begin with false teachers who failed to preach a warning about the consequences of sin.

Jonathan Edwards on the Law and the Believer

We often assume that the repetition of a frightening stimulus will cause the fright from it to decrease, becoming less with each experience. Maybe I am different, but it doesn't seem to work that way for me. When I have watched a scary movie, I know what is going to happen the next time I see that movie, yet my apprehension seems merely to be increased by the anticipation.

The same thing happens with the shock I feel when people express certain theological views. One would think that my shock at them would decrease, the more often I hear them. However, it seems to work in the opposite direction. "What!? Another person who believes that?!"

One of those thing is when I hear people express disdain for the Law of God. They believe that, since the Law is never a means of salvation, that it is, therefore, something that can be ignored as irrelevant, I am shocked by that for three reasons: one, the Law is the word of God; two, such an attitude implies moral autonomy (see Genesis 3:5); and three, since the Law is the expression of the holiness of God, to ridicule it is to ridicule Him. Of course, that last is the most appalling.

Even though Paul is the author of the statement, "you are not under Law but under grace" (Romans 6:14), he cannot mean that the Law has ceased to be God's standard of moral action, because he also wrote, "Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine" (I Timothy 1:8-10). How can the Law be good, with a lawful use, if it can be ridiculed by a person who claims to love God? I think those two things are incompatible.

America's greatest theologian, Jonathan Edwards, explained it well: "The law of God is the rule of right...: it is the measure of virtue and sin; so much agreement as there is with this rule, so much is there of rectitude, righteousness, or true virtue, and no more; and so much disagreement as there is with this rule, so much sin is there" (Original Sin, Chapter 1, Section 5). In other words, while God's Law has no power to enable us to obey, it is still God's standard of our obedience. It is grace alone which empowers righteousness. And what is righteousness? To walk according to God's Law:: "Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the LORD" (Psalm 119:1).