The Sinner Seeker Seeks
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God is amazing! I know, you knew that already. But he is. I mean, people looking in from the outside, just don’t know how good it really is. All they can see is what’s in front of them, what their minds can conceive. But what has been revealed to us is simply, wow!
God, before he laid the foundations of the world, before he said, “Let there be anything.” God planned everything. God knew that the Son would have to come. God knew that Adam would sin. God new that humanity would run and hide, and that he’d have to come to seek and save sinners.
And that’s what he did. At the perfect time in history, Christ came. Immanuel, God with us.
Right Time
Now, we might be tempted to look at history and wonder, why didn’t Christ send his Son to save the world right after Adam had sinned? Why did he wait?
Well, we might never find perfectly satisfying answers to those questions, at least not his side of the restoration of all things. But there is this. Adam and all humanity with him hid from God. We run away from God because God is too great, too amazing, to beautiful to behold. We worship other things because that puts us in charge, not God. We were afraid and we hid.
But God, acting according to his plan, sought out the sinners. He came to Adam, he came to Abraham, Moses, and many others, and he revealed to them his plan, as they were able to understand it.
If God had come right away and let the whole plan out at once, we wouldn’t have understood it. Look at the disciples after three years with Jesus. They still didn’t get it, do we?
Even now, the church still has trouble getting the great, great news. We’re so quickly tempted to turn to other things. We elevate personal differences until they divide us. What we really need to do is focus on the simple truth, the truth passed down through the ages, the truth carefully revealed in the scriptures and helpfully summarised in a document like the Belgic Confession.
So, article 18, building on article 17, where God is revealed at the sinner seeker, it describes how God came to seek sinners. It describes it in three parts, first, it demonstrates that Jesus is the fulfilment of the promise God made in Gen. 3.15. Second, it looks at the significance of God sending his eternal son in the likeness of sinful man. Third it rejects the erroneous teaching that Jesus didn’t take on a true human nature.
God, motivated by love and mercy, not at all by human loveliness, sought out sinners to save. “We confess, therefore, that God has fulfilled the promise he made to the father by the mouth of his holy prophets, when, at the time appointed by him, he sent into the world his only begotten and eternal son.” The seed of the woman promised to crush the serpent’s head is none other than Christ.
Working in History Via Prophecy
Because people are slow to understand, God patiently worked in history, revealing his plan to people who would tell others, who would write it all down, so that we could understand what was going on. God slowly revealed his plan. After his first promise in Gen. 3.15, God made further promises, to Abraham, then to Moses. Those promises, covenants, are the basis of the Old Testament.
The historical events of God choosing a nation, of God rescuing Israel, of God speaking to and through prophets, priests and kings, all unfolded to point to His Son, Jesus. All these events, written down, along with prophecies concerning the coming messiah happened so that when he came, we’d be able to recognise him.
There are 61 major messianic prophecies concerning Christ. I’ve mentioned Gen. 3.15 several times already. The promise that Jesus, born of the virgin Mary, a descendant of Eve, would crush the serpent, Satan’s head was fulfilled. Paul explains it in Col. 2:13-15.
When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
The amount of prophecies concerning the messiah found throughout the Old Testament is proof of the supernatural authorship of the Bible. Though it is many books, written over many centuries, it is one story, and promises made are fulfilled. God’s promise to Adam is fulfilled in Abraham, when God covenants with Abraham and states that all the earth will be blessed. Also, Genesis 49:10, as Jacob dies, he highlights a theme in God’s promise, “The sceptre will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs and the obedience of the nations is his.” Then God promises, “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him.”
King David has this promise restated, “When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever”(2 Sam. 7.12-13) .
Congregation, we are part of that house! The spirit resides in us, the Spirit is building us together to be the body of Christ!
The promises of God reveal that God’s people are to look for one person, one individual, an offspring of David who will be a prophet, priest and king. He will be born of a woman, he will be the mediator between God and man (see 1 Tim. 2.5). Isaiah 59:20 summarises this hope, “‘The Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who repent of their sins,’ declares the Lord.’”
God the Redeemer
But even more important than this Redeemer being Prophet, Priest and King, this Redeemer will also be God. He will be greater than anything the world, indeed Israel has ever known! Consider the words of Isaiah 9.2-7
The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned. You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy; they rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest, as men rejoice when dividing the plunder. For as in the day of Midian's defeat, you have shattered the yoke that burdens them, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor. Every warrior's boot used in battle and every garment rolled in blood will be destined for burning, will be fuel for the fire. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.
Consider, these words were written some 700 years before Jesus’ birth. They reveal God’s plan, his fulfilled promises to Adam, Abraham, Moses and David.
Isaiah also gives us the important truth that the one who will be born. He will be supernaturally conceived, but nevertheless, born of a virgin woman, “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.” He will be both God and man.
Then, this very promise is fulfilled in Matthew’s gospel:
This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, `Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.’ All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: `The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’–which means, `God with us’. When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.
God fulfilled the promise made through Isaiah. If it wasn’t clear enough, Matthew carefully drew the connection for us. The New Testament goes on explain how Jesus fulfills the ancient promises. Galatians 4:4-5 teaches, “But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.”
The second question the confession asks is, “Why did God become man? Why did he send his eternal Son? How does this impact us?”
Philippians 2.7 says Jesus, “took the form of a servant and was born in the likeness of men.” Jesus took on humanity, with all it’s weakness, but without sin. He was really part of Mary, had a DNA test been done, evidence of her DNA would have been in Jesus. Jesus took on a human nature, as well as a human soul. “The Son of God became the Son of Man, in order that the sons of men might become the sons of God.”
God the Servant Seeks Sinners
Jesus is the very image of God, as well as the image of a servant. When Philippians talks about Jesus as a servant, it is referring to the fact that he took to himself a truly human nature—so human, he could trip and fall, be hungry, weak and tired, he put his clothes on one sandal at a time. He looked like a member of Mary’s family.
The miracle and mystery of the incarnation is that Jesus didn’t give up his godhood and turn human, but that he was both, at the same time. We’ll look at this more carefully in article 19.
What Jesus did was lay aside his divine majesty in order to fulfil his promised plan. He subjects himself completely to God’s law. In this he huGmbled himself totally. He puts himself into the world of sinners, people waiting to put him to death!
Finally, the confession considers the error of the Anabaptists, those who disbelieved that Jesus was fully human. We must not confuse them with present day Baptists who confess the two natures of Christ.
Now, this might seem picky, but it is important to make distinctions in doctrine when some specific teachings are contrary to scripture. The Belgic Confession is trying to state true Biblical teaching in opposition to erroneous teaching proposed by two main groups, Anabaptists and Roman Catholics.
What DeBres, the writer of the Belgic Confession is refuting is the teaching of Menno Simons, founder of the Mennonites. While the Mennonites didn’t adopt his error, Menno wrote, “there is not one letter to be found in all the Scriptures that the Word assumed our flesh...; or that the divine nature miraculously united itself with our human nature.” Some of his followers, ran with this thinking, suggesting that Mary was nothing more than a human incubator, as Eden was for Adam.
This error, denies Jesus’ got his human nature from Mary. But if he didn’t get it from Mary, what was the point? And if he never received a human nature, then he cannot atone for human sin. From the quoted verses in Article 18, it is clear that Jesus did get his humanity from Mary.
The incarnation is the hinge in history. It is fitting that to this day, the record of history is divided into two periods, before Christ, and the Year of our Lord. In the Old Testament, people looked forward to the messiah’s coming, the one who would come and truly bless all nations.
On that day, which we celebrate on December 25th, God fulfilled his promises, the word became flesh. God came to redeem all those given to him by the father. God kept his promises.
Living in the time since, we see how Christ fulfilled all the promises. We believe in what he did, what he accomplished, that the sinner seeker sought out sinners to make them right with him. That’s the facts of the matter. That’s the good news we share, we have to share with others. Jesus Christ, fully human, fully God, redeemed the world. Jesus is the only way. Jesus is God present with humanity. Jesus is the way the truth and the life. He is the name by whom all are saved. Amen.