In three Lord Days, the Heidelberg Catechism deals with the names of the Mediator. These names are of utmost importance. The confession of these names is a matter of life or death. Last week we looked at Matthew 16:13ff, where Jesus asked His disciples the question: "Whom do ye say that I the Son of Man am?" He confronts us with the same question today. What is your answer? Is yours the same as Peter's? "Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God." I say, your answer is a matter of life & death. For we read in I John 4:15: "Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God." That, beloved, is life. And we read in that same epistle, chapter 2:22,23a: "Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father." And that is death, separation from God.
There is only one Mediator of God. There is only one Jesus, only one Deliverer and Savior, Jehovah-Salvation. There is only one Christ, Jesus, Who is ordained of God the Father, and anointed with the Holy Spirit to be the prophet, priest and king under God, and Who makes His people partakers of His anointing. And the reason there is only one Jesus Christ is because Jesus Christ must be very God. He is the only begotten Son of God, Who reveals the Triune God in all His fulness--a unique Son, like unto none other. And He is Lord, Who alone redeems His people and loves them as His own possession. Let us consider Him.
THE ONLY BEGOTTEN SON, OUR LORD
I. A UNIQUE SONSHIP
II. A LOVING LORDSHIP
THE BIBLE IN MANY PLACES SPEAKS OF THE TRUTH THAT CHRIST IS THE ONLY BEGOTTEN SON OF GOD.
We read in I John 4:9,10: "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." Last week we read from Hebrews 1, where, with respect to Christ, it is written: "For unto which of the angels said he (said God) at any time..." (vs.5,6,8). That same Word which was with God and was God and by Whom all things were made, became flesh and dwelt among us. He is the only begotten Son of God. And that only begotten Son revealed the Father to us in human nature. Christ not only spoke about the Father. He not only revealed the Father in His speech. He is the complete revelation of the Father. He is that. He is that because He is Immanuel, the Son of God in human nature, God with us.
He is the unique Son. Christ revealed Himself as such, too, when He walked on the earth in the years 1-33 A.D. During that period, Jesus performed all His mighty signs and wonders as the revelation of the God of our salvation. When He opened the eyes of the blind, healed the lame, cast out devils, raised the dead, He revealed Himself as the God of our salvation come down to us. Again and again He testified of that truth with His own mouth, so that the scribes and Pharisees and rulers of the people sought to kill Him, saying, "He calls God His Father, making Himself equal with God!" But while the Jews, the false church, if you will, were seeking to kill Him, the testimony of God came from heaven: "This is My beloved Son in Whom I am well-pleased." All Scripture clearly testifies that Jesus is the Son of God in a unique sense of the word.
That the Catechism emphasizes this unique sonship of Christ, this eternal sonship in distinction from our sonship, is due to the fact that from the earliest history of the Church the deity of Christ has been denied, and in fact still is denied.That is why in many respects modern theology and many of the sects of today are so dangerous. The modernists and many of the sects, including Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons, will agree with you when you say that Jesus is the Son of God. But what they mean by that is something entirely different from what you and I must confess concerning the sonship of Jesus. The theology that is permeating the Christian church today says: Certainly Jesus is the Son of God. But we are also sons of God. And Christ, as the Good Master and the Great Teacher, came to give us all proper self-esteem and to assure us that we are also sons of God. And when we come to the consciousness of our sonship, then we are sons in the same sense as Christ. You see, Modernism and all who do not want the Christ of God stumble over His deity. That is why the instructor of the Catechism goes to Scripture and calls attention to the distinction between Christ's sonship and ours. Christ alone is the eternal and natural Son of God
HE IS THE ONLY BEGOTTEN.
We, i.e., we who confess Him as Jesus Christ, our Redeemer,—we are children adopted of God, by grace, for His sake. Originally we were sons of God by virtue of our creation. Man is not the son of God in the sense that he partakes of the divine nature, eternally and essentially. But man was a son in the sense that he was created in the image of God. Thus Adam was a son of God. But that sonship is gone. We lost that sonship in the fall. It has been changed into its very opposite, so that man by reason of the fall has become a child of the devil. We have no right to be called children of God. We have only the right to be called the children of the devil.
When you confess that you are called a Christian because you are a member of Christ by faith, you are also confessing that you are a child of the living God. By what right do you do that? By what right do you call God, "Father"? The Apostle Paul answers that question in Galatians 4:4-6, where he writes: "But when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." That truth the Catechism expresses with these words: We are children adopted of God, by grace, for His sake.
Adoption is a legal act. It is that in our own earthly realm. When a couple, for whatever reason, adopts a child, they express to that child—which has no natural right as a child—they give to that child a legal right and relationship to them. They pledge to that child their care, their name, their inheritance. That is the legal idea of adoption. That same idea holds true when God adopts children. When God adopts us, God gives us the right to be called His sons and daughters. He assures us that He will always love us, that He will always care for us, that He will avert all evil or turn it to our profit. That is His pledge. When God adopts us, it means as well that He gives us the right to His own inheritance, the inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, that fadeth not away—everlasting glory in the tabernacle of God. That is adoption.
Have you ever meditated upon that truth, and what it means for you? That truth of adoption for Christ's sake is one of the greatest comforts for the Church of Jesus Christ. It should be also for you, if you are a child of God. You see, God did not pick the nicest looking group from the picture files of an adoption agency. He did not even choose mere strangers. He adopted enemies! He adopted us who were hostile toward Him! And He did so from eternity. Paul writes the Ephesians in Ephesians 1:5,6, that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has "predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved." From eternity God purposed that adoption unto children would be realized in time. He purposed that those who would be walking as His enemies, children of the devil would be adopted by Jesus Christ unto Himself. That adoption is realized in time. The eternal adoption unto children is realized in the cross when God blotted out all our sin and when through Christ He reconciled us unto Himself. That adoption was realized when thru Christ's resurrection we were shown to be justified. And that adoption unto children will be fully realized in the great day of our Lord Jesus Christ when God will say in judgment: These were My children from eternity, and shall be Mine forevermore.
That adoption never changes. Let that be a comfort to you. Oh, you know you are regenerated when you areable to say with the apostle Paul, I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. If that is your struggle, you know that you have the faith. But we would not have much confidence if all we had for assurance was our life of spiritual sonship by regeneration. Because so often we can hardly see that work of regeneration. There is so much sin; there is so much depravity in us still; there is so much worldliness. But, you know, even though we struggle so hard through our spiritual life, the sonship that is ours by adoption is forever. It never changes. That should be one of the most glorious comforts conceivable for us. Is it for you? God has graven us in both the palms of His hands, in eternity; and He looks upon us in Christ as His own children.
That adoption is by grace, and grace alone. There is no cooperation on our part. There are no signatures required for us to give ourselves to Him. On our side there is nothing but guilt. But God glorifies Himself by the sovereignty of His grace, paying the debt of His children by Christ, for His sake. No self-righteousness, no emotional feelings, no works even of faith, not for anything that is in us; but only for Christ's sake do we become children of God.
And then, God does what adoptive parents here can never do. Parents can adopt children legally, but they can never make those children their own. They can never give adopted children their own natures. But God does. He does that by His Spirit, changing our spiritual-ethical natures, so that we manifest the natures of God's children in Christ. We are seen as Christians. And what is true only as a small beginning now, shall be perfected in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is our sonship, children of God, by adoption.
BUT CHRIST'S SONSHIP IS UNIQUE.
He is not adopted. He was never a child of the devil. He is not a created son, who received His origin through an act of God's creative will and power. Nor is He made a being outside of God, as we are "born of God." But He is eternal. Christ, the man Jesus, Who was born in Bethlehem, Who died on the cross, Who was raised again the third day and Who was exalted at the right hand of God—that Christ is the only natural Son of God. Christ is the Son of God, Who is the image of God in infinite perfection. That confession is the foundation upon which theChurch is built.
Why must we maintain the truth that Christ is the unique Son of God? We have confessed that Jesus, the Christ, is our chief prophet. As such He reveals unto us the secret counsel and will of God concerning our salvation. Through His Word we believe in Him; and that Word we have in Holy Scripture. All Scripture is the Word of Christ. That is what we must hear in the preaching. On that Word we rely. By it we live and die, because Jesus Christ is our chief Prophet. But that Christ is our chief Prophet is possible only if He is the Son of God. God must speak. As the writer to the Hebrews says in Hebrews 1:1,2: "God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds."
Christ cannot be our chief Prophet if He is not the Son of God. That is why they who deny the deity of Christ, also inevitably deny the authority of His Word. Then the Word, the Bible, has no authority. If Jesus is a mere man, His Word is also theword of a mere man. And men are liars. Deny that Jesus is the unique Son of God, and you can take this Bible and throw it in the trash, or put it on the bookshelf alongside all your other books. Then there is no standard of truth any more. All men are right. All men worship the same god. And that is exactly where the modern church is today, and where most churches are going. Beware! That is exactly why to a great extent the difference between the church and the world has been wiped out—to the point where the devil himself can hardly tell the difference any more between his children and the so-called children of God. That is why the Anti-Christian world power is developing so rapidly, taking all men under his giant wingspan. But we believe in the only begotten Son. You do, don't you? Christ revealed Himself as the Son of God from the moment He began to speak. He was in heaven while He was on earth. That is what Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3:13: "And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven." He alone can be our chief Prophet, because He is the Son of God in the unique sense. You must choose between a Jesus Who is the Son of God, and an empty Jesus.
Jesus is also our only high priest, Who by the one sacrifice of His body, has redeemed us, and makes continual intercession with the Father for us. To believe in Him is salvation for you. But deny that He is the Son of God, and you empty the cross of all its power. Deny that He is the unique Son of God, and the One Who died on that middle cross of the three is no different from the others. His blood has no more value than the blood of the malefactors. Deny that Christ is the Son of God, and you have no salvation. It is that serious! For redemption is the bringing of satisfaction to God to satisfy His justice. And only the infinite Son could satisfy for the sins committed against the infinite majesty of God. God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself. Christ is the only begotten Son, while we are children adopted of God, by grace, for His sake.
II. AND THUS THAT BELOVED SON OF GOD, THE ONLY BEGOTTEN SON, IS OUR LORD.
THE CATECHISM TOUCHED UPON THIS SCRIPTURAL TRUTH OF THE LORDSHIP OF CHRIST ALREADY IN THE FIRST LORD'S DAY.
Remember now, we speak of the lordship of Christ, our Lord. The divine Person of the Son of God is Lord over all, of course. He is Lord by virtue of being the Creator. All things were made by Him. So He is Lord of all. And although sinful men refuse to bow before Him and to acknowledge Him as Lord, at the end of time, all men will bow before Him and confess that He is Lord of all. But we speak now of Christ's lordship over us. When you say, "I believe in Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, our Lord," what do you mean? When we say, "I believe in the only begotten Son, our Lord," we mean that Christ rules over us in His love.
In love He rules over us as His own possession. That is the chief idea of lordship. Christ possesses us. We are His property. His lordship over me is a lordship of love. For, as the apostle Peter writes in I Peter 1:18,19, He redeemed us. He bought us with a price. He delivered us from the bondage of the devil, by paying a price. With what? Money? Oh no. All the money in the world could not satisfy the debt we owed. He purchased me with His own precious blood. He did not pay that price to Satan. Satan is not the rightful owner of us. We are the devil's property because of sin. Christ gave His life to God, rendering perfect satisfaction for us, and demanding our release from the claws of Satan. In order that He might be our Lord, Christ crushed the serpent's head. And in the resurrection of His only begotten Son God declared the Church to be His property. He redeemed me, with the precious blood of His love. That is why I became His servant and He became my Lord. His is a lordship of love.
THAT MEANS, IN THE SECOND PLACE, THAT CHRIST IS RESPONSIBLE FOR US.
When we call Him our Lord, we mean to confess that He is responsible for us. That, again, is a beautiful thought. There is always much talk in the church about "responsibility." Well, beloved, all the responsibility for our salvation is right here in Jesus Christ our Lord. That does not mean that you and I are not responsible human beings. But that means, and that is comforting, too, that Christ is responsible for me before God. I believe in the only begotten Son, our Lord. I believe that I am in Christ. And He intercedes for me before the Father in such a way that He says to the Father, That child is mine. I am responsible for him, for her. I died for him, I arose for him, he is mine. That is my Lord. Is He yours? Oh, I know, it is very easy to twist that truth, and to make it serve your own lusts. For if Christ is responsible for me—and He is—then He is also responsible for my sins. He is. But now do not twist that and say, I can live as I please, because Christ is responsible for me. For if you do, you show that you are not one of His. John makes that very clear in his first epistle in many places. "If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth" (I John 1:6). Or again, I John 4:13: "Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he is us, because he hath given us of his Spirit." The Spirit of Christ does not speak that way. Indeed, Christ my Lord is responsible for me.
But we must not forget the third element of His loving lordship, and that is that He establishes His lordship in our hearts. Christ has redeemed us both body and soul. He makes His mind my mind and His will my will, so that I say, Lord, what wilt Thou have me do? That is the Christian faith. The Christian faith is not a set of conditions. The Christian faith is not a list of "musts." Christianity is not legalism. Oh, I know, we lay down laws and rules for our children, and government rules by law. But when it comes to the Church of Jesus Christ and the lordship of Jesus Christ, it is not a lordship of compulsion. The scribes and Pharisees had law upon law and precept upon precept, but the obedience of the law could not produce one Christian. Oh no. The foundation of the Christian faith is not built upon a Jesus Who is the good man of Galilee, a mere example of piety. It is not built upon a Jesus Who is a champion of civil rights and social reforms, Whose kingdom is of this world. The Christian faith is not built upon a power-less Jesus, a Jesus Who must be crowned Lord by men, who fulfill the laws and requirements He places before them.
The Christian faith is built upon the Christ of the Scriptures, Who is the Christ of God. He is the only begotten Son, our Lord. It is Christian to say, I believe in Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son, our Lord. And because I belong to Him and He is responsible for me, I am willing and ready with all my heart and soul and mind, though in all kinds of imperfection, to serve Him. For with the power of His love He entered my heart by His Holy Spirit and made me what I am—a Christian. And in that love I confess, my Lord and my God, forever. That is the Christian faith, beloved. Believest thou this?
Amen.
Preached: Randolph PRC 12/1/96 (am)
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