Sovereign Grace Community Church

The unity problem in the Galatian churches focused on the relationship between Jewish and Gentile believers in Jesus the Messiah. Paul addressed this issue by reminding the disciples of what Jesus had accomplished and inaugurated by His death and resurrection and how this abolished the historical separation between Jews and Gentiles that Israel's covenant had established. In a word, Paul's answer to the Jew-Gentile divisions in the churches was justification by faith.

The Galatian and Roman churches provide two important case studies in Christian unity. Both struggled with Jew-Gentile issues, but from different perspectives and with different dynamics. This message examines the historical and cultural circumstances in Galatia and Rome that influenced the Jew-Gentile relations in the churches there, and also summarizes how those relations were similar and different.

The struggle to understand and achieve true unity was at the heart of the early Church's internal challenges. That struggle was exacerbated by the increasing number of Gentiles coming to faith in Israel's Messiah, until finally it seemed necessary to have the Church's leadership in Jerusalem issue a formal decision on what was required of Gentiles to become part of the restored covenant household the Spirit was building on the foundation of Jesus Himself. This message examines that episode, the specific issues the council was addressing, and the decision they reached.

The reality of a new community sharing in the life of the resurrected Messiah, while yet existing within the old order, initiated and insured conflict between Jesus' disciples and the unbelieving world, both Jewish and Gentile. But it also insured internal conflicts and challenges, not only between believers, but within the minds and hearts of individual Christians. And the marrow of that conflict, whatever particular form it might take, is the failure of unity - the unity in Christ that the Spirit initiated at Pentecost and that binds believers to their Lord and to one another.

Pentecost initiated a new community of followers of Israel's God, identified by their living union with Him through sharing in the life of His Son by His indwelling Spirit. As the beginning of God's renewed human race, this community was set in contradistinction to the rest of mankind - the people of Israel as much as the pagan Gentile world. This contradistinction couldn't go unnoticed, and it provoked confusion, fear, and derision in some, and hostility and open opposition in others. Until the consummation, Messiah's kingdom and rule would exist within the dominion and power of human kingdoms, and it was precisely this dynamic that God ordained to testify of His triumph and build His kingdom in the world.

Pentecost was the climax of the Christ event, for the outpouring and renewing work of the Spirit was the goal of Jesus' death, resurrection and enthronement. The Spirit was to be Jesus' abiding presence in the world and the power behind His kingdom and its fruitfulness. So also the Spirit would demarcate the kingdom's subjects, as Jesus, through His Spirit, was reconstituting the Abrahamic covenant household - the sons of the kingdom - around Himself.

Pentecost brought the Christ event to its completion, even as the corresponding Feast of Weeks closed out the festal season that began with Passover. And it did so as initiating mankind's actual experience of the reconciliation that Jesus secured by His atoning death. Put differently, Pentecost answered the question of the relation between Jesus' status as Man of the Spirit and His status as Last Adam; He was raised and glorified as True Man unto the end that He should become the firstborn among many brethren - the fountainhead of a new human race that shares His relationship with the Spirit, and so with the Father.

Jesus' resurrection is often viewed only in terms of demonstrating His satisfaction for the guilt of sin, but it actually has profound significance that vastly transcends this narrow consideration. The incarnation, which achieved in essence the eternal intent of perfect Creator-creature intimacy, was fully realized in Jesus' resurrection. Thus the Scriptures identify the resurrected Messiah as the first fruits of God's reconciled and renewed creation, and so also the source and first fruits of God's promised kingdom, as well as its sovereign king.

Though many limit God's work of atonement to Jesus' crucifixion, it actually had its substantial fulfillment in the phenomenon of incarnation, which was then worked out through Jesus' life of faithful sonship. His death on Calvary simply brought God's atoning work to its climax, universalizing it as His promised redemption by which He would end the creation's captivity and exile and reconcile all things to Himself. This is the scriptural context for interpreting Jesus' cross and its work, underscored by His choice of Passover as the setting for His self-offering.

Christians commonly associate Jesus' work of atonement with His crucifixion, but a truly scriptural understanding of atonement shows that the phenomenon of incarnation was actually the essential substance of God's atoning work in His Son. For it was there, in the intimate being-to-being union of God and man in Mary's womb, that divine-human reconciliation was achieved in essence. That reconciliation was then worked out and perfected in the living communion of Father and Son, finally being universalized in Jesus' substitutionary death at Calvary.

Jesus' ministry was directed toward announcing and manifesting the kingdom of God - the kingdom promised by Israel's prophets and long awaited by the Israelite people. But the ultimate goal of His coming was the inauguration of this kingdom, and that would come through His cross. Kingdom and cross are inseparable and mutually interpreting, and the doctrine of atonement stands at the center of this relationship. Therefore, a biblical understanding of atonement is vital to understanding the work of the cross and how it pertained to Yahweh's kingdom.

Jesus' ministry was directed toward announcing the in-breaking kingdom that Yahweh had promised through His prophets and Israel had eagerly awaited through long centuries of exile underscored by an empty sanctuary. But many in Israel would fall short of this kingdom and miss the day of their visitation - the day when Yahweh returned to Zion in the person of the incarnate Son. Thus the climactic aspect of Jesus' kingdom announcement was His warning of what awaited the Israelite nation if they refused Him, their King, and so also the kingdom He'd come to inaugurate.

Jesus' mission was to announce, manifest and inaugurate Yahweh's long-promised kingdom, and that work involved proclamation, depiction, invitation, and challenge. But conflict was also central to Jesus' work, because the kingdom He was bringing contradicts and disallows every existing human expression of kingdom and rule. Thus He drew the fierce and unrelenting opposition of the world powers - human and supra-human - the moment He began proclaiming and manifesting His Father's kingdom. But that was the battle He'd come to fight, and He would achieve the victory.

The goal of incarnation is the kingdom of God - i.e., God becoming "all in all" through "summing up" everything in His creation in Jesus the Messiah. The Father had sent the Son to usher in His everlasting kingdom as He'd promised through His prophets, and all of the gospel writers constructed their accounts around this work and its completion. Thus they record that, following His baptism and testing, Jesus began proclaiming the good news of this kingdom and challenging Israel to embrace it by embracing Him and the way of being Israel (son, servant, disciple and witness) that He was disclosing to them.

The resurrection of Jesus is a core tenet of the Christian faith, but many Christians have little understanding of what it signifies, why it matters, or how it determines and orients Christian life and mission in the world. This message considers those issues and attempts to provide a framework for living authentically as resurrection people in the risen Messiah.

The Spirit who anointed Jesus as Messiah and led Him through His wilderness testing now brought Him into Galilee where He began proclaiming the good news of Yahweh's kingdom. That ministration led Jesus to His home town of Nazareth where He confronted the people's understanding and expectation of His work on Yahweh's behalf. All three synoptic writers mentioned Jesus' rejection in Nazareth, but Luke provided the best insight into it, showing that it was a microcosm and harbinger of what He would experience from the nation as a whole.

This message examines the third of Jesus' tests during His forty-day wilderness ordeal. Like the other two, this test was part of His Father's proving out of His own assertion concerning Jesus that He was His beloved and well-pleasing son. And because Jesus was being tested as Son of God in solidarity with Israel, His testing was as human son of God - God's True Israel in whom Israel was to be renewed and reconciled.

This message examines the second of three tests Jesus underwent during His forty-day wilderness ordeal. Like the other two, this test was ordained by Jesus' God and Father to prove out His human sonship as True Israel as affirmed at His baptism. Specifically, it involved a temptation to "put God to the test" by seeing if He would honor His promise to protect His faithful children.

The Scripture understands the incarnation as Israel's God taking up Israel's life and lot in order to renew Israel for the sake of its election and mission on behalf of the world. Jesus, then, was God's true Israel as true son, servant, disciple and witness. But in order to restore Israel in Himself, Jesus needed to fulfill Israel's sonship, even as the nation had failed to do. The forty-day wilderness ordeal was the fundamental proving out of Jesus' faithfulness as Yahweh's elect son, and this message is the first of three that examine that episode.

The Incarnation involved the God of Israel embodying Himself within Israel in order to redeem and restore Israel so that it should fulfill its election and calling in the world. Thus the incarnation's work was directed toward Israel becoming Israel indeed, and the gospels show this first through Jesus' genealogy, and then by His baptism by John, the forerunner promised by Isaiah.