Sovereign Grace Community Church

Having examined the nature and implications of the Incarnation, it is necessary to consider its work - i.e., God's purpose in it and its functional significance in terms of Jesus' life and ministration. This first message in that consideration examines the images of light and life, both of which are central themes in John's understanding and treatment of Jesus the Messiah.

This message considers some of the crucial practical implications of the incarnation, including how it determines our understanding of God's purposes and work, the gospel and its proclamation, and the matters of personal salvation, progress in sanctification, and Christian mission.

Traditional formulations and controversies regarding incarnation have tended to focus on issues surrounding the conjoining of divinity and humanity conceived in existential and philosophical terms rather than biblical ones. Put differently, the Scriptures aren't concerned with philosophical notions of natures, persons, hypostases, etc., but with incarnation as fulfilling God's long-standing promise to arise in His world and put all things right, so that His eternal intentions for His creation could be fully realized. In biblical parlance, incarnation is about Yahweh returning to Zion to end the exile of the Abrahamic people and restore them to covenant fellowship so that they should fulfill their own election and calling to mediate His blessing to all the earth's families. This message considers that perspective and what it means for a truly biblical doctrine of incarnation.

John the Baptist was the prophesied forerunner who heralded Yahweh's return to Zion to liberate His people and inaugurate His kingdom. So also, Yahweh's prophets had linked His return with the emergence and work of His messianic servant who would embody faithful Israel, and this background provides the context for the incarnation, its meaning, its purpose, and its outcome.

The desolation of Jerusalem by the Babylonians saw the end of the Israelite kingdom and the final fracture of the covenant relationship between Yahweh and Israel. Many would return to Judea and the temple and city would be rebuilt, but the Israelite people recognized that their exile continued so long as their God remained absent. Incessant covenant unfaithfulness had moved Him to depart and scatter His people in exile, and only forgiveness and reconciliation would bring that alienation to an end. It was in view of that hope and longing that John the Baptist emerged in Israel and undertook his mission of preparing his countrymen for Yahweh's return to cleanse and restore His people and establish the kingdom He'd pledged to David.

Many point to Cyrus' decree and the subsequent return of Judean exiles to rebuild the temple and city of Jerusalem as ending Israel's exile. But this physical recovery didn't address the underlying and essential exile, namely the relational alienation between God and His covenant people. That relational exile would end when Yahweh returned to Zion to redeem His captive children, cleanse them from their guilt and defilement, renew the covenant, and gather them to Himself as true sons and daughters. In that great day, the Lord's oath to Abraham would at last be realized: "I will be your God and you will be My people." This message examines the prophets' depiction of this promised deliverance and renewal, and how it finds its focal point in the messianic servant and branch of David.

Jewish exiles returning to Judea to rebuild the temple and restore Jerusalem was a significant episode of prophetic fulfillment, yet these astonishing feats of divine providence didn't fulfill the Lord's covenant promises to Abraham and David or His word through His prophets. Indeed, the exile of His covenant people wouldn't end until He returned and restored His relationship with them through the person and work of His messianic servant, the son promised to David.

Desolation, exile and captivity were the inevitable destiny of the Abrahamic covenant household. God had warned of this outcome through Moses and His prophets, and now it had come upon both houses of Israel. And yet this wasn't to be the Lord's final word; His covenant oaths to Abraham and David would stand, however impossible their fulfillment seemed in the context of such horrific desolation and despondency. Yahweh would one day end Israel's exile, not as a matter of geography, but realized sonship. This message takes a closer look at the scriptural theme of exile, as that which conjoins and carries along the salvation history that reached its climax in Jesus the Messiah.

The Lord brought His sword against David's house, and after dividing and devastating his household, it cleaved David's kingdom into two parts. Only the southern kingdom of Judah remained under Davidic rule, with Israel in the north forming its own distinct kingdom. But both kingdoms followed the same trajectory of idolatry and apostasy culminating with destruction and exile. Israel fell to the Assyrians in 722 B.C., while Yahweh gave Judah and David's royal house a reprieve. But not for long; Judah, too, would fall a century and a half later when the Babylonian forces burned Jerusalem and its temple to the ground and dragged the survivors into exile. Thus the Lord's sword had made a complete end of David's house, throne and kingdom, and yet His promise stood fast - one day, He would raise up a faithful son of David in whom He would build David's house and establish his throne and kingdom forever. Abraham's children were to hold onto this promise in faith, even in the face of seeming impossibility and crushing

The sword that Yahweh brought against David's house moved from his immediate household to the kingdom he ruled. The Lord revealed to Solomon His intent to cleave the kingdom, but this division occurred during the reign of Solomon's son Rehoboam. This message examines that episode and the history of the northern kingdom of Israel culminating with its destruction at the hand of the Assyrians.

Solomon was the Lord's chosen successor to David, and he was the king who brought the Israelite kingdom to the pinnacle of its glory. And the focal point of that glory was the Jerusalem temple that Solomon built according to Yahweh's covenant with David. But the Lord had also pledged to David to build a house for him, and yet David's failure provoked Yahweh to bring a sword upon his house, which sword escalated its decimating work because of Solomon's own failures as king. Solomon, too, would fall short of the kingship idealized in the covenant with David, but the Lord would yet fulfill what He had pledged. One day, He would raise up a son of David who would build an everlasting house for Him, a son in whom David's own house, throne and kingdom would be established forever.

The writer of Samuel chose to conclude his account of David's reign with the strange story of David's census that brought a devastating plague on Israel and led to the purchase of the site where the temple would be built by his son Solomon. This sermon considers that episode in the light of the Mosaic census law, which gives to it a profound significance and helps explain why the Samuel writer viewed it as the fitting way to end his account.

The Bathsheba episode is a well-known story from the Old Testament, but it's typically treated in isolation as a lesson in moral failure and the consequences that result from it. But this episode must be interpreted in terms of David's unique kingship and God's covenant with him, and the text itself emphasizes the massive covenantal significance of David's failure more than its moral importance. David was guilty of abuse of power, adultery, deception, conspiracy and murder, but all of that served his greatest offense, which was despising his covenant obligation to testify of Yahweh to the surrounding nations by faithfully exercising his kingship as the Lord's regal image-son. Thus David's failure with Bathsheba was the turning point in his reign and Israel's covenant life; it marked the beginning of the end of the Israelite kingdom, and so brought into jeopardy God's covenant with Abraham.

The covenant with David pertained to his regal house and kingdom and didn't directly implicate the priesthood. But Yahweh's approval of David's priestly actions in installing His ark in Jerusalem hinted at some sort of relation between the regal and priestly functions in connection with David. Later, Psalm 110, penned by David, showed that he understood that Yahweh was going to formally conjoin the kingship and the priesthood in the son promised to him in the covenant. This son was to be a priest-king, but of a different and enduring priestly order, indicating a new, everlasting covenant relationship between Yahweh and His people.

This message examines the context and particulars of the Davidic Covenant and its significance in Israel's history. Most especially, it considers the central place of the Davidic Covenant in the progress of the salvation history that reached its climax in the Son of David promised in the covenant.

This message examines David's ascent to the throne - first as king over Judah, and then over the whole house of Israel - and the early features of his reign. The most notable of those were his conquest of Jerusalem and subsequent act of bringing Yahweh's ark to Jerusalem to enthrone Him there in the new capital city.

This message considers the account of David's preparation for the kingship as recorded in the second half of 1 Samuel. Though identified by Yahweh as His chosen king and anointed with His Spirit, David spent many years suffering under the threat of death at Saul's hand as Saul fought to hold onto the throne of Israel, though fully aware that Yahweh had rejected him. Thus the Lord prepared David for the kingship by nurturing his submission and dependent faithfulness in the face of unjust suffering.

This message considers the transition in Israel's history from the period of the Judges to the monarchy. The emergence of the Israelite monarchy was the fitting climax to an era defined by the summary truth that "in those days there was no king in Israel," but every man was his own king. And so Israel's call for a human king put the exclamation point on the fact that the nation had long since rejected Yahweh as their rightful King. They sought a man, not to exercise Yahweh's rule over His covenant kingdom, but in denial of that kingdom and their own uniqueness as His people. Israel sought a king to make them like the other nations.

This message examines the concluding period during the era of Israel's Judges. In particular, it considers Samuel's birth and early life in the sanctuary at Shiloh through which the Lord exposed and addressed the corruption of Israel's priesthood. That period also saw Yahweh exiled from His sanctuary, which exile continued until David was enthroned as king in Israel.

After the Lord renewed the covenant, Israel spent nearly a year at Mount Sinai preparing to depart for Canaan. The climax of that preparation was Yahweh's glory filling His newly-constructed sanctuary, and thus He led Israel away from the mountain toward Canaan. Though His glory went before them, the people immediately began grumbling and rebelling against Him, and this intractable pattern resulted in 40 years of wandering in the desert and great calamity after inheriting the promised land. This message presents a summary of that era of Israel's history from the nation's departure from Sinai until it arrived at the threshold of its new monarchy.