Welcome back to Him We Proclaim as we continue our special Reformation Conference series. Today's message is one of the most foundational truths of the Christian life. in Christ alone. Scripture reminds us that faith comes by hearing and hearing through the Word of Christ. And today we'll hear that word faithfully proclaimed by Dr.
Michael Horton. Dr. Horton is Professor of Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary, California. And he is a host of the White Horse Inn Podcast, where he has spent decades helping believers rediscover the riches of the Reformation and the beauty of gospel-centered theology. In this message, she unpacks what it means to find our entire identity, righteousness, and hope in Jesus Christ, apart from works, apart from law, apart from ourselves.
If you've ever wrestled with doubt, performance, or spiritual insecurity, this message will draw your eyes back to the only one who is sufficient: Christ Himself. What a feast we've had, right? This has been uh This this has really been A terrific time and Um so uh I'm I'm here to put an end to that. Yeah. And since, as John said, this is sleepy time.
If you want to grab a pillow, feel free. I might not off a couple times myself.
So it it really doesn't matter, but what does matter is our topic. Christ alone And uh I I prefer The ablative uh form of this. In solo solo Cristo.
Okay. In Christ alone. Um Obviously, we also believe in the Father and the Holy Spirit. But we believe that the Father works in the Son through the Spirit. Mm-hmm.
Uh that's what the ancient church taught, that All things come from the Father, in the Son. By the Spirit. And the reformers really caught hold of that. and recognize that that everything is mediated by the sun. That the Father gives, he gives in.
The sun. And so, really, in a sense, all of the solas we're talking about here. are different ways of saying In solo crystal. Why do we affirm? Uh scripture, not because it is like our Quran.
But because we can only know. God and Jesus Christ, and we can only know Jesus Christ. In his word. We need special revelation, and God has given it. In scripture, special revelation is not the same thing as what the magisterium says.
Uh the text is not the same as the teacher. And we're not even justified really by faith. That's shorthand. We're not justified by faith, we're justified by Christ. Through faith.
And that itself is a gift. Why does God receive all the glory? Because Christ has accomplished everything. the father gave him to do.
So really, um for the reformers Surely Christ alone was the centerpiece of everything they were saying. If the Pope would just affirm Christ alone, all of the other problems would be settled. And then you look at the situation today and Seventy-four per cent of White evangelicals say salvation can be found outside of faith in Christ. Mainline Protestants, 85%. Black Protestants, 81%.
White Catholics, 88%. But for white evangelicals, seventy-two percent. Salvation can be found outside of faith. in Jesus Christ. Just reminds us it's largely a political movement, has nothing to do with Jesus anymore.
Just 30%, according to Pugh. Just 30% of all U.S. Protestants affirm both sola fide and sola scriptura, and only 44% of U.S. evangelicals affirm both. Similarly, uh life way research.
found that um Uh evangelicals. That is, those who not only said they were, but they signed on to several bullet point things that you'd find on a usual statement of faith. Um A majority of evangelicals said in twenty twenty two Jesus is the first created being by God. All people are born innocent. They may sin a little, but are basically good.
Jesus was a great moral teacher, but not literally God. Other religions lead to God. And justification comes through works and faith. A majority of evangelicals.
Now hold those views. And even Christianity today, in commenting on. These uh studies remarked that Essentially, they tell us that American evangelicalism is Aryan and Pelagian. Arianism is a denial of the Trinity. You see that in some of the concepts, especially of Jesus, the Son, being the first created being.
But especially in the Pelagianism, the heresy of Pelagius versus Augustine. We pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps, but they're related because. If you're not born in original sin, if you're not dead in trespasses and sins, What what do you need? Yeah, you need an example and you need y you need r uh uh suggestions. And and so It's not surprising.
That if you deny original sin and Uh you you you put your confidence in yourself and your ability to improve morally. That's where your confidence lies. Jesus becomes a Boy Scout. Troop leader And you certainly don't need a god-man to pull this off. Mm-hmm.
encompasses Arianism. Pelagianism and Arianism are very closely related, as we've seen in the history of Protestantism. And uh more recently Um Christian Smith Has given us the language of moralistic therapeutic deism as basically the religion of all American adults. and young people in America, all the generations, conform to this rubric he calls moralistic therapeutic deism. That's what that whatever denomination, conservative, liberal, Protestant, Catholic, that is the working religion Today in America.
Moralistic. Therapeutic Deism. What Harold Bloom calls Gnosticism. Himself being having been a Jewish Gnostic. He says, I don't decry this trend in America, that America has always been a Gnostic nation, doesn't believe in a historical Christ.
But and that Jesus in the heart, who's amorphous and so forth. It's a very interesting book, The American Religion. But uh Christian Smith Just sent me his manuscript. It's coming out in March. A fantastic read.
I just finished it here. Why religion went obsolete. And It'll make you cry. But it's the best Uh pl uh the b the best uh Source of statistics You'll ever find right now on where things lie with religion in America. It's statistics, it's and his interpretation of the statistics.
And his main point, he's a Roman Catholic himself, his main point is that here are all the things that have made Christianity obsolete in America now. But the number one thing is moralism. Because once you base everything on the family that prays together, stays together. And they don't. And people find that they can stay together without praying together.
Once you find that people can find a better therapist than your pastor. Once people f discover that uh going to a YouTube concert is a lot more fun. than your local church Fog machine. You know, once people start Realizing that all these alternatives To play, it's not a difference in the goal. The goal is.
to glorify ourselves and enjoy ourselves forever. Um It's just come to church, and Jesus will show you how to do that better. And so, just as we have to define what grace is and what faith is, we have to define who Christ is. What Christ are we talking about? What Jesus are we talking about?
You know, the people storming the capital carrying banners of Jesus and crosses. What Jesus? I don't know what Jesus. They believe in. Most of these people are coming from hyper-Pentecostal backgrounds where.
They They're they they're they have a kind of Gnostic Jesus. Or Jesus becomes a bumper sticker, Jesus becomes a mascot. As William James said, God isn't worshipped in America, He's used. In the medieval world, there was a bumper sticker. Um Fakientibus.
Inse estees non denigat gradium. To those who do their best, God will not deny His grace. What would be a contemporary version of that? God helps those who help themselves. And according to one study, 87% of American evangelicals thought that was a biblical quotation We're in deep trouble.
And I want to end the gloom and doom here. And turn now to uh The positive statement In solo Cristo First of all, Jesus is God. Jesus is the mediator in creation. Before he becomes incarnate, He is the eternal word of the Father. Equal In his essence with the Father, uh and me is mediator in creation.
Listen to these passages that you're familiar with, but particularly to what I emphasize, Colossians 1, 15 through 17. And he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him All things Were created in the heavens and on the earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. all things have been created by him And for him. And he is before all things.
And in him all things Hold together.
So, already in creation as mediator. You have Solo Cristo. There is nothing that God the Father ever does. apart from the mediation of the Sun. 1 Corinthians 8:6, yet for us there is one God the Father, from whom are all things.
And we exist for him. And one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things. And we exist through him.
So we exist from the Father. In the sun. or through the sun. All things exist from the Father. in the sun.
Not One thing is left out. And now, from the author of Hebrews and the great apostle John. God, after he spoke long ago to the fathers and the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things. Through whom also he made the world.
So he's the heir of all things, and he is the radiance of his glory and the exact representation of his nature and upholds all things by the word of his power. John 1, 1 through 4. In the beginning was the Word. And the word was with God, and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God.
all things came into being by him. And apart from him, nothing.
Okay. Nothing came into being that has come into being. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. What does it mean for him to be the mediator in creation?
Well, that he is The source of life. All living things. From Snails? Uh to lions, tigers, and bears, including us. Everything.
has existence in Christ. He's the Word of God. and sends out his words as seeds. That are the different kinds of things that God creates. Maximus the Confessor put it this way: This is the great.
and hidden mystery. This is the blessed end for which all things were brought into existence. This is the divine purpose conceived before the beginning of beings. And in defining it, we would say that this mystery is the preconceived goal For the sake of which Everything exists. But which itself exists on account of nothing.
Mm-hmm. And it was with a view to this end that God created. the essences of all beings. in view of the incarnation. Creation's purpose is found in the incarnation.
The lamb slain slain. before the foundation of the world. in God's predetermination.
Okay. And this end is present in the beginning so that Incarnation is not simply an emergency event. But his gods Unfolding plan and purpose. for creating the world. But secondly, Jesus is the one to become incarnate.
So he is the mediator in Revelation. Christ is not only. The center of creation, but according to our theologians of the 16th century, Lutheran and Reformed, Christ is the scopists. Or the scope A scripture. And it wasn't unique to the Reformation, for instance, Irenaeus.
In the second century, said that the Bible, every verse in the Bible is a. is a piece in a mosaic of Christ. He said the Gnostics just Kind of cast Those pieces in various places according to their own experience and inner feelings. But he says, anyone who reads the Bible, anybody can. You don't you don't need uh You don't need my level of learning to be able to read the Bible and get its basic message.
perfectly clear. And it all points to Christ. And so even the rule of faith which we would call a creed, but they called it the rule of faith. Was a summary of the Bible, and it had authority only because. It was a summary of the Bible.
It was a summary of what the Bible taught versus what the heretics are teaching. That's where it derived its authority. For the Gnostic, truth consists exclusively of metaphysics. of that which is. But Irenaeus says truth is concerned primarily with that which happened.
Revealed in the historical economy, proclaiming Christ according to the scriptures. You notice that with the with the Creed? Um There's there's really Apart from, I believe in God the Father Almighty. There is no eternal truth. In our creed.
All of the statements are historical. Things that happened. It before it didn't happen, then suddenly it did happen. The Son became flesh, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate. We even got some, you know, uh Uh Oh unimportant bureaucrat in our creed.
No. Nailing it to history. By the time Irenaeus explained his view of Scripture itself, he had already summarized the principal teachings of the Christian faith with Christ at the center. I'm just trying to. Thus he writes when the proper method is followed.
Through the many diverse expressions there shall be heard an harmonious melody in us, praising in hymns the God who created all things. The gospel, he calls, an epitome, a concise word. The whole rest of the Bible is wrapped around the gospel. But the. the pearl of the oyster.
The pearl in the shell. is the gospel. Everything else forms around it. Herman Bawink said. The gospel, not the law.
Is The main content of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. And he went on to say, if you read. If you read the Bible, through the prism of law rather than the gospel. You are inevitably going to find it disjointed. falling apart, having no real Uh integration.
Good luck reading the Bible in a year. Uh if you're just kind of Reading it the way we normally read the Bible. Need someone to teach you out of that.
someone to teach you Not to read it. uh through the prism of the law, but through the prism of the gospel. It's the mediator in Revelation. All of Scripture is about Christ. All of Scripture points to Christ.
All things. Mediator in creation. all things. In him. The mediator of Revelation, all things are.
about him. The Father testifying to the Son. In the Old Testament, just as the Son when he comes testifies, to the Father. A marvelous What a marvelous doctrine the Trinity and the Incarnation are. And it's a So if you if you r if If you read the Bible with Christ at the center, As Jonah was talking about, if you do that, you'll read the Bible with Christ at the center.
Opening up the scriptures, he showed them how everything was about himself. be narcissistic if he weren't God. Um Uh Yeah. If you read the Bible that way, The church fathers believed and the reformers believed you will find A very simple unity. to the scriptures.
Um Rome didn't read it that way. We often don't read it that way. The Bible is about all kinds of other things.
So, Let's say Jesus on the side of all things. The scriptures say Jesus is the mediator and he's the center. All things. But you know, The challenge, not just for medieval Rome, but for us today, is.
Some things. Uh We find other things, and even it's not enough to say Christ alone, because we can find Christ as. The therapist, Christ as the life coach, Christ as the, basically, all in the category of moralism and therapeutic deism. Put it all in that category. We can find ways of turning Christ into someone other than Christ.
Finally. Uh mediator in redemption. There's a great patristic line from Gregory of Nanzianzis: What he did not assume he did not heal. The eternal sun we've been talking about. In whom all things hold together, and in whom and for whom.
The world was called into being. The one who was anticipated by types and shadows throughout the Old Covenant. The key to the scriptures Assumed our humanity in order to heal it. And so this is what we have to have to remember. The The The events, the things that happened to Jesus are the gospel, not the things that happened to you.
Not just the things that happen in you. But even the things that happen to you. Your faith is not the gospel. Your clinging to Christ is not the gospel. Your repentance is not the gospel.
The gospel Includes everything Jesus did. and accomplished for us. In the incarnation. He began to save us. Calvin has a wonderful line that from the moment he was conceived in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
He began to win our redemption. What he didn't assume, he didn't heal. But he assumed everything.
Well, not a not a human mind. Uh uh I mean he he couldn't have had a human mind. Um that had to have been divine. Um No, the Okay. The the church said that's That's wrong.
That's not true. The scriptures don't teach that. If he didn't assume a human mind, And soul. Then he didn't save. Human Minds and Souls.
Jesus saved us by his active obedience. In other words, By performing Hours. Obligation to the law. in our place. Where Adam said he would listen to the temptation of Satan to become a God himself.
And when when Even Adam saw that the tree was good for food and And pretty and desirable to make one wise at really good marketing. When she saw they she gave to her husband two, and he ate. Uh And then the second atom Tempted by the same serpent, Says, man shall not live by bread alone, or apples. Things that are that dazzle, that are pretty. Bling.
But by every word that comes from the mouth of God. And by doing this, he recapitulated Adam's trial. And one for us Yeah. won for us the crown of life. His Crucifixion, obviously.
In his crucifixion, he bore our sins, and in his resurrection, That righteousness That righteousness that is imputed to us was Secured. He was crucified for our sins and raised For our justification, and then the ascension, it's not over yet. The ascension. Without the ascension, we wouldn't be saved. If Christ had stayed on the earth in any form.
Then he would not have taken our humanity to the human being. to heaven to glorify it.
So in short, What Jesus Christ is at the right hand of the Father right now. We will be. Everything he is. Except one. in essence with the Father.
The glorified humanity that is essential to his person. Will be ours. We will be. As much like God as it is possible for a creature to be. Christ.
Alone. What a tragedy. Ever since Adam, trying to Little little worm trying to crawl up the ladder to become a god. But here, God. pities the little worm.
And makes him a son. God comes down. God comes down and lifts us up. and raises us with Christ. in heavenly places.
So, this is called the Historia Salutus, or the history of salvation. This is what was accomplished for us by Christ. This is what saves us. If you want to know how you were saved, I remember a pastor Yeah, at a Church I was at when I was in high school. Um My youth pastor was a little concerned about m where I was headed doctrinally.
Mm-hmm. And uh so So I told him, I just want to go through Romans. And he says, no, we're not going to bring that into the just When were you saved?
Now I did not I was not trying to be belligerent or anything, I promise. It just came out of my mouth and I couldn't unsay it. Brother, son, when were you saved? And I said, 2,000 years ago outside the center city of Jerusalem. That is so liberating, isn't it?
That's when I was saved. Objectively, that's when I was saved. But then there's the Ordo Salutus. Or the order of salvation. Redemption is not only accomplished by Jesus, but applied by Jesus.
So here's the thing: now we're united to Christ. The Holy Spirit gave us Jesus. In the incarnation, And that same Spirit now gives us to Jesus. The Holy Spirit inserted. the eternal sun into our temporal world.
As a temporal creature, And now inserts us into Christ. This is what the church fathers meant, like Athanasius, when they talked about. God became man so that man can become God. As much as it's possible for a creature to be. We participate in the Father as the source of our adoption, in the Son as the mediator and elder brother who makes us co-heirs of his estate.
and in the Holy Spirit as the one who unites us to Christ, And thereby justifies, sanctifies, and glorifies. The Spirit by whom the Son assumed our humanity also sustained the incarnate Son through his wilderness trial. Repeating Adam's trial, but this time succeeding. doing all that the Father had commanded him to do. As the last atom.
And now the Spirit grants us faith to be united to Christ the now exalted. God human.
So, union with Christ is not the goal. But the source of our life. This is a big difference with Rome. Rome says that in your first justification, then your second justification, you hope your ultimate goal is to be united to God. But the reformers realized in the scriptures, union with God actually happens at the beginning.
It's not a goal. It's not something to be. hoped for in the future We are united to God in Jesus Christ. Who is God? And through that union, we have all the blessings.
We have Christ along with all of his. All of his gifts. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Romans 8.1. And so Although we still struggle mightily against Satan.
Yeah. Sin? and the realities of our own fallen hearts. Christ has already even subdued Satan. Think of Romans 16:20, the God of peace.
will soon crush Satan under your feet. That's what he did with Israel, right? The E God crushed Israel's enemies. While Israel stood on the sidelines. Just watch me, God says.
You know what? Why don't you go to sleep? Cause when you're awake, you just get in my way. And so you've got you have the cleansing, you have the the the Uh th the the conquest and so forth.
Now he says Using the same language, the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. He'll do it. He will crush Satan under your feet. Is that beautiful? And so, union with Christ is often called the great exchange.
We get Christ's riches, He gets our rags. And the way God makes this tangible for us. He not only comes down and becomes fully human, That's as close as you can get. Yeah. I can't sing, he walks with me and talks with me and tells me I am his own.
But the disciples could. Our testimony is to what we handled, what we heard, what we touched with our hands. Hands, what we saw with our eyes. Mm-hmm. Well, then how can we be united to Christ ourselves?
We're united to Christ. In a way that the disciples were not. Until after Pentecost. Isn't that amazing? Pentecost was the watershed.
And now everyone is Is going out, preaching the gospel, and baptizing in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Baptism. signifies and seals that transition in the experience of the recipient. And so baptism is that bridge. That God crosses again, going down, down, down, down, all the way into our material world as far as He can go.
To take Everyday stuff, water. Bread, wine, the most common things in the world. And make them. His Royal Seals. Apart from Christ.
We are dead in sin. In Christ We are alive. Galatians 3:27 is very graphic here. Those who have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. This is not a metaphor.
This is real history.
So, how can I be united to Christ?
Well, it's something God does. That's why we include the baptism of infants. The big stumbling block for a lot of people on infant baptism is they think that baptism is something that we do. And they can't do that. Until they reach an appropriate age.
But we believe that baptism is something God does. It's God. God not just offering the gift, but conveying the gift. You know, the preaching of the gospel, not everybody believes the gospel when it's preached. But it's the gospel going forth.
It is the word of God from the lips of a sinner going forth. And Christ is right with it. Going out. to the people. Colossians three, one through four, then.
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God, set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died. And your life is hidden with Christ and God. Just as all things are hidden. in Christ as the mediator of creation.
Sun, the moon, the stars. In him they move and live and move and have their being.
So too we do in the new creation. For you have died. And your life is hidden. with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.
To be in Christ, notes Gerhardus Voss. Is not just a change in subjective conditions, but the old things are passed away, new things have come into being. There has been created a totally new environment. He's especially pushing against this idea of new creation as a purely individualistic concept. More accurately speaking, a totally new world.
In which the person spoken of Is an inhabitant and participator. It's not, in the first place, the interiority of the subject that has undergone the change. Although that of course is not to be excluded. The whole surrounding world has assumed a new aspect. and complexion.
Christ nowhere with the Apostle figures merely as a productive center of new individuals. He is everywhere. Where the formula in question occurs, the central dominating factor of a new order of affairs. in fact, nothing less than the originator and representative of a new world order. Nor does the context permit any restriction to the renovated inner nature of the Christian subjectively considered.
It belongs to the chapter on justification equally much as to that on inward renewal. Think about what a different way of thinking about the world. The world that we see today, the crazy world we see with the headlines and everything. This world, it's a passing evil age, not a passing evil world. God loves this world.
And God will. not only redeem individuals He's going to save the creation that we're destroying. Finally, Um Justification is not replaced by union with Christ. But the forensic actually is the basis. for the organic.
Okay, so you have the forensic, that means legal, the declaration. You are just, even though you are not inwardly Holy Enough. for that ju that judgment to be made. Righteousness is imputed.
Okay, that's judicial. Or Or uh uh uh legal. Then you have the organic, the more and more. Jesus, as the vine, I am the vine, you are the branches. I am the head, you are my members.
Grow more and more into me. We don't grow more and more in our justification, but we do grow more and more into our union with Christ. In sanctification. In our inner relationship. You're not.
Yeah. More married today than you were yesterday. But Hopefully, you get a little closer with each other over time. And that's certainly what happens with With our walk with the Lord. We're adopted, we're justified, but we're also growing.
into that relationship. It was a prominent motif in Byzantine and medieval spirituality. Bernard of Clairvaux. for example, in the 11th century, really emphasized both the Great Exchange and the Marital Union. the mystical union of The believer with Christ.
In fact, in Against the Antinomians, Luther declared. This doctrine is not mine, but Saint Bernard's. What am I saying? Saint Bernard's? It's the message of all Christendom.
of all the prophets and the apostles. And in Freedom of a Christian, he wrote, We conclude, therefore, that a Christian lives not in himself. But in Christ and his neighbor. In Christ in faith. in his neighbor in love.
Otherwise, he is not a Christian. He lives in Christ through faith and his neighbor through love. By faith, he is caught up beyond himself into God. By love he descends beneath himself into the neighbour. Yet he always remains in God and in his love.
Faith not only justifies, he says, it also unites the soul with Christ as a bride is united with her bridegroom. At this point, a contest of happy exchanges takes place. Is not that a happy household, when Christ, the rich, noble, and good bridegroom, takes the poor, despised, wicked little harlot in marriage? sets her free from all evil and decks her with all good things. You know, it's part of the Part of the challenge.
Is that people confuse the organic with the legal? That's what's happening. with the folks that Professor Clark was talking about. Mingling the organic and the and the legal. That's a danger.
But another danger. Is To separate the organic from the legal. And to talk about justification as something that's good news when you become a Christian, and the rest of your Christian life is bad news. Or at least Try harder. Be better.
Here's a list. This is what you should be doing. Are you doing it well enough? And so on and so forth. Um Union with Christ is Christ Yes, enough.
Solo Cristo. Christ is enough. Yeah, he's enough for justification. No, he's enough for justification, sanctification, and glorification. Only in Christ do we have The good gifts from the Father.
Any good gift from the Father comes through the Son. Even common grace to unbelievers. comes from the Father in the Son. He's the mediator even of good things. to the ungodly.
Outside the church. And so Calvin. Who quotes Bernard more than 29 times in the section devoted to union with Christ in the Institutes? 29 times. says that Paul has something higher in mind than imitation.
Namely, that the death of Christ is efficacious to destroy and overthrow. Notice that he says that not just knowledge of the death of Christ. or even faith in the death of Christ. That the death of Christ is efficacious. To destroy and overthrow the depravity of our flesh, and his resurrection to renew a better nature within us.
Also. By baptism we are admitted into participation in this grace. Having laid this fundamental proposition, Paul may very properly exhort Christians to strive to live in a manner that corresponds to their calling. Then it also affects a Our ecclesiology. It's an intersection, union with Christ is a place where we have an intersection between individuals and individual participation and the horizontal union of believers with each other.
If we're connected to the head, then we're connected to the members.
So, what I tell people when they say, well, you know, you don't have to. You don't have to go to church to be a Christian.
Well, you. You have to, where else are you going to? Yeah. To grow Into Christ your head. and into your brothers and sisters as his members.
Don't, don't, you know, if you're, if you feel like you're even a toe, don't cut yourself off from. the rest of the body. It's going to hurt you and it's going to hurt the body. God not only chose us, chose me, He chose us. He not only redeemed me, He redeemed us.
Those whom he predestined, those he called, those he justified, and yet these individuals are chosen to become the bride of Christ. Members of his body Ephesians 2:15 refers to Jew and Gentile in Christ as one new person. That's a great term for the church. One new person. Not just a collection of individuals, but one new person.
This is called the totus Christus motif. Mm-hmm. The whole Christ. The whole Christ is the head with his members. Clement of Alexandria put it this way: the complete man, if one may use the phrase the total Christ, is not divided.
He's neither barbarian nor Jew nor Greek, neither male nor female, but the new man, completely transformed. In the spirit. And that means that everything that happened to Jesus has to happen. to his church. It's his body.
Has to happen. Uh what what what did You know, did Jesus suffer? Yes.
Okay, then the church has to suffer. They persecuted me. Why do you think you're better than I am? You're gonna be persecuted. Will the church Be glorified.
Like Jesus was. Yeah, has to. All of us.
Okay. Because we're justified. Through faith. alone in Christ alone. We have to be glorified.
Here's how Calvin put it. This is the highest honor of the church. That until he is united to us, The Son of God reckons himself in some measure imperfect in heaven. What consolation. Is it for us to learn that not until we are Together with him.
Does he possess all his parts? or wish to be regarded as complete. Hence the first epistle to the Corinthians, when the apostle discusses largely the metaphor of a human body he includes under the single name of Christ, the whole church. Christ has fully merited our salvation for us outside of us in history. That's the history salutas.
We turn ourselves and our people to what he accomplished in his incarnation. Active obedience. Crucifixion Resurrection Ascension what he will accomplish in his return, that's what saves us. That's when we fix our eyes on Christ, the author and finisher of our faith, that's what we focus our eyes on. Not what he's doing in us.
but what he has done and will do for us outside of us. But as Calvin points out, all of this would be useless. If it If we were not united to him. He was united to us to pull all this off. For us But we can't actually get it.
Unless we are united to him.
So that we get his whole inheritance. We get his bank account. We get his routing number. We get, you know, it's all ours. Justification, sanctification, glorification.
And so Calvin says: through the Word and the sacraments, the Spirit works to lead us little by little to a firm union. With God, Paul not only exhorts us to follow Christ, but also takes hold of something far higher namely, that through baptism Christ makes us sharers in his death, that we may be engrafted Into it. Surely we're called to follow him then. But not following him so that we can be united to him. but united to him so that we can follow him.
Let us know, says Calvin. that the Apostle does not simply exhort us to imitate Christ. as though he had said that his death is a pattern which all Christians are to follow. For no doubt he ascends higher. Again, he uses that metaphor.
He ascends higher. Goes beyond above that. As he announces a doctrine with which he connects an exhortation. And his doctrine is this. That the death of Christ.
Is sufficient To itself destroy and demolish the depravity of our flesh and his resurrection to effect. the renovation of a better nature, and by baptism we are admitted into a participation of this. This engrafting is not only a conformity of example. He concludes but a secret union. And so, as Louis Berkhoff, one of our Reformed theologians of the 20th century, summarized.
The mystical union in the sense in which we are now speaking of is not the judicial ground. On the basis of which we become partakers of the riches that are in Christ. Many are teaching that under the Reformed banner. Today. Um It's just not reformed.
Most of the people Um who want to Um be the least Lutheran as possible. on the reformed side end up being the least reformed. Um Gerhardus Vos puts it this way. In our opinion, Paul consciously and consistently subordinated the mystical aspect of the relation to Christ to the forensic one. Paul's mind was to such an extent forensically oriented that he regarded the entire complex.
of subjective spiritual changes that take place in the believer, And of subjective spiritual blessings enjoyed by the believer as the direct outcome of the forensic work of Christ applied in justification. And fourth, very quickly, union with Christ is also the intersection of the already and the not yet. What we have already in Christ. and what we're still waiting for. Um U2's, I still haven't found what I'm waiting for.
And he even refers to it, I know the cross, but I still haven't found what I'm looking for. A lot of my friends, or some of my friends back then, said oh. Rats are They're not Christians anymore. We thought they were Christians. Hmm.
What I mean I don't know I don't know their biography. But I I love that song. I sing that song. I think we could sing that song in church. Yeah.
Yeah, there are a lot of psalms like that. that we do sing in church. Or should. Um Jesus spoke of the regeneration of all things when he assumes his throne. Matthew 19:28.
Isn't that a great phrase? in the regeneration of everything. All things created in him. All things. Foretelling him.
All things in him. In heaven or on earth. In salvation, in redemption. And one day One day, all creation will share In the joy of the glory Inherited. By the saints Sanctification will be fully realized in glorification.
But justification, as we've already heard, is the verdict of the last day rendered in the present. That is a fully realized Gift. But we grow more and more into our union. Yeah. in any marriage.
Let me just finish with a um Great summary, I think. Um Rather lyrical. It could be set to music.
Okay. So we see That our whole salvation and all its parts. are comprehended in Christ. We should therefore take care not to derive the least portion of it from anywhere else. If we seek salvation, we are taught by the very name of Jesus that it is of Him.
If we seek Any gifts of the Spirit. They will be found in his anointing. If we seek strength. It lies in his dominion. If purity In his virginal conception.
If gentleness It appears in his birth. For by his birth, he was made like us in all respects, that he might learn to feel our pain. If we seek redemption, it lies in His passion. If acquittal in his condemnation If remission of the curse in his cross If satisfaction in his sacrifice If purification in his blood. If reconciliation in his descent into hell.
Mortification of the flesh? In his tomb. Newness of life? In his resurrection. If mortality in the same If inheritance of the heavenly kingdom in his entrance, into heaven.
If protection, if security, if abundant supply of all blessings in His. Kingdom reign. If untroubled expectation of judgment In the power given him to judge. In short. since rich sore of every kind of good abounds in him, Let us drink our fill from this fountain and from no other.
And then Thanks for joining us today on Him We Proclaim. We hope Dr. Michael Horton's message in Christ Alone has pointed you back to the sufficiency and supremacy of Jesus in every aspect of your faith. As Dr. Horton reminded us, the good news of the gospel is not Christ plus, but Christ alone.
That truth sets us free. If you're ever near Jacksonville, Florida, we invite you to worship with us at Paramount Church. We're a gospel-centered congregation committed to proclaiming Christ in all of life. You can find out about our church, ministries, and upcoming events at Paramountchurch.com. And next time on the podcast, we'll turn to the final message in our Reformation Conference series with Dr.
Andreas Stegman as he unpacks To God Alone Be the Glory. You won't want to miss this powerful reminder that every moment, every gift, every salvation story points not to us, but to the glory of our great God. Until then, keep looking to Christ and keep proclaiming Him.
