Out of the Ivory Palaces

At Christmas, He came out of the ivory palaces and into this world of love, and only a great, an enormous, a profound, eternal love made my Saviour go. At Christmas, we spend a lot of time considering the wonder of the Incarnation, the birth of Christ in Bethlehem and His humble surroundings. But do we take the time to ponder the magnificence of where He came from, what He left for that first Christmas to be possible? You're listening to a special Saturday edition of Renewing Your Mind, as each Saturday this month, you'll hear Christmas messages from the preaching and teaching ministry of R.C.

Sproul. There is so much to ponder and give thanks to God for during the Advent season. One way we're seeking to help you do that is through these hand-selected messages each Saturday, but also by making R.C. Sproul's new Advent devotional available to you and listeners.

You can learn how to request your copy at renewingyourmind.org. To help us consider the where and why of the Incarnation, here's R.C. Sproul with a message titled, Out of the Ivory Palaces. Don't you love Christmas? I love it. I never get tired of Christmas. It's one of those things that as soon as we throw the carcass of the turkey away after Thanksgiving, Vesta wants to get out the lights and start decorating and begin to think about the Christmas season. And there's something precious of the constant reminders of the sweetness of Christ and His birth that we celebrate at this time. My text is taken from the Gospel according to St. John chapter 17, verses 1 through 10. These things Jesus spoke, and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify Thy Son, that the Son may glorify Thee, even as Thou gavest Him authority over all mankind, that to all whom Thou hast given Him, He may give eternal life. And this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent. I glorified Thee on the earth, having accomplished the work which Thou hast given me to do.

And now glorify Thou me together with Thyself, Father, with the glory which I had with You before the foundation of the world. I manifested Thy name to the men whom Thou gavest me out of the world. Thine they were, and Thou gavest them to me, and they have kept Thy word. And now they have come to know that everything that Thou hast given me is from Thee. For the words which Thou gavest me I have given to them, and they received them and truly understood that I came forth from Thee, and they believed that Thou did send me. I ask on their behalf, I do not ask on behalf of the world, but of those whom Thou hast given me, for they are Thine.

And all things that are mine are Thine, and Thine are mine, and I have been glorified in them. The first year in my career as a seminary professor in the year 1968, I was teaching in Philadelphia on the faculty of the Conwell School of Theology at Temple University. And one night in the winter of 1968, I noticed a man sitting in a desk in one of the administrative offices whom I had never noticed there in the past. He was an elderly man, and he was at that moment about to get up and leave for the evening.

It was a cold night. The man donned his overcoat, and he began to walk stoop shouldered, more or less shuffling down the corridor. And so I walked over to assist him out of the building, and I said to him, you know, what are you doing here?

And he explained to me that he was a retired accountant, and that in his retirement he was volunteering occasionally a few hours a month to help with some of the bookkeeping for the seminary. And as we got to the door, and I opened the door for him and was ready to bid him good night, I asked the man his name. And he said to me, my name is Henry, Henry Bearclough, he said. And I stopped for a second. The name registered somewhat vaguely, and then it dawned on me, and I said, you're not the Henry Bearclough, are you?

And you could just see the change in the man's demeanor. He swelled with pride and was obviously delighted that I recognized his name. And he smiled at me, and he said, you mean the hymn writer? And I said, yes, are you that Henry Bearclough?

And he said, yes, I am. Henry Bearclough wrote the hymn, and I think it's the only hymn he ever wrote, entitled Ivory Palaces. And he wrote the hymn in 1915. That's why I was astonished to meet Henry Bearclough.

I thought maybe this was Henry Bearclough III or something. But as we were standing there on that cold night in Philadelphia, and I was in awe of Mr. Bearclough, I said, Mr. Bearclough, what motivated you to write that hymn that has the refrain, out of the ivory palaces into a world of woe, only a great eternal love made my Savior go? He said, well, it was in Lent in the year 1915. He said, I was a young man, I was a new Christian, and I went to an evening service in Philadelphia.

He told me the church, I'm not sure, I don't remember which one it is, I think it was Arch Street Presbyterian, I'm sure it had to be a Presbyterian church. But he said, the subject that evening was the kenotic hymn of Philippians 2. And you, of course, are familiar with that hymn that the Apostle Paul uses in chapter 2 of Philippians, where he says, have this mind among you which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, took his equality with God, not as a thing to be grasped, not as something to be jealously guarded, tenaciously held on to, but he emptied himself, and he took upon himself the form of a servant, and became obedient even unto death. And then Paul goes on to say, wherefore hath God highly exalted him, and given him a name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee would bow, and every tongue confess that he is Lord. Mr. Bearclough said, I heard this sermon, and he said, it so moved my soul.

He said that as soon as I came back from that service, I picked up my pen, and I began to write. He said, I was contemplating the emptying that my Savior did for us. It's customary on Christmas for preachers all over the world to speak about the depths of the humiliation of Jesus' birth, the circumstances of poverty, the fact that he is born to peasants.

That is what is stressed. We talk about the humiliation and the poverty in which Jesus was born. In other words, we tend to focus, ladies and gentlemen, on what Jesus came to. We almost never examine the question where Jesus came from. He answers the question during his earthly ministry when he says, no one ascends into heaven except the one who has descended from heaven. Jesus did not come from Nazareth.

He did not come from Bethlehem. But as Henry Bearclough understood, it was out of the ivory palaces from whence he came. What Jesus emptied himself of, beloved, was his glory. He stripped himself of his privilege, of his divine prerogatives. He emptied himself of his honor. He sacrificed his dignity. In October of the year of our Lord, 1991, the United States government suffered one of its darkest moments in the extended confirmation hearing of Judge Clarence Thomas. In the second round, after the allegations about him were made public and the extended hearings came to pass, and he came to testify, it was a different man from the first hearings.

The first hearings evasive, careful, guarded in his speech. The second time we can sense his fury and he said, look, I don't care anymore about this job since you can take my car and I can buy a new one. Take my job.

I can survive that. But now you've taken my name. You've taken my reputation.

And I can't buy it back. But Jesus donated his. Nobody took away his glory. Nobody stripped him of his privilege.

Nobody ripped apart his status. He laid it aside. Why did he do it? I'm going to suggest an answer to you that when I give it, I really suspect that some of you who are here tonight, after you hear what I'm about to say, will never want to hear anything again from me. Because what I'm about to say is so controversial in Christendom, but it's so important and it's so integral to this passage that I believe that I would be committing treason against Christ not to say it. Why was Jesus willing to give up his glory? The facile answer, the simplistic answer, the easy answer is to say, God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes on Him should not perish but have everlasting life. We know the Bible teaches that. Every Christian knows the Bible teaches that and everybody knows that in certain sense that God loves the world and that behind all of this drama of redemption stands this incredible love of God. But it doesn't explain this prayer. Henry Bearclaw had a taste of understanding when he said, only a great eternal love made my Savior go. The only thing that made it possible for my Savior to check out of ivory palaces and willingly come into a world of woe was a motivation of unspeakable love. I think every Christian would agree with that.

That's not the controversy. Here it comes. Love for whom? The answer I find here was that it was a great arresting, gripping, abiding love for His sheep, for all of those whom the Father had given to Him from the foundation of the world. It was an unbelievable love for the elect lady and her seed for the church. What does He say in this prayer?

Listen to this. Listen as thou gavest Him authority over all mankind that to all whom thou hast given Him He may give eternal life. Again I manifested thy name to the men whom thou gavest Me out of the world. They were yours. You gave them to Me.

They have kept your word. The words that you gave Me I gave to them. They received them and truly understood that I came forth from Thee.

Now listen to this. I ask on their behalf. I do not ask on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom thou hast given to Me, for they are yours. And I am no more in the world, and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to Thee, Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which Thou hast given Me, that they may be one even as we are one. While I was with them, I was keeping them in Your name, which You have given to Me. I guarded them, and not one of them perished, but the son of perdition that the Scripture might be fulfilled. And now I am coming home, and I am asking You to guard them, to keep them, and to glorify them with Me.

That prayer is for you. That yes, there is a general sense ladies and gentlemen, in which God loves the world, but there is a special sense in which God loves His people. Now I'm going to give a speculative thing that comes to the very brink of heresy, and if you push it too precisely, it'll get us into heresy.

But I'd like to imagine a conversation in the Godhead that took place in eternity. Something like this, where the Son says, the Father, Father, what are you going to do with this world you're contemplating making, the way I see it and that you see it, we look down there and we see a mess coming out of this. People are disobeying You. They're violating Your commandment.

They're guilty of cosmic treason. If I were You, Father, I'd destroy the whole lot and start over again. No, my son, what I create, I redeem. Redeem? You're going to redeem that? How are you going to redeem it? Well, son, I said that I was going to redeem it, but really, the way I'm going to redeem it is through You. Through me?

Well, what do you mean through? What's the plan? Well, the first thing I want you to do, son, is to go in the other room and take off your glory. And while you're in there, strip yourself of your reputation and leave your dignity on the shelf. And then I'm going to send you to that planet into a world of woe. And I'm going to put you under the authority of evil people who will mock you and judge you and ridicule you that you could destroy by clicking your fingers and you're going to withhold that authority. You're going to take it.

And you're going to love them. You mean you just want me to be an example to them of humility? Well, no, I had something else in mind. While you're there, stripped of your dignity, I'm going to clothe you with something else.

Oh, you mean like glory? No, I'm going to clothe you with the sin of the people I'm redeeming. I'm going to take the sin of the redeemed and I'm going to put it on your back. Well, what am I going to do with it then? You're going to bear my wrath for it.

Well, why in the world are you asking me to do that? Ladies and gentlemen, the overwhelming majority of Christians would step into this little make-believe scenario that I'm giving right now and say this, so that somebody hopefully would avail themselves of this great gift and be saved. So the Son says, you mean I'm doing this so that everybody in the world will have an opportunity to be saved?

Yes. And the Son says, well, what if nobody exercises that? He said, well, Son, if nobody chooses that for themself, you and I will know what you did and I will praise you for eternity while the world is lost. And I know that you will not be able to see the travail of your soul and ever be satisfied, but I want you to do it anyway.

That's not what He said. He said, Son, from the foundation of the world, I have chosen My holy seed, Israel. They are Mine. They belong to Me, and I'm giving them to you as My gift.

And I'm asking you to do that for them. Ladies and gentlemen, at Christmas He came out of the ivory palaces and into this world of woe, and only a great and enormous, a profound, eternal love made my Savior go. Don't abstract that love this Christmas. It was not a potential redemption. By design, it was a definite and particular redemption of His sheep, which you are if it be so that you are in Him. Christmas is for you, for the Christian.

That was R.C. Sproul on this Saturday edition of Renewing Your Mind, and I'm glad you're with us today. We mustn't strip Christmas of right theology, understanding why Jesus came as a baby, where He came from, and for whom He came, should only lead to a more joyful, thankful, and celebratory season.

R.C. Sproul reflects further on the Advent season in his new 24-chapter Advent devotional titled, The Advent of Glory. This new volume, which also contains prayers from Christian leaders like Sinclair Ferguson, Joni Eareckson Carter, Tim Challies, and others, can be yours for a donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org. Request your copy today and return to those thoughtful reflections every December. Give your year-end gift in support of Renewing Your Mind at renewingyourmind.org. Thank you. I hope you'll join us next Saturday as R.C. Sproul tells a tale of three kings here on Renewing Your Mind. R.C. Sproul, Jr.