"Christ the Conquering King" (I Cor. 15:20-28)

Transcript:

As we remain standing, let's open God's word tonight to First Corinthians 15. We'll be reading verses 20 through 28. This is in your Pew Bibles on page 1142. 1142. Hear now the word of the Lord from First Corinthians 15, 20, 28.

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive, but each in his own order. Christ the first fruits. Then at his coming, those who belong to Christ.

Then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father, after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For God has put all things in subjection under his feet. But when it says all things are put in subjection, it is plain that he is accepted who put all things in subjection under him.

When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all. This is the word of the Lord. Please be seated. And as you're taking your seats, let's join our hearts together in prayer as we prepare to study God's word tonight. Pray with me.

Gracious Father, thank you for your word. And we thank you for pulling back the curtain for us to see mysteries that have not yet been made plain in this world. To see the scope and the end game of the redemptive plan that you have for your son, Jesus Christ, as well as the work that he is doing right now that is leading up to that. We pray tonight that as we study these things together that you would give us your spirit, Father, that we might have hearts to understand and eyes to see and ears to hear. All that is contained in the good news of the Gospel of our Savior, your Son, Jesus Christ.

And it's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.

Every believer longs for Christ's return. As we read about Christ's return, there is nothing that thrills the soul of the believer more than to think about the day when indeed Jesus Christ, mounted on that white horse, will return and put all of his enemies under his feet. That will be a glorious day when God Himself will wipe away every tear from our eyes, when we will be glorified with resurrected bodies in which we will Glorify and worship God and fellowship with one another for all of eternity. What a blessed day that will be when we enter into the wedding feast of the Lamb that Tom read tonight earlier in our officer reading. But this is not simply an imaginary theoretical thing for us.

It's not just a prophecy of something that is good that we are content to sort of look off at in the distance and say, won't that be a wonderful time? When that actually comes? What really drives us and motivates us week by week to look forward to the return of Christ are all of the sufferings and trials that we face on a month to month, week to week, day to day, hour to hour basis. Again, just a few minutes ago, we prayed for many ailments, many trials, many kinds of suffering that different people are experiencing. We've been praying for those this week for various members of our congregation as we get those prayer requests coming by email.

There's no end, and those are only the ones that are named and written down. There's no end to the things that we are suffering. And we start to wonder with the psalmist, how long, O Lord? Or maybe to put a sharper point to it, how much longer is this going to be? You know, they put that new train line on Ridge Road and the tracks have been there for a while, but if you've been caught at it, there's no telling how long you are going to be there.

How long will this be? My wife and I were out on Friday night and coming back home and we were driving through an area and we got stuck and there was a train that was just parked on the tracks. And everywhere we tried to go, we were in Hammond, I think, and we were trying to get around to get back to our home. And everywhere we went, the roads were closed or we'd come to another lane where there was again, that train parked. I don't know how long this train was and I don't know how long it was going to be there.

We had to go extremely far out of the way to get back home. So. But every time you run into those situations, you say, how long? How long is this going to be? How long will this be until things can move in the way they are supposed to be?

And that's what we think when we think about Christ, what's taking so long? Why aren't things moving? When do we get to go home? Well, all of these questions are not answered, at least in the answer that we want, about exactly how long this is going to be. But we are Told that the time between then and now is not a waste.

We are told that Christ is right now doing something for us, namely, that Christ is right now completing his royal rescue mission. That's our theme for tonight. That Christ is right now completing his royal rescue mission, that he is at work, and what he is doing is right now for our benefit, even though there is a delay. So we'll look at our text tonight in three parts. First, Christ our coming king.

Christ our coming king. Second, Christ our conquering king. Christ our conquering king. And then third, Christ our consummation king. And we'll define that word when we get there.

Christ our consummation king. So let's start with Christ our coming king. This is that gap between the already and the not yet that we read about in verses 20 through 23, where Paul brings us back to 2,000 years ago, when Jesus was raised from the dead in verse 20. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. The first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

For as by a man came death by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. Now, stop there for a moment. Two weeks ago, if you were here for the evening services, the director of congregational care, we've been ord preached on First Corinthians 15:12 through 23. So the passages overlap. And I was really pleased about that because it shows the connection between what he was preaching about, namely the resurrection of Christ and how that gives us comfort today that we will one day be resurrected.

But now, looking forward from that resurrection that happened 2000 years ago and what we are awaiting in the future, but also all that is happening that is going to get us there and then beyond into eternity with Christ. And again, our director of congregational care talked about the fact that this language of first fruits assumes that there will be a second fruits. He talked about his time on the farm. And when they talked about first and second and third cuttings of a particular crop, that meant that they could continue to glean things out of the field. Unlike corn, which the only agricultural work that I have done is with corn.

And when you chop that down, it's done if first fruits, what Paul is saying here, there will also be second fruits if there's only one harvest, you'd say that. But if there's a first fruit, that language assumes that there will be a second fruit. And as Christ was raised from the dead, so also will we be raised from the dead. And one of my favorite parts to this idea of first fruits is that this is tapping into that old Testament imagery of the feast of First Fruits. Every year, the people of Israel would celebrate celebrate the first fruits.

And in Leviticus 23, verse 11, we learn what day they celebrated the feast of first Fruits. It was the day after the Sabbath, that is the Sunday morning following Passover every year. If you think about what day that was, that was Easter Sunday. Resurrection Sunday was the feast of first fruits. Christ was raised from the dead as first fruits.

And that's not just Paul superimposing that language on Christ's resurrection. That's literally the day that was the festival day that the Jews were celebrating when Jesus Christ was raised from the dead the day after the Sabbath following the Passover, and Christ fulfilling first fruits on that day. The promise is that having first fruits fulfilled, there will certainly be a fulfillment of the second fruits of the harvest that would be brought in with us. And so in verses 21 and 22, there's a connection about the men, the men by whom death entered the world, and the man and the men by whom, or excuse me, the man by whom death entered the world and the man who will make us alive at the resurrection. Verse 21.

For as by a man came death, that's Adam, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. That's Christ, verse 22. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. There's an important connection that Christ, in order to accomplish our rescue, to accomplish our salvation, had to become one of us. Maybe you've seen a movie of a rescue mission, a military operation, where to get behind enemy lines, the hero has to bear a disguise that makes him look like one of the enemies.

Well, our Lord did not wear a disguise that he could take off and discard. Our Lord actually became one of his enemies. He became a member of the human race who had been at enmity with him since the rebellion of Adam. However, Christ, being born without sin, was the hero who could take his humanity and by that humanity suffer and die for the curse of our sin and to be raised from the dead, not only living and dying in our flesh, but raising up so that we too could be raised up with Him. And there's good reason for thinking about that military rescue mission imagery, because that's the language Paul uses.

In verse 23, he shifts from agricultural imagery of a first fruit, implying a second fruit harvest. And in verse 23, now he uses military language. He says, but each in his own order. This order language is a military term describing a rank or a band of soldiers. We are no Longer talking about a two stage harvest, the first cutting and then the second cutting.

We are now talking about a two wave military assault on the gates of hell and on death itself. Jesus Christ being the first wave, the first order, storming the gates of hell to liberate the human race in himself when he, a man, was raised from the dead. But on the last day he will once for all storm the gates of death to bring back from the dead all those who have fallen asleep in him. Heidelberg Catechism 50. We read tonight that Christ ascended to heaven there to show that he is head of his church.

We confessed that just a moment ago. When we talk about the connection of Christ to us as our head, the connection that we are talking about is a human connection. A head is something that a human has. God does not have a body. God does not have a physical head.

And so the eternal Son of God, God the Son, took upon himself a human body so that he would have a head and so that he would be the head of his body, the Church, his bride, that he has taken to himself. And this is an essential point and we're going to see how this is transformed into eternity. But the salvation of human beings, including especially our ultimate resurrection, requires a human mediator. If Christ had not been human raised from the dead, then we as human beings would not have the hope that we also will be raised up with Him.

And the comfort we have from this is when we start to worry. Do you ever worry that God does not understand the pains that you experience? Do you ever start to think that maybe God is so far aloof in heaven that he is unaware of the difficulties and the toils and the burdens you bear? Do you start to think that you are alone in this world? Well, God is not aloof from us.

God is not shouting down contemptuously or irritably with us from his heavenly tower. God so loved the world that he actually became one of us. He lived a life not of ordinary suffering, of more than ordinary abasement or more than ordinary humiliation. And he did this experiencing our frailties, enduring our temptation, suffering in our place for our sins. If anyone knows the struggles and trials we have, it is our sympathetic, faithful high priest.

But if that's true, if he does know the fears and weaknesses and struggles that we have, why has he not returned yet? What's taking so long? When can we go home? Well, this brings us to the second section where Paul explains to us that what Christ is doing right now is a very important work. And so the second section is that we see now Christ our conquering king, that Christ now is working as the King to conquer and to put his end enemies under his feet.

Now to get this section started in verse 24, Paul zooms to the very end of the sequence. He says, then comes the end. Now there's a very compressed account here of the end, because right after this he goes all the way back to the beginning of the end, to what started what the Scriptures call these last days that we have been in for the last 2000 years. The last days started with Christ's resurrection as the first fruit. And again since then we have been in these last days.

But then when he says in the rest of verse 24 is, then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and every power. This is what Christ is doing right now. This is what is taking so long. He's not distracted from the work. He is actively destroying every rule and every authority and every power.

Now importantly, this word destroy does not mean to annihilate is a word that actually means rendering null and void or abolishing or making inoperative. In other words, Christ is not only bringing to nothing every hostile power, he will do that at the very end when he crushes his enemy enemies, but he's also bringing every rule and every authority and every power under his feet. And the reason he has not yet returned is because he has not finished the pre return work of conquering. He has so many things to do. Not that everything will be conquered before he returns, but he's setting up everything that will happen when he finally returns.

And that's what we read about in verse 23. At his coming, all of these things are sort of brought out of sequence. Starts with Christ's first fruit. Right now he's destroying every rule and every authority in his power. And then at his coming, he will complete this work by finally abolishing every human authority.

So that just as Revelation 21, verse 23 tells us there will be no need for a sun or a moon for light in the the new Jerusalem, so also there will be no need for human institutions to mediate God's authority in the new heavens and the new earth. But also at his coming, verse 23, we read that he is raising up those who belong to Christ as the second order, as that second wave of this military storming and the gates of death.

But then we read that then comes the end. The end when all authorities are conquered, when he will finally complete the mission that he was tasked to accomplish as the great mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. And when the end comes, he will finally deliver the kingdom to God his father. And verse 25 again tells us what's taking so long. For he must reign until he has put all of his enemies under his feet.

Christ, our conquering King, is doing that right now. He is putting all of his enemies under his feet. Now, the language of putting his enemies under his feet is reminiscent of Psalm 2, where the Lord declares to the Messiah, to the Anointed One, that he will put all of his enemies under his feet. But here Christ is set as the main actor. He is the one.

Christ is the one putting all of his enemies under his feet. But what we're waiting for, what all of this is leading for, is the last battle, where the last enemy in verse 26 will be destroyed as death itself. You see, you think about all of the enemies of humankind that have risen, all the enemies to our country, all of the enemies to people, all of the most wicked people, whether good or whether evil, everyone has died. No matter who you are, unless Christ returns first, you will face death. Death then was conquered once and for all in Christ.

And yet Christ is continuing his reign until the very end when he will finally forever put away death. At the last, when the resurrection will put us beyond the reach of death forever. And that will be the second order, the second harvest, the second fruits. And right now, when we are between the two times, between the first resurrection and the second, the first fruit and the second fruit, the first order and the second order. Death is something that is conquered, and yet it remains in us like a lingering affliction, even though it no longer reigns over us as a tyrant.

What Paul will say at the end of this chapter is he will celebrate, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O Death, where is your sting? And it doesn't have it anymore because Christ has been raised from the dead. And therefore we will.

But what Paul is doing here is he is showing us what is taking so long until we are able to go home to be with the Lord forever. Now it's Mother's Day. Let me give all of you mothers an illustration that I suspect if your home is anything like ours, that you might be able to relate to. If you've ever had small children and they are becoming hungry, and it's that time right after nap time, right before dinner is ready, and you're busy preparing dinner, and the children come up and they ask for a snack, and you say, no, dinner is almost ready. We will prepare this.

And they say, no, I'm hungry. I want the snack. What's taking so long? And you say, dinner is almost ready. And they look at you and they see that you are not literally putting food into their mouth.

And so they simply cannot comprehend what is taking so long. You clearly are not feeding me, so you clearly must not be doing anything related to the preparation of food for me. Why won't you get my meal ready? Hypothetically, I should say, you know, this is something you can imagine, perhaps maybe you've experienced this. Mothers, what gives you the patience to sort of deal with that hangry child?

Well, it's because you know what it's like to be hungry. And so you can appreciate a child who maybe doesn't understand the time it takes to prepare food. And they don't understand that they have to be patient. And so you can show patience to that impatient child. But I think that child who cannot understand what's taking so long to prepare the food is a bit like us when we call out to the Lord and say, how long, O Lord, does it really need to take this long?

I don't see you putting your enemies under your feet. Therefore I can't understand how you are doing anything of the sort. What is taking so long? When can we come home and our Lord tells us, be patient. Christ is making all things ready.

Christ is indeed putting his enemies under his feet. Would your perspective change if you knew that Christ was not just delaying the coming feast, but he was preparing it for you? Would your perspective change to know that dinner is just about ready? It'll be on the table soon when we will dine at the wedding feast of the Lamb. Be patient.

Dinner is coming. The God man is on his throne in heaven. He is right now conquering his enemies to prepare for his coming. And indeed, that's part of what we confess in Heidelberg Catechism 51, that by his power even now he defends us and he preserves us from all his enemies, not just in the treading water sense, but in a way that is abolishing and putting all of his enemies under his feet.

But let's ask one last question. Then what? We know Christ is raised, and therefore we will be raised. We know Christ is right now getting ready that wedding feast of the Lamb that one day we will dine at. But then what?

What will that time be like in all of eternity? And this is where we come to the third section, Christ, our consummation king, in verses 27 through 28, Christ our consummation King. The word consummation is what theologians use to refer to the final, complete, perfect bringing to an end of God's redemptive plan. And in verse 27, Paul writes about this. He says, for God has put all things in subjection under his feet.

Now here the psalm alluded to, the psalm being quoted is no longer Psalm 2. It's Psalm 8, which was our call to worship this morning. That psalm about what is man, that you are mindful of him for a time, you have put all things under his feet. And what Paul is saying is that there is a general sense in which the dominion that humans exercise over all of creation is fulfilled in just the way that we live our lives and exercise dominion in creation, but that that psalm is ultimately fulfilled in the one under whom God, God is putting all things in subjection under his feet. It's fulfilled in Christ.

And he says, but when it says all things are put in subjection, it is plain that he is accepted. There's an exception here who put all things in subjection under him. Now, this is sort of. There are a lot of moving parts in this verse, but what Paul is saying is very clear in the next verse, is that if all things are put in subjection under the feet of Christ, the one who is not put in subjection under the feet of Christ is God the Father. So God is not put in subjection under the feet of the God man, Christ Jesus.

And this is what we read in verse 28. Because when all things are subjected to him to Christ, then the Son himself will be subjected to him, to the Father who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.

Now, what does this mean? It's important that we get this right, because if we don't understand what he is saying here, and it's tricky to interpret what he's saying here, then we will make a very serious error of about the person of Christ. Because the question this raises is, does this mean that God the Son will be eternally subordinate or eternally subjected to His Father for all of eternity? And that's not at all true. And there are two, at least two ways that we know of this.

The first way is that we know that when the angel was speaking to when Gabriel was speaking, speaking to Mary In Luke verse 1 or chapter 1, verse 33, Gabriel said that of Christ's kingdom there will be no end there. We know end to his reign and his dominion and his authority. But what's even more clear is that when we read this language. What's the purpose of whatever this subjection to God? What's the purpose here?

It is so that God may be all in all. If it is necessary for the Son, the second Person of the Trinity, to be subjected to the Father for God to be all in all, that would mean that the Son is not God, and yet the Son is God. We confess that explicitly in the Nicene Creed. So if he is indeed God of God, very God, of very God, begotten, not made of one substance with the Father, he cannot be subordinate to the Father for all of eternity. So what's happening here?

This is one of my favorite things that happens in the New Testament. And once you start to look for it, you see it all over the place. Because the Mediator Christ Jesus is one person who has two natures, who possesses two natures that are perfectly united in one person. He is God, fully God, and he is also true man. True God and true man.

The Scriptures sometimes speak of what this one person does in one nature according to the language of the other nature. So let me give you a few illustrations of this. In Luke 1, verse 43, Elizabeth, the cousin of Mary, calls Mary the mother of my lo Lord. Well, does the Lord, Does God have a mother? Well, not as God, as God.

The Son of God does not have a human mother. He couldn't. Mary did not eternally exist. There was no way that she could be the mother of the divine God. But the Son of God in his human incarnation took upon a human nature, and he was born to a human mother and conceived.

And the one who is conceived in the womb of the virgin Mary and who was given birth by him, that we think about maybe this mother's day. The child she gave birth to was truly God. So it's right for Elizabeth to call Mary the mother of my Lord. Or in Acts, chapter 20, verse 28, Paul is preaching and talks about the church of God which he obtained with his blood. Now, does God have blood?

Not in his divine nature. God does not have a body. He does not have blood. But God the Son took a human body. And in that human body God the Son suffered and bled and died.

We see a similar thing in First Corinthians 2. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. God, the Lord of glory, cannot be crucified. But the Son of God took upon a human nature so that he could be crucified. And there on the cross, God was crucified.

There on the cross, God suffered and bled and God died not according to his divine nature. He experienced that according to his human nature. And yet there is no separation in Christ between the divine and the human. And so what we are reading about here is the same kind of thing is happening. We are reading about the language of God, the Son, divine language, but we are reading about what is going to happen according to his humanity.

We are reading about what the mediator, what the Christ in this royal rescue mission as a man seated in the heavenly places, at the right hand of his Father, where all of his enemies are being put under his feet. That mediator will come to the end of his royal rescue mission, where all of his enemies will be subjected to him. And the final thing that Christ will do as the mediator, the God man, will be as a human being, as the head of his church, to deliver the kingdom to his Father so that God may be all in all. Now, here is why this is important. Christ, once he has taken a human nature, will always possess a human nature.

However, what Christ is doing right now in his human nature, for us, mediating for us, us, the need for that will come to an end when the royal rescue mission has been completed. Christ will perpetually be a human being, and yet in eternity to come, his humanity will fade into the background. It will not be as important as it is today, because right now we need a human being, our head in heaven. But the day for that will be coming to an end. And so that in eternity to come, we will enjoy the immediate vision and fruition of God, the Father, of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit to all eternity, as the Westminster larger catechism number 90 says.

Calvin puts it this way. He says he will not in this way resign the kingdom. He's not departing the kingdom. His kingdom will have no end, but he will transfer it in a manner from his humanity to his glorious divinity. Thus, then Christ will be subjected to the Father, because the veil being then removed, we shall openly behold God reigning in his majesty.

And Christ's humanity will then no longer be interposed, put between us to keep us back from a closer view of the God. The day is coming when you will be with God forever. The application to all of this that's happening here is to take comfort your King will come again. And when he does, he will bring that royal rescue mission to completion forever. And as Heidelberg Catechism 52 says, in all distress and persecution, with uplifted head, I confidently await the very judge who has already offered himself to the judgment of God in my place and remove the whole curse from me.

Christ will cast all his enemies and mine into everlasting condemnation, but will take me and all his chosen ones to himself into the joy and glory of heaven. If you were in Christ today, what you experience today is not because Christ the King has become distracted. He is not leaving you in suffering to rub your nose in something. It's not for your punishment, although it may at times be used for your correction. It is not because of any cruelty or neglect from God.

If you are in cruel Christ, what you experience is the turbulence of King Jesus putting enemies under his feet. Take heart. Your suffering is not out of Christ's control and it is not in vain. Your king will come again, and when he puts all of his enemies under his feet, he will even raise you from the dead. No longer to be subject to death forever.

Not so that you can extend the experience you have in this life, but so that you can enjoy the immediate vision and fruition of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit for all of eternity and what blessedness that will be. Until then, beloved, be comfort in the promise of Christ's Gospel. And as we read this morning, continue in the grace of God. God. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we do pray that you would prepare us for the eternal weight of glory we have in Christ Jesus. We pray that you would give us patience to await the day when Christ will raise us up. And Father, we pray that you would give us appetites, appetites of the heart that are yearning, craving, seeking after the immediate vision and fruition of you, Father, and of your Son, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit throughout all of eternity until that day. Bless us, equip us, strengthen us, defend us and protect us. We pray all this for Christ's name and his sake and his glory and our good which is hidden in Christ.

Amen.