Word of Salvation – Vol. 22 No. 28 – March 1976

 

This Newness Of Life...!

 

Sermon by Rev. P.G. Van Dam on Rom 6.4 and 11

(Easter Sermon)

Scripture Reading: 1Cor.15

Psalter Hymnal: 233:5,6,7; 275 (with law); 493 (with creed); 357; 361

 

Dear Brothers and Sisters in the Lord,

From Scripture we know that death was not part of God's creation Instead in Gen.2.17 we read that death was the punishment of God upon man's disobedience.  And Gen.3.19 (which is part of God's verdict upon Adam's guilt) shows that this death includes physical death, the death of the body.

In disobeying God man had wanted to live outside the bond with God; with the God Who alone is the Giver and Keeper of life.  Only in the way of a true relationship with God, marked by true worship and obedience could there be true life.

For that reason life in this sinful world ― that is to say: in this world without God ― is a continuous dying.  With all the marks of dying;  suffering, hardship, loneliness, etc.  It is a life without hope.

And so would MY life be if lived in sin; a life lived for myself.  For that is what sin is: living for myself, rather than for my God.  The end of a life lived for itself is death.

And the definition of death is being forsaken by God in His judgment upon sin.  Death is His curse upon all those who do not live WITH Him, IN Him, and FOR Him; upon all those who sought life in themselves or in this world.

And we all will die, for life is not possible in this present world; in a world which is the domain of Satan.  It is a world of darkness; it is the valley of the shadow of death.

At the same time, death shows OUR OWN IMPOTENCE.  No matter how great our strength, our name, our possessions, etc. we have no control of our lives in this world.  Our lives WILL come to an end.  So death also is beyond man's control; it will come to all men, at the time appointed, not by him, but by God.

So just WHAT are we doing in this world?  Living or dying?

And hence also the fear of death.  And rightly so, for death is the God's curse upon and the outcome of a life that did not want to live with God.  Death, it is the moment at which God rejects and forsakes the sinner.  For that reason death is indeed a frightful reality.  And is that death the sinner's END?  No, not really.  It is the beginning of an eternity of torment in hell.  Torment, the word we have borrowed from the description of hell that is, from the description of the fate of those who have denied God as we have it in Rev.14 9-11.

And is death therefore the gateway to hell for all people, in as much as all have failed God; in as much as no one has sought Him (Rom 3.10-18)?  Well, THIS is the joyful occasion of Easter that WE may remember and confess that God in His love has saved for Himself a people ― a people whom God for the sake of the HONOUR OF HIS NAME did not want Satan to have.

Already in the Old Testament it had become increasingly clear that God did not want to sacrifice His own people to Satan.

O no, that decision of God was certainly not based on any merit THEY had.  For we do know HOW OFTEN His own people had denied Him, rebelled against Him, shown their lack of trust in Him, had refused to honour Him in His majesty.

We have no way of explaining why God should have decided to keep for Himself a people which ― because He had decided that they would be HIS OWN people ― would not be destroyed

That was HIS good-pleasure, HIS love, HIS decision, HIS joy!  Not in ANY way their merit; not the merit of THEIR faith of THEIR worship either.  Merely HIS SOVEREIGN GRACE.

It was not even for their sake either, really!  In Ezek.20.44 we read of THAT PURPOSE OF His work of salvation: "And you shall know that I am the Lord when I deal with you FOR MY NAME'S SAKE.  Or in Ezek.36.22, "Therefore say to the house of Israel: Thus says the Lord God: It is NOT FOR YOUR SAKE, O HOUSE OF ISRAEL, that I am about to act, but FOR THE SAKE OF MY HOLY NAME Which you have profaned.".  This is something which we may easily ― if not conveniently overlook: God's work of our salvation is NOT there just only ― or even in the first place ― for our comfort.  We have been saved FOR THE SAKE OF THE HONOUR OF HIS NAME: that through us His people, and through His dealing with us as His people, His Holy Name be made great and honoured.  Not we but He is in the centre in our salvation.  HIS Name, and our comfort is in the majesty of His Name!  The majesty of His Holiness, and the majesty of HIS grace.  And so it is in the way in which we revere, uphold, HIS NAME, HIS HOLINESS, HIS GRACE that we show WHETHER WE ARE truly His.

And so, as God's chosen people went down the road of history, which -- in fact was going DOWN the road of sin leading to death, God made it clearer all the time, as their history progressed, that He would send HIS Saviour to redeem them.  That is to say, to pay for their guilt, to take upon Himself their death penalty.  And to destroy the power of Satan over them, to snatch them out of his hand.

Someone has put this plan and work of God in a picture in this way: when God saw His people move down the road to their destruction He went AFTER them, eventually OVERTOOK them, then to take hold of them to LEAD them in the way everlasting.

Even though this picture is rather human, it nevertheless illustrates to us the reality of the resurrection.  Of the resurrection of Christ Himself, AND of mine IN HIS.

He overtook His people on the cross ― where they should have died ― paid their guilt, overcame the power of the grave and of Satan, to lead them on the way to victory!

The empty grave.  Death and Satan could not hold Him!

The empty grave; Satan left empty-handed!

Satan left empty-handed!

This is THE message of the church; that is to say, of God's people.  That is to be their victory, their joy; their newness of life!  No not merely in the words of a confession, but in a very REAL sense in their lives.  In other words: they should actually live a life of victory, of joy, a new life.

This is the church of the Lord Jesus Christ: a people snatched out of the hands of the deceiver, of the destroyer, who will NOT have them.

A people, therefore, whose grave will not be the gateway to hell, the victory of Satan.  For them ― because THEIR Lord has taken over ― THEIR death and grave mean the end of a life lived in a sinful world and marked by sin IN ORDER THAT they be RAISED to the fullness of a new life!

Not death and hell, but VICTORY and NEWNESS!

That is the NATURE of the church; a victorious, a new people IN THE LORD.  In the Lord OF THE EMPTY GRAVE!

Our Lord is the Lord of the empty grave.  This is the HEART of the message of the Gospel of the Saviour and Lord, Jesus Christ.

Without the resurrection of the Lord, the message of the empty grave, of Satan left empty-handed, our faith would only be an illusion, it would be vain, empty, useless, senseless (1Cor.15).  It would not be reality, as the world would like to say that it is only a theory, an imagination of no real value at all.

But the resurrection of the Lord IS reality.  We have read in 1Cor.15 how much Paul emphasizes the reality of the resurrection; that IT WAS A FACT!  The Lord DID rise!  The Lord DID break the power of the grave.

He AROSE!  AND He arose as the FIRST-FRUITS, of the ones who belong to Him; that is to say, of all His people who will be raised after Him (1Cor.15.23).  Like HE rose to glory so will WE!  HIS resurrection is OURS!

Not death and hell, but victory and newness!

And this victory, that newness, they are not just future only, as many would always seem to think or teach.  NO, Christ HAS risen already.  Satan already stands empty-handed!  Already has he been thrown out of heaven (Rev.12), and even though he has turned all his fury against the church (as we read in that same chapter) he will not have her!

That means that ALREADY we ARE a victorious and a new people.  Showing their victory, their newness right here and now, in the midst of a world which is showing more clearly all the time how true it is that sins reigns unto death (Rom.5.21).

In this very same world the church ― the people of God ― show their difference.  For they are the people whose Lord has broken the power of the prince of the world!

For whom that victory of their Lord is THEIR reality, THEIR life, even if for the time being they are living in the midst of a perverse, crooked generation!

They have a NEW starting point.

The reality of the fact of the resurrection of the Lord who arose.  Who arose on the FIRST day of the week.  It was also His resurrection which was THE contents of the FIRST sermon on the occasion of the INSTITUTION of the church as a visible body of the Lord's people on earth.  When they met for that occasion and the Spirit of the Lord was poured out upon them on the FIRST day of the week!  (Acts 2).

So it is THE MESSAGE which is the STARTING point of the church also When the church meets on the first day of the week; that is to say: at the beginning of every new week of labour.  To remind us BEFORE all things that we are a NEW people.  Tobe more precise: that we are a LIVING people, living in and by the victory of their Lord.

And so this NATURE of the church: its victory and its newness, is MORE THAN its nature only, it is also its MARK and its MANDATE.

True victory, true newness CANNOT remain covered-up.  A new people would NOT AT ALL desire to cover up their newness; they could not hide it for reason of their joy.

So, the church IF IT IS A TRUE CHURCH OF THE RISEN LORD, could not help but show its victory, its newness IN ALL of its life.  Yes, in ALL of its life.  For one of two: we EITHER are a new people OR we are not!

A church whose people are not different from those of the world who, THEREFORE, with the world do worship the beast, IS NOT ― COULD NOT POSSIBLY BE ― a church of the Lord Jesus Christ.  This may sound harsh, but the Lord Himself has said TO HIS PEOPLE: "He who is not with Me, is against Me" (Matt.12.30).

Yes, THIS IS THE REALITY of the question of our RESPONSIBILITY: are we a church of the Lord of the empty grave, or are we not?

Only too easily do we say: we are only human.  Yet, we already DO share the power of the risen Lord, the power with which He HAS made us free from Satan.  O, yes we do!  The Spirit HAS descended upon the church!  Don't we read: "Now to Him Who by the power (-HIS power) AT WORK WITHIN US (!) is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, to Him be GLORY IN THE CHURCH and in Christ Jesus to all generations for ever and ever.  Amen" (Eph.3.20,21).

But if we would still use that excuse (we are only human) for the sake of our convenience, then in all honesty ― we should QUESTION our renewal, really Then we would still be of the flesh' (1Cor.3.3).

In that case we may hear the message of the risen Lord, of our sharing in His victory, but that message would be like new wine put in old wineskins (Mark 2.22).  They will not hold the new wine, it will go to waste in those old wineskins.

See, Christ has placed us in THIS world that the reality of the newness of the victory of His resurrection should become visible in this world of the lie THROUGH the victory and the newness of His people.

And therefore this is the question: where in this world on its way to damnation as Satan is tightening his grip, do WE show that he has lost his grip ON US!  That we are NO LONGER following "the course of this world, the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of DISOBEDIENCE" (Eph.2.2).  That we are INDIFFERENT to the many ways in which Satan is trying to deceive the people through the appeal of worldly things that we are dead to this world (= not influenced any more by its ways)?

Where, to be precise, does this show, this newness of life?  This new righteousness, holiness and knowledge (Eph. 4.24, Col.3 10)?  That we are taking our 'stand in the gospel (1Cor.15 1)?

In TRUE faith, hope and love.  Not, therefore, in words only.  In showing that we are 'mature’ = grown-up ― in Christ (Col.1.28)?

Is not often THIS the lameness, the powerlessness of the church, the reason why its message is ineffective, because as church we have failed the renewal, the victory, the power of the risen Lord Who took over.  That, indeed, our confession is no more than a matter of words in which our heart, soul and mind are not really involved (For that is not an uncommon failure of the Reformed Churches, IN SPITE OF the fact that they know the word of God so well!).

But if the church would fail in the testimony to its victory, to its newness could it be because I have failed?  Yes, I!?  Concretely, what does the message of the risen Lord mean to ME PERSONALLY?  For there is where it begins, really!  If I fail, what reason do I have to expect that the church will stand?  As far as my own responsibility is concerned the church is no stronger than I am.  Yes, that is MY responsibility for the wellbeing of the church!

But if I should fail, how come?  Is it perhaps because I have not really been very busy with the Word of my Lord.  Because I DO NOT REALLY know what it is all about?  Because I do not really know its message?  Could these questions be realistic?

Perhaps this is the prayer which I need, which the church needs so much in our times: 'Grant O Lord (using the words of Paul:) that I may KNOW HIM and the power of His resurrection'... that if possible I may attain the resurrection FROM THE DEAD' (Phil.3.10a+11b).

Amen.