Devotional

“But immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will wail and mourn and beat their breasts; and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send forth his angels with a loud blast of the trumpet; and they will gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of the skies to the other. – Matthew 24:29-31

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These are the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, spoken to his disciples shortly before his death on the Cross. Here he promises them that one day soon he will come again to the earth in order effect what theologians refer to as the Consummation. At that time Christ will raise the dead, transform the living saints, catch them all up into the air, judge the world in righteousness, and create new heavens and a new earth, the eternal home of the redeemed.

In the paragraphs ahead I want to highlight the central elements of Christ’s return as they are reflected in these special words to his disciples. Then, having done so, I want to ask a two-fold question: Why has God structured the Consummation in this way, and what are we who are still journeying through our life on this earth meant to learn from it?

Let us begin.

First, there is a darkening. Prior to the Lord’s coming, God literally extinguishes the sun, the moon, and the stars. The result is thick darkness, the kind that engulfed the earth-in-the-deep at the dawn of creation, and a kind that will recall the thick spiritual darkness that engulfed all mankind because of the fall of Adam (Gen. 1:1-5; Ex. 10:22; Col. 1:13). But as it was in the beginning, so here: It sets the stage for the appearing of light: the Light of the World, the One who will now separate all light from all darkness forever. In that day sinners will recoil from the Light, but the saints of God will declare that it is exceedingly good (Gen. 1:1-5; Eccl. 11:7; 2 Cor. 4:6).

Secondly, there is an appearing: above all of the Son of Man himself, but also of the sign, the power, and the glory that will attend him at his Coming. Because of the one Resurrection, every eye will see him (Rev. 1:7). But with the seeing of the eye, there will also be a seeing with the mind. In his Light, all will see light (Ps. 36:9). The spiritual truth that was previously made known to men and nations through creation, conscience, Christ, Holy Scripture, and the Church’s proclamation of the Gospel will now appear: palpably, powerfully, and inescapably (Josh. 4:23-24; Is. 45:20-25; Gal. 6:16; Eph. 3:4-6; Phil. 2:9-11; 1 Thess. 1:9; 1 Tim. 3:15).

Thirdly, there will be mourning. It will emanate from all who previously suppressed the knowledge of the truth in unrighteousness, who loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil (John 3:18-21; Rom. 1:18). Yes, there will be mourning over the loss of the things they worshiped in life, over the final collapse of the idolatrous City of Man (Rev. 18). But far more dreadfully, there will be mourning over the loss of their eternal souls (Mark 8:36). Scripture itself anticipates their heartbreaking lament: “If only I had sought the Lord when he could be found; if only I had called on him when he was near; if only I had believed and obeyed the light by which God tested my love of the truth. For now the door is shut, and the thing that I feared has come upon me” (Job 3:25-26; Is. 55:6; Prov. 3:20-33; Matt. 25:10; John 1:9; 3:16-21; Acts 17:30-31; Rom. 1:18-19; 2 Thess. 1:8; Rev. 1:7; 18:1-24).

Fourthly, there will be gathering—a gathering of his elect, a gathering of his enemies, and so a gathering of all men and nations, together will all angels, both good and evil (Matt. 13:30, 24:31, 25:32; Luke 19:27). It is a gathering unto the one Judgment: unto eternal reward and eternal retribution (Matt. 25:31-46). But above all, for human beings it is a gathering unto truth: the truth about what each one did with the light he was given during the days of his pilgrimage upon the earth (Luke 12:47; John 3:16-21; Rom. 2:1-16).

Finally, there will be a centering. At the Parousia the luminaries above will be dissolved, and the earth below will be consumed by fire (Is. 34:4; Zech. 14:6; 2 Pet. 3:10; Rev. 20:11). And then the true Center will be revealed: the High King of Heaven, seated on his glorious throne, with all men and all angels gathered before him, awaiting the final disposition of all things. Thus shall all mankind finally realize that the One here enthroned at the center of the physical universe is the One who has always been enthroned at the center of his Father’s affection, purpose, plan, and work. Thus shall all mankind finally behold the Son of God for who he is, and for what God appointed him to be: the Alpha and the Omega: the divine Creator, Sustainer, Redeemer, Ruler, Judge, Re-creator, Light and Life of the world.

Do we understand why God has structured the Consummation this way? And do we understand why he has told us all these things ahead of time?

Yes, in so speaking he means to instruct, equip, warn, and richly encourage his believing people. But beyond this, he also means to address the unbelieving world: all of the people who are not yet his people. By structuring the Consummation as he has, and by revealing its structure to the world in his Word and through his Church, he is asking beloved sinners everywhere these all-important questions:

“Who or what is your center? To whom or what are you devoting your life’s time, talent, treasure, and energies as you journey through this world toward the hour of your death or the day of my Son’s return? Have you considered him: his life, his teaching, his miracles, his death, his resurrection, his exaltation, his people, and his book? Is he not, far and away, the world’s best candidate for every man’s true center? Will you not therefore turn aside and see this great sight (Ex. 3:3)? Will you not earnestly inquire as to who he is and why he came? And will you not keep on asking, seeking, and knocking until you have found out for sure (Matt. 7:7-8)?

“Beloved sojourners, I tell you the truth: When the High King of Heaven comes again he will indeed be disclosed as the absolute center of all things. And no tongue or pen will be able to describe the joy of those pilgrims who sought and found the Truth, and who then made him the absolute center of their lives” (John 14:6; Jude 1:24).

Note: For many years I desired to write a longish tract that would open up the Bible’s message of redemption to thoughtful seekers of spiritual truth and reality. I hope this is it. I post it here not only for seekers, but also for saints, in further hopes that it will help them share their own faith in Jesus Christ, God’s Pearl of Greatest Price.

JOHN 3:16
A Pearl of Great Price

Every student of world history knows that the Bible’s majestic story of creation, fall, and redemption through Jesus Christ turned the Roman Empire upside down, laid the foundation for Western civilization, and to this day is challenging and transforming people all over the world.

But here’s something you may not have known: John 3:16—the most famous verse in the Bible—contains the whole message of the entire Book. It’s like a beautiful pearl tucked deep inside a giant clam or oyster. In this short text, Christ himself gives us the heart, the core, the very essence of the Word of God.

Here, then, for spiritual seekers who may be new to the Bible, are a few thoughts carefully selected from the Bible itself in order to display the meaning, truth, and beauty of this pearl of great price.

GOD: This is the Supreme Being—the infinite personal Spirit—who reveals himself to us through nature, conscience, and the sacred writings of the Jewish people. In those writings we learn that there is one God—the omnipresent creator, possessor, sustainer, and ruler of the universe—eternally existing in three divine Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Here in John 3:16, Christ is specifically referring to God the Father: He who gave God the Son to the world.

SO LOVED: God is love. Throughout all eternity the three divine Persons have known and loved one another, dwelling together as a kind of Holy Family in a bond of perfect peace and joy. But the love of the triune God also overflows onto his creation, and in particular onto us human beings: creatures uniquely fashioned in God’s own image and likeness, and therefore uniquely endowed with a capacity to know him and live with him as his children. In our text, Christ is telling us that God the Father, moved by his great love, has gone to the greatest possible length to make that capacity ours again.

THE WORLD: The reference here is primarily to the family of man that God, in the beginning, created to rule with him over the earth and journey with him down the long corridor of universal history. The human father of this family was the man Adam. In the Garden of Eden it pleased God to test Adam: to see if he would use the gift of his freedom to love and honor his creator by believing and obeying his word. With the benefit of hindsight we now know that the world itself hung in the balance, for by God’s wise decree Adam stood in Eden as the head and representative of the entire family of man, and as the prince of the whole earth. Had he obeyed God and partaken of the Tree of Life, Adam would have lifted both man and nature into an eternal union with their triune creator. As it happened, however, he did the opposite: He disbelieved and disobeyed, with the result that evil, suffering, and death invaded the very good creation that God had made. In particular, because of Adam’s plunge into sin, all of his children would henceforth be born in a state of sin: alienated from the life of God, centered on self, driven by various dark passions, hostile to God, and willfully disobedient to him in thought, word, and deed. What’s more, because of their sin, many of those children stood—and now stand—beneath their sovereign creator’s righteous anger, and in danger of eternal punishment. Yet despite the depth of its sin, God has always loved the family of man. Indeed, he loved it so much . . .

THAT HE GAVE: It is God’s nature to depend on nothing; it is man’s nature to depend on God. It is God’s nature (and joy) to give to man; it is man’s nature (and joy) to receive from God. As it is written, God is the One who gives life, breath, and all things to his beloved creations. Therefore, knowing well our need of spiritual rescue and restoration—and knowing well his Father’s gracious plan to meet that need—Christ speaks here of God’s greatest gift to the sinful family of man: his uniquely begotten Son.

HIS UNIQUELY BEGOTTEN SON: Throughout all eternity the divine Father uniquely begets the divine Son whom he loves: With neither beginning nor end, the Son is “true God from true God.” With a view to saving sinners from eternal punishment, with a view to begetting them afresh as his own beloved children, and with a view to their sharing forever in the life of the Holy Trinity, the Father, in an act of supreme love, gave us his uniquely begotten Son in the form of the God-Man: the Lord Jesus Christ. Through his incarnation Christ entered the world as the last Adam: the head and representative of a new human family that God, in eternity past, had purposed and planned to create. Throughout his holy life Christ maintained a perfect righteousness, a righteousness that God will credit to the account of all who believe in him. Through his sacrificial death on a Roman cross Christ freely suffered the penalty of God’s broken Law on behalf of all who would put their trust in him. And through his resurrection from the dead Christ was publicly revealed to the world as its one and only Prophet, Priest, and King: the all-sufficient Redeemer of the fallen family of man.

SO THAT WHOEVER BELIEVES IN HIM: In the Bible, redemption is twofold: rescue from evil, suffering, and death, and restoration to the manifold blessings of life in union with God. Because God’s Law is written on our hearts, we are constantly tempted to think that we can redeem ourselves by being good and doing right. But Scripture is emphatic: Sinful man can never be good enough, nor can his good deeds ever outweigh or cancel his bad. So here Christ tells us how we really can be redeemed: by believing in him. Such believing is also twofold. First, by God’s grace—and usually in the midst of an earnest search for spiritual truth and reality—we see who Christ is and what he has accomplished for us. And secondly, having seen, we respond. That is, we turn away from our old self-centered life governed by various lusts, and turn to a new Christ-centered life governed by love. It all begins by calling on the name of the Lord: by prayerfully receiving Jesus Christ as the all-sufficient redeemer that God meant him to be. When we do this, God forgives us our sins—past, present, and future—and credits us with the perfect righteousness of his Son. Furthermore, on those grounds he now welcomes us into his family as his beloved children, granting us a whole new life of righteousness, peace, and joy—together with many challenging trials wisely designed for our good and his glory. In the Garden of Eden God tested Adam to see if he would believe and obey him concerning the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Today he is testing Adam’s children to see if they will believe and obey him concerning the Tree of Life, which is Jesus Christ. Will we turn from our sin? Will we come to Christ? Will we partake of him and live?

WILL NOT PERISH: Sinful man is perishing day by day. By willfully rebelling against his creator, and by knowingly keeping his redeemer at arm’s length, he falls further and further away from the life of God, and deeper and deeper into sin, corruption, and death. Here Christ is telling us that if this fall continues—uninterrupted by repentance and faith—God will give to the sinner in hell that which he chose for himself on earth: separation from the life and gifts of God under eternal punishment. Understandably, our finite and fallen minds recoil from this dreadful prospect: We cannot comprehend the apparent severity of such a judgment. But neither can we (fully) comprehend the towering holiness of the creator, his moral obligation to govern his creatures, the scandal of their ingratitude and rebellion, the injury they inflict upon his glory, the absolute necessity of divine retribution, the true dimensions of Christ’s suffering, and the perfect justice of the judge of all the earth. Therefore, our only safe path is to recuse ourselves from judging God, and to humbly receive the words of his Christ, who graciously promises eternal life to all who believe, but who solemnly warns of eternal punishment for all who disobey. And we can rejoice that here on earth—in the anteroom of eternity—the choice is ours.

BUT HAVE ETERNAL LIFE: Here Christ affirms that from the moment of their new birth into the family of God believers do in fact have eternal life: Once and for all they have crossed over out of death and into life. This is the kind of life lived by the triune God, and that life lived forever. It begins when we personally receive Christ as Savior and Lord, with the result that the triune God, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, comes to live in us and we in him. During the days of our pilgrimage on the earth—and through our faithfulness to such basic Christian disciplines as prayer, Bible meditation, church participation, godly conduct, and Christian service—this life grows and develops, as God slowly conforms us to the image his Son. At the moment of our death it attains full flower, as our spirits enter heaven, there to dwell in perfect holiness and joy with our exalted Lord. And it is consummated at the end of the present evil age, when Christ will come again to resurrect the dead, judge the world in righteousness, and create new heavens and a new earth, the eternal home of the redeemed. It is written that Christians are saved in hope—and what a glorious hope it is!

The Pearl of Greatest Price

Yes, John 3:16 really is a pearl of great price, seeing that it marvelously distills the message of the entire Bible into a single sentence. But someone will ask, “How can we be sure the message is true, and that the Bible really is the Word of God?” It’s a fair question—a question that many thoughtful believers have addressed at length, and whose books on the subject are readily available to all who seek.¹ But let me close here by offering a short reply of my own.

I believe the very best way to know that the Bible is the Word of God is simply to read it—all 66 books, written by some 40 different authors, over the course of nearly 1600 years. For when we do so with an open heart that is fully intent on discovering spiritual reality and complying with its demands, we will unfailingly hear the Father’s voice speaking to us on every page, disclosing precious truths about the divine Person and all-sufficient Work of his uniquely begotten Son.

We see him everywhere. In the Old Testament we see that all events, laws, institutions, poems, promises, and prophecies point forward to Christ. And in the New Testament we see that the Old Testament is fulfilled, for now Christ has come, miracles are performed, truth is unveiled, atonement is made, the Savior is raised, the King is exalted, the Spirit is given, good news is proclaimed, lives are redeemed, and saints are filled with joy inexpressible and full of glory. Thus, all throughout his Book the story is the same: Here we find God the Father personally addressing every honest seeker of spiritual truth and reality, saying:

“This is my beloved Son. This is the world’s one and only Redeemer, given for you. This is the Pearl of Greatest Price, he of whom John 3:16 and the entire Bible sing. So come to him, speak with him, open to him, learn from him, draw on him, walk with him, serve with him, suffer with him, hope in him, and treasure him—always remembering that he who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it until that happy day when you stand before him face to face. So shall you never perish; so shall you have eternal life.”

Come Let Us Reason
www.clr4u.org

Then the woman fled into the wilderness,
where she has a place prepared by God,
so that there she may be nourished for 1,260 days.
(Revelation 12:6)

Every hiker, pilot, and ship’s captain needs his instruments. They are crucial equipment for knowing one’s location, getting one’s bearings, and reaching one’s destination. That’s why I love Revelation 12. It is crucial equipment for Christ’s Church. It gives her a precious paradigm for a pilgrim people.

A paradigm is like a pair of glasses. It’s a set of concepts through which we can view the world. Using images drawn from the Old Testament, Revelation 12 gives us a paradigm, a precious way of looking at the Christian life.

Consider the symbols involved. The Woman is the Church, the Mother and the Bride of Christ (12:1-2). Her Son (and her Husband) is the Lord Jesus Christ, now the High King of Heaven. The Dragon is the devil, a defeated enemy who chases and persecutes the woman (12:3-6). And the wilderness is the evil world-system, through which the Woman must pass as she journeys to the Promised Land: the new heavens and the new earth.

This paradigm opens up our text, which gives us a great promise. For just as God nourished Elijah in the wilderness for 1260 days (1 Kings 17), so too he promises to nourish his Church until her difficult pilgrimage is complete.

How does he do this? Above all, he does it in our quiet times, when he speaks to us through his Word, and moves us to pray in his Spirit. But he also does it in the assembly of the saints, the preaching of the Word, the sacraments of the Church, and the exercise of the ministries to which we are called.

Why does he do this? He does it so we can know who we are in Christ, thereby overcoming the accuser of the brethren (12:7-12); so that we will remain eager to share our faith, thereby giving birth to the rest of the Lord’s offspring (12:17); and so that our face will always be turned, thereby turning it towards Christ and the Promised Land (12:14).

Pilgrim, receive this his precious paradigm, stay strong, and rejoice! You’re almost home!