Why Must Our Bodies Get Resurrected?
00:00:00.000 | Why must our bodies get resurrected?
00:00:07.440 | That was one theme Pastor John touched on in a message in the spring of 2014 delivered
00:00:11.940 | at the Carl F.H. Henry Center for Theological Understanding at Trinity International University
00:00:17.520 | near Chicago.
00:00:19.640 | In that message, Pastor John was recounting some lessons he's taken from the works of
00:00:23.740 | Jonathan Edwards, lessons he's learned about the work of Christ.
00:00:27.880 | Here's a clip I wanted to share from that message.
00:00:31.020 | The work of Christ in redemption does not only restore, it advances God's aim in creation.
00:00:40.000 | Christ was not merely a remedy or an afterthought to recover what was lost.
00:00:48.920 | The history of redemption climaxes with the cross, not only as a means of restoration,
00:00:55.140 | but a means of advance.
00:00:57.120 | Christ was the goal of creation, not a means to the goal.
00:01:04.800 | Didn't just recover a goal.
00:01:07.380 | He was the goal.
00:01:09.700 | And by his incarnation and death and resurrection, the glory of God was put on new display in
00:01:18.020 | its most vivid and lavish excellency.
00:01:23.120 | Christ did not come and die and rise only to restore our joy in God, but to become our
00:01:30.400 | joy in God.
00:01:32.780 | The incarnate God did not appear simply to enable us to rejoice in God, to become the
00:01:39.400 | focus of our rejoicing in God.
00:01:44.760 | Edwards put his incomparable lens to the gospel of the glory of Christ to describe the glory
00:01:53.940 | of Christ most compellingly in maybe the third most famous sermon, namely the excellency
00:02:01.840 | of Christ, which I love.
00:02:05.220 | And the beauty of Christ in that sermon is developed in a stunning way to show that when
00:02:11.700 | Christ did his work, he wasn't in his work merely enabling us to have something we had
00:02:19.560 | lost, but to become in that work the very focus of the glory that we once thought we
00:02:25.120 | saw and now see in fullness.
00:02:28.120 | So here's his description of the glory of Christ that we could not know, the glory of
00:02:32.660 | God that we could not know without the revelation of God in Christ.
00:02:38.880 | The beauty is in the juxtaposition of these seeming opposites.
00:02:42.760 | If you've read this sermon, you know what this is going to sound like.
00:02:47.160 | Infinite highness and infinite condescension, infinite justice and infinite grace.
00:02:54.600 | These are things that mingle in Christ and thus constitute his incomparable beauty.
00:03:01.880 | Infinite glory and lowest humility, infinite majesty and transcendent meekness, deepest
00:03:08.800 | reverence towards God and equality with God, infinite worthiness of good and the greatest
00:03:16.600 | patience under sufferings of evil, an exceeding spirit of obedience with supreme dominion
00:03:24.000 | over heaven and earth, absolute sovereignty and perfect resignation, self-sufficiency,
00:03:32.280 | and an entire trust and reliance on God.
00:03:36.480 | Christ, the incarnate second person of the Trinity, the Redeemer, is now the fullness
00:03:45.000 | of the revelation of the glory of God.
00:03:47.240 | He didn't just repair our ability to see something old, he became what God meant for us to see
00:03:55.320 | all along.
00:03:57.320 | So for example, when it says in Psalm 1611, "You make known to me the path of life.
00:04:03.360 | In your presence there is fullness of joy.
00:04:06.080 | At your right hand are pleasures forevermore."
00:04:09.120 | The Old Testament saints tasted that and it was glorious.
00:04:13.240 | And they didn't have a clue what the fullness meant.
00:04:16.520 | None of the saints knew the fullness of the meaning of that promise, that at God's right
00:04:21.880 | hand are pleasures forevermore.
00:04:25.600 | It took the incarnation and the New Testament revelation to show that the pleasures at God's
00:04:32.640 | right hand are the pleasures of God the Father in God the Son, and the pleasures of God the
00:04:38.920 | Son in God the Father.
00:04:41.480 | And now he has come, "This is my loved Son in whom I delight.
00:04:50.080 | I am well pleased."
00:04:51.600 | And you should put into the term "well pleased" billions of tons of pleasure.
00:04:59.040 | We gloss over those words so quickly.
00:05:02.160 | This is my beloved Son in whom I, God Almighty, with all my infinite energy am totally pleased
00:05:13.400 | and have been from all eternity.
00:05:16.960 | And now you can see what my joy is.
00:05:19.640 | Now you can see the joy that is at my right hand.
00:05:22.480 | My joy is joy in my image, in my Son.
00:05:26.920 | What binds the children of God to their Father for eternity is that we enjoy the Son of God
00:05:35.480 | with the very joy of God the Father.
00:05:38.480 | And we should add, Jesus had already said, I don't know if you've ever put this together,
00:05:42.760 | in John 15, 11, "I've spoken these things to you that," what?
00:05:47.160 | "That my joy might be in you."
00:05:50.960 | So now you not only have Jesus praying for the love of the Father for the Son to become
00:05:57.960 | my love for the Son, but you have Jesus saying, "And my joy, my joy in the Father, I have
00:06:08.120 | spoken to you so that my joy would be in you."
00:06:13.480 | There's no other way for your joy to be full than for my joy in God to become your joy
00:06:18.560 | in God, so that now we have our joy in the Father being the Son's joy in the Father,
00:06:24.160 | and our joy in the Son being the Father's joy in the Son.
00:06:29.160 | And we must have a new resurrection body or we will be blown to smithereens by that experience.
00:06:36.560 | And that's not a joke at all.
00:06:40.400 | That is why you must have a new body.
00:06:45.520 | These experiences are so magnificent that this flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom
00:06:51.640 | of God.
00:06:52.640 | That doesn't mean you won't have a resurrection body.
00:06:54.960 | It means this one won't work.
00:06:57.880 | This one will not work for that experience forever.
00:07:02.080 | Amen.
00:07:03.080 | A new body is necessary for us to experience the fullness of joy in God's presence forever.
00:07:09.720 | That is powerful.
00:07:10.720 | I love this clip from John Piper's message on April 23rd, 2014.
00:07:15.520 | The message is titled "The Glory of God and the Gladness of Man."
00:07:19.500 | It was delivered at the Carl F.H.
00:07:21.240 | Henry Center for Theological Understanding at Trinity International University near Chicago.
00:07:26.340 | You can find that entire message by searching for it at DesiringGod.org.
00:07:30.000 | Again, the title is "The Glory of God and the Gladness of Man."
00:07:34.740 | And thanks for listening.
00:07:35.740 | If you want new episodes of this podcast delivered to you, subscribe to Ask Pastor John in your
00:07:39.480 | favorite podcast app in Spotify or by subscribing to DG's YouTube channel.
00:07:44.480 | And to find other episodes in our archive or to submit a question to us, do that online
00:07:48.160 | at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:07:53.320 | Well we close out the week talking about global warming.
00:07:55.960 | Yes, global warming.
00:07:58.200 | Should it change how Christians live?
00:08:00.000 | How and why?
00:08:01.000 | That's up next time on Friday.
00:08:02.800 | I'm Tony Reinke.
00:08:03.800 | We'll see you then.
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