History Ended at Christmas
00:00:00.000 | (music)
00:00:04.000 | Christmas is Saturday. It's a great time to take a fresh
00:00:08.000 | look at Christmas, particularly in what Christ's birth
00:00:12.000 | represents in the big picture. As the Apostle Paul says of us,
00:00:16.000 | Christians, we are those "on whom the end of the ages
00:00:20.000 | has come." 1 Corinthians 10, 11.
00:00:24.000 | The end of the ages has come upon us. And the end of the ages
00:00:28.000 | has come upon us by the incarnation of Jesus Christ.
00:00:32.000 | This is a big concept. It's a hard one, but it's
00:00:36.000 | worth the time. Theologian Richard Gaffin has developed this
00:00:40.000 | point really well in a really good book, his magnum opus coming out next year
00:00:44.000 | titled "In the Fullness of Time," an introduction
00:00:48.000 | to the biblical theology of Acts and Paul. There he writes
00:00:52.000 | this of why the Apostle Paul was so amazed that he and us are ones in which
00:00:56.000 | the end of the ages has come. Paul, Gaffin
00:01:00.000 | writes, "is deeply conscious of living in the fullness of
00:01:04.000 | time, when at last God has sent his Son,
00:01:08.000 | and when the new creation has already dawned."
00:01:12.000 | His vantage point in history is characterized by the fact that he is
00:01:16.000 | privileged to be able now to look back on the climactic
00:01:20.000 | events of the history of redemption, the birth and
00:01:24.000 | death and resurrection of Christ as having occurred.
00:01:28.000 | Using a sometimes cited analogy from the Second World War,
00:01:32.000 | Paul knows himself to be among those for whom the great D-Day
00:01:36.000 | kingdom battle is over, for whom the era of
00:01:40.000 | conflict between the kingdom of God and the dominion of Satan is in the past
00:01:44.000 | and has been decisively resolved.
00:01:48.000 | The redemption of God's people is an accomplished and secure
00:01:52.000 | reality. Get that? D-Day is
00:01:56.000 | done. V-Day is yet future in the Second
00:02:00.000 | Coming. Nevertheless, D-Day, that decisive battle, is over.
00:02:04.000 | It's won. The kingdom has dawned.
00:02:08.000 | In other words, Gaffin writes, "God's revelation in his Son
00:02:12.000 | and his incarnate person and work has a finality
00:02:16.000 | that cannot be superseded or surpassed."
00:02:20.000 | That is the significance
00:02:24.000 | of the incarnation. The new creation has
00:02:28.000 | arrived. The kingdom of God has dawned. The future full arrival
00:02:32.000 | of the kingdom and the new creation, V-Day to come, is now inevitable
00:02:36.000 | and unstoppable because there is a finality to redemptive
00:02:40.000 | history at Christmas. Paul never lost his
00:02:44.000 | amazement at this, that something climactic, something decisive, something
00:02:48.000 | marking the end of time happened in a dusty
00:02:52.000 | manger in Bethlehem. To use the
00:02:56.000 | Apostle Paul's very words, "When the fullness
00:03:00.000 | of time had come, God sent
00:03:04.000 | forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law,
00:03:08.000 | to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive
00:03:12.000 | adoption as sons." Galatians 4, verses 4 and 5.
00:03:16.000 | That first Christmas marked the fullness
00:03:20.000 | of time. Or to say it another way, history ended
00:03:24.000 | on Christmas. As John Piper explains in this clip from
00:03:28.000 | his 1981 Christmas sermon preached 40 years ago.
00:03:32.000 | 40 years ago. Here's 35-year-old John Piper.
00:03:36.000 | The meaning of Christmas was a total
00:03:40.000 | blur for some 30 years until
00:03:44.000 | the Apostles broke through to the insight that,
00:03:48.000 | "Oh, this is the first half of
00:03:52.000 | the final act of redemption and the second half
00:03:56.000 | will only come later." And when they finally saw
00:04:00.000 | that, God counted them prepared to interpret
00:04:04.000 | Christmas for us. And that's what they did in the New Testament.
00:04:08.000 | Interpreting the incarnation in view of
00:04:12.000 | the second coming. Now, everything
00:04:16.000 | they wrote in their interpretation of the incarnation
00:04:20.000 | has a trademark about it. A very unusual
00:04:24.000 | trademark that stamps it as apostolic.
00:04:28.000 | The words of the Apostles. The
00:04:32.000 | trademark is that even though
00:04:36.000 | the Apostles looked forward to the second
00:04:40.000 | appearance of the coming of the Messiah, they nevertheless
00:04:44.000 | called the first appearing of the Messiah
00:04:48.000 | the end of the ages. History
00:04:52.000 | ended at Christmas. That's the trademark of the Apostles.
00:04:56.000 | They do not treat Christmas
00:05:00.000 | as just another bend in the river
00:05:04.000 | of redemptive history. With Christmas comes the
00:05:08.000 | end. Let me show you some examples of where this trademark
00:05:12.000 | is found. In 1 Corinthians 10, 11, the
00:05:16.000 | Apostle Paul says that all the events of the Old Testament
00:05:20.000 | happened to them as a warning, but
00:05:24.000 | they were written down for our instruction upon
00:05:28.000 | whom the end of the ages has come.
00:05:32.000 | That's Paul speaking 2,000 years ago. The end
00:05:36.000 | of the ages has fallen upon us.
00:05:40.000 | The Apostle Peter, do you remember what he said when he stood up on
00:05:44.000 | Pentecost to interpret what was happening in the fall
00:05:48.000 | of the Holy Spirit? He said, quoting Joel,
00:05:52.000 | "This is what was spoken by the prophet Joel. In the
00:05:56.000 | last days it shall be, God declares, that I will
00:06:00.000 | pour out my spirit." Those were the last days.
00:06:04.000 | Again, the Apostle Peter in his first letter
00:06:08.000 | wrote in the text that was read earlier in chapter 1, verse 20,
00:06:12.000 | that Christ was destined before the foundation of the world
00:06:16.000 | but was made manifest at the end
00:06:20.000 | of the times for our sake. Manifest
00:06:24.000 | at the end of the times. The appearing of Jesus at Christmas
00:06:28.000 | marked the end of the times, or as Paul called it,
00:06:32.000 | the end of the ages. One other text
00:06:36.000 | from Hebrews 9, 26, which is especially
00:06:40.000 | important because here the two comings of the Messiah are held side by
00:06:44.000 | side, and still the first one is called
00:06:48.000 | the end. Hebrews 9, 26, "Christ has appeared
00:06:52.000 | once for all at the end of the age
00:06:56.000 | to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, and
00:07:00.000 | just as it is appointed unto men once to die and after that the judgment, so
00:07:04.000 | Christ, having been offered once to bear
00:07:08.000 | the sins of many, will appear a second time
00:07:12.000 | not to deal with sin but to save those
00:07:16.000 | who are eagerly waiting for him." Now,
00:07:20.000 | what this text shows is that even though time had elapsed
00:07:24.000 | between Christmas and the writing of Hebrews, and he
00:07:28.000 | looked forward to another uncertain elapse of time
00:07:32.000 | till that second appearing, nevertheless he still looked back
00:07:36.000 | and said that first coming was the end
00:07:40.000 | of the age. That's the trademark of the Apostles.
00:07:44.000 | That's the way they thought about Christmas, and I think the
00:07:48.000 | Holy Spirit preserves that trademark for us because
00:07:52.000 | there is a tremendously important truth in it, namely,
00:07:56.000 | don't trivialize Christmas
00:08:00.000 | into just another great event in the stream of
00:08:04.000 | redemptive history. Creation out of nothing was an
00:08:08.000 | awesome event. I try to imagine what the angels
00:08:12.000 | thought when matter, the universe,
00:08:16.000 | flashed into existence at the Word of God.
00:08:20.000 | Never had imagined such a thing, and there it was.
00:08:24.000 | The fall was an awful event
00:08:28.000 | that shook creation. The exodus was an amazing
00:08:32.000 | display of power and love. The giving of the law, the wandering
00:08:36.000 | in the wilderness, the conquest of Canaan, the rise of the monarchy, the prophetic
00:08:40.000 | word, great demonstrations of the power of God
00:08:44.000 | along the river of redemptive history. But
00:08:48.000 | don't align Christmas on the same
00:08:52.000 | continuum with those great events.
00:08:56.000 | We trivialize the incarnation if we make it
00:09:00.000 | just another stage along the way
00:09:04.000 | to the end. It is the end of
00:09:08.000 | redemptive history, and I think the analogy of the river
00:09:12.000 | helps us see how. Picture this for me.
00:09:16.000 | If you're familiar with the Mississippi River all the way to the Gulf,
00:09:20.000 | put the Mississippi in your mind. If you want to use another river, do that.
00:09:24.000 | Picture redemptive history now flowing from creation right
00:09:28.000 | on through as a river, and picture the
00:09:32.000 | ocean into which it is flowing as the final
00:09:36.000 | kingdom of God, eternal, glorious beyond all
00:09:40.000 | description. At the mouth of this river, at the
00:09:44.000 | end of the river, the ocean presses back
00:09:48.000 | with its salt water a ways up into
00:09:52.000 | the river. I've always wondered what kind of fish live in this
00:09:56.000 | no man's land where the freshwater and the salt water
00:10:00.000 | are mingling where the river meets the ocean.
00:10:04.000 | Therefore, at the mouth of the river, there's a mingling
00:10:08.000 | of freshwater and saltwater, and one might say
00:10:12.000 | that the kingdom has has pressed its way back
00:10:16.000 | up into the stream of history a
00:10:20.000 | short way. It has surprised the travelers
00:10:24.000 | on that river very, very much. They can taste it
00:10:28.000 | if they put their dipper down into the water, they can
00:10:32.000 | smell it. They can see the seagulls circling
00:10:36.000 | the deck. The end has come upon them, even though
00:10:40.000 | they're still on the river. Christmas
00:10:44.000 | is not just another bend in that river. Christmas is
00:10:48.000 | the arrival of the salt water of the
00:10:52.000 | kingdom back up into the river for a
00:10:56.000 | ways and that salt water is
00:11:00.000 | beckoning us, welcoming us, alluring us on out into
00:11:04.000 | the deep. Christmas is not just another
00:11:08.000 | great bend in the river. It is the end
00:11:12.000 | of the river. Let down your dipper. Taste Jesus Christ.
00:11:16.000 | Taste his birth, his life, his death, his resurrection has
00:11:20.000 | not the age to come fallen upon us has not
00:11:24.000 | the kingdom arrived. Do you not taste the powers
00:11:28.000 | of the age to come? I think those who can
00:11:32.000 | taste it, lift up their eyes and they see a big
00:11:36.000 | blue bow on the horizon
00:11:40.000 | between sky and ocean
00:11:44.000 | and they are hankering and longing
00:11:48.000 | to go on out of the delta and the mouth of the river
00:11:52.000 | into the ocean. Amazing. That's a huge perspective
00:11:56.000 | of Christmas in light of history, the end of history.
00:12:00.000 | That clip was taken from John Piper's sermon on December 20th, 1981 titled
00:12:04.000 | Christmas as the end of history 40 years ago.
00:12:08.000 | Piper was just 35 years old. This clip is older than Piper was
00:12:12.000 | when he preached it. That's funny. Well, 40 years later that preacher is
00:12:16.000 | 75 years old now and I'm going to ask Pastor John about what makes Christmas
00:12:20.000 | precious to him all these decades later. I'll ask him that
00:12:24.000 | on Christmas Eve when we return on Friday. I'm your host Tony Rehnke
00:12:28.000 | and we will see you back here next time for that. Thanks for listening.
00:12:32.000 | (music)
00:12:36.000 | (music)
00:12:40.000 | (Thanks for watching)