The Glory of Christ and the Life of the Church

In Paul’s first prayer in Ephesians 1:19-23. The apostle indicates that Christ fills the entire cosmos and the entire cosmos is subject to Him and Christ fills the church. For He is her life, moment by moment as He manifest His mediatorial glory by the exercise of His three offices of Prophet, Priest and King in the church. Therefore, the spiritual health of the church depends upon the exaltation of Christ and the continual display and exhibition of His pre-eminence and glory in the church. But Christ’s sovereign supremacy becomes domesticated by what pastors do not say in neglecting Christs centrality and supremacy over the cosmos and the church. Thus this phenomenon of neglecting Christs supremacy produces a certain effect. In fact we could describe that as an inverse proportion and would read as follows… To the degree that Christ and His glory are not explicated in the church so that the churches understanding of her life being dependent upon Him is missing the church will attempt to objectify itself. In other words, objectify that which is unobjectifiable. For Christ through the gospel birthed the church, builds the church, He creates the church and sustains it and as is described in Revelation one, He tends to her lampstand by His Spirit, trimming her wicks, providing oil for light, examining her. But the moment Christ’s glory recedes into the background the church begins to be treated as a value in itself. At first the change is barely perceptible but the subjectification of the church is like a branch obsessed with itself. Its leaves, its fruit, its shape, its form but not with the vine that sustains its life moment by moment. Thus the objectification of the church as a value in itself infers that the church has a life of its own, running autonomously as if it has been jumpstarted by the Son of God and now is purring along autonomously (evangelistic Deism) on its own. This is a very sobering thought and we remember what our Lord said in John 15:6, that any branch that does not abide in Him is dried up and withered and eventually burned. But here the inverse proportion is manifested. To the degree the church by inference and by neglect. To the degree the church neglects Christs pre-eminence and does not daily feed upon His sufficiency and supremacy and glory, she will have her life stultified, by that we mean deadened. But in the early stages of this deadening, it may not be detectable at all. In the early stages she will find that she is attracted to almost magnetically to three particular pressures to find herself other than utter dependency upon Christ.

The first of these three forces would be religious institutionalism. This is the church regarding itself as a value in itself.

Second would be religious or organizational society. Where people have friendships and relationships. People want to spend time together.

Third, a religious business model in which the church collects funds to support its professionals and also be engaged in works of charity.

So, institutionalism, a social organization and a business model. These three forces become a way of the church defining itself in a way other than utter dependence upon Christ. Into that Christological vacuum that is left by not displaying the Lords glory the church begins to objectify itself further that it believes it exists to perpetuate itself (evangelistic Deism) because of its value it has created for itself. Being so indispensable to God and to its community and to the world. Sadly it does not detect the morbidity moving through its core because these three forces, Institutional, social and business have been moving to provide the metric to measure its life and its liveliness. It justifies its existence by these three metrics.

It justifies its vigor and vitality by these three metrics. But, as David Wells has warned, its possible for the church to reach a point where it replaces God. Now what does Wells mean by that? Namely that objectifying the church is not a benign activity but it invites what Luther calls, a theology of glory. It looks at what it has achieved and what it has built and takes great pride in that. Christs glory is eclipsed by the supposed glory of the institution. And then the horror of horrors, Christ departs, and the institution continues. This is what David Wells is talking about when the church has replaced God. We think of that verse in 1 Sam 4:21, where the word Ichabod is used, the glory of Israel has departed. So the proclamation of God and Christ when that is neglected death begins to creep through the church that very moment. Now, illustrative of this is the vast religious graveyard of Europe, church buildings serving as a monument of the spiritual death long ago for Europe had lost its theological soul a long time ago. Through its lifeless, deadening institutionalism.

Now, the New Testament function of the church is to abide in Christ. To edify itself in so doing to bear fruit as a by product of abiding and to fulfil the great commission. Now, this calling, this mandate has gradually been supplanted by adhering to religious forms. Form is an outward, external religious activity whereas a New Testament function would be to abide in Christ and to cling to Him. Clinging to the vine and obeying our Lord as He delivered the Great Commission. So, Europe having settled into the practice of religious forms began to dress her deadness with opulence. Marble cathedrals, bishops dressed in finery, incense, images, icons, bells, gold, glass, marble, paintings. They dressed the church in operatic tradition and this is a vivid phenomenon of the church replacing God. The church then offers herself as the source of grace and devotion to God. The mother church becomes the source of salvation and spiritual life, this is the church replacing God.

Now in our time, the church replacing God, actually without intending to do so suggests that devotion to the church is equated with devotion to Christ yet, that may not be the case. So Christ has departed and generation past through the church die and are buried and another generation arrives and I’m describing what happened in Europe, another generation arises that has been fully secularized that has embraced enlightenment humanism and that generation asks, why be subjected to these externals and traditions, they are meaningless, we don’t need them. These religious forms are merely reminders of an age of prejudice, fear, superstition and myth. How tragic it is when the church has replaced God (1 Sam 4; John 15). What a betrayal this is. Now today, what do we see in Europe we see empty cathedrals that are but gravestones marking a spiritual death that is ubiquitous outside of constantly reckoning Christ as our life and every living believer engrafted into Him.

So now, these European cathedrals have become hotels, nightclubs, art galleries, climbing gyms. What a mockery of what Christ is actually doing in His church. He’s building His church.

Well, this begs the question for serious men who are called to the ministry today. How will renewal and revival come to the church? What truths of the Word must become primary again? What kind of repentance is needed for Christ to truly be pre-eminent in His church? An immense part of the answer is actually found in Revelation chapters 1, 2, and 3. In the letter to the 7 churches of Asia Christ examines the churches. His omniscient eyes a flame of fire sees into the heart of the assemblies that bear His name and He begins to identify sins that must be dealt with dramatically if the church is to survive. If any of these churches are to survive. We must keep in mind that these churches had not come to that diagnosis on their own even though they had the Word of God. So Christ is speaking into the status quo. He’s going to rock the boat in radical ways. In addressing the church at Ephesus, he brought the condemnation that they had left their first love and they can’t continue if they remain in that state. He’s calling them to repentance. They must do that works that they did at the beginning. We do not see a condemnation there but he’s a midst your persecutions do not fear but be faithful, overcome. The church at Pergamum. This church needed to repent of fornication, of immorality and idolatry. Christ chides them and demands that they fear Him or they will make war against the impenitent in the church with the sword of His mouth. Now where is this kind of preaching today? When pastors know there’s compromise within their church sexually, where is this type of boldness and courage to preach in this manner. Then the church at Thyatira. Repent of tolerating that Jezebel woman in your church that teaches antinomianism. She teaches some type of hyper grace permissiveness. Which is also described in Jude 4 where they turned the grace of God into licentiousness. Well, this false prophetess was not disciplined, rebuked or reproved. Instead, she had a huge hearing in this church in Thyatira and our Lord warns that she will personally be put into great tribulation if she does not repent. And those that have bought into her teaching and sat under her are also liable, fully culpable for being willing to be taught by her. If they don’t repent, if her hearers do not repent, they themselves will be cast into great tribulation and the impenitent of those she has taught will be killed by Christ Himself. Where is this kind of preaching today? They will be killed with pestilence and horrid disease.

Now Jezebel’s teaching is false prophesy and is called by our Lord as the deep things of Satan in Revelation 2:24. The answer is repent, the faithful must hold fast, they must overcome and persevere. Keeping Christs deeds until the end. Then Christ addresses the church in Sardis. She looks alive by the measure of the three-part metric. A religious institution, a society a friendship and a religious business that collects money for staff and charity. But, she is dead and Christ commands her to wake up. Now, what does waking up consist of? We’ve got a large section on what it means to wake up in Ephesians 5:1-14. So Christ says specifically to these members of Sardis, strengthen the things that remain that are about to die for your deeds in my site are incomplete. Repent from that, remember from where you’ve fallen, remember what you’ve received and heard and keep those truths and do those truths and repent. But if you do not repent by waking up, Christ will come like a thief and you will experience incalculable loss. Now waking up is described in Ephesians as Christ shining on you, illuminating by His sovereign light your sin, but also your utter dependence upon Him as source person. Waking up, involves those activities. But you must know, Christ says to this church, you must know the hour that Christ will come upon you suddenly and find you unprepared if you do not repent. There are but a few in your assembly that have not soiled their garments and they will walk with me in white and what an incredible promise this is. An insanely precious promise to walk with me in white, clothed in linen produced by the savior Himself. Walk with Him in white and confess you before my father and before my angels. Is this not an incredible incentive to holiness and repentance. Again, where is this being preached today?

And then to the church at Laodicea, you must repent of your lukewarmness which is insipid to me, your neither hot nor cold and I will vomit you and spew you out of my mouth. You are proud of your imagined self-sufficiency. You’ve taken a measure of yourself by that false three-part metric but you are not independent, you are not wealthy, you are actually miserable, wretched, poor, blind and naked. That is our condition in our natural state. This is Christ’s omniscient perception and the only perception that is valid. Repent, for I am the answer to your wretchedness and deprivation Laodicea. You’ve sought to disguise your gangrenous state with the cheap makeup of religious hubris by saying we’re rich, were wealthy and in need of nothing. Well Christ’s assessment of this church is a mirror of the virtues that only Christ can provide. The virtues which this church lacks completely. So, Christ is going to provide the polar opposite of Laodicea’s gaunt deprivation. She looks like a victim in a concentration camp about to fall into a grave. Christ says you’re poor! But He the Lord is the believer’s wealth, the pearl of Great Price. The eternal treasure given to true believers for He gives Himself to the believing church. They are actually miserable for Christ alone is their sense of joy and hope and peace. These are promised to those who believe and abide in the gospel in Romans 15:13. In 1 Peter 1:8, just an amazing rejoicing and joy are given to those that walk-in faithfulness. How telling it is that we were created in fact, for joy and comfort and hope and peace by knowing God in Christ and communing with Him. But if professed believers are not enjoying these blessings as a by product of abiding in Christ, then they certainly will look to the world for counterfeits of these blessings. No wonder the hideous paradox of a worldly church is so common in America today. But my friends, Christ is offering Himself afresh as the answer. But the image drawn in Revelation 3 is heart breaking for Christ is locked out of His own church and He’s knocking at the door.

Like Peter of old as recorded in the book of Acts chapter 12. The Lord has miraculously released Him from prison. There’s a church service taking place in the house of Mary, mother of John-Mark and Peter is knocking at the door. Rhoda answers the door but does not let Peter in. She announces that Peter is at the door, they don’t believer her but they continue in their prayer meeting for Peter. In some ways this is a picture of Laodicea although not nearly as severe as the Laodicean error.

So the great blessings that only Christ can provide, wealth, joy, sight, fine raiment are freely given to those who believe and repent. But that certainly involves a radical diagnosis of one’s condition. Being humbled by that diagnosis to the point of devastation at the prospect of one’s spiritual poverty. Is that not missing in the church today? So that hearers that are not engrafted into Christ are devastated but become aware of their spiritual state? See this flies in the face of Psychologies priority of guarding a personal sense of self-esteem and wellbeing at all costs. The church at Laodicea had rejected first hand this devastating stage of diagnosis instead they wore a religious costume of smug self-fulfillment and personal sufficiency.

Now the second aspect of Christs assessment was also missing in Laodicea. That Christ is perfectly fit and suitable to answer the sinner’s dilemma. His perfect suitability to complete us. His all sufficiency is a perfect match for our spiritual poverty, blindness, cowardice, idolatry, doubt, double mindedness and carnal compromise, sensuality, unfruitfulness, unfaithfulness and pride but oh no, our reasoning naturally is that our leprous spots and infected wounds and running sores are to humbling to hear about! Much less make us a perfect candidate for His all-sufficient grace. But the recognition of your need is the pre requisite to the reception of this all-sufficient grace. It perfectly fits your dilemma. The sinner must be brought low, very low in order to see how low Christ stoops in His incarnation, passion and humility (Eph 4:9). Just how low Christ stoops to take that sinner from the gutter and cleanse him and make him fit for eternity.

My friends this is a crossroads. You’re either going to see Christs diagnosis or your going to apply another coat of whitewash on the tomb hiding the dead bones and rot within. You are at a crossroads. But again, the situation at Laodicea was evidence that the church had replaced God. That certainly is our Lords diagnosis. For the church said, we are self-sufficient. What a twisted statement that is, its like saying we have a very worldly church. What a grotesque thing for a self-sufficient church and a worldly church describe the very opposite of abiding in Christ and its fruit of a holy life.

Part 2 – The Glory of Christ the Life of the Church

We consider the wonders of Christs tenderness and loving overtures he makes to the church at Laodicea. He’s actually wooing her His love and tenderness but also by His warnings. For our Lord says in Revelation 3:19 for those I love I reprove so be zealous and repent. Now he says in V20 behold I stand at the door and knock and if anyone hears and opens the door I will come into him and dine with him and he will be with me. Remarkable, the life which Laodicea needed, the sight the wealth, the covering, the joy the cleansing the corrupt sinner desperately needs is so described as being so intimate as if sharing a meal together. Christ describes this meeting of redemption as dining with Him. But is the church today in the habit of viewing Christ as knocking as an invitation to fellowship with him at the points of her poverty? Her wretchedness, her spiritual derivation? No, we often hear something a lot more simple and light and shallow, God loves his own unconditionally. God has a wonderful plan for your life. But those ideas require a bit of more qualification.

So let’s ask a bit of a provocative questions here. Does God set conditions for the bestowal of His grace? If so, does that work against or militate grace as being entirely free? So we can find the answer from a thorough study of biblical soteriology. That is true, there is an ordo salutis. And yes we see in scripture that there is conviction, the calling of and gifts of faith and repentance perceive Gods bestowal of justifying grace. But does God set any conditions for grace outpoured in the message to the Laodiceans? Absolutely! There are conditions for grace to be poured upon these Laodiceans. Now, some of these conditions may surprise you especially if you’ve sat for any length of time under hyper grace preaching. The Laodiceans are to repent of being lukewarm. They are to repent of their imagined self-sufficiency. They are to recognize that they are inherently miserable, poor, blind, naked and wretched. Of course, our Lord sent this message 1900 years before secular psychologists of the modern age stretched the importance of self-esteem, something the postmodern church has been careful to guard from the pulpit. Christ also says in His letter to Laodicea, He advises them to buy from Him refined gold, white garments and eye salve. Each of these of course answers their crying needs of poverty, nakedness and blindness. Now the word “advise” is carefully chosen by our Lord for the word advise means to heed the infinite wisdom our Lord is providing. What about the word “buy”? Advise and buy are conditions of grace bestowed… But why and how? Well, Christ’s office as a prophet is a source of divine wisdom we need if we’re not going to toss away and destroy our eternal souls. But why the word buy if grace is free? It is because grace is incredibly costly and because no one receives divine grace unless he has placed an infinite value upon that grace. Do we see how Gods conditions for bestowing grace are mounting up here? But lest a works salvation or a kind of preparationism be construed as what’s being taught here let the reader keep in mind that the conditions for God to bestow His grace are a function of God preparing the sinner. But, this does not mean the sinner is to do nothing. For apart from this divine preparation which God accomplishes for pouring out infinite grace. If this preparation for grace is not given the sinner would view grace as a commodity. A commodity the sinner would consume and transact upon in order to receive it. Something as easy as stopping by the store to pick up a gallon of milk. So our Lord continues in addressing the Laodiceans. They must recognize that His love is expressed through the discipline of the sinner. Those whom I love I discipline so be zealous therefore and repent. But this reality must be spiritually discerned for a carnally minded sinner does not associate a loving Jesus with the painful strokes of His rod. Thus, how will they begin reasoning in this manner, that Christs love is expressed in painful discipline and scourging so that the obedient response that He calls for is zeal and repenting. Are we beginning to see how free grace preachers are tossing grace out to hard panned clay or unprepared soil? But our Lord goes on further. Opening the door to Christ, opening the door to He who is knocking involves hearing His voice as our Lord preached in John 10:3-4 that His sheep hear His voice and respond to His word, not as a general address to mankind but in specificity to the needy sinner whose dilemma is beyond human agency. A sinner who has no power and can only be answered by the great physician of souls and who is a friend of sinners.

So hearing the Word of Christ is a prerequisite to opening the door and opening the door pre supposes that the blessed grace bestowed optimism that the sinner must have that Christ receives penitent sinners is what has been produced by the Spirit. This is the answer to the commodification of grace so often offered in hyper grace churches. This makes the convert assume that the key to salvation is held in his hand and all he has to do is exercise it as his own prerogative. But, the condition of grace is such that God receives all the glory and that there may not be boasting in one single case. So, Christ sets the actual function of God preparing the work of grace and mercy. Thus, the sinner’s awareness that he cannot generate those conditions is salutatory to Gods preparation to the sinner. Why would the sinner cast himself upon the pity and mercy of the savior if he thought that he could produce what was needed for salvation, no wonder post modern preachers have lost the ability to preach repentance as if repentance were a contradiction of Gods free grace.

So, let’s review, shall we? Let’s review why the sinner must be crushed and staggard before grace is bestowed. Why does God do that?

In Revelation 3:16-17 the Laodiceans were to recognize that their view of self is abhorrent to God, it is an imitation of true religion. They are actually poor, wretched, miserable, blind and naked. They are neither hot nor cold but they are insipid to Christ because of that. In Revelation 3:18 they are to recognize that Christ in His office of prophet is all wise and omniscient in diagnosis of their wretched depravity and moral state and they must recognize that diagnosis that Christ has provided. Recognize that so as to buy, that means place an exceedingly high appraisal on those gifts from Christ for Christ is both the price and the cure of their deadly situation. The sinner is not capable of generating this sentiment it requires a work of the Holy Spirit in convicting them. Christ is not residing in some medicine chest that the sinner can reach into on his own prerogative any time he feels like it.

Then in Revelation 3:19 realize and understand that those whom I love I discipline so be zealous and repent. This means change your minds about Christ’s love, it is not a kind of gracious permissiveness that lets you co-exist with your idols but it is a zealous application of the rod as He applies it to the sinner, correcting those He loves that the fruit of His holy love might be produced in them. He requires too zealously repent. That’s your response to this correcting love. This isn’t merely good intentions or deep grief but is actually departing from your sin. Then in Revelation 3:20, recognize that Christ’s person, His virtues, His merits are for the clothing and cleansing of the sinner. His fitness for your case is absolutely perfect. For what He is, Who He is and what He’s done as friend of sinners and great physician is exactly what you need. Recognizing that to open the door to Him is not complying with the machinery of a church mechanism but its dealing directly with Christs person. For His promise to come into that person in fellowship and communion is described as dining together in Revelation 3:20.

So, why would a sinner prefer religious formalism? Why would a sinner prefer the religious machinery of the church? Why would they prefer that? The answer is truly sobering. The sinner prefers a sanitized religious transaction that he can have a part in. He prefers that because the scripture reveals that those who Christ saves, He indwells them as His temple. He possesses them right down to the core of their soul. He possesses them right down to the core of their heart affections so that every thought is taken captive to Him. But, my friends, there has never been an unregenerate person that has welcomed that level of divine invasion. Only the infinite power of Gods grace can rake up, till and plow that soil in the sinner’s heart and prepare him for this indwelling.

Bonhoeffer got it right when He warned of cheap grace. And JC Ryle when he warned of preachers that would protect and insulate the conscience of their hearers. OF anything that would upset, disturb and devastate much less terrify. So many of todays preachers are pretending to be guardians of free grace but have instead sidestepped the conditions that God Himself sets. The conditions God Himself bestows before granting true saving grace and as a consequence of that, these pastors have painted themselves into a corner of hyper grace error which makes biblical repentance the enemy of free grace. Do we not see in the letters to the seven churches of Asia that Christ requires repentance? And He requires repentance that leads to overcoming? Christ rules His church through His mediatorial offices of Prophet, Priest and King. Thus He is savior, He is Lord and He is sanctifier of His people and that is indispensable to the explication, display and exhibition of Christ’s glory in His church, to His people.