What we believe about Christ’s return is the most important factor in how we relate to God, each other, and the world

Posted on December 10, 2024 by Pastor Foley

Last Sunday was the first Sunday in the Advent season, which is the season of the church year before Christmas. We sometimes (wrongly) think that Christmas is the beginning of the church year, and thus we sometimes (wrongly) think that the Advent season is the season of preparation for Christmas. We (wrongly) think that just like Lent is about “preparing our hearts” to receive salvation from Christ’s death and resurrection, Advent must be about “preparing our hearts” to receive the coming of Christ at Christmas.

But in fact, Advent is the beginning of the church year. So last Sunday was like New Years Day in church. And instead of Advent being preparation for Christmas, in Scripture it is Christmas which is preparation for Advent!

That is because Advent is about the visible, physical return of Christ to the earth, to rule and reign forever over a new heavens and a new earth, where those of us who have put our trust in him will be resurrected bodily from the dead with bodies like his.

Scripture calls this “the blessed hope” in Titus 2:13. The blessed hope is NOT that we will leave our bodies behind and go to heaven to make our home with God. The blessed hope is that God will descend to earth to make his home among men, as John writes in Revelation 21:3:

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.

Scripture tells us that those who die before Christ returns are present with Christ in heaven, but they are not presently feasting at a heavenly banquet with others who have died. Instead, they are presently doing what we are doing: Waiting eagerly for his return, when they will come with him and the New Jerusalem to the new earth to join us for that banquet. This is why the writer of Hebrews says of those who have died in faith (in Chapter 11 verses 39-40):

These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.

And this is what Advent is about: Waiting. Not “waiting to go to heaven when we die so that we can join in the heavenly banquet that’s already started so we can see our relatives and have a great time there” but “waiting for the completion—the perfection—of God’s plan, which is the physical, visible return of his Son Jesus with his resurrected body, accompanied by all those who died in faith, who return with him to join us and, as the Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:52 , we all together will be changed:

in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

So the Scriptures that are given to us in the lectionary to read during Advent all relate to Christ’s return—what the Bible calls “The Day of the Lord”, “The Day”, or “That Day”, or what we sometimes call “Judgment Day” or “The Second Coming”.

We know that even now, the Son, the messiah, the Lord Jesus, rules over all the kings of the earth, seated on the heavenly throne with his Father. The Father has given the Son all power and authority (Matthew 28:18), yet we know this only by faith: As the writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews 2:8, “At present we do not see everything subject to him”. The kings of the earth still rebel against him.  

But as Christ Jesus told Paul in Acts 26:14 when he was still Saul, the persecutor, “It is hard for you to kick against the goads”. That is, resistance is futile; what we know now by faith, we will soon see: On that day, which the Bible calls the day of the Lord, the end will come: All rebellion will be crushed—not only human rebellion, but the rebellion of the serpent, sin, and death. And:

that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:10-11)

Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. (1 Corinthians 15:24)

Because we have this “blessed hope”, the Apostle Paul tells Titus:

It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age.

That’s what we do during Advent: We say “no” to this present age. Or as Jesus says in today’s scripture reading from Luke 21, in verses 34-36:

Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you unexpectedly like a trap. For it will come upon all those who live on the face of the whole earth. Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.

Jesus, Paul, and all of Scripture tells us that in fact it is only our belief that Christ will return soon that prevents our hearts from being weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life. It is only our belief in the soon-coming Day of the Lord that teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age.

Or, to say it the other way around:

If we lose our belief that Christ will return soon, then our hearts will become weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and we will say “yes” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and we will find ourselves unable to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age.

What we believe about the return of Christ is the most important factor in how we relate to God, to the world, and to each other. If you don’t believe that, then ask yourself why tomorrow, the first Sunday in Advent, is designated as the Christian’s New Year’s Day. Scripturally we can even say that a Christian is someone who, more than anything else, is eagerly awaiting and primarily focused on the Lord’s return.

You may have heard people say things like, “Well, if you’re focused on the Lord coming back, you’re not going to be useful or good at making a difference in the world around you.”

But Scripture strongly disagrees with that claim. It is only when you are eagerly awaiting and primarily focused on the return of Christ that you can say to this world what it doesn’t want to hear, show to this world what it doesn’t want to see, and be in this world what the world despises: a faithful witness to Christ.

Posted in day of the Lord | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

What does it mean that Christianity is a canonical faith, and why is that so important for the church to remember?

Posted on November 19, 2024 by Pastor Foley

Christianity is a canonical faith. This means that the Bible is put together in the order it is for a certain reason, and that reason comes to be understood as the scripture moves from the beginning to the end. The New Testament is not “the New and Improved Testament”. Instead, the New Testament is the fulfillment of God’s promises in the Old Testament. God is doing the same thing from the beginning to the end. The New Testament doesn’t change that. The New Testament tells us how to read and receive the message of the Old Testament.

To be canonical means that our preaching, our faith, our teaching, our understanding of what God is doing must always be grounded in the beginning and end of the canon: Genesis 1-3 and Revelation 21-22. God doesn’t change his mind in the middle, and his purpose is clear from the beginning…and the end.

Any time you hear a preacher jumping around to build a supposedly biblical teaching by adding this verse in the middle to that verse at the end to this other verse at the beginning, you are hearing a false teaching because our faith is simple and canonical. Canonically, God decides what He is going to do. Then he announces it. Then he does it. Thus, the message of the Bible is very simple:

  • God creates.
  • Humans sin.
  • God appoints a day for judgment.
  • In advance of that day, he sends his Son on a mission of mercy to save all who will believe.
  • Those who believe are called to serve as his witnesses. They witness to two things: The Lord’s offer of mercy, and the coming Day of the Lord where He will judge the world.
  • Jesus is the appointed bringer of mercy and judgment, proof of which is given by his suffering and his resurrection from the dead.

In the New Testament, Jesus adds nothing to that message. He doesn’t change it at all. He simply is it, which he says becomes clear when we read canonically under the tutelage of the Holy Spirit. He is the fulfillment of all those promises of God. And he is our one Teacher.

“Neither be called teacher, for you have one teacher, the Christ.” (Matthew 23:10).

This canonical message can be heard clearly in Jesus’ words to the apostles on the night of his resurrection:

“Then he said to them, ‘These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.’ Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.’ (Luke 24:44-49)

Judgment is an essential part of the canonical gospel:

“And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead.” (Acts 10:42)

When the Apostles preach, you can hear those same key points of their message repeated over and over again: There is a coming day of judgment, in which all sin of all people will be punished, but mercy is available for those who believe now in God’s messiah. That’s not only the Apostles’ message. It’s also the message of Jesus, and of the prophets in the Old Testament.

But as the Apostles were martyred, and as the church moved into all the world, it gradually became like those to whom it was called to testify, just as Israel had also become like the nations around it. The first Christians cried out, “Maranatha! Come quickly, Lord Jesus!” But Christians, under the influence of Greek and Roman culture, exchanged that canonical ending for the non-canonical idea of going to the Lord Jesus, leaving behind our bodies and living in heaven forever.

It turns out that if you get the end wrong, then you get the middle wrong as well. Like King Saul making sacrifices to God too early while corrupting his simple commands, the church has wrongly taken the end of the world into its own hands, appointing mediators other than Christ Jesus–priest, politicians, even itself–to stand between God and the world, and to do something more and other than witness faithfully to God’s mercy and judgment.

But the canonical witness of scripture says that in these last days there is only one mediator: Christ Jesus. When he comes, the times of God’s mercy will end, and then Christ himself will judge the world.

Posted in day of the Lord | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Christ’s perfection means much more than sinlessness

Posted on November 5, 2024 by Pastor Foley

In Hebrews 7:28, the author says, “For the law appoints as high priests men who are weak; but the oath, which came after the law, appointed the Son, who has been made perfect forever.“

Let’s talk for a minute about that word “perfect”.

When we use that word in our everyday lives, we often use it to mean that something is ideal, flawless, faultless, sinless, having no problems. But that is not what the Greek word here means. It means something more like ‘brought to completion’, ‘functioning at full strength’, or ‘achieving the goal/purpose’.

So the author’s point here is not merely that the high priests were sinful but Jesus was sinless, though that is of course true. The author’s point is that neither the high priests (in Hebrews 7:28) nor the law (in Hebrews 7:19) could bring God’s plan/purpose to completion; but Christ has brought God’s plan/purpose to completion.

This is an absolutely essential point for Christians to understand, believe, and live according to: Christ has brought God’s plan/purpose to completion. Christ defeated his enemies on the cross. Christ established the new covenant in his blood. The gospel is the announcement of Christ’s victory. Christ presently holds all power and authority in heaven and on earth.

This is different than what many Christians understand, believe, and live according to. They wrongly see Christ’s death on the cross as “one more step” in God’s plan, which they think remains incomplete. Some wrongly believe that Christ will not triumph until his second coming. They wrongly believe that when Christ came the first time it was simply to pay the price for our sin, and that it is when he comes the second time that he will defeat his enemies and establish his kingdom. So these Christians live in perpetual uncertainty about whether the church is winning or losing at a particular moment. They continue to put their hopes wrongly in various “next steps” that they believe are necessary for God’s plan/purpose to be brought to completion. They believe that the work of the church is necessary to complete God’s plan. They believe that Christians must go out and protest against things and vote for certain things and pray for this and pray for that and give this much and do that much in order for God’s plan and purpose to move forward.

The picture that they have in their mind is the one that you find in the tract that shows us on one cliff and God on another cliff and a big gap between the cliffs that is labeled “sin”. Then the next picture shows a cross filling the gap, which represents Christ’s “perfect” sacrifice. The idea in the tract is that Christ dies for our sins, which then makes it possible for us to have a relationship with God. So now (this wrong thinking goes), God can love us and have a relationship with us, whereas before he could not. And now (this wrong thinking goes), we are one step closer to God’s plan/purpose being achieved, and now the church needs to do its work, and so we are the hands and feet of Jesus now that Jesus is no longer here, and God is going to guide us and give us power and wisdom and strength to complete our part of the work while he also works on completing his part of the work.

But this is not the gospel. It is not the teaching of scripture. It is based on a wrong understanding of the word “perfect”, and what makes it wrong is that it gives us a very small Jesus. This small Jesus (wrongly) is one more chapter in the story of God, and now we’re in another chapter, and everything in God’s plan depends on us doing our part in this new chapter.

This is neither the God of scripture nor the Christ of God. The Christ of God is perfect not only because he is sinless (which he is), but because only he can bring to completion the plan of God (which he has).

In scripture, bringing God’s plan and purpose to completion is not a team effort. It is a one-man job. And the only man capable of completing the job is the God-man, Jesus Christ.

When Christ ascends to heaven, he doesn’t leave the church to continue his work. Instead, he ascends so that his authority extends over all people and all places for all time. The work he once did only in one location and among one people—Israel—he now carries out everywhere. His church is not given the job of being his hands and feet. Instead, we are given the privilege of being his witnesses, which means that we announce his victory on the cross and his continuing rule as Lord over what Paul in Ephesians 6:12 calls “the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms”.

The Christian message is that Christ holds all power and authority. It is not that nothing happens in the world unless the church does something (with God supplying the wisdom, strength, and power in response to the church’s request). It is that Christ is always active in the world, at all places and in all times. What the church does is to announce Christ’s activity in the world, not replace it, add to it, or complete it. Our job is to live in this present world according to his victory until he returns, and that victory is revealed to the world.

Until then, the world, because of its disbelief, will continue on its evil path. The world will continue to think there are many Lords who hold much power. But scripture shows us, as we just read in Ephesians 6:12, that no matter what all these supposed “Lords” do with their power, they ultimately can only accomplish Christ’s purpose, no matter what they intend to do. That’s because Christ has brought God’s plan/purpose to completion, which is to say perfection–a fact nothing can change, undo, or delay.

Posted in Bible Study, cross, Discipleship | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments