May 13, 2018 Robert T. Walker, "The Reality and Mystery of the Cross" https://tftorrance.org/firbush/ The audio recording for this presentation is available on the Firbush Retreat section of the website for the Thomas F. Torrance Theological Fellowship. The following AI transcript is too rough to rely upon, but perhaps useful for word searches and time-stamps. It is unretouched; if anyone wishes to listen to it and clean it up we will be happy to post an improved version (contact the webmasters). We invite speakers to send us slides for their talks, which we will post alongside the audios and transcripts. If any speaker wishes to have their talk removed from the website, just let us know and we'll take down both the audio and the transcript. ------------ 00:00-00:13 The 13th of May 2018, the topic is the reality and mystery of the cross. 00:13-00:21 We've read from a couple of verses from the middle of Romans 1 and from near the end of 00:21-00:34 Romans 3 and we've read 1 Corinthians 1 and the beginning of 1 Corinthians 2. 00:34-00:42 The reality and mystery of the cross. 00:42-00:55 In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul says "I handed on to you as of first importance what I also 00:55-01:03 received that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures that was buried 01:03-01:07 and raised on the third day." 01:07-01:16 The New Testament takes it as a basic fact of the absolute first importance that Christ 01:16-01:28 died for our sins and that through the death and the cross our sins were undone and that 01:28-01:33 he then rose from the dead. 01:33-01:39 So for the New Testament, for the Apostles, that's the basic fact, that's the reality 01:39-01:46 of the cross and what it means and what it actually accomplished. 01:46-01:51 But in the nature of the case, faith always looks for understanding. 01:51-01:58 We look to try and understand what we believe. 01:58-02:04 But there's a basic mystery there. 02:04-02:11 The mystery in the primary sense in the New Testament is the mystery of Christ himself, 02:11-02:13 the mystery of his person. 02:13-02:22 How can he possibly be God and man in one indivisible person? 02:22-02:31 He is the absolute mystery and yet the early church was convinced that he was both of those 02:31-02:40 things and that he was both of them in one indivisible person. 02:40-02:50 In all knowledge we start from realities which are in existence already and we try to understand 02:50-02:54 what has come into existence. 02:54-02:56 One of the primary examples of that is the creation. 02:56-03:01 We can't possibly understand how it came into being. 03:01-03:08 I mean there's nothing there before it came into being but it's only once things have 03:08-03:15 come into being and have at their own structure and order and reality that we can begin to 03:15-03:25 try to probe and see what their reality is and how have they developed. 03:25-03:34 In science we can discover more and more of how things function and what their logic is. 03:34-03:41 But in the very nature of the case we cannot go back beyond the beginning because there's 03:41-03:45 nothing beyond the beginning. 03:45-03:51 We can only understand things once they have come into being in their reality. 03:51-03:55 The cross is like that. 03:55-04:01 We cannot understand the depths of the cross ultimately. 04:01-04:04 There's a mystery here. 04:04-04:06 It's not just the mystery of Christ's person. 04:06-04:10 How can God possibly become man without seeking to be God? 04:10-04:13 How can he become man at all? 04:13-04:20 How can he be God and man in one person? 04:20-04:31 Nor can we understand how as this one person he can take on himself sins of the whole world 04:31-04:40 and by his death on the cross as one man undo sin and death for everyone. 04:40-04:49 We cannot understand how that can happen and yet we know that that is what it means. 04:49-05:01 So in faith we try to probe and understand the mystery. 05:01-05:08 Paul calls it the wisdom of God. 05:08-05:16 When our natural human minds look at it first of all then we can't see what the logic is 05:16-05:19 and we can't see how it can possibly be the case. 05:19-05:27 Either that God should become man or that the death of one man can save the world. 05:27-05:37 But if it has actually happened then how do we know it's happened? 05:37-05:46 Again it's only through the witness of the spirit, the power of the spirit, that it's 05:46-05:53 the power of the spirit combined with other things that convince us that this did indeed 05:53-05:56 happen. 05:56-06:08 But once we have come to see that it did happen or something happened and start to try to 06:08-06:23 explore it then we can begin to see something of the logic behind it. 06:23-06:32 In Romans 1 Paul says "I'm not ashamed of the gospel, it is the power of God for salvation 06:32-06:35 to everyone who has faith." 06:35-06:56 Now the Greek is the power of God to salvation to everyone believing and that in itself is 06:56-07:04 better than the English because as soon as we say "has faith" faith becomes a thing that 07:04-07:12 we have and we inevitably think of faith in causal terms. 07:12-07:18 We have faith and it's our faith that saves us. 07:18-07:27 But the real meaning of faith in the nature of the case is a relational concept. 07:27-07:37 To have faith is to have a faithful relation to something that is faithful. 07:37-07:49 If something is faithful and so true and trustworthy that we see it as such then we come to trust 07:49-07:58 in it so that our trust in something that is trustworthy is not something that we have 07:58-08:05 in a sense because it's simply a recognition of the nature of what it is we are trusting 08:05-08:07 in. 08:07-08:14 So that in the nature of the case faith depends entirely on its object. 08:14-08:22 It's the object that creates the faith in us or the faithfulness or the faithful relation 08:22-08:23 to it. 08:23-08:32 It's wrong to think of faith as something that we have as an object in that sense. 08:32-08:39 To translate it as the power of God to everyone who has faith I think is a misleading translation. 08:39-08:45 In Greek it's the power of God to everyone believing and it's only the power of God to 08:45-08:48 those who do believe. 08:48-08:53 It's not the power of God, it's the power of God to everybody but that power can only 08:53-09:00 work when people come to see it for themselves. 09:00-09:10 It's the power of God to everyone who has their eyes opened and sees that God indeed 09:10-09:11 is faithful. 09:11-09:13 When they see it they're not relying on their faith. 09:13-09:17 They're not relying on their faith that God is faithful. 09:17-09:27 Faith has seen that God is faithful in himself and that is the whole meaning of faith. 09:27-09:37 Verse 17 says 'In it the righteousness' is a much better word really than justice in 09:37-09:39 its richness. 09:39-09:51 It has been revealed out of faithfulness to faith. 09:51-09:54 It's related through faith for faith. 09:54-10:06 We'll come back to this later but it's been translated as 'revealed from faithfulness 10:06-10:11 to faith' or 'answering faith'. 10:11-10:17 So it's from the faithfulness of God to answering faith would be the better translation. 10:17-10:24 We'll come back to that when we look at Romans 3. 10:24-10:31 Verse 21 'But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from law.' 10:31-10:33 This is quite apart from the law. 10:33-10:36 The law says 'do this and you'll live'. 10:36-10:43 Quite apart from any offer, any reward, any command, the righteousness of God has been 10:43-10:48 manifested apart from law. 10:48-10:51 That sounds as though somebody's at the door now. 10:51-10:54 Yes, there's been someone moving about in the room. 10:54-10:55 In here, inside. 10:55-10:56 Just in here. 10:56-10:57 It might be somewhere else. 10:57-10:58 Yes, OK. 10:58-11:01 It has been manifested apart from law although the law and the province bear witness to it. 11:01-11:19 'But righteousness of God', verse 22, through the Greek is 'through faithfulness of Jesus' 11:19-11:26 or 'through the faith of Jesus Christ to all those believing'. 11:26-11:33 So again it's not through faith in Christ, that's not the Greek, it's through the faith 11:33-11:43 of Christ or through faithfulness of Jesus Christ to all those believing. 11:43-11:58 And again that's the point, that faith is a relation to God in his faithfulness and 11:58-12:04 God is such that he is so righteous that he makes us righteous. 12:04-12:14 He is so faithful and so much to be trusted that we are able to trust him to see that 12:14-12:15 that's what he is. 12:15-12:23 So the whole meaning of faith is understanding the nature of God, seeing what he is. 12:23-12:33 So faith and knowing that somehow we've been forgiven by Christ, that his death on the 12:33-12:36 cross has made us righteous. 12:36-12:46 And Paul says that God has passed over former sins to prove that at the present time he 12:46-12:50 is righteous and he makes the person righteous. 12:50-13:01 Again the Greek is 'ton ekpistios isu', the person of the faith or out of the faithfulness 13:01-13:04 of Jesus. 13:04-13:18 So that's what the Gospel is, that somehow God has made us righteous and yet outwardly 13:18-13:29 the cross is a stumbling block, the Jews can't understand it. 13:29-13:38 Even on the day of ascension when Jesus had risen from the dead and they had seen that 13:38-13:48 he was alive, the disciples asked him at this time 'are you going to restore the kingdom?' 13:48-13:55 On the road to Emmaus Jesus had met two of his followers and unfolded the scriptures 13:55-14:03 to them how the Messiah had to die and he'd been with them for forty days explaining things 14:03-14:11 and the day he ascends they still say 'is this when you are going to restore the kingdom?' 14:11-14:22 So they still don't have a clue until the coming of the Spirit. 14:22-14:29 The Paul makes a point of saying that when he preaches he deliberately doesn't do it 14:29-14:37 but with words of rhetoric or trying to move people emotionally but simply by unfolding 14:37-14:44 the actual what the Gospel is and what it says and what it stands for. 14:44-14:55 It's only the power of the Spirit that can convince people that it's true and it's only 14:55-15:03 through having our eyes open that we can begin to understand something of the wisdom and 15:03-15:10 the depth of God in the cross. 15:10-15:20 We'll go on to this perhaps next week or the following week at Pentecost, the whole meaning 15:20-15:27 of the Spirit and what it means. 15:27-15:36 The coming of the Spirit is the coming of God himself to open us up in our minds. 15:36-15:52 If the incarnation is God himself becoming man which is utterly unbelievable with all 15:52-16:03 that that meant then the sending of the Spirit by Christ is in a sense equally unbelievable 16:03-16:12 because it's the power and the very life of God coming into our own minds, opening us 16:12-16:22 up in the most immediate tangible way to know and understand what Christ is and has done 16:22-16:23 for us. 16:23-16:35 The Spirit can only come once Christ has actually in our human nature made atonement with God 16:35-16:48 for us and in his own human nature has gained the knowledge of God that man and woman should 16:48-16:53 have had from the beginning. 16:53-17:04 But the Spirit, Christ ascends and again as we'll see next week, we'll do Pentecost next 17:04-17:16 week, in Acts 2.33 Peter speaks about Jesus receiving the Spirit in heaven and it's because 17:16-17:21 as man he's received the Spirit in heaven for us that he can now pour the Spirit out 17:21-17:30 on us, the very Spirit by whom as man he did all that he did and he pours the Spirit out 17:30-17:40 on the church and it's then only that the disciples can come to see and understand exactly 17:40-17:48 what the Gospel was and we begin to share in the mind of Christ. 17:48-18:04 But the mystery is how can God become man, how can one man die for others? 18:04-18:13 We can't understand that in the abstract, we can only probe the logic of it once it 18:13-18:18 has happened. 18:18-18:24 Lightning can strike anywhere but once it has struck it is struck in one place and not 18:24-18:28 in another place. 18:28-18:38 We have to go by what has actually happened and if this is how God has saved us then in 18:38-18:49 a sense we have to probe that logic and when we do then we begin to see a deeper pattern 18:49-18:56 and that this appears to be the only way in which we could have been saved. 18:56-19:13 We begin to see that it's only the coming of God himself which can save us and nothing 19:13-19:30 less than God could possibly save us because the cross uncovers something of the depths 19:30-19:40 of the deception and of the inbuilt hostility to God. 19:40-19:45 This is part of the mystery of the cross that we cannot even begin to understand the mystery 19:45-19:51 of evil in its unfathomable depths. 19:51-20:01 We think of unspeakable acts of genocide and barbarity in our own day, especially of the 20:01-20:05 Holocaust for example. 20:05-20:12 It's beyond any conception, it's absolute denial of all rationality, all goodness, all 20:12-20:13 humanity. 20:13-20:24 It gets barbaric through and through and the cross is all that and in a real sense it's 20:24-20:26 more than all that. 20:26-20:42 This is mankind, Jew and Gentile, putting God himself to death and yet this God is man. 20:42-20:50 So this is God himself come as man and it's the two things together which are absolutely 20:50-20:58 important, neither would save us apart from the other. 20:58-21:07 If God himself is not on the cross then there's ultimately no hope for the world in its utter 21:07-21:09 depths of depravity and misery. 21:09-21:16 At the same time it's man that needs to be saved, it's man that needs to answer to God 21:16-21:23 and man has to be reconciled to God in his heart or in their hearts. 21:23-21:33 If it's not worked out in the heart of man then salvation isn't achieved. 21:33-21:43 The logic of it is that God himself has to come in person, he is actually to become in 21:43-21:54 a sense the person he is saving, to take on all that the persons he is saving are in himself 21:54-22:03 and inside the human heart, inside the heart of Christ, work out our salvation as man, 22:03-22:07 as one indivisible person. 22:07-22:10 How can one man die for others? 22:10-22:20 No man can but only God can and only the Son of God can, only Christ. 22:20-22:30 As the Bible understands it we were all made in the image of the Word in whom was life 22:30-22:37 and right from the beginning the whole universe has been held together in Christ in the Word. 22:37-22:43 So it's only that Word that get also sataneseus, only that Word and no other Word could stand 22:43-22:47 in for every other man. 22:47-22:53 But there is still an essential mystery. 22:53-22:55 Why did he have to die to do it? 22:55-22:59 Could God have not ranged some other way? 22:59-23:10 Again it's the fact that he did die that tells us that that was the only way. 23:10-23:15 We can begin to see some logic. 23:15-23:22 The biblical logic is that sin and death go together and therefore if God is really to 23:22-23:31 reach us where we are, he is to reach us in our point of death, in life and in death. 23:31-23:37 Death is the ultimate consequence of sin. 23:37-23:43 It's the denial, sin is the shutting out of the light and the joy and the goodness of 23:43-23:48 God which means death. 23:48-23:55 Death is the end of the light, the end of joy and goodness, the extinction of the creature. 23:55-24:01 If Christ does not reach that point then he has not reached us at the very bottom of where 24:01-24:02 we are. 24:02-24:07 There are two things going on here. 24:07-24:14 He has to reach that point but he has to overcome it. 24:14-24:21 The miracle is that even while taking on himself the depths of our depravity and misery, he 24:21-24:30 undoes it in himself and bends our wayward human nature back to God and creates our cry 24:30-24:35 of God-forsakenness into a prayer of trust. 24:35-24:40 "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit." 24:40-24:48 In the midst of hell itself or the midst of the horror of the cross and the inner horror 24:48-24:52 of what it actually meant is infinitely greater than the physical pain. 24:52-25:04 But in the midst of the horror of the cross, this is God himself in hell undoing sin and 25:04-25:08 death and working out our salvation. 25:08-25:13 So for example if we think of the Holocaust we have to say that God was right there in 25:13-25:19 the Holocaust in the unspeakable depravity. 25:19-25:23 And if God is not there then there is no hope for the world. 25:23-25:31 But the resurrection shows that somehow it is only in and through the uncovering of the 25:31-25:40 depths of evil and through their mastery at that point by himself in Christ that is there 25:40-25:42 any hope for the world. 25:42-25:50 Well, we have only scratched the surface but we will finish with a prayer. 25:50-26:01 We pray, Lord God, for the light of your Spirit on the mystery of the cross, on greater knowledge 26:01-26:12 and sense of its reality and the greater appreciation of its mystery and yet also insight, such 26:12-26:21 insight as we can be given through the Spirit of something of its logic and its wisdom. 26:21-26:23 In Jesus' name, Amen.