When All Means All

Looking to Christ More Deeply in the New Year

Welcome to the WHOLE Council podcast. I'm John Snyder, and we're taking just a few of our early weeks in the new year to look at some things that I hope will have immense potential to make a significant impact on how we live in the realities of Christ in the coming days.

We looked last week at a passage where John the Baptist brought doubts to Christ, and Christ answered those doubts. And I find that a very helpful passage, because what stirred John's questions or brought up doubts which he took to Christ was the fact that what he was studying in his Bible, his Old Testament, did not at first appear to be matching what he was seeing God do.

So he sees the Messiah working throughout Galilee. He hears the accounts of the healing and the teaching and the forgiving. And when John looks at his Old Testament, he's seeing something different, and so he wants to know, was I mistaken?

And of course, Christ gives the answer by quoting scriptures, and John realizes that he was mistaken, not about Christ, but he's mistaken in his interpretation of what the Messiah came to do the first time he came.

So it's a wonderful picture of what to do with questions that we struggle with when we go to Christ. Now, this week and next week, I want us to look at Christ in a way that I hope will help us, in a way that will grip us for the coming year.

And maybe we can look at some principles that are applicable throughout the 12 months. Let me read a quote that was given to me by a man in our church that often finds great quotes, and then he prints them up on a little card and gives them out to the whole church.

And so recently, I received this. It's a quote from Charles Spurgeon, and Spurgeon said, I wish, my brothers and sisters, that during this year you may live nearer to Christ than you have ever done before.

Depend upon it. It is when we think much of Christ that we think little of ourselves, little of our troubles, and little of the doubts and fears that surround us. Begin from this day, and may God help you.

Great quote, great reality to think much of Christ, think little of self. It puts everything in perspective, even the largest problems we face. So I want us to do that. I want us to look at a very familiar passage.

It is actually a passage that precedes a more familiar passage. It precedes the command or the royal invitation in Matthew 11, verse 28. And in verse 28 and 29 and 30, Christ says this to the crowds, Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart. And you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Wonderful passage. The problem that we have when we are somewhat familiar with these golden portions of Scripture, particularly those that speak mercifully to Adam's fallen race, the problem is that familiarity can breed contempt to a degree.

Perhaps we would say familiarity can shrink passages that ought to be constantly expanding in front of our gaze as we're getting to know God better, then the commands to come and find mercy are getting larger.

But that's not always the way it happens. I find that oftentimes if someone's reading through a passage, teaching through a passage like this, one that I'm fairly familiar with, I tend to say to myself, I know that passage.

I've been saved by that type of a passage. I've embraced that type of gospel command. And then I begin to fill in all the blanks with what I already know of that passage. And I think that I'm being very careful with what Matthew says.

But if I were asked to write out the verses from memory, they would be pretty sketchy. And I would realize that Matthew says some things that I've overlooked. One of the ways that we can constantly be adding weight, bringing passages to their appropriate weightiness or expanding them in front of our eyes to their appropriate measures is to go back to the context that we find them in.

And oftentimes the context is such a backdrop that it adds weight and magnitude to these passages, which we so desperately need as we walk with the King. In 2024, every believer needs to know that they may continue to come and continue to find rest and continue to learn from Christ to whom they are wonderfully yoked and continue to learn from Him who has the humble and gentle heart.

So this great King, this astonishing offer of mercy to his enemies, it's not a one-time thing. It doesn't just apply to conversion, but throughout all the Christian life. But how do we aid ourselves in having a right sense of the worth of verse 28 and 29 and 30 in Matthew 11?

And one answer is understanding what precedes it. So we want to look at one of the most sublime and one of the most difficult in some ways to grasp passages in all of the synoptic gospels that we actually find it in Matthew and Luke, Matthew chapter 11, Luke chapter 10.

In Matthew and Luke, we read, I'll read it from Matthew, verse 27 of chapter 11 in Matthew says this, All things have been handed over to me by my Father. We'll just stop there. That would have been quite a difficult sentence to grasp if you had lived 2 ,000 years ago and you were walking along with Christ just down an average dirt road from one insignificant Galilean town to another insignificant Galilean town on a normal day.

And you're walking down through there and a man and you admire him. He's a great man. He's a godly man. He's a great prophet, you know, depending on where the disciples were in their understanding at this point.

He has great miraculous powers, Matthew chapter 10. But this godly, miraculous prophet sent from God turns to you and says, Everything, everything has been handed into my hands by the heavenly Father.

Would have been quite hard to believe. You're looking at what appears to be a man. And yet he's saying things that could only be true of God. And we know, of course, the full picture, the God-man, the mediator.

It's not effortless for us to believe it today. To wake up in the morning and to be faced with very costly events and obedience might be scary. If I continue to walk down this path, what will be the cost to me, to the ones I love?

You know, looking in the mirror and seeing the struggles with your own sinfulness. And it's been going on for decades perhaps. And you wonder, God, is there really any hope that I will continue to press on?

Am I stuck here? Looking at your church, that could break your heart. Looking at our world, especially at a time like this when there's been a moral tailspin. And there's so many religious voices telling us that we need to do this and this and this.

And this will fix us. And while they are things that have religion in them, they're not necessarily things that are rooted in the realities of Christ. Not flowing from the realities of Christ. Even though Jesus might be tacked on to the top of that idea or scheme.

So when we go to Matthew 11 and we read that our Lord said that everything had been handed over to Him by His Father, that's quite a statement. It has the potential to change everything subjectively in our lives.

In other words, as we live on it, our lives are altered. Not positive thinking, but living on what's real and not on the surface of life. These words certainly reflect a change in what is objectively true.

When Christ said, all things have been handed to me by my Father, that is an objective reality that has already occurred and is even now affecting every minute of every day of every person. Atheist, Muslim, Buddhist, you know, or nominal Christian, as well as the true believer.

Everything is in the hands of Jesus of Nazareth. And He is doing all His good pleasure. You read the Psalms and you read in Psalm 115, why should the nation say to us, where's your God? Obviously, the Jews had no physical representation of the I Am.

And the psalmist replies, our God is in heaven. He does all His pleasure. Your God, which we can see, has hands and feet and eyes and face, mouth, but He doesn't ever do anything, move anywhere, say anything, see anything, hear anything.

He is completely, He's a non-entity. But the living God is in heaven doing all of His pleasure. And that same God of Psalm 115 now is walking a dusty road, the Eternal Son. And He turns in His humanity and says to His friends, everything has been handed to me.

The Eternal Son, the Messiah, who was promised back in Psalm 2, when all the world is raging against God, and God says, it's too late. You can't be your own kings. I have already chosen and appointed a king for you.

It is My Son. And all He has to do is ask. And I will hand Him everything. And He will either rule us, in Psalm 2 we see, either rule us with a rod of iron, crushing our rebellion, judging us, or He will rule us with mercy when we come to Him and set ourselves before Him, pleading for the forgiveness that only He could give.

That same Messiah, that king of Psalm 2, is now walking the dusty roads of Galilee. And He is saying, the Father has now handed me everything. Well, if we can get verse 27 correct, then we can get verse 28, 29, and 30 to have the correct dimensions.

And we will never cease to be amazed at the grace and the fullness and the privilege that is offered to us in those verses for our entire walk with the Lord. So how do we get the right measure on verse 27?

Well, I'd like to call your attention to three things today, and we'll try to be quick. The first is when the Scripture uses the word all. All means all, unless the Scripture qualifies the word all. So there are times in passage where Paul is explaining a theological concept, and he's talking about all, all the people who have embraced Christ, or all who are united to Him.

And at first glance, it seems like he's saying every person without exception, but then as you read on, it can't mean that because he's saying every one of them is going to be alive in Christ. And we know that not everyone is alive in Christ.

It's the believer. So we go back to the context. We see what comes before and after a passage. We see what comes in the passage itself, the verse, and we find that the word all is qualified. All of what?

All of whom? But in Matthew 11, verse 27, all means all, with one exception. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says that everything has been handed to Christ, and he puts all things under his feet. And Paul mentions, but you do understand that when we say all things, that does not include the one who subjected all things to Christ.

In other words, the Father. The Father has entrusted the Son with all authority and all power to do all the Father's will, and the Son will do that. He will complete the kingdom, and He will turn to the Father at the end of time, and He will, as the gloriously faithful servant, He will hand back to the Father all that the Father entrusted Him to do.

It will be complete, a new creation, a new living temple made up of breathing and living believers from every nation and tongue and tribe. Those which have rejected Him are now under judgment, and He hands it all to the Father so that all would turn and praise the Father.

That's the only exception. Everything else has been handed to Christ and is in His hands to use as He wishes. So all means all. All authority. Think of the picture in Daniel 7. The Ancient of Days sets His throne on the earth and judges the nations and the great empires, and after that, Daniel keeps looking, and one like the Son of Man.

A man comes and rises to meet God in the clouds and is handed all authority. A kingdom with no borders and no end date. He will never be followed by another king. His throne will endure forever. Revelation 5, another wonderful picture of this reality.

At the end, Christ has offered His life. He's been raised from the dead. He teaches the disciples for a few more weeks, and then He ascends back to the Father, not as only the eternal Son, the second person of the triune Godhead, but as man.

And the Father seats a human beside Him on the throne forever. It is the throne of God and the Lamb from this point forward. And the God-man there receives the scroll from the Father, unfolds the scroll, opens it up, and accomplishes all the Father has yet to do.

All that the Father has planned, but it's not yet come time to do it, but now it is time. And all creation, the church, the angelic beings, all creation, the galaxies gather, and they cry out praises to the Lamb.

Wonderful pictures, but in Matthew 11, you don't get to see that. You just see a man with dusty feet. Perhaps he's tired from walking, sweat on his forehead, thirsty maybe. And this true man, who is also true God, says, Everything has been handed to me by my Father.

All authority, all power, all wisdom, and all knowledge, all the fullness of the divine nature. Paul tells us in Colossians 1 and again in Colossians 2, all the fullness of the divine nature, it dwells in Christ.

He possesses equally, eternally, and simultaneously, the fullness of this divine nature along with Father and Spirit. He's not one third God. He is true God, indivisible. The divine nature united to our humanity was not reduced at all.

The outward display of glory was. The constant use of his divine attributes was restrained voluntarily so that as a man, he would live the life that a man should live. This Christ possessing all the perfections of deity in that common humanity.

But it's not just the fullness of the Godhead. The emphasis in this chapter is that he has been given all authority over all creation for the purpose of redeeming. In other words, if you don't understand the all of verse 27, then you cannot really understand the hope of verse 28.

Come to me. If Christ does not possess the all, then come to me is a kind, sentimental gesture that may or may not be enough for you. But if he is, as he says he is, the possessor, the steward of all for the sake of saving, of revealing the Father to us, then verse 28, 29, and 30 are amazingly big verses.

So the emphasis is here that all creation, all the places, all the galaxies, all the city streets, all the little towns, all the bedrooms and kitchens that have ever existed or ever will exist, they are his.

And he can do what he wants with them. Every event, every person, great or small, well-known or never heard of, every molecule, every blade of grass, every sun and solar system, every day of every year, every hour, every minute, it's all Christ's.

And he has the freedom and the ability to do all he wants with it. So Matthew gives us a string of miracles leading up this chapter 10. Clearly, Christ has authority over the human body and any deformity in the human body, any disease, Christ has authority over creation itself.

The winds become quiet when he steps up in a boat on a turbulent sea and he tells the wind to be silent. And the water, the surface pressure of the water changes so he can walk upon water when he wishes to walk upon water.

He is also clearly master of all his enemies, even the dark forces, the kingdom of darkness, the demoniac, the two demoniacs in the book of Matthew. Matthew explains that there are two there. They're cutting themselves, crying out, Jesus of Nazareth, what do you have to do with us?

And Christ delivers those men. All has been handed to Christ. Now, you need that for the invitation. But let's look at another thing that will help us get the right measure, the word all. It's the historical context.

The historical context is not given in the book of Matthew. It's actually given in the book of Luke, chapter 10, verse 17 through 22. Let me just tell you what happened. Earlier in Matthew and in Luke, we find that Christ sends out 70, so the 12 plus 58 others.

So 70 messengers are sent by Christ to go throughout the Galilean towns around the Sea of Galilee and to go ahead of Christ. And in each town, two by two, they're going and they're telling people that Christ is coming.

They're preparing the way for Christ. The Son of God is coming. The Messiah is here. The King is here. The kingdom has come. He will be at this town. So prepare yourselves. When they go, they are sent with great authority.

And they come back and they, in Luke, chapter 10, verse 17, we find that they return and they are so excited because God has given them, in many ways, miraculous power to show the reality of what they're saying.

And the gospel has gone forth and the people are receptive and they are eager to hear Christ. It is after this event, Luke says, after the joyful return of the 70, rejoicing at God using them in the spread of the kingdom, that Christ says what we read in Matthew 11, verse 25.

That's where we read it in Luke. At that time, Jesus said, I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants.

Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing in your sight. The historical context is not what we find in Matthew. Matthew gives us a theological context. In other words, Matthew tells us that Christ sent out the 70 but does not give us the historical account of the return of the 70, of what they said.

Luke does. Matthew expects that you will read Luke. And in reading Luke and Matthew together, we see the 70 come back, the wonderful report is given. God, there's been great success in this mission. And Christ says, I praise you, Father, that you, out of your good pleasure, you have delighted to hide the gospel from the grownups, from the self-sufficient, self-righteous, smug, and indifferent, from the arrogant, but to the babes, the infants, that is, those who feel that they're needy, those who feel that they're not self-sufficient, those who feel that they cannot fix themselves, they're infants in their own eyes, they have been shown hope.

So for those who feel they don't need any hope, they don't need help from the Savior, none has been grasped. They have heard the message and they are as blind as they want to be. God lets them stay blind.

But for those who are desperate, for those who think that Christ would have nothing to offer people like them, the hope has come and God opens their eyes and they embrace it. So Christ glories in the fact that God is sending the gospel primarily.

He is sending the gospel saving those who are the hopeless, and the helpless, and the poor, and the needy, and the infant. That's the reason for the praises in verse 25 and 26, and verse 27 explains why is it that these 70 have gone out with great success.

Because Christ says, the Father handed all to me, and in Luke he says, I saw Satan fall from heaven. This is just the beginning of the crushing of Satan and the kingdom of deceit as the kingdom of God is spreading.

Wonderful historical context. If you don't understand that, and you read Matthew and you haven't read Luke, and you don't understand that Matthew simply hasn't included everything he could have said. They have to choose, pick and choose.

John says if they would have recorded all the events that Christ did, it would have filled all the books of the world. So Matthew doesn't include what Luke includes. He includes other material. Matthew gives us a statement leading up to verse 25 where Christ is pronouncing judgment on the Galilean cities, which he has just been in and done most of the miracles in and spent most time teaching, and yet they have been most unaffected.

And he says Sodom and Gomorrah would have responded better than you. They would have repented long ago if they would have seen and heard the things you've seen and heard, and yet they remained indifferent.

So there's curses, but that is not the historical context. That's the theological of Christ's praising the Father in verse 25 and saying all things have been handed to him in verse 27. If you don't understand that, then you will have a warped picture of the pleasure of God.

You will think this. Christ curses the cities for being indifferent. Christ praises the Father that God is hiding. Primarily, God is hiding the truth from people. I mean, that's what it's really all about.

And a few people, of course, are being saved. Well, an elect person here, an elect person there, but for the most part, God is pleased to just blind people who are arrogant, and that is not the historical context.

It's the opposite. God is amazingly kind, and as the disciples come back and tell of the success of their journeys and their preaching in the towns, Jesus is thrilled that while God does oftentimes leave the arrogant to themselves in their blindness, he is delighted to seek out the most needy, the least deserving, and to make them his children.

So that's the context. Verse 27 is wonderful because of this. It explains how the good pleasure, how the delight of the eternal Father is being expressed in human time in very practical ways. How is it being expressed?

He is handing everything to the Son. It is the Father's pleasure for the purpose, not only of judging, but primarily of saving. I was reading Herman Bavinck, theologian of the last century, European, followed Kuyper, if you know, if you're familiar with Kuyper, great brain, great brain, great heart.

Bavinck said, the scriptures are clear that when God describes his, you know, if we think of the human picture of God being spoken of as having human emotions, which is not exactly the same as our emotions.

God is not like us in that sense, but it's an anthropomorphic picture, describing the non-human using human terms so that people like us could grasp it. So when the Bible says God's pleasure, it's not exactly the same as our pleasure, but it's the closest thing that people like us could ever understand.

So let's use this metaphor. God describes himself as having pleasure, Bavinck points out, in saving, in showing mercy. That word is not used in the same way describing God's, you know, response or God's attitude toward destroying those who reject him.

Judgment of sin is good and it's pure and it's right. Hell is right and hell, therefore, does show us something of the glory of God and God creates hell and judges the sinner in a way that is praiseworthy.

It's amazing, the book of Revelation, judgment is seen and heaven bursts forth in praises to God as we see him judge those who reject him. And that is near impossible to imagine us having that response when humans are judged, but when we see him in his majesty and purity and we see sin for the first time, as it really is, there will be something in us that cries out that God is right to do this.

But it does not bring God pleasure in the way that mercy does. Let me read you three verses that speak of this and they all come from Ezekiel. They speak about God's pleasure in mercy at a time when Israel is at its, in some ways, its spiritual low point.

It's under judgment in Babylon and still the spiritual leaders and the people are still addicted to idolatry and so there are so many warnings. But in Ezekiel 18, verse 23, 32, and then Ezekiel 33, verse 11, this is what God says, Do I have pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord, rather than that he should turn from his ways and live?

Next verse, I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies, declares the Lord God, therefore repent and live. Again, Ezekiel 33, 11, say to them, God commands Ezekiel, As I live, declares the Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked would turn from his way and live.

Turn back, turn back from your evil ways. Why then do you die? O house of Israel, John Wesley wrote a hymn, Sinners turn, why will you die? God your maker asks you why. Why do we need this? It puts in context, verse 27, all things have been handed over to me by my Father.

It is his will, it is his eternal plan, his decrees being accomplished and it is his pleasure to give me everything to use for the rescue of the sinner. Well, finally, linked with that is the historical context and that helps us have the right measure of the word all in verse 27 and therefore to have the right magnitude and weight and hope and expectation of verse 28, 29 and 30.

So the theological, as I mentioned, Matthew doesn't give us all that happened right before verse 25, Luke does. So what Matthew does is he gives us an account of Galilee's rejection of Christ in certain cities.

Those have been most privileged to have the truth lived out and taught in front of them and the danger of rejecting such light, such mercy. Why does Matthew not include the historical account that Luke does?

And I think it's clear that Matthew is making a theological point. Everything has been handed to Christ because it is the pleasure of the Father, amazingly. To let the arrogant stay blind but to reveal to those who deserve it least and feel they need it most to reveal the Father to them, to reveal the Son to them, to open their eyes to the gospel and to bring them to God.

So Christ praises the Father's mercy and entrusting him with authority over everything for the purpose of exercising that mercy. And then verse 28 proves that that's the emphasis because he turns and says to everyone who's listening, come to me, take my yoke, learn from me, you will find rest.

So in this context, the theological backdrop is the amazing indifference of the cities in Galilee which have seen Christ do so much and yet they are so unmoved, unresponsive. They are self-sufficient and independent.

The context of that rebellion makes verse 27 and the following command in verse 28 and 29 and 30 so much larger. If you have eyes to see it, the Holy God has stooped in mercy to bring hope to Galilee.

Many of the cities have rejected the clearest offers of mercy, the clearest expressions of its validity, the miracles, the living lessons that Christ is able to do all he says he can do. And in light of that rebellion, Christ does not turn and curse and curse and curse and only curse but he moves from warning and giving the woes to those cities immediately.

The contrast from that to the Father's pleasure to save, to the Father's pleasure of handing all things to him, to the Father's pleasure being worked out by the Son in commanding, weary, stained, tired, burdened.

Sinners who are sick of themselves and cannot fix themselves and cannot bear for someone to come up to them with a new idea that if you just do this at church, if you just join this group, if you just keep this rule, it'll fix your marriage, it'll fix your kids, it'll fix your church, it'll fix your nation and you've tried it.

And like the woman who spent all of her money on doctors because she had an issue of blood, her hemorrhaging was not helped by the doctors, so she's still sick, still has the blood problem, but now she's poverty stricken.

She reaches through the crowd and grabs Christ's garments thinking, if I could just touch his clothes, I could be healed. And she is. For that kind of person, there's hope. What an amazing measure of verse 27 and then the invitation in verse 28 through 30 that the theological backdrop is not man's goodness.

Poor man. He tries so hard, but he just can't do well enough. So God's willing to help these well-meaning but weak sinners. It's not that at all. It is the arrogance, the strutting rejection of Christ and laid right next to that with no buffer, no account in between them.

Immediately, the pleasure of the Father is to save those who need it most and to give Christ all he needs to save them. So in 2024, we look to Christ like Spurgeon encouraged us, and we look again and again, and we want to walk closer to that person than we've ever walked, so that we might daily know the rest that comes from walking in harmony with him, yoked to him.

He is humble. He is gentle. His yoke is light. And we're delivered from the restless emptiness, the misery of the yoke of sin. That is measured by the context, historical, theological, and the word all, which in this place means all.

Looking Ahead to Another Passage on Walking with Christ

Next week, we're going to look at another passage that helps us see Christ in a way that I hope will benefit all of us as we think of walking with the living God in 2024.