Article 7 - Eternal Life

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Well, you had the longer portion of the confession.
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I would have given you an extra 10 minutes, but I didn't tell you that beforehand.
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Yeah, I have a shorter section tonight.
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I have Article 7 from the 1646 Confession, and I want to invite you to read along with me.
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This is the section that has been entitled Eternal Life, and it says, And this is life eternal, that we might know Him, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom He hath sent.
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And on the contrary, the Lord will render vengeance and flaming fire to them that know not God, and obey not the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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All right, that is Article 7 of the Confession.
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We will be looking at the appendix in a moment, but I want to make a few preliminary comments before we do.
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It's interesting that when we study the confession, sometimes the confession is really nothing more than a restatement of Scripture, and that's what this particular article is.
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This is simply a recitation of a few passages sort of put together, and we're going to look at those passages in a moment, but that's really what we want.
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In a sense, we want to know what the Bible says about these things, and if we can quote directly from Scripture to get our understanding right, then so be it.
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I think that's a beautiful thing.
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It seems apparent to me, as I was studying this particular article, that the writers were, at this point, wanting to affirm their commitment to Christian orthodoxy in regard to eternal rewards and punishments.
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And so, in this portion of the Confession, they affirm three truths, and you knew it was going to be three, didn't you? Three things that I see as I look at this.
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The three truths that they can confirm.
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First is the truth of immortality.
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The second is the truth of dichotomy, and the third is the truth of exclusivity.
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So let's talk about what we mean by those.
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When we read the Confession, it says, and this is life eternal.
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What does eternal mean? It means without end.
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The word eternal could be compared to the word forever.
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You know, we have the word forever, meaning to go on and on and on without end.
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And the word eternal, if I am correct, and I believe that I am, I think it's derived out of the Latin eterminus, which means without end.
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And that's what we think of.
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When we think of eternal, we think of something that never ever ends.
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And there is a belief among some people, and it has become more and more popular as of late, that when life ends, it's simply over.
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And like when you shut off your television at night, and I don't know if you remember this, but years ago you turn the TV off and it was a series of tubes inside.
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Now it's digital pixels, but years ago when you shut it off, it goes down to a little light, and the little light would stay on for a few seconds in the middle, and it would fade out.
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Right? So you had this, the tube was going down to nothing, and it would turn into that little light, and eventually it would just go to blackness.
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And that particular doctrine, and it is a doctrine, it's called the doctrine of annihilationism.
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The doctrine that when you die, your soul ceases to exist.
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And it is very common among secularists, and particularly those atheists who do not believe that life is anything more than the chemical reactions that happen in your brain.
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You realize that some people believe that's all we are, is the chemical reactions that happen in the brain, the firing of synapses in the brain, cause what we consider to be thought.
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And some people believe thought is really all you are, that's all consciousness is, is the firing of synapses in the brain.
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And eventually one day your body is going to stop working, your heart's going to stop beating, it's going to stop sending blood to your brain, and at that moment your brain is going to stop firing, and it's going to simply cease.
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And all of the consciousness that was you will cease, and you will go from something to nothing.
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Again, that's the doctrine.
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Oh, everybody looks so excited, like, Pastor, you're bringing us down.
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No, no, I'm telling you we don't believe that.
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In fact, this, this is a denial of that.
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Yeah, because it says, and this is eternal life.
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This is life eternal.
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So they're, the first thing they're affirming is immortality.
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Immortality, meaning the opposite of mortal.
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Mortal means life ends.
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Immortality, life continues.
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In fact, I would say sometimes if you read some of the older confessions, they had what they called affirmations and denials, where it would say we affirm this and we deny this.
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I would say by affirming this we are denying annihilationism.
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We are affirming life eternal.
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We are denying that life ends.
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So the first thing this part of the confession affirms is immortality, and this is life eternal.
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The second thing it confirms is what I have called dichotomy.
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It affirms only two paths of life.
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Read it again.
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It says this is life eternal, that we might know him, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent.
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And on the contrary, the Lord will render vengeance and flaming fire to them that know not God.
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So there's a dichotomy here.
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There are those who know the one and true God, and there are those who do not know him.
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And honestly, that is the only distinction in life that matters.
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It doesn't matter if we distinguish ourselves by what country we were born in.
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It doesn't matter if we distinguish ourselves by the color of our skin or by the accent of our voice or the language that we speak.
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The only thing that matters, the only true dichotomy, and dichotomy simply means a separation of two things, die being two, and the idea of dichotomy to separate into two groups.
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The only two groups that matter are those who know God and those who do not.
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And this is making that point that there are only two paths of men.
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You remember in Matthew chapter 7 Jesus says there is a broad path, and what does the broad path do? It leads to destruction.
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And there is a narrow path which leads to what? Life.
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And he explains the reason why he's describing it as somewhat of a, you know, like I 295, a broad way, and then, you know, maybe a side road, a little dirt road, the narrow way.
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It says because many find the broad way.
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Many will be on that side.
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It's not an equal dichotomy.
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In fact, sadly, the dichotomy is very heavily weighted on one side according to Christ.
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Many there are who take the broad way.
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Why? Because the broad way is the easy way.
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The broad way is the natural way of the sinner.
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The broad way requires nothing.
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The broad way is the default.
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You guys know what default is, right? When you buy your computer and you turn it on, it has all the default settings, and you have to change the settings to make it particular to you, and then at some point the computer may have a problem and you have to reset it.
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It goes back to the default setting.
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Well, the default setting of man, because of the sin of Adam, is to be opposed to God and to his kingdom and to be in rebellion against him.
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Therefore, the default setting of humanity is the broad way.
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And under this dichotomy there are only two ways.
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There's the broad way and the narrow way.
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And what does it say about the narrow way? Few there are who find it.
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Now, I've thought about that a lot, actually, because it really troubles my soul to think about the many people on the broad way.
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And sometimes I've actually, I've been tempted to take Spurgeon's approach.
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Spurgeon said it's not that narrow.
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Not that the way is not narrow.
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He's just Christ.
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But the idea is, he said there's a lot more people saved than you realize.
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Don't think it's just, you know, six people or eight people in a boat.
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You know, that's all that was saved in the time of Noah.
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But he said there's, you know, if you think about it, there's more people, there's so many people who believe and love Jesus, you know, so don't get too, don't think you're the only one, and don't think our church is the only one.
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There's a lot of churches that love Jesus.
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There's a lot of people who love Jesus.
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So don't get thinking that heaven's going to be, you know, just you and a few other folks.
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There's going to be a multitude from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation.
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So we shouldn't get, we shouldn't get so saddened, but when we compare it to the, to how many, I mean, how many people do you know right now, just in, just in your mind, you think about how many people in your own family have no love for Christ, do not know him.
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You say, I don't know too many.
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Then you're a blessed person.
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I have a ton of people in my family who have no love for Jesus, no desire to be in his house, no desire to be in his Word, no desire for him.
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The broad way leads to eternal life.
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So there's, so this again, we have immortality.
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It's, we are affirming that there is life eternal.
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We are affirming that there's only two paths.
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There's the path that leads to life, and there's the path that leads to destruction, the broad way.
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And then finally, exclusivity.
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Exclusivity is the affirmation that the way to eternal life is Christ alone.
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It's exclusive to Christ.
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Do you understand this is what causes so many people in the world to hate Christianity? Because Christianity is an exclusive religion.
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The world argues for inclusivism or pluralism.
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And you understand what those things mean, that everybody should be included, nobody should be excluded, and every belief, pluralism is the idea that every belief is equally valid.
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And in America, we kind of like that idea.
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Well, everybody needs a seat at the table.
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Every belief is equally valid.
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Here's the issue.
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The Apostle Paul tells us in Galatians chapter 1, if any man comes preaching a gospel different than the one you received, let him be anathema.
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The word means accursed.
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He didn't say everybody gets a seat at the table.
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He didn't say everybody's version of the is true.
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He says there's one gospel, there is one uniting truth that all believers must submit to.
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And those who reject that one uniting truth are not just separated brethren, they are not brethren at all.
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And so the exclusive claim of the gospel is one that causes a lot of difficulty in the hearts of people.
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But again, that's what this confirms.
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This is life eternal, that we might know him and the only true God.
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The only true God.
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That by itself is an exclusive claim, is it not? He is the only true God.
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How many gods are there in the world? Little g.
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Too many to count.
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John Calvin said the human mind is a factory of idols, constantly creating new gods to worship.
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There are more gods in the world than we can count, but there's only one true God.
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And this is an exclusive claim.
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So as I said, affirmation and denial.
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What's the affirmation? The exclusivity of the gospel.
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What's the denial? Pluralism is being denied.
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Any view that would hold any other way of salvation is being denied.
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Now one of the things the confession does not make clear is the condition of the of the damned, of the of the non-elites, of the reprobate.
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Read it again.
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It says, the Lord will render vengeance in flaming fire to them that know not God and obey not the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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Now you say, well that's pretty clear.
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Mentions fire and it mentions vengeance, but it doesn't mention eternality.
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It only says life eternal for the ones who know God.
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It doesn't mention eternality in regard to those who do not.
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See the thing is, immortality is on both sides.
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The human soul is built forever and it will be immortal either in heaven or hell.
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And why is it that hell is not called eternal life? Because when you get there it ain't living.
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I mean there's more to it than that, but really it's eternal death.
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It's an eternal state of misery.
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It's not life, it's death, but it's still conscious.
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It's what we call eternal conscious torment.
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That's the the phrase I use when I'm teaching systematic theology is ECT, eternal conscious torment.
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So the confession doesn't make that clear and that's why I am glad, as Brother Andy mentioned earlier, that the confession does have the clarifying appendix.
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Nehemiah Cox comes and, or Benjamin Cox, I'm sorry, Benjamin Cox comes and he writes this clarification.
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So if you'll turn in your booklet to page 32, and what's interesting as I was looking at this, it's literally the first and second article in the appendix.
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The very first article in the appendix is divine punishment.
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I want to clarify this right away.
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What do we mean by vengeance and fire? Okay, it says, page 32, article 1, we believe that the punishment due to Adam for his first rebellion and due to all men for their sin in Adam and for all their sins against the law was not a lying of the whole person of man in the dust or grave eternally without life or sense for then the punishment of man that sin should not have differed from the punishment of the brute beasts that sin not.
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Notice what he's saying? It's not just going into the grave.
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That's annihilationism.
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That's what we believe happened to animals, right? I mean, I do believe when an animal dies it simply ceases to exist.
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Now I know some of you may want to argue that Scruffy is in heaven, and we can have that conversation another day, but at least from the perspective of the eternality of the soul, the immortality of the soul, the Bible doesn't give an indication of the immortality of animal life.
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There you go.
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So we have a...
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I didn't think about that verse, but thank you brother.
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Good point.
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So there's a distinction between the life of a...
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as Cox says, a brute beast and us, right? Continuing on, it says, but the punishment due to man, as Aphor said, was indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, and that eternal.
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And consequently the redemption which we have by Christ from the curse of the law is a redemption from eternal misery and torment.
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See, that's the point.
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What are we saved from? We're not saved from annihilation.
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We're saved from torment eternal.
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That's what the salvation is.
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This we learn from these places of Scripture compared together, Romans 2, Jude 7, Galatians 3, Hebrews 9.
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Now, it goes on in the second article to say this, we believe that the eternity of the punishment of the vessels of wrath is an absolute eternity, knowing no end, as well as the eternity of the life of the saints.
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And when I taught on this back in systematic theology, remember I looked at Matthew 25, the same passage he references here is the one we looked at, as it says those who were on the left go to eternal punishment, those who go who are on the right go to eternal life.
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This we maintain against those that affirm that all men shall be saved at the last.
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Notice what that's saying.
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It's denying universalism.
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Exclusivity denies universalism, as well as it does pluralism.
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And that's what that last sentence says.
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This we maintain against those that affirm that all men shall be saved at the last.
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You know there's people who believe everybody's gonna be saved.
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Universalists believe that ultimately everyone will be saved.
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I honestly, I know that that would comfort folks to not have to wonder if somebody who died was being tormented.
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But we should never seek comfort in falsehood.
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We should never seek comfort in a lie.
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You know, it's like the child whose pet dies and parents say, well he ran away.
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Yeah, we're trying to comfort them from having to face the reality.
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I understand why you might feel the need to do that.
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Or he went to live on a farm.
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You know, he went to live with horses and the goats and he's running wild and free.
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No, he's dead.
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But we just didn't want to tell him.
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So universalism is that, right? It's a bomb for the soul that is no bomb at all.
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It's a lie.
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And so this part of the confession affirms for us immortality.
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It affirms for us the dichotomy of two paths.
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It affirms for us exclusivity.
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And they point out a very unpopular subject among modern believers and that is that God actually executes vengeance.
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People don't want to believe that.
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A God who judges is very out of vogue today.
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My God would never judge anyone.
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And what do you say to that person? You're right because your God does not exist.
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The God who will not judge is the God who doesn't exist.
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So when you tell me your God won't judge anyone, I'll say you're right because you believe in a God who does not exist.
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Now, I do want to make another point if you'll go back to the article itself, which is on page six.
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I have a few minutes left and I want to discuss another note that I saw in here and then I want to look at a text.
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It says, and this is life eternal that they that we might know him the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent and on the contrary the Lord will render vengeance and flaming fire to them that know not God and obey not the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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The two words I want to focus on in the in the confession is the word know and the word obey.
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The word know and the word obey.
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The word know is used twice.
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If I'm counting correctly, maybe I think it's just twice.
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It says that we might know him and then it says them that know not God.
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That term is used throughout the Bible in a very important way.
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Think about the the times that it's used in the intimate sense.
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Adam knew Eve and they conceived and bore a child, right? So there's a there's a way knowledge can be used in a carnal or intimate sense.
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There's also the salvific sense.
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Jesus says, many will come unto that day and say, Lord, Lord, did we not do this? No, did we not do that? And I will say to them, I never knew you.
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And so there the term know there is is relational.
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It's not just knowledge, passive, like I know Paul, but I know Paul.
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And when I say I know Paul, that's different than saying I know my wife.
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I know you, but not like I know her, right? And not just and well, and I don't mean just intimately.
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I know her in a much different way, but I but I've known Paul for, you know, all my life, since I was eight years old.
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So I can say I know Paul pretty good.
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And this says that life eternal begins with knowing God, and that that knowledge becomes obedience.
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And that's where I that's what I wanted to point out is that is they connect knowledge and obedience because it says it says we might know him the only true God and then it goes to them that know not God and obey not the gospel.
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So knowing and obedience go together.
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There are a lot of people today.
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So if you say do you know God? Yes, I know God.
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Do you do you seek to obey him? No.
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This is the whole you've heard the argument of the lordship controversy, whether Jesus is your Savior and your Lord.
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And I don't think that this distinction needs to be made.
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Because if he is your Savior, why would it why in the world would he not be your Lord? And why would we seek any other Lord? Certainly not ourself.
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And so the context of the confession is is is in a sense driving home the these two words of knowing and obeying.
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And this is the where the text I wanted to take us to go to john six.
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I know this is the last verse in the list.
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By the way, the the phrase in this life eternal that we might know him that's just straight out of john 17 three.
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And Hebrews just mentioned second Thessalonians is mentioned.
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That's where the flaming fire the vengeance is mentioned there in second Thessalonians one eight.
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So that's this.
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Like I said, this whole section of the of the article is just taken from scripture.
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It's just a combination of a few different verses.
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But john six is particularly important.
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You guys know what happened in john six just just right off.
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In john six, we have the feeding of the 5000.
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Right? Jesus feeds 5000 people.
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That's the beginning.
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And then after that, he walks on water, because he's going to a different location, the men go ahead in the boat, he walks them out on the boat.
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There's that scene we're familiar with it, right? After this, we have a long discourse from Jesus regarding those people who came after him after he had fed them with the with the fight fed the 5000.
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He fed him five loaves, two fish.
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Let me tell you something, if you knew there was a guy who could feed you without miraculously, you might get in a boat and go after him too.
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Right? Because that you know, especially in a day when you couldn't just go down to the super Walmart and pick up groceries, right? You have a guy who picks up five loaves of bread and two fish, he passes it out 5000 people eat to their full and then you have 12 baskets.
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Well, that means he made more than they started with.
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Because five loaves and two fish is not 12 baskets full.
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He worked a miracle.
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And everybody saw it 5000 people went home full.
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And then they followed after him.
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But this is what he says in verse 36, to that group of people, that same group of people who followed after him.
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He said, but I said to you, that you have seen me.
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And yet, you do not believe.
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Now you might think they have a leg to stand on in their argument to say, What do you mean we don't believe Jesus, we just crossed the sea to see you.
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We saw you feed us with five loaves and two fish.
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We got in a boat to follow you.
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We're now here listening to what do you mean we don't believe.
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This is one of the most difficult things for us to understand.
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When Jesus is telling them they don't believe he's not saying that they don't believe he can do miracles.
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They do.
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That's why they came.
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What he is saying is they have not bowed the knee to him as Lord.
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You but you follow me because of what you think I can do for you.
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But you still don't believe in who I truly am.
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Then the very next verse, everyone, the Father gives me will come to me.
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And the one who comes to me I will in no wise cast out.
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You see right there that goes back to what Brother Andy said.
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Because Jesus says this.
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He says, You follow me, you but you but you really don't believe in me.
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But the but the ones God gives me, they will believe.
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And the ones God gives me when they come, I will not turn them away.
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Later in this chapter, in fact, I'll show you at the end of the chapter.
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It says in verse 59, Jesus said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum.
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And then many of his disciples, when they heard these things, said, This is a difficult saying.
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Who can understand this? When Jesus was aware of the disciples were complaining about this, he said to them, Does this cause you to be offended? Then what if you see the Son of Man ascending where he was before the spirit of the one who gives life human? I'm reading a translation here.
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I'm sorry.
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The Spirit is one who gives life.
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Human nature can be of no help.
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The words that I spoke to your spirit in life.
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But there are some of you who do not believe in Jesus.
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There's talking about the one talking about Judas.
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Verse 65.
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Jesus then said, Because of this, I told you no one can come to me unless the father who sent me grants it to him.
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You see, the people heard what Jesus said, and they left.
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That's why I said you don't believe you liked it when I was giving you the food.
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You liked it when I was giving you a full stomach.
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But when I preached the truth to you, you left.
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And that's why I think if we look at this and we look at our confession, there is a natural, a natural equality and connection between knowing God and obeying him.
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Believing in God and trusting him.
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Jesus said what? He said, If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
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So that's why I just wanted to focus on the term know and obey, because this mentions both.
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That does not mean we work for our salvation.
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Brother Andy was very clear.
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Sovereign grace is what draws us and sovereign grace is what keeps us.
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But sovereign grace doesn't make us bumps on logs.
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It makes us an active part of the body of Christ.
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So I will conclude my part there.
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Any questions? Good.
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Now let's turn our attention to prayer.
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We have just a few minutes, and I ended early, too.
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It's 728.9.
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Look at there.
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I know.