Brad Jersak - The Cross Remembered - Session 4 (FGC 2016)

so this morning I want to spend a little bit of time on the cross I have to say by way of caveat that I'm going to I'm going to be basically speaking from Eastern Orthodox theology that's who I am that's what I am even long before I joined the Orthodox Church high I had given up on a few of my evangelical or classic evangelical doctrines one of those was penal substitution and you'll have picked up on that last night where I no longer believe that God is a Punisher there is nothing in God's heart nor is there a being higher than God called wrath or justice that he needs to satisfy through violent punishment that's not how it works and so I'll be a little vulnerable even though this is being recorded the first time I ever said that publicly I couldn't do it without a glass of wine because I knew what would happen and it did there is an aggression in parts of Christianity towards those who try to take away violent punishment from them by implying that God is loved only God law but he's also know God is love plus nothing God has one nature and while he has many attributes every single attribute of God is a facet of that one diamond the love of God is who he is in his very nature and so even even in His Holiness it's always and only holy love in his justice it's always and only just love even his wrath is the only the goodness of God rejected by me and as Paul Young teaches when we turn from the mercy in the love of God we create a shadow and what happens in that shadow that's on us but we call it wrath okay if you want to the Bible does but God is love and so that's one thing I want to say another is that many years ago I most of my teaching was on listening to God and I would spend a lot of time developing exercises on hearing God I'm you can get a book called can you hear me that has 33 exercises and a whole theology on how to hear God without being a like a wacko so when that was mostly all I was doing I had a strange experience I was praying one day and an intrusive thought came through my mind and that intrusive thought thought said this and I won't make any claims for it at this point but the intrusive thought said very clearly stop telling people I was punishing my son that's not what was happening and like whoa I had given my entire theological heart to Pinot substituted I had written on it I had preached on it my my master's thesis promoted it and now he was going to take that away from me if if that's not what was happening then what was happening and that's what I want to share on this morning I want to say that for some of you you've long ago let go of this idea that God needed to avenge his wrath by punishing his son in your place it doesn't work that way but then if you go there you have to rebuild what does the cross mean I was told I was told well you're an enemy of the Cross now you don't believe in the cross you don't believe in sin you don't I'm like yeah I do like well then what about what then what's the cross about let me tell you this took 13 years of mentoring by a retired orthodox monk and I'll be sharing from that and this is the historic Christian tradition so I'm going to share today that number one the cross of God the cross revealed the love of God and number two it was a decisive act of victory and so we'll unpack that a little bit first of all the cross is a revelation God sent his son into the world in part to reveal his own nature what is God like let me tell you he's exactly like Jesus and it's not like well there's Jesus but there's also this other side know all the fullness of God dwelled in Jesus in bodily form how much all the fullness and that how there's an old Latin phrase that we could translate from the West it says that all the operations of God in this world oh that's a strong statement all the operations of God in this world are undivided that means anything Jesus did Father Son and Holy Spirit were doing through Jesus and all this fullness is in there and Jesus then is for us the image of the invisible God and that image is profound and infinite and constant unfailing love over and over and over as you saw I tried to suggest with the chairs last night eternal pursuit of us and so we look at Christ we look at his life we look at his ministry and then it comes to this incredible climax on the cross where the cross then becomes our clearest focus on the nature of God isn't that amazing if you want to know what God looks like you look at the cross and when you bring it into sharpest focus possible it's cruciform that means cross shaped the cross is a revelation of three aspects at least of the love of God that I'll share that it's the self giving radically forgiving Co suffering love of God I'll unpack those first of all the cross shows us God's self giving love some of the early fathers would call it God self donation he is always pouring himself out like this infinite spring a waterfall that can never dry up her stop and religion would tell you paddle harder I'm telling you it doesn't matter how hard you paddle the waterfall won't increase cuz it didn't fin it religion will say don't be lazy but you know what no matter how lazy you are how bad or bad drunk are bad or going out on the town light of those of us who are addicts when we acted out we found out the waterfall didn't slow down infinite it can't ever increase or decrease because it's infinite but it's not static it's always flowing always pouring always giving now of course sometimes God will say you need to paddle a little harder here or you're going to hit those rocks and sometimes I hit those rocks sometimes he'll say you need to stop paddling sort or you're going to hit your wife's canoe right but those are quality of life issues don't drink so hard okay why will you love me let's go because you'll have a hangover oh okay so it matters how you live but it doesn't affect the flow of God's infinite love it can't so we've got this this self giving love of God but we see it especially on the cross where we read that in Philippians 2 that Christ emptied himself and came and took the form of a servant no I used to think that meant he was like this almighty all-powerful Emperor in the sky and then he temporarily became humble and and you know like even weak somehow and he's now slumming it was a peasant's but it was sort of pretend because then boom the resurrection he goes back to being Zeus oh wait no what the cross reveals is that from all time and all eternity go it has been a self giver and a self emptier even in the community of the Trinity always giving them love deferring reciprocating there's this incredible beautiful self giving love in the Trinity that gives rise to a self giving love that says let's create all things and so the very creation of God is a self giving event the incarnation of Christ into this world as a man is a self giving event but on the cross we see it come into clearest focus where he gives his own life for the sake of the world this is this means that he's always been humbled he's always been a servant God he's never been the tyrant king that just gets his own way it's been all about self giving and making space for the other father makes space for son make space for seer spirit who make space for father father son and spirit makes space for the world make space for natural law make space for human freedom make space for you make space for rebellion and crucifixion and then overcomes it not by coercion but by resurrection and life and so he this incredible self giving element we need to understand this about God how much more will he freely give you all things Romans 5:6 right self giving radically forgiving I I was interrogated by a nine-year-old it was wonderful experience it took about three days I ended up on a holiday and these other parents were with us and had this kid and they're like we want to apologize in advance he has a million questions for you and he's been preparing them for months I just want a suntan and do some snorkeling but but there's nothing like an inquisition from a nine-year-old so we went to it man it was awesome he starts out he said he said where will I begin on the cross when Jesus said Father forgive them do you think the father said yes and I said what do you think and he said I think Jesus always prayed in the will of his father and so if the father said forgive them he did like that sounds right to me and he said who is them who do you think is them Jesus asks twice as many questions of the answers in the gospel so so can i all right and he said well I fold that would include even the priests in the Sanhedrin right that condemned him I'm not yes that sounds right them he said I thought it would include the the Romans and this is like Pilate and the soldiers that that beat him up and stabbed him and all that right I'm like yeah that sounds right he said do you think it includes Judith right hmm what do you think and he said well do you think Jesus loved Judith I said what do you think and he said well I think he really loved uses Judith because he invited him to be his disciple and then he said do you think Judas loved Jesus right what do you think and he said I think he did because he followed him when jiju dhis followed Jesus and Jesus sent out the twelve to do miracles did Judas go do miracles or did you just stay at home and Jesus is like oh there's eleven again well I'll partner up with Fatiha Ferrer no probably Judas was out there laying hands on the stick casting out demons maybe you know it's like this was kind of making my mind get bigger and then he said I think I think we really know that Judas loved Jesus he said do you think Judas was sorry that he did he betrayed Jesus I'm like I don't know what do you think he says well I think he was really sorted like why do you think that well he threw the money back in the temple didn't he yes he did said do you think do you think if if Judas hadn't killed himself that Jesus would have that Jesus forgave him like that his on the cross he forgave him and I'm like well yeah he did that with Peter right and he said what about what about now like where do you think Judas's like well what do you think and he said I think Jesus went down into Hades didn't he to preach to the dead yes the Bible says that Jesus went down into Hades to preach to the dead so do you think Judas was there right where else is he going to be so do you think when Judas hear Jesus preaching to the dead that he said yes to Jesus I'm like I don't know nobody knows and he said do you think it'd be okay if I prayed for Judas I'm like ask your priest and your mother so he did and his mother and his priests said yeah that would be okay these are the advantages of being Orthodox you get to get to pray for anybody so oh and so here's my caveat I'm Orthodox I won't be in agreement with all the speakers here you won't be in agreement here but you bring an outsider you get a different angle right that's a good thing so so what am I saying about the erratically forgiving Radek how radical that was the kids question how far does this just how far does this forgiveness thing go does it go just to your friends who've offended you or does it go to your enemies how about your murderers how about your best friend who betrays you to murderers how about to those in hell woo well I'm very hopeful about this that the forgiveness of the Lord Jesus Christ is far more radical it's wider higher deeper and longer than you can grasp or understanding and hang on to and you will need the power of the Holy Spirit even to get a glimpse of it because it is beyond what you ask or imagine and I have a big imagination not as big as my nine-year-old friend but I'm working on it radical forgiveness there is something I was preaching on this in recently and a woman gave a testimony after and she said as you were preaching on geez opening up to even the gates of hell I became more and more furious and she's a great person but she needed she needed there to be some kind of violent satisfaction that would somehow satisfy her justice because you see a policeman had shot and killed her son not all that long ago and she embraced grace but when she realized that embrace might have to include that guy actually what it did it transformed her it set her free she is able to release him and it was quite amazing so radical forgiving the Cross reveals God self giving radically forgiving Co suffering love Co suffering is literally compassion that's what it means passion suffering come cope suffering with her Jesus shows us on the cross that God through the Incarnation has stepped into the human condition in all its fullness and in all its depth when I talked about Jesus even crying out my God my God why have you forsaken me we find out God never did any answers but he still cried it out why because he was standing in solidarity with even those who have despaired and taken their own lives he has embraced the depth of the human condition and that on the cross he takes up human nature into himself and when he Bru says that you know he was tested at all points as we are I used to think well that's not totally true he didn't know what it was to be raped Oh are we so sure about that do you know what soldiers do in imperial we don't know but but we do know this he didn't only just suffer what he suffered in his himself he suffered what you've suffered in you so it was Jesus ever raped millions and millions and millions of times throughout history and he draws all of that into him every bullet from every war from every handgun every race every sexual assault every bit of shrapnel from every bit of nuclear radiation from bombs we've dropped to the drones that come to the nail bombs in Northern Ireland to the bus bombs in Afghanistan all of that opened to himself and he swallows it in love this is how powerful the love of God is that that he can truly say I know what it is even to die and he dead people here yet nope not yet okay few of you might have come back but this is then at the cross he takes it to the nth degree he goes right into the human experience of death itself and now here's a beautiful thing about that is that he's going to conquer that which we'll get to in a minute well that could be our segue so we've gone we look at the cross we look at the cross and we see God as he truly is self-giving radically forgiving Co suffering love but it's not just a revelation as if here's some information for you it was also a decisive active victories that that has been rolling all through his life already but it hits a climax here so the idea is this the cross isn't to be thought of in isolation from the whole life of Jesus this starts at his this starts at his conception in this way how does salvation work in this Eastern model the eternal son of God God the Son who cannot die must find a doorway to death so he can blow it up so he can enter there and destroy it from the inside but because he's God he can't die so he takes on a human nature so he can die and in that human nature he is able to die but in dying he passes through the doorway of death into that whole realm but because he's God he destroys it forever there's a completely different situation after the life death and resurrection of Jesus when just as an aside you cannot read the story of the rich man and Lazarus and understand it apart from what happened in the death and resurrection of Jesus something changed forever all right what change so Jesus come god the son assumes human flesh passes through the doorway we call dying into the place we call death destroy it death is killed and can't hold them and it's a lot like if you ever watched men in black there's this scene where this big giant alien bug comes in he eats what's what's the guy's name Tommy Lee Jones and he eats them and and now Mart Will Smith is standing there and he's like you shouldn't have done that and suddenly you hear a and it's this gun charging up from inside the bag and also boom it blows up from the inside well this is Eastern theology of the resurrection Jesus enters that monster and it cannot hold him because he did it it sought to just take a human but it pulled in God and death is death death is destroyed in the death of Christ so um so we get a victory here over Satan's sin and death I'll start with sin so how does Jesus victory free us from sin depends who you ask on the stage this weekend here is one angle and it's not the only one but I used to believe it was like this transaction right he he who knew no sin became sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God ER but he he became poor so that we could become rich this in Assen Asia this is exchange lang but we mistook it sometimes for transaction language it's not like somebody goes into the bank and signs off on my desk and now it's in a ledger somewhere no it's like a rich person marries a poor person and now the poor person's rich because of Union we have come into the riches of God through union with him not some kind of bank transaction off in this guy and in coming to Union with them all that is all the resources of God come become mine in this union in this marriage my debts are cancelled not because he went to the banker my debts are canceled because I married him and not only that I find he's doing other things and so so my friend Pat who's here today he talks about if you think of sin as a cancer and a cancer the distort and and destroys and it this cancer actually it has to be removed but how is it removed it's like the son of God comes into him into my nature and begins healing it from you it's a blood transfusion with some kind of incredible radioactive life that is able to change me in fact not just in heaven so I am I'm on a road of transformation it'll take like it could take 300 years I'm not going to probably get done in this life but I but I believe he's going to transform us completely from glory to glory into the image of Jesus Christ himself this is we call this theosis earlier this will sound almost Mormon to some of you but all the early early bishops would say this God became human so humans could become God now it's not that you become Yahweh you don't become the Father Son and Holy Spirit but the idea is this you become you become by grace what Christ is by nature and that means you'll be glorified in to the image of his son and here's the ironic thing you'll still be you you'll be more you than you've ever been it will not be about eradicating your personhood or making you not you oh no it is the you that you were always meant to be your true self that at its deepest deepest level all right so self giving radically forgiving Co suffering love victory over sin also victory over Satan no I I'm a charismatic small see done the whole exorcism thing a lot pretty good at it except I have some questions about that it feels like kind of weird in light of that Jesus said in the Gospel of John now talking about the hour of his death now the Prince of this world is driven out so why am i repopulating heaven all the time with scary creatures the Son of God went about destroying the works of the devil and yeah I know there's spirits and I know that we got to deal with them and I know there's real evil so I don't totally get how it all worked I just want you to know who won there is a ruling carrot over Denver and its name is holy the Holy Spirit through the victory of Jesus Christ because of the love of the Father had asked the Cross already done it won it and those who are in bondage now that begin to see this get free and so it's not like I got to go make my transaction again it's like I'm going to go meet the victor I got to let the victor do what the victor does but but the battles done you guys as of the cross it's a mighty victory over over sin over Satan and now we'll mention depth again and this is where this this is just so beautiful to me that in the early church very quickly they start they actually did start conflating Hades in Hell for one reason because he beat it all right so we would make distinctions I do in my book four gates will never be shut distinctions between Hades as this afterlife expectation of judgment and Gehenna as the sort of destruction of Jerusalem in Jeremiah's time and now again in all of that stuff so I make these distinctions but the truth is that that also the church began to just say death Hades hell let's package it up and put it under his feet that's what this picture is about this is the icon of the resurrection isn't that interested it's the resurrection but what's he doing here the Lord Jesus Christ is descending into Hades he's standing on the broken doors of Hades and you can see that he shattered all the locks and the gears and the chains below in some parts of this you'll also see Hades or state and bound up below and he's defeated them and now he's descended into the lower parts of the earth according to Ephesians and he finds Adam and Eve and if he draws Adam and Eve up he's drawing human nature up this is the imagery here he enters death and Hades and even Hell itself and and draws up human nature lifts it up and a train a train follows him a cab he takes captivity a captive it says in Ephesians it's like a parade forms behind him where did we get this idea well partly Ephesians partly first Peter but also we have something where we get more details about what they're alluding to these are allusions but we actually have a whole narrative narrative is in the gospel of nicodemus it's really kind of a funny little book it was considera Orthodox gospel but it doesn't get into our Bible because it's not really about the life of Jesus so it's not meant to be in our New Testament but it also was not considered heretical and what it is it's a it's an exploration theological II of Christ three over Haiti and here's the picture but the words go like this that that Jesus Christ is is going to die and Satan and bill Zebub don't build above it Hades I think they're they're talking and they're like something's going on and I think it's Satan says Hades what's going on and and haiti says john the baptist is here and it's that's not a good sign why is it not a good sign because he's preaching and he's a forerunner in the orthodox church we don't call him John the Baptist usually we call him John the forerunner and if John the forerunner is preaching in Haiti guess who's coming they cut away from the scene and you've got Sir John the Baptist maybe he's got a head here and one on his under his arm and he's like and he's preaching anything Jesus of Nazareth is coming here and when he comes he will preach good news and when you hear the good news you should respond we cut back to Hades and Satan now in Hades is like go out front and see if you can prevent him from coming in why is that because if he comes in this show is over and then Jesus comes in and that's where he makes his way all through the caverns and the darks and the depth of Haiti down into the very bottom and there's Adam there these grabs them by the hand and leads them out and as he does a stream of people flow behind him now in the early church there was some debate well does everyone follow him or just some follow him to only the Old Testament Saints follow him or is it as first Peter says even the wicked of the wicked those who perished in the flood do they follow him and you've got this amazing did proclamation in first Peter where he says when Jesus preaches and the word is Evangelion gospel Eng preaching good news in that in the prison where the spirit of those who perished in the flood were in bondage it says that those who were made who were judged in the flesh were made alive in the spirit and Peter uses that same actual language for Jesus own death and resurrection he who is condemned in the flesh has been made alive in the spirit now I'm not going to put a whole theology around around the gospel of nicodemus but what I will say this is based in Ephesians based in first Peter based in the Kadima the whole Eastern Orthodox Church embedded a liturgy that we do every Sunday parts of it are identical and parts of it we rotate every Sunday in my church is at Easter service every single Sunday because we tell through our liturgy the entire drama of redemption leading to the victory on the cross and proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus Christ as part of that liturgy we have something called the octo echoes the octo echos our part that during the Matan church service we chant and the prominent predominant overwhelmingly predominant theme of the octo echos is Jesus victory over death for all and his resurrection for all and this salvation provided for all and I'm going to chant it to you because I that's what I do so sometimes I'm I wear robes and I swing incense you got to know that okay so picture that and and we're chanting and I'm going to just throw out my hand when when I say old and this is a selection of a bunch of the octo echoes for you you are willingly nailed to the cross Oh merciful one and laid in a tomb as a mortal low giver of life by your death Oh powerful one you crushed it smite for health gatekeepers trembled before you you raised with you the dead from every age death gave up the dead it has swallowed while hell's rain which brought corruption was destroyed when you rose from the tomb Oh Lord you opened the gates of Hell for the souls from every age when the Savior went down is immortal to the prisoners the dead from every age of rose with him you rose from the tomb in the third day and made life dawn for the world as giver of life and God established my mind to do your will when you rose from the dead by your power o Savior you raised up with you the human race granting us life and in corruption Christ is despoil hell as a lone mighty and powerful has raised up with himself all those in corruption let us praise as Almighty God one who rose on the third day smashed the gates of Hell and roused the age long dead from the grave therefore hell groans death laments the world exhaustion all rejoiced together for you O Christ have granted resurrection to all when you o supremely exalted ed willingly for our sakes became as one with no help in a slain corpse among the dead you freed us all and raised us up with you for your mighty hand you are the light of those in darkness you're the resurrection of all and the life of mortals and you have raised up all with yourself despoiling the might of death o Savior smashing the gates of Hell o word and when the dead saw the miracle they were amazed and all creation rejoices in your resurrection having been nailed to the cross you poured forth salvation oh Christ to all peoples your soul may divine o Savior plunder the Treasuries of Hell and raised with it the souls from every age while your life bearing body became a source of incorruptible [Music] Christ you raised Lazarus from dead for four days thereby shaking the power of death and foreshadowing through the raising of one beloved man the salvation of all people from in corruption or from corruption hell rules the race of mortal men but not eternally for when you were placed in the grave a powerful one you tore asunder the bars of death by your life creating hand and proclaim through deliverance to those sleeping there from Ages pages since you o Savior have become the firstborn of the Dead amen did you so this is this is his descent into Haiti it's interesting because in the Greek of Hades but in English your thoughts have chosen chosen to sort of combine death and Hell together under that one term and then as he's conquered death he's conquered hell as these empty deaths he's emptying health so this is to me it is very hopeful but uh to clarify not mere hope mere help is wishful thinking my hope is Jesus Christ and I can cast myself on that hope with a lot of confidence and and so it seems to me that that there's this incredible Eastern heritage about the conquest of health that we forgot in the West like huh you hardly ever hear preaching about holy Saturday and what happened between Good Friday and Easter Sunday's he went down he preached he conquered he came back and he brought up boatload of people with him so this is just a wonderful thing I want to close with a sermon someone else preached and it's only it's it's four paragraphs and I'm only going to give you the last half of it it's called it's called Chrysostom Paschal homily what it means is that every every Easter well it's actually the Saturday night our Easter service starts at midnight and we begin it this way we all go outside and we light candles and we circle the church three times and we sing about the resurrection of Christ and then we come to the front door and the priest who is dressed up as Jesus in victory and a said a kingly robe he bangs on the door boom boom boom and it's like who is it it's the King of glory open the door that the King of glory may come in and you hear from behind it who is this King of glory the Lord strong and mighty the mount Lord mighty in battle open the doors that the king of glory may come who is this king boom boom boom and you do this little thing and it's like in one way you're entering the doors of the church but in another you are depicting Christ demand to enter the gates of hell and death finally the door is open and we go in and and and now candles are streaming into a pitch-black room and it's becoming light in the dark and we start and we were singing about about that that he's brought his light into the world and we start making the sign of the Cross with our candles in the dark and it's like you're eerily beautiful and then we start chanting Christ is risen from the dead trampling down death by death and upon those in the tombs bestowing life Christ is risen from the dead trampling down death by death and upon those in the tombs bestowing life and it gets more and finally there Christ it resident I mean it gets heavy metal on you it's really amazing and so then you proceed with like a liturgy that's way too long for Baxter for a while but then at some point I'm going to get them to come and you're going to get to hear the Paschal homily in context but you'll get to hear Otacon text here when Chrysostom wrote the liturgy and preached this sermon the the the the people said that was such an anointed sermon we must preach it every Easter until the Lord returns and they have the late 300s every single Paschal homily in every single Orthodox Church repeats this enjoy all the Feast of faith receive ye all the riches of loving-kindness let no one be well his poverty for the universal kingdom has been revealed let no one week for his iniquities for pardon has shown forth from the grave let no one fear death for the Savior's death has set us free he that was held prisoner of it has annihilated us by descending into hell he made held captive he embittered it when it tasted of his flesh and Isaiah 4 telling this cried hell said he was embittered when it encountered thee in the lower regions it was embittered for was abolish it was embittered for it was mocked it was embittered for it was slain it was embittered for it was overthrown it was embittered for it was fettered in Chains it took a body and met God face to face it took earth and encountered heaven it took which was seen and fell upon the unseen Oh death where is your sting oh hell where is your victory Christ is risen and you were overthrown Christ is risen and the demons are fallen Christ is risen and the angels rejoice Christ is risen and life reign Christ is risen and not one dead remains in the grave for Christ being ridden from the dead has become the firstfruits of those who fallen asleep to him be glory and Dominion unto ages of Ages amen you

Channel: Early Church Faith

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Keywords: God, Jesus, Christ, Gospel, Truth, christian, salvation, redemption, Lord, Christianity, Word, Word of God, Bible, Spirit, Life, Grace, Cross, teaching, humanity, inclusion, oneness, freedom, etermal life, victory, mankind, Adam, new creation, Holy Spirit, power, anointing, prayer, cross, holy, blessing, sin, righteusness, faith, healing, shalom, peace, love, love of God, Good News, Kingdom of God, incarnation, resurection, Trinity, Church, religion, sermons, trinitarian, Orthodox, Brad Jersak

Id: Zma4oR-VRCc

Length: 42min 4sec (2524 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 01 2017