Joy to the World

Isaiah 7:14

Colossians 1:10-20

 

 

  1. Introduction
    1. This is the third sermon in the Advent series

                                                               i.      Wow!

    1. Hope, Peace and today Joy

                                                               i.      I have to admit I could not imagine what I would say about Joy following a four week series on Joy.

1.      Not What Christian Joy is, but Why it is

  1. Prayer
  2. Luke 2: 8:14
    1. As we consider the nature of Joy we turn again to Luke 2. I figured we have heard it enough, that I could include a couple of supporting texts
    2. Turn in your bibles, pew bible page_________
    3. Look again at this remarkable incident with shepherds in the field

                                                               i.      God seems to always want to reveal to the least expected people

1.      At Cana servants, on the most important date in history…shepherds!

a.       Even at his resurrection he did not rub it into the appropriate people

                                                             ii.      As they keeping their flocks in the night angles appear around them and the glory of the Lord shone around them.

1.      Side note. They may have been guarding temple sacrificial lambs

a.       As was common in Bethlehem.

2.      Dan reminds us that these are not precious moment’s angels! They are terrified at the presence of an incredible being.

                                                            iii.      Well, in this passage I want you to underline (pen or mental) a couple of key terms in the declaration of the angles

1.      Great Joy, all, Savior, Has, Born.

2.      In the next few minutes I want to fill out the impact of these terms and the meaning of the passage by reflecting on the work of two giants of Christian thought – Isaac Watts & Anselm of Canterbury.

  1. Joy to the World (Psalm 98)
    1. Today we sang that marvelous hymn penned by the Poet Isaac Watts in 1719

                                                               i.      1749 George Fredrick Handle adds music

                                                             ii.      Brilliant man and prolific writer. 500 Hymns / 12 books,
D.Div. from Un­i­ver­si­ty of Ed­in­burgh

                                                            iii.      Physicist, mathematician

                                                           iv.      Who wrote this hymn, Joy to the World. A fulfillment hymn.

                                                             v.      While The Psalm 98  and Isaiah 7:14 & 9:6-7 looked forward to the coming of God-man, this song proclaims the Great Joy to All the people of Matthew 1:23, Luke 2, John 1, Colossians 1 – The Savior Has come.

1.      Joy to the world! The Lord is come.
Let earth receive her King;

2.      No more let sin and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow

3.      He rules the world with truth and grace,
and makes the nations prove
the glories of His righteousness.
And wonders of His love,
and wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders of His love.

4.      Joy to the world, the Savior reigns
Let men their songs employ.
While fields and floods, Rocks, hills, and plains
Repeat the sounding joy, (x3)

                                                           vi.      The whole creation rejoices and this is good news of Great Joy for all the people, of every tongue and tribe. The pinnacle moment of creation. Everything created points to this singular truth. God has come as a savior

  1. Cur Deus Homo
    1. This leaves one underlined word - born. Perhaps the most astonishing word of the proclamation.

                                                              i.      Anyone can believe a great man born, or a god coming to rescue, but the Christian faith is built on this remarkable statement – The Divine Savior was Born.

1.      I am serious; we have become far too comfortable with this truth. Perhaps every time we say cannons should discharge or angels sing. This is cosmic news! This sis what the whole universe is about. For heaven’s sake, this is the biggest news ever.

    1. On many occasions that we have discussed Anslem’s work. In fact anytime I have discussed the dynamic tension of the God-Man.
    2. St. Anselm, (Anselm is the only name he has by the way, he is like Madonna)

                                                               i.      Hero of the faith, author of one of my life quotes  fides quaerens intellectum

                                                             ii.      Splendid scholar at the beginning o the last millennium (1033-1109) Recognized Father of Scholasticism

                                                            iii.      Benedictine Monk, even the arch-bishop of Canterbury, although he served most of this term in exile in Italy because he would not submit to the whims of the king, William Rufus. Who after the death of Lefranc kept the office vacant for years to seize the income.

                                                           iv.      Probably best known for his ontological argument for the existence of God, in the Proslogian, I believe Cur Deus Homo, “Why God became Man” was his greatest contribution to theological thought.

                                                            v.      Except for some brief mentions by the church fathers, this was the First solid substitutionary doctrine of redemption.

1.      Many people are rebuking substitution theology these days and returning to humans paths of righteousness – be good and good will come back to you.

                                                          vi.      The book is written as a dialogue between himself and Boso (Dialectic Method perfected by Socrates and his star student Aristotle), and by commitment from both rests on what can be derived from logic, and not Scripture. It includes some interesting reference to completing the number of fallen angels, and women may take offense at his argumentation regarding birth from a woman, but it is well worth reading, and has shaped much of substitutionary thinking.

    1. The Argument

                                                               i.      For the question is:  why God could not save man in some other way, and if so, why he wished to do it in this way? For it both seems unbecoming for God to have saved man in this way; and it is not clear how the death of the Son avails for the salvation of man. For it is a strange thing if God so delights in, or requires, the blood of the innocent, that he neither chooses, nor is able, to spare the guilty without the sacrifice of the innocent.

                                                             ii.      For if he could not save sinners in any other way than by condemning the just, where is his omnipotence? If, however, he could, but did not wish to, how shall we sustain his wisdom and justice?

1.      Unbecoming of such a deity

2.      Unnecessary.

a.       Could he not simply exercise compassion and have Mercy?

b.      Couldn’t he just make another good man to redeem humans

c.       Could he not come as divine and save?

d.      In essence it does not seem necessary that he would have to be God and Man

                                                                                                                                       i.      For, if a man without motive should do, by severe toil, a thing which he could have done in some easy way, no one would consider him a wise man.

                                                            iii.      The Answer (my adaptation)

1.      Any infraction against a timeless being cannot be paid back by a finite creature

a.       All sin creates a fatal chasm

b.      Not all sin is equal, but all sin is fatal

                                                                                                                                       i.      Steeling is not murder

                                                                                                                                     ii.      Even we react to sin – anthropological argument

c.       We all richly deserve what Christ withstood.

2.      God desires to redeem his creation

a.       This is where Anselm would interject material regarding angles.

b.      John 3:16

3.      A truly all power All Holy God cannot ignore sin. It would be contrary to his character. God cannot forgive by compassion alone, for there is no justice in it.

a.       Anselm: To remit sin in this manner is nothing else than not to punish; and since it is not right to cancel sin without compensation or punishment; if it be not punished, then is it passed by undischarged.

b.      Boso: What you say is reasonable.

c.       Anselm: It is not fitting for God to pass over anything in his kingdom undischarged.

4.      The redeemer must be God

a.       No human could bear the full-weight of sin

b.      Remember, the bearer had to do more than bear the event, but also bear the juridic guilt!  All sin for all time!

c.       Another redeemer would have right to our allegiance

5.      The redeemer must be human otherwise redemption is not made by the creature in need of it!

a.       Who else or what else? Cow? Angel? It must be a human savior to save humans.

b.      The entire OT sacrificial system point to this reality. Animal sacrifice only covers accidental sin, and even then must be oft repeated. The near sacrifice of Isaac and the whole system point to the need of a human savior.

c.       Thank God for our empathizing savior! Not a sympathetic God

6.      And thus the most wonderful truth of the creation is reveled God came as a human to save humans! Incredible as it may seem, no other answer would do!

7.      A Savior was BORN on that day!

a.      Cannon blasts, chorus of angels, hand claps, dancing and rejoicing. The savior was born!

  1. Peace for the Redeemed
    1. Although this is good news for the whole world, for it is the utmost matter of all creation shalom is reserved for those on whom God’s favor rests.
  2. The Great Joy for all is this. The Savior Jesus Christ was born of humans to save humans, and for those who believe in him by faith, there is no condemnation for they have peace with God.