Introduction

For a moment, imagine a young Jewish man living near Jerusalem in 33 AD. He’s heard the stories of Jesus of Nazareth; how He taught with authority greater than the scribes and pharisees, how He healed the sick, raised the dead, cleansed lepers, and had a Messianic fervor surround Him, yet was eventually crucified under Pontius Pilate.

 

But he’s also heard this Jesus was raised from the dead, and there are rumors He’s gone back to doing just what He did before He died; namely, teaching his disciples about the kingdom of God. Then imagine, one day on his way to work, this young man came upon this very scene and discovered Jesus instructing His disciples in the message and the actions they must take to function[1] as His “witnesses (Ac. 1:8).”[2]

 

From his vantage point behind the tree, what would he have heard?

 

If the actions and teachings recorded in the New Testament are an accurate picture of what Jesus’ message and instructions were to those disciples for forty days, then we can deduce the young man would have heard a gospel message with the core ideas of creation, covenant, cross, and consummation, all confirmed and attested to by the power of the Spirit (or charisma, to round out our “c’s”.)

 

Of these things, creation, covenant, cross, and consummation, the apostles repeatedly proclaimed, “We are witnesses (Ac. 2:32, 3:15, 5:32, 10:39).”

 

It is vital that disciples then and disciples now understand these core ideas, as each one of them is crucial to our witness[3], both in Tonkawa and around the globe. Like a cake, if any of these ideas are left out, or if one is emphasized over the others, the witness is blunted, and the cake is dry. My plan for this Sunday is to work through each of these elements of the apostolic witness, and then ask the Spirit to confirm the message with power to equip us for the task.

 

Creation

           First, the apostolic witness is rooted in a Jewish understanding of a good creation destroyed (Gen. 6:7). A real God Yahweh created[4] a real heavens and earth (Gen. 1:1) and blessed and tasked real people to steward His good creation (Gen. 1:28-31). But Yahweh’s Image Bearers, joined by the serpent, rebelled against Him, and wrought death[5] into a world that was never meant to die (Gen. 3:1-13)[6].

 

This understanding of creation is crucial to the apostolic witness because it answers the fundamental questions of “What went wrong? Why is there sadness, suffering, and death?” According to the apostles, “What went wrong?” is that “by a man came death (1 Cor. 15:19-23).”

 

The apostolic witness assumes a “God who made the world and everything in it (Ac. 17:24)” and that “sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men (Rom. 5:12-17).”

 

For the apostles, these are not allegorical, metaphorical, or spiritual tales. In real time and space, God’s good world was destroyed.

 

 The apostolic witness is not only a downer, however. The gospel the apostles bore witness to is filled with real hope, not of disembodied eternal sing-along in the sky, but of a world[7] newly remade by the power of God’s Spirit.[8] Put simply, the gospel assumes a restored physical creation, not an annihilated or “spiritual” one. The restoration of all things (Ac. 3:21) involves a “new heavens and a new earth (Is. 65:17-19)” where “righteousness dwells (2 Pet. 3:13)” and a “new Jerusalem (Rev. 21:1)” where twelve apostles will sit on “twelve thrones (Matt. 19:28)” and reign with the Messiah.

 

Further, the apostolic witness assumes this restored creation to be inhabited by the resurrected righteous. Romans 8:18-24, a paragraph penned by an apostle “untimely born (1 Cor. 15:8)”, portrays this apostolic understanding beautifully. The real sin from a real man brought real death and suffering into God’s good creation. This present time is then marked by “suffering (Rom. 8:18).” In view of these sufferings, humans and creation groan and wait (Rom. 8:19, 23).

 

And what are they groaning for? What is the ache within God’s people? According to the “faith handed down (Jud. 1:3)” from the apostles, the aching and groaning is not to “fly away old glory”, but for the “sons of God to be revealed” and adopted (Rom. 8:19, 23), for creation to be set free from its “bondage to decay (Rom. 8:21)”, and for the “redemption of our bodies (Rom. 8:23).”

 

When Jesus and the apostles spoke of “eternal life (Jud. 21)”, this is what they meant. This is not to disregard the joys of the intermediate state “with the Lord (2. Cor. 5:8)” before the resurrection, but it is to understand the joys of heaven as but a footnote in the apostles’ gospel when set next to the glory of the resurrection. Consider: “this life” (Lk. 21:34; 1 Cor. 6:3; 15:19), “the present life” (1 Tim. 4:8), “this body” (Rom. 7:24; 2 Peter 1:13), “our lowly body” (Phil. 3:21), and “this perishable…mortal body” (1 Cor. 15:53) contrasted with with eternal life and the resurrected body given on the day of the Lord.[1]

 

 

This emphasis on resurrection[10] leads to the last component of the apostolic witness as it regards creation: the Day of the Lord. If the restoration of the heavens and the earth and the resurrection of the body dominate the apostolic message, what it the mechanism for those events?

 

What is the mentos dropped in the coke bottle that sets these things off?

 

The catalyst for the restoration of all things is described in our bibles as “the day of the Lord (2 Pet. 3:10).” While lower-case “d” days of the Lord are peppered through the scriptures as a whole, they are projected into a future and upper-case “D” Day of the Lord where divine judgement (Rom. 2:5) also brings with it divine restoration (Is. 24:21-23)[11]. In this way, on the Day when the “blessed hope” appears (Tit. 2:11-13), the “old order of things” will pass away, and everything will be made “new (Rev. 21:1-5).”

 

At the Day of the Lord, Yahweh will “again Genesis (Matt. 19:28)”[12] all things, showing that his original intent in creation is his final intent in recreation.[13] Sin made the world and those who dwell on it broken, yet the apostles declared that God loved the world and is deeply committed to fixing it once and for all.[14] In other words, “…now is not always. God’s ultimate triumph, and with it the comforting of those who have grieved over evil, is sure.”[15]

 

 

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[1] Millard Erickson, Christian Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2013), 972.

[2] Unless otherwise specified, all Bible references in this paper are to the English Standard Version, (ESV) (Wheaton: Crossway, 2008).

 

[3] John Harrigan, The Gospel of Christ Crucified: A Theology of Suffering before Glory (Fayetteville: Paroikos) Kindle, Loc. 5812.

 

[4] Paula Eisenmbaum, Paul Was Not a Christian: The Original Message of a Misunderstood Apostle (New York: Harper Collins, 2009), 171.

 

[5] James M. Hamilton Jr., God’s Glory in Salvation through Judgment: A Biblical Theology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2010), 78.

[6] Erickson, Christian Theology, 734.

[7] N.T Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (Sydney: HarperCollins), 41.

 

[8] Erickson, Christian Theology, 790.

[9] Harrigan, The Gospel of Christ, loc.1733

[10] Erickson, Christian Theology, 1099.

 

[11] Eisenmbaum, Paul Was Not a Christian, 171.

 

[12] Harrigan, The Gospel of Christ, loc. 1397.

 

[13] Sandra Richter, The Epic of Eden: A Christian Entry into the Old Testament (Downers Grove: IVP, 2008), 129.

 

[14] Timothy Miller, Poised for Harvest, Braced for Backlash: Birthing New Testament Movements When Jesus Disrupts the Systems (Irving: Xulon Press, 2009), 67.

 

[15] Leon Morris, The Gospel according to Matthew, Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: IVP, 1992), 97–98.