Christology

CHRISTOLOGY

2005-2006

LESSON TWENTY-SIX

1. The Kingly Office of Christ (con’d)

A. Doctrine of His Kingly Office as Article of Faith (p. 389 con’d)

1. Only by faith can we know Christ is the Ruler of the three-fold kingdom.

2. Re: Kingdom of Power.

a. Heb 2:8.

b. Often it looks like Satan reigns.

3. Re: Kingdom of Grace.

a. Means of grace themselves perceptible.

b. But, Kingdom itself invisible.

c. Is within hearts of believers.

d. Lk 17:20,21.

e. 1Pe 2:4,5.

f. By faith, we know the Church is a reality.

g. The Church will abide.

(1) against Satan: Mt 16:18.

(2) against false teachers: 2Ti2: 17-19.

(3) against the world: Jn 16:33.

4. Re: The Kingdom of Glory

a. 1Jn 3:2.

b. Ro 5:1,2.

c. Ro 8:25.

d. Believer’s gaze continually directed to Kingdom of Glory.

e. 1Co 1:7,8.

f. Preachers must aim to make daily life of hearers increasingly a life of Christian hope, comfort them in tribulation with that hope, and to keep minds on heavenly things, e.g.

(1) Ro 5:2-11.

(2) Ro 8:17-39.

B. False teachings re: His Kingly office

1. “Nestorianizing” errorists

a. e.g. Papists and Reformed.

b. Allow only His divine nature to exercise dominion over Kingdoms of Power and Grace.

c. They deny communication of attributes.

2. The “kenoticists”.

a. Teach that His divine nature relinquished its omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience in state of humiliation.

b. Thus, He, they say, abdicated rule of universe during this period.

3. The “subordinationists”

a. Subordinate Christ according to His divine nature to the Father.

b. Teach that Son relinquished His dominion in the Kingdom of Glory.

c. Scripture ascribes to Him eternal dominion Lk 1:33; Eph 1:21.

d. On other hand, delivers Kingdom to Father.

(1) 1Co 15:24.

(2) “Deliver up” not a cessation of Christ’s government.

(3) It is a change in the mode of His government.

(4) No longer hidden in Word and means.

(5) All three Persons will rule eternally in uncovered, divine glory.

(6) 1Co 15:28: uses “God” not “Father”.

4. Those who subject church to human authority,

a. Mt. 23:8.

b. Church is subject to Him alone.

c. Church is governed solely by His Word.

d. Re: false teachers who assert their word as authority.

(1) are the antichrists of 1Jn 2:18.

(2) applies to all who insist that what the church government decrees in its own right is invested with divine authority.

5. Those who intermingle Church and State

a. Include those who try to build church with earthly, or worldly, means (external power, natural morality, culture, etc.) rather than His Word.

b. Includes those who would make State a spiritual kingdom by ruling State not by reason, but by Word, by “Christian principles”.

c. Also those who teach that Holy Spirit operates without means of grace.

6. The “chiliasts”.

a. They give Him an additional kingdom, the millennium.

b. A caricature of Kingdom of Grace and of Glory.

c. A “product of man’s fancy” (p. 393)

d. Turn men’s eyes and thoughts away from eternal glory in heaven.

7. All who eliminate vicarious satisfaction eliminate eo ipso (“in itself”) the Kingdom of Grace.

C. Conclusion: Doctrine of Christ’s office summarized:

1. In prophetic office. He is the sole Teacher unto salvation.

2. In sacerdotal office: He is the sole Reconciler of men.

3. In kingly office: He is the Lord of universe and, particularly, the one Head of His Church.

END OF COURSE

LARRY D. HARVEY