Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Westminister Confession

The very first question in the larger catechism of the Westminister Confession of Faith is this, “Question.

What is the chief and highest end of man?

Ans.

Man’s chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him for ever.”

This is the end, the purpose, the reason for which we have been made, to glorify God and fully to enjoy him for ever.

Now, because of the fall, we fall short of this purpose.

But because of Christ we have been redeemed and regenerated so that we can strive to fulfill this purpose.

However, you and I, fall short, daily in this pursuit of glorifying God and enjoying Him fully.

And we will not fully accomplish this purpose until our salvation is completed, until we are glorified.

You see, glorification, is the state of perfectly existing for the purpose for which you have been created - to glorify God and fully to enjoy Him forever in His eternal Kingdom.

Today I will be concluding our 3 part series on the doctrine of salvation by teaching on this final chain in the order of salvation - on this doctrine of glorification.

Structure and Sermon Style

Now this morning, I will be teaching this doctrine with a slightly different approach than our usual expositional style.

Instead I will be taking a biblical and systematic theological approach.

Which basically means that I will attempt to show you a wider glimpse of this wonderful treasure of scripture by walking you through the story of the Bible and touching on specific scriptures that form this doctrine of glorification.

We will begin by looking back to the beginning, to study mankind’s existence in the garden, before the fall.

We will call this section Paradise Lost.

Then we will study of how this lost Paradise was Redeemed by Christ.

And lastly, we will study the end result of Christ’s redemption, the realities of our future glory.

We will call this section Paradise Restored.

So then, through these three sections, Paradise Lost, Paradise Redeemed and Paradise Restored I desire to show you, that to be glorified is to perfectly exist in the purpose for which you have been created...The glorified state - the final reality of our salvation - is where we glorify God and fully enjoy Him forever in His eternal Kingdom.

Transition

So then let us start our study today at the beginning of the Bible, in Genesis 1-3, where we will learn of Paradise Lost.

Paradise Lost

Very Good Creation

Let’s begin by glancing through the creation story in Genesis 1.

It is there that we see that, Genesis 1:1, “1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

That is the very first thing that God tells us about Himself.

He is the Creator God.

And then from verse 2 on we see God do that very thing.

Starting in the second verse of the bible we see the state of all things at thee beginning, “2 The earth was formless and void,” The earth, the creation was without form and it was void - it was empty.

And from this point on we see God give creation a form in days 1-3 and fill the empty creation in days 4-6.

And He does all of this with the power of His voice.

He says, let there be light, and light appears.

He speaks 10 times and all of creation is made.

And this demonstrates both His sovereign authority and His rule over all that He made.

Or to put it another way, All that was made, exists by Him and for Him - for His glory.

There is also another repeated phrase in the creation account.

In verse 4, and 10, and 12, and 18, and 21, and 25 we read of how God makes a judgement, an assessment of what He created.

Moses writes in these verses that God “saw that it was good.”

6 times, He looks upon His work and declares it good.

Then for the 7th and final time, after creating the crown of His creation, man and woman, we see this phrase one last time, “31 God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good.

And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.”

This judgement from the Perfect and Righteous Judge, that the universe He had made was very good was a declaration that His work perfectly reflected His perfection, His goodness.

He is the very good Creator, who is the very essence and nature goodness and rightness itself.

And His creation, the work of His Word was very good.

I would say that in that moment, all of Creation perfectly existed together for the purpose that they were all made.

Nothing else needs to be created.

There are no mistakes.

No modifications needed.

Everything was very good.

Glorious Image Bearers

Now, the reason that I and many others call mankind the crown of God’s creation is found in Genesis 1:26-27, “26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

We were made in the image of God, to be reflections of His nature and His character.

Men and women are dignified above all other creatures because God has chosen to impart attributes of his nature into the nature of man.

He did not make us into miniature gods, but He made us in such a way that when men and women fulfill their ultimate purpose, when they are “very good” as Adam and Eve are in this moment, they point back to God, they represent Him, they reflect the glory of who He is back to Him - they praise and glorify Him.

Paradise with God

In Genesis 2, in this very good world, we see that God planted a garden and placed His image bearers in it, Genesis 2:8, “8 The Lord God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed.”In the greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, which is what the apostles and Jesus would have had access to and read, in that translation the word for garden that they used was paradeison, from which we get the word paradise.

In this paradise, if you look at verses 9 and 10 of chapter 2 there were many fruit trees, there was the tree of Life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and there was a river flowing through it.

But what really made this garden paradise is the reality that the man and the woman walked and talked with God Himself.

We see this in Genesis 3:8, “8 They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.”

That verb describing God walking is in what is called a durative hith-pael and it expresses the idea of a habitual action.

In other words, every evening God would come walk with Adam and Eve.

The Creator of the Universe would have a regular time of fellowship with His most glorious creatures.

God would be with them.

Summary of the Edenic State

So in summary, in the Edenic State, in life before sin and the fall, all of creation existed perfectly and fulfilled it’s God-designed purpose; man and woman were perfect image bearers of God, reflecting His character and nature and glory; and man and woman lived in a Garden paradise where they enjoyed regular fellowship with God.

Exiled

And yet, all of this was lost when Eve disobeyed the command of God when she and Adam with her ate the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of God and evil.

Because of one man’s sin all of creation was thrust from its state of being very good into a state curse, a state of decay and death.

And at the end of Genesis 3 we see Adam and Eve exiled out of the Garden, Genesis 3:24, “So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.”

Paradise Redeemed

With God - in Part

And yet, God did not abandon His creation all together but instead began to carry out His plan to redeem it.

And He did not abandon his relationship with man either.

He called a man by the name of Abraham out of the land of Ur and made established a covenant relationship with him.

In this relationship God talked with Abraham and he was called a friend of God.

He was with Abraham’s grandson, Jacob as he travelled through the wilderness.

And He was also with Jacob’s favorite son, Joseph as he was enslaved in Potiphar’s house in Egypt.

And God delivered Jacob’s many descendants out of slavery in Egypt by His mighty power.

He led them out of Egypt in a Pillar of Cloud by Day and a Pillar of Fire by night.

He appeared to them at Sinai and covenanted with them once more, establishing a relationship not just with one man, but with an entire people.

It is in this covenant God declared that He would dwell with His people once more, Leviticus 26:11-12, “11 I will make My dwelling among you, and My soul will not reject you.

12 ‘I will also walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people.”

God instructed the people to make His dwelling place, the Tabernacle.

And yet, the people could not fully dwell with God.

There was a division in the tabernacle between the Holy of Holies, where God’s glory was and the place where the priests would worship and sacrifice.

This division was in the form of a veil.

And woven in the veil were two cherubim guarding the entrance to where God was, just like God placed two cherubim to guard the entrance into the Garden.

This separation had to exist because of the fact that the Israelites were still marred by the stain of sin and not perfectly holy.

Mankind was not “very good” anymore.

Therefore they could not fully be in the presence of the most Holy God.

God walked with man, but not fully, not as He did in the garden.

Immanuel - God with Us

And that curtain remained there for hundreds of years, baring full access to God, until God Himself came to be with us, taking on humanity, being born as a man and yet fully God.

God the Son, Jesus Christ, physically walked and talked with man.

He is called Immanuel - God with us.

As the author of Hebrews put it, Hebrews 1:3, “ He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature,” and Paul in Colossians 1:15, “15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.”