Our Holy Life in the Three Estates
Notes
Transcript
Anybody watching the Winter Olympics?
What’s your favorite event to watch?
I like to watch the skiing events - mainly the Downhill and “Super Giant Slalom” or Super G.
Normally, Olympic skiers will get to ski the Olympic course a year before the event. They take hours of video and tons of notes to learn about the course.
They do this because they are going to be skiing at speeds reaching 90 mph with turns and jumps. The skiers want to know every inch of the course in order to be as fast as possible, and, of course, not crash.
God has made you holy through His Word, and He calls you to bear fruit in this world. So in this session, we are going to examine how God has ordered this world to get a sense of the playing field.
Each of us has a place and calling in each of the three estates.
Each of the Three Estates has:
A “source” - Where and when it was instituted by God, and that defines how it is formed and what it is made up of.
A “purpose” / matter (what it consists of). That purpose answers “What is the goal?”
And each estate has ways it can be strengthened and weakened.
So let’s consider each of these:
The Church
The Church
Church: Institution & Form
Church: Institution & Form
The church was instituted at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Genesis 2:15–17 (ESV)
15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
We are always and only righteous and holy through faith (‘the righteous shall live by faith’ Habakkuk 2:4; Romans 1:17; Galatians 3:11).
Because Adam and Eve had everything good from God because of the goodness of creation, they needed a promise of God to believe. That promise was implicit in the command to not eat of the tree.
In other words, God’s promise in telling Adam to not eat of the tree was “Evil is bad. Trust Me on this. When you find out what evil is, it won’t go well for you.”
So, Adam and Eve could have by faith what God never intended for them to have. God didn’t want Adam and Eve to have death by sight, only by faith.
The church takes the form of hearing and believing God’s Word. So, when you gather with other believers in your congregation, you form the church.
You gather around God’s Word, hear and believe it, and walk according to it.
Church: Purpose
Church: Purpose
Spiritual life.
As long as Adam and Eve believed God’s promise that evil was bad, they had eternal life - both spiritually and physically.
After they sinned, God gave a new promise:
15 I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.”
Now, the Word and promise of God that we believe is that God crushes the devil and delivers us from sin and death.
Church: Strengths
Church: Strengths
Matthew 16:16–19 (ESV)
16 Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17 And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. 18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”
18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Church: Weaknesses
Church: Weaknesses
15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.
3 If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, 4 he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions,
1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.
Family
Family
Family: Institution & Form
Family: Institution & Form
The family was instituted before the Fall into sin when God created Eve.
18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”
21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said,
“This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man.”
28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
The family takes the form of husband, wife, and children.
Family: Purpose
Family: Purpose
Physical, temporal life.
God likes people and wants more of them. That is why He gave families. So children would be born, grow, learn, and have more children.
Even after the Fall into sin, God blesses families.
1 And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
Family: Strengths
Family: Strengths
6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.
6 Train up a child in the way he should go;
even when he is old he will not depart from it.
9 Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
Family: Weaknesses
Family: Weaknesses
When parents are lazy and don’t teach their children what is right. Or, when they are too harsh and cause their children to rebel.
4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
21 Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.
When children are disobedient or defiant and rebellious.
State
State
State: Institution & Form
State: Institution & Form
There is no direct passage where God establishes the state or authorities.
There are descriptions of it though.
1 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, 4 for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. 7 Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.
13 Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, 14 or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.
In a way, the State is only necessary for groups of sinful people living together. The State is an extension of the family in that it keeps order in a sinful world.
The State takes the form of government, armies, police, judges, etc.
State: Purpose
State: Purpose
The State preserves and protects life, but it can only keep order in one way - threat of punishment i.e. ‘little death.’
Putting thieves and murderers in jail. Giving out fines for speeding.
Think of a surgeon cutting up a person to do surgery on their heart or to remove a tumor. This brings about death in order to preserve life.
State: Strengths & Weaknesses
State: Strengths & Weaknesses
God is the One who establishes it.
But it is weak - especially when the people placed in authority are not in line with God’s Law.
Big Picture
Big Picture
The Three Estates are like a medieval city with three walls surrounding it. The State provides the first line of defense against the devil’s attacks against God’s people.
When the devil attacks the state with anarchy and unjust laws, society is in trouble. But if/when the State falls, the Family, and the Church are still intact to protect people from the devil’s attacks. You can still be in a pretty good place if the Family and Church are intact.
When the devil attacks the family with divorce and other brokenness, the Church can still offer a great protection, but the Church has its limits. Which is why children who grow up with a father and a mother who bring them to church are most likely to stay in the Church. Fathers alone is next. Mothers alone is next. But there is a steep decline in those two.
When the devil attacks the church with false doctrine, the society is in deep trouble.
This is why going to college is so dangerous. In our culture, the state is already breached because (largely) you don’t get in trouble for breaking God’s Commandments. When you go off to college, you have left your family and are on your own. And if you stop going to church because your parents don’t force you to, the devil has access to our conscience and our faith is in desperate risk.
Through these three estates, God protects His people so that He can deliver to them His holiness.
Through these three estates, God gives us good leverage to do good, holy works and to stand as the world falls apart with our feet firmly planted in Christ our Redeemer and Savior.
“There is a spiritual battle in every home, every church, and in every state house. And there is a broader war on the general condition of these three estates. In other words, the devil attacks every family, but he also attacks the idea of family. He attacks every church where the Word of God is preached, but he also attacks the very idea of religion. The devil attacks every nation, but he also attacks the idea of nations and the various political doctrines.
“But the destruction of the church, the family, and the state is not his ultimate goal. He is after people.”
In these three estates - Church, Family, and State - God has given us good works to do, which is what we will consider tomorrow.