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Uh, today again, we're to look at, uh, the gospels, and one gospel in particular, uh, but not to do quite the same thing as we were attempting yesterday. Today- yesterday, you remember, we looked at the gospel by Matthew to see how he organizes the material that he has chosen to, uh, record in his gospel, how he has divided it very neatly, structured it into very clearly defined groups, and that within each group there is a dominant theme or themes.
And so we were alerting ourselves again to the fact that the gospels do not simply record a whole string of individual stories about the Lord and his life and teaching, leaving us to make of them what we will. The gospel writers have their own reasons for arranging the material as they do, and they raise fundamental questions, uh, and present fundamental details about the life of our Lord and his teaching. And we tried in three of Matthew's sections to see what some of those dominant themes might be. Today I'd like to discuss with you the doctrine of salvation as, uh, we find it in the Gospels, and to inquire a little bit how the doctrine of salvation that we find in the Gospels is related to the doctrine of salvation as we find it in the epistles.
Now, we shall all recognize at once the, uh, some of the elements in the biblical New Testament doctrine of salvation. There is that strand that concerns itself with regeneration and the need for people to be begotten of God, to be born from above, and when they are begotten of God, they receive the life of God, which is eternal life. There's no difficulty in, uh, knowing now which of the, uh, epistles talks of that and which of the gospels talk of that.
The Gospel of John is the gospel that you would readily go to, uh, to learn or to preach about salvation in the sense of regeneration and the birth and gift of eternal life. And in the epistles, the epistles by John, as is not surprising, uh, are the epistles that preeminently deal with this aspect of salvation. Another strand in the doctrine, the New Testament's doctrine of salvation, is, of course, the justification by faith without the works of the law.
Doctrine to be found, of course, naturally, if you were going to expound it and preach on it, you would turn to the Pauline epistles. You won't find a lot in Paul about eternal life. You will find some. He believes in it, of course, and believes in regeneration. You won't find a great deal of mention of eternal life in the Gospel of John, uh, in the Epistles of Paul. You'll find it, as we say, in the Gospel of John and the Epistles of John. Conversely, you won't find much reference to justification by faith in the Gospel or the Epistles by John.
His interest and emphasis lies elsewhere, as we have seen. Doctrines of justification by faith and subsequent sanctification are more typically to be found in the Epistles of Paul. There is, however, another strand of the, uh, doctrine of salvation in the epistles, and that is the salvation of the soul. And I want to start with that this morning, i- if we will. Uh, uh, the writer that you would go to for that, of course, is Peter.
The other writers talk about it briefly, but Peter is the one who is in his epistles concentrates on the doctrine of the salvation of the soul. We, let's turn to Peter and notice the sheer fact. Then we shall notice where Peter learned this doctrine from, that he develops in his epistles, and that will take us back, of course, to the Gospels. One Peter then, just let's notice the occurrence in Peter of this question of the soul.
One Peter one. verse eight: Whom having not seen, you love, on whom, though now you see him not yet believing, you rejoice greatly with joy unspeakable and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls. Verse, uh, nineteen— or verse eighteen: knowing that you were redeemed not with corruptible things, with silver or gold from your vain manner of life, handed down from your fathers, but with the precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, even the blood of Christ, who was foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world, but was manifested at the end of the times for your sake, who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope might be in God.
Seeing you have purified your souls in your obedience to the truth, unto unfeigned love of the brethren, love one another from the heart fervently, having been begotten again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. Salvation of your souls, the purification of your souls, having purified your souls. That is an idea that you'll find, uh, coming from Peter's lips elsewhere. Just let me, uh, diverge at that point to remind you how Peter phrased himself in the famous occasion at Jerusalem, commonly called the Council of Jerusalem.
And he is supporting Paul and Barnabas in their contention that Gentiles are justified by faith and not by the works of the law, and therefore Gentile believers do not need to be circumcised, either to be saved or to keep saved. So here is Peter in Acts fifteen and verse seven. Peter rose up and said unto them, Brethren, you know how that a good while ago God made choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, bear them witness, giving them the Holy Spirit as he did unto us.
And he made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith. Notice that, uh, phrase, cleansing their hearts by faith. He's referring to their conversion experience, which he here describes, uh, under the term cleansing their hearts by faith, and that's giving them the Holy Spirit. In his epistle, he uses a similar term, seeing you have purified your souls. He's talking of their conversion, as you see at once by what he says in the following verse twenty three, having been begotten again, the purification of the soul.
Chapter two of his first epistle and verse eleven: Beloved, I beseech you as sojourners and pilgrims to abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul. And chapter two again, and verse twenty five: For you were going astray like sheep, but are now returned unto the shepherd and bishop of your souls. And finally, chapter four and the last verse. Wherefore let them also that suffer according to the will of God commit their souls in well-doing unto a faithful Creator.
It's enough to show us, is it not, that Peter is very much interested in this particular aspect of salvation, the salvation, purification, and thus of the soul. He refers to it far more than do the writers Paul and John. The question arises is where P- Peter got this emphasis from. So let's turn back to our passage, uh, our Gospel of Matthew, and read some verses in its chapter sixteen. Verse 21 of sixteen.
These verses relate what happened immediately after Peter had made his, uh, tremendous confession. We believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And our blessed Lord had replied by saying, flesh and blood has not revealed it to you, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. Uh, it will say, and so forth. Almost immediately following, from that time, uh, began, verse twenty one, from that time began.
So here is a course of teaching that began now and, of course, persisted throughout the la- later stages of our Lord's ministry. From that time began Jesus to show unto his disciples how that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up. And Peter took him and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord, this shall never be unto thee. But he turned and said unto Peter, get thee behind me, Satan, thou art a stumbling block unto me, for thou mindest not the things of God, but the things of men.
Then said Jesus unto his disciples, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whosoever would save his. And now we hit a problem. There's a problem in English, not in Greek, but it's a problem to know how to translate the, uh, uh, Greek word that is here used and in many other places in the, uh, New Testament. Ooh. That is a supernumerary pen. Psuke in Greek, psuke, a word that we have in many English transliterations, psychology and all that, you'll see.
What does it mean? How are we going to translate it? There lies a little bit of a problem, because the Greek word sukhe has a moderately wide range of connotations, eh, and obviously when a word has many connotations, it doesn't mean all the connotations at once in every place, you see, does it? So that, uh, uh, we have to first perhaps examine its range of connotations. Uh, let's quote you some examples of suke in the New Testament.
Matthew two twenty. They are dead which sought the child's, the young child's suke. Matthew two twenty. Um, what does that mean? How would you translate suke there? What does that mean? His life. Herod and all his successors, uh, who had, uh, slain the babes under two years old and so forth and so on, and our Lord had been taken by his parents to Egypt to escape their murderous intentions, and when those chaps were dead, uh, the angel of the Lord told Joseph it was safe to return to Palestine, for they are dead who sought the young child's...
Well, of course, physical life, you'll say. That's what it means. Herod and company weren't interested in the spiritual welfare, the soul. Uh, Herod wasn't in the habit of saying that, I, I, is your soul saved, my boy, this morning? Not Herod. No, he was interested in the young child's life. Or Matthew six twenty five, take no thought for your life, what you shall eat, uh, what you shall drink, and wherewithal shall you be clothed. When you drink and when you, um, uh, eat, you normally are thought of as, um, building up your physical life, aren't you?
And when you clothe yourself, you're not normally thinking of clothing your soul, your in the spiritual sense, you're thinking of clothing your body, aren't you? Protecting your physical life. So take no thought for your life, says our Lord. You wouldn't normally translate it soul there, would you? Take no thought for your soul. You'd say take no thought for your life. But there, uh, uh, uh, you begin to see, mm, a sort of an overlap, particularly when you remember Old Testament background to the use of this word soul. Isaac with his dim eyes, you know, but his nostrils and his smell very much, uh, alive and his taste buds still, uh, are groaning after venison, charged Esau, his son, to go out and get venison and make me some venison which my soul loveth.
You watch a man who loves beef steaks sitting down to a T steak, you know, T-bone steak. They are beautiful. It's ain't just his stomach that is delighting in it, is it? He's not just feeding his physical life, what oh, ha. His very soul, oh, he's enjoying it. Yes. And of course, very often in the Hebrew background, its word for soul, nefesh, uh, includes not only your physical life, but now all those deeper att- appetites and sensations and, uh, enjoyments that go up to make us more than just machines.
I never knew a car to enjoy being filled up with petrol, did you? They take a lot, they guzzle, they seem to like it, but they don't particularly react as though they enjoyed it or anything. When we are feeding our physical life, it very often delights us at deeper levels. And this word nefesh in Hebrew and sukhe in Greek, therefore particularly sukhe in the New Testament Greek, carry these connotations that begin to merge one with another. Going to the other extreme, now let's, uh, uh, look at this. Three John verse two. John writing to Gaius.
I wish above all things that thou mayest be in health, even as thy soul prospers. What does that mean? I wish above all things that thou mayest be in health, obviously physical health, even as thy... Oh, soul prospers, same word in Greek, of course. But now you'll see soul is not physical life, it's the something different, and it's contrasted with physical life, meaning his inner, perhaps his inner spiritual life prospers, even as his outer life, uh, sorry, the other way around.
His inner life soul prospers. John wishes him that his outer physical life shall prosper even as his inner spiritual life prospers. We all know the folks who show a delightful, mature, Christ-like inner spiritual life, who might be crippled with some crippling disease physically. Yeah. So psuche in the New Testament is a word of a very broad meaning. And that means that in the verses in front of us, we start off with a little difficulty to know how you would translate them.
Perhaps I shall, uh, cast the, the, the difficulty upon your shoulders and ask you how I should translate them. That would be an idea, wouldn't it? Ha. And if you were teaching and preaching for them verses, what would you say? For instance, here we are, verse twenty five of Matthew sixteen, this is. For whosoever would save his... his what? Shall lose it. And whosoever shall lose his whatever it is, uh, for my sake, shall find it.
For what shall a man be profited if he gain the whole world and forfeit or lose his own, his own, his own what? So, oh, we all got an advance on that, that we have encouraged. It's one of the three places then. Everybody comes down in verse twenty six. uh, we should translate it, um, so. Yeah, everybody agreed? You want to translate it that way? Whosoever, what shall a man be profited if he gain the whole world and lose his... You want to translate that soul? No, this man here isn't sure. Uh, yeah, no, what?
You want to translate soul, sir? Verse Yeah, Yeah, verse twenty six, you're, you're, you vote for soul. I see. Ha ha. What about verse, um, twenty five then? Whosoever would save his soul shall lose it. Sounds a bit odd, doesn't it? The evangelists normally come at you, don't they, and say, now, my boy, is your soul saved? Beware lest you lose your soul. We know what they mean, don't we? It's a very serious matter. But the evangelist doesn't normally tell you that the way to save your soul in that sense is to lose it. If they did, they'd say, now look here, old chap, have you lost your soul yet? Because that's the way to save it.
So how should we do? These two verses spoken in one breath, how shall we understand them? 25 is life and 26 is Soul, you see? Yes. Mm-hmm. Do you think Peter did that? Well, the Jew. Send it, I say, yes, I see. Jolly good stuff. I said fast. Yes, that's how some of the translations do, don't they? They translate it life in verse twenty five, and in verse twenty six translate it soul. Anyway, what we may have established, surely, is that this is where Peter gained his first interest in this topic.
And that is why, in his epistle, he more than anybody else proportionately talks about the soul and the salvation of the soul. If for need be, you are for the moment in heaviness through manifold temptation, and yet you rejoice with joy unspeakable, full of glory, receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your soul. This is Peter. And it's very natural, isn't it? Because he learned this lesson first on this famous occasion, or shortly thereafter. He had just been congratulated by the Lord.
Congra- you are to be congratulated, Peter. Blessed art thou. For flesh and blood has not revealed to you this magnificent fact that I am the Christ, the Son of the living God. You are to be in the foundation of the very church that I am to build. The church is built upon this. Then our Lord began to teach them that he must go to Jerusalem and be rejected of the chief priests and scribes and be crucified and rise again. And Peter had the audacity to rebuke him. And brought back, of course, the solemn rebuke from the Lord. Peter never forgot it, of course.
Among the many allusions that you find in his epistles to his experiences of Christ when he walked with him on earth, this one, of course, is prominent. To whom coming, says Peter, unto a stone rejected indeed of men, but chosen of God and precious. And as he wrote that word, rejected indeed of men, I wonder if the color rose in his cheeks or a tear dropped onto the old papyrus. For it was when the Lord taught him that he must be rejected of men that Peter said, oh no, Lord, you've got that bit wrong. No, surely not.
He never forgot what our Lord then said. Get me behind thee, Satan. Mind not the things that be of men, but the things that be of God. For if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Whosoever would save his life or soul for my sake, the same shall find it. It is very natural that Peter talks to us about the salvation of the soul. So then, let's, uh, hold the word soul i- in our mind, observe it has these different connotations, then we shall be able to decide as we go along which connotation to choose in any particular point.
Would that not be fair and sound? You'll see. It can mean your physical life. It can go deeper and mean your emotions, your, like old Isaac eating his venison and not only nurturing his physical life, but really enjoying it, and his emotions are involved. It can mean soul in the deeper sense still of your spiritual, uh, welfare, can't it? I wish above all things that you may prosper in your health, even as your soul prospers. As a rough and ready definition, I would like to say that soul, sukhe, covers your physical life, and n- not just your physical life as a biological thing, but all the rest.
Do you see? For instance, your physical life has a time element to it, doesn't it? You can't keep physical life in a box until you've put it put in your coffin, and then you haven't got it anymore anyway. Do you see, can you? Your soul, in the sense of your physical life, is a thing, well, it has this time element to it, doesn't it? And we can talk about people spending their life on something. We can talk about people wasting their life. Life is a thing. It's not just a static object. It involves your time.
And of course, life has its emotions, doesn't it? Your love, your hate has its energy. And if you notice, these things are things also that you can't keep in a box. You have to spend them. You have to spend your energy on something. Is your energy part of you? Yeah, the, uh, Bible would say, yes, that's part of your soul, my dear man. You have to love the Lord with all your soul. You have to work for the Lord out of your very soul. You put your, as we say in English, you put your heart and soul into it.
Yes, the Hebrew would understand that, what you mean. You don't just do it mechanically, but your emotions are involved, your energy is involved. You give of your time unsparingly. Your soul is yourself. Your life in, in all those senses. If that be its range of meaning, how do you make sense of the fact that you've got to lose it in order to keep it. Seems to me that our Lord helped them understand what for them was a difficult conundrum by what he went on to say. Look at Matthew again, verse twenty six of chapter sixteen.
for what shall a man be profited if he should gain the whole world and forfeit his life, or what shall a man give in exchange for his life? For, now here comes the explanation that will make sense of it. For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and then he shall render unto every man according to his deeds. To help us understand this business, that you have to lose your suke to keep it, our Lord reminds the apostles that, uh, there are two ages. There is this present age, and there is the age to come.
The time is coming when the Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and then shall he render unto every man according to his deed. This age isn't all there is. There is a coming age. As our Lord Jesus has just pointed out to them, in this age, Jesus must go to Jerusalem and be rejected of the priests, uh, uh, and the scribes and the Pharisees. In the coming age, he will come in the glory of his Father and of the holy angels. And the question that now arises is, if that be true, in which age are you investing your souls?
For which age are you spending your time, your energies, your love, your hope. For which world, if I might put it that way? This present one? Or the coming one? And the solemn fact that our Lord is teaching his disciples you can't live for both. One can begin to understand how Peter felt. He just confessed the Lord Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the living God.
When the Messiah, to his astonishment, began to teach them he'd go to Jerusalem and be rejected of the scribes and Pharisees and be crucified. No, said Peter, now, Lord, now, now, now, now, excuse me, but no, that now you, you mustn't let those ideas get into your head. Do you see? No, you want to take a course in positive thinking. You want to say to yourself, you want to say I'm going out to Jerusalem and I'm going to be defeated and I'm going to be crucified and rejected. No, no, no, you get that idea into your head, you'll be a failure. You want to learn to think positively. You want to say to yourself, I'm going to be a success, I'm going to be a success, and when you get Jerusalem, you will be a success. You see, Lord, God's on our side, isn't he?
I want to be positive. Besides that, Lord, I've invested a lot of time in you. Gave up my work, you know, my fishing, that was quite profitable on occasions, and I've invested a lot of money in you and my job, and I'm away from home, and my dear wife, you know, she suffers a lot with me away from home all these months. And money, Lord, not to put too fine a point on it. And if you're going to be crucified, everything I spent on you has gone down the drain. Well, now you go, you must get those ideas out of your head. You're going to be a success, and when you're a success, I should be a success.
Yeah. On the right hand and on the left hand are the reigning monarch. Mm. In that kind of context that our Lord taught this, taught this doctrine of the salvation of the soul. No, Peter. We don't mind the things that be of God, but the things that be of men. If you're not prepared to lose your soul in this age for me, you will in fact lose it in the age to come. But if you are prepared to lose your suke for me in this present age, you'll keep it in the age to come.
That becomes, therefore, a very important strand, doesn't it, in our doctrine of salvation. As you see from Peter's writing, if you were to ask him about the salvation of the soul, he would say, yes, there is an initial salvation of the soul. You have purified your soul by obeying the truth. Having been born again, begotten of God, you'll see, by the word of God that lives and abides forever.
So there's the initial. Peter believes in people being born again, of course, and in that moment in the purification of their soul. But then, now the soul is saved, you say. You are receiving the salvation of your soul. But that simply raises the question, what is a soul now it's been saved? Your soul saved, my sister? Well, you say, yes, it is. Where do you keep it? In the bank? In the vault of the bank, and when the Lord comes, I say, how many, Lord, I've just got to run down to the bank and collect my soul. Of course not.
Soul is you, isn't it? Your life, your time, your energy, your love, your hates, if you have any. Your desire. It's saved, you say. Oh, thank the Lord. But you have to spend it, don't you? What will you spend it on? And though, therefore, having been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, says Peter, now it comes to a question of how you will invest your redeemed soul. Now, to help them understand this, I suggest to you, our Lord staged what follows next in the text of the Gospels, and that is, look at chapter seventeen of Matthew, the story of the Transfiguration.
That comes next in the gospel, doesn't it? It is introduced, as I understand it, by the verse twenty eight. Let's read those verses again. Matthew sixteen twenty seven and then twenty eight. For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and then shall he render unto every man according to his deeds. Verily I say unto you, there be some of them that stand here, which shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. And after six days, Jesus taketh with him Peter and James and John his brother, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart, and was transfigured before them.
Only here I shall have to stop again, because multitudes of scholars, far better than I could ever be, say that verse twenty eight has nothing to do with the transfiguration that follows now in chapter seventeen. They say, look, that wouldn't make any sense to say to a people, there be some of you that stand here that shall not taste of death until they see the kingdom of God come, uh, six days at the end of this week. We hope so. Of course, some may die all of a sudden, but what sense would it make, they say, to say to twelve apostles, look, some of you standing here won't die before you see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom, if this event, the coming of the Son of Man in his kingdom, was to happen just six days down the road.
It's hardly the way you speak, would it? There'd be some of you standing here, uh, that will be in church on Sun- uh, will not die before you are in church on Sunday. Well, we hope so. So this has nothing to do with it. Transfiguration was nothing to do with that verse twenty eight. And having, holding that view, then they find it a little bit difficult to know what verse twenty eight is talking about. There be some of you that stand here that shall not taste of death, though they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. When did he come in his kingdom? It can't mean that his second coming, can it? That'd be dead before the second coming.
So some people say, well, could it be Pentecost when... Well, I thought it was the Holy Spirit that came then, not the Son of Man on the day of Pentecost. But in that sense, spiritualizing it, they say, well, some of you will be alive when the Kingdom of Christ will be established on the day of Pentecost or something. Acknowledging, uh, the strength of their views, I, if you will allow me, uh, to persist i- in my own notions, you'll see, and I stand to your correction, that, uh, all arguments to the contrary, the Transfiguration was meant to fulfill, in some sense, the promise of verse twenty eight.
There be some of them that stand here which shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. One can perhaps establish that by, uh, uh, concentrating at first on the sheer run of the narrative. What were they promised that they would see? They would see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. Now I want you to do a little hard work. The Transfiguration is reported three times in the Gospels, in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. It is always reported in the same context, and it has always a number of features together.
There is, as here, this introductory statement. There'll be some of you standing here that won't see death until they see something or other. Then there is the account of the, uh, uh, the, uh, transfiguration itself, and that is followed, as here, look at seventeen fourteen, followed by the account of a healing of an epileptic boy. When they came down from the mountain, a father met them, bringing his epileptic boy, and said to the Lord Jesus, I asked your disciples to heal him and cast the demon out, but they couldn't, and if you can do anything, please heal him. Now that is, uh, the form in which this comes in all three stories.
May I ask you to notice how the stories differ slightly in the way they are presented in the three gospels. So, look at the promise. They were to see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. Says, uh, Matthew. The account in Mark comes in chapter nine. Let's look at Mark. Keep your finger in Matthew, look at Mark and compare him. Mark nine, verse one.
He said unto them, Verily I say unto you all, there be some here of them that stand by, which shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the kingdom, kingdom of God come in power. Wording is slightly different, isn't it? Not now till they see the com- Son of Man coming in his kingdom, but until they see the kingdom of God come with power. The account in Luke comes again in chapter nine. And according to Luke nine twenty seven, the phrasing is, but I tell you of a truth, there be some of them that stand here, which shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God.
So, slight differences in the way the promise is state- stated. They don't contradict, of course. They supplement each other. Till you see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. Till you see the kingdom of God come with power. Till you see the kingdom of God. Are the differences significant? Well, yes, they are. The easiest place to see that is if you go back to Mark's account. Let's go look at Mark for a minute. What were they to see? They were to see the kingdom of God come with power. The, uh, word... dunamis, power, particular word for power.
Now look at the account of the Transfiguration in Mark. After six days, Jesus taketh with him Peter and James and John and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart by themselves, and he was transfigured before them, and his garments became glistering, exceeding white, so as no fuller on earth has the power to whiten them. This is the verb, this is the noun. Only Mark has that phrase. Matthew doesn't have it.
Nothing about laundry men in Matthew, Lily put or otherwise. It you'll say nothing about laundry men in Luke being able to whiten clothes. It's only Mark has that. But, you see, they were promised that they would see the kingdom of God come with power. Now they see his garments glistening white, so as no laundry man on earth has the power to whiten them. But now look at Mark's story of what happened when they came down the mountain. You'll see. There came this man, verse seventeen. One of the multitude answered him, Master, I brought unto thee my son, which hath a dumb spirit, and wheresoever it taketh him, it dasheth him down, and he foameth and grindeth with his teeth and pineth away.
And I speak, uh, I spake to thy disciples that they should not cast it out, and they were not able. And he answered them, saying, O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him to me." And they brought him, and the spirit, when he saw him straightway, the spirit tear him grievously, and he fell on the ground and wallowed foaming. And this and that and the other. He inquired of the fathers how long the child had been suffering like this. And, uh, in verse twenty two, the father says, "Often it has cast him both into the fire and into the waters to destroy him, but if thou hast the power to...
If you have the power to do anything. Hm. And our Lord replies, if thou canst, exclamation mark. Meaning, what do you mean, if I can? All things are, and the word is here the adjective dunatos, all things are within the power of him that believes. These are peculiar to Mark and his account. It looks to me, at any rate, simply from a literary point of view and from the flow of the narrative, as if Mark saw the transfiguration as the fulfillment of our Lord's promise, there shall be some of you standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the kingdom of God come with power.
And what he concentrates on, therefore, is the Transfiguration as an exhibition of the power of God. And then he follows it by a story in which the point is taken up, how is that power to be applied? How can it be applied and taken advantage of? Apacula to Mark, those little phrases. With that in mind, therefore, I'm going to assume, so you'll have to put up with me if you don't agree, just for the next few moments, I'm going to assume that this is intended in each of the three occasions. And what were they, uh, promised to see in Matthew? You see, the point is they must learn that our Lord in this age is going to be rejected, and Peter must accept this, with all that it may mean.
If the Messiah himself is rejected and crucified, it wouldn't be surprising if Peter lost his life and lost his physical life and lost a good of many other things, and Peter must accept it. And if Peter is not prepared for that, that he might even have to lose his physical life for the sake of Messiah in this age, he'd lose it in the next, wouldn't he? You see, there are two ages. In that sense, there are two worlds. Which shall we live for?
To help them of the conundrum, therefore, our Lord said, uh, some of you, you don't have to wait, you know, till you die to see the kingdom of heaven. The normal way we get into that heavenly kingdom is th- th- us to die or the Lord to come. I'm going to give you a vision of that coming kingdom. So Matthew, when they came down the mountain, the Lord Jesus said, tell the vision to no man. The transfiguration was a real event, but the apostles saw it as a vision, a vision of that coming kingdom. So Matthew takes us up the mountain, and he was transfigured before, before us.
Cool. Wow. The first thing you learn is, wow, there is another world then. I should think there is, yes? And look at that, his face, we're told, was transfigured before them, and his face did shine as the sun, and his garments became white as the light. In this world, Christ is central like the sun is to our solar system, and his face did shine as the sun. And, uh, oh, look there. Wow, Matthew and Titus. That must be Elijah.
And there is Moses. Wow, what a thing. You'll see, because the scribes, they sat in Moses' seat. And Peter, as a little boy and as a fisherman, was brought up to revere the Jewish scribes, for they were the official theologians. They sat in Moses' seat, they expounded the scripture, and if the scribes were against Jesus, and all the official theologians in Judaism were against Jesus, for Peter, the untrained fisher- the fisherman untrained in theology, that was a tremendous weight of power against Jesus, yes? In this world, Moses is with Jesus.
In this world, Elijah, the great prophet, is with Jesus. That, of course, is the basic claim of Christ, isn't it? That he is the fulfillment of the law, the prophets, and the Psalms. And here Peter sees him. More to the point, when Peter says, Lord, it's good for us to be here, let's make three tabernacles, one for thee, one for Moses and Elijah, there comes a voice out of the cloud saying, this is my beloved son, in whom I'm well pleased. Hear him.
So now Peter must decide. Down here, so to speak, the scribes, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees, the leaders of the nation, and the Sanhedrin will condemn Jesus. And they will say to Peter, look here, Peter, you are a desperate fool, Peter, investing all your time and money and energy and resources on this Jesus. We're telling you now we think he's a fanatic. And he's an absolute blasphemer, actually, and the power that he uses is of the devil, and we'll tell you straight, Peter, one of these days we shall get tired of him, and we shall be obliged to crucify him, Peter. Don't be a fool, Peter, and invest your life in following him.
You only have one life to live, you know. Keep it. But the voice up here is saying, Peter, Jesus is my son, you know, my beloved son. If I were you, Peter, I should listen to him. It's obvious you can't live for both, can you, at the same time? One has to make up one's mind where one is going to invest one's soul. Paul has to say of one of his erstwhile workers, Demath has forsaken me, having loved this present age, and therefore was determined now not to waste his life.
He wasn't going to lose it anymore. He was going to keep his life by loving this present age. But the voice up the mountain is saying, don't do that. You invest your life in this age, you'll lose it in the age to come. Yeah? There's another little incident in ma- in i- i- there's another little feature that in Matthew binds these stories together. When they came down from the mountain, uh, verse fourteen, they came to, they come to the multitude. There came to him a man kneeling to him and saying, Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is epileptic and suffereth grievously.
It is Matthew that tells you that he was epileptic. Greek word for it is moonstruck, but uh, never mind, that's what lunatic means in English, isn't it? Moonstruck. Uh, that is the word being used, and the modern translators have softened it a bit and saying epileptic. Anyway, it was a disease of the brain, wasn't it? Affected the lady's thinking on times. And because he had this epilepsy, didn't intend to do it, do you see? But he fell into the fire down again, ah, and then he fell into the water. Didn't mean to, but something wrong with his brain, poor chap, and he's in danger of ruining himself and destroying his life because of this, uh, wrong mechanisms of the brain. Interesting that, isn't it?
Do you know what the Lord told Peter before he went out the mountain? When Peter said, took him and began to rebuke him, saying, be it far from thee, Lord, you're never going to be rejected and crucified. The Lord turned and said unto Peter, get thee behind me, Satan, thou art a stumbling block to me, for there's something wrong with your thinking. There's something wrong with your mind. Thou mindest not. Old English, King James Version, thou savorest not. Nothing to do with gravy, gravy, savory gravy, anything like that. It's there's something wrong with your mind. Thou mindest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men.
And Peter isn't afraid to tell us. Before he went up the mountain, there was something completely wrong with his mindset. He looked at things as this world looks at them. And because he had that mindset, Peter was in danger, danger of making a colossal mistake of taking loss as though it were gain and treating gain as though it were loss. Or to put it in other words, Peter was in danger of wanting to keep his life in this world, thinking he was gaining when all the time he would be losing it.
And finding it very difficult to think that to lose your life was in fact gain. His mind was wrong. And he needed to be taken up the mountain to be given the vision of the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. That would put his mind right. Like the Lord did physically for the boy when he came down from the mountain and cured his epilepsy. Yeah? So from Matthew, we learn the very basics. There is another age. If we're going to save our souls, we must get it firmly in our head that this age isn't all there is.
There's a coming age. You cannot, in that sense, live for both. You must be prepared to live for Christ in this one, and that will often mean losing your life. But if you're prepared to lose it in this world, you will keep it to life eternal. In some countries, ladies and gentlemen, you know it, don't you? In some Muslim countries, for instance, when a person is faced with the very basics of salvation, are they going to believe on Christ and be born again and justified by faith? They know in their hearts if they say yes to that and receive the gift, and it's a complete gift of eternal life. You don't have to earn it, you don't have to buy it.
It's a complete gift, but they know jolly well if they take that gift, they must be prepared to face death. Their own very parents will perhaps give them a, a little sweetmeat, and it's got horsehair rolled up in the, i- i- i- in the pastry, and they eat this, it causes inflammation of the insides and perforation, and they're dead. In some places in the Sudan, Christians are being literally crucified. It is the abnormal, isn't it, that we don't endure persecution for Christ. I had a dear Romanian brother studying theology in the Baptist College this year, and last year in Queens, and he stayed in my home, and he told me over breakfast one day, he said, you know, the older men who'd been in prison in the bad days used to tell us younger men, look, when you're taken into interrogation, you must say goodbye in your heart to your wife and family.
If you don't, they'll get you. Because halfway through the three-day interrogation, you'll be confronted perhaps with a letter in your wife's handwriting, signed by your wife, to the effect that if you don't abandon your Christianity, she's abandoned it, and if you don't abandon it, uh, she'll forsake you. You have no means of knowing from her handwriting that this is a fake. If you don't say goodbye to your wife and family, you'll come unstuck. That's something, isn't it? But of course, we who don't have to suffer that kind of persecution for Christ, and our souls are saved, you say, my soul is saved for eternity.
Of course it is, if you trusted Christ, purified your soul by obeying the truth, yes? Born again of the incorruptible seed of the word of God. But it remains, it's a life, redeemed, that you've got to spend. And the question is, on what are we going to spend our redeemed lives, our time, and we, we, we, we lose our life if need be in this, and we save it to life eternal. Peter has a very practical exhortation to follow that, doesn't he, in his first epistle, chapter one.
You have been, uh, born again by the incorruptible seed of the Word of God. You've purified your souls unto unfeigned love of the brethren by obedience to the truth. Now love one another with a pure heart fervently, knowing that you are begotten of the Word of God that lives and abides forever. For all flesh is as grass, and the glory thereof is the flower of grass, but the Word of God abides forever. Yeah. Love one another. You see, you've got to love something, haven't you? And you'll spend your time and energy and money on what you love. Now you've been born again, says Peter, your souls have been purified. Well, love your brothers.
You say, Peter, do you happen to know my brothers? Peter, you're a dull crowd, they are, Peter, really. And you know, uh, the world outside is beauty. Surely God wants us to endure, enjoy beauty. You see, look at the daffodils and all the beautiful things in there, you know. Why shouldn't you love, uh, the world, uh, dear Peter, my boy? My brothers, they're nice souls, but of course they are infernally dull. Yes, says Peter, they're going to last, you know, aren't they? All flesh is as grass, and the glory thereof is a flower of grass.
The flower fades. And the fashion of this world passes away, says John. But your good brethren, which you say are dull, they're going to last eternally, you know. Aren't they? Bought again with the word of God that liveth and abideth forever. Everything you spend on them, the love you spend on them, the time you spend on them, the energy you spend on them, you keep for eternity. Love the world, and it passes away, and you've lost what you spent on it. Salvation of the soul. Yep. Right, so let's briefly look at the other, uh, uh, two.
Uh, there's Mark. Mark. nine. and here, as we noticed, our Lord promises them. There be some here of them that stand by which will in no wise taste of death till they see the kingdom of God come with power. So up the mountain they went, expecting to see a tremendous exhibition of power. Now, had you been promised that you should see the kingdom of God come with power, what would you have expected to see? Just I expected at least a legion of angels, all ga- uh, armed with heavenly swords in their sheaves and mighty great trumpets and, uh, vast noise effects that would fill the whole universe with thunders and lightnings and, uh, uh, uh, uh, colossal great exhibitions of power.
They went up the mountain promising, promised to see the kingdom of God come with power, and what they saw was... that his clothes became exceeding white, uh, so as no laundryman on earth has power to whiten them. Wow. Would you think that's a particularly strong exhibition of power? We went to the Soviet ru- Union in the old days. They would want to impress you with their power. They'd line you up on the Red Square, wouldn't they, while the boys stood up on top of Lenin's tomb there, and they'd drag in front of you their inter- interballistic. Now be, be impressed by that, you'll see.
That's power for you. But the kingdom of God in power, look at the whiteness of his clothes, says Mark. That's an unearthly purity. It's a very, uh, easy symbol, isn't it? In Bible, a man's clothes very often bespeak his character. Purity of life and character that was unearthly. That's our very gospel, isn't it? We have the power to send men to the moon and beyond.
Can't control our own tempers. Preach to the world that Christ can reconcile them to God and one to another, and then in our Christian work fall out and bludgeon each other. Curious lot, aren't we? The world's problem don't ex- don't stem from the fact that we haven't yet understood all about the atom. The world's problems, as you see, are that of the human heart. There is no hope for a paradise of bliss unless some power more than human can whiten our garments.
Yes? Keep your finger in that. They tell me that, um, mm, behind Mark's gospel was Peter, that Peter wrote it, but, uh, that Mark wrote it, that but Peter gave him the information. Could be so, couldn't it? Because there's one place in the epistles that the transfiguration is, is mentioned, is there not? And that's second Peter chapter one. Uh, in verses twelve, Peter rem- says here, I shall be ready always to put you in remembrance of these things, though you know them and are established in the truth which is with you.
I think it right, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance, knowing that the putting off of my tabernacle cometh swiftly, even as our Lord Jesus Christ signified unto me. Yea, and I will give diligence that at every time you may be able, after my decease, to call these things to remembrance. For we did not follow cunningly devised fables. When we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his glory, of his majesty, for he received from God the Father honor and glory when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.
And this voice we ourselves heard come out of heaven when we were with him in the Holy Mount. You'll see Peter, as he looks back on that event, saw it as an impressive, um, uh, exhibition of the power and coming. Matthew tells us it was to be a picture of the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. Mark says a picture, a vision of Christ coming, the kingdom of God coming with power. Peter's got the both ideas in his recollection of the Transfiguration in two Peter chapter one. So he is reminding the believers, look, we have not followed cunningly devised fables.
This was real. We were actually there. We actually heard that voice come out of the cloud, that cloud which was the Shekinah glory of the presence of God. We heard God speak every bit as much as the Israelites around Mount Sinai saw no form, but they heard the voice come out of heaven, as Moses reminded them. We heard it. It is not a fable. It certainly isn't a myth. We were there. We heard it with our two ears, the voice come out of heaven, and we saw this exhibition of his power and coming. Why is Peter so concerned to get the believers, uh, remembering that? He said, you know, I, I, I, I shall be ready always to put you in remembrance of these things, though you know them and they're established i- in the truth.
So first of all, he's going to remind them of these things, and then he says, I think it right as long as I'm in this tabernacle to stir you up. Ah. Oh, I like that from a preacher's point of view, don't you? You can, uh, preach to a congregation sometimes about the coming of the Lord Jesus, and I nod, he's orthodox, yeah, yeah, yeah, very good. And they're half asleep. That's no good. You not only to remind them, you've got to get them by their shoulders and shake them. Bunch them on the seat, stir them up. But if the power and coming of our Lord haven't got a grip of us, we missed the point of it, haven't we?
We may know the fact. It's recognizing the significance of the fact. You'll see. I'm going to do it, says Peter, so that, um, I will give divi- diligence that every time you may be after a- able after my decease to call these things to remembrance. And when I'm gone to heaven, you'll be gathered over some beautiful dinner party that Mrs. So-and-so has put on, and there you'll all be, and the conversation will turn on. Peter, remember? Oh, Peter, yes. Did he ever come to your church to preach? Yes, he did, you know. Uh, and one voice will pop up, you know, hmm, yeah, the funny thing about Peter, he's always harping on the same, uh, uh, thing, you see, you know, you never can really see- think of Peter without thinking of his son.
Always talking about the second coming and the power of Christ, wasn't he? Good, says Peter, I've done my job. Wasn't it that way? But whenever you think of Peter, you'll say to yourself, ah yes, always talking on it, wasn't he? You may be able to call these things to remembrance after my decease. Well, what things? What is the point of saying this, all this about the Transfiguration? Well, listen to the first paragraph in that letter. Grace to you, verse two, and peace be multiplied in the knowledge of God and of our Je- and of Jesus our Lord, seeing that his divine power has granted unto us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that called us by his own glory and virtue, whereby he has granted unto us his precious and exceeding great promises, that through these you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption of the wor- uh, that is in the world by lust.
Yea, and for this very cause, adding on your part all diligence. In your faith supply virtue, and in your virtue knowledge, and in your knowledge self-control, and in your self-control endurance, and in your endurance godliness, and in your godliness love of the brothers, and in your love of the brothers love. For if these things are yours and abound, they make you to be not idle nor unfruitful unto the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he that lacketh these things is blind, seeing only what is near, having forgotten the cleansing from his old sins. Wherefore, brothers, give the more diligence to make your calling and election sure.
For if you do these things, you shall never stumble. For thus shall be richly supplied unto you the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The power is available. We were eyewitnesses of his majesty and of his power. The power is available. What's it for? Well, his divine power has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness, but alongside of that, you are to add all diligence, says, um, Peter. To add those characters to your, those qualities to your Christian character, to develop you as believers.
Why do I bother? You say my soul is saved. Uh, Mr. McCready came, when was it now? Hm? That was, I can point to the date, it was Thursday the seventeenth of February nineteen hundred and I, my soul was saved. Really? Oh, jolly good. Has it developed since. You added all these qualities to your Christian character. Why should I bother you if I'm going to be in heaven? Whether I make any progress or not? Or so. That ain't quite the point, is it? Listen to the last verse. For thus shall be richly supplied unto you.
Not just supplied, but richly supplied unto you the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The emphasis on the verb is on the, on the adverb. For thus it shall be richly ministered to you. Not a question of if you do these things, you'll get in. Every believer will get into the eternal kingdom, yes? The terms upon which we enter the eternal city. Revelation twenty two fourteen, in the proper text and not the King James text, it says, blessed are they that wash their robes, that they might have right to the tree of life and enter into the gate of the city, wash their robes in the blood of the Lamb.
Every blood-washed believer will enter the eternal kingdom. But this verse is saying, yes, that some will have an entrance ministered to them richly, and some... just an entrance. If I shall be content to be there, some low place within his door will do me. Really, will it? What, for all eternity? What does it mean to enter the eternal kingdom? How do you picture heaven, anyway? Uh, uh, as a big opera house, plush seats, some more expensive than others, but everybody who's inside sees the show.
Just a place you get in. Or could heaven be also an experience? And could it be that our enjoyment of the experience will depend on how much we have developed our souls here? The only illustration I can think of it, and it's just worn out now, and it's, uh, long overdue for retread, you'll see my illustration, but wiser heads and minds can think of a better one. I picture a Christmas party, you'll see, with different folks there. There's a little chap of a year and a half in his high chair by the table.
There's a boy of about eight, there's a girl of seventeen, there's mum and dad. They're all at the party. They're all enjoying it to their full capacity. The boy of a year and a half has got hold of a ladle, and he's got it into the cream, and he's pouring it over his head, down the floor, having a marvelous time. And at half past six, his mother takes him, baths and puts him to bed, and he thinks it's been marvelous. The chap of eight is on the floor playing these digital computer trains with his father, you see. The little boy, from time to time, looks over his, um, high chair.
Hm. Not interested. Doesn't know what's going on, in fact. Why? Because he hadn't grown. So he doesn't know what he's missing. The boy of eight isn't pouring cream over his head. Daft thing to do. He is enjoying the trains, you see, on the floor. There's Sweet seventeen. Oh, you should see her. Marks and Spencer's couldn't provide a gown like that, what she's got on. I don't know where she got it, but of course, superb, just sitting on the settee. The other end of the settee is a gallant young gentleman, you see. The boy on the floor keeps pestering his sister, come and sit on the floor and play trains.
No. You see? Not interested in playing trains. What knows she doing it? Well, she's just talking to this young man, you see. An eight-year-old can't make out on earth why anybody in their right mind would sit, sit on a settee talking to somebody when he could be playing with trains. You say, well, he hasn't grown up, you see, has he? They're all at the party. The party was an experience, but a multi-layered experience. They all enjoyed it to the full of their capacity, but some enjoyed more than others.
Is heaven that real? Because if it is, then the power is available, says Peter, his divine power, we saw exhibition of it up the mountain, due all the way. His, his clothes were white and glistening, so as no fuller on earth could whiten them, there was unearthly purity, gloriously beautiful. And the power's available. But we shall need, on our part, to add all diligence to cooperate with God, to add these things to our character, can't we? So that we grow, and thus the entrance ministered to us richly into that eternal kingdom.
Yeah? Very serious. Wonderful, but serious. It is possible, you see, says Peter, to be saved and then forget the past and to be shortsighted as to the future. He that forgets this need to progress is forgetting what the goal is. And then when you forget the goal, it's all too possible to forget the past as well. He's forgotten the cleansing of his former sins. Ask him what salvation is all about now, and he isn't quite sure. So we need this vision of the coming heaven, the coming kingdom of God, the coming of Christ, so that it would urge us on and control our spending of our souls, so that our souls may be saved in the fundamental sense.
We have chosen the Savior. Souls have been purified, been born again, but now we have the responsibility of using those souls, spending those souls, those redeemed lives and their powers, and making something of it for eternity. And that is where Mark's final story in the Transfiguration comes in, doesn't it? You notice what happened when they came down to the mountain, uh, to his father, and he said, I brought my son to your apostles, uh, your, and they couldn't cast out the demon. If you have the power to do anything, he said, have compassion on us. If thou canst, it literally, if you have the power, have compassion on us.
What do you mean, says Christ, if thou hast the power? It's not a question of whether I have the power. The question is, have you the power to believe, old fellow? For all things are possible, are within the power of, dunnatos is the word, to him that believeth. And the man replied, Lord, I do believe, help thou mine unbelief. And the Lord didn't say, of course not, I shall wait till tell you how your faith is absolutely perfect. I wouldn't dream of giving you anything until your faith is perfect. Well, of course not. Even though his faith was imperfect, the Lord blessed him.
We have to pray according to Paul, don't we? We're wise to pray it daily, that the eyes of our hearts be enlightened, that we may know what is the hope of his calling, what the ex-glory of the riches of in his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power towards us that he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead and set him into his own right hand in glory? So that's Matthew and that's Mark. And what about Luke? Ah, well, like all good teachers, I leave that to you. What is Luke's account, you see, because it now says eleven o'clock, and it's time we had a break and had our coffee.
