The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit lesson 38
Miles Driedger · Dec 18, 2022
Holy Spirit (2021-23), No. 91
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492619293964

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Last week, we looked at the first two questions on Lesson 38. And so I'm going to just recap those quickly. Essentially, what does the Old Testament prove about man? And then what is the positive purpose of the Old Testament? So, in other words, kind of the negative and positive sides, if we can say there's a negative side to scripture. You know, we talked about the fact that Scripture makes very clear the problem of sin and death, and the outworking of that in Adam's race, and then we got into some about Christ and what and what the Old Testament does in pointing us to Him.

We talked a little bit about types of Christ in the Old Testament. I just want to review that a little bit to introduce question three. When we start to look at types, we want to be sure we're not doing what the liberal theologian does, and that's basically to look at the Old Testament and all the scripture like it's a work of fiction. They'll give high praise to the literary masterpiece of scripture, but they don't believe it for a minute. you know, it's so much greater than that, right? We've already discussed, I think it was in JD's last lesson, we discussed the fact that the Old Testament records things as they are, or as they really happen, right?

So this is, you know, historical accuracy to the finest detail. But kind of what we touched on, and we'll talk about a little bit more, is that Jesus himself directed the lives and events of history in such a way that real events and real men pictured him.

I'm going to get you guys to sit down in chairs over here. We've got a lot of kids here in the room. But Jesus imprinted pictures if I can use the word pictures, into real history to display who he is. And that's kind of what the word type means. A type is an imprint of something that strikes it. And we maybe gave a few examples last week about that.

But you can see that he not only orchestrated the historical events, But then he inspired his prophets to write down precisely the events that he wanted captured in writing for all of eternity. And I thought of the verses in 1 Peter, chapter 1, verse 10 and 11. And what's interesting is that these prophets who wrote, they couldn't even see see exactly who they were talking about. Does someone want to read 1 Peter 1, 10 and 11?

If someone can bring that up. As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow."

Wow. Okay. Yeah. Wow. Did you notice in there who is the one that predicted? Honestly, I kind of overlooked this way too many times. Spirit of Christ. Yeah. It was the Spirit of Christ who was predicting the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow, right? So, Jesus, as he inspired the scripture, was predicting himself. And so, I think that sort of sums up what what we were saying about how the Old Testament points to Christ, in a way. But it's an amazing truth, you know, that the eternally existent Jesus Christ was orchestrating these events and then giving the prophets exactly what to write down that would point to him. So this kind of leads into question three here.

Question number three says, what does Ephesians 1.10 tell us about God's ultimate purpose for the Word? That's a huge question, and I think it's going to end up taking the rest of the time this morning. That's just kind of, as I delved into this, actually what I'm going to do is I'm going to read what Rydow said about this.

He says about Ephesians 1.10, He says, the more deeply you plunge into the study of prophetic and dispensational truth, the more impressed do you become with this divine, intelligent purpose of God to make His Son the center of all blessing and of the Holy Spirit in giving us a divine narrative of this purpose. And yeah, the more you delve into it, the more impressed you become. And that was what happened to me as I kind of prepared for this question. It just kept going and going. There's, you know, there's so much here.

So let's read. Ephesians 1, 10, I want to include verse 9 in it. And before we do that, last week, Mike, you talked about, I think the way you said it is that Jesus is the solution to the problem. And I want to bring your minds back to that point as we go through this question.

And actually, I was going to put up here, let's see, can I do this? Does that show up behind me? That's a mirror image in my thing does it 6x equals 42, okay? Reflection but yeah, it may not be it's okay. We don't have to have that up there, but Let's read. Let's read Ephesians 1 9 and 10 does someone have that? Russ you got it, too I wasn't trying to interrupt you there.

So he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his kind intention, which he purposed in him with a view of ministration suitable to the fullness of times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavenlies and things on earth in him. Wow. Awesome. Thank you. Yeah, so... That's some deep stuff. It's some deep stuff, yeah. It really is.

So, the first thing I noticed, and this is why I wanted to include verse 9, is the words, He made known to us. You know, that says a lot, right? Because you can ask the question, well, what has God made known to us? But I think the better question is, who has God made known to us? Who has He made known to us?

And that really brings our minds into thinking about this little section here really, really clear. You guys are probably familiar with it. The Greek word generally translated mystery there, in verse 9, you made known to us the mystery, is the Greek word mysterion, and it simply means something previously unrevealed that has now been made known. So we read 1 Peter 1, 10 and 11 there, and we see how neatly this fits with what we just read there.

But all the Old Testament prophets, they were writing about Christ, but they didn't know who He was yet. They didn't know Him. And now, the mystery that's been made known is Christ, who was previously known about, but not known. So God has now made known to us what all the Old Testament prophets spoke of, but couldn't yet see.

And that's why, you know, just think of Jesus on the Emmaus Road, right? And he was able to show how all the Old Testament spoke of him. That's just an amazing, that would have been, incredible to be there for. We'll get that someday, but we weren't on the road that day, so we didn't get that one. But all the Old Testament scriptures that spoke of him, Jesus was the one who was orchestrating that, putting that together, and so he knows precisely how it points to him.

Looking at Ephesians 1.10, I don't know if this will be a helpful illustration or not, but in my mind, I kind of like math. I'm not great at it, but I like it. So this illustration might be helpful to some of you, especially if you like solving for the unknown. Anybody, I don't know, if you hate math, maybe this will be a terrible illustration, but. Definitely hate it.

Well, you know what, the reason I wanted to put that up there is because if you're the kind of mathematical type, you're itching right now to go up and solve for the unknown, because there's that X in there, and you're like, I know what X is, you know? Six Xs, I know what X is, right?

And, you know, all throughout the Old Testament, Jesus has been, you know, filling in the blackboard, so to speak, with information. And we see the negative side, like we talked about, the problem of sin and death. So that's part of the equation. We see the positive side, which is information about what the Savior would be like. But the equation remained unsolved. You know, there was still the unknown factor. You know, who do these speak about? And not until Jesus took on flesh and was manifested among men did we know that Jesus is the solution to the problem. Going back to Mike's comment.

So, you see that in this verse here that Jesus summed up or satisfied the equation, so to speak. In math we call it, you know, satisfying the equation, right? And it's like when Jesus comes into place, everything just clicks. That's the way it feels like when you solve a math equation. It just clicks and all of a sudden everything works. It makes sense, right?

So are you saying that the Old Testament is algebra? Yeah, exactly. Oh boy, now I just ruined the Old Testament for some people. No, you didn't. I mean, based on Ephesians 1, 9, and 10, you know, it was not known at the time. So there was an unknown X all throughout the Old Testament.

It's a really good illustration. I'll come back to that one for sure. Yeah, it reminded me, as I was jotting down my notes here and thinking about this, of, you know, in the Lamb book, the kids book by John Cross, you get to the one page and there's just a big question mark. I don't know who did the art for that, but it's a good bit of art. And it's just a question mark. And it's exactly this, it's like, okay, we've seen all this stuff in the Old Testament, we've seen, you know, in that, we talk about sin, we talk about, you know, the Lamb's sacrifice and so forth, and then, but who fills in this blank, you know?

And it's Christ. He's the solution, so to speak. Rydot calls him the center of all blessing. Yeah. Yeah, go ahead, Mike. Don't you get the impression, Rydot says, the more deeply you plunge into the study of prophetic and dispensational truth, the more impressed you become with the divine intelligent purpose. And here it is. of God to make his son the center of all blessings.

What strikes me about that is that, you know, Christianity is really the pursuit of an intimacy with a person, the Lord Jesus Christ. And we are so prone to make it a theological system or a system of rules or it's our denomination or whatever, rather than I think that Old Testament pointed to it, and there's no question that everything in the New Testament, especially Paul, is designed, as he says in Ephesians, he made known to us the mystery of his will.

He's already done that. For some reason, and I have yet to figure out, what is the barrier in believers of just not letting God reveal himself in Christ to us through his word and through fellowship and all that goes with it. We're all, you know, well, I'm Reform, I'm Dispensational, I'm this, I'm that, the other thing.

You know, right out, or not right out, but J.B. Stoney said one day, you know, in one of those Hungry Hearts that, you know, he gets together with guys and they talk about things that are going on and then somewhere in the conversation they get down to where they're just talking about the wonders of Jesus Christ. Just Him. And I think we miss that. We don't talk enough about it. We don't encourage believers to allow the Spirit of God to just reveal Christ the person to us. Because that's what He wants to do, I think. Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly it.

The more I think about it over the last while, someone shared with me a little while back, we started teaching this group of kids here this fall some Bible courses, kind of like Bible school for teenagers. And someone shared with me what L.E. Maxwell foot down as the mission statement or whatever you want to call it for Prairie Bible Institute. And it's to know Christ and to make Him known. And I've just come to realize that really is, that's it. To know Christ and to make Him known.

You know, I can't add anything to that. So, yeah. I think that that whole passage that we just started looking at there, I mean, unpacking that would sets you on a six-week teaching schedule. However, I think it's interesting that in verse 10, it's with a view to an administration, right? So that's that dispensation.

That's that section of time that God works in and we call it a household administration or it kind of comes with that thinking. But what's really interesting is right after that, it's suitable to the fullness of times. That is the summing up of all things in Christ. And so that whole totality of completeness of time, the fullness of times, this is what God was bringing all of the Old Testament. And these are years. These are people's lives. And they're all looking forward, according to the book of Ephesians, towards this new household rule that God is going to bring about that sums everything up.

And it's not just the summing up of things on earth, it's also in heaven. And I love the very last part of verse 10, in him. I wrote just him in the chat here, but in him is the summation of all things in Christ, on heaven and on earth. All of these guys and gals lives that we read about in the Old Testament, God's divine intelligent purpose is being revealed so as to sum up all things in the person of his son.

You want to know the answer? We looked back, they looked forward, they didn't know the algebra. You know, X, they didn't know that it was seven. They didn't know. Maybe they did, I don't know. To a degree, Isaiah probably knew a little bit more than some others did. But nonetheless, X was a little bit unclear, but it was believed. And I think that's what's interesting is that those folks had to believe in the X. They had to believe in that unknown.

Yet, here Paul gets to write in retrospect and say, yeah, the sum, and I think it's interesting with your equation there, maybe still in your thinking, sorry, but that 42 is the summing up of all things in Christ, not on earth alone, but in heaven as well.

I have a few thoughts here on that, because there's just so much packed in there, but in the fullness of times, and often believers talk about how near the end times are, and we get it, we know the rapture's coming, but almost everyone misses the fact that the last times began when Christ came the first time. You know, we talked about 1 Peter 1, 10-11, where the prophets sought to know who would fulfill these things, but if we continue down to verse 20, Peter makes this fantastic statement. 1 Peter 1, 20 says, for he who was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you, who through him are believers in God. And so, again, we see here that Jesus was foreknown from the foundation of the world, but then at a point in time, he appeared or has been revealed.

And when did it happen? In these last times. And I wanted to look at a few other references that say basically the same thing. And there's a lot of them, but here's a few that I found really, really neat. Hebrews 9, 26. We can hear you. Mic test checked out.

Hebrews 9.26 says, Now once, at the consummation of the ages, he has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. Again, same thing. At the consummation of the ages, he's been manifested or displayed or seen. And again, to put away sin.

And then Galatians 14.4, Galatians 14.4 says, but when the fullness of the time came, same type of expression, when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth his son. Notice if God sent forth Jesus, it tells us that he preexisted, but had not been sent yet, not been seen yet.

What version is that? That's Galatians 14. Oh, sorry. Oh, that's the wrong reference. There's no Galatians 14. That'd be Galatians, uh, what would that be? Four? No. Anyway, I put that in my notes, but someone have the right reference on that? I thought it might be 414, but... Yeah. Or 444. Sorry, that's what it is. Galatians 444. Yeah. Thanks, Mike. And then John is so cool with this stuff.

He's just packed with it. But in 1 John chapter 1, in verse 1 he says, what was from the beginning? And he's talking about, he doesn't even say who. He says, what was from the beginning? And we understand it as Jesus in the context. And then in verse 2, he says, the eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us. And then there's this beautiful example, again from John, in the Gospel of John, chapter 1, verse 14, and we all know this, and this ties in really nicely with next Sunday for Christmas. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. So, all of this and so many other scriptures, these are just a few really good ones that I picked out.

You know, Jesus stepped into creation and we saw him. That's, that's what, you know, I, uh, I really, I don't know how to sum that up, but, um... I really like that, Miles. That's really good. It's pretty cool, isn't it? Yeah, it really is. If, if we, if we keep looking at John, um, John chapter one, the gospel, um, if you're there or not, but, um, I want you to see how John connects this with what John the Baptist says. So look at John 1, verse 15.

And remember, we're talking about the Old Testament and prophets and stuff. Remember that John the Baptist was the last of the stream of the Old Testament prophets. And just like the prophets before him, John was searching out what person the Spirit of Christ within him was indicating. And he says, this is he of whom I said He who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for he existed before me." So, John was the prophet who finally saw who it was that the Spirit of Christ was pointing to. It's pretty cool, but if you look down further in the chapter, in verse 31, John the Baptist makes it really clear. He says, I did not recognize him, but so that he might be manifested, God showed him to me. God's pointed so. So John was in the same boat as all these other prophets.

He's like, I didn't recognize him. I didn't know. Because you remember, these guys were relatives. They grew up together. They probably knew each other. But he didn't know until God showed him, this is the one. And now he's seen. Now he's manifested. So it was as though John had the opportunity to see that X filled in. The imprint was no longer an imprint. It was a person. But it was an eternal person. So God had, through His Spirit, revealed that all of these things about the eternal Savior that was to come, the Redeemer, John doesn't recognize Him at first.

But at some point, that X got filled in, and like you said, they're relatives. What an interesting fullness of time's completion of the equation, right? Yeah. So cool. Yeah. So I wanted to go back to one real quick thing. I know I'm interrupting a little bit, but I thought it was interesting in that 1 Peter 1.21, that Peter's talking about that he's appeared in these last times for the sake of you. We don't need to go into it, but I find that very interesting to think that at that particular point in time, they were already conceiving of these last times and how... Yeah, that's just a really interesting... Yeah, no...

I want to dig into that a little bit here. Like I said, because I know, I think, I don't know, were you reading NASB when we did Ephesians there? I looked at a few different versions. I liked Darby's translation, actually, but when I looked at the Greek and stuff, but it says a dispensation or an administration of the fullness of times.

The NASB put it suitable to the fullness of times, but the word suitable, it really isn't there, which, whatever. I mean, it can kind of fit, but It's a dispensation or administration of the fullness of time. So what exactly is this fullness of time? What exactly is this, you know, the end of the ages? And we've seen in all these different verses that we read there, you know, the consummation of the ages, the fullness of the time, and so forth. And actually what's interesting in that Ephesians passage is it's the fullness of times, plural. So of all the times, or we say all the dispensations, this is the one of the fullness of time. This is it, kind of thing. This is where it was all headed.

We saw, and I mentioned in 1 Peter 1 11 there, that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ was in them, was talking about the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow. And so we see that Christ came at this point in time, we see that He suffered and died and He was raised and He was glorified. And now what? Is He gone? You know, the end of the ages came 2,000 years ago and then Christ ascended to heaven and the wheels of history have just continued to spin for 2,000 years or what is it, right?

Here's a question for everyone. Is the suffering of Christ and the glories to follow, is that all past tense completed history? Can you say that one more time? I'll say it again. That was a bit of a mouthful. So we're looking at how Christ came at the fullness of times, right? And we know that he came, he suffered, he died, he was raised and glorified, and we kind of think of that as past tense, but is it past tense? I'm going to take a stab.

So in Ephesians 1 10, with a view to an administration, meaning dispensation or household rule, suitable to the fullness of times, we know that the fullness of times, that is the summing up of all of things in Christ, that's That is future in terms of the Messiah's millennial reign, but it's also present in the sense of the revealing of who Christ is, that making the imprint, that impact, that X known, right? So, part of this has been revealed, and we would say that's 2,000 years ago. However, the summing up of all things in Christ, I think, is still yet future for us, it's a millennial reign, but it's interesting that those dispensations are wrapped together in some ways, and maybe I'm not reading it exactly right, maybe spend some more time with it, but his administration is to fulfill who that imprint of all those Old Testament saints were looking towards for a Redeemer, the Messiah. And then the summing up of all things, I think, is the millennial reign of Christ. Awesome. Yeah. I'm going to read something from yesterday's Hungry Heart. Who is T-A-S? T-A-S Sparks. T-A-S Sparks. OK. OK. I can't always get the initials.

Okay, he said, all our activities and efforts and energies and expenditures, all our sacrifices, our movements and our teaching, everything that has become a part of Christianity has to be measured by the one rule. Is it resulting in the reproduction of the Lord Jesus Christ in the lives of men and women so that it is demonstrated from heaven that he is as truly here in the world now as ever he was in history? He is as truly here in the world now as ever he was in history. You know, our head is in heaven, yes, but the body of Christ is in the world, and He is in us and we are in Him. And what began 2,000 years ago when Christ was revealed, when He was manifest, has not yet ceased. When the Lord appeared to Paul on the Damascus Road, he said, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?

Romans 8, 17 says, if children heirs also, heirs of God and Christ's joint heirs, if indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified with him. And then 1 Corinthians 12, 26 and 27, And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it. If one member is glorified, all the members rejoice with it. Now you are Christ's body and individually members of it.

So I really think that from the time that Christ was manifested 2,000 years ago, He has not ceased to be revealed to the world. And He's being revealed through His body. And one more verse. maybe two, 2 Corinthians 4, 10-11, always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So the suffering of Christ is still being revealed. And the glory of Christ is also manifested through us, which is absolutely mind-blowing to me.

We could probably have a discussion right there about position and condition, but that's for another day. The point is that the work of Christ on the cross is completed. This end of the bargain is done. So, even though it doesn't appear like all of the elements of the Eternal Covenant have been carried out, they are being carried out from a Finnish standpoint. The Father is doing through Him, in fact, He's being worked out now. I hesitate sometimes that some believers say, well, you know, this truth or that truth is sometime in the future.

No, it's all ours now. At the same time, whether I experience it or not, it's still true of me. I still am in Christ. I still am. I still am. What Paul and Peter and James and John all talk about, that's who I am. The sanctification process of manifesting the resurrected life of Christ through me, that's the processing that's going on right now. But it's all done from a finished work. It's not a work that's being done to complete later. It's all being done from something that's already finished.

I do have a question about that next week. I've got a verse that kind of confounded me a little bit, but isn't in full line with mostly what we're saying, but he's still at work, right? Um, I don't want to, I don't want to go past time, but, um, yeah. So let's look at acts three 21 next time. Just out of interest. All right. Cool. Yeah. Well, I, uh, yeah, I mean, there's so much like, like we said at the beginning, this would just go on and on and on, you know?

Um, And if you want to, I don't know, where I kind of concluded my study for the time being is in Revelation chapter 20. And we're there, we're talking about the bride. And this to me really stuck out. Revelation 20 verse 4, then I saw thrones, plural, and they sat on them and judgment was given to them. And contextually, It's Christ and his bride. And in Revelation 20, verse 6, Jesus said, well, he who sits on the throne said to me, Jesus, it is done.

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost. And I couldn't sum up the administration of grace any better than that. The water of life freely without cost.

And that's the administration that the Lord is developing. The body right now is growing into the head, so that ultimately the completed body of Christ administers this entire... it becomes the administration of this entire universe, things in heaven and things on earth, in Him. It's just unfathomable. I'll close in prayer there. Heavenly Father, thank you for the unfathomable riches in Christ that we're just cracking the door on. And Lord, I pray that you would continue to lead us, direct us into clarity on these things for the sake of knowing Christ more fully, more intimately, and to just to know Him. And we thank you for this time this morning. In Jesus' name, Amen.