Jason S. DeRouchie's Blog

(Audio Download / PDF / SoundCloud) DeRouchie gave this message on 9/21/2025 at the Sovereign Joy Baptist Church plant in Liberty, MO.

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Today marks our church’s one-year anniversary of weekly worship gatherings. Praise the Lord for providing and protecting. My heart warms with affection for you as members of Sovereign Joy, and my love for you has only grown the last several weeks as we’ve walked through flames together. We don’t yet know what God is forging, but as Tolkien highlighted in Fellowship of the Ring how fire alone could disclose the writing on the one great ring, the heat of the past weeks is increasingly disclosing the law of God written on your hearts. You have acted so responsibly, revealing both your ownership of our church and your commitment to the glory of God in the face of Christ. I praise the Lord for you, and I am eager to journey forward with you to glorify God by making mature disciples through the Word and Spirit for the joy of all peoples in Jesus Christ.

Today also marks the start of a preaching series through Deuteronomy 5–11, which shapes the heart of this amazing book that calls God’s people to love him with all. Paul said, “Whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Rom 15:4; cf. 2 Tim 3:16). Deuteronomy is Christian Scripture that God gave “for our instruction” that we might gain “hope.” With this, Jesus noted, “If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me” (John 5:46). As we walk through one of Moses’s sermons in Deuteronomy, we get to consider how these words bear witness to Christ (5:39).

I say these things fully recognizing that Paul said that Moses’s law multiplied transgression (Rom 5:20; Gal 3:19), exposed sin (Rom 3:20), and brought wrath (4:15). Why preach through a book filled with laws that brought death to God’s people due to their inability to obey perfectly? Doesn’t Paul stress that the old law-covenant of Deuteronomy bore “a ministry of death” and “a ministry of condemnation” only to be superseded by the new covenant’s “ministry of righteousness” (2 Cor 4:7, 9)? Doesn’t Paul highlight that “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes” (Rom 10:4)? Why then would we as Christians want to focus on the law of Moses?

These are important questions, and the challenges only increase when we see that Paul equally said that this same law includes “the embodiment of knowledge and truth” (Rom 2:20) and that “the law” of Deuteronomy “is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good” (7:12). Why did this book inform and influence the old covenant seers, sages, and song writers more than any other, and why was this book one of Jesus and Paul’s favorites? When the devil tempted Jesus in the wilderness, verses in Deuteronomy shaped three of his responses (Matt 4:4, 7, 10; cf. Deut 8:3; 6:16, 13), and later Jesus said the “most important commandment” was Deuteronomy’s foundational call to love the one God with all (Mark 12:29–30; cf. Deut 6:4–5). Paul pointed to Deuteronomy to celebrate that we can be saved if we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart that God raised him from the dead (Rom 10:8–9; cf. Deut 30:14). Deuteronomy helped justify Paul’s mission to the Gentiles (Rom 15:10; cf. Deut 32:43), and he recalled Deuteronomy to highlight how Christ became a curse for us so we may be justified by faith (Gal 3:11, 13; cf. Deut 21:23).

Deuteronomy is Christian Scripture that matters for Christians. While the book served as a constitution for the united tribes of Israel and detailed the old Mosaic covenant relationship of which we are not a part, it also foretells how Israel would disown this relationship and how God would work through a new covenant prophetic mediator who would forever ensure lasting relationship and a universal kingdom. The church today is part of that new work, called the new covenant in Christ, so we can begin to see how Deuteronomy was written “for our instruction” to awaken “hope” in a trustworthy God who is faithful to his promises.

Turn to Deuteronomy 4:44–49, which introduce Moses’s second sermon and clarify its nature, audience, and historical setting. The words come from unnamed narrator, whose principal role in the book is to let us hear Moses’s final words to a community he had been shepherding for forty years. If God told you that you would die tomorrow, what would you say to the people you’ve loved and lead for four decades? Along with a warning song and a death-bed blessing, Moses’s four sermons in Deuteronomy supply his last words before death. Collectively they are called “the book of the law” (Deut 29:21; 30:10; 31:26), but you should think of them less as the legal dictates of a judge and more as the passionate guidance of a father to his children––the instructions of a shepherd who cares deeply about the heart and future of his sheep. This is what we will get in Deuteronomy 5–11. But first we must hear the narrator’s heading for this larger unit and his preamble to the second sermon. Follow along as I read Deuteronomy 4:44–49…. Pray with me….

The Law of Moses (4:44)

To grasp properly a passage’s lasting significance, we must query the author’s intent. Some texts seek to instruct, calling for faith or action. Others seek to motivate, clarifying promises or warnings designed to guide other stated goals. Still other texts, like this one, seek to inform. So, as we consider Scriptural application today, you’ve gained what God intended if you better understand in a way that readies your heart for what is coming. We are to think rightly about issues like the speaker’s identity and authority and the timing and setting of his words. We must remember that God does not include superficial details in his text. The Spirit gave us these words on purpose, and we must consider why.

Our text has a double heading, the first of which comes in 4:44: “And this is the law that Moses set before the people of Israel.” While absent in the ESV, verse 44 begins with a conjunction that links this heading to the book’s beginning. 1:1 opens, “These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel,” and now 4:44 adds, “And this is the law that Moses set before the people of Israel.” The first sermon in chapters 1–4 is categorized as “words,” and then the several messages that run from chapters 5–28 are together designated as “the law.” The “words” in chapters 1–4 supply the historical context and implications of the covenant God is here renewing in the region of Moab, and then the “law” in chapters 5–28 clarifies the content of the covenant itself.

Next, we must rightly grasp this concept of covenant. It’s a special formal relationship between two parties based on binding promises with God as witness. Legal contracts like land purchases could include a penalty but wouldn’t incur the wrath of God if you failed your commitment. In contrast, covenants included blessings and curses that God would carry out based on whether the human party was faithful to the stipulations. The world’s story told in the Bible develops through a progression of these special relationships between God and humanity.

Deuteronomy’s messages summarize the Moab covenant, which gets its name from the region of Moab, north of the Dead Sea, where Moses gave his final sermons. The Moab covenant renews the relationship God initiated with Israel at Mount Sinai after the exodus. This collective relationship is often referred to as the Mosaic covenant, because Moses is the human instrument God used to formalize the relationship. In Galatians 3, Paul speaks of this old Mosaic covenant when he writes, “The law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God [to Abraham], so as to make the promise void” (Gal 3:17). God had pledged that the world would be blessed through Abraham, and the old law-covenant that Yahweh gave to Israel four centuries later through Moses at Sinai and then through Deuteronomy could not annul those earlier promises.

As salvation history progresses, Israel’s condemnation in the age of Moses’s law gives rise to the age of faith in Christ. Thus, the new covenant supersedes the old. Again, Paul says in Galatians 3, “Before [the age of] faith came, we were held captive under the law [of Moses], imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith” (Gal 3:23–26).

When Paul speaks of law, he almost always refers to the Mosaic law-covenant as detailed in Deuteronomy 5–28. When the narrator introduces this section of Scripture with the heading, “This is the law,” he highlights that what follows supplies the commands and prohibitions for enjoying a lasting relationship with God. But the same section also clarifies the blessings of life that will come if they obey and the curses of death that will result if they don’t. The language of “law,” therefore, summarizes the body of the covenant––both the directives or instructions that guide the relationship and the promises and warnings that motivate it. When Paul says, “the law is holy” (Rom 7:12), and, “I delight in the law of God in my inner being” (7:22), and when he says, “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness” (10:4), he refers to the law-covenant in Deuteronomy that is here introduced with this heading, “This is the law that Moses set before the people of Israel” (Deut 4:44). The content here provided the legal framework for Israel’s future in the promised land. It is this law by which judges were to render justice (16:18–20), kings were to rule (17:18–20), and priests were to teach (33:10). It is this law that the future prophet like Moses would fulfill and clarify and that the new covenant community would then follow (18:15, 18; 30:8, 14).

Finally, the passage associates Moses, not God, with this “law.” Yet these concepts are not at odds, for Moses operates as an ambassador of the heavenly court whom Yahweh commissioned with a word for the people. Moses stands as the mediator of the covenant because he represented God before the people, serving as God’s mouthpiece, and then represented the people before God through prayer. The “law” is indeed Moses’s law, but he is merely the messenger, clarifying for Israel the revelation of God, who is king over all. Elsewhere Scripture refers to the special relationship between Yahweh and Israel as the old covenant because it stands in contrast to the new covenant, for which Jesus is the mediator. The old covenant includes “the law of Moses,” whereas the new covenant includes “the law of Christ” (cf. 1 Cor 9:20–21; Gal 6:2), whom Deuteronomy calls a prophet like Moses.

The Demands of the Moab Covenant

Whereas the “law” of Moses in 4:44 introduces several speeches, the new heading in 4:45 announces only the second message, which has two sections––chapters 5–11 and 12–26. We read, “These are the testimonies, the statutes, and the rules, which Moses spoke to the people of Israel.” Chapters 5–11 read like a sermon and are the “testimonies,” whereas chapters 12–26 sound more like laws and are the detailed “statues and rules.” Chapters 5–11 provide three “testimonies,” each beginning with “Hear, O Israel” (5:1; 6:4; 9:1), that urge Israel to love Yahweh with all by heeding the covenant stipulations that follow (5:1; 11:32).

Having clarified the messenger, audience, and nature of the sermon that follows, the narrator now wants us to consider the significance of several features of history and geography that ready us to interpret properly what Moses is about to preach. Let’s look at each of these in turn.

The Timing

“Moses spoke to the people of Israel when they came out of Egypt” (4:45). The greatest act of divine deliverance in the Old Testament era was the exodus, when Yahweh rescued Israel after 400 years of bondage to Egypt. Thus, we read, “The LORD has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt” (4:20). Highlighting the uniqueness of this event, Moses adds, “Or has any god ever attempted to go and take a nation for himself from midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, and by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great deeds of terror, all of which the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?” (4:34). Moses’s law is here framed in the context not of enslavement but of freedom. The narrator stresses that Moses’s call to love God with all in Deuteronomy 5–11 comes as a response to saving grace and not as a means for gaining it. In view of how much God has won for them, will they turn from evil and cling to good?

The Location

“Moses spoke to the sons of Israel … beyond the Jordan in the valley opposite Beth-peor” (4:46). The region of the Jordan River is far east of Kadesh-Barnea in southern Judah where Israel initially tried to enter the promised land. Chapter 1 retells how the nation arrived at this southern outpost of the promised land and sent in twelve spies, who returned celebrating the land’s fruitfulness. Yet the people refused to enter, claiming, “The people are greater and taller than we” (1:28). Even after Moses emphasized, “The LORD your God who goes before you will himself fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes” (1:30), the people “did not believe the LORD” (1:31). So, God declared, “Not one of these men of this evil generation shall see the good land that I swore to give to your fathers” (1:35), except Caleb and Joshua. So, for the next four decades the exodus generation became a walking mortuary, dying at a higher rate than expected as God led them through the wilderness. Moses then says, “And the time from our leaving Kadesh-Barnea until we cross the brook Zered [near where Deuteronomy is preached] was thirty-eight years, until the entire generation, that, the men of war, had perished from the camp, as the LORD had sworn to them” (2:14).

Noting that Moses was speaking in the region of the Jordan recalls not only God’s justice in punishing the first generation but also his mercy in allowing a new generation to rise and enter the promised land. There are still people to whom Moses gets to preach, and this is a testimony to the kindness and steadfast love of God. He hasn’t changed, and we should be forever grateful. Had he wiped out Israel in the wilderness, hope would be dashed for blessing to rise from the offspring of Abraham. Yet while the curse remained, hope was sustained, and one evidence is in Moses preaching to a new generation in the region of the Jordan.

Next, the narrator highlights that Moses’s message arises “in the valley opposite Beth-peor” (4:46). This note cautions all readers. After the exodus generation was dead, Peor was the spot where the prophet Balaam incited the new generation of Israelites “to act treacherously against the LORD” in sexual immorality and idolatry. This resulted in God bringing a plague on the people that killed 24,000 (Num 25:9; 31:16). The plague happened only weeks before Moses’s sermons in Deuteronomy, so the wounds of loss were fresh. 4:3 reads, “Your eyes have seen what the LORD did at Baal-peor, for the LORD your God destroyed from among you all the men who followed the Baal of peor.” The sins of the parents had already become the sins of the children, and 24,000 experienced the curse of death. Approaching Moses’s law rightly in Deuteronomy requires that we sense God’s holiness and feel the tragedy of sin and condemnation. God takes sin seriously, and so should we. We may easily pass over this small geographical comment, yet its presence is to awaken certain reactions in readers who have ears to hear. Do you hear God warning you, urging you to guard yourself from sin?

Finally, with respect to location, we read,

Moses spoke … in the land of Sihon the king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon, whom Moses and the people of Israel defeated when they came out of Egypt. And they took possession of his land and the land of Og, the king of Bashan, the two kings of the Amorites, who lived to the east beyond the Jordan; from Aroer, which is on the edge of the Valley of the Arnon, as far as Mount Sirion (that is Hermon), together with all the Arabah on the east side of the Jordan as far as the Sea of the Arabah, under the slopes of Pisgah. (4:46–49)

For a retelling of Israel’s engagement with Sihon and Og you can read chapters 2–3, but in their being called the two Transjordanian “kings of the Amorites” recalls the notice God gave to Abraham that his offspring would be afflicted 400 years and would not yet possess the promised land because “the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete” (Gen 15:16). Obviously, in God’s purposeful providence (2:30; 3:2), these two kings’ refusal of Yahweh’s terms of peace completed the measure of wickedness that God had determined for their destruction, and Yahweh gave them and their lands over to Israel. Israel claimed territory from the northern part of the Dead Sea east of the Jordan all the way up 60 miles north of the Sea of Galilee near Damascus. Moving into the battles, God told Moses, “This day I will begin to put the dread and fear of you on the peoples who are under the whole heaven, who shall hear the report of you and shall tremble and be in anguish because of you” (2:25). And then after the victory, Moses prayed, “O Lord GOD, you have only begun to show your servants your greatness and your mighty hand. For what god is there in heaven or on earth who can do such works and mighty acts as yours?” (3:24). Why does God display such great acts of power? Moses tells us: “that you might know that the LORD is God; there is no other besides him” (4:35).

Conclusion

Today’s passage has sought to inform with necessary data so we can rightly hear Moses’s call to love God with all in Deuteronomy 5–11. The biblical narrator has elevated both Yahweh’s power and pardon, his punishing hand and his preserving grace. In the wilderness, God destroyed the doubting warriors of the exodus generation, and at Peor he brought a plague that killed 24,000 who followed the wicked ways of the world. Yet a new generation remained to whom Moses spoke God’s words, thus highlighting God’s amazing mercy. With this, in the weeks leading up to Moses’s message, Yahweh had delivered the two Amorite kings of the lands beyond the Jordan River over to the Israelites, recalling the great power he had earlier displayed when defeating Egypt at the exodus. The God who promised that he would give Israel a resting place in the promised land was able to do it. But would the new generation heed his Word or follow in the rebellious ways of their forefathers? Yahweh is still holy, and his power remains unmatched.

Furthermore, our present journeys through fire remind us that we are still awaiting our own greater promised land––the new heavens and earth. The questions remain: Will we hear and persevere? Will we fail, or will we follow? In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul recalls some of the same stories mentioned in our passage. He notes of the exodus generation, “With most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness” (1 Cor 10:5). Paul then adds:

Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not be idolaters as some of them were…. We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer. Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. (10:6–12)

May we enter Deuteronomy eager to gain greater knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. Moses’s law still matters, and his testimonies in Deuteronomy 5–11 are still speaking to all who have ears to hear. May God help us receive.

The post Introducing Moses’s Testimonies: A Sermon on Deuteronomy 4:44–49 appeared first on Jason DeRouchie.

(Audio Download / PDF / SoundCloud) DeRouchie gave this message on 9/14/2025 at the Sovereign Joy Baptist Church plant in Liberty, MO.

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This week our nation experienced a political assassination. We’ve seen hatred flowing from prejudice and evil responses and reactions. So much darkness! Yet in the shadows, light becomes one of God’s powerful gifts. The more time you have in the night, the more you appreciate sight. Yet light also allows images to etch the mind, creating memories that guide our way when darkness afflicts. Today’s dawn brought fresh divine mercies (Lam 3:22–23), which pursued us into this room (Ps 23:6). We have an able, wise, and good Shepherd who never leaves nor forsakes––whether in the green pastures or in the valleys of darkest shadow.

Turn to Ecclesiastes 11. Today we meditate on the power of light and the gift of sight in a world where dark days are many. The Preacher in Ecclesiastes is one who had tasted the bigness and beauties of God and who supplies help for those who know the Lord yet cannot grasp his ways in this crooked and confused age. This passage seeks to help us know how to rejoice in the Lord always, even when sorrow or strife, loss or lack seem our daily portion. Follow along as I read Eccl 11:7–12:1…. Our passage has two units: (1) the need to rejoice in the Lord always (11:7–8); (2) how to rejoice in the Lord always (11:9–12:1).

The Need to Rejoice in the Lord Always (11:7–8)Seeing Light is Sweet (11:7)

Verse 7 asserts, “Light is sweet, and it is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun.” Our normal rhythms of sleep and work, seasons and years, are all guided by the presence and patterns of the sun. Every relationship we have and activity we enjoy is aided by light. In the first work week of Genesis 1, the day did not end in the dark, for “there was evening and there was morning, day one” (Gen 1:5). In God’s timing, light always triumphs, as night gives way to sight and dawn drives to noon. The Preacher says, “The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises” (Eccl 1:5). Morning light overcomes the night, and during the blackness, the sun is hastening to the place where it will rise again.

Ecclesiastes uses “light” and “darkness” metaphorically. When Solomon says, “Light is sweet,” he uses a general truth to speak about spiritual realities. Within this book, while “it is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun,” most in this world are dwelling in darkness without eyes to see the goodness of God that is all around them. Consider 2:13–14: “Then I saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly, as there is more gain in light than in darkness. The wise person has his eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness.” Though the fool lives under the sun, he remains blind, unable to see God’s goodness and faithfulness. The stillborn baby never sees light (6:4–5), and in this world death will come to all, when “the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain” (12:2). But of the fool we read: “All his days he eats in darkness in much vexation and sickness and anger” (5:17). There are dark days for both the one who fears God and the one who does not, but it is ever night or spiritually dark for the fool. The fool never appreciates the common graces of God in ways that move him to praise. Therefore, it is the wise who alone can say, “Light is sweet, and it is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun” (11:7; cf. 7:11–12).

Solomon is the sage who authored this book, and he counts himself among the wise who can appreciate the sweetness of spiritual sight of God’s light. He wants us to recognize how significant glimpses of God’s grace can be. I assume that Jesus has moved most of you from darkness to light, meaning that you recall having tasted and seen God’s goodness, beauty, and faithfulness. You have experienced his closeness, heard him speak through his Word, and rejoiced at his declaration of no condemnation. You’ve sensed his powerful presence amidst pain, and you have felt the relief of deliverance and hope of eternal life. You know that “light is sweet,” for you have lived in the darkness and have seen its end.

But the reality is that once the clouds of past pain dissipate, for the believer greater storms await. “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). Solomon is here urging us not to forget past grace, for it will fuel our hope in future grace. Past glimpses of God’s mercies help true saints maintain their satisfaction in God when trials test our faith. Having experienced the joy in the day, believers gain a hope for dawn and noon that can carry and guide them through the night. Look with me back at 11:8.

Why Seeing Light Is Sweet (11:8)

Why is seeing light sweet? 11:8 supplies the reason why. The ESV opens verse 8 with the conjunction “So,” but I struggle to see how this translation is possible. Both the NASB and CSB translate with “indeed,” which is closer. The Hebrew conjunction is the normal one for expressing the basis for something, and I think that verse 8 gives the reason why verse 7 is true (cf. the same Hebrew construction in 4:9–10; see also 5:19–20; 8:15). Light is sweet “for if a person lives many years, he should rejoice in them all; and he should remember that the days of darkness will be many.” According to this text, light is sweet because of what it gives us not in relation to our past or present but in relation to our future. It is pleasant to see the sun because it supplies us fuel for maintaining our satisfaction in God always, even through extended seasons of darkness. The light forges our memory of the right path, so that in the dark we still know the way to go. Glimpses of God’s goodness today are God’s gifts to help us endure tomorrow, for they remind us of his worth and beauty and help us know he will deliver again.

Notice first that, if God grants that we live many years, we are supposed to “rejoice in them all.” It is like Paul, who implores, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice!” (Phil 4:4; cf. Rom 5:2–3; Jas 1:2–3). The apostle then immediately says, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God … will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil 4:6–7). Paul calls people to rejoice always and then says that we battle anxiety and experience peace not only by praying to God but also by thanking God, remembering who he has been for us in our past and who he has promised to be for us in our future. We battle for joy in the darkness by recalling the light.

There is “a time to be born, and a time to die”––just two dates on the tomb stone. And between these poles, as we live out the dash (–), we are to rejoice (Eccl 3:2–8). In times of planting and plucking, killing and healing, weeping and laughing, we must rejoice. Through mourning and dancing, embracing and refraining, seeking and losing, we should rejoice. In times of silence and speaking, loving and hating, war and peace, we are to remain satisfied in all God is for us. “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under the sun” (3:1). But in all our many years, come what may, we are to rejoice in the Lord always.

Light’s sweetness comes in how it helps us maintain God-conscious joy, even when storm clouds darken our perspective. Notice the next statement, “It is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun because … every person should remember that the days of darkness will be many. All that comes is vanity” (11:8). Even those who fear the Lord and have been declared right with him––even the spiritually wise will not always see the rays of God’s goodness. Indeed, for us in this room, “the days of darkness will be many.” Paul noted that we are “fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Rom 8:17). “It has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake” (Phil 1:29). “If we endure, will also reign with him; if we deny him, he will also deny us” (2 Tim 2:12).

These realities are what makes seeing and savoring the shining of God’s goodness all the sweeter. If one lives many years, many days of these years will be filled with darkness––when God’s goodness seems distant. We must, therefore, memorialize the moments when we know God to be true, when we have seen his power, relished his mercy, and savored his promises, and we must let those glimpses of grace and goodness sustain us through the shadows. Seeing the sun of God’s goodness reminds us that light wins, that morning comes, that darkness will dissipate, and that God will continue to be faithful to carry us into a new day. With every dawn comes the promise of fresh mercies, so light is sweet because of the way it allows us to use every past glimpse of brilliant and warm grace to heighten hope for something beyond the night. Past encounters with God create hope for more steadfast love, so nurture gratitude for God’s past kindness, as it will fuel your faithfulness amidst trial. If you entered this room weary and warn, feeling dry and distant from God … if you feel burdened by the cares of this world, pause and pray that God will remind you of his past mercies and promises and from these heighten your hope that he will act for you again.

I’ve needed to fight for joy this week, for often my soul has been overwhelmed with the weight of this world’s brokenness. How about you? Questions about your future, strife with loved ones, seemingly insurmountable obstacles, unending task lists, concern for your children, ignorance about how to provide or protect, fears about the state of our Union, anxiety about job security or health. Such cares easily suffocate our souls, leaving us gasping for breath and crying for reprieve. Yet we hear the call: “Rejoice in the Lord always. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand” (Phil 4:4–5).” Brothers and sisters, remember how your God has been and forever will be good and faithful and let those truths firmly ground you in the storm. “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (Isa 41:10). Recall how pleasant seeing the sun is and let that memory supply satisfying surety that light will again triumph over night. Our God is greater. Jesus is stronger.

How to Rejoice in the Lord Always (11:9–12:1)

We now come to part 2 of the sermon. 11:7–8 stressed the need to rejoice in the Lord always; 11:9–12:1 explains how to do this. While unclear in most translations, beginning in verse 9 we find a progression of six conjoined commands: “Rejoice … and walk … and know … and remove … and put away … and remember! These six charges together clarify how you and I can remain satisfied in all God is for us. I have grouped them into four steps. How do we maintain our joy in God, even in hard times? Step 1: Rejoice always (11:9ab). Step 2: Run wisely (11:9cd). Step 3: Remove your cares (11:10ab). Step 4: Remember your Creator (12:1a)

Step 1: Rejoice Always (11:9ab)

Step 1 in rejoicing always is to choose joy: “Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth” (v. 9ab). Choosing to rejoice is easier when days are bright, but God’s worth is displayed even more in the night when our baby will not be consoled, when we learn that our dad lost his job, or when cancer reaches stage 4. Our joy can look like laughs and smiles and praise reports when we win a sporting event, pass a major exam, or delight in time with a loved one. But joy can also look like dependent cries to God for help when money is low, when infertility persists, or when you hear that miscarriage is imminent or that your child has a chromosomal deformity. In Ecclesiastes, God is calling us to rejoice in him both amid prosperity and adversity, and this joy takes numerous forms, depending on the circumstances. Rejoicing is something greater than mere happiness, for when we are not smiling or able to laugh, we can still be satisfied, and our souls can find solace in our unchanging, ever-present, ever-faithful God. There is a way to be “sorrowful yet always rejoicing” (2 Cor 6:9).

Can you choose joy today? Can you declare that “God is worthy of my fear, worthy of my trust simply because of who he is and not because of what he gives or takes away? Can you say, “though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no heard in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation” (Hab 3:17–19)? The first step in always rejoicing in the Lord is choosing joy. Jesus said, “Whoever comes to me shall not hunger; whoever believes in me shall never thirst” (John 6:35).

Step 2: Run Wisely (11:9cd)

Step 2 in rejoicing in the Lord always is to run wisely. Look at the second half of verse 9: “Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes. But know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.” A preacher must truly know his audience if he tells them, “Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes.” Moses characterized his audience as “stubborn, unbelieving, and rebellious” (e.g., Num 14:11; Deut 9:6–7, 23), and because of this he told them “not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes” (Num 15:39). In Ecclesiastes, however, the context is very different. The rest of the book shows that Solomon is not commending an unrestrained, worldly pursuit of pleasure. In 11:7–10 he is addressing the wise man and not the fool. He said in 11:8 that “it is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun,” and in 2:14 he observed, “The wise person has his eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness.” Only the wise see the sun as a manifestation of God’s goodness and grace (7:11–12). Elsewhere Solomon says that “the wise heart will know the proper time and the just way” (8:5). Indeed, 10:2 stresses: “A wise man’s heart inclines him to the right, but a fool’s heart to the left.” So, if the wise person’s heart is bent Godward, knowing the just way, it makes sense why Solomon would call him to “walk in the ways of your heart and in the sight of your eyes.” These will be the ways of God.

If you are truly pursuing Jesus, you can assume the lights are green unless God cautions you with a yellow or stops you with a red. In the words of 9:7, “Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do” (cf. 1 Tim 4:4). Yet there is a stated warning. We must be sure to make every step, every decision, every click of the mouse, every purchase, every glance knowing “that for all these things God will bring you into judgment” (Eccl 11:9). “God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil” (12:14; cf. 3:17; 5:2). So, we must not hesitate to follow our heart and to delight in pastries, parks, and parties, but we must do so keeping in mind the final judgment. The Lord will hold us accountable for every word and every deed, and this fact must color how we pursue joy. How do we rejoice in the Lord always? Step 1: choose joy. Step 2: run wisely.

Step 3: Remove Your Cares (v. 10)

Step 3 in sustaining God-conscious joy is to remove your cares. 11:10 reads, “Remove vexation from your heart, and put away pain from your body, for youth and the dawn of life are vanity.” The verbs “remove” and “put away” indicate that rejoicing even in dark days requires that a conscious choice not to allow the burdens, confusions, vexations, and troubles of this life to wear us down. The Preacher is not calling us to pretend life is pleasure when in fact it’s pain. No, there is “a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance” (3:4). We don’t ignore human troubles, but we don’t let them consume us. This can be so hard, but we must fight the lies of Satan and embrace the hope God gives.

Jesus said, “Do not be anxious about your life…. Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” (Matt 6:34). Indeed, “not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father…. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows” (10:29–31). Knowing that “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble,” Peter exhorted, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties upon him, because he cares for you” (1 Pet 5:5–7). Because youth and the dawn of life are filled with confusion and questions, “remove vexation from your heart, and put away pain from your body” (Eccl 11:10). That is step 3 in how to rejoice in the Lord always.

Step 4: Remember Your Creator (12:1)

There is no higher way to remain satisfied in God than to remember our Creator: “Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, ‘I have no pleasure in them.’” (12:1). What 11:8 designated “the days of darkness,” 12:1 calls “evil days.” All of us suffer. If you are still young and have not yet experienced much, you have opportunity now to store memories of God’s kindness that can help sustain your faith long-term. Furthermore, you have the chance to shape within your heart convictions that celebrate God’s bigness and your neediness, that nurture God-dependence and battle self-reliance. “Remember your Creator!”

The Preacher in this book believed in a massive God who creates everything (11:5), both the good and the bad. “Consider the work of God: who can make straight what he has made crooked? In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him” (7:13–14). We are ignorant and small; God is in charge. His purposes are not being thwarted through the surprising death of a parent or through an extended search for a house or ministry post. He is at work through sustained illness and in your child’s rebellion. He is sovereign over the home sickness, the night terrors, and the relational friction. The Lord was on the throne before the divorce, and he is on the throne now! He is the Creator––all things being from him, through him, and to him (Rom 11:36). We are aided when we take our eyes off our problem and direct them to the only one who can produce a solution. We cry, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).

If all the power of God that we can neither contain nor explain is working for us, we need not fear those who can only kill the body but cannot kill the soul (Matt 10:28). We gain boldness to leave houses and family and lands for Christ’s sake and for the gospel (Mark 10:29). Our faith need not falter when we fail a task or when a marriage suffers challenges. Oh, God, keep us believing; keep us trusting. Greater is he who is in us than he who is in the world (1 John 4:4). Remember your Creator, who through the evil days will guide and provide.

Conclusion

In conclusion, rejoice always in the sweetness of supernatural light, which all ultimately derives from Jesus, the light of the world. Embrace every glimpse of God’s goodness shown in and through Christ to give you memories that can help fuel your faith to the end. And as you recall what God has done in Christ and promised through Christ, rejoice always, run wisely, remove your cares, and remember your Creator, whether in times of sight or in the night.

The Queen of Sheba “came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here” (Matt 12:42). Jesus says, “Come unto me … and I will give you rest” (Matt 11:28). “Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst” (John 6:35). Knowing that God is for you in Jesus should awaken joyous hope for the day when night will be no more and his light will enable sight of his face forevermore.

The post Rejoice in the Lord Always: A Sermon on Ecclesiastes 11:7–12:1 appeared first on Jason DeRouchie.

(Audio Download / PDF / SoundCloud) DeRouchie gave this message on 9/7/2025 at the Sovereign Joy Baptist Church plant in Liberty, MO.

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Introduction

The prophet Habakkuk declared: “Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation” (Hab 3:17–18). The apostle Paul, too, asserted:

I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this [trial] will turn out for my deliverance, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain. (Phil 1:18–21)

For guests, we as a body find ourselves this morning in an unexpected season of loss and heartache. This week a pastor was dismissed from his post. We ask this morning, What does God want for us, and how should we respond? Habakkuk said, “If all divine discipline pours down upon me, yet I will rejoice in Yahweh.” Paul said, “I will rejoice, knowing that my deliverance will culminate in Christ’s honor.”

In this season of loss, may we remember “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing” (Eph 1:3). Let your souls take deep comfort knowing that the God who “made us alive together with Christ” has “put all things under his feet … for the church” (1:22) and is, in this very season of grief and uncertainty working “all things according to the counsel of his will” (1:11). Let your heart begin to soar in hope and adoration, knowing that Christ is still at the Father’s right hand “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion” (1:21) and that in him God will “unite all things” (1:10), fixing what is broken, righting all wrongs, and bringing order out of chaos. The hope for our church today is Jesus, through whom we have been adopted as children of God (1:5), no longer “children of wrath” (2:3).

Today we have come to the climax of the first half of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians in 3:20–21; here the first three chapters peak in praise. To this point, Paul has urged the church toward unity in Jesus; as he summarizes the call in 4:3, the church needs “to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph 4:3). Sometimes unity is only possible through discipline, as the church calls straying members back into the fold and clearly signals what it means to follow Jesus. This unity does not mean everyone is the same, for there are Jews and non-Jews and many body parts with different functions and giftings. Yet the unity is centered on Jesus, not following patterns of sin associated with “the course of this world” (2:2) but living out the “good works” that “God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (2:10). This unity is grounded in God’s love toward us in Christ and is characterized by our love for others. God’s “great love” moved him to save us (2:4), and Paul prays that we will know Christ’s love that “surpasses knowledge” (3:17) and that makes possible the gospel (3:7–10). Later he will charge us to speak “the truth in love” (4:15) and to “walk in love, as Christ loved us” (5:2). Having called the church to unity in Jesus, Paul pauses to stand in awe of a God who is all powerful and, therefore, able to enable what he commands.

Knowing the toilsome terrain we have had to journey as a body, I didn’t have to go elsewhere to find a text that would speak to our hearts, and I sense God’s kindness to our body this week, letting us simply progress to the next verses in our series that place us at a pinnacle of praise and open for us amazing vistas of veneration. Look at 3:20–21: “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. My sermon today has three parts: (1) the God worthy of glory; (2) the meaning of “to God be glory”; and (3) the agents and extent of glory. I truly hope that wherever you are at in your walk with God that you would this day find great comfort and confidence in our God who is more than able to provide your every need and satisfy your deepest longings. Pray with me….

The God Worthy of Glory (3:20)

We open considering the God worthy of glory. Paul directs his climactic praise “to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think.” The term translated who is able is the participle form related to the noun “power” later in the verse. I translate the whole: “Now to him who is powerful beyond all to do more than ever what we ask or think, according to the power working within us.” Who is the one worthy of glory? He is the one powerful beyond all.

Paul speaks of this power earlier back in 1:19–21. There he prays that we may know “what is the immeasurable greatness of [God’s] power toward us who believe” (1:19). He then adds it was this “great might” of God that erupted into the world as molten mercy when God raised Jesus from the dead and enthroned him at God’s right hand “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion” (2:20–21). The power God worked in Christ renders Jesus far superior to all other powers, and that identical divine authoritative energy Paul now says in 3:20 is “at work within us” (3:20). The same power that raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you who believe, and no other power can compare. The implications of this in our pursuit of life and holiness are massive.

In your weakness, remember that you have a God who is supremely strong––“powerful beyond all.” You may feel condemned, but if you are in Jesus the powerful God has defeated the prince of the power of the air and declared “by grace you have been saved” (2:5), making you no longer a child of wrath (2:3). Indeed, “we have redemption through [Christ’s] blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses” (1:7). You may be afraid, but the one who “works all things according to the counsel of his will” is with you and for you. “In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ” (1:5) and sealed us “with the promised Holy Spirit” (1:13). This makes the church God’s temple––the very “dwelling place for God” (2:21–22). As a Christian, wherever you go and whatever you face, God is with you, so you need not fear. You may feel sin’s hold on you is too great and that you are overcome by discontentment or lust, anger or doubt, worry or insecurity. Yet Jesus died not only to free you from sin’s penalty but to release you from sin’s power. “We are [God’s] workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (2:10). The same power that raised Jesus from the dead is working in us, moving us to walk in newness of life without pride or prejudice, enabling us to forgive as we have been forgiven, and giving us hope beyond what would ever be possible on our own. Jesus is greater than all the powers of darkness, and Paul would have us stand in awe of the God who is supremely powerful.

The apostle adds a specific angle to our God’s super-capability. He notes that he is “able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think.” The term behind far more abundantly is the highest form of comparison possible in Greek; it’s a super-superlative (cf. Dan 3:22; 1 Thess 3:10; 5:13). Your most extravagant request, and every dream of your wildest imagination cannot compare to what is possible with God. As Jeremiah declares, “Ah, Lord GOD! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you” (Jer 32:17; cf. Gen 18:14; Job 42:2; Mark 9:23; 10:27; 14:36; Luke 1:37).

As I look out on this body, I can imagine a day when we have dozens of missionary units on the field and several support teams at home holding their ropes, when God has raised up multiple new pastors from our midst and sent them with hundreds of former members to plant churches. I picture a day when the babies in this room are parents discipling their own children, when present college students are leaders in the home, church, and community, when we have many deacons overseeing teams of servants, and when our council of pastors is loaded with godly, qualified men. I envision a time when the members grounded long-term in our community outnumber those associated with the seminary, when William Jewell College and the city of Liberty know about Sovereign Joy because of its love and its intentional witness for Christ. I long to see our church become a mobilizing center for equipping Bible-believing, Christ-embracing, gospel-cherishing, nations-loving men and women who are sold-out for the sake of Jesus’s name––humble in prayer, skilled in the Word, bold in their testimony, sacrificial in their love, and hopeful in Christ’s return.

But there is more. With Paul, I can pray that our Father of glory would “give [us] a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of [our] hearts enlightened, that [we] may know what is the hope to which he has called [us], what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe” (Eph 1:17–19). Furthermore, I can ask that “according to the riches of his glory he may grant [us] to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in [our] inner being, so that Christ may dwell in [our] hearts through faith––that [we], being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that [we] may be filled with all the fulness of God” (3:16–19). It is that last element that absolutely blows me away. Paul says that God who is powerful beyond all can do more than ever what we ask or think, yet Paul was able to request and imagine God filling us with all the fulness of God. What could be more than that? How could it get better or more extreme or more extensive?

Brothers and sisters, find rest today. Find hope today and do not lose heart. As Paul says elsewhere,

Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (2 Cor 7:16–18).

May we join the apostle in considering that “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Rom 8:18).

Who is worthy of glory? The God “who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us” (Eph 3:20). This last note regarding God working within us is significant. It not only recalls that we are God’s temple in which he dwells, it draws attention to how we become agents in fulfilling his good purposes––“his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works” (2:10). God’s gracious power toward us does not make our work unnecessary; it makes it possible. Thus, Paul could say, “By the grace of God I am what I am…. I worked harder than any of [the other apostles], though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Cor 5:10). Similarly, he charges, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and work for his good pleasure” (Phil 2:12–13). We can work because God is decisively working in us. “Him we proclaim…. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me” (Col 1:28–29). The God worthy of glory is the one who is powerful beyond all to do more than ever what we ask or think, according to the power working within us.

The Meaning of “To God Be Glory” (3:21)

But we now must ask, if it is this God who is worthy of glory, what does “to God be glory” actually mean? Paul says, “To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations” (3:21). Is the church or Christ somehow giving God something he does not already have?

“Glory” is a term associated with weight, honor, or value. To glorify is to prize or praise worth and beauty. It’s game day for my team; these are my Detroit Lions’ socks. And when I cheer on the Lions, I glorify them, elevating them before others. I am presently in my thirty-second year of marriage to Teresa and my twenty-first year of full-time ministry. Together we have journeyed through so much, yet perhaps more than ever before I find my heart treasuring the gift she is to me. Daily she brings me such a wealth of wisdom, skill, care, companionship, and joy. I am such a better man, better husband, better pastor because she is by my side. And in recognizing this and in verbalizing this, I glorify her––not giving her something that is not already hers but in testifying to what is already hers.

In this book, we have already seen glory appear several times. In 1:6, God predestined us for adoption through Jesus “to the praise of his glorious grace.” God’s saving grace is infused with glory. In 1:12, God’s glory is praised when Christians hope in Christ, and in 1:14 our claiming our future inheritance will result in the praise of God’s glory. 1:17 calls God “the Father of glory,” as if all that is praiseworthy, honorable, venerable finds its ultimate source in him. God’s glory is what we see and savor when we encounter him. It’s what is put on display when all that distinguishes God as God goes public. To experience God’s superior beauty, incomparable greatness, and matchless power through his words and deeds is to encounter his glory. Thus, to glorify God is not to give him something he doesn’t already have but to recognize and rightly magnify who he already is. We magnify him not like a microscope takes something minute and makes it large but like a telescope magnifies the magnificence of a distant moon. Paul’s statement “to him be glory” is a prayer that who God is already glorious would be rightly revered, reflected, resembled, and represented in two agents of glory, and this leads us to our final point.

The Agents and Extent of Glory (3:21)

Having called Christians to unity in Jesus, Paul pauses to pray that God’s splendor would be put on display “in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” On earth the church is the principal agent to testify to God’s worth and love. As I consider how the church glorifies God, we could pause to talk about conversion, fruitful obedience, praise and gatherings for worship, prayer, or discipleship and mission. Yet today, I want to consider how the church’s suffering and trials become a context for God to be magnified.

In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul tells us how he was given a thorn in his flesh, which he describes as “a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited” (2 Cor 12:7). Satan was there, but the purpose of the thorn was to keep Paul from pride, which means God and not Satan was decisive in the apostle’s suffering. God was in charge. Paul pled with the Lord three times to remove this thorn, whatever it was, but Christ said to him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (12:8–9). Paul then declares, “I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (12:10).

Paul’s weakness humbled him, removing pride and forcing him to seek God for comfort and aid. When Paul received help, God was magnified as helper. The apostle’s need for healing made much of the healer. Paul was satisfied, and God was glorified. When we shift from self-reliance to God-dependence, we exalt God’s greatness and receive grace. Because “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (1 Pet 5:5), we should see divine humbling as a severe mercy. When we trust in ourselves less and God more, the spotlight shifts to the splendor of our savior. We glorify God most when he satisfies us most, and sometimes God strips us of earthly comforts or securities so that we will recognize him as our ultimate source of strength and supply. When members of Christ’s church suffer in ways that display God’s worth and God’s power over their own, we testify to God’s greatness in the world in ways that can move others to revel in God as well. Others will “see your good deeds and glorify God” (1 Pet 2:12; cf. Matt 5:16). Consider Paul’s words in 3:13, “I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.” Jesus is seeking to “present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Eph 5:27). When Paul suffered in a way that revered, reflected, resembled, and represented God’s glorious power and worth to the Ephesians, he aided them in doing the same. Paul prayed that God would be glorified in the church, and I long for God to fulfill that prayer among Sovereign Joy through our affliction. May our suffering move us to savor our savior, who is good, who is in charge, and who knows what is best for us. Whatever your pain or problem today, let your heart look to Jesus. You will be satisfied, and he will be glorified, and in the process you will help others glorify God as well.

Finally, Paul prays that God will be glorified in Christ Jesus. Jesus is one with the Father, and all the glory of the Godhead is his (John 17:5). Yet here Paul longs that God would be further glorified in Christ Jesus. What does he mean?

To answer this let us consider two texts. First, look at 5:18, 20. Paul says that in evil days, “do not get drunk with wine … but be filled with the Spirit … giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Millions of prayers from people in numerous religions we be offered today, but only prayers in Jesus’s name will reach God’s throne. Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes the Father except through me” (John 14:6). The only way we can approach God’s presence expecting aid is “in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” By his blood and righteousness alone do we stand. “All the promises of God [in which we hope] find their Yes in [Jesus]. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory” (2 Cor 1:20). “Amen” is not just a word of conclusion. It’s related to the verb “to believe” and it’s an expression of our absolute trust in God’s faithfulness to us because of what Christ has done for us. We thus give thanks in Jesus’s name, and God is glorified as we do.

Now, as we conclude this sermon, look back at 2:6–7. We read that God “raised us up [together] and seated us [together] in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” The only way that we receive any blessing from God is in Christ. Our score had only demerit, yet Jesus’s wealth of obedience overcame our poverty; his wounds alone bring our healing. All that we are and all that we ever will be is due to him, and therefore every growth in fruitfulness, every glimpse of grace, every joy in redemption glorifies God in Christ Jesus. And for eternity––or as Paul says in our passage––“throughout all generations, forever,” God will be magnified in ever-increasing ways for eternity as we grow to recognize more and more the “the immeasurable riches of [God’s] grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” And the more our united joy increases in the powerful and grace shown us in Jesus, the more God will be glorified in the church and in Christ Jesus forever.

The post Empowered Unity for God’s Glory: A Sermon on Ephesians 3:20–21 appeared first on Jason DeRouchie.

(Audio Download / PDF / SoundCloud / Handout) DeRouchie gave this message on 8/17/2025 at the Sovereign Joy Baptist Church plant in Liberty, MO.
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Pray with me….

The title of today’s message is “The Revealed Mystery of Gentile Salvation.” Since 2:11, the Apostle Paul has been stressing the need for the church’s unity; Gentile Christians and Jewish Christians are one people of God in Christ. In 2:11–22 he urged the Ephesian church to remember the unifying power of Christ’s love, and now in 3:1–21 he prays that they will know it. The apostle introduces this prayer in 3:1–13, and we’ll focus this week on verses 1–7, which highlight that Gentile Christians as Gentiles are full fellow participants in God’s people. Follow along as I read….

The Initial Opening to Paul’s Prayer (3:1–2)

Two weeks ago, Pastor Charles showed us from Eph 2:11–18 how Jesus is the messenger of peace who creates in himself a new humanity and reconciles both Jews and Gentiles to God, removing all former separation. Then last week Taylor highlighted in 2:19–22 how the predominantly Gentile Christians in Ephesus were full-fledged fellow citizens with all the saints, full members of God’s household, and together a holy temple in which God dwells.

“For this reason,” 3:1 tells us that Paul prays, asking God to make known to the church the unifying power of Christ’s love. But the prayer itself doesn’t come until verse 14. Note how both 3:1 and 3:14 begin with “for this reason.” In 3:1–2, Paul opens his prayer and clarifies for whom he prays, but then before getting to the content of the prayer, he digresses to provide an illustration of the unifying power of Christ’s love.

Paul highlights in 3:1 that he is in prison “for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles.” On the road to Damascus, Jesus told Paul that he was sending him to the Gentiles “to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me” (Acts 26:18). At the same time, the Lord said that he would show Paul “how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” as he carried Christ’s name before the Gentiles (9:15–16). The unifying love of Christ is validated by the fact that Paul, Jewish missionary to the Gentiles, is willing to suffer imprisonment for their sake.

Remember that Paul was “a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent” of the church (1 Tim 1:13) who wanted nothing to do with Christians of any sort, let alone Gentiles. As we read in Ephesians 2:11–12, the Gentiles were the “uncircumcision” who were “separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise.” Yet now Paul was “a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles.” His life illustrates the unifying love of Christ.

Two Saturdays ago, some missionary friends sent from our previous church buried their twelve-year-old daughter. Ministering in northern Africa, this precious image-bearer got Typhoid fever, received treatment, went to sleep, and never woke up. This dear family is bearing a great cost for their discipleship, and their willingness to return to Africa to continue their mission with their seven remaining kids testifies to the love of God for their target people.

Paul’s willingness to suffer for Christ’s sake to see Gentiles saved also testified to the amazing love of Christ. All Christians, though citizens of a different homeland, remain on this earth with gospel purpose, and our suffering provides a context to display both the worth of God and the love of Christ to a world in need of both. That God, after saving you, has kept you on this planet and has led you into suffering is designed to testify to the world of Christ’s amazing love. You are among those of whom the world is not worthy, yet the love of Christ has planted you here to display his love to your neighbors and his worth to the power of darkness, even through your trials. When you face trials this week, consider how your trust in Jesus and steadiness amidst suffering and hope in pain bear witness to Christ’s love and worth to your kids, your neighbors, and your coworkers.

Paul now catches himself before moving on, saying, “assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for you” (Eph 3:2). This term translated “stewardship” is the same word translated “plan” in 1:9–10, which highlights that God has made “known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fulness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” I would render 3:2: “assuming that you have heard of the plan of God’s grace that was given to me for you.”

From the beginning of world history, God always intended to overcome the universal problem with a universal solution. For literally thousands of years, God’s people had been anticipating a day when the right order that was present in the beginning would be restored. Whereas blessing was lost in the garden through Adam’s sin, God promised one day to overcome the curse through Abraham and his offspring. In the hourglass of time, history broadly focused first on Adam’s fall and the curse on all humanity but then narrowed to focus on one nation, Israel, through whom God would reverse the curse by raising up a single deliver, Jesus, thus restoring blessing to some from the whole world. “And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘In you shall all the nations be blessed’” (Gal 3:8). Paul was convinced that he was living in the fulness of time and that Christ Jesus’s resurrection and ascension had marked the shift in world history from promise to fulfillment. Saving grace and every spiritual blessing was coming to all who by faith were united to Jesus––from both Jews and Gentiles. Paul’s mission to see both these groups reconciled to each other and to God was fulfilling a long-standing plan in the mysterious purposes of God.

At this, Paul digresses to clarify further the shape of the revealed mystery of Gentile salvation. Our verses today focus on the recipients and scope of the revealed mystery (vv. 3–5) and the content of the revealed mystery (vv. 6–7).

The Recipients and Scope of the Revealed
Mystery of Gentile Salvation (3:3–5)

Paul notes first in verse 3 that “the mystery was made known to me by revelation.” Here the apostle refers to when the resurrected Jesus revealed himself and commissioned Paul on the road to Damascus. Saul the Christian persecutor became blind, unable to see, and then when his heart was changed, the Lord granted him physical sight, thus pointing to his spiritual enlightenment. Elsewhere Paul says, “I did not receive [the gospel] from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ…. [God] was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles” (Gal 1:12, 16).

Paul states that this mystery is something about which he has already “written briefly,” which I believe recalls his words in 1:9–10. There he stresses that the proof all Christians––Jews and Gentiles alike––are redeemed or forgiven is that we understand “the mystery of [God’s] will … set forth in Christ … to unite all things in him.” Christians are those who grasp God’s progressive purposes to save some from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation.

In the Bible, the term “mystery” refers to something partially understood but not fully disclosed. The term occurs first in the book of Daniel, where the prophet refers to King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream as a “mystery” that God then reveals (Dan 2:27–30). The king could retell his dream but did not know its interpretation, and Paul believes that something about Gentile salvation is a mystery “that was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed” (Rom 16:25–26).

Note verses 4–5: “When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.” Paul here contrasts what was understood before Jesus’s coming to what was newly revealed to the apostles and prophets.

But what does Paul mean when he states that “the mystery of Christ … was not made known … in other generations as it has now been revealed”? In my preparation, I shaped a two-page answer to this question that I cannot cover in full this morning, so I have placed print outs in the back for any who are interested. In short, I believe the particle “as” in 3:5 marks a shift from partial awareness to fuller awareness and not a move from complete ignorance to knowledge. Prophets like Abraham (Gen 17:4; 22:17–18), David (Pss 2:9; 18:49; cf. 87; 117:1), Isaiah (Isa 49:6; cf. Acts 13:47; 26:23), Jeremiah (Jer 3:17; 12:16; 30:8–9), and Zechariah (2:11; 8:22–23) foretold how a massive number of Gentiles would join the people of God in the days of the Messiah. On the one hand, Paul says that when God declared to Abraham, “In you shall all the nations be blessed,” the patriarch was hearing the gospel that “that God would justify the Gentiles by faith” (Gal 3:8). But Jesus could also note that “many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it” (Matt 13:17; cf. Heb 11:13). Yet the difference between what the Old Testament saints understood and what we now understand is more than just a shift from promise to fulfillment. What the apostles and prophets uniquely grew to understand is that when the Gentiles became Christians they would do so without having to embrace all the old covenant markers that distinguished Jews from non-Jews. And Paul was pointing to this fact when he said in 2:14–16:

For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

The Old Testament believers anticipated that the Gentiles would one day join the people of God, but they didn’t fully understand that they would do so as Gentiles without having to make pilgrimages to Jerusalem and without having to being involved in Sabbath keeping, the food laws, festivals, and sacrifices. But all these shadows find their substance in Christ (Col 2:16–17). Rahab the Canaanite, Ruth the Moabite, and Uriah the Hittite had to become Israelites to join the people of God. Yet today, it’s our faith in Jesus and not our Sabbath keeping or festivals that mark Christians. Having addressed the recipients and scope of the revealed mystery, Paul now turns to address its content in verses 6–7.

The Content of the Revealed Mystery
of Gentile Salvation (3:6–7)

In verse 6 Paul writes, “This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” In 1:10 Paul had defined the revealed mystery set forth in Christ to be the uniting of “all things … in heaven and on earth.” In chapter 3 he is focusing specifically on the uniting of things on earth. What he says has been made known to the apostles and prophets is that the Gentiles are fully a part of God’s people. Paul uses a prefix that he repeats three times to stress the togetherness of the Gentiles and Jews in Christ: fellow heirs, fellow body members, and fellow partakers of the promise. Let’s take each of these in turn.

With the coming of Christ, Paul has recognized that those from non-Israelite nations, while remaining Gentiles, are “fellow heirs” alongside Jewish Christians, both of whom are adopted into God’s household (1:5; 2:19; cf. Rom 8:16–17; Gal 3:19; 4:6–7). The language of inheritance recalls 1:14, which highlights how all who have been adopted in Christ will redeem possession of an “inheritance.” 5:5 calls it an “inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.” Last week as my family drove past beautiful vistas of Lake Superior, I said jokingly to Teresa, “Wow, let’s buy that property.” She immediately responded, “It’s already all yours.” My mind immediately went to Paul’s statement in 1 Corinthians 3, “For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the preset or the future––all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s” (1 Cor 3:21–23). God “put all things under [Jesus’s] feet and gave him as head over all things for the church” (Eph 1:22). And all things that are Christ’s become ours, including God’s presence and the entire new earth. If you have in meekness trusted in Christ alone for your life, the peaks of the Himalayas, the rain forests of the Amazon, the depths of Lake Superior, and the farmlands of the Midwest will be yours when the curse is finally overcome and the earth is transformed. And in the center of all will be the King in all his beauty; all sorrow will cease, and our joy will be full. Just think of it! “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matt 5:5).

Next, the Gentiles are “members of the same body” (Eph 3:6). Paul has already highlighted how Jesus creates in himself “one new man in place of the two”––a new humanity and Israel of God. Later the apostle will speak of Christ as “the head of the church, his body” (5:23), and he’ll highlight that, because there is “one body and one Spirit,” Christians must seek to “maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (4:3). Elsewhere he writes,

There are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable…. God has so composed the body … that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. (1 Cor 21–22, 24–25)

As a church, we must fight to “maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph 4:3). Because we are equally part of Christ’s body, we must honor every member, valuing even the weaker parts. In our times of fellowship before and after a service or in our prayer groups or even throughout the week, it’s so easy to be drawn to those most like us––similar age, similar education, similar stage in life. Yet the call of this text is to fight all prejudice and to celebrate that in Christ everyone is equally valued and valuable. Consider this week how you may show value for a body member of whom you often take little notice. Set up a time for conversation over coffee; invite them over to play a game and ask them their story. Paul’s main point here is that Gentile Christians should not in any way feel like second-class members, even though they were once “separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise” (2:12). The body needs the head, and the head needs the body. In Christ, you are valued and newly created with purpose. “We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (2:10).

Finally, the mystery revealed to the apostles and prophets is that, in Christ Jesus and through the gospel, the Gentile believers are fellow “partakers of the promise” (2:6). It doesn’t say “promises” but “the promise.” In 1:13–14 Paul notes that in Christ the Gentile believers “were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance.” In 2:12 Paul then says that the Gentiles were “strangers to the covenants of promise” and, therefore, had “no hope without God in the world.” But 2:18 says that “through [Jesus] we both [Jewish and Gentile Christians] have access in one Spirit to the Father.” The promise seems to point to the gift of God’s Spirit (cf. John 7:39; Gal 3:14). Through the prophet Joel Yahweh foretold a day when “I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh” (Joel 2:28), something that Pentecost begins to realize (Acts 2:17). Isaiah, too, envisioned a day when God’s Spirit that rested on the Messiah (11:2; 42:1; 61:1) would be poured out on his offspring, sparking a new creation (32:15; 44:3; 59:21). For Paul, the presence of God’s Spirit among all the new covenant people signaled the international church was the end-times temple, the dwelling place of the living God.

To know that you partake of the Spirit means that God is always with you. You are never alone. Yet it is also this Spirit that unites you and me with every other believer on the planet and gives us hope for a future without pain and pressures and problems. The one who revealed the Scriptures is now here to remind you of his promises. The one through whom God birthed your new life is present in you to bring that work to completion. Because God has now fulfilled all the Old Testament covenants of promise that anticipated the day when God’s presence would be among his people, you and I have both hope and God in this world (2:12).

At the end of verse 6, Paul now stresses how all these beautiful blessings––fellow heirs, fellow body members, and fellow partakers of the promise––come to Gentiles “in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” There is no other way. Christianity is the only religion that declares the solution to the universal problem of sin and brokenness cannot be found in those who are part of the problem. The solution must be found outside of us––“in Christ through the gospel.”

Paul then adds, “Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace, which was given me by the working of his power” (3:7). These final words bring us back to how Paul’s own life provides an illustration of the unifying love of Christ. As he writes this letter, this Jewish missionary is suffering in prison because he was driven by the power of God to proclaim saving grace in Christ to the Gentiles. What a precious kindness to those only having bad news that God would reveal to his apostles and prophets the good news that non-Israelites as Gentiles could be saved and become fellow heirs, fellow body members, and fellow partakers of the Spirit. These are among the spiritual blessings that are fully ours in Christ Jesus (1:3).

Part of the revealed mystery of Christ is that Gentile Christians as Gentiles are full fellow participants in God’s people. And because of this fact, we––a predominantly Gentile church in the northern suburbs of Kansas City––have great hope. Be encouraged today and find rest in knowing that you have an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ, that you are a vital member of this body, and that the very Spirit of the living God is with you and for you and will never leave you alone. Let us pray….

Perpetua Joy Broten (Dec 6, 2012–July 31, 2025). https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-th....

The post The Revealed Mystery of Gentile Salvation: A Sermon on Ephesians 3:1–7 appeared first on Jason DeRouchie.

The book of Zephaniah contains some of the Bible’s most vivid portraits of the day of the Lord both as punishment and renewal. It calls God’s people to seek the Lord together to avoid punishment and to wait on him to enjoy salvation. This is what I argue in my new commentary: Zephaniah, ZECOT (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic, 2025). Zephaniah is the Savior’s invitation to satisfaction, and this study interprets the book within its close, continuing, and complete biblical context. It seeks to clarify how Zephaniah was among “all the prophets” who spoke both of Christ’s sufferings and the glories that would follow (Acts 3:18, 24). Zephaniah declared the saving grace that is now ours in Christ (1 Pet 1:10–11), and I hope preachers and teachers will give time to engage this 53 verse book so as to see, savor, and then say the lasting message for the church. See this video for an overview of the commentary.

The post Book Announcement—Zephaniah: The Savior’s Invitation to Satisfaction appeared first on Jason DeRouchie.

The book of Zephaniah contains some of the Bible’s most vivid portraits of the day of the Lord both as punishment and renewal. It calls God’s people to seek the Lord together to avoid punishment and to wait on him to enjoy salvation. This is what I argue in my new commentary: Zephaniah, ZECOT (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic, 2025). Zephaniah is the Savior’s invitation to satisfaction, and this study interprets the book within its close, continuing, and complete biblical context. It seeks to clarify how Zephaniah was among “all the prophets” who spoke both of Christ’s sufferings and the glories that would follow (Acts 3:18, 24). Zephaniah declared the saving grace that is now ours in Christ (1 Pet 1:10–11), and I hope preachers and teachers will give time to engage this 53 verse book so as to see, savor, and then say the lasting message for the church. See this video for an overview of the commentary.

The post Book Announcement––Zephaniah: The Savior’s Invitation to Satisfaction appeared first on Jason DeRouchie.

All the nations you have made shall come

and worship before you, O Lord,

and shall glorify your name. (Psalm 86:9)

With these and similar words, David and other psalmists foretold a great missional ingathering associated with the days of the Messiah. Other prophets like Isaiah also announced how Jesus would draw to himself a multiethnic worshiping community who would declare in that day,

Give thanks to the Lord,

call upon his name,

make known his deeds among the peoples,

proclaim that his name is exalted. (Isaiah 12:4)

And with words directed toward the messianic servant:

I will make you as a light for the nations,

that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth. (Isaiah 49:6)

We could multiply to the hundreds similar Old Testament passages.

In our day, the very gospel that the prophets promised — the good news coming from God concerning his Son (Romans 1:1–3) — is spreading, saving, and satisfying some “for God from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Revelation 5:9). Jesus’s triumph over death and his Spirit’s empowerment of his followers ignited this outward kingdom advance (Matthew 28:18–20; Acts 1:8), and today these Old Testament prophecies are being fulfilled.

What an amazingly glorious God we have who would save and satisfy sinners who believe, all through the substitutionary triumph of his Son. And how amazing that every new salvation among every people group on the planet is fulfilling predictions the Sovereign Lord made thousands of years ago.

Hope for Missions in Unexpected Places

The Old Testament speaks not only about the Messiah but also about missions. Jesus’s Scriptures announced that “repentance and forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem” (Luke 24:47), and “to [Jesus] all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name” (Acts 10:43).

Speaking about his fellow Jews, Paul noted that “the prophets and Moses said . . . that the Christ . . . would proclaim light to our people and to the Gentiles” (Acts 26:22–23). And Christ has done and is doing just this as faithful followers become his “witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth” (1:8; cf. 1:1; 13:46–47). “From Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum,” Paul “fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ” (Romans 15:19), operating as one of Jesus’s chosen instruments to carry his name “before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel” (Acts 9:15). And as the church today joins Paul in proclaiming Christ, we “fill up the word of God” (Colossians 1:25, author’s translation), realizing in our day the kingdom’s advance as the ancient prophets predicted.

Have you considered looking to the Old Testament prophets to understand better God’s heart and purpose for missions? This essay considers how Zephaniah, one of these ancient spokesmen for God, “proclaimed these days” of the church (Acts 3:24). We will see how Yahweh promised to gather and transform a multiethnic remnant of worshipers — the offspring of some that God once scattered across the earth in punishment.

Who Was Zephaniah?

Zephaniah was one of Yahweh’s prophets — a heavenly ambassador sent to enforce God’s covenants with his people. Through the progress of history, God has established formal relationships with different groups to fulfill his saving purposes climaxing in Christ. These covenants are always built upon promises and responsibilities. Whether addressing the covenant with creation through Adam and Noah or those redemptive covenants associated with Abraham, Moses, David, and ultimately Jesus, the Lord’s prophets have instructed, confronted, and motivated God’s covenant partners. Zephaniah prophesied during the days of Judah’s King Josiah (ca. 640–609 BC; Zephaniah 1:1), and this prophet assisted the king in battling rampant idolatry and in bringing spiritual reformation. Zephaniah urged a remnant from Judah and other lands to seek Yahweh together to avoid punishment and to wait on Yahweh to enjoy lasting salvation.

Zephaniah had a royal lineage (his great-great grandfather was the reformer King Hezekiah, Zephaniah 1:1), which clarifies why he knows so much about the wickedness of Judah’s leaders (1:8–9; 3:3–4) and why he is so interested in international affairs. He is aware of the activities of Philistia, Moab, Ammon, Cush, and Assyria (2:5–15), and he expresses hope that God will one day fulfill the promises he made to Abraham to overcome the universal curse by blessing all the nations of the earth (3:9–10; cf. Genesis 12:3; 22:17–18).

The prophet also appears to have been a black Jew with a biracial heritage linked to Cush (his father’s name was Cushi; Zephaniah 1:1), which was the center of ancient black Africa. This clarifies why Zephaniah shows a unique interest in Cush, highlighting its devastation (2:12) and using it as the sole example of international salvation (3:10). It is out of this context that his vision for missions becomes most clear.

Zephaniah’s Day of the Lord

As a “seer” (1 Samuel 9:9), Zephaniah saw the darkness in the hearts of many of his contemporaries, and he foresaw the dark clouds of judgment that were encroaching over the earth. God was preparing to replace the old order with the new during what he later calls “the day of the Lord” (Zephaniah 1:7, 14). This “day” is less an extent of time (e.g., a 24-hour period) and more an event in time. Moreover, it is not only a day of punishment, portrayed through images of cataclysm, conquest, and sacrifice; it is also a day when God will renew the entire creation.

The Day of the Lord as Re-creation

The prophet’s opening words imply creation’s reversal and movement from life to death, for God speaks of a great ingathering of four creatures in opposite order to their creation in Genesis (Genesis 1:20–28; cf. Hosea 4:3).

“I will surely gather everything

from the face of the earth,” declares the Lord.

“I will gather man and beast;

I will gather the birds of the heavens

and the fish of the sea,

and the rubble with the wicked.

I will cut off mankind

from the face of the earth,” declares the Lord. (1:2–3, author’s adapted translation)

Jesus likely alludes to this text when he predicts his future return as the agent of God’s wrath: “The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace” (Matthew 13:41–42). As in the days of the flood (Genesis 6:7), Yahweh would remove the wicked “from the face of the earth.” And having overcome his enemy, God will have opened the door to generate a new creation.

One Ingathering, Two Purposes

The old-covenant prophets use forms of the verb “to gather” to speak of two parallel end-time realities: (1) Yahweh will “gather” the faithful remnant through a second exodus restoration (Micah 2:12), and (2) he will “gather” the world’s wicked for battle (Zechariah 14:2) and punishment (Isaiah 24:22; cf. Hosea 4:3). This latter purpose appears in Zephaniah 1:2–3 and then shows up again later in the book, accompanied by the parallel verb “assemble.”

“Therefore, wait for me,” declares the Lord,

“for the day when I rise up as witness.

For my decision is to gather nations,

to assemble kingdoms,

to pour out upon them my indignation,

all my burning anger;

for in the fire of my jealousy

all the earth shall be consumed.” (3:8, author’s adapted translation)

God’s faithful remnant from Judah and other lands must patiently anticipate the day of his rising as covenant witness because (“For”) Yahweh still intends to gather people groups (“nations”) and political powers (“kingdoms”) for punishment. Our God “acts for those who wait for him” (Isaiah 64:4).

Significantly, along with using the verbs “gather” and “assemble” in the context of future punishment (Zephaniah 1:2–3; 3:8), Zephaniah later uses the same verbs to speak of the anticipated new exodus — the great global “ingathering” for salvation. In 3:18 he employs the verb “gather” in this positive sense, and then Yahweh declares,

Behold, at that time I will deal

with all your oppressors.

And I will save the lame

and assemble the outcast,

and I will change their shame into praise

and renown in all the earth.

At that time I will bring you in,

at the time when I assemble you together;

for I will make you renowned and praised

among all the peoples of the earth,

when I restore your fortunes

before your eyes. (3:19–20, author’s adapted translation)

Yahweh’s ingathering to punish and his ingathering to renew are both associated with the single day of the Lord. This fact, along with how the verbs “gather” and “assemble” occur with both realities, suggests Zephaniah perceived one ultimate ingathering with two purposes. This seems to be Jesus’s interpretation when he declares, “Before [the Son of Man] will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats” (Matthew 25:32).

When and How Does the Ingathering Occur?

We turn now to consider how Zephaniah’s hopes of a great ingathering relate to modern-day missions. When and how is Zephaniah’s future ingathering for punishment and renewal fulfilled? He and later biblical authors clarify how the ingathering for curse and blessing are worked out in space and time.

Many Colors and Cultures Praising God

One reason why the remnant from Judah and other lands must wait for Yahweh is because God intends to restore and renew an international remnant of faithful peoples.

Wait for me . . . for at that time I will change the speech of the peoples to a pure speech, that all of them may call upon the name of the Lord and serve him with one accord. (Zephaniah 3:8–9)

It is in this second reason for Godward perseverance that the prophet clarifies his hope for an international community of disciples who would find refuge in God.

Some “peoples” (plural) from the nations and kingdoms in verse 8 will not be destroyed in Yahweh’s fires of wrath but will instead be transformed into worshipers of the living God. Yahweh will purify their “speech” (Greek = “tongue/language”) so that they will together call upon Yahweh’s name and serve him (3:9; cf. Revelation 7:9–10). To call on Yahweh’s name (cf. Zephaniah 3:12) is to outwardly express worshipful dependence on him as Savior, King, and Treasure (see Psalm 116:4, 13, 17).

The prophets often linked calling on Yahweh’s name with the day of the Lord and God’s future work in the messianic era (Isaiah 12:4; Zechariah 13:9). For example, after Joel notes Yahweh’s promise to pour out his Spirit on Yahweh’s day (Joel 2:28–29), the prophet adds,

The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. (2:31–32)

The cataclysmic imagery parallels Zephaniah’s portrayal of the day of the Lord (Zephaniah 1:15), and the phrase “call on the name of the Lord” is identical to Zephaniah’s language (3:9). What Zephaniah adds is that crying out to Yahweh will be accompanied by transformed “speech” (Greek = “tongue”) and a remarkable unity among those God saves.

Reversing Babel’s Curse

Zephaniah portrays this new creation and international speech change as the reversal of past punishment.

From beyond the rivers of Cush my worshipers, the daughter of my dispersed ones, shall bring my offering. (Zephaniah 3:10)

The prophet portrays the offspring of those once scattered as priests bringing offerings to the Lord from the northeast region of Africa. Genesis first speaks of this territory as the end of one of the four rivers flowing from Eden (Genesis 2:13), so the prophet is likely implying that the descendants of those once exiled from the garden are now spiritually following the rivers of life back to their source to enjoy fellowship with the great King. This is an apt portrait of the multiethnic community that will enjoy Yahweh’s presence in the consummate new creation (Revelation 22:1–2; cf. 5:9–10; 7:9–10).

Furthermore, this region of Africa and the people associated with it were named after Cush, Noah’s grandson through Ham. Cush’s son Nimrod built ancient Babel (Genesis 10:8–10), from which Yahweh dispersed all the peoples of the earth.

[The place] was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth. And from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of the earth. (Genesis 11:9)

From this point forward, Yahweh’s saving blessing would have to cross both geographical and ethnological boundaries, and this is exactly what is promised to happen through Abraham and his offspring (Genesis 12:3; 22:17–18).

The Hebrew word used in Genesis 11:9 for “the language” God confused is the same as that translated “speech” (or “tongue”) in Zephaniah 3:9. And when it says that God “dispersed” the peoples, it uses the same word for “my dispersed ones” in Zephaniah 3:10. Indeed, these are the only two biblical texts that conjoin the terms for “speech/language” and “disperse/scatter.” Earlier, Yahweh announced Cush’s demise (2:12), but now he predicts Cush’s rise (3:9–10). The very people group that built Babel, resulting in Yahweh’s scattering of humanity and the formation of nations, will now have a remnant offspring whom God will gather as worshipers, initiating a new universal people of God and reversing Babel’s curse.

Birth of a Multiethnic Community

Likely alluding to Zephaniah 3:8–10, John recalls Caiaphas’s prediction about Jesus:

[He died] for the nation [of Israel], and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. (John 11:51–52; cf. 10:16).

The church today, made up of believing Jews and Gentiles in Christ, is the gathered community that was once scattered.

Luke supports this conclusion by portraying Jesus’s death and exaltation and the early outworkings of the Great Commission as initiating the fulfillment of Zephaniah 3:8–10. Several scholars argue that Luke’s account of Pentecost alludes to Genesis 11:1–9 and portrays the church’s birth as the beginning reversal of the tower of Babel punishment. Others go further, arguing that Luke draws on Zephaniah 3:8–10 to structure his early narrative. Note the following three features:

First, In the context of explaining a mission of making worshipers “to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8), Peter’s Pentecost sermon in Acts 2:17–21 cites Joel 2:28–32, which depicts the day of the Lord as cataclysm and mentions “calling on the name of the Lord,” just as Zephaniah does (Zephaniah 3:8–9; cf. 1:15). Yet present only in Zephaniah 3:9–10 is the vision of transformed “speech” (LXX = “tongue,” glossa) and united devotion, both of which Luke highlights when detailing the outpouring of “tongues” (glossai, Acts 2:4, 11) and the amazing kinship enjoyed by the early believers (2:42–47).

Second, Luke stresses how God saved devout Jews “from every nation under heaven” (2:5) to prepare the context for the global ingathering that follows. Nevertheless, ancient Cush (known as Ethiopia in the New Testament) is not listed among the nations from which came the Jews and proselytes who heard the 120 “telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God” (2:10–11). Despite having Zephaniah 3:9–10 in mind, Luke leaves this group out because he sought to portray God’s saving the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:26–40) as directly fulfilling Zephaniah’s prediction that worshipers from the region of Cush would lead the ingathering of the nations to Yahweh at the end of the age (cf. Isaiah 56:3–8). This Cushite politician is the first Gentile convert mentioned in the book of Acts!

Third, The birth of the church at Pentecost and the salvation of the Ethiopian eunuch are “last days” events (Acts 2:17; cf. Isaiah 2:2–4) that fulfill what was to happen “at that time” of Yahweh’s great day (Zephaniah 3:9–10). With this in mind, Luke’s citation of Joel 2 stresses how cataclysmic darkness would precede the day of the Lord (Acts 2:19–20), and this suggests that the cataclysmic events associated with Christ’s passion (e.g., Luke 23:44–45) signal that his substitutionary death fulfilled for the elect Zephaniah’s envisioned punishment of Yahweh’s ingathered enemy (Zephaniah 1:2–3; 3:8). Furthermore, Jesus’s victorious resurrection climaxing in the ascension marks the day of Yahweh’s rising as covenant witness (3:8) to ignite the global ingathering for salvation (3:9–10). The only passages in Scripture where “witness” (martus) or “testimony” (marturion) occur with “rising, resurrection” (anastasis) are Zephaniah 3:8 and Acts 1:22 and 4:33. Hence, I conclude that Jesus’s death and resurrection initiate fulfillment of the international punishment and renewal that Zephaniah associated with the day of the Lord (Zephaniah 3:8–10).

In broader fulfillment of Zephaniah’s hope for renewal in 3:9–10, the New Testament clarifies that Jesus’s first coming marks the beginning of the end of the first creation and initiates the new creation, which corresponds to the new covenant (2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15; Hebrews 8:13). In this age, missions has resulted in Jews and Gentiles in Christ together making up one people of God, the church (Galatians 3:8, 14, 29; Ephesians 2:14–16). Jesus is shaping this international community into “a kingdom and priests” “from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Revelation 5:9–10; cf. 7:9–10). In fulfillment of Zephaniah 3:10, we as priests are offering sacrifices of praise (Romans 12:1; Hebrews 13:15–16; 1 Peter 2:5) at “Mount Zion and . . . the heavenly Jerusalem” (Hebrews 12:22). Nevertheless, we await the day that the “new Jerusalem,” in which we are seated with Christ in the heavenlies (Ephesians 2:6; Colossians 3:1), will descend from heaven as the new earth (Revelation 21:2, 10; cf. Isaiah 65:17–18). In that day, our journey to find rest in Christ’s supremacy and sufficiency (Matthew 11:28–29; John 6:35) will culminate in lasting satisfaction with the absence of all curse (Revelation 21:22–22:5).

Already-But-Not-Yet Day

Zephaniah saw the single “day” of restoration happening progressively. This already-but-not-yet view of the future is evident most clearly in 3:16–18, which I translate,

In that day [when Yahweh rises as a witness], it will be said to Jerusalem,

“Do not fear! O Zion,

may your hands not grow slack.

Yahweh your God is in your midst.

As a Mighty One, he will save!

May he rejoice over you with merriment;

may he renew you by his love;

may he celebrate over you with song!

Those tormented from an appointed time I have gathered.

They were away from you; a burden was on her, a reproach.” (Zephaniah 3:16–18)

Zephaniah 3:10 portrayed the international “daughter” of those once scattered bringing offerings to Yahweh. In 3:16–18, the transformed Jerusalem stands as the center of King Yahweh’s end-time reign and thus the locus of his international community’s identity. The multiethnic peoples from 3:9–10 now inhabit the new Zion as the new Israel of God (Zephaniah 3:13–14; cf. Galatians 6:16). Most significant for our purposes is that, in this future day, the unidentified divine messenger will declare that God has already mustered those he has redeemed (“I have gathered,” 3:18) but that the remnant’s full deliverance is still to come (“he will save,” 3:17). Indeed, there remain enemies that could cause them fear, so the future prophet will urge the faithful neither to be afraid nor to act fearfully (3:16). In this new context, they will bear witness to Yahweh’s excellencies “among all the peoples of the earth” (3:20).

Zephaniah foresees the days of the church. Already the great King has gathered and is keeping his own, but only in the end will he fully save, satisfy, and sing over them. Do you now hear the promised prophetic voice, urging you to step fearlessly onto the front lines of the kingdom’s advance? With missionary zeal for ingathering, Jesus implores,

Pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. . . . Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you. . . . Some of you they will put to death. You will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your lives. (Luke 10:2, 19; 21:16–19)

Gathering the Scattered

Zephaniah was among “all the prophets” who foretold Christ’s sufferings and the church’s rise (Acts 3:18, 24; 1 Peter 1:10–11). In his first coming, Christ served as the object of God’s wrath for his chosen people, and by this he sparked a global mission movement that continues today. Yet soon missions will be no more, for Christ will appear a second time fully to save and satisfy his own and to operate as the agent of God’s wrath against the wicked (Hebrews 9:27–28). Thus, “the Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace” (Matthew 13:41–42). Indeed, with echoes of Zephaniah (Zephaniah 1:7, 18; 3:8), both Paul and Peter affirm that the Lord Jesus will come in blazing vengeance on his enemies, consuming the current heavens and earth (2 Thessalonians 1:8–9; 2 Peter 3:7, 10). Thus, while in one sense the day of the Lord has begun for the chosen people, bringing the dawn of the new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17), in another sense the day of consummate ingathering is still future for both God’s saints and enemies (Matthew 25:32–33; Luke 3:16–17).

Between Christ’s first and second appearings, the reigning, saving, and satisfying God has commissioned the church to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:18–20; cf. Acts 1:8). As ambassadors for Christ, we implore others to be reconciled to God while there is still hope (2 Corinthians 5:18–20). The time to repent will be no more when the Son of Man has “gathered all the nations” and separated “people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats” (Matthew 25:32).

When he consummates the new creation, Christ will forever remove tears, death, mourning, crying, and pain; he will lastingly satisfy and declare as sons those he saves; and he will condemn the wicked to eternal torment (Revelation 21:1–8). Then the “great multitude . . . from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” will cry out, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (7:9–10). In that day, missions will be no more, but praise to God will indeed radiate across the miles and through the ages as “the kingdom of the world” will have become “the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ” (11:15).

With every advance of the kingdom, God fulfills ancient prophecies for a day of gospel light and global praise (e.g., Psalm 86:9; Isaiah 42:6). In this era, the church is on a mission of rescue. May the saved and surrendered proclaim Christ by suffering and sharing, by word and deed (Colossians 1:24–29). Long ago, God scattered our forefathers in punishment, but in these last days, he is gathering an omni-ethnic community of worshipers to call on his name (Zephaniah 3:9) and to “proclaim that his name is exalted” (Isaiah 12:4; cf. 1 Peter 2:9). Until missions ends and worship remains, let us strive to take part in realizing the saving hopes of prophets like Zephaniah.

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This article originally appeared at https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/....

For reflections on the significance of Luke 24:46–47 for Luke’s purpose in both his Gospel and in Acts, see Brian J. Tabb, After Emmaus: How the Church Fulfills the Mission of Christ (Crossway, 2021).

See Jason S. DeRouchie, “‘Him We Proclaim’: Paul’s Motivation, Means, and Mandate for Missions in Colossians 1:24–29,” The Master’s Seminary Journal 36, no. 1 (2025): 65–87. For a biblical-theological overview of the theme of missions from Genesis to Revelation, see Jason S. DeRouchie, “By the Waters of Babylon: Global Missions from Genesis to Revelation,” Midwestern Journal of Theology 20, no. 2 (2021): 6–30; cf. Jason S. DeRouchie, “God Always Wanted the Whole World: Global Mission from Genesis to Revelation,” Desiring God, December 5, 2019, https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/....

This essay regularly refers to God by his personal name, Yahweh, which he has disclosed through his various covenantal relationships in Scripture.

The prophet likely preached in the fall of 622, after the Book of the Law was found in the temple but before the king’s spiritual reforms had fully taken effect (see 2 Kings 22–23). For the author’s argument for this particular date and for clarification on why it is important, see Jason S. DeRouchie, Zephaniah, vol. 32 of ZECOT (Zondervan, 2025), 7–9.

Cush had good dealings with Judah in the centuries preceding the prophet (e.g., 2 Samuel 18:21; Jeremiah 38:7; 39:16). For more on Zephaniah’s ethnic heritage, see DeRouchie, Zephaniah, 64–66; cf. Gene Rice, “The African Roots of the Prophet Zephaniah,” Journal of Religious Thought 36 (1979): 21–31. For more on God’s heart for black Africa, see Jason S. DeRouchie, “The Long History of God’s Love for Africa,” Desiring God, April 7, 2022, https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/....

Cf. Zephaniah 1:8–10, 15–16, 18; 2:2–3; 3:8, 11, 16.

Jason S. DeRouchie, “The Day of the Lord,” The Gospel Coalition, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/es....

Where the author has “gather,” the ESV translates “sweep away.” For the author’s rationale, see DeRouchie, Zephaniah, 79–80; cf. Jason S. DeRouchie, “YHWH’s Future Ingathering in Zephaniah 1:2: Interpreting אָסֹף אָסֵף,” Hebrew Studies 59 (2018): 173–91.

Cf. Matthew 3:12; Luke 11:23; John 15:6.

Following the Greek translation of the Old Testament, I have “as witness” (le‘ed), but the ESV, following the Hebrew, has “to seize the prey” (le‘ad). The difference is a single vowel. Scripture commonly portrays Yahweh as “witness” or “accuser” in judgment contexts (e.g., Genesis 31:50; 1 Samuel 12:5–6; 20:12; Job 16:19; Jeremiah 42:5; Micah 1:2; Malachi 3:5). In contrast, the term “prey/plunder” is rare, and Scripture never uses it as something Yahweh claims for himself (see Genesis 49:27; Isaiah 33:23). Therefore, knowing both the majority’s rebellion and the minority’s repentance, he will justly sentence by acting as a legal witness and judge.

On the new-exodus theme in the prophets, see Isaiah 11:10–12:6; 35:8–10; 43:18–19; Jeremiah 16:14–15; 23:3–8; Zechariah 10:8–12; cf. Isaiah 2:2–4; 43:5–7, 18–19; 60:1–7; 62:10–12; Jeremiah 3:16–17; ; Hosea 3:5; 11:1, 10–11; Micah 7:15; Zechariah 8:20–23. For more, see Rikki E. Watts, “Exodus,” New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, ed. T. Desmond Alexander et al. (IVP Academic, 2000), 478–87.

The author has replaced the ESV’s “gather” with “assemble,” following the ESV’s own translation of the Hebrew in 3:8.

Cf. Matthew 13:29–30, 47–48; Luke 3:16–17.

Centered in modern Sudan (cf. Jeremiah 13:23), Cush was one of the most southern and western kingdoms of the Old Testament age (Esther 1:1). The rivers are likely the White and Blue Nile (see Isaiah 18:1–2).

Cf. Galatians 3:8, 16, 29.

For more on this theme, see DeRouchie, “By the Waters of Babylon.”

Cf. Matthew 12:30; Luke 11:23. In John 11:51–52, John uses the verb form of the noun “gathering” from Zephaniah 3:8. The old Greek of Zephaniah 3:10 does not translate the entire Hebrew line but has only, “From the ends of the rivers of Ethiopia they [i.e., the peoples from verse 9] shall bring offerings to me.” However, Symmachus, the last of the rival Greek versions of the second century AD, uses in Zephaniah 3:10 the same Greek term for “scatter” (diaskorpizo) found in John 11:52 and reads, “Beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, those beseeching me — the children of those scattered by me — will grant to me a gift.”

When portraying Jesus’s triumphal entry in John 12:13–15, the Gospel writer further alludes to our prophet by conflating Zephaniah 3:14–15 with his citations of Psalm 118:25–26 and Zechariah 9:9. This implies that John saw Jesus’s saving work in Jerusalem to be realizing, at least in an initial way, Zephaniah’s hopes for Yahweh’s reign and saving presence at the day of the Lord. For this argument, see Christopher S. Tachick, “King of Israel” and “Do Not Fear, Daughter of Zion”: The Use of Zephaniah 3 in John 12, Reformed Academic Dissertations 11 (P&R, 2018); Jason S. DeRouchie, “Zephaniah, Book Of,” Dictionary of the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, 890; DeRouchie, Zephaniah, 298–301.

E.g., Jud Davis, “Acts 2 and the Old Testament: The Pentecost Event in Light of Sinai, Babel and the Table of Nations,” Criswell Theological Review 7, no. 1 (2009): 29–48; Craig S. Keener, Acts: An Exegetical Commentary; Volume 1: Introduction and 1:1–2:47 (Baker Academic, 2012), 1:840–44.

Jerry Dale Butcher, “The Significance of Zephaniah 3:8–13 for Narrative Composition in the Early Chapters of the Book of Acts” (PhD diss., Case Western Reserve University, 1972); DeRouchie, Zephaniah, 245–48.

He is indeed the sinless substitutionary lamb whose sacrifice satisfies God’s wrath against us, thus securing the forgiveness of our sins (Isaiah 53:7, 11; John 1:29; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Galatians 3:13).

See J. Bergman Kline, “The Day of the Lord in the Death and Resurrection of Christ,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 48 (2005): 757–70; Dane C. Ortlund and G. K. Beale, “Darkness over the Whole Land: A Biblical Theological Reflection on Mark 15:33,” Westminster Theological Journal 75 (2013): 221–38.

Cf. Isaiah 2:2–3; Zechariah 8:20–23; Galatians 4:26.

For more on the inaugurated and final glories of Christ and his church realizing Zephaniah’s vision of renewal at the day of the Lord, see DeRouchie, Zephaniah, 42–47.

My translation differs significantly from the ESV. For justification of my interpretive conclusions on 3:16–18, see DeRouchie, Zephaniah, 281–90.

Prophetic materials often associate the multiethnic, redeemed community with the transformed Jerusalem/Zion (e.g., Psalm 87; Isaiah 2:2–4; 4:2–6; Jeremiah 3:17; 33:16).

The ESV places Zephaniah 3:18 in the future, but the Hebrew more naturally reads (using qatal), “I have gathered.” Perhaps more than any other verse in the book, 3:18 offers many interpretive challenges. For a full discussion and conclusions, see DeRouchie, Zephaniah, 286–90.

For this interpretation of the statement “I will give you for a name and for praise among all the peoples of the earth” (Zephaniah 3:20, author’s translation), see DeRouchie, Zephaniah, 295–97.

For more on this theme, see DeRouchie, “Rejoicing Then and Now: Pleasures on the Day of the Lord (Zeph 3:11–20),” Bibliotheca Sacra 181.3 (2024).

Cf. 2 Timothy 4:8.

See also Matthew 13:47–48; 25:32–33; 2 Thessalonians 2:1–4; Hebrews 10:24–25.

John Piper notes, “Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.” John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad! The Supremacy of God in Missions, 3rd ed. (Baker Academic, 2010), 15.

The post Jesus Will Gather the Scattered: Zephaniah’s Vision of the Global Church appeared first on Jason DeRouchie.

(Audio Download / PDF / SoundCloud) DeRouchie gave this message on 7/20/2025 at the Sovereign Joy Baptist Church plant in Liberty, MO.
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Pray with me…. Nature can point us to amazing truths about God and how he handles the world. David looked up and proclaimed, “The heavens declare the glory of God” (Ps 19:1), and Solomon drew lessons for sluggards from the ant (Prov 6:6). Isaiah compared God renewing our strength to mounting on wings like eagles (Isa 40:31), and Jesus gave hope to our anxious souls by pointing to the lilies and the sparrows (Matt 6:28; 10:29–31). Our passage in Ephesians 2 clarifies the impact of the unleashing of God’s immeasurable saving power on the world, and to ready us, I want you to consider the force of a volcano.

I was nearly seven on May 18, 1980, when the world was shocked by perhaps the greatest cataclysmic event of the century––the eruption of Mt. Saint Helens. A magnitude 5.1 earthquake triggered the largest landslide in recorded history that exposed the magma chamber. This led to a lateral blast of hot gas, steam, and rock debris and a massive ash plume that reached 15 miles into the sky and spread ash across most of the western United States. Powerful mudflows caused by the volcano’s explosion rapidly cut through old, hard volcanic rock, creating in just three month’s Loowit Canyon, over 100 feet deep, and Step Canyon, even larger at 600 feet deep. Imagine the force! Less than two years later, a further avalanche of mud created by the melting of a thick snowpack in the crater cut channels through debris at speeds of 40 miles per hour and carved individual canyons 140 feet deep in a single day (March 19, 1982).

Volcanoes unleash forces strong enough to overcome the greatest of earth’s obstacles, transforming everything in their wake. Yet volcanic force is measured not by internal energy but by impact. A 0 to 8 ranking on the Volcanic Explosivity Index is marked by how much ash, lava, or pumice was ejected, how high the eruption column was, and whether the outburst was gentle, explosive, or cataclysmic. Scientists rarely try to assess the actual “power” exerted because accurately calculating the total energy release is difficult to do in real-time or even retrospectively. Energy is released in various forms like heat, ground deformation, seismic activity, and kinetic energy of ejected material, and precisely quantifying each component is challenging. So, scientists classify volcanic activity according to observable effects; the greater the impact, the greater the power.

In Ephesians 1:19 Paul expresses his longing that Christians would know “what is the immeasurable greatness of [God’s] power toward us who believe.” From one perspective, the greatness of God’s power is immeasurable, yet Paul still believes that we can know this power’s greatness. What is immeasurable in relation to its innate scope and force can be known in relation to its impact. In our passage for today, beginning in 2:4, Paul speaks of God’s “great love” as the essence of what God unleashed upon the world––an unmeasurable force in the universe, yet one whose impact is so transforming and unparalleled that it testifies to the matchless nature of the power of God’s love in Christ.

Paul wants “the great love with which [God] loved us” (Eph 2:4) to cut canyons into our souls, changing the topography of our lives forever and shaping new pathways for love and obedience. God’s powerful love unleashed forces strong enough to destroy spiritual obstacles that no other powers could overcome. “We were dead in our trespasses” (2:5). “We were … by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (2:3). “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us … made us alive together with Christ” (2:4–5). In 1:19 Paul spoke of “the immeasurable greatness of God’s power.” Later, Paul will pray that we will “know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge” (3:19). We will never grasp the full power of God’s love for us in Christ, but we can measure its impact as it makes old creatures into new and shapes new pleasures and hates, joys and sorrows that now align with the heart of God. The mere fact that those who were dead are made alive testifies to the wealth of mercy that explodes into the world, overcoming God’s wrath and reversing the course of our lives from a trajectory of eternal death to one of eternal life.

Read with me Ephesians 2:4–7…. The unleashing of God’s great love has had an unparalleled impact in our existence. God’s great love has powerfully given Christians exalted life in Christ. Our passage today describes this exalted life, addressing it from two sides: (1) the essence of our exalted life (2:4–6) and (2) the goal of our exalted life (2:7).

The Essence of Our Exalted Life (2:4–6)The Source and Generation of Our Exalted Life (2:4–5)

We open considering the source and generation of our exalted life. The conjunction “but” marks progression in Paul’s thought. “We … were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God …” (2:4). With the word “but,” the apostle signals movement beyond the old age and from initial creation to new. “But God” marks a shift in redemptive history––from shadow to substance, from promise to fulfillment, and from anticipation to realization.

Since the fall and exile of Adam in the beginning, every human is conceived outside the garden––spiritually dead, inhabiting darkness, and justly under God’s curse. Thus, Paul recalls the pre-Christian state of the Ephesian church when he says in 2:1, “You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked.” Then, in 2:3, he highlights that this truth stands for all believers: “We … were by nature children of wrath.” God had told Adam, “In the day that you eat of [the fruit] you shall surely die” (Gen 2:17). And from the point of his rebellion and God’s punishment forward, the curse of death has affected and infected all humanity from generation to generation, making us sinners who sin. There isn’t one mere human who was not by nature a child of divine wrath, and this is why Paul adds at the end of 2:3: “like the rest of mankind.”

Yet the very one who willed that Paul be “an apostle of Christ Jesus” (1:1) and who “has blessed us in Christ” (1:3), indeed the very God who “in love … predestined us for adoption as sons” (1:4–5) has erupted into our world, and nothing will ever be the same. “But God.”

We’re told “God … made us alive together with Christ.” However, to heighten the drama and awaken praise, Paul first elaborates on the makeup of the power that changes our lives. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us … made us alive together with Christ” (2:4). “Mercy” here contrasts with “wrath” at the end of verse 3 and expresses the overwhelming compassion or kindness God had toward us, even, as verse 5 says, “when we were dead in our trespasses.” Prior to the foundation of the world, before human rebellion and its consequence, God “in love … predestined us for adoption” (1:4–5). And in the ages leading up to Christ’s coming, this same divine “great love” for us generated a massive reservoir of wrath-overcoming mercy that would burst upon us in the proper moment. “When the fulness of time had come, God sent forth his Son … to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Gal 4:4–5). ‘The time is fulfilled,” Jesus said, “and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15). In Christ’s first coming, the love of God for sinners exploded upon the world in a wealth of molten mercy and “made us alive together with Christ” (Eph 2:5).

Look up at Ephesians 1:20: God worked the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us “in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.” God’s love was like molten mercy, infused with catastrophic, death-destroying potential, just awaiting the right time to erupt onto the earth’s surface. And all this divine affection that was building throughout the ages finally went public when God raised Jesus from the dead and installed him as king of the universe. The explosion of love generated for Christ an exalted life, manifest in his preeminence over all created things. Thus, we read in 1:22 that through the manifestation of his power in Christ’s resurrection and session, God “put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church.” You cannot measure the amount of God’s power embodied in his love (cf. 3:19), but you can consider the fact that its explosive impact placed Jesus above all created things, enjoying all authority in heaven and on earth (Matt 28:18). The implications of this are vast, especially when you recognize that this authority is, according to the end of verse 22, “to” or “for the church”––to our benefit.

But it is in 2:1–10 that Paul unpacks the explosive impact of God’s powerful love for Christians. “God … made us alive together with Christ.” That “God … made us alive together” highlights that the Ephesian Christians and Sovereign Joy Christians join some from every tribe and language and people and nation” as those who have been made new. That “God … made us alive together with Christ” emphasizes that only in relationship to him do we experience life. As Paul says in Romans 6:4, “We were buried … with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”

To say that we are “made alive” means that what is true of us “by nature” gets changed. Whereas we were “by nature children of wrath” (2:3), we now become by nature reborn, not of the old, cursed creation but of the new creation in Christ. This new life or rebirth is also known as “regeneration,” the process by which God spiritually transforms people, giving new, spiritual life to those who were previously spiritually dead and enabling them to respond in faith and love. Left to ourselves, we were dead, having no true spiritual life and thus no ability to get out of the tomb. Dead people can’t move toward God; dead people can’t desire what is good and what is right. They are dead, unable to get out of their tombs. “But God!” As when Jesus cried out to Lazarus, “Come forth!,” God lets his volcanic love in Christ explode on us in power, effectually calling our names. “Stephanie, Megan, Lynne, Taylor, Edward, Charles, come forth!” And this effectual call by the Spirit infuses life where it was lacking. It incinerates our resistance and lets us hear God’s Word, see his beauty, and request and receive his forgiveness. This powerful manifestation of love overwhelms our souls, moving us to feel remorse over our sin, embrace Jesus as Savior, surrender to his lordship, and enjoy new life and a new pattern of living. The great physician heals the sick and restores those once wounded (cf. Deut 32:39), thus making us new.

In Jesus, God made us alive, with new hearts beating for the living God and new spiritual senses oriented with new tastes and hungers, new hates and longings, aligning with the ways and delights of God. We hear that Jesus died for sinners, and our hearts awaken with hope. We see a need, and we want to see it met. We no longer live only for ourselves but recognize that we are part of God’s greater story and purposes. We see beauty, goodness, and truth and savor them. We run from evil and cling to good. Christ’s love changes the course of our souls, making us look and feel and act new. The impact of his volcanic love is not yet complete; we still speak harshly, respond anxiously, react sinfully. But God has already “made us alive together with Christ––by grace you have been saved” (2:5).

Paul will give more details related to our exalted life. But he first intrudes a parenthetical comment: “by grace you are saved.” He fronts “by grace” to emphasize the amazing, undeserved kindness of God’s saving love. It is “by grace,” not by works, meaning that if God did not decisively enter the middle of history in Jesus, our state of death would have continued. By grace Jesus effectually called our name and made us alive when we once were dead. This is indeed a “glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the Beloved” (1:6).

Paul says, “By grace you have been saved” (2:5). The shift from “we” to “you” places focus not on believers in general but on the Ephesian Christians and all Gentile believers like them who have been recipients of this explosive manifestation of God’s love. That God’s saving love moves beyond the Jews to those of other nations only adds to the glorious nature of this amazing grace.

Finally, Paul uses a verbal construction that shows how Christians are presently enjoying a state of salvation that was secured in the past with lasting results. I would translate it “by grace you are saved” or “by grace you are in a state of salvation.” That we “are saved” gives definition to what Paul means by asserting that God “made us alive.” But from what are we saved? This question points us back to our condition before God’s love erupted into our lives.

2:1: We are saved from spiritual death in our trespasses and sins. This death was like a prison from which no power in creation could free us. But when God’s molten mercy exploded into our lives, it destroyed the fortress of death, freeing us to new life.2:2: We are saved from following the ruler of the authority of the air. The ESV calls Satan the “prince of the power of the air,” but the terms are the same as those in 1:21, which declare that God’s powerful love placed Jesus higher than “all rule and authority.” Jesus’s saving work has freed us both from sin’s penalty and Satan’s power. Jesus is greater, has already disarmed and shamed the rulers and authorities of the spiritual realms, and will one day free us from their presence.2:3: We are saved from following the passions of our flesh. In our old state related to Adam, we “lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind.” We had rebellious, sinful cravings and carried them out. But Jesus saves us from such enslavement. We no longer need to give to lust, idleness, prejudice, worry, or greed. The works of the flesh are now combatted by the desires of the Spirit, and having been made alive in Christ, we are freed to walk in newness of life (Rom 6:4).2:3: We are saved from God’s wrath and condemnation. There is no greater enemy of humanity than God himself. Hell exists because he is a good judge, not a bad one. Justice is about giving people what they deserve, and mankind’s greatest injustice is not giving to God what he deserves––wholehearted, life-encompassing loyalty. Therefore, God, as a good judge, affirms our sin and counts us under his wrath. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love within which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ” (2:4–5). “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us…. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom 5:8; 8:1). There is only one way to be saved from the eternal sentence of conscious death; the explosive love of God must forcefully cut canyons through the hardness of your heart and allow saving mercy and grace to awaken life and make you new. If you are spiritually dead today but find yourself longing for life, repent and believe the good news I am proclaiming, and you will be saved.The Details of Our Exalted Life (2:6)

God’s great love has powerfully given Christians exalted life in Christ. Verses 4–6 are describing the essence of this life. So far, in verses 4–5, we have considered the source and generation of our exalted life. Verse 6 now explains its details. Paul further clarifies our gracious salvation and what it means that we were made alive. “And [God] raised us up with [Christ] and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” Paul’s language recalls 1:20, where he said that God’s powerful love “worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places.” 1:20 does not use the language that God made Christ alive; instead, it only says God raised him and seated him by his side. This suggests to me that being raised and being seated in 2:6 is detailing further what God means by having made us alive.

Jesus represents the church in both his death and resurrection. In his death he receives God’s wrath in our place. Yet because he himself never sinned, death could not hold him. So, God raised Jesus from the dead and even elevated him in the ascension to God’s right hand. Now, Paul says that in Jesus’s being raised and seated, God raised and seated all Christians as well, placing us with Christ “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion.” Notice how 1:20 says that God sat Jesus “at his right hand in the heavenly places,” but 2:6 says only that God sat us “in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” Paul is likely highlighting not only our union with Christ but also that Christ’s relationship to the Father is still unique; we are seated in Christ whereas he is seated at the Father’s right hand.

Often Paul speaks of the hope of our future resurrection. “He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence” (2 Cor 4:14; cf. Rom 6:5–8; Phil 3:11; 1 Thess 4:16–17). But here and in Colossians he also speaks of our resurrection as something that is past; already our new identity and position are real. Thus, he can say, “[You were] buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead” (Col 2:12; cf. Rev 20:5). That we are presently raised with Christ has significant implications. I will state three:

If we are raised and seated in the heavenly places with Christ, who has all authority over all created powers both visible and invisible, then we can rest with confidence and trust today, regardless of how crazy life may be. Jesus is in charge, we are with him, and he is for us. No purpose of his can be thwarted, and all that happens is under his jurisdiction; he is on the throne at God’s right hand. The days may be dark and the oppression thick, the tears may flow while sleepless nights persist, but Jesus is greater than he who is in the world (1 John 4:4), he wields his power for the church (Eph 1:22), and he will make all things right.If we are raised and seated with Christ, who has all authority in heaven and on earth, then we operate on earth as ambassadors, sanctioned with heavenly authority. On Peter’s profession of Christ’s Lordship, Jesus said, “On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 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” (Matt 16:18–19). Because we are united to Christ who has all authority, those in Christ now walk with authority to stand against evil powers (cf. Luke 10:18–19) and to declare whose lives or actions align with Christ and whose do not (Matt 18:15–20). Today Ryan and Joyce and Cael and Abby affirmed our Sovereign Joy Member Covenant. In doing so, you pledged “to submit your Christian discipleship to the service and authority of this body and its leaders, even as this church promises to oversee your discipleship.” You made that commitment of mutual oversight because you are seated with Christ in the heavenlies and now bear heavenly authority and responsibility (cf. 2:19; Phil 3:20).If we are raised and seated with Christ, then we should live on earth maintaining our heavenly identity and citizenship. Hear Paul in Colossians 3:1–2: “If you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.” We must remember who we are and whose we are. “No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him” (2 Tim 2:4). Or as Peter says, “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation” (1 Pet 2:11–12). May others recognize our heavenly identity as we live on earth.The Goal of Our Exalted Life (2:7)

God’s great love has powerfully given Christians exalted life in Christ. Paul described the essence of our exalted life in 2:4–6. Now he clarifies its goal. Why did God make us alive together in Christ, saving us by grace? Why did he raise us and seat us together in Christ? Verse 7: “so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” The love of God in Christ that graciously saves sinners is the greatest power our universe has ever known. This is clear because the impact of this love will last forever, redounding through the ages. God’s “great love” (2:4) manifest in a wealth of “mercy” (2:4) and an “immeasurable greatness of … power” (1:19) will produce a lasting demonstration of “the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” In chapter 1, God “in love … predestined us for adoption … to the praise of his glorious grace” (1:5–6). He redeemed us through Jesus’s blood “according to the riches of his grace” (1:7), and he purposed that those hoping in Christ “might be to the praise of his glory” (1:12) and redeem possession of our inheritance “to the praise of his glory” (1:14). The climactic purpose of God’s saving work in Christ is to elevate a display of his grace for all eternity. Our gracious rescue becomes the means of his greatest renown.

And in that day, when we are not distracted by cares or ailments or relational tensions and when all our senses are transformed and our memories work perfectly––in that day our joy will be full because we will more fully and increasingly “know … what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe” (1:18–19). We will see rightly and be completely and forever satisfied. The amazing volcanic grace of God that erupted in Christ will have finally transformed all things, and we will properly recognize that the life we enjoy in Christ with no evil, tears, friction, or pain is fully and wholly to the praise of his glorious grace. The immeasurable power of God’s great love will be fully magnified, thus completing our joy. God’s great love has powerfully given Christians exalted life in Christ. Thanks be to God. Come, Lord Jesus.

The post The Christians’ Exalted Life: A Sermon on Ephesians 2:4–7 appeared first on Jason DeRouchie.

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(Audio Download / PDF / SoundCloud) DeRouchie gave this message on 2/9/24 at the Sovereign Joy Baptist Church plant in Liberty, MO.

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Happy Father’s Day. The book of Ephesians opens by declaring “grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph 1:2). On this Father’s Day we get to revel in a current of amazing grace that has its headwaters sourced in the abundant, ever-replenishing love of our heavenly Father.

We pick up today in Ephesians 1:7, which directly builds on the declaration that ended last week’s sermon. Look with me at verses 5–6; here Paul declares that God predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ “to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.” Grace is God the Father’s undeserved favor toward his adopted children, and verse 6 proclaims four beautiful truths about this grace: (1) It’s praiseworthy or worthy of admiration. (2) It’s glorious, displaying the very holy nature of God; central to God’s being is a loving disposition even toward the ungodly. (3) Grace is how God blesses us; we are saved by grace alone, and without grace there is only curse. (4) God’s grace only comes to us in the Beloved.

Jesus has already showed up many times in the letter, but Paul’s common title for him is the Christ, using the Greek rendering of the Hebrew term Messiah, in whom Old Testament hopes for salvation rested. In verse 1, Paul is an apostle of Christ, and the Ephesian church are those faithful in Christ. In verse 2, Paul brings grace and peace from Christ, the very one whom verse 3 says has God as his Father and in whom we are blessed. Verse 4 notes that in Christ we were chosen, and verse 5 asserts that through Christ we are adopted. But now, in verse 6, rather than saying that we are blessed in Christ the text declares we are blessed in the Beloved.

In the Old Testament, “the Beloved” is a title given to God’s people, who will specifically enjoy his help through his Messiah at the end of the age. Thus, the New English Translation of the Septuagint renders Deuteronomy 33:36, “There is none like the God of the Beloved; he who rides upon the sky is your helper.” And in Isaiah 44:2, “You will still be helped; do not fear, O Jacob my servant the Beloved Israel who I have chosen.” How will God help his people? He will do so through his messianic Servant, who represents the people perfectly and bears their identity (49:3, 6). The end-times people can be counted as children of the heavenly Father because Jesus, the perfect Son, is God’s Beloved.

Having drawn attention to Christ in this special way, what follows are three assertions that clarify the evidence of God’s blessing that comes to us in the Beloved. Look at verse 7: “In him” (that is, in the Beloved) we have redemption. Then in verse 11: “In him” we have obtained an inheritance or, perhaps better, been selected as God’s portion. And finally, in verse 13: “In him” you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. We have here three proofs of God’s blessing toward us in God’s Beloved Son. His perfect uprightness (= Jeshurun) resulted in his enjoying the covenant love of God, which is now directed toward us who belong to him. This Father’s Day we get to revel in praiseworthy grace, glorious grace, blessed grace, all of which comes to us in God’s Beloved Son.

In verses 7–10, one sign of God’s blessing toward us is that, in the Beloved, God graciously redeems us. The text has three parts:

The essence of our redemption (v. 7)Evidence of our redemption (vv. 8–9)The end of our redemption (v. 10)

We will see that for God to redeem us means that he pardons our sins, and God pardons us as part of his gracious plan for universal peace. This is my main idea: God pardons us as part of his gracious plan for universal peace.

Read along with me beginning in 1:7…. Pray with me….

The Essence of Our Redemption:
Our Pardon in Christ (v. 7)

Paul begins in verse 7, “In [the Beloved Son] we have redemption.” The apostle uses a legal term for the rightful release or liberation of someone or something once bound, whether as a slave under hostile control (e.g., Exod 21:8; cf. Rom 8:23) or as one regarded as a criminal (Heb 11:35). Paul consistently employs this term “redemption” to refer either to the declaration of freedom from bondage to sin and God’s wrath that believers presently enjoy (Rom 3:24; Col 1:14; cf. Heb 9:15) or to the complete freedom we will enjoy in the future day when there will be no more tears, death, or curse (Eph 1:14; 4:30; cf. Luke 21:28). We were all enslaved to sin’s power, awaiting the just sentence for sin’s penalty. “The wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23). We were already spiritually “dead in the trespasses and sins” in which we walked (Eph 2:1), and as such we were “by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (2:3). Eternal hell exists not because God is a bad judge but because he is a good judge. Justice means giving someone what they are due, and a failure to give an infinitely glorious God the honor he deserves demands an infinitely equal punishment––eternal death.

Yet into our darkness and dismal future the Father sent his Beloved Son to die in our stead and by this to free us from our sentence of death. Thus, Paul here says, “We have redemption through [Jesus’s] blood.” The apostle assumes here that you and “I heard the old, old story, how a Savior came from glory, how he gave his life on Calvary to save a wretch like me.” Paul assumes that you and “I heard about his groaning, of his precious blood’s atoning,” and he believes that we’ve repented of our sins and won the victory. “O victory in Jesus, my Savior forever. He sought me and bought me with his redeeming blood. He loved me before I knew him, and all my love is due him. He plunged me to victory beneath the cleansing flood.”

Paul here speaks of the great exchange wherein our sins are placed on Christ, and his perfect righteousness is counted as ours. “As one trespass [from Adam] led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness [by Jesus] leads to justification and life for all men” who are in him (Rom 5:18). “For our sake God made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor 5:21). The blows Jesus bore and the blood he shed are the sole means by which we can be saved. The redemption in Christ only comes through his suffering unto death, as the full force of God’s wrath was poured on the Son so that ungodly men and women like you and me could be freed from sin’s penalty and sin’s power.

This is why Paul now defines what he means by “redemption.” “In [the Beloved] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses.” In Colossians 1:14 Paul says the same thing but uses the term “sins.” Both “trespasses” and “sins” refer to the violation of God’s standard that demands punishment. You and I owed the all-glorious God our perfect, unstained loyalty, yet we have failed to pay him his due. Yet we who “were dead in our trespasses and sins” (Eph 2:1), “God made alive together with [Christ], having forgiven us all our trespasses, by cancelling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross” (Col 2:13–14). In Christ––that is his Beloved Son, God graciously pardons us.

Like a massive debt that has been absolved, God forgives an ocean of violation and offense. If you’re a father today or if you’re offspring of a father, consider the breathtaking scope of sins from which God has redeemed those in the Beloved: addiction, adultery, anxiety, apathy, argumentativeness, arrogance, backbiting, bestiality, bitterness, blasphemy, boasting, carelessness, cheating, coarse joking, covetousness, a critical spirit, cowardliness, cross dressing, deceit, disobedience, dishonoring parents, dissension, division, divorce that’s unlawful, drunkenness, enmity, envy, evil thoughts, faithlessness, fear that’s misplaced, fits of anger, foolish talk or action, fornication, gossip, greed, gluttony, hating God and others, haughtiness, heresy, homosexuality, hypocrisy, idolatry, immodesty, immorality, impurity, insolence, jealousy, laziness, lawlessness, lovelessness, lust, lying, malice, materialism, mercilessness, murder, neglect of God’s Word, occult activity, orgies, passivity, pornography, prayerlessness, prejudice, pride, procrastination, profanity, quenching the Spirit, rebellion to authority, resentment, reveling, rivalry, rudeness, ruthlessness, sedition, seduction, self-harm, selfishness, self-righteousness, sensuality, sexual immorality, slander, sloth, sorcery, stealing, strife, swindling, theft, transgenderism, unbelief, unforgiveness, ungodliness, unrepentance, unrighteousness, unholiness, vanity, witchcraft, workaholism, worklessness, worry, wrath. And this is just a beginning list of what Jesus, God’s Beloved, came to save us from by his blood.

Are the fathers in this room happy that you can be forgiven? Are those who have fathers in this room relieved that you can be redeemed? Paul stresses elsewhere that we are “justified by [God’s] grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus…. Since, therefore, we have been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God” (Rom 3:24; 5:9). Brothers and sisters, this is amazing grace.

Indeed, as the apostle now says, this pardon was “according to the riches of [God’s] grace” (Eph 1:7). To speak of “the wealth of God’s grace” points to the immeasurable amount of favor he has stockpiled in his heavenly storehouses (cf. 2:7 with 1:18; 3:8, 16). Our redemption manifest in the forgiveness of our trespasses stands in conformity with or in alignment with these riches of grace. The measure of grace we enjoy in Christ is an overflow of the wealth of heavenly grace that God has poured out. The damn has broken, the flood gates are opened, and our once parched, wilting souls are now receiving the unending, ever-replenishing life-giving saturation of saving grace. God pardons us as part of his gracious plan.

Evidence of Our Redemption:
Our Perception of God’s Purpose in Christ (vv. 8–9)

Not everyone in this world enjoys the precious pardon of sins. It’s only those who are in the Beloved Christ. Paul now offers one proof for us as to whether we are indeed in him––we will perceive God’s plan in Jesus. Verse 8 notes that the riches of grace that birthed our forgiveness were indeed “lavished upon us,” which highlights again the immeasurable vastness of grace at God’s bestowal.

Next is the phrase “in all wisdom and insight,” and there is question whether this modifies what follows or what precedes. The ESV translators were apparently divided. In the main translation they put a comma before “in all wisdom and insight,” thus connecting it with what follows and saying that it clarifies how God’s wisdom and insight gave rise to his revealing a mystery (also NIV, NASB). But see if your Bible includes a footnote in verse 9 after the initial phrase “making known”; in my ESV the translators highlight that the phrase could relate to what precedes, thus clarifying that the grace God lavished on us is seen in our own wisdom and insight into God’s plan (also NLT, CSB, NET). I think this latter option is more likely because in 1:17 Paul prays that his hearers would enjoy “a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of [God].” Similarly, in 5:18 Paul wants his readers to be wise, and in Colossians 1:9 he likewise prays that the believers would “be filled with the knowledge of [God’s] will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.” So, as I look at the text, I think the comma should go at the end of verse 8.

One proof that you and I enjoy God’s saving grace is that we are growing in our understanding of his plan for history culminating in Christ. The Lord has taught us, and we have heard and learned from the Father and come to Jesus (John 6:45; cf. Isa 54:13). We thus have wisdom and insight––a personal experience of knowing how the reigning God eternally saves and satisfies sinners who believe and does so through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus (cf. Jer 31:34).

The beginning of verse 9 clarifies how we have this understanding. God has lavished his grace upon us in all wisdom and insight by “making known to us the mystery of his will.” The phrase “making known” refers to God’s revelation that results in us having new spiritual sight. Thus, in verse 18 Paul will pray, “having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints.” The revelatory language is like how Paul speaks in 2 Corinthians 3–4, where he says of most Jews of his day: “Their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts. But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed” (2 Cor 3:14–16). For believers, “God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor 4:6). And now “we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (3:18). This is the proof of our redemption to which Paul points.

Next, we see what God had made known: “the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ” (Eph 1:9). Throughout the New Testament, the term “mystery” refers to something that was partially known in the Old Testament era but is now more fully understood in the New. The Old Testament is loaded with promises and predictions about Christ’s coming, about his tribulation and triumph, and about the universal work of salvation he would ignite. Yet it is only in his coming that the full picture becomes clear. Like a good mystery novel that is filled with clues that are not fully recognized or understood until the last chapter, God waited for Christ’s appearing to clarify how all the earlier clues related to each other. And now that Jesus has come we have a better sense of God’s purposes in the world, for God has made them known to us.

Specifically, the revelation of God’s mystery relates to the latter-days or end-times work of God through Jesus. Later in this letter, Paul unpacks the revealed mystery and its significance for the Ephesian believers, and he would have expected that what he says later would impact a second or third reading of chapter 1 for those like us who would give sustained and intentional thought to his message. For example, in 3:4–6 he says,

When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. (Eph 3:4–6; cf. v. 9)

He then refers to the mystery in 3:7 as “this gospel,” and in 6:19 he asks the church to pray that he would be able to boldly “proclaim the mystery of the gospel,” for which he is presently in chains.

One evidence that you are redeemed is that you have personally experienced God’s curse-overcoming, universe-reconciling work in Jesus. You’ve seen that Christ is King; you’ve embraced that he is the only Savior; you’ve repented of your sins, have surrendered to him as Lord, and have joyfully affirmed that you are now part of his mission of reconciling the world to God. If the word of the cross is no longer foolishness to you and if Christ Jesus has indeed become to you “wisdom from God”––your “righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Cor 1:30), then you have proof that indeed you are among the redeemed. God pardons us as part of his gracious plan for universal peace.

The End of Our Redemption:
Universal Peace with God in Christ (v. 10)

In verse 7 Paul clarified the essence of our redemption: our pardon in Christ. Then verses 8–9 supplied evidence of our redemption: our perception of God’s purpose in Christ. Now in verse 10 we see the ultimate end of our redemption. What is its goal? God’s plan for universal peace with God in Christ. God pardons us as part of his gracious plan for universal peace. This is the passage’s main idea.

Out of the abundance of God’s grace, he redeemed us, evidenced in our perceiving his purposes set forth in Christ. These purposes, which verse 4 highlighted began before the foundation of the world, are now said in verse 10 to be part of “a plan for the fullness of time.” In Galatians 4, Paul says, “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law” (Gal 4:4). Similarly, Mark highlights how Jesus kicked off his earthly ministry by “proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel’” (Mark 1:15). Before the foundation of the world, God had a plan, and from the moment he set space and time in motion, history has been progressing toward a climax that the Sovereign God has determined––a plan literally “for the fullness of the times.” In 3:9 Paul calls it “the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things.” Every epoch in the history of the world––from Adam and Noah to Abraham to Moses to David to Jesus to us…. every age has been predetermined and participates in one great end that Paul now declares in the latter half of verse 10––“to unite all things in [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth.”

Within this book, “heaven” and “earth” are not simply two opposites brought together to represent the whole universe (= a merism). Paul’s focus is indeed universal, but in Ephesians the heavens are a place from which God reigns yet also in which spiritual powers are in rebellion against him––rulers and authorities that Christ came to put in order. In 1:21 we read that Christ’s place at God’s right hand in the heavenly places is “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion.” Also, in 3:10 God’s purpose is that “through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.” Finally, in 6:12, Christians are said to wrestle not “against flesh and blood but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness.” God ordained a world where such evil forces exist in the heavenlies so that he might put all of them under Christ’s feet (1:22).

With this, in the earthly sphere, from the time God dispersed the nations at Babel until Paul’s day, ethnic distinctions had separated the “haves” from the “have nots,” the blessed from the cursed, and the remnant of believers from the rebel of the world. Yet Jesus came to overcome the alienation of humanity from God and of Jews from Gentiles. Listen to what Paul says in 2:14–16:

For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. (2:14–16)

God’s plan in Christ has always been to bring unity and harmony where the fall caused friction and alienation. God’s “plan for the fullness of the times” has been “to unite all things in [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth.” Or, as my main idea statement is worded: God pardons us as part of his gracious plan for universal peace. The book of Ephesians clarifies how the fragmented and alienated universe becomes centered and reunited in Christ and how Jesus, the Beloved of the Father, becomes the focal point of the new creation.

When we summarize the book as “pursuing peace with power,” it’s this type of peace––a universal reconciliation with God wherein people and all creation are once again at peace with God and wherein God is at peace with them. This is what verse 10 means by “unity.” In Christ’s first coming, his death satisfied God’s wrath against all who believe, and his resurrection “disarmed the rulers and authorities” (Col 2:15). In Jesus’s first coming, God’s saving plan reached an initial climax, our pardon became secured, the eradication of enemy hostility became certain, and our future redemption and hope for universal peace became clear.

Yet this peace will only be fully realized because in Jesus’s second coming he will overcome all his enemies, casting them into eternal torment. The universe will be made right only because full justice will be served. And this means that either your sins will have been forgiven in the Beloved Son or your sins will be punished on the last day. To unite all things in Christ, God will magnify the beauty and abundance of his saving grace to those he redeems by punishing those who have been unwilling to receive redemption. God’s justice demands that he punish either the sinner or the substitute. We are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone for the glory of God alone. Jesus alone is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). So, if you fail to surrender to King Jesus’s Lordship, you will incur the full force of his fury when he reconciles all the world to himself. There will be no more time for surrender.

If you are an unbelieving father today, I urge you to turn to Jesus as your Savior and Lord. If as an unbeliever you came from a father today, I am praying that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened and that the saving grace of God would be lavished on you in all wisdom and insight. If you pray for pardon and commit your life to Jesus, you can experience redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of your sins. Today you can be redeemed from an eternity of bondage and brokenness by an all-Sovereign, all-loving Father. Will you receive this joy?

Finally, brothers and sisters, the saving grace of God to you in the Beloved is real. As we saw in verse 6, this grace is praiseworthy, it’s glorious, and it’s your only means for blessing. If God has lavished wisdom and insight on you and if you already know the joy of forgiveness, let your heart praise the Father’s name as we move into communion, reflecting on the riches of God’s grace packed into your redemption through Christ’s blood. And if today you find yourself longing to enjoy redemption, ask God to forgive your sins and to reconcile you to himself through Jesus’s blood. God pardons us as part of his gracious plan for universal peace. Today is the day of salvation. Amen.

The post Purposeful Redemption: A Sermon on Ephesians 1:7–10 appeared first on Jason DeRouchie.

How Did Jesus View the Old Testament? How Did Jesus View the Old Testament?

by Jason DeRouchie, Tom Kelby, and Jack Yaeger

https://jasonderouchie.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/geartalk-humble-skeptic.mp3 Transcript

JY: Welcome to GearTalk, a podcast on biblical theology. Today we’re doing something a bit different. As we mentioned last week, Jason DeRouchie is taking the summer off from GearTalk. However, we figured out a way to keep him around for another week. We’ll be kicking off our Summer of Story series in the weeks to come. Today, however, we’re replaying a podcast Jason recorded with Shane Rosenthal on the Humble Skeptic podcast titled, “How Did Jesus View the Old Testament?”

Jesus’ understanding of the first three quarters of the Bible should matter to all Christians. He had a biblical theology, and understanding his views proves critical in developing our own biblical theology. We want to rightly understand how the Bible progresses, integrates, and climaxes in Christ. Today’s podcast, again originally aired on the Humble Skeptic, will help us do that.

SR: Hey there, welcome back to the Humble Skeptic Podcast. I’m Shane Rosenthal.

According to Luke 24, after his resurrection, Jesus walked with two of his disciples on the road to Emmaus, and during that journey, we’re told that, quote, “beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” So what passages did Jesus likely have in mind as he discussed the Hebrew Bible with these two disciples?

Joining me to discuss this question is Jason DeRouchie, who is research professor of Old Testament and biblical theology at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He’s also the author of How to Understand and Apply the Old Testament and Delighting in the Old Testament.

On this episode, I’ll primarily be talking with him about a chapter he wrote for the book, 40 Questions about Biblical Theology. In this chapter, he observes that, quote, “the only Bible Jesus had was what we call the Old Testament, and he said that it was about him. Therefore, according to Jesus, when we faithfully understand the Scriptures, what we will see in the Old Testament is a message of the Messiah, his death and his resurrection, and the global mission he would generate. To him all redemptive history points, and through him God fulfills all previous promises.”

So when I first had the opportunity to speak with Dr. DeRouchie, I asked him to discuss those comments in more detail.

JD: Well, here at the culmination of Jesus’ time on earth, he declares after his resurrection to his disciples that he had come to fulfill everything that was written in his Bible—the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms, which I believe is an echo of the three parts of Jewish Scriptures: the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings.

Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and then Jesus in his own words gives us what it means to understand them. If we understand his Old Testament rightly, what we will arrive at is this: “Thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations beginning from Jerusalem.”

So we have the suffering and sovereign Messiah and global missions. So when I approach the Old Testament, that is the synthesis of the message I’m anticipating to find, because Jesus tells me that’s what I should see.

SR: Isaiah 49—Yahweh himself says it’s too small a thing for this redemption to atone for the sins of Israel. This is going to go to the ends of the earth.

JD: Absolutely. And Luke himself in Acts 26 alludes to that exact text in verses 22 and 23, when he identifies Paul declaring, “I’m telling you nothing but what the Prophets and Moses said would come to pass,” and then it’s this restatement of Jesus’ own words. Acts 26:22 and 23, where he says that the Christ must suffer, and by being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light both to our people and to the Gentiles.

So once again, that synthesis of Jesus’ Bible—where is it heading? What is it ultimately declaring? It’s declaring a suffering and triumphant Messiah and the mission, a global mission that he alone would spark.

SR: And you certainly see that suffering aspect as you continue forward in Isaiah’s prophecy as you move from 49 down to 52 and 53. This is the Lamb who is bearing our sin and taking our guilt and then also being cut off from the land of the living and seeing light.

JD: That’s exactly right. That’s such an amazing picture that God was pleased to crush him, Isaiah 53:10, that he might become a sacrifice for guilt. And then Isaiah 53:11 just goes further where the Prophet just declares that the righteous one counted many righteous and he bore their iniquity. Our sins upon him, his righteousness counted for ours—it’s 2 Corinthians 5:21. He became sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might be regarded, counted, enjoyed, the righteousness of God.

And then he’s dividing spoils in a victory celebration. This same one who was just cut off and is laid in the grave with the wicked. So there’s death, burial, atonement, resurrection—it’s all there in Isaiah 53.

SR: you also say in your essay in this book that Jesus teaches this idea that he is the major subject of Scripture. He talks about this in various texts, not just in Luke 24 as he’s walking on the road to Emmaus. What are the places in the New Testament we can go to see Christ’s own way of pointing us to the fact that he’s the center of the Old Testament?

JD: Oh, we have texts like John chapter 5. It’s such a beautiful text where he declares, “You search the Scriptures”—John 5:39—”search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is they that bear witness about me. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, because he wrote about me.”

That is an amazing declaration on Jesus’ part. Matthew 13:17, or restated in just a little bit different way in Luke 10, where he says that many prophets and kings longed to see what you see, but they didn’t see it, meaning they saw that he was coming, and yet they couldn’t grasp him like we are able to grasp him.

I think of 1 Peter chapter 1, not spoken by Jesus, but reflecting on such realities, when Peter said, “The very grace that is ours was proclaimed by those prophets of old as they searched and inquired carefully, inquiring to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was foretelling when predicting the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but us.”

As I read that text, what I’m seeing is that people like Isaiah were searching and inquiring carefully to understand more about the person and the time of the Messiah’s coming.

Paul said that he was set apart as an apostle, Romans 1, to declare the gospel of God. So it’s good news that comes from God that was promised beforehand by the prophets in the sacred writings. So the very prophets themselves were the agents, the Scripture that is the Old Testament was the vehicle, it was a gospel concerning the Son, the coming of Christ. The good news that was hoped for is now realized. That which was shadow now becomes substance, that which was promised is now fulfilled. That’s what Jesus brings.

SR: Don’t you think that a lot of places, if you pop into an average church on an average Sunday, you’re going to get moral lessons from the Old Testament, but this theme of Christ in the Old Testament is harder to find. Would you agree with that?

JD: Well, I would. I think that not only is the fact that it’s three-fourths of our Bible that is even further removed from the church, and people are just less familiar, and it takes more interpretive work to rightly handle that part of Scripture. And so yes, I think it intimidates many, but may the Lord awaken increasingly a generation that recognizes that this was Jesus’ Scripture, and he, by his grace, becomes the means by which we can read it rightly.

I’m thinking about Paul in Romans 16, how he says a secret, a mystery that was kept hidden for long ages has now been revealed, disclosed to us in the very sacred writings that we call the Old Testament. That’s all there. The hope of the gospel is all there, and now, like Paul, in light of the resurrected Son of God, we should never read our Old Testament in the same way.

SR: Yeah, and the sermons that you find in the book of Acts tell that same story. They’re preaching Christ and all that he accomplished by means of Old Testament passages, right?

JD: It is exactly right. You think of Acts chapter 3—Peter declares what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he has fulfilled.

SR: Now, we’ve already talked about a text like Isaiah 53, but what other texts come to mind when you think of this idea of a suffering Messiah?

JD: That’s good. I’m going to jump all the way back. It begins in the garden. It begins in Genesis 3:15, when a single male offspring of the woman—he, it’s a single masculine pronoun—is associated with the woman who will ultimately bruise the head, a death blow to the serpent himself while enduring a bruise to his heel. Already from the very beginning of Genesis, before God even declares his judgment on man and woman, he’s anticipating a single individual who will rise and enter into great battle against the evil one himself, the one who has been a murderer from the beginning, who comes to steal, kill, and destroy. One will come, like Adam should have been, but unlike Adam, because where Adam failed, he will succeed. He will truly be the guardian, and he will overcome that power, and the implication is by that victory, the curse will go in reverse and give rise to global new creation blessing.

Jumping ahead—we could go to a number of other texts in the Pentateuch—but I just want to think about the Psalter. In the Psalter, it opens up with this blessed man: “Blessed is the man,” and then that’s Psalm 1:1. Psalm 2 has numerous allusions back to Psalm 1, and Psalm 2 ends with “blessed are those who find refuge in him.” Who’s the him? It’s this reigning, anointed one—we would translate that as the Messiah—who’s standing next to Yahweh. And my understanding is that the blessed man is not us; the blessed man is the Messiah. We get to Messiah, who stands in our stead, who himself went where we couldn’t go.

He is a new Joshua figure, who now not only is commanded to meditate—he is meditating on the law day and night, and all the nations are raging against him. And it’s intriguing that Psalm 2 is cited in Acts chapter 4. Peter is praying to God, and he’s saying, you know, who is it that killed the Messiah? And he says, “Why did the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers were gathered together against you, against the Lord and against his Messiah,” for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, oh God—Herod was there, Pontius Pilate was there, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.

In the Psalter, we see a testimony of the tribulation and triumph of the Messiah. What we begin to see are these cycles of great animosity against the king, who endures intense suffering, and then comes on the other side victorious. And then after he comes out victorious, a community is birthed—there’s brothers, an entire generation that are following him and praising him. And it all begins in Psalm 1 and 2 where the nations are raging against the anointed, and then God declares, “You are my son; today I have begotten you.” Paul cites that text in Acts 13 in direct relationship to the resurrection. So there has been aggression from the nations standing against the Messiah, and it’s happening to this day. Oh my, is it happening. There’s aggression all around us, and the beast is trying to win, and yet Revelation declares victory will be ours, because first it was the victory of the Lamb.

SR: One text that comes to mind for me, in addition to Isaiah 53 and Psalm 2, is Zechariah 12, where you find Yahweh himself saying, “They will look upon me whom they have pierced.”

JD: Zechariah’s vision of the Messiah as one who brings forth new creation, who will reign on the very throne of God in the temple of God—it all comes about by this great battle, a singular battle that is anticipated, that includes Israel standing against Yahweh himself and standing against his priestly royal instrument.

As you already said in Zechariah 12 verse 10, God declares, “I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy,” so we have God saying he is going to alter the hearts of people and pour out grace and mercy when they look on him whom they have pierced. They shall mourn for him, and then just a few verses later, “On that day there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness.” So it is a beautiful picture there of what is going to be accomplished.

God himself is going to endure piercing. It’s similar language to Psalm 22, where you have this declaration, “They have pierced my hands and feet.”

SR: Or Isaiah, where it says he was pierced for our transgressions.

JD: Exactly. It is this graphic image of the type of realities that we see portrayed exactly in crucifixion, and it is the hope of the gospel.

SR: And that’s why the church’s mission today is not to be the gospel, but to proclaim the gospel that was achieved by Christ. I mean, that’s the trajectory that you find in Psalm 22 and Zechariah. I mean, Psalm 22—you talked about this where you had this language that Jesus himself quotes on the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And it’s a prophecy of the fact that this Messiah’s hands and feet would be pierced, but it ends with, if you go down to verse 29, for example, of Psalm 22, “All the earth shall come and worship.” That’s the trajectory, which we see in the book of Acts. I mean, you find the death, burial, resurrection of the Messiah, and then you have the announcement that starts from Jerusalem to Judea to all the ends of the earth.

JD: That’s it. Just two verses before that in verse 27, “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord.” Remember what? Remember what Psalm 22 is declaring—this cross and resurrection experience. And then it says, “All the families of the nations shall worship before you.” That’s just Revelation 5 and Revelation 7 worked out right there in Psalm 22.

SR: Or even the promises that God made to Abraham in Genesis, you know, “Through your seed, all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” That was the original mission.

JD: That’s right. And yet, just like Paul says in Galatians 3, verse 8, “The gospel was preached beforehand to Abraham saying, ‘In you shall all the nations be blessed.'” The promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring, 3:16. It doesn’t say “and to his offsprings,” referring to many, but “to his offspring,” that is Christ. And then, verse 29, “If you are in Christ, you become Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promises.” All who are in Jesus inherit all the promises of Abraham.

SR: So if you’re united to the head, you become a co-heir with Christ because of his victory, his achievement.

JD: That’s exactly right.

SR: What Old Testament passages would you say hint at Christ’s resurrection? We’ve already talked about the suffering servant of Isaiah 53, who’s laid in the grave and then sees light. But what other texts would you point us to?

JD: Jesus himself pointed to the story of Jonah. And Jesus points back to that—just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale for those three days, so must the Son of Man be in that belly.

Beyond that, you have a text like Hosea chapter 6, where Hosea, who has already identified that Israel the people will become not God’s people—that’s one of the names that are given to Hosea’s daughter: “Not my people,” Lo-ammi. And this “not my people,” though… The vision is that those who are not God’s people will become God’s people. And Paul in Romans 9 cites Hosea chapter 1 and identifies, we’re talking about multi-ethnic inclusion, not just Jews, but Gentiles who were not God’s people becoming God’s people.

And it’ll happen, we’re told in Hosea chapter 3, through a second exodus that’s led by Yahweh their God and David, this Messianic King. In that context, we read of Israel that they will be saved in two days. Indeed, they will rise in three days, Hosea chapter 6. And I think that this is an image. How are the people of God going to rise out of their grave? They’re going to rise ultimately through this victory of the Messiah.

We could also go further back. We could go to Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy 32:39 says, “I am Yahweh, that is my name. See now that I am he, and there is no God beside me. I kill and I make alive. I wound and I heal.”

Now, in the book of Deuteronomy, exiled Israel’s ultimate curse is portrayed as their destruction. But that’s why it’s significant that after it says, “I kill, I make alive. I wound and I heal.” Because healing comes after wounding, we know that becoming alive comes after the dying. So God is here envisioning what Deuteronomy 30 then unpacks as ultimate restoration, a new covenant that is directly associated with a prophet like but better than Moses, who will mediate this new work of God.

SR: And that “I am he” language that you find there in Deuteronomy 32 comes up again and again throughout Isaiah, and also happens to be the basis of all the “I am” statements that Jesus himself makes in the fourth gospel—like when he declares, “I am the resurrection and the life.”

JD: That’s right.

SR: And so when you put all that together with the fact that in John 11, he brings his friend Lazarus back to life, it becomes clear, doesn’t it, that we’re not just dealing with some kind of prophet. This is the very one who has the power of life itself.

JD: Yes. I’ll add one more using the—maybe I’ll add two more, using the imagery of Paul. Two of the images that he uses commonly for resurrection: water, as in baptism, and a seed having to die in the ground and becoming new creation.

It seems to me very likely based on texts like 1 Peter that portrays the flood as baptism or Paul in 1 Corinthians 10 who portrays the Red Sea as a baptism. Right. What we have here is a judgment ordeal—in the language of Meredith Kline, a water ordeal—where God himself declares judgment against his enemy, and yet through this judgment come some who are saved, be it Noah and his family or Israel as a people. There is a new creation dawning through the flood. There is a new creation dawning through the birth of Israel in the waters, and both of them, typologically, as pointers, these events anticipate something greater.

I’d just go back one step further. I mentioned the seed in the ground. This wasn’t brought up by me, but it’s significant that it’s on day three, a third day resurrection. That’s what we need to find—not only that the Bible, the Old Testament, tells us that Jesus would rise, but that he would rise on the third day, according to the Scriptures. We saw that in Hosea 6. We see the potential third day resurrection already anticipated in Genesis chapter 1. This is original creation in contrast to new creation that Jesus brings. When is it that we first see signs in the terrestrial sphere of new creation that a seed that was once dead has become alive? It’s on day three. This is when the plants sprout on day three in the original creation week. And it may be one small sign that Paul has in mind in 1 Corinthians 15 when he identifies the growth of a seed as the start of new creation and identifies it with the resurrection of Jesus.

SR: There’s a line in the book of Hebrews, isn’t there, about Abraham receiving back his son Isaac? And in a sense, it was a kind of resurrection. And that too was a third day. He told his servants that they would be back after three days. Do you see anything significant about that?

JD: I do. Genesis 22 is a beautiful text, and it includes both the suffering and the triumph, the imagery. But it was a three days’ journey we were told from when Abraham left with his son Isaac and with his servants. And then they arrive at Moriah, which 1 Chronicles tells us is the very place where Jerusalem is established, where David builds the first altar that becomes the temple mount and ultimately foreshadows the very place where Jesus would die.

But like you said, Abraham, who knew—God told him sacrifice your son, Isaac, whom you love. Abraham also knew in the previous chapter, Genesis 21, that God said it was through Isaac that your offspring—that is the ultimate offspring of promise, Messiah Jesus—would be reckoned. It’s going to happen through Isaac, which Abraham knew that whatever happens at Mount Moriah is going to result in something greater. So he said to his servants, “I and my son will go and sacrifice and then we will return.” And the writer of Hebrews rightly says Abraham believed in the resurrection.

SR: So you’re talking in your book about the way that biblical theology highlights Old Testament characters and events, not as ends in themselves, but in a way that anticipates and helps to clarify the Messiah’s coming work. Can you talk about that?

JD: Yeah, what I’m wanting to highlight there is that there are throughout the Old Testament what theologians often call types. And these types are persons like Moses or events like the exodus or institutions like the temple, all of which in some way anticipate the coming of Jesus.

So Moses—we’re told in Deuteronomy 18, we’re looking for a prophet like Moses, and then it specifies it’s specifically a covenant-mediating prophet, just like you were set apart at Mount Sinai to stand between me and the people. So too, this greater prophet will be one who mediates a covenant. That’s why I don’t believe any Old Testament prophets fit the bill. All of them were merely covenant enforcers. Jesus alone becomes the covenant-mediating prophet.

SR: Yeah, in the days of that new covenant that Jeremiah said would not be like the covenant made at Mount Sinai.

JD: That’s right. It’s going to be better because the law is going to be internalized and ultimately it’s going to magnify God through the people’s obedience

SR: and through the forgiveness of sins that would be communicated. And everyone will be enjoying that forgiveness in this new covenant.

JD: So an event like the exodus—the exodus is a type that anticipates the greater exodus. And in Luke chapter 9, it’s the only place in the New Testament where the term “exodus” shows up. My ESV translates it “departure,” but Moses and Elijah are on the Mount of Transfiguration with Jesus talking with him about the exodus that he would undergo in Jerusalem.

SR: Yeah, he’s about to accomplish a departure, which is weird because you don’t usually accomplish a departure, but if you translate that as you say, the exodus, this is the ultimate exodus. He is the Paschal Lamb that is slain, and that’s how the people enter into the new promised land. And as he says throughout the gospel of John, you know, he is the living water. He is the bread from heaven. Those things were the temporal pointers, the indicators, but he is the reality to which all those things point.

JD: He is the reality. So you just mentioned a number of institutions—the Passover Lamb, we could add the temple. In John, Jesus is the temple. That’s an institution.

Now, one element you drew up in your question was in what way are these types not only pointers, but how do they clarify? My point in bringing that up—often when types are talked about, they are only referred to as pointers. They are prophecies, predictions that God set in motion in space and time in order to anticipate the work of Christ. My point in talking about how they clarify and not only anticipate is that when we come to Jesus and we learn that he accomplished an exodus in Jerusalem, we are given the account of the first exodus to better understand what Luke is saying when he identifies that Jesus did an exodus, or when Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5 that he is indeed the Passover Lamb.

We can’t, once we arrive at the antitype, at the substance that the shadows pointed to—we can’t say we don’t need the shadows anymore. Yes, the shadows have passed, but what I mean by clarifying is that we still need all of Scripture in order to rightly understand who Jesus is and the work that he accomplished. We need the first exodus event in order to provide clarity about what Jesus is doing as an exodus, but then we also need Jesus’ work as the ultimate answer to give clarity, more clarity to what the whole purpose of the first exodus was about.

SR: Exactly.

JD: So in my chapter on mystery in “40 Questions,” I talk about how the patterns, these types in the Old Testament, they set up a system that still needs resolution, and I think the New Testament sends us back to the Old Testament to understand the relationship of the patterns and how we’re supposed to read them ultimately for the glory of God and the exaltation of Jesus.

SR: Now in John 1:18, we’re told that, quote, “No one has ever seen God. The only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.” And similarly in his letter to the Colossians, Paul refers to Jesus as, quote, “the image of the invisible God.” And texts of this kind lead you to conclude that, quote, “whenever Yahweh becomes embodied in a human form in the Old Testament, we are most likely meeting the pre-incarnate Son.” So what Old Testament passages come to mind when you think of Yahweh appearing in a human form?

JD: In the story of the three visitors to Abraham,

SR: Genesis 18—

JD: That’s right, the two visitors are angels, but the other figure is there. And the text just says “Yahweh said,” it’s when he talks, it’s Yahweh’s words.

SR: This is the same individual whom Abraham had just said, “Let a little water be brought so that you can wash your feet.”

JD: That’s right. This is an embodiment of one whose very identity is like Yahweh. In Joshua chapter 5, we see Joshua right on the cusp of the Promised Land. And one shows up. And Joshua says, “Are you for us or for them?” And he says, “No, I’m the commander of the army of Yahweh of hosts.” And then “Take off your sandals, for the place you’re standing is holy ground,” in echo of Exodus 3. This individual demands—it’s like he’s embodying the very holiness of the Lord.

And we could jump ahead to a text like Isaiah chapter 6, where “I saw the Lord seated on the throne.” And these heavenly beings were flying around saying, “Holy, holy, holy is Yahweh Almighty. The whole earth will be full of his glory.” And then in John chapter 12, what we’re told is Isaiah saw Jesus’s glory. So it leads me to think that at least many of these manifestations are nothing less than Christ himself.

SR: One of my favorite scenes is Genesis 32 where Jacob has a mysterious wrestling partner show up in the middle of the night. And at the end of that ordeal, he says, “I have seen God face to face.” So what you’re saying is that if it’s God in human form, and you combine that with the language we find in the gospel of John—”No one has ever seen God, except for the one who is at his right hand has made him known”—so anytime you see an embodiment of God in the Old Testament, that must be or is more likely to be Jesus in the Old Testament.

JD: It seems to me, yes, that it needs to be that it likely is a manifestation of the divine Son. It takes me all the way back to Exodus 33, where Moses himself says, “Let me see your glory.”

SR: And he says, “You can’t handle the glory.

JD: You can’t handle the glory.” So at one level, we have to say that if people are seeing God fully embodied, then it has to be the Son, not the Father, according to the gospel.

SR: Would you read that into Genesis 3 in light of what we’ve read? you know, in Genesis 3, we’re told that Adam and Eve heard the sound of the Lord walking in the garden. So apparently he has feet and he can walk, and then they hide from his presence because they’ve just committed sin. So do you think that we should at least think about that possibly being the pre-incarnate Christ since it seems to be an embodiment of God?

JD: It certainly could be. That’s possible. I mean, Jude 5 says who was it that saved Israel out of Egypt? he says, Christ. Jesus led you out of Egypt. We have to have some category that’s able to understand that the second person of the Trinity led the exodus. And I think in that instance, it’s that this person is bound up with this category of the arm of God, the arm of Yahweh. How is it that God… It’s fleshed out all the way through Isaiah, and it culminates in Isaiah 53 verses 1 and 2, where the very arm of God is the very one who suffers on behalf of the many. It’s the arm of Yahweh who grows up like a shoot before Yahweh himself, and who experiences great oppression at the hands of the nation, and then suffers on behalf of the many and brings victory. That arm is none other than the second person of the Trinity. The servant Israel, personally, the Messiah himself.

SR: You know, along those lines, one of my favorite passages is from Isaiah 59, where God looks around and sees that there’s no one to help, no one to intercede. And so then his own arm brings them salvation.

JD: And then that very arm dresses for battle with this armor that Paul builds on in Ephesians—

JD: Oh, right. Yeah.

JD: —chapter 6, the armor of God is none other than the armor of the Messiah straight out of Isaiah.

SR: And so, yeah, I totally agree with you. So the belt of truth and the breastplate of righteousness, we should think of as objective—this is Christ’s righteousness that I wear.

JD: That’s exactly the very means by which he accomplished his victory, his perfect righteousness, his belt of truth, his embodiment of all that honors God—is what allowed him to gain that vindication, that declaration of righteousness at the resurrection. And that’s what we are wearing, and it’s what we stand against the devil with. We stand in with such armor.

So numerous images of Yahweh in the Old Testament, I argue in that chapter, that they set us up to celebrate, to see and to savor the divine Son, because Jesus is the one who makes this God known to us. And as John says, we have seen him, we have heard him, the one who is the only begotten of the Father, full of grace, full of truth.

SR: And that language that you find throughout the Old Testament with the angel of the Lord, basically the messenger of Yahweh, the one sent by Yahweh—is the very language you find on the lips of Jesus throughout the fourth gospel again, where he says, “I’m the one sent by the Father.” So he’s basically identifying as that same one, right?

JD: That’s really good. Really good. Yes.

SR: One last question I’d like to put to you before we conclude, and that’s how does the study of biblical theology help us to celebrate Christ as we attempt to apply the moral instruction we find in the Old Testament to our lives today?

JD: Well, this is huge. The Old Testament is loaded with ethical imperatives, whether in the Mosaic law or in the wisdom literature. And I believe we should never approach the Old Testament apart from Christ. It’s not only that the Old Testament points to him—and that’s what much of this episode has been about—it’s that we don’t enter into the Scripture rightly; we should not apart from him. We need grace to engage in every ethical imperative. And therefore, when we’re told by Moses, “Love the Lord your God with all,” and then we see that Jesus reaffirms that in a text like Mark 12, we have to do so in light of, and only in light of the beautiful pattern that Jesus has set that Abraham and Moses never had. Jesus in his life sets a perfect pattern of what living for the glory of God looks like. “Not my will, but yours be done.”

But much more than a pattern. Jesus provides power for our living. And how does he do that? he provides us pardon. I should not approach my pursuit of holiness apart from blood-bought grace. God’s grace does not make my working unnecessary. God’s grace is what makes my working possible. He shapes our will, our desire. He’s the one who shapes our work, our activity, every behavioral change, every overcoming of sin in our lives. It’s blood-bought. And so I think the pursuit of ethical imperatives in the Old Testament is done in a context of radical glorifying to Jesus because at the cross and through his resurrection, he purchased our pardon and he purchased promises. And that frames our entire pursuit of holiness.

SR: And this is why you point out that Second Timothy 3:15 talks about the fact that the sacred writings—there referring to the Old Testament—are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ. Again, Jesus is the point. It directs our attention to him, and now we live a life of gratitude, honoring Christ and following his new commandment of loving and serving one another.

JD: That’s exactly right. He has used another section of Peter. He has given us all that we need for life and for godliness. We have a living hope. And we can only rightly appropriate the Old Testament, not only as a document pointing to Christ, but when we approach the Old Testament through Christ, from Christ, he operates as a lens for right reading and he also operates as the very generator of right living.

JY: Thank you for joining us for GearTalk. Today’s podcast originally played on the Humble Skeptic podcast. Go check it out. For resources related to biblical theology, visit handstotheplow.org and jasonderouchie.com. In addition to ongoing work like GearTalk and trips to train pastors and leaders, we’re working on a number of exciting new projects. To donate to the work of Hands to the Plow, visit handstotheplow.org.

 

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