[Note: Pastor Russell became sick and unable to preach this message. Youth Pastor Jay Van Gelder used these notes to preach it. So the audio and the text will be quite a bit different.]
Mr. Pig
I had a very strange dream Thursday morning. I dreamed I had a pet wild boar. I’m not sure where I got him, or how, but I had a pet wild boar and he was very big and he had the scruffy fur around his neck and the big tusks sticking out of his snout and the drool coming out of his mouth.
And he was real friendly. I called him Mr. Pig (that’s a Lion King reference.)
And somehow, I’m not sure how, I figured out that my pet wild boar was a hunting pet wild boar. He did the whole hunting dog thing—he’d run and fetch, he’d stop and point, his leg would go up and his ears would stick straight up. It was like he’d been trained by Gary Van Wettering.
So one day, me and my pet wild boar were out hunting. I’m not a hunter, but I had a shotgun and we were down by the river bottom and Mr. Pig was out in front of me. And I looked, and I saw that a bobcat was coming down the path. And that made me nervous, because I didn’t want the bobcat to eat my pet wild boar. So I raised my shotgun, and I shot, and the pellets landed around the bobcat and it turned and ran.
And just then, I guy comes around the corner, and he says: “Hey, why are you shooting at that bobcat?”
And I say, “Because it was going to eat my pet wild boar.”
And he says, “Well, you can’t shoot at that bobcat, that’s my pet bobcat.”
And I said, “You have a pet bobcat?”
And he says, “You have a pet wild boar?”
And then we get into this big argument. I tell him his pet bobcat was about to eat my pet wild boar. I said he should have that bloodthirsty bobcat on a leash. He tells me that his bobcat is harmless, that it wouldn’t hurt anybody. Besides, he says, nobody keeps a wild boar as a pet. That’s why they call them “wild” boars.
And so we’re arguing back and forth, when I turn and see that the bobcat has come back and it is, indeed, eating Mr. Pig.
That’s when I woke up.
And as I woke up, I remember feeling two distinct emotions. One was sadness over the demise of my pet wild boar. And the other was a strong sense of vindication. I was right. I wanted to go back to sleep so I could start the dream over again, just so I could say to that other guy: “See, I told you so. I told you your bloodthirsty bobcat was going to eat my pet wild boar.
The Mystery of Godliness
Now, that’s a long way to go get into our sermon topic today—and I think that qualifies as the strangest sermon introduction I’ve ever used—but it brings us to the key word from our text today: vindicated. Today we are talking about vindication.
The sermon series we are currently in is called The Mystery of Godliness; and it is based on 1 Timothy 3:16, which reads like this:
16 Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great:
He appeared in a body,
was vindicated by the Spirit,
was seen by angels,
was preached among the nations,
was believed on in the world,
was taken up in glory.
This is a scriptural song—like an ancient Christmas Carol—that summarizes the meaning of Christmas. And we’re going to go through it line by line. Last week, we talked about the first line, and why it matters to us that Jesus was really human. This week we turn to the second line, which says that Jesus was vindicated by the Spirit.
I looked the word “vindicate” up in the dictionary this week. It comes with two basic meanings:
vin·di·cate/ˈvindəˌkāt/
|
To vindicate someone is basically to justify their cause or their reputation. Essentially, this verse is saying that the Holy Spirit has verified that Jesus is who He says He is.
Is He Really Who He Says He Is?
So what, exactly, does Jesus need to be vindicated from? What criticism or suspicion is the Spirit clearing Him from?
The truth is, there’s more than a little about Jesus’ story that seems…how shall I say it?...a bit off. There is plenty about Jesus that appears to be just a little crazy.
Consider the circumstances of His birth: An unwed teen-age girl in a tiny rural village turns up pregnant. There’s more than just a whiff of scandal surrounding it all. And yet, she insists on telling this outlandish, kooky story about angels appearing to her and the Holy Spirit coming upon her. She insists that she is still a virgin.
Then, if that isn’t strange enough, the birth takes place in a different town, in a dirty stable, with ragamuffin shepherds in attendance.
Several years ago on the TV show Thirtysomething a husband and wife were having an argument about the holidays. Hope, a Christian, says to her husband Michael, who is Jewish: “Why do you even bother with Hanukkah? Do you really believe a handful of Jews held off a huge army by using a bunch of lamps that miraculously wouldn’t run out of oil?”
To which Michael responds: “Oh, and Christmas makes more sense? Do you really believe an angel appeared to some teenage girl who then got pregnant without ever having had sex and traveled on horseback to Bethlehem where she spent the night in a barn and had a baby who turned out to be the Savior of the world?” (Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew, p. 30)
The story is a little strange.
And then, after Jesus grows up and begins His public ministry, there’s always this undercurrent of skepticism. He teaches that He has come to proclaim the kingdom of God. He claims to have a special—Father/Son—relationship with God. He heals the sick and casts out demons. He claims that He is the long-awaited Messiah.
And yet, the religious authorities think that He is possessed by Satan (Matt. 12:24). The people of His own hometown can’t get over that fact that they know His family (“Isn’t this the carpenter’s son?”) and they end up rejecting Him (Matt. 13:55-57). His own family, at one point, comes to take charge of Him for, they said, “He is out of his mind.” (Mark 3:21)
You get the feeling, as you read the Biblical accounts, that wherever Jesus went the men in the white coats were never too far behind. C. S. Lewis has famously said that when it comes to deciding who Jesus was, you really only have three choices: either He was a liar, a lunatic, or He is the Lord. Judging from the stories the Bible tells, there were plenty of people who met Him who would have gone with door number two—to many He appeared to be a bit touched.
So how do we know that Jesus isn’t just a delusional crackpot born to delusional crackpot parents and propped up by delusional crackpot followers? How do we know that we can truly believe the things that He said about Himself?
That’s what this line from 1 Timothy 3:16 is getting at. Jesus “was vindicated by the Spirit.” It is the confirmation of the Holy Spirit that verifies that Jesus is really who He said He is. From the Spirit coming upon Mary at the time of conception (Luke 1:35), to the Spirit descending like a dove at Jesus’ baptism (Mark 1:20), to the Spirit raising Jesus from the dead in power (Rom. 1:4); the Holy Spirit repeatedly asserts and affirms that Jesus is the Divine Son of God.
Jesus is not a delusional crackpot. He is not a lunatic. He is the Lord.
As the Prophets Foretold
And one of the strongest confirmations that Jesus is who He said He is comes from the prophetic evidence. Again and again, the story of Jesus fulfills passages of scripture that were written centuries, sometimes millennia, before He was born. One of the primary ways the Spirit vindicates the identity and ministry of Jesus is through the fulfillment of prophecy.
Let’s consider some of the prophecies about the Messiah:
First, there is the prophecy that the Messiah would be virgin-born. Isaiah 7:14:
14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.
There is some controversy over this verse, because the Hebrew word translated “virgin” can also sometimes mean “young woman.” If this verse is simply saying a “young woman” will be with child, it would not be all that unique or unusual. When the Greek version of the Old Testament was written, however--what we know as the Septuagint—it uses a word—parthonos—that can only mean “virgin.”
And in the book of Matthew, when the angel appears to Joseph to convince him not to give up on Mary—that she is not nuts and that she has not been unfaithful—it is this verse from Isaiah that is quoted, again using the Greek word that can only mean “virgin.” (Matthew 1:21 & 22-23)
Or, again, we can go all the way back to the book of Genesis to get a very specific prediction that the Messiah will be born into the house of Jacob’s son Judah. Genesis 49:10:
10 The scepter will not depart from Judah,
nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,
until he comes to whom it belongs
and the obedience of the nations is his.
This verse is set at the end of Genesis, after Jacob and his sons have all come to Egypt and have been saved by Joseph. Jacob invites his sons to gather around so that he can tell them what will happen to them in days to come (Gen. 49:1). Now, keep in mind that Judah is neither Jacob’s oldest son (that was Reuben) nor his favorite (that was Joseph). And yet, when he comes to Judah, Jacob calls him “a lion’s cub” and predicts that his family will hold the ruler’s staff until “he comes to whom it belongs.” In other words, if Israel is expecting a great ruler some day—a Messiah—He’ll come from the tribe of Judah.
Now, turn to the New Testament. Both Matthew and Luke include genealogies for the earthly line of Jesus, and both are very explicit in including Judah in those genealogies. (Matt. 1:3 and Luke 3:33-34) There is a reason Jesus is called the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.
Or, we can narrow the genealogy down even farther. In 2 Samuel 7 God speaks to David through the prophet Nathan. David wants to build a temple for God, and Nathan instructs him that he will have a son—Solomon—whose job it will be to build the temple. David is assured that his son will make a fine king. But then God issues a promise that extends far beyond David’s immediate descendants:
16 Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.’”
This is really the heart of the Old Testament’s Messianic expectation. From the time of King David on, Israel has been on the lookout for Kind David’s greater son. Jeremiah 33:14-16:
14 “‘The days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when I will fulfill the gracious promise I made to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah.
15 “‘In those days and at that time
I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line;
he will do what is just and right in the land.
16 In those days Judah will be saved
and Jerusalem will live in safety.
This is the name by which it will be called:
The LORD Our Righteousness.’
Again, both Matthew and Luke are careful to show that Jesus’ earthly lineage runs through the house of David. Matthew 1:1 announces: “1 A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham:” and in Luke1:32 the angel tells Mary that the child she is bearing “will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David.”
The genealogies in Matthew and Luke differ. Matthew’s runs from David down to Joseph, Luke’s runs from David down to Mary. Both are included to show that both earthly parents were from the tribe of Judah, the family of David. Jesus inherits the royal blood, as it were, from Mary; and the royal right from His earthly father, Joseph
Which also leads to the fulfillment of another prophecy: that of the location of His birth. Micah 5:2:
2 “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
though you are small among the clans of Judah,
out of you will come for me
one who will be ruler over Israel,
whose origins are from of old,
from ancient times.”
This is actually a strange prediction. We all know that Bethlehem was David’s birthplace, and that’s why Joseph and Mary went there to register for Caesar’s census. But Bethlehem wasn’t really thought of as David’s city. Jerusalem was the City of David. It was the capital city. The royal city. You would have thought the Messiah would be born in Jerusalem.
And yet, Micah insists it will be Bethlehem, and that’s how it came about. When the Wise Men follow the star of the east, they go immediately to Jerusalem and consult with Herod. But when the Chief Priests are consulted, they turn immediately to Micah and direct the Magi to Bethlehem. (Matt. 2:1-6)
The Old Testament even alludes to the subsequent journey of Jesus’ family to Egypt. Hosea 11:1 says:
1 “When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called my son.
It seems almost like an impossibility—families of the first century just were not international travelers. But when Herod gets word that Messiah may have been born, he gets crazy. An angel comes to Joseph and warns him to take the baby and his mother and flee. And where do they go? Just like the Israelites in the day of Jacob, they find refuge in Egypt.
A Pile of Silver Dollars
Now, those are just five Old Testament prophecies that find explicit and specific fulfillment in the birth of Jesus. There are many, many more; referring not just to His birth but also to His life and death. Some scholars have counted as many as 456 specific ways in which Jesus fulfills passages of the Old Testament.
Now, think about that. That is very remarkable. These aren’t simply coincidences, nor is it a case where Jesus has intentionally ordered His life to match up to the Old Testament. How does one control the tribe or family of His birth, or plan for the location of His birth? No, each fulfillment of prophecy has been orchestrated by the Holy Spirit and is a concrete vindication that Jesus is exactly who He claimed to be.
Consider this: Peter Stoner, a mathematics professor at Westmont College in California made a class project out of calculating the probability that one man could fulfill so many different, specific prophecies. He had 12 different classes representing 600 students work through 8 different prophecies: discussing various factors, examining the circumstances that might have led people to conspire to fulfill it, and then doing statistical analysis on the odds of each one coming true. Each class made their odds conservative enough to be accepted by even the most skeptical students. Then Professor Stoner made the odds even more conservative and submitted them for peer review to the American Scientific Affiliation.
What he found is this: the odds of one man fulfilling just 8 of the Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament is 1 in 10 to the 17th power. In other words, 1 chance out of 10 with 17 zeroes behind it.
To get a sense of how big a number that is, Stoner wrote this:
If you mark one of ten tickets, and place all the tickets in a hat, and thoroughly stir them, and then ask a blindfolded man to draw one, his chance of getting the right ticket is one in ten. Suppose that we take 10^17 silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas. They'll cover all of the state two feet deep. Now mark one of these silver dollars and stir the whole mass thoroughly, all over the state. Blindfold a man and tell him that he can travel as far as he wishes, but he must pick up one silver dollar and say that this is the right one. What chance would he have of getting the right one? Just the same chance that the prophets would've had of writing these eight prophecies and having them all come true in any one man, from their day to the present time, providing they wrote them in their own wisdom.
As I said, this is remarkable. Jesus was no ordinary man. And He was no delusional crackpot. Again and again the Holy Spirit affirms and attests that He is the one God had been planning for all along. Again and again, He is vindicated by the Spirit.
What is the Holy Spirit Saying to You?
There is one more way the Holy Spirit vindicates Jesus. Before going to the cross, Jesus said this about the Spirit:
26 “When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me.
The Spirit continues to testify to Jesus today, and He does it in your heart and in mine.
The question is: What is the Holy Spirit saying to you about Jesus? After looking at these prophecies, after considering impossibility of all these prophecies being fulfilled in on man accidentally, what do you believe about Jesus?
Are you going to dismiss Him as a lunatic? Or are you going to accept Him as Lord?