" UPSTAIRS OR DOWNSTAIRS: WHERE DOES RECONCILIATION WITH GOD BEGIN?"

Scripture Reading:
John 1:1-14
I Corinthians 1:26-31

Singing:  (Psalms and Hymns are from the "Book of Praise" Anglo Genevan Psalter)
Psalm 124:1,3
Psalm 30:2
Hymn 15:3
Hymn 24:1,5
Psalm 138:1,4

Beloved Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ!

Is reconciliation with God something that starts in heaven or on earth, with God or with men, from Upstairs or from Downstairs?

The question is critically important. Last week with Ezekiel 8 I made mention of the Babylonian god Tammuz, that god who died when the paddocks turned brown and came alive again when the paddocks turned green – or, better put (I said), Tammuz came alive and therefore the paddocks turned green again. But to ensure that this god in fact came alive again (and therefore the paddocks turned green), people had to bewail his death at the time the paddocks turned brown. The point: the trigger that made this god come alive again was what happened on earth.

Baal worship amongst the Canaanites was the same. Baal wouldn’t give rain and fertility unless you on earth performed the prescribed rituals on the high places. That is: the trigger for his blessing was Downstairs, in your possession.

Modern religions are the same. In the Muslim religion, how can one be accepted by Allah? It’s not that Allah does things for people; it’s rather that people have to make it their business to satisfy Allah – roll out the prayer-mat so many times a day, keep the fast of Ramadan, travel to Mecca, possibly even give your life as a suicide bomber for Allah’s cause, etc. In Hinduism too to discover the godhead you have to meditate. And so it is, brothers and sisters, for every religion of this world; the trigger for contact with the deity lies Downstairs, on this earth, in your hands.

The only exception to this pattern is the Christian faith of the Bible. Not, let me hasten to add, that everybody who calls himself a Christian admits that reconciliation with God begins in heaven and not on earth. Roman Catholicism, for example, though it is considered Christian, has adopted the mindset of the heathens and officially teaches that the trigger for reconciliation with God lies on earth; you through your good works win the approval and favor of God…. Arminianism in principle says the same. But the Lord teaches us the opposite. In Lord’s Day 6 the Christian puts into his own words what he has heard God say in the Bible: reconciliation with God does not begin on earth but in heaven, is not something from man but from God, is not from Downstairs but from Upstairs.

Before I draw that out, I need to tell you that human nature resists the notion that salvation comes from heaven and not from earth. The fact that every religion on earth has the trigger for reconciliation with the deity on earth is a warning to us that human nature wants to keep the trigger in our hands; we want to have control over good relations with the gods, and so insist that reconciliation is from Downstairs. The fact that so many Christian religions, despite claiming to be faithful to the Bible, nevertheless accept a theology that has the trigger for reconciliation on earth simply demonstrates that all men by nature want control of that trigger ourselves. And we are not above that urge! This reality gives urgency to the material of our Lord’s Day; it is critically important that we understand salvation to begin and end in heaven – if we are not be swept along with the flow of thinking acceptable to mankind and so common in our society.

I preach to you the word of God using this theme:

To follow the line of thought of our Lord’s Day this afternoon, we need to reach back for a moment to Lord’s Day 5. You recall from last time that Lord’s Day 5 begins with a confession. Q 12: "according to God’s righteous judgment, we deserve temporal and eternal punishment." As we consider the question of whether reconciliation with God begins in heaven or on earth, we need to picture ourselves on earth and God in heaven having in His hand a cup of divine wrath intended for us. Lord’s Day 5 had asked how we can escape this punishment, how we can stop God from tipping the contents of His cup-of-wrath onto us. The answer, we confessed in Lord’s Day 5, was that we had to pay. Notice: with that answer we confess that the onus lies on earth, with that answer we say that reconciliation with God rightly begins with us Downstairs. But, we were disappointed to confess in A 13, we cannot make this payment because we daily increase our debt. And we added in A 14 that we can’t find another creature able to pay for us either. So: God in heaven continues to hold that cup of wrath, ready to tip its dreadful contents onto us, and there’s nothing we on earth can do to escape the impending judgment. Yet –for it was we who sinned in the beginning- the onus remains on us to make payment; payment must come from Downstairs.

That led to the conclusion of Question & Answer 15: we have to go searching. Q 15: "what kind of mediator and deliverer must we seek?" We on earth have to search, have to find a deliverer, someone who can somehow satisfy God’s justice so that God will not pour out that wrath upon us. What kind of deliverer we have to find? "One who is a true and righteous man, and yet more powerful than all creatures, that is, one who is at the same time true God."

This closing statement of Lord’s Day 5 raises, of course, the inevitable question: is it really true that the deliverer we seek answers to those three criteria, ie, is a true man, is a righteous man and is true God? Is it true? We want the answer to be No, No!, because, as we confessed in Lord’s Day 3, we’ll never find a righteous man on this earth – for all men "are totally unable to do any good and inclined to all evil." We want the answer to be No, we want to be told that the man we seek doesn’t have to be a righteous man after all (let alone true God) because otherwise reconciliation with God can never come from this earth – even though our natural inclination agrees with all the religions of the world that Yes, reconciliation with the deities does begin Downstairs with us on earth. That’s why the Catechism makes a point of asking Question & Answer 16 & 17: why must the deliverer we seek be a true and righteous man, why must He at the same time be true God? For the Catechism would cut off any thought that it’s not so necessary after all that the man we seek be a true man and a righteous man and true God at the same time….

Let’s look, then, with more detail at Question & Answer 16 & 17; why must the needed deliverer be a true man, a righteous man and true God?

"He must be a true man," we have heard Scripture teach, "because the justice of God requires that the same human nature which has sinned should pay for sin." This is simple the principle God first stipulated in Paradise. In relation to that one tree He told Adam that "in the day you eat of it you shall die" (Gen 2:17). Notice: God did not say that in the day Adam ate of that tree his dog would die; no, when you eat you die. That’s the principle: you sin, you pay. In the words of our Lord’s Day: "the justice of God requires that the same human nature which has sinned should pay for sin." That the Lord insists on this principle is pointed up by Paul’s words when he describes the work of Christ like this: "since my man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead" (I Cor 15:21). Man sinned, man pays. So Yes, we must seek a true man.

"He must be a righteous man," we heard Scripture teach, "because one who is himself a sinner cannot pay for others." This principle God instilled upon His people Israel from the very beginning of His covenant with them at Mt Sinai. For the Lord God commanded that once a year, on the Day of Atonement, the High Priest had to make a special sacrifice before God for the sins of the people. But before the high priest did so he first had to offer a separate sacrifice for himself (Lev 16:6ff). That is: with the offering of a bull he first had to clear his own sins away before he could present a goat to God on behalf of the people. If the High Priest would offer that goat to God while his own sins still remained, God would not accept his sacrifice for the people; his own sins would stand in the way of the sacrifice. That’s the principle: a sinner cannot pay for others; he has to get rid of his own sins first. That the Lord insists on this principle is pointed up in the letter to the Hebrews, when the apostle says of the Lord Jesus Christ that He did not, like those high priests of old, need to offer up more sacrifices than one, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people, for Christ was "holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners" (Heb 7:26ff) – and therefore His sacrifice acceptable to God.

In the third place, we learn from Scripture, "He must be true God so that by the power of His divine nature He might bear in His human nature the burden of God’s wrath." The point here is the intensity of God’s wrath. We can survive when people pour out human wrath on people. But what if God pours out divine wrath on people? The Lord tells us through Nahum that no one can stand before God’s indignation or endure the fierceness of His anger; even hills melt and mountains quake before Him (1:5f). Suppose we could find a righteous man on earth, one untouched by sin, and present him to God to pay for sin; he’d still perish under the infinite load of God’s blazing fury. That’s the point of Q 17: only one who has the power of God can survive under the weight of God’s anger.

So we’re back to our question: can we find someone who could kick start a process of reconciliation with God? We’d love it to be so, we’d love to have some contribution to the reconciliation process, would even love to have control over the process. But with Question & Answer 16 & 17 we confess that God closes this door. It is He we need to satisfy, and He sets criteria we can’t satisfy. So: does reconciliation with God begin in heaven or on earth? With us or with God? Downstairs or upstairs? The answer is emphatically: not Downstairs!

That brings us to our second point:

Question & Answer 18 asks, "But who is that Mediator who at the same time is true God and a true and righteous man?" Given the demands of Question & Answer 16 & 17, one would expect here this question: "can we ever find such a mediator?", and the answer "No," and that would be the end of the Catechism – and of our hope. But the Lord God from heaven on high, brothers and sisters, has told us what He did. He in heaven saw our misery in Paradise, saw that we on earth could not produce the payment His justice demanded, could not find on earth a true and righteous man who could bear the burden of God’s wrath against sin, and so God acted! Reconciliation does not start Downstairs, but Upstairs. God reached out to fallen man on the very day that man fell into sin. God reached out with the promise of what He was going to do, and He said that He’d cause the seed of the woman to conquer the seed of the serpent. That gospel of His actions He first revealed in Paradise, later He had it proclaimed by the patriarchs and prophets and foreshadowed by the sacrifices and other ceremonies of the law. Always the message was the same: God was working to bring about reconciliation for the people who had snubbed Him in Paradise. That is: God in heaven was working to redeem people on earth. It’s the consistent message of God’s Old Testament revelation: reconciliation comes not from Downstairs but from Upstairs.

That divine work from Upstairs came to its climax when God sent His only Son into the world. The apostle John begins his gospel with drawing our attention to heaven, to the Word who is God, yes, who is so much God that the world was created through Him (Jn 1:1ff). Then John hastens to add: "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (vs 14). ‘Word’: our thoughts are directed to heaven, where the Word has His eternal home. ‘Flesh’: now our thoughts are directed to earth, where God has given finite man –flesh- a home. And see: John links the two, links heaven and earth, Upstairs and Downstairs, for he says that "the Word became flesh." That, we understand, is a reference to Christ’s birth in Bethlehem, Christmas. Christmas, Christ’s birth, was not people reaching up to God, but God reaching down to people.

John repeats that same downward action from Upstairs to Downstairs a couple of chapters later, in Jn 3. The apostle quotes the very Jesus who "became flesh" as saying, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life" (vs 16). Notice: "God gave." The action takes place Upstairs. And the purpose of the action is to save those who are Downstairs: believers may receive everlasting life.

Paul picks up the same point in Phil 2. He says of Jesus Christ that He was "in the form of God," even "equal with God" (vs 6). Statements like that send our thoughts to heaven, where Jesus was with God in glory from eternity. Then Paul adds: Jesus "made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men" (vs 7). This action on Jesus’ part takes our thoughts to earth, for this is where Jesus came in the likeness of men. The process, though, is not from earth to heaven, from Downstairs to Upstairs; the process is from heaven to earth, from Upstairs to Downstairs.

Of course, no one will dispute that these passages of Scripture describe the action as moving from heaven to earth, from Upstairs to Downstairs. The question that remains, though, is this: what got the action started? Was the trigger that prompted the Word to become flesh in heaven or on earth? That is: did people do something to prompt God to send His Son – as the Canaanites triggered Baal to give them fertility by their cultic prostitutes in the high places? You see: if the trigger that prompted God to send His Son to earth is to be found on this earth, then we still have control of reconciliation with God – for we can decide to pull the trigger or not.

But the Bible is so clear on the point. The trigger can’t be on earth because –as we confessed with Lord’s Day 2 and 3- we are by nature spiritually dead. And any soldier knows that the dead can’t pull triggers! So it’s a relief to read from Jn 3 that the trigger is distinctly in heaven. Said Jesus: "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…." The action is in heaven: "God … gave." But the trigger for the action is equally in heaven: "God so loved the world that He gave…." That is: God’s action of reaching out to the earth lies in His love. And that love is not His reply to our first loving Him; no, His love comes from within Himself (cf I Jn 4:9f). And that is to say that the trigger of all contact between heaven and earth lies in God alone.

Of the various texts the Catechism could quote to prove that reconciliation between us and God comes 100% from Upstairs (and therefore 0% from Downstairs), the Catechism settles on Paul’s statement in I Cor 1:30: "whom God made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption." As with previous passages, so also here: the action is with God, and so our thoughts have to go to heaven; in heaven "God made" Jesus wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption for us on earth.

"Wisdom," says the apostle, and the point is that God knows the goal –reconciliation between heaven and earth- and the best way to reach that goal. God’s chosen way to achieve that reconciliation? He chose what is foolish in the world, including that salvation should come from heaven and not from earth (a concept that runs against the grain of every depraved human; witness that all the religions of the world see the action moving from Downstairs to Upstairs). But God knows that no one will find a true and righteous man on earth, let alone one who is true God also, and so redemption cannot move from Downstairs to Upstairs. So He in wisdom (though people may mock it!) set to work Upstairs to reach out to man Downstairs; He "made" Jesus "our wisdom".

God made Jesus "righteousness" also, says Paul, and the point is that God in heaven sees sinners as the sinners they are, and therefore deserving the cup of wrath He holds poised to pour out over us. But the Christ God gave has stepped between God and us, so that He copped the load of God’s wrath on our behalf, paid for sin. Now God looks at us and sees us no longer as sinners but as righteous instead, Not Guilty of sin for Jesus’ sake.

Even that’s not all. God made Jesus also our "sanctification." Here the point is that sinners are renewed, changed so that they act like children of God; they’re sorry for sin and holy in conduct. No, not perfect yet, but God’s renewing work in sinners has begun – and the eye can see it. And that beginning, that change, that sanctification, has its roots in the Jesus God sent from heaven to earth.

The last gift Paul mentions is that God made Jesus "our … redemption." The term catches the result of the other fruits of what God made Jesus. Redemption: that’s the reconciliation with God we sought in the first place. That cup of God’s wrath: how do we escape it?! We can’t, we said, but God Himself redeems us from the fear of that cup! His perfect wisdom is that He gave Christ so that we might be righteous before God, and therefore set free from the anguish that freezes those who fear the justice and wrath of God. In a word: reconciliation with God comes completely from God, from Upstairs! So, says Paul: let him who boasts boast in the Lord!

The fact that reconciliation with God comes from Upstairs and not from Downstairs has two consequences for us. The first is that we have no grounds for any pride or smugness in relation to ourselves. There is not a thing that we on earth can do to move God in heaven to bestow on us some sort of favor – be it in making our crops grow or blessing our children or taking away strife from our homes. We are completely and totally deserving of that cup of God’s wrath, and in no way can we turn that cup of wrath away. Wailing as the women did for Tammuz will not help, even if it’s wailing over sin. Cultic ceremonies as the Canaanites did for Baal will not help, even if it’s putting big money into a collection bag or praying at length in church. Doing particular deeds as the Muslims must do for Allah will not help either, even if it’s obeying every one of the Ten Commandments to the point of laying down your life. Nor will meditating as the Hindus do help in any way, even if it’s reflection over an open Bible. Reconciliation with the God we offended in Paradise moves from Heaven to Earth, and not from Earth to Heaven! We are dependent on God’s grace, and not on our works, in any way, shape or form. So there is here no place for human pride, for human contribution. Reconciliation with God is grace alone, 100% grace. So we need to be humble.

There’s a second consequence. Exactly because reconciliation with God comes from Upstairs and not from Downstairs does the gospel of Jesus Christ give enormous comfort. For God is not like man. We begin a project, and after some time we lose enthusiasm and give it up. But not God! He began a work of salvation, set out to reconcile sinners to Himself, and what He began He will bring to completion (cf Phil 1:6; Ps 138:8). That gives us the assurance that reconciliation with God is in fact real, is achieved. If the rains didn’t come and the crops didn’t grow, the Baal worshiper could only conclude that he had to offer more, more, had to conclude that his efforts on his high places weren’t good enough – and so he had to try harder, harder. Luther had the exact same struggle in Roman Catholicism; he didn’t feel reconciled to God and so concluded he had to do more, more, try harder, harder. But it was a slavery; trying harder, harder, gave no peace. And it can’t give peace, because reconciliation is then tackled from the wrong side, from Downstairs instead of from Upstairs. God insists reconciliation is completely His work, and since He completes what He began may His people have comfort, the assurance that Yes, there is peace with God. Peace, not because we try so hard or because we hold the trigger, but peace because God took the initiative, and God did the acting. He acted, and so "…to us a Child is born, To us a Son is given, And on His shoulders He shall bear All power in earth and heaven" – power strong enough to bear the burden of God’s wrath against sin and deliver us from it forever! Amen.