The Sign That Is Spoken Against

The birth of the King –  the upheaval created by the sign that is spoken against.

We must note right away that with his birth as king at Bethlehem and the announcement of the glad tidings, his coming brought not peace but a sword, for it was his birth that provoked the fearful savagery of Herod against the infants of Bethlehem – and that was but the initial sign of the upheaval which the coming of the king and his kingdom meant for the kingdoms of this world. But it is to the prophetic utterances of Simeon and Mary that we must turn for our insight into what began to take place. Simeon’s utterance was made as the infant Jesus was brought into the temple, ‘Behold, this child is set for the falling and rising (keitai eis ptosin kai anastasin) of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against (kai eis semeion antilegomenon) and a sword will pierce through your own soul also, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed (apokaluphthosin ek pollon kardion dialogismoi).’[1] Right from the start it is noted that this child is set for the falling and rising of many. Precisely the same thought is found in Mary’s Magnificat, ‘He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts, he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away.’[2] But the same concept runs throughout the teaching of Jesus himself – coming out most startlingly perhaps in the parable of the labourers in the vineyard which is sandwiched in Matthew’s record between the words: ‘But many that are first will be last, and the last first’ and ‘So the last will be first, and the first last’ – for many are called but few are chosen.[3] That is how we are to look upon the life of this man born to be king at Bethlehem – he had come to set our life on a wholly new basis, the basis of pure grace, but that involved a complete revolution, a radical inversion of status for mankind, a critical re-orientation of all things.

But what did Simeon mean by ‘the sign that is spoken against’, ‘the sign that is contradicted’? Luke only uses this term semeion of the birth of Jesus and of the eschatological import of his death of which Jesus himself spoke in the ‘little apocalypse’.[4] That is also the significance of the sign of Jonah,[5] and that is Jesus’ answer, as Matthew and Mark see it, to the request for a sign. The sign, the semeion, is the cross. In the fourth Gospel, semeion is used of the miraculous deeds that point forward to the cross, beginning with the miracle of Cana,[6] when Jesus says that his ‘hour is not yet come’ using language repeated six other times in the Gospel, all making it clear that the semeion in question points forward to the eschatological hour of ultimate decision and passion on the cross. the miraculous events are thus drawn into the onward march of Jesus  toward his supreme hour, and are made to be proleptic and sacramental signs or pointers of the supreme semeion when Jesus will die and rise again, and so refer to the whole of our human existence, spoken of already in the  change of water into wine, the destruction and raising of the temple, etc. It is then that the cross and resurrection will set man’s life on a wholly new basis and be the falling and rising of many in Israel. Then the hungry will be filled with good things, the rich will be sent empty away, and the proud will be scattered in the imagination of their hearts, or as St Paul put it, the cross makes foolish the wisdom of this world.[7] That is why he speaks of the cross as a skandalon and a moria, scandal and foolishness.

But that is why Simeon also speaks of this  semeion as a semeion antilegomenon, a sign contradicted, or spoken against.[8] Again we may turn to the way in which this came to be understood in the theological tradition of the church, in which we find the same thoughts embedded and obviously going back to the original witness. See Hebrews 12,[9] where the writer summons the church to look away from themselves to Jesus the author and finisher of the course of faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despised the shame and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. Then he adds, ‘Consider him who endured such contradiction, antilogian, of sinners against himself, lest you also be weary and faint in your soul.’[10] What Jesus endured was the contradiction of sinners, the antilogia of the hamartolon, the word found so frequently in the Gospels to describe the very people whom Jesus sought to befriend and gather back into the fellowship of God but who turned against him at last and cried, ‘Crucify him, crucify him’. There at the cross Jesus endured the full contradiction of sinners and of sin against him. But that was precisely what he came to do, as we shall see.

T.F Torrance, Incarnation:The Person and Life of Christ, pp.140-142, Paternoster, 2008.

Christmas: Easter in Seminal Form

Posted by Bobby Grow at The Evangelical Calvinist:

Here is a really good summary on what Incarnation is all about. Incarnation is inextricably tied to atonement. So that while we are celebrating Christ’s birth at this season, we also celebrate Easter in seminal form. This is a touchstone truth for Evangelical Calvinism, and thus a reason why I wanted to share this:

Christian faith starts with the knowledge of God in Jesus Christ. In that knowledge we are concerned not only with the duality of God and man in the unity of one person, but with the unity of Christ’s person and his act in the one work of salvation. Jesus Christ is one person whose word is wholly involved in his act and whose act is wholly involved in his person. We cannot therefore think of his person apart from his atoning work, or of his atoning work in abstraction from his person. We begin with the person of Christ, but it is his person who carries out the work of salvation, and in the strict sense it is Jesus Christ himself, the mediator, who is the atonement. It is Christ atoning who concerns us here. Therefore even when we begin with his incarnation and with his birth at Bethlehem, we are beginning right away with the atonement, for his birth, as the beginning of his incarnate person, is one end of the atoning work, with the resurrection and ascension as the other end. But when we begin with the person of Christ, it is the Christ who has revealed himself to us that we are concerned with, the Christ whom we know through his own word, as well as through his own work. We are concerned with the Christ who isthe word, who utters the word and whose word is identical with his saving work. Revelation and atonement are thus inseparable, Christ revealing and Christ reconciling, for the speaking of the word and the working out of the atoning deed are done within the one person of Christ, and partake of the unity of his deity and humanity in that one person. At every point it is in that perspective of Christ’s wholeness that we are to consider christology and soteriology. (Thomas F. Torrance, “Incarnation,” 37)

John Murray on Union with Christ

“Nothing is more central or basic than union and communion with Christ. …Union with Christ…in its broader aspects underlies every step of the application of redemption. Union with Christ is really the central truth of the whole doctrine of salvation not only in its application but also in its once-for-all accomplishment in the finished work of Christ. Indeed the whole process of salvation has its origin in one phase of union with Christ and salvation has in view the realization of other phases of union with Christ.”

Redemption: Accomplished and Applied. p. 161

“Union with Christ is a very inclusive subject. It embraces the wide span of salvation from its ultimate source in the eternal election of God to its final fruition in the glorification of the elect. It is not simply a phase of the application of redemption; it underlies every aspect of redemption both in its accomplishment and in its application. Union with Christ binds all together and insures that to all for whom Christ has purchased redemption He effectively applies and communicates the same.”

Redemption: Accomplished and Applied. p. 165

“The wide range of similitude used in Scripture to illustrate union with Christ is very striking. On the highest level of being it is compared to the union which exists between the persons of the trinity in the Godhead. This is staggering, but it is the case (John 14:23; 17:21-23). On the lowest level it is compared to the relation that exists between the stones of a building and the chief corner stone (Eph. 2:19-22; I Pet. 2:4,5). In between these two limits there is a variety of similitude drawn from different levels of being and relationship. It is compared to the union that existed between Adam and all of posterity (Rom. 5:12-19; I Cor. 15:19-49). It is compared to the union that exists between man and wife (Eph. 5:22-33; cf. Jn. 3:29). It is compared to the union that exists between the head and other members in the human body (Eph. 4:15,16). It is compared to the relation of the vine and the branches (John 15). …The mode, nature, and kind of union differ in the different cases. There is similitude but not identity.

Redemption: Accomplished and Applied. pp. 167,168

“Union with Christ is the central truth of the whole doctrine of salvation. …There is no truth, therefore, more suited to impart confidence and strength, comfort and joy in the Lord than this one of union with Christ.”

Redemption: Accomplished and Applied. pp. 170,171