both in His time and in the time still to come. Just how the fire will be kindled in His time brings us to our next point.

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1 The Purpose of the Coming of Christ (Lk ) WestminsterReformedChurch.org Pastor Ostella April 15, 2012 I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled! 50 I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished! 51 Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. 52 For from now on in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three. 53 They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law. Introduction The words of Luke are mind numbing, not just the closing words about family strife, but also the opening words about fire and baptism. This has been a difficult passage for me to study for preaching. As I look back and wonder why, I come up with this summary: the ideas that this text bring to the mind transcend normal reflection. Each point that Jesus presents sends thought reeling, as it were, through space and time from heaven to earth, across history, and from eternity to eternity. We reel because the thoughts inevitably affect our emotions; the thoughts here are affective and infectious. Thus, the scope of things is huge and our affected emotions make it difficult to keep a single thought in our heads. Nevertheless, let s try to focus on the narrative. We are no longer in the environment of the parables of a master who is absent from his household for an undesignated time. That picture represents the present time of our Lord s absence from the household of faith, the time between His comings, the time in which we now live in expectation of His return that could be any moment, because the specific day and hour are unknown. Instead, the orbit of thought suddenly changes to our Lord s first coming, to why He came and to what He must face: I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled! 50 I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished! (Lk ). Among other things, His coming brings with it the duty to properly interpret the present time (12.56). Thus, the eternal past and the marvelous present meet, and the idea of looking to the future remains because Jesus came, He tells us, to cast the fire of judgment on the earth that will culminate in the conflagration of the final day. Therefore, the subject is The Purpose of the Coming of Christ and the outline is threefold: He came to ignite the fires of eternal punishment, He came to receive a baptism of suffering, and He came to divide the human family. I. First, He came to ignite the fires of eternal punishment Jesus says, I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled! (12.49). Interestingly, this is a complex teaching that gives another rich perspective on His second coming! To set the stage, consider who Jesus is from the statement that He came to do something on the earth. Profoundly, He is the one who existed before He was born. He is a mysterious person who came from heaven to earth. Existing before His birth, He entered the world by adding human nature to His essential and unchanging divine nature. He came on mission. He had a work to do, a ministry to perform. He is the obedient Son with whom God is well-pleased. Thus, His entire life and work on earth, from inception to ascension, aimed at the fulfillment of His part in the eternal covenant of redemption in which the members of the triune God decided to send Him into the world, and He decided with full agreement to come into the world to be made flesh and dwell among us (Jn 1.1-5, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light

2 shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it and 10-11, He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him and 14, And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth). He came to do at least the three things stated in Luke : to bring fire on earth, to receive baptism, and to cause division. Many commentators interpret the fire to be a reference to judgment that occurs now on earth, say, in the undoing of those who reject Christ and the refining of those who believe in Him. Others understand that the judgment of Satan, His ultimate fall into the lake of fire, is anticipated by our Lord s ministry of casting our demons and robbing the strong man of His goods. Does Jesus refer, in these words of Lk 12.49, to the consummation of all things on the Day of Judgment? Is He seeing the end in the beginning of the end that He now initiates? We must not miss the point that the fire is thrown from heaven to earth; Jesus came to set it ablaze (as Ridderbos emphasizes, Coming, 92). It originates in heaven; it is the dynamic of the coming of the kingdom that sets the world of angels in motion, fills the devil s empire with alarm and even causes Satan to fall from heaven. It is the final stage of the great drama of the history of the end that throws man and the world into a crisis because the axe is already laid at the root of the tree: Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire (Lk 3.9). Therefore, of Jesus, John said, I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. 17 His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire (Lk ). Therefore, Jesus speaks as a prophet in prophetic metaphor. He views the fire of judgment to be important, and He clearly looks forward with dedication and devotion to a time when He will ignite it (kindled like the lighting of a fire in cold damp conditions, Acts 28.2)! He is speaking of the final judgment, but notably, as something soon to occur, something that is about to be kindled. In prophetic perspective, He merges the present time with the final future. Yes, He is prophetically seeing Satan fall from heaven, He is prophetically seeing the beginning of the end that He now initiates as the one into whose hands the Father has given the duty and power to judge (Jn 5.37, And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen). Still, even in His actions as judge, Jesus is the obedient servant who does only the will of the Father according to their eternal agreement (Jn 5.30, I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me). Thus, the coming of Jesus ignites the flames of hell that will burn both in His time and in the time still to come. Just how the fire will be kindled in His time brings us to our next point. II. Second, He came to receive a baptism 50 I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished! To what is Jesus referring when He expresses this importance about the fire and His desire that it be set ablaze? The thought of a blazing fire in lunges forward to the parallel in regarding His distress about baptism. In coming to this world, He has something to experience, namely, baptism in close association with His coming to cast fire on the earth. The thought of His fire-related baptism causes Him great distress. Unquestionably, He speaks of the cross as His baptism in harmony with the fact that in His water baptism He owned our sins as His own to bear our punishment for them in a baptism of fire. Accordingly, He suffers not only on the cross but on the way to the cross. This text gives us a glimpse of that suffering by opening a window into a 2

3 3 window into our Lord s mental and emotional life. We learn that the garden experience of sorrow over the cup of judgment, though central and climatic, was not exclusive. So, in His coming as Judge of the world, He ignited the fires of hell for Himself to endure. In that connection, per Luke 12, we learn that in His emotional life, Jesus had His ups and downs in ways common to man. He had great distress, but, importantly, He never lost control. Consider the balance in His outlook in the garden regarding the cup of divine wrath that He is called upon to drink. He asks that the cup be taken away, but He willingly submits to drink it: Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done, Lk 22.42). Although He took human affections to Himself in taking humanity, and although His affections are real, truly human, and uniquely intense because of His role as our redeemer, John records His marvelous emotional control as He comes to grips with the prospect of death before Him: Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? On one hand, with every ounce of fear in the natural desire for self-preservation, He must say, Father, save me from this hour! On the other hand, with deep desire of heart and strong determination of will, He must say, But for this purpose I have come to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name. Ultimately, these are unthinkable words of a glorious song; this is music for sinful ears! Our text (Lk 12.50) taps into the suffering that He endured as He learned obedience through it. Jesus came into the world on mission to save the world by traveling a path of suffering that He knew led directly to a purpose-filled death. True enough, and we take comfort in His determination to fulfill His work which is for us and our salvation. However, we must never think of His life, driven as it was by this great intention, as something stoic and bland with blind and unfeeling resignation. The message throughout the Gospels is definitely the opposite: Jesus experienced the full scope of human emotions but in a unique way because He took into the depths of His being feelings that became His not [just] as man but as sin-bearer, which never would have invaded his soul in the purity of his humanity save as he stood under the curse incurred for his people s sins (Warfield, Person and Work, 145). The biblical teaching on eternal punishment, shall I say for emphasis, the teaching of Jesus on this dreadful reality, is difficult to speak and more difficult to think. However, there is one teaching, one fact, of Scripture that, for me, off sets this dark and stark reality, even causing it to fade into the back of my mind, not forgotten but in a context of balance for peace of mind. That of which I speak enables me to come to terms with the subject of hell both intellectually and emotionally. This balancing and offsetting truth, which you no doubt have already identified in your minds, is the suffering and death of Jesus Christ the Lord of glory. It does this because it is the very Creator, the Son of the eternal covenant, God manifest in the flesh that suffered on the way to the cross of death and that suffered in His dying on the cross. This is the most unthinkable thought, namely, that the pure and spotless God-man, experienced the intensity and reality of eternal hell in His own person and work: that He did so without a shred of guilt, that He did so having owned my guilt for my sins and the guilt of all His covenant people for all of their sins, and that He owned them as His very own to drink the full dregs of the cup of the wrath of God for our release from slavery to sin and the bonds of death and hell. His suffering is the thought that is difficult to say and more difficult to grasp, but this is a thought that the guilty soul must welcome with relief because this is the gospel message of his peace with God and here He experiences the peace of God that passes all understanding. III. Third, He came to bring division, not peace

4 These are truly surprising words and difficult to swallow as well: 51 Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. 52 For from now on in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three. 53 They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-inlaw and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law ( ). The Prince of peace has the purpose of bringing peace to the world, to all of history, and to all of eternity, but the way there accords with the will of the Father and with the work assigned to Jesus for His covenantal mission on earth. The way to peace is through the gospel of Jesus and the foolishness of preaching, which is rejected, passionately and adamantly, rejected by men. Ultimately, Jesus refers to the fact that the gospel is life unto life and death unto death: For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, 16 to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? (2 Cor ). So, we must exclaim along with Paul, Who is sufficient for these things? Who can handle these truths and not be crushed under their heavy weight? We can handle the weight of these truths because of the truth of the death of death in the death of Christ. When He kindled the fire of eternal judgment in His coming, He did so on the cross in the place of sinners. Nonetheless, He pointedly tells us that He came not to bring peace but division. Thus, He teaches about His sovereignty by which He divides the human family to form the new world, the new humanity, the new redeemed family of the world to come in glory. He sovereignly divides the family by the will of the Father s good pleasure: In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will (Lk 10.21). These are difficult words, to be sure, but saving words. Thus, He goes on to say, All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him (Lk 10.22). Moreover, He explains how His electing grace comes to realization among sinners in their blind rebellion against God; it is by the gift to His elect people of eyes to see, of blessed eyes: Then turning to the disciples he said privately, Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! (Lk 10.23). Now, most assuredly, our text tells us the awesome and soul consuming truth that the gift of His grace to sinners, to you and to me who have eyes to see and ears to hear, is something that we have, and could only have, by Jesus igniting the flames of eternal damnation to enter them Himself in our place. It is no wonder that He cried out Father save me from this hour and it is a marvelous wonder that He committed Himself to that hour in submission to the Father s will to become the Savior of the redeemed world of glory. Conclusion These mind boggling thoughts are the kind that are high, so high, that we each have to say, I cannot attain unto them. Jesus confronts us with the fundamental truth of the dreadful threat of eternal punishment that hangs over us all in our existence on this earth. He has set the coming day in motion; He has ignited the fire in His own death that will eventually consume the very world, sweeping away the unrighteous and cleaning the earth, and establishing the new heavens and the new earth in which righteousness dwells (Rev ). Therefore, to gaze on the person and work of Christ is to admire Him, but that is not enough. We must also seek to imitate Him with emotional control by displaying a spirit of submission to the will of God. Of course, this is still not enough because beyond admiration and imitation, we must strike the highest note of loving worship of the One of whom nothing human was alien but in whom all that is human manifested itself in perfect proportion and balance. So, 4

5 He subjected himself to the conditions of our human life that he might save us from the evil that curses human life in its sinful manifestation (Warfield, 143). Thus, In his sorrows, and having passed through a human life like ours, he remains forever able to be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. Therefore, by learning obedience through suffering, Jesus, as sovereign Judge with authority over all flesh, is bringing many sons and daughters with Him to glory! We wish we had the words to tell of His glorious grace in some small way that matches the perfection of His person, work, and love. We have a start in the hymn we sang earlier. Let s make it our closing prayer (Trinity 126): 5 O could I speak the matchless worth, O could I sound the glories forth Which in my Saviour shine, I'd soar, and touch the heavenly strings, And vie with Gabriel while he sings In notes almost divine. I'd sing the precious blood he spilt, My ransom from the dreadful guilt Of sin, and wrath Divine: I'd sing his glorious righteousness, In which all perfect, heavenly dress My soul shall ever shine. I'd sing the characters he bears, And all the forms of love he wears, Exalted on his throne: In loftiest songs of sweetest praise, I would to everlasting days Make all his glories known. Well, the delightful day will come When my dear Lord will bring me home, And I shall see his face; Then with my Saviour, brother, friend, A blest eternity I'll spend, Triumphant in his grace.