The Death of Divine Absence
Friday, April 18th, 2025
Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA
Galatians 2:20
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
Prayer
Father, we thank for you Good Friday, for this day of special remembrance of Christ’s passion, and the innumerable graces that you bestow upon your people through the death of Christ. Furnish us anew by the power of your Holy Spirit, for we ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Introduction
Have you ever walked into a house that was completely empty? No pictures on the walls. No couch in the living room. No place to sit. No table or chairs in the dining room. No beds in the bedroom.
- If you intend on buying an empty house, well for starters you are going to need a lot of money, but if you want to make it a beautiful and pleasant place to live (a home), what else will you need?
- You’ll need some imagination, a vision and a plan. You need some good aesthetic sense for how a room flows, what colors coordinate, so that you know what furniture to buy, what carpet or rugs to get, and how to match those with the curtains.
- If you are a man, you need a woman’s touch. She comes in and starts putting plants and flowers and pretty things everywhere. If we had it our way, the whole house becomes a man cave. Or in my case, the house whole becomes a library.
- The Greek scholar Erasmus once said, “When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I buy food and clothes.” We all have our different priorities.
- The theologian St. Thomas Aquinas (who was himself a walking library) says, “Homes are not beautiful if they are empty. Things are beautiful by the presence of God.”
- He said this while reflecting upon Psalm 26:8, “Lord, I have loved the habitation of Your house, And the place where Your glory dwells.”
- Where does God’s glory most desire to dwell? Within you. Within His people. Already the heavens are declaring the glory of God, and the sky above his handywork (Ps. 19:1), and so how much more those who are made in His image?
- It says in Psalm 84:1, “How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts!” What are those tabernacles (plural!) that the Psalmist is referring to? The people of God. The saints, the holy ones, the living sanctuaries in which God’s glory dwells.
- And so just as a home is not beautiful unless it is adorned and furnished with good things, just so a soul is not beautiful, unless it has been enlightened and furnished and is inhabited by the holy presence of God.
- And so tonight, I want to set before the eyes of your soul that which can make it beautiful. I want to offer you a piece of spiritual furniture from which you can derive strength and healing, courage and hope, grace to help in your time of need.
- That image is none other than Jesus Christ and him crucified. If your soul is a house, you must make the cross of Christ the centerpiece. That which everything else gets organized around.
- And so the outline of my sermon is very simple.
- First, I will tell you how Christ dwells within His people,
- And then Second, I will paint for you a mental portrait to take within your soul.
How Does Christ Dwell Within Us? – A Gloss of Galatians 2:20
- The Apostle Paul says in our text of Galatians 2:20, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: [that is to say, Christ has taken up residence in my soul, He has made me into His home, He has the keys, he knows where everything is, all that I am now belongs to him, therefore…] the life which I now live in the flesh [in this mortal and not so beautiful body] I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”
- And so the Apostle Paul is describing here his own spiritual union with Christ. He is describing how God’s presence has made him beautiful by renewing his inner man day by day, even while his outward man is wasting away, perishing, dying (2 Cor. 4:16).
- This living union with Christ is described as if Paul and Jesus are both nailed to the cross together. When Paul thinks of the cross, He sees Jesus and himself in Jesus.
- And so although Paul, like you and I, never saw Jesus literally hanging on the cross dying (like the Roman soldiers did), the risen Lord did appear to him and taught him the truth of faith, and so Paul had, also like us, a mental image of Jesus Christ and him crucified that allowed him to say, “I am crucified with Christ.”
- And so Paul’s spiritual union with Jesus is a union that comes by knowledge and by love.
- By knowing the truth that Jesus died and rose for him, Christ dwells and lives within the mind of Paul, He has the mind of Christ.
- And further by knowing the love of Christ, which is most evident on the cross, the words of Romans 5:5 have become true for Paul: “the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given unto us.”
- And so by hearing and believing the truth, Christ dwells within our mind/intellect/spirit, and then by loving Him who as our highest good, Christ dwells within our will/desire/our affections/out wanting faculties. And this is the most intimate union you can have with God, on this side of glory.
- Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:12, “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”
- The Apostle John says the same in 1 John 4:16, “And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides (dwells/lives) in love abides (dwells/lives) in God, and God in him.
- Summary: It is by knowledge and by love that we are united to God on this side of glory. That union takes place when our mind apprehends the One who is Truth itself, and loves the One who is Good itself. God is First Truth and Supreme Good. Truth takes up residence in the mind, and The Good takes up residence in the will, in our heart’s desire.
- This is the same spiritual union that Paul is describing in Galatians 2:20, and it is that same union that we should all desire to experience in ourselves. And so here is the image I want you to take into the home of your soul.
Christ and Him Crucified
- Imagine first the wooden cross.
- At the top is a place for Christ’s head to rest, and there a crown of thorns upon it. And above the head of Christ what is written in three languages? “The King of the Jews.”
- Next, look to the arms of Jesus spread out and nailed on each side. Look at his right hand and see a nail hammered through it. Then look to the left hand and see also a nail through that. And see that Jesus has chosen to die with arms extended, spread out, and opened wide to embrace the whole world.
- Next, descend in your mind to the feet of Christ, where there also his feet are fixed, nailed together, his heel bruised and bleeding.
- And then finally, look to the heart of Christ. See his bosom. His side. And see that after he has breathed his last, a soldier’s spear pierces him, and as it says in John 19:34, “blood and water poured forth.”
- Have in your mind those 5 locations on the cross. Five wounds: His head, right hand, left hand, his feet, and his heart.
- And then hear what Holy Scripture says about each of those places and what they signify for you.
#1 – The Head
So starting at the head, place there the verse from 1 Corinthians 11:3, “the head of Christ is God.”
- This is no mere man that is being crucified. This is the eternal Son of God who so desires to come near to us, that He joined to His divine person, in an inseparable union, our humanity with his divinity. Jesus Christ is one divine person with two natures, human and divine.
- As it says in Colossians 2:9-10, “For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.”
- So when you behold by faith the head of Christ, you are beholding the one who is God. The one who is not only “king of the Jews,” but king of kings. The one who is first principle, fountain and source of all other principalities and powers. As Jesus himself says to Pilate, “You could have no power at all against Me unless it had been given you from above” (John 19:11).
- Jesus is the one who gave Pilate the power to crucify him. And this is why Jesus says earlier in John 10:18, “No one takes my life from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again.” No mere man can say that, only the Son of God.
- What is the head of Christ? The head of Christ is God (1 Cor. 11:3).
- The head of Christ is his divinity which elevates our humanity.
- The head of Christ is perfect knowledge that heals us of our ignorance.
- The head of Christ is wisdom and yet a wisdom without Adam’s pride, for what is upon his head?
- A crown of thorns, the curse of Adam, the one who caused our misery. And so Jesus Christ the Last Adam, is the ram caught in a thicket, and he offers his head for ours.
- As it says of Christ and the church in Song of Solomon 2:1-2, “I am the rose of Sharon, And the lily of the valleys. As the lily among thorns, So is my love among the daughters.”
- So when you feel the effects of the curse pressing down upon your skull, the migraines, the headaches, the ignorance, the fear, the sweat upon your brow as you groan with all creation, think upon Christ and His head wearing that crown of thorns. For you are being crucified with him, and by patience endurance becoming a “partaker of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4).
- So the head of Christ is God.
#2 – The Right Hand
- The second place I draw your mind to is the right hand of Christ. And there nailed to the wood, place these words from Psalm 16:11, “At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”
- In Scripture, the right hand signifies power to create, strength to wage war, an artist’s skill to craft.It says of wisdom in Proverbs 8:15, “Length of days is in her right hand.”And in Psalm 118:16, “The right hand of the Lord is exalted: The right hand of the Lord doeth valiantly.”
- When Jacob blessed his grandsons, Ephraim and Manasseh, the right hand signified the greater blessing, the right of the firstborn to inherit.
- And so behold in the right hand of Christ, His power to save, His skill to refashion you like an artist crafts a holy vessel. Behold in his right hand innumerable blessings, the eternal inheritance he offers to all his adopted sons.
- The right hand of Christ is mighty to save, and when you follow his path, where does it lead? It leads to the cross but does not end there.
- For as it says in Psalm 16:10, “You will not leave my soul in Sheol, Nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption. You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”
- So cast aside the evil works of your right hand. As Jesus says in Mark 9:43, “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed, rather than having two hands, to go to hell.”
- Choose instead to forsake sinful and fleeting pleasures, for lasting and eternal ones. Because that is what the right hand of Christ crucified holds out to you and offers: “At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.”
- Now in your mind’s eye move over to the left hand.
#3 – The Left Hand
- In Scripture the Left Hand is the lesser hand and so signifies support, assistance, defense, and the unexpected.
- And so place next to the left hand of Christ, the words of Song of Solomon 2:6, “His left hand is under my head, And his right hand doth embrace me.”
- The left hand in Scripture commonly signifies assistance in battle we see that the left hand holds the shield to defend, while the right hand grasps the sword in offense.
- It says in Ezekiel 39:3, “I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall out of thy right hand.
- In Judges 5:26 we see that Jael uses her left hand to hold the nail, while her right hand holds the workman’s hammer, “And with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head, When she had pierced and stricken through his temples.”
- And earlier in Judges 3:26 it says, “And Ehud put forth his left hand, and took the dagger from his right thigh, and thrust it into Eglon’s belly.”
- The left hand of Christ is where you can expect to find surprise blessings, a hidden dagger to conquer and gain victory in your trials.
- For the Christian who loves God, and has the promise that all things work for our good, the left hand of Christ becomes for us the light behind the stormy clouds.
- While right-handed blessings are greatly to be desired, health, strength, vitality, vigor. Left-handed blessings are more frequent in this fallen world.
- What is a left-handed blessing?
- A left-handed blessing is cancer. It is the death of a loved on. It is your house burning down. It is a miscarriage, it is sickness, and the sorrows of this life that make us grieve and long for a new heavens and a new earth where there is no more pain and every tear is wiped away.
- And so the only reason we can call any of these grievous evils a “blessing,” is because Jesus Christ turned with his left hand, the greatest of all evils, his own death, into salvation for the world.
- And so if God can turn the murder of an innocent man at the hands of sinners into the very instrument through the which those same sinners can be saved, then He can certainly wield our evils for our good.
- Romans 8:28 is no lie, and as it says in James 5:11, “We count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job [who received many left-handed blessings], and have seen the end [intended] of the Lord; that the Lord is very compassionate, and full of tender mercy.”
- So look upon the left hand of Christ and remember Song of Solomon 2:6, “His left hand is under my head, And his right hand doth embrace me.”
#4 – The Feet
- Descending now to the feet of Christ, we cannot help but recall the promise of Genesis 3:15. For there God says to the serpent, “He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.”
- The feet of Christ are where we find peace, reconciliation, and mercy.
- Paul says in Romans 10:15, “How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!”
- And then later in Romans 16:20 he says that, “the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.”
- Recall that it was at the feet of Jesus, that Mary sat peacefully and heard his teaching (Luke 10:39), while Martha was busy in the kitchen.
- And it was the feet of Jesus that the woman in Luke 7, washed with her tears, wiped with her hair, kissed with her lips, and anointed with oil. And because of this Jesus says, “her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much.”
- And so beneath the feet of Christ are the serpent, our sins, our own enmity with God. For he must rule, till all his enemies are subdued beneath his feet, and at the feet of Christ is found mercy for those who love him.
- So when you think upon Jesus’ feet, nailed to the cross, think upon the woman who loved much and for such love was forgiven. Think upon the promise that through the seed of the woman, the serpent’s head would be crushed. “The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.”
#5 – The Heart
- Fifth and finally, behold the wound inflicted after Christ died.
- It says in John 19:34, “But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out.”
- Just as God formed woman from Adam’s side, just so God formed the church, the bride, from the side of Christ.
- When a baby is born there is blood and water. And so it is when we are born again through the death of Christ.
- His blood cleanses our heart from impurity.
- His water washes our filth.
- And so the words of Proverb 5:18 are most fittingly spoken to Christ, “Let thy fountain be blessed: And rejoice with the wife of thy youth.”
- That is to say, from the blessed fountain of Christ’s broken heart, comes great rejoicing in his people. For we are his body, his bride, his tabernacle, his home, and things are beautiful by the presence of God.
- In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
