Beginning at verse 34, Jesus has been teaching in Jerusalem. And so the crowd answered him, ‘We have heard from the law that the Christ remains forever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?’
So Jesus said to them, ‘The light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going. While you have the light, believe in the light that you may become sons of light.’
From there, we turn back to 2 Samuel chapter 7. It’s written, ‘Now when the king lived in his house, and the Lord had given him rest from all his surrounding enemies, the king said to Nathan the prophet, ‘See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells in a tent.’ And Nathan said to the king, ‘Go do all that is in your heart, for the Lord is with you.’
But that same night, the word of the Lord came to Nathan, ‘Go and tell my servant David, thus says the Lord, would you build me a house to dwell in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent for my dwelling. In all places where I have moved with all the people of Israel, did I speak a word with any of the judges of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, Why have you not built me a house of cedar?
Now therefore, thus you shall say to my servant David, thus says the Lord of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be prince over my people Israel. And I have been with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth.
And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. And violent men shall afflict them no more as formerly from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel. And I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house.
And when your days are fulfilled, and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men.
But my steadfast love will not depart from him as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let us pray.
May Father, you’ve given us your word. It is useful for teaching and for correction and reproof. It is also good for our encouragement. Help us to hear you speak and to find the hope and the promise that you have given. Promises that you have given to your son David and the promises that we also benefit from in his son and your son Jesus. Pray this in his name. Amen.
So the other gospels, particularly Matthew, explain that Jesus continued teaching in and around Jerusalem between his triumphal entry and his betrayal by Judas. And while we may be confident that these final teachings recorded by John were likely spoken during that period, the evangelist does not tell us exactly where or when.
But we’re also confident that Jesus’s immediate audience, those who were listening to him, included a wide diversity of persons. We know that his disciples were there. There were the Jews, the Pharisees, Sadducees, the Levites, and priests. There were Greeks and other curious Gentiles, and depending on where he was in speaking, possibly even Roman soldiers.
This group included those who supported Jesus, those who opposed Jesus, and those who did not yet know which side they were on. Now, after Jesus had just declared, ‘And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself,’ the crowd replied, saying, ‘We have heard from the law that the Christ remains forever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this son of man?’ showing clearly that they still did not understand.
They suffered from a failure to comprehend despite the fact that the Jerusalem crowd had recently acclaimed Jesus as the king of Israel, calling him in effect the son of David. And the fact that the witnesses to Lazarus’s resurrection were publicly testifying to the sign performed by Jesus.
And Jesus had just now identified himself as the son of man, an apocalyptic divine figure from Daniel’s prophecy. And a voice from heaven just immediately before this had confirmed Jesus as God’s son. Each and every one of those evidences alone support the thesis that Jesus was a Christ, a messiah, a person who is anointed and chosen by God.
But together they support the idea that Jesus, the idea and the truth that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah who’s been prophesied throughout the whole of Hebrew scriptures. And although this crowd was claiming familiarity with the person of the Christ, saying, ‘We’ve heard from the law that the Christ remains forever,’ they did not really understand who the Christ is or what his work would be.
Presuming their reference to the law was the ordinary, commonplace, and regular shorthand used for the law and the prophets, there are three related passages which come to mind. ‘For to us a child is born. To us a son is given and the government shall be upon his shoulder. And his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end. on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forever more.’
The second, ‘My servant David shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall walk in my rules and be careful to obey my statutes. They shall dwell in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children’s children shall dwell there forever. And David, my servant, shall be their prince forever. I’ll make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant with them.’
And finally, ‘The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind. You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.’ Each of these talk about the Christ and each of these talk about the eternality of the Christ.
The first example identifies the Christ as mighty God and everlasting father, someone who would rule upon the throne of David and over his kingdom from this time forth and forever more. Or more simply put, Christ as God and King. The second example identifies the Christ as a descendant of King David as the divinely appointed prince over Israel and the recipient of an everlasting covenant of peace or more simply the Christ as David’s heir with the authority of the son of man and the mediator of God’s eternal covenant with his chosen people.
And the third identifies the Christ as a priest forever. The Christ as an eternal non-Aaronic non-Levitical priest. And together, these three examples describe the Christ as being eternal God and eternal king, the son of David and the son of man, the mediator of God’s eternal covenant, and a priest eternally interceding for God’s elect.
That’s who the Christ is. So the crowd was correct in their understanding that the Lord’s Christ is eternal and that he remains in his role forever. But they were wrong about what forever means. Yet they did demonstrate some understanding by their asking how can you say that the son of man must be lifted up because they were understanding Jesus in a sense different from exaltation.
They understood him. They understood it as execution and perhaps even as crucifixion. They knew and they were confused because the prophetic son of man must be exalted. Daniel writes that he is exalted by the Lord, saying, ‘I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the ancient of days, and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His domain is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.’
So if the crowd was connecting this son of man with their hope for the Messiah, then they were rightly confused at Jesus’s suggestion or the implication that something negative would happen to him because of who they believed this Messiah should be. They were believing that the Son of Man would have a kingdom, an everlasting dominion which shall not be destroyed.
But their belief in him was less dependent on Daniel’s prophecy and more on the Lord’s promise with David, saying, ‘I will establish your offspring forever and build your throne for all generations.’ This promise to David was the key to understanding the eternality of Christ because they believed that the son, the son of man would be the heir of King David. And they believed that the Christ would be the king, a final deliverer out of a long line of deliverers.
And to better understand what they were thinking and believing, we really need to remember exactly what it was that God promised David. When the king was living in his house and the Lord had given him rest, the king said to Nathan the prophet, ‘See, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells in the tent.’ This was after David had become king over the whole of united Israel and he felt guilty and decided that the Lord needed a grand temple.
David thought Jerusalem needed a monument to honor Israel’s God, just like all the other nations had. David, for all of his many faults, he did have a good understanding about God’s ultimate sovereignty and glory, and he did not think that it was right that he as Israel’s king should have a home that was more glorious than Israel’s God. But God thought otherwise.
The Lord told David, ‘Would you build me a house to dwell in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent for my dwelling.’ God told him that he had not asked the king for any such thing. The Lord God did not want or need any such thing. It was not David’s place nor his purpose to build the Lord a temple.
God reminded David about everything that he had already done for the king. Said, ‘I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be prince over my people Israel. And I have been with you wherever you went. And I have cut off all your enemies before you,’ reminding him of these things so that David would understand that God did not need David to do anything for him.
And then instead of commanding the king to go ahead and construct him a monument, the Lord promised David all that he would do for him according to his divine grace rather than human merit. God said, ‘And I will make for you a great name like the name of the great ones of the earth. And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. And I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house.
And when your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.’ See, God would make David famous, giving him glory and renown among all the nations. God would establish and ensure the security of Israel within their own land. God would give David and Israel both rest from their enemies, giving them peace, freedom from fear or oppression.
Moreover, the Lord would establish and preserve David’s house. The Lord would ensure that David had a lasting dynastic legacy ruling over God’s people. ‘I will raise up your offspring after you who shall come from your body and I will establish his kingdom.’ And while it was not for ordained to be David’s place or purpose, God declared that it would be his heirs instead, saying that he shall build a house for my name.
‘And I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. And your throne shall be established forever.’ David’s son, his heir, would build God a house while the Lord would establish the throne of David’s kingdom forever.
But these things would not happen as a matter of cause and effect, but rather they would be a matter of both and. God would not establish David’s kingdom because his son built God a temple. David’s son would build the temple and also God would preserve David’s kingdom forever eternally.
But what happened? We know the story. David’s son Solomon, he built the Lord a big, beautiful, and glorious temple, but because he failed to live according to God’s required standards, because he didn’t even try, and because his son Rehoboam started off just as bad, the Lord divided the kingdom. And eventually, the northern non-Davidic kingdom degenerated so much that they were conquered, destroyed, and deported.
Then after a little while longer, the southern Davidic kingdom followed a similar suit and the Babylonians conquered Judah and destroyed both Jerusalem and Solomon’s temple. And the historical appearance would suggest that David’s dynasty failed. History would suggest that God either lied, forgot, voided, or was unable to keep his promises to King David or his people Israel.
But against all odds, Israel endured. After 70 years of exile, God’s people returned to the land. Jerusalem and the temple were rebuilt, and they even had a Davidic governor, Zerubbabel, but his authority was subordinate to the kings of Media Persia. And then Alexander the Great came in and conquered the Persians and claimed the land of Judea.
But his kingdom soon fell and was divided among his generals. Then Alexander’s lucid successor, Antiochus IV, he desecrated the temple and he tried to wipe out the Jewish religion. But the Jewish people revolted and installed the Hasmonean kings, except they were Levites, not descendants of David. And then the Hasmonean dynasty was replaced by Herod, a cultural convert to Judaism and the client king subordinate to Rome.
So we have a Jewish nation that continued, but it was without a son of David as king. The Lord had promised David an eternal dynasty, an eternal throne. The throne remained, but the dynasty was absent. A circumstance that influenced the people’s hopes and expectations. They were expecting a son of David to come as God’s Messiah and restore this Jewish Davidic kingdom to its former glory.
They believed that this son of David would be the son of man to whom authority and dominion were given by the Lord. And they were right. They were also wrong because of everything that they did not understand. They didn’t understand what true authority is. They did not understand what true power and dominion is. They did not understand what true rest or peace are. They did not understand what God’s house is.
And they did not understand what eternity or eternality mean. Now the present question facing us is do we understand those things any better than they did? Is our understanding of authority temporal and worldly? Is it concerned most or only with our worldly cares, concerns, and preferences? What is the source for an authority’s right to be authoritative?
Is our understanding of power and dominion constrained or limited to the forcefulness of might makes right? Is our understanding of rest and peace limited to just being the absence of activity or conflict? Is our understanding of God’s house focused on a building or a particular location? Is our understanding of eternality focused on just unending continuation going on into the future?
See, scripture teaches that all authority belongs to and is sourced from the one eternal creator, the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God who created the heavens and the earth and decreed all that ever shall be. The one who made it all gets to decide what happens to it. The one who made the game gets to decide the rules. The one who’s actually offended against the one whose authority is transgressed and violated.
That’s the one who gets to determine what the just and fair punishment is. And while few people really like this view and fewer still are willing to admit its truth, there is an old joke that demonstrates our implicit cultural understanding of the truth. A scientist says to God, ‘We have discovered the secret of life. Through the application of our science, we can now create people.’
And so the Lord replies, ‘It’s interesting that you think so. So go ahead, show me. I’ll make a person and then you can make a person.’ So the scientist agrees. So the Lord God reaches down, scoops up some dirt, forms it into the shape of a man, and then breathes life into it before setting the newly created man down. The scientist watches God in wonder and he tells him, ‘Amazing. That is certainly remarkable, but now it’s my turn.’
And so the scientist turns on all of his equipment and as it’s warming up, he reaches down and scoops up some dirt, but the Lord stops him. God interrupts him and says, ‘First, make your own dirt.’ Everything that we might ever do always begins back with God. That’s the authority. If the universe was created, then it must have a creator.
If there was or is a creator, then he must possess absolute and total authority over his creation because he is the one who’s made every decision concerning it. If anyone else is able to exert authority on it, then they may only do so because the creator has allowed it or delegated it or granted them permission to do so.
So true authority can only belong to the ultimate and original source, the Lord God, the eternal logos, who is Theos and Andros, by whom and through whom all things are made. And the only way we get to know what his will and purpose for us is is through his revealed word recorded in sacred scripture. There is where we discover who he is, who we are, and what our purpose is, and what God expects from us.
Scripture teaches that while there is power in the ability to do something, greater power is found in the exercise of restraint. Just because something can be done does not mean it should be done. As Paul writes, ‘All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful.’ All things are lawful, but not all things build up.
See, it requires more power to not do something than it does to do it. Because once something has been done, it can never be undone. It requires more power to offer mercy and grace than it does to impose punishment. Scripture teaches that rest and peace are not the absence of activity or conflict. True rest and true peace are found only in the Lord, in a loving relationship of fellowship and friendship with God as his children of adoption.
Scripture teaches that God’s house is not actually a stone and wood edifice built up with human hands because the finite cannot contain or constrain the infinite. The Lord God is omnipresent. He is everywhere. The psalmist writes or Isaiah writes, ‘Thus says the Lord, heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. What is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest? All these things my hand has made.’
And so all these things came to be, declares the Lord. But while the Lord did once cause his name to dwell at the tabernacle and at the Jerusalem temple, and while Christ presently ministers within a heavenly temple for us, none of these places or structures, whether physical or spiritual or heavenly, are God’s actual house.
Neither is this building that we worship in, that we call a church or we call it God’s house, God’s actual house. If we again consider God’s promises to David concerning his son, we will remember that God told the king about his son that he shall build a house for my name. But what is the house that he builds?
First, God promised David that he, the Lord, would make David’s name great and would make him a house by establishing his dynasty. And then within that same context, God goes on to tell David that his son will build a house for my name. The Lord did not intend a structure built of human hands.
I mean, yes, Solomon’s temple was a fulfillment of this promise. The temple he built was just a type, a reflection, an image of the heavenly temple first seen by Moses. And yes, the Lord did cause his name to dwell there in that place for a time. But that edifice of stone and precious metals was not really God’s house. The apostle Paul asked, ‘Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you whom you have from God?’
So although our bodies are called temples, neither are they God’s house in that sense. Instead, the capital C church, the whole body of Christian believers, is God’s house. Together we corporately are the house built for the Lord’s name. Built by David’s true son, the son of man and son of God, Jesus Christ.
But we’re not actually God’s house in the same sense of being a temple. Though we are being sanctified and made holy as the Holy Spirit’s dwelling place, we are God’s house in the sense that we are each members. Every Christian believer is a member of God’s dynasty through our union into Jesus Christ and our adoption as the sons and daughters of God.
We are fellow heirs of God along with Jesus. Now the Lord, he promised to build and establish a dynasty for David. And then likewise, the Lord promised David that his son would build and establish a dynasty for the Lord through the covenantal promise of God’s grace, through the Lord’s claim upon us as his chosen elect people through Christ’s work upon the cross that has redeemed us and through the righteous covering of Christ’s blood that justifies us before our holy Lord.
Through our adoption as his sons and daughters, we have been brought into the dynasties of both God and David by the son of David and the son of God. We as the church, the Israel of God, are united into the fulfillment of God’s covenantal promise to David.
And while Jesus is David’s true son and his ultimate heir, each of us are his brother or sister, each of us therefore belong to God’s house that David’s son built. And belonging to this dynasty, we are heirs to and subjects of the eternal kingdom established by God for David’s son.
And as adopted members, we are loyal and we are obedient to the only natural heir to both David’s and the Lord’s throne, the monogenes, the only begotten son of God, Jesus Christ, the eternal king. Which is what brings us to today’s question: What does it mean for us that the Christ is eternal?
Eternity. It’s a big word filled with meaning, and it is a word that people do not really like to think about. And usually when we think about eternity, our human perspective limits it to the idea of just eternal future, of a constant and unending continuation of what is through whatever shall be. But how long is eternity? Far longer than we can imagine or comprehend, longer than the whole of recorded history of the past.
Scripture teaches that eternity is not just unending time, but infinite. Eternity encompasses both the infinite future yet to come and the infinite past that stretches back before time began. Even back before in the beginning there is only one eternal being: God in three persons, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And that is what forever means.
The divine perspective is outside of time. Eternal means to always be. To always be is eternal means to always be immutable or unchangeable. Eternal means to always be constant, the true and absolute constant. Eternal means to transcend time, to be beyond and unbounded by temporal concerns. Eternal is infinite.
And so to be eternal and infinite means to see all, to know all, and to be in all places at all times. Eternal is to be uniquely God. I mean that is what the Lord means himself to be when he claims in scripture, ‘I am the alpha and the omega,’ says the Lord God, ‘who is and who was and who is to come, the almighty.’
So when scripture teaches that the Christ remains forever, we need to understand what this does not mean. It does not mean that the Christ would come and then once he’s appeared, never leave. This means that the Christ is, was, and will always be. That the Christ is God no matter where he is.
And when scripture quotes the Lord saying, ‘And your house and your kingdom shall be made forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever,’ understand that God was promising David an eternal kingdom, something that is unique and singular, something that belonged to God alone.
When the Lord promised David this, he was promising to unite and subsume David’s throne and kingdom into his own divine and eternal kingdom. God was promising David that he would exalt and lift up David’s heir and bestow on him the name that is above every name so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
God was promising to do in time what had already been determined and accomplished in eternity. So for us this means that Jesus Christ is eternally our king. His reign has been from everlasting and will continue through everlasting. His authority is absolute, and it has always been in effect, eternally unchanging despite creation’s finite, temporary, constant but ultimately temporary rebellion.
God’s law is Christ’s law, and he has always ruled and governed his people the same according to it, whether under the new covenant, the old covenant, the Noachic, or the Edemic covenants. So for us, this means that Jesus Christ is eternally our prophet, the logos who is Theos because he alone has eternally spoken God’s perfectly holy and unchanging word to God’s elect.
He alone has eternally revealed God the Father to his chosen people. So for us, this means that Jesus Christ is eternally our priest forever, interceding on behalf of God’s elect, all whom the Father has given to him. He alone has been praying for us forever and constantly.
He alone has forever stood between us and the judgment and divine wrath that we deserve. He alone has forever been on our side. Even when we were not on his side, even when we wanted nothing to do with him and when we were actively opposing his side.
So for us, this means that we can and must trust Jesus when he says that now is the judgment of this world. Now will the ruler of this world be cast out, and I when I am lifted up from the earth will draw all people to myself. We may confidently believe that Satan will be cast out of the world because he is already eternally defeated despite his continued reach.
We may confidently believe that Christ will draw to himself everyone that belongs to him from all eternity, whoever, wherever, and whenever, according to his grace alone by the will and power of God alone. Jesus always has been and always shall be Christ the King before and after his incarnation.
But we must remember that the first-century Jews failed to understand that a change in location from heaven to earth or earth to heaven never caused a change in his authority. Jesus is eternally our Lord God and King, eternally and everywhere.
And finally, for us, we may trust in Christ’s promises as our only hope for salvation, that for God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Amen.