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An archive of Jacob Nannie's Sermons & Teachings
This lecture is part of the Shawnee Believe Core Class. It is on the doctrine of Christ's
Atonement and our response, and it was given on March 11th of 2025.
...seeing that I have experienced and read in Scripture. So not only do I like a big victory
story, but I like it when, in stories, people are being defeated, the protagonists are losing,
and there's a sudden shift in the story, and where you think they're about to lose,
they actually win. He or she, armies, whatever it may be. And my absolute favorite example of this
is in the film adaptation of, of course it's not going to work, of Narnia. I, whoa.
I have not read the books, to be honest. I've just seen the movie, and I think the movie is great.
"You went through seminary and haven't read Narnia?" Nah, I haven't read that, and I'm working my way
through Lord of the Rings, too. It's like standard, standard works. I did read the Silmarillion first,
which is very interesting, because I like history and backstories, and then I get to the stories,
and they're kind of boring. Nah, I haven't read them, so I don't know. But I think this film,
a scene in this film really captures what I feel when I think of victory, right? And so in this
film, towards the end, after Aslan's death, Peter and those who are loyal to Aslan, they,
they still go out, and they go out to fight the witch. And Peter and Aslan's army, they're losing
this battle as they are fighting it. And with each swing of his sword, right, Peter finds himself
more and more alone, people next to him falling, and they're just losing. And as he's more and more
alone, and as they're losing, the witch is drawing nearer to come and attack Peter himself, until
Peter is finally all alone against the witch, and tries he might, the witch is pretty easily
defeating him, almost like she's toying with him, at least in the film adaptation. And she raises
her sword for one final blow, right, and then it happens. The unthinkable happens, and Peter hears
a mighty roar, and he looks up at a ridge behind him to see Aslan, now resurrected, leading a new
army. And Aslan charges down the ridge, and he comes against the witch right as she's about to
defeat Peter, and devours the witch. And then as she does that, which the, the movie does, goes
through great pains not to show it very graphically, but you get the sense that it's
pretty graphic. And once he finishes up with that, he turns to Peter, and very calmly, in Liam
Neeson's voice, he says, "It is finished." I love stories like that, stories that illustrate
the people that really want to fight the battle are helpless to do so, even if they're doing so
for what they think is a good cause. And I think, again, I like that story because I identify with
it as a human being, but also as someone who's saved by, has been saved, by those even mightier
works of Christ, even mightier than what Aslan can portray in a fictional story. And my life sin was
itching, and is always itching, to devour me, not just harm me or toy with me, but to really
seek to destroy me. And before Christ, that gets used to a desperate state where you're being
destroyed daily by sin, but as Paul says in Romans, "God showed me mercy," and he shows us mercy in
that while we're still sinners, Christ dies for us. He died for me. Just like at the right time
Aslan came to save Peter, at the perfect time Christ came to save me, and he comes to save us.
So tonight we're discussing the works of Jesus Christ and our response to those works. And so
if you have your workbook, you want to turn to the first page, I believe it's... Does anyone
have the page number for that first page, that section? 36 and 37. And we're going to read this
statement of faith together. Now, if you'll notice, it's actually two parts. It's statement
article 5 and 10a. And I may have mentioned at the very beginning of the class, we split article 10
over this lesson and also the lesson on the church, I believe, where we'll talk more about
baptism and the sacraments. So this article 10 is split, and the other half is in another lecture.
Let's read out loud together. We believe that Jesus Christ, our representative and substitute,
shed his blood on the cross as a perfect, all-sufficient sacrifice for our sins.
His atoning death and victorious resurrection constitute the only ground for salvation.
We believe that God commands everyone everywhere to believe the gospel by turning to him
in repentance and receiving the Lord Jesus Christ. Hi, Jacob should be waiting for you in the lobby.
Thank you. That's our statement of faith. And tonight we're going to talk about
the works of Christ, how Jesus is our prophet, priest, and king. Right? And he's risen victorious
over sin, death, and the devil. That's the main idea. Jesus is our prophet, priest, and king who's
risen victorious over sin, death, and the devil. And because of that, the theme, right, what we should
respond with is a response, right? Because of Christ's victory, we can join in on that victory
by responding to him in faith. I mentioned prophet, priest, and king. These are the three
offices of Christ in the works. These are the three realms of works that he did in his life.
So as a prophet, Jesus perfectly delivers God's word to us, instructing us in the path
of righteousness. He takes God's words, God's message, God's purposes, and tells them to us.
As priest, Jesus perfectly atones for our sins and his death, and intercedes on our behalf before the
Father. There's two things happening there. He dies a sacrificial death, and he intercedes for us
before the Father. And as king, in his resurrection, he's raised victorious over sin, over death,
and over the devil, and he rules over all creation as a risen Lord. So let's start with Christ's
office of prophet. What is a prophet? In the Old Testament, prophets were those who acted as
intermediaries between God and mankind. For example, in the Old Testament, you often see
the phrase, "Thus says the Lord." This is the prophets telling the people of God what God is saying,
what God wants to communicate. Old Testament prophets were intermediaries between God and man,
taking again the words of God, telling them to the people of God. They did this through
visions, through dreams, through things they received from maybe even the audible voice of God.
And in the New Testament, the function is very similar, but furthermore, prophets are defined by
their actions, not just their words. They communicate what God wants. Prophets in the New Testament
communicate what God wants to tell his people, but with actions as well. John the Baptist,
we know that John the Baptist came preaching repentance and belief in the kingdom of God
because it's at hand. But we also commonly know, if we were raised in Christian churches,
that John the Baptist, what did he wear?
Camel hide. Where did he live? And what did he do in his ministry?
Baptized, right? So not only are the words a focal point of John's message,
they are a big focal point. Repent and believe the kingdom of God is at hand,
but also the actions he followed up with that, which were baptism, which symbolized
something actually happening in the spiritual realm. He lived in the wilderness. He did these
things. He's defined also by his actions. And also Jesus, right? Jesus taught the kingdom of God,
taught the paths of righteousness, but he also lived a life that was instructive. He always did
what he saw the Father doing. That's what he says in John. And it's interesting as we go through the
Gospel of Mark, as I study it with, you know, our pastors and preach it, and as we study it as a
church, everything Jesus does is instructive. Everything. He doesn't do anything out of place.
I'm preparing for one in March 23rd, so some spoilers ahead, but there's a portion there
where Jesus walks in the water, and he intends to pass them by. It's not as if Jesus was just
on a stroll in the lake, wanting to walk by the disciples. He's doing something in the act of
quote-unquote passing them by. Everything he does is instructive. When he tells them,
"You feed the 5,000," he's trying to communicate something. He's not just replying in frustration.
So his words are important as a prophet. He's telling the people, teaching the people of God
and the world what God requires of them and how to live righteous lives, and he also lives a life
like that that demonstrates those things. So Jesus is a prophet who taught in action. John 1 says,
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The words of God
given to the people of God in the Old Testament has now become flesh, and as the incarnate Word,
he lives and teaches God's Word." Escaping down to verse 14 of John, if you're familiar,
John chapter 1, "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, who John bore witness about."
John was not the one, but bore witness about this one. "For from his fullness we have all received
grace upon grace. The law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ."
No one has ever seen God, the only God who is at the Father's side. Christ has made him known,
and the word there in the Greek of "making known" is that same word where we get exegesis.
When we exegete the Scriptures, we are making the Scriptures known, and so what John is saying is,
as the prophet of God, as the Word made flesh, Jesus is exegeting the Father, revealing what the
Father, all the Father wants to say and communicate to his people, and he's doing so in word and in
action. He has words of authority, he has words of life, and his words are eternally about him,
all the Scriptures are about him, and he lives that out. So why does that matter though, right?
So prophets, okay, they function as intermediaries, they tell us what God wants from us, what we
should do in response to him, and how we should live. Why is that important? Why is it important
that Jesus taught these things? Why is it important that Jesus acted as a prophet of God?
And how does it relate to the larger topic of atonement? As I was thinking about that,
I remembered about two weeks ago, I stumbled across this video while I was doing scrolling
on Instagram, of Rainn Wilson, who if you're familiar with The Office, plays Dwight in The
Office, and two Christians named Rhett and Link, I forget the name of their show, Good Mythical
Morning, and I've seen a couple episodes of it, it's a great show on YouTube, it's really fun,
but these two guys are deconstructed Christians, and Rainn is religious but
not a Christian, and so here's a quick dialogue that they have.
Like a repudiation of certain aspects of evangelical Christianity,
but could not being a Christian have just a love and belief in Jesus Christ and the teachings of
the Bible, and be in alignment with maybe other aspects of Protestantism?
It could, yes.
I was actually excited to talk to you about this specifically, because it's, you know--
I could tell because I came in and I was like, have you ever had any tests like this,
and you're like, we love the church.
Right, right.
No, just because you're a man of faith.
I am.
And even though I'm a Baha'i, I consider myself a Christian, because my love of Jesus,
and especially, and I've talked about this before with Alex O'Connor and other interviews,
like the red letter Bible, like what Jesus taught, what he said, what he did,
being a little different than what rose up hundreds and hundreds of years after his life.
Yeah, for sure.
So in that sense, I consider myself a Christian and the beauty of the teachings
and the metaphors and the mythology of the Bible.
And I would agree with you on that.
So if we're talking about subscription to the teachings of Jesus, then I'm a Christian.
Okay.
But because being a Christian meant something very specific to us,
and what we considered a Christian was someone who had, you know,
specific faith in the person of Jesus as the, you know, the offering for our sins, right?
The God in the flesh who sacrificed himself so that we could have
a reconciled relationship with God.
Like that's what a Christian was, and I think that in many ways it's still kind of
what a Christian is to most people.
Yeah.
And because that's what it kind of communicates, I say,
"Oh, you know, I believe in the, I agree with the teachings of Jesus."
But the person of Jesus, the nature of Jesus, and like what is fiction, what's fact,
I'm actually not, I don't, I'm not really that concerned with what's fact and what's fiction
in terms of certain aspects of it, right?
I spent a lot of time in that world of like trying to figure out what I thought.
Okay.
It's a long clip.
There's a lot there.
What are your initial reactions to what was said and communicated in that dialogue?
Do I have to unpack it all?
There's like an hour and a half more of that.
I just couldn't help but think about like some of the things that Jesus says.
And feeling like they actually don't believe that.
Right.
That's really the heart of it.
You cannot say, it's a logical contradiction to say,
"I believe and agree with the teachings of Jesus.
I just don't agree with him as a person or the work he did."
Because Jesus teaches that he is God come to die on behalf of God's people.
And so it's, and I get what they might be getting in that clip.
They agree with the morality of Jesus maybe.
But we can't set, we can't, the words of Christ as the prophet of God don't matter
if we don't believe all of them.
Because in those words, Jesus also says that he's the only way, he's the only truth
and that no one actually can go to the father unless they come through Christ.
He proclaims himself as God in the flesh, revealing the father come to tone for his people.
And so what they say in that clip, which I did, I hope I did a fair job of making sure
they didn't cut off when they're going to say something else
that would disqualify my critique of them.
They don't say anything that disqualifies my critique of them.
But there's, you just can't say, it doesn't make sense.
You can't believe in the words of Jesus and not believe in the words of Jesus.
And so Jesus as the prophet of God tells us very explicitly that he is God in the flesh
and he's come to save us from our sins.
And not only does he tell us that as a New Testament prophet, he also illustrates it
through his healings and miracles, through his death, through his burial and through
his resurrection.
So we may know and accept the words of Christ, but how can we approach the father if we're
still kind of bathed in sin, right?
And that brings us to the priestly office of Christ.
So what is a priest?
In the Old Testament, priests were chosen from Aaron's lineage to mediate between God
and Israel or between Israel and God.
They offered sacrifices.
They taught the law and interceded for the people.
The high priest performed the annual day of atonement.
It's a big moment in the book of Leviticus, for example, in chapter 16.
And the day of atonement and the office and the work of the high priest specifically is
the ultimate foreshadowing of Christ and his final atonement.
Prophets took the words of God and intermediate them to man.
Priests, they take and deal with the sin of the people and cleanse the people so they
can be acceptable to God.
Jesus is the true and ultimate priest who offers full and final atonement for sin.
As the great high priest who lives a perfect and blameless life, he fulfills a couple of
things in his sacrifice, right?
He's perfect.
He's spotless.
He's blameless.
He's without blemish, just like what was required of the animals in Old Testament law.
Jesus lives that out as a human being.
In his suffering on the cross, Jesus accomplishes what is called expiation, right?
He takes our sins on himself and he does away with them by dying for our sins.
He accomplishes propitiation, right?
It's a big word.
Propitiation, bearing the wrath and anger of God that was due to sin.
And he accomplishes reconciliation, making us friends of God rather than God's enemies.
And through this, he redeems us and accomplishes redemption, which is him purchasing by his
blood us as God's possession, right?
And I decided to take out a section on addressing some of the errors of taking these, right?
For example, I guess I'll put the section back in here.
In redemption, people have said, oh, well, he purchased us from Satan for God.
That's a misunderstanding of what we mean by redemption.
He didn't like pay some sort of financial debt so that Satan would release us and we
can go to God.
Rather, he paid our debts and we, because of that, we belong to God.
And so if we can take some of the analogies and the words too far and come up with really
weird, wonky ideas about atonement.
But overall, Christ did these things in his death.
He took our sins.
He bore the wrath of God.
We're no longer enemies of God because of this.
We're reconciled to him and we've been purchased by his blood and we are God's possession.
The first article or question in the New City Catechism is that we are not our own, but
we belong to God.
We are owned, I guess you could say, by God.
We belong to God.
Our lives are not ours.
In the death of Christ, we now belong to God.
Jesus is also the true and ultimate priest that intercedes, not just atones for sin.
So he doesn't just die and stay dead as a perfect sacrifice, but he actually ascends
to the Father to intercede for us.
Just like the priesthood, he would pray to God on behalf of the people.
He would offer sacrifice on behalf of the people.
He was the person that was responsible for the people's sins and intermediating between
the people and God, and Christ does that eternally for us, even right now.
He's able to perfectly intercede for us as well because he's gone through the same things
that we have.
Hebrews says that we have a high priest who's able to sympathize with us.
Christ experienced those same things that we experience, yet without sin.
He was tempted without sin.
He experienced hunger.
He experienced frustration.
He experienced laughter.
He experienced wine.
He experienced a joke, or maybe even a play, or many things, bad and good.
And because of that, he's able to intercede for us perfectly.
But Christ's work, thanks be to God, does not stop at his death.
He's a prophet who brings us the words of God.
He's a priest who atones for our sins with his own body, and he's also a king.
John Freeman in systematic theology says the risen Christ has all authority and power throughout
the created universe.
When he returns, every eye will see him and bow before him as the rightful king over all
the earth.
On that day, his royal word will judge all the living and the dead.
So he's the object of all of our worship and praise.
As King Jesus is, rises from the dead, victorious over sin, death, and the devil.
The kingship of Christ is chiefly his resurrection, right?
Christ was king at his incarnation, but this is put on display.
His victory as a royal king is put on display in his resurrection.
The gospel message is good news that the king is coming, in this instance, with his kingdom.
And his kingdom comes with him in his incarnation.
This is what he proclaims in the gospel of Mark, which I reference a lot because we're
preaching it.
In the gospel of Mark, every time there's talk about the kingdom, and actually all three
of the gospels, every time he talks about the kingdom, it's accompanied by signs of
the kingdom as well.
And so, for example, when he feeds the 5,000, Mark says he had compassion on them because
they were sheep without a shepherd, and he taught them many things.
Matthew says he taught them many things and healed their sick.
Luke says he taught them about the kingdom of God, and he healed their sick.
So he comes with these evidences that he is king over creation.
He has control over it, has authority over it, and he's present with it.
All right, and this message of the gospel is that the king is coming to his kingdom.
And though it looks like in his death and burial that his kingdom, and he as king, has
been dethroned and defeated, his resurrection proclaims that he is king over creation, that
he is victorious over sin, death, and the devil.
Months ago, we preached through Isaiah, and there's a pivotal verse there in Isaiah,
chapter 40, where it says, "In the wilderness, prepare the way for the Lord.
Make straight in the desert a highway for our God."
This is the prophet telling the people of God that, remember when God's presence dwelt
with you in your camp physically?
Remember when fire shot out from the tent to consume the sacrifices?
That departed in Israel's day, in Israel's history.
The presence of God left, and they're in exile.
And here the prophet says the king is coming back to his kingdom.
You don't leave the wilderness, the king is coming to your wilderness to be present with
you.
And whatever would hinder this king, he's going to eliminate.
Valleys will be brought up, mountains will be put down.
This path will be made straight.
And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh together shall see it.
He comes in glory, and then he tends to his sheep as a good shepherd and as a strong and
rightful king.
This all happens in Christ's life.
And then he dies, right?
And if you're the disciples, every time you see the disciples without Jesus, they're always
struggling.
Again, I mentioned defeating the 5,000 because that's the next sermon I'm working on.
But they get in the lake, and as soon as they get in the lake, they're struggling, this
time against the wind.
They just can't do it.
And Jesus has to be with them and show them miracles, and they still just don't get it.
So Jesus passes them by, they think it's a ghost, and he says, "No, it's me," right?
Essentially saying, "I'm God, I'm here," and they're still terrified.
And Mark says they don't understand it because they didn't get it about the loaves.
They didn't understand Jesus' miracle about the loaves.
And the disciples are with him, they're seeing all these things, they're being taught by
Jesus, they're with Jesus, they're becoming like Jesus in a way, they're doing what Jesus
did, healing people, casting out demons, and then he dies and they all scatter.
But it doesn't stop there, right?
In Christ's death, he atones for our sin, but the king is still coming.
The king is still the king, and he rises to new life, to life again, and in that resurrection,
he's proclaiming his victory over those things that seek to oppress us.
And what's interesting as a side note, in Matthew, he rises to life again.
They're touching him, talking with him, and it says, "And some doubted."
So it's hard to believe.
Even 2,000 years separated, we still have a hard time believing the resurrection of Christ.
But in that resurrection, he's risen victorious over sin, death, and the devil.
So I went on a long tangent there.
In the Roman Empire, when someone was proclaimed Lord, they would call it good news.
Euangelion is the Greek word.
Good news, there's a new emperor, for example, or if an emperor went out to battle and came
back victorious, good news, the king is victorious.
They would call, I think that's the Greek or Latin for Lord is Caesar.
Caesar is Lord, they would say.
But in the New Testament, and in the Christian tradition, the good news is that the true
Lord and his kingdom have come and defeated our true oppressors.
Jesus is Lord, Jesus is King.
And this phrase actually is what made the Roman Empire nervous about the uprising of
Christianity.
Christians are good citizens.
They just won't say that Caesar is Lord because they have a true king defeating true enemies.
So in his office as king, Jesus exercises his control, authority, and presence over
all creation.
He rules it as God in the flesh.
These are the mighty works of Jesus.
He came as a prophet, delivering us words of God in human flesh.
He died in our place to atone for our sins and intercede on our behalf.
And he was raised from the dead victorious over sin, over death, and over the devil.
Like Aslan, he did all this at the fullness of time, crushing sin, crushing death, crushing
the devil.
And in that, death has died in the death of Christ.
So that's a great victory story, right?
How do you respond to that?
How should we respond to that?
We should respond really in two ways.
First, we should repent and believe.
Because death has died in the death of Christ, we no longer have to keep ourselves enslaved
to that great oppressor, to death and sin.
Because of Christ and through his death and resurrection, we can turn away from our sin
that is repenting, turning away from sin, and not just turning away from sin.
I think a lot of people get repentance wrong and that they just turn away from sin.
But you need to be turning to Christ, away from sin, fixing your eyes on Jesus, believing
that he is Lord and that God raised him from the dead.
And as you repent and behold the risen Christ, Paul says in Corinthians that you will be
transformed into his likeness.
As we're with Jesus, we become like him and we start to do what he did.
That's the first way we respond is by repenting of sin, turning away from it to look at Christ.
And beholding Christ is a bit of a mystery, right?
How do you behold something that's intangible currently?
And this Pearson John Owen has a good way of putting it.
He says, well, if you think beholding Christ is hard, just think about how you behold sin
all the time.
You don't just sin, like sin doesn't just come upon you and it just happens to you.
You sin because you behold it.
You think about it, right?
You might, if you're really unrepentant, might make plans for it.
You're obsessed with it.
It's a slow, gradual fall into it, not slip into sin.
And so if you behold sin, like you behold, if you behold Christ, like you behold sin,
you'll become like Christ because when you behold sin, you start to become like that
sin and you start to die with that sin.
Whatever you behold, you become.
And so we respond by repenting, turning away from that and beholding Christ.
And as we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, we'll be transformed into his likeness and become
more like him.
The second way we should respond is by being baptized.
Baptism is a symbol of those works of Christ.
It's a symbol of spiritual transformation that takes place when we are saved.
In baptism, we symbolize that we have died with Christ, that we have been buried with
Christ, but also we don't stand under the baptism of the waters and drown.
We're raised to new life with Christ as well.
So when we partake in baptism, we partake in his life and his death and his resurrection,
symbolizing a real and true spiritual transformation.
What a victorious Savior we have in Christ.
And what a victorious life we can have in Christ.
And if this moves you, you should respond in repentance and belief.
And if you have repented and believe, then you should respond by being baptized.
And if you have been baptized, then amen.
Let's go watch and celebrate some people getting baptized.