Two steel marbles, continual motion
Does not the doctrine of the believer’s union with Christ, which expresses the indicative (what is declared), speak of the foundation out of which the imperative (God’s commands), flows?
John Calvin speaks of the foundation and flow this way (Institutes 3:11:1): “…unless you understand first of all what your position is before God, and what the judgment which he passes upon you, you have no foundation on which your salvation can be laid, or on which piety towards God can be reared.”
This foundation is union in our Savior. Piety and responsibility in godliness flow from it.
The indicative: statements in Scripture about who our God is and what He has done in Christ.
The imperative: statements in Scripture about the day to day will of God, His exhortations for obedience.
Relationship and Responsibility, the indicative and imperative, are the two steel marbles suspended on strings hanging from the coffee table wooden tri-pod, which, when one is pulled back and let go, swings down to smack the other one; they sway side to side in continual motion—now one, then the next. The biblical text is never stagnant, there’s the interplay of indicative instruction, then imperative exhortation; person, then work; relationship, then responsibility.
John 13 serves as an example.
John 13:1-13
Our union with Christ: He loved His own, He washed, He cleansed…
Our relationship in Him
John 13:14-17
Our communion with Christ: “you also ought to wash one another’s feet…”
Our responsibility in Him
INDICATIVE (relationship) IMPERATIVE (responsibility)
Genesis 1-2 Genesis 2: 8-9, 15, 17-24
Genesis 3:1-5, 11 Genesis 3:6-10, 12-19
Genesis 3:20-4:2 Genesis 4:3-24
As we read the Bible, we give attention to the ebb and flow of these two interpretive points. They bounce off of one another. They are distinguishable, yet they have an inter-play.
G. Mark Sumpter
On Reading John
John opens his Gospel, “In the beginning….,” and expositors over the centuries rightly locate John’s prologue as a parallel of Genesis—the Book of Beginnings.
Remarks are made on things like: a) the themes of life, light, darkness, glory and truth in the introduction, b) the sequence of days mentioned later in chapter one—John 1:29; 1:35; 1:39; 1:43, and c) then there’s the opening scene of the wedding at Cana—early on the institution of marriage figures into Christ’s ministry. Can we spell G-e-n-e-s-i-s?
Additionally, very importantly, the Gospel presents the seven signs of John—our Lord’s miracles—with the seventh one of raising Lazarus; teachers note that we can see an eighth sign with Jesus’ own resurrection, which rounds out the glory manifested in our Lord’s life.
It merits consideration that the Gospel of Beginnings, the Gospel of John, presents:
1. The new creation with the coming of Jesus Christ. He is the I AM who is Lord of heaven and earth. The creation cannot remain unchanged with its Creator stepping into theater of His world. Trace His steps with healing, walking on water, multiplying food, turning water into wine and more.
2. With the miracle of raising Lazarus, John 11:1-45, roughly half-way through the Book, the signature of Christ’s renewal of the creation with His Almighty voice of authority gets featured, “Lazarus, [death] come forth!” [The Word speaks—“Come this far, and no more” (compare Job 38:10-20)]. Why half-way through the Book and this miracle? Jesus works into the creation newness right now, while He is on the earth. It’s the on-set of the reality that, “behold, all things are new” in Christ Jesus. Men, the earth—all is made new. In the coming of Christ Jesus, the Garden of the Earth begins to be restored.
The story of the world unfolds in the gospel stories of the Lord Jesus; John makes sure we get his message—Genesis-ville is plain and clear and now the new creation banners his revelation, “In the beginning…”
G. Mark Sumpter
