SWORD AND SHIELD A REFORMED MONTHLY MAGAZINE Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O people saved by the LORD, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thy excellency! and thine enemies shall be found liars unto thee; and thou shalt tread upon their high places. Deuteronomy 33:29 APRIL 2021 | VOLUME 1 | NUMBER 14 CONTENTS MEDITATION FAITH AND LIFE FINISHED FEAR AND ANGER 3 Rev. Nathan J. Langerak 17 Rev. Martin VanderWal EDITORIAL CONTRIBUTION AN ANSWER TO DEPOSITION (1) WALKING WITH GOD 7 Rev. Andrew W. Lanning 21 Elijah Roberts FROM THE EDITOR FINALLY, BRETHREN, FAREWELL! 9 Rev. Andrew W. Lanning 24 Rev. Nathan J. Langerak UNDERSTANDING THE TIMES 10 REVISITING NORMAN SHEPHERD Rev. Nathan J. Langerak Sword and Shield is a monthly periodical published Signed letters and submissions of general interest may be sent to by Reformed Believers Publishing. the editor-in-chief at [email protected] or Editor-in-chief 2705 48th Ave Rev. Andrew W. Lanning Zeeland, MI 49464 Contributing editors Sword and Shield does not accept advertising. Rev. Nathan J. Langerak Please send all business correspondence, subscription requests, Rev. Martin VanderWal and requests to join Reformed Believers Publishing to one of the All quotations from scripture are from the King James Version following: unless otherwise noted. Reformed Believers Publishing Quotations from the Reformed and ecumenical creeds, Church 325 84th St SW, Suite 102 Order, and liturgical forms are taken from The Confessions and Byron Center, MI 49315 the Church Order of the Protestant Reformed Churches (Grandville, Website: reformedbelieverspub.org MI: Protestant Reformed Churches in America, 2005), unless Email: [email protected] otherwise noted. Reformed Believers Publishing maintains the privacy and trust Every writer is solely responsible for the content of his own of its subscribers by not sharing with any person, organization, or writing. church any information regarding Sword and Shield subscribers. MEDITATION FINISHED When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.—John 19:30 t is finished! Beautiful word. Blessed salvation. It is preaching must declare about the cross of Christ what the sixth and second to last cross word. Jesus spoke Jesus shouted about his own cross before he gave up the I one more time after that. He said, “Father, into thy ghost: “It is finished!” By this one word everyone who hands I commend my spirit.” Before he surrendered his hears the gospel can test whether what they hear is indeed spirit to the Father, Jesus said, “It is finished.” the gospel or whether it is a lie by which men contradict What is three words in English is one word in Greek: the dying Christ. te-tel-es-tai! The dying Christ came out of the darkness It is finished! All the work that is necessary for the of the cross, and the whole universe came with him. He church of Jesus Christ to have fellowship with God is fin- said, “I thirst!” He thirsted after his immense effort to ished. All the obedience that is necessary for the believer accomplish salvation. The bystanders put a sponge full to have fellowship with God is finished. All the labor that of vinegar to his mouth. With that taste of vinegar sting- was necessary to take away the stain of guilt, the punish- ing his cracked lips, tingling on his teeth, and biting his ment of sin, and the pollution of transgression is finished. parched throat, he uttered one last, glorious shout. With All of salvation is accomplished. a voice empowered by the divine, he uttered a shout that All was finished in the perfect obedience and lifelong reverberated throughout the universe: “It is finished!” suffering of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ assumed human That shout made heaven and the angels rejoice, and nature in order to suffer. He assumed the human nature it made hell and Satan shudder. The hosts of fiends that and became a real man in order to suffer in the same were so active at the cross must have paused, looked ques- human nature in which the offense of his people had tioningly at each other, and asked, “What is finished?” been committed. When he was made man, incarnate in They had been so busy. Busy all his life. Busy at his birth, the womb of Mary, he was found in fashion as a man by so that Herod rose up to slay Jesus. Busy in the minds of the law of God, and Jesus was made sin and a curse for Jesus’ enemies. Busy even on the lips of his own disciples. his people. Because he was their head and representative, Busy in the chambers of the high priest and the council all their sins were imputed to him, and he suffered for room of the Sanhedrin. Busy on the lips and tongues of those sins. In all his suffering he obeyed, and in all his the false witnesses, busy at Gabbatha, busy in the ham- obedience he suffered. mer blows of the soldier who nailed Jesus’ hands and feet He suffered during his whole life. He suffered as the to the cross, and busy in the throats of the mob shouting, object of the wrath of God every moment of his existence. “Crucify him!” Busy on the road leading past Golgotha as He suffered in the womb because for his sake there was the crowds jeered, mocked, and reviled the dying Christ. no room in the inn. He suffered in the stable as the world They had worked so hard to bring him to the cross, to rejected him. He suffered as a child. He suffered in the crucify Jesus, to finish him, and to bury him once and for desert as the devil attacked him. He suffered in his min- all. Then at the bitter end of the cross, he shouted victo- istry as the Son of Man who had no place to lay his head. riously, “It is finished!” His enemies whispered, despised, criticized, contradicted, What is finished? glared at, and flattered him. They plotted against him The victory cry from the cross of Calvary reverberated and tried to entrap him and to incite him to anger and not only in heaven above and in the portals of Satan’s to mistakes. He was rejected by his own brethren and was kingdom beneath, but that cry also reverberates down thronged by a crushing multitude, and afterward they all through history wherever the gospel is preached. The left until only twelve remained, and one of them was a victory shout of the dying Christ was a one-word sum- traitor and a devil. The Jews begged him to leave their mary of the whole gospel of Jesus Christ and his cross country, wished him ill, and called him the most terrible that would be preached, that is being preached, and that names. They envied him. They tried to kill him. He suf- has been preached throughout all the world. The gospel, fered during his whole life. He suffered as perfection itself if it is to be gospel, must declare the cross of Christ. The among sinners. Was there any sorrow like his sorrow? SWORD AND SHIELD | 3 He suffered especially at the end of his life. One who More than that, finished means that the plan is com- ate bread with him lifted up his heel against him, sold pleted. In all his lifelong suffering, but especially at his him for thirty pieces of silver, and betrayed him with a cross, he finished a grand plan, a master plan of salvation. kiss. The weight of wrath pressed out of him his bloody God had eternally decreed all of Jesus’ suffering to be sweat, a look into the cup that he had to drink nearly the perfect and only foundation of salvation. Salvation, killed him, and he was sorrowful unto death. All the the salvation of God’s elect, did not begin at the cross but while he was attended by sleeping disciples who soon in eternity. The cross, according to the Christ of the cross, were offended at him, forsook him, and fled. The mob demands that we ask about its origin. Where did that with swords and staves bound him as a thief. He suffered cross come from? What explains that cross and all the in his trial before the members of the Sanhedrin: all their details of that cross? Did man conceive of the cross? Did abuse, their feigned righteousness, their hypocrisy, the Jesus’ enemies devise the idea of the cross? Did the man false witnesses, and the lies. The oath! They put the Son of Jesus Christ propose the idea of the cross? No, the cross God under oath. He suffered in his trial before Pilate and is God’s, wholly God’s, in every detail and from eternity. by the gratuitous brutality of Pilate’s soldiers and then In his eternal decree God expressed his unchanging before Herod and his men, at first desiring to see Jesus and and eternal love for his people and his will to bless them quickly tiring of the silent Christ. He was exchanged for with unspeakable blessedness: that they know him, have the murderer, thief, and rebel, his fellowship and friendship, Barabbas. Jesus’ whole nation worship him, and praise him as shouted for his crucifixion. It is finished! By this one word the God of all grace and mercy. He suffered at the cross Since God’s decree is not a dead most of all.