Mixture of Opposites

Yesterday morning we had a well known local retired Free Church minister here in Highland Theological College, called Kenny MacDonald. He was frail and blind and he helped me to understand the comments made about Lloyd Jones, who came alive when he started preaching. Kenny's title 'a mixture of opposites' was a strange title for a sermon on John 18. Yet it was a tremendous sermon, full of passion.

Jesus was both weak and majestic. He knew the human condition to be hungry, tired and now in the garden as he prepared to be the sin bearer he knew great anguish. Yet he was comforted by a messenger from home, an angel of God. We are not told how the angel comforted him, but he may have knelt and worshipped Jesus, reminding him of the glory he had from the beginning, and to which he was about to return. Jesus also showed his majestic glory when they came to arrest him, he asked, "Who have you come for?" "Jesus of Nazareth" they replied, "I AM" Jesus said and at his word his enemies fell backwards underneath the majestic power of Jesus. Yet Jesus humbly submitted to them as they arrested him. Jesus was a mixture of opposites.
Jesus also knew the Father, and his great love. He had shared with people the parable of the prodigal son, in which the loving father eagerly waits for his wayward son to return. When the son returns he kisses him and rejoices. Jesus was the ever loyal son, and he knew that he was about to experience the cup of God. He knew the Old Testament where the cup was: the cup of humiliation, the cup of God's wrath, the cup of hell unleashed on the eternal Son, enduring all that believers deserve of the wrath of God. So in God the Father there was a mixture of opposites for our sake, that the unrighteous might be made righteous. How loving is God that the Son in whom He delights in experienced the full wrath of God that we who deserve that wrath might be called the children of God and dwell in the house of the LORD all of our days.

Shalom
Stephen