Dr. Sproul brought the conference to a close with a message entitled He Is Risen! — The Resurrection and Worship.
INTRODUCTION
Sproul read from Exodus 19, the preamble to the giving of the Decalogue. Imagine that you were there: “On the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast.” And Moses was told to warn the people, “lest they break through to the Lord to look and many of them perish.”
We already heard from Alistair about the road to Emmaus. And that passage recounts the relationship between resurrection and worship. Jesus’ disciples conversed with the resurrected Christ, not aware of who he was. And then when Jesus disappeared, what did the disciples say? “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” (Luke 24:32)
The church marked the significance of the resurrection by changing the day of the week that God’s people had worshiped for centuries. The first day of the week was marked “The Lord’s Day” because that was the day that Jesus was resurrected from the dead.
WORSHIPING WITH REVERENCE
In Exodus 19 we find the announcement that the transcendent God was going to come down to meet them in His immanence. But there were preconditions. The people had to be consecrated so that they were ready when He came down. They needed to do everything in their power to be rid of defilement, to be clean when they come near to me. God didn’t want them coming near the mountain without appropriate regard for the significance of the meeting.
But the message of our day is to be comfortable. So when we come to church as if we were going to the YMCA, we are saying “whatever else happens on Sunday morning, it is not holy ground.”
You may say “clothes do not make the man.” That’s true. And a tuxedo won’t get you into heaven. That’s also true. But we distinguish between various kinds of clothes: formal, informal, sporting, etc. If you went to the White House to have a meal with the President of the United States, you would not wear shorts and flip-flops.
We’ve lost a sense of the solemnity, the reverence, the adoration, of God. After Jesus disappeared, not what the disciples said:: “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?”
We should not forget the historical context in which the Decalogue was giving. The people had to be consecrated. They were given the Decalogue amidst thunder and lightnings.
COMING BEFORE GOD HIMSELF
Sproul recounts preaching to 50-60 people at a church. He told them that he gets nervous before he speaks, every time. He told them, “Do you know who’s here?” God Himself. In Hebrews 12:22 we read, “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering.” We worship God in heaven itself. We get a taste of heaven itself in corporate worship.
The New Jerusalem is in the future. But the author of Hebrews writes that right now we have come to the heavenly Jerusalem:

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel (Heb. 12:22-24).

Not only do we cross from the profane to the holy, from the secular to the sacred, we also join the communion of saints throughout the ages. Yet we attempt to make worship casual. Friends, worship cannot be casual. “For our God is a consuming fire.” Not God was a consuming fire, but God is a consuming fire. We’re to offer to God “acceptable worship, with reverence and awe.” But at many churches there is not much to be reverent about.
CONCLUSION
But God has not changed one bit. He is still an all-consuming fire. He has given us the unspeakable privilege of entering His presence because He’s given us a Mediator who has paid for all our sins and clothed us in His righteousness.
When you go to church, do you have an acute sense of being in the presence of God? If not, why not?

Dr. Begg returned to the pulpit to bring a message entitled In the Likeness of His Resurrection — The Bodily Resurrection of the Believer, taking his text from 2 Corinthians 5.
INTRODUCTION
He then read a portion of a message that a pastor might deliver at a funeral. A text that affirms not just the continuity of life, but the resurrection of the physical body. The Christian’s view of death and resurrection ought to be a great apologetic in our day. There is a reason why graveyards used to be near churches. It makes sense. We have the anticipation of a new heavens and a new earth to look forward to.
But in our day not everyone even has a funeral. We have memorials. (We wouldn’t want to think so-and-so died.) It is as if we are afraid of death itself. If a funeral isn’t solemn, what is solemn?
The writer of Ecclesiastes: “It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad” (Eccl. 7:2-3).
It was Catholicism that gave us “wakes” and “viewings.” It is Christian to face the full weight of death’s finality (in this world) — to be made to fully grasp the fact that your mother is now 6-feet under in the ground. In another day, the family members would themselves lift the dirt and fill up the grave.
Richard Baxter said it is the pastor’s job to prepare his people for death, and he was right. For Paul, to die was gain because to live was Christ. The former requires the latter.

I. WE KNOW.
(a) that our bodies are like tents, and (b) that our earthly bodies will be destroyed, and (c) that when we do, we have a building from God.
We know. Not we feel, but we know. The resurrection of Christ is the pledge of the believer’s resurrection. But, sadly, many churches want to start a service by singing about our feelings, rather than the deep truths of God (which can fuel our praise).
To confirm the reality of Christ in our heart is not the same thing as to confirm the resurrection. The former is an experience that ebbs and flows the latter is a historical reality.
In Ecclesiastes 12, we have an apt description of the demise of a human being at the end of a natural life.
Someone had asked about cremation. Yes, if one is cremated, they can still receive a resurrected body. There are two instances in the Bible describing cremation, but these passages suggest that it was a bad thing. Advocacy of cremation originally came from a few Unitarians. It was an expression of disdain toward God and the resurrection of the dead.
But burial is a picture of being “sown in dishonor, and (someday) to be raised in glory.” It is also a reflection of the biblical imagery of going to sleep.
2. WE GROAN.
This is also mentioned in Romans 8. Groaning is a reaching out for what is to come. We groan in frustration with the current limitations and with anticipation of what is to come.
Alas the lack of honest groans in our congregations. A lament allows someone else to open up, cry, groan. There is no dissonance between the knowing and the groaning. No, we know, and so we grown. Paul was looking forward to “putting off the earthly tent.”
There is a guarantee: “He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.” Cross-reference to Romans 8, “we cry, ‘Abba! Father!'” It is by the Holy Spirit that we are able to say — to cry — “Abba Father.” And sometimes, in our hearts, that is all we can do. (Need to admit that, because some mistakenly reason that because we know we do not groan. The reality is we don’t moan in unbelief but we groan with anticipation.)
3. WE LIVE.
We live by faith. Taking God at His word, trusting His promises, heeding His warnings. Faith is like a muscle — you use it, it grows; you don’t, it atrophies. God has given us means of grace. The Scriptures, the sacraments, the benefits and privilege of prayer, we have the fellowship of God’s people, and the experience of trials. Confidence comes by living by faith not by sight. And it is knowledge that builds confidence for living. Paul says that he would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.
What will heaven be like? We don’t really know. But everything we know of God gives us confidence that it will be unimaginably wonderful. Look at the beauty of this creation, and note that the new heavens and earth will be even more breathtaking.
4. WE MUST.
There will be a final exam. Everyone will take it. It is a “divine must.” “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Cor. 5:10).
And who else will tell people about this? The same principle which seals the doom for the wicked will be used to distribute rewards among the just. We make it our goal to please him.
CONCLUSION
We were once without God and without hope in the world. But now we have passed from death to life. And this hope does not make us ashamed.

“What do you think of Barth’s view of the resurrection?”
HORTON: Barth was considered a fundamentalist among his contemporaries for believing in the bodily resurrection. Others have been more clear. Many in Germany and in Switzerland at the time denied either the virgin birth or the bodily resurrection or both.

“Do Christ’s death and resurrection accomplish different things? Romans 4 seems to have this sort of language.”
SPROUL: Yes, they are different, but you cannot separate them. Jesus satisfies (for us) the demands of God; He propitiates God’s wrath, making it suitable for God to forgive us. Expiation has to do with God removing our sins from us as far as the east is from the west (like the word “exit”). But the declaration, the vindication, of Christ’s work awaited the resurrection.
God has appointed a day and a Person for a future judgment — the Person is the One he has declared to be the righteous One, having “given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” So you cannot separate the crucifixion of Christ from the resurrection, nor the resurrection from the ascension, nor the ascension from Pentecost, nor Pentecost from the second coming. But each accomplishes something distinct.
“Why does the Bible sometimes use inverse logic? ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead?’ — but they were clearly looking for someone they thought was dead?”
BEGG: Jesus and the Scriptures are master teachers. These questions lead into explanations.
“Is the anathema against adding revelation refer to the whole Bible or just the book of revelation?”
HORTON: A similar warning was made with regard to the book of the law (“whoever adds to or takes away will receive the plagues”) as what we see in Revelation. I think those apply specifically to the book of revelation but by extension to the whole canon. Because only the King can altar the terms of the canon.
“Are tongues for today, and if so for what purpose?”
BEGG: What happened at Pentecost was unique. My friends who exercise it say it is a prayer language that gives them greater intimacy with God. What gets more interesting is when an interpretation is also provided. In my experience, the interpretation is at best a sentimental truism and at worst something quite bizarre.
SPROUL: Had glossolalia truly been normative in the church after the first century, then we could assess what it is. The problem is that we can’t bridge the gap to the first century.
I think that many people want to overcome the difficulty of unleashing their profound feelings to God in prayer. So they think that if they can bypass the mind, somehow they can find some release of their deep, inexpressible feelings.
BEGG: Let’s suppose that prophetic utterings given via tongues did not add to the canon of Scripture but they did (as some have suggested) add to the canon of living. It is a short step from that to a diminishing of the value of Scripture.
SPROUL: In the 1960s I had about 40 prophecies said over me, and these were specific, verifiable predictions (“on this date, X will happen”). But zero of them came true. So I decided I needed to live by the word of God.
HORTON: The miracle at Pentecost was one of hearing the Word of God in their one language. It wasn’t some individual prayer activity.
“We get a free pass on sin because of Jesus’ death, is that right? Where do works fit in?”
SPROUL: I’m judged by the works of Christ. By grace through faith I pass over from death to life. But the text also says that we’re judged by our works. Not all have the same level of reward in heaven.
“Did Jesus die only for the elect?”
SPROUL: I’d say he only died for believers. The benefits accrue exclusively for believers. But then the question is: Who are these people? Answer: The elect. Those whom the Father gave to the Son, for whom the Spirit would later seal redemption. Was God’s plan/design for the atonement (a) to make salvation possible for everyone or (b) to assure salvation for some?
We believe that God gave a people to Jesus, and executed a purposeful plan to redeem those people for Christ and by Christ.
If not everyone is saved, and God is sovereign, does that mean that God was frustrated by some higher, stronger will? No, of course not.
For Dr. Horton: “Are we Jesus’ hands and feet?”
HORTON: No, the bodily Jesus (who has his own hands and feet) is coming back. The church is His covenantal body. It is a mystical union — affected by the Holy Spirit. We receive our life from Him.
We are active in taking that message (which we passively receive) to the world. We are active in doing good works for the world and our neighbors.
The incarnation is unique. Since I’m a recipient of that, I can show my neighbors who Jesus is.
SPROUL: The “what would Jesus do” question is the wrong one. The real question is “what would Jesus have me do.” Jesus and I don’t have the same office. He is the mediator — I bear witness to the resurrection.
“How do you explain the success of Islam given that its origin is similar to that of Christianity?”
SPROUL: What? Please. Mohammad was neither raised from the dead, nor was he born of a virgin, nor did he live a perfect life.
BEGG: It is Satanic. It arises because of our natural love for a system of works, for legalism, for self-salvation.
HORTON: Judaism is a cult of the Old Testament — it is a break-off from the Old Testament system which pointed to Christ, but Judaism has truncated God’s truth by not accepting the fulfillment of the promises. Islam is a cult of Christianity. It is a parasitic distortion of both Christianity and Judaism.
SPROUL: The Bible says there are many anti-Christs. Mohammad is one of them.
BEGG: This is what surprises me about the present Pope. I don’t understand how the Pope can foster the notion of pluralism. My Jewish friends say Jesus was not the Messiah. I say He was. We can’t both be right. Hindus say God has been incarnated many times. I say it happened once. We can’t both be right. Muslims say it is an unthinkable for a prophet to die on a cross. I say it isn’t. We can’t both be right.
We have been softened theologically for years, and now the chickens are coming home to roost. Young Christians are not prepared to accept the weight of the exclusivity of the truth claims of Christ.
“If God is not the author of confusion, why do Christians have such differences? Why did God make it so confusing?”
HORTON: Differences are not the same as contradictions (or errors). There are four different gospels. They have different ways of defining the kingdom. It is one gospel said through four witnesses. God likes diversity.
We are both finite and fallen. I’m just as fallen and fallible as Muslims and Hindus. Except God has spoken and we’re able to see through a glass, darkly. God has communicated via language. But language is a fragile instrument. Given our fallen and finite state, we may have disagreements.
SPROUL: Every time I read the Bible I subject myself (and my thinking) to the thinking of God. We don’t put the Bible under us. We are often confused because of what we bring to the text, not from what we take from the text. (Again, our fallenness results in disagreements.)
BEGG: Between ourselves and non-Christians, we differ on the central matters concerning faith. But among Christians, we need to realize that (particularly in mainstream fundamentalism) that we’ve made the secondary matters fundamental, and this leads to a loss of the central things.
God allows us to have different views (for example, on baptism) because we are finite. We have something to look forward to in heaven in terms of our a greater understanding and (therefore) like-mindedness at that time. And God is patient with us; He wants us to be patient with each other.
Consider how confused Jesus disciples often were, even with the best Bible teacher (our Lord Himself) proclaiming God’s truths in their midst. Why should it be any different for us?

Michael Horton began his message reading Paul’s Mars Hill sermon from Acts 17. He then cited a recent Newsweek article from Lisa Miller. Ms. Miller opined “we’re all Hindus now” and her reasoning was (in part) that we all believe in the continuity of life (into an afterlife stage where we play on harps in the clouds, and that sort of thing).
When Paul spoke in Thessalonica to a largely Jewish audience, he argued that it was necessary for Christ to be raised from the dead. But he couldn’t go to Athens and argue from Old Testament promises.
I. PAUL UNDERSTOOD HIS CONTEXT (Acts 17:16-17)
Paul was genuinely concerned and sympathetic to these people given that the city was full of idols. Paul had a love not only for Christian gentiles but for those he formerly regarded as dogs (godless pagans). Why didn’t he just get up and read his script, give the proofs, and then shake the dust off of his feet?
Paul couldn’t do that — he was the apostle to the Gentiles. Paul was trained under Gamaliel II, who himself was well educated. He was educated in the Hellenistic tradition, which had a high regard for the Greco-Roman culture.
Sympathy and seriousness — that was Paul’s disposition. And what did that give rise to? “So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there.” Paul’s message was focused on the work of Christ. Jesus was the object of his faith.
Jesus is not sold as a product here. Rather, Paul attests to Christ’s work in history.
II. PAUL ADDRESSED HIS CONTEXT (Acts 17:18-23)

For the Athenians, the gods (who are material beings) are blissfully uninterested in human circumstances. The Jewish Mishnah says of the Epicureans that they have no sense of the Messianic world to come. The goal was to obtain perfect tranquility for knowledge, friendship, and virtue. When you die, you die. The Epicureans had no sense of any kind of divine judgment; rather, they feared unhappiness. They were not licentious, because they recognized that abundance could lead to poverty. They were interested in the “good life” — finding that golden medium, avoiding pain and unhappiness.
In response to the question “why do bad things happen to good people,” the Epicureans responded, “because the gods don’t care. They’ve already attained that happy eternal existence.”
The Stoics, by contrast, were focused on duty and being detached. If the Epicureans focused on happiness, the Stoics focused on virtue (even virtue above relationships, because the latter created attachments and friendships can fail and disappoint).
So Paul entered this situation. And they recognized that Paul wasn’t offering just some fad. Rather, Paul was bringing something odd and unusual — even by the Epicurean and Stoic standards.
Paul recognized that the gospel had its own PR apparatus. It had its own way of blowing things up and making a lasting impact.
III. PAUL CHALLENGED HIS CONTEXT (Acts 17:22-32)
Paul starts out by criticizing their religiosity: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious.” This was not a complement. Paul announces that he is going to proclaim the reality of the unknown God.
In Romans 1 Paul explained that everyone is religious. But that religiosity manifests itself in (a) the search for religion, and (b) the distortion of truth and the establishment of idols. So Paul had no desire for an “inter-religious dialogue.”
“This I proclaim to you.” Paul is a herald, an ambassador. He is not there to debate these matters, but to proclaim historical reality. (Religion’s domain, by contrast, lies in the search for happiness.)
The argument:
A. GENERAL REVELATION
1. God is the creator of everything. (As opposed to the Epicureans and Stoics who thought that matter was eternal.) Not even the soul was divine — it, too, was created. For them it was “spiritual stuff” and “physical stuff.” For Paul it was “God” and “not God.” God is the creator of everything. He is the Lord of heaven and earth.
2. God is involved in the world. (The Stoics thought God was one with the world — they were pantheists. The Epicureans, by contrast, that the gods were utterly detached from the world and its cares.) In fact, God is both transcendent (free from the world) and immanent (free for the world). Though God doesn’t need us, He showers blessings upon us, giving “to all mankind life and breath and everything.” God cares for everything He has made. See verses 26-28.
The Epicureans might have responded (as many do in our own day), “I cannot believe in a God that is that involved with the world, not given all the junk that actually happens in the world.”
The problem is not a lack of information, says Paul: “Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man.” Everyone has a personal relationship with God, the question is what kind of personal relationship. Nobody finds God via general revelation. Rather, people suppress general revelation. So general revelation is sufficient to judge but not to save.
“As even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are indeed his offspring.'” Hey guys, Paul is saying, even some of your own poets understood this much better than you. We’re God’s offspring — we can’t be part of God (contrary to the Stoics), nor is God utterly disconnected to us (contrary to Epicureans).
The audience was tracking with Paul because he was in the realm of general revelation. But then Paul shifts to special revelation.
We know the law by nature (it is in our hearts). But the gospel is unfamiliar territory — the gospel is good news (datable events) not timeless principles.
B. SPECIAL REVELATION
1. The gospel declares that God became flesh.
What a shocking concept. They saw physical matter as evil, as a trap, a prison. They were trying to escape their flesh. But Paul was proclaiming the most bloody religious system they’d ever heard of. God spills blood via a brutal execution on a cross (their equivalent of the electric chair). And then the good news is that you get your body back? The resurrection of the body and the life everlasting?
No wonder it was foolishness to the Greeks. Plato’s view of the afterlife has more credence in our day than the Christian one. The resurrection has already happened — just in a spiritual sense.
When my dad was dying I heard the refrain, “The sunset is as glorious as the sunrise.” What an offense. No, death is horrible, a curse. Jesus wept at the grave of Lazarus minutes before he raised him from the dead. Christianity takes the horror of death seriously.
2. God is not far away from us. We are far, and God came looking for us.
Some in Paul’s audience might have thought, “Wow, a rabbi dies and rises again. That’s one more cool, weird thing.”
But Paul was arguing that if God came in the form of man, lived, died, and rose again, then this God is Lord of all, and (a) He will judge everyone one day, and (b) God has put up with your ignorance long enough. It is time for everyone to repent and believe in Jesus, because God has raised Him from the dead.
CONCLUSION
We will all be judged by works that day. But for believers, it will be by Christ’s works. We have already been told (via our justification) that those works are accepted by God. Jesus is not a life coach. He is either a Savior or a dreadful judge.
The gospel is good news. It is not just a great story with historical interest.