In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit

It is the way of our sinful flesh to try to self-reference salvation. We want to be able to say that, at least in some important way, we've played a role in getting right with God and gaining eternal life, that there's something about us or what we've done that has helped to seal the deal.

This is what's going on in the Gospel. The rich young man had just turned away from Jesus' invitation to follow Him. You recall he was looking for some good thing he could do to have eternal life. But when Jesus exposed his self-righteousness and idolatry and called him to sell what he owned and give to the poor, he went away sorrowful. For he had great possessions.

The disciples, then, take this opportunity to do some self-referencing of their own. They point out to Jesus that they're different than the rich young man. Peter says, "See, we have left all and followed You. Therefore what shall we have?" If the rich young man was a bit of a Romanist, focused on works, the disciples here are good fundamentalists, focused on their own commitment-the reverse side of the same coin. They point to the fact they've given their lives to Jesus, they've turned themselves over to Christ. So they ask, "What are we going to get for that?"

Perhaps Peter's question sounds a little crass. But consider: Do we always participate in church life with pure and selfless motives and with no desire for personal gain or recognition? Aren't we also tempted to think that the sacrifices we've made for the cause of the Gospel, that our time and commitment to the church is somehow going to put us in better standing with God? "We've aligned ourselves with the right groups. We've signed the right documents and statements. Lord, what shall we have?"

The answer Jesus gives to the disciples is both good news and bad news. "Assuredly I say to you, that in the regeneration, when the Son of Man sits on the throne of His glory, you who have followed Me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." Sounds like just the sort of answer Peter and the others might want to hear. They get top positions in the kingdom; they get to call the shots. Or do Jesus' words here mean something different than they expect?

Consider what happens in the next chapter of Matthew when James and John ask Jesus to sit on His right and His left in His kingdom. Jesus answered, "You do not know what you ask." For this King comes into His kingdom on Good Friday. He is enthroned on the cross. To be at His right and left, therefore, is to suffer with Him, to be crucified with Him. For the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.

So also here, for the disciples to sit on twelve thrones is for them to share in Christ's affliction and bear His cross in their ministry as apostles; that will be their throne. From the right hand of the Father, the ascended Jesus will pour out His Spirit upon them that they may "judge the twelve tribes of Israel." Just as the judges of old delivered Israel from their enemies so that the land had rest, the apostles would deliver God's people with the word of Christ, who has conquered Satan, sin, and the grave by His holy cross. For only in Jesus, the Deliverer-Savior-Judge, is there rest from these enemies.

So it is today for those who continue in the apostolic ministry. Pastors are given to sit on a throne and judge the tribes of Israel, which is to say, in the midst of persecutions, distresses, and crosses, they are given to preach Christ's Word of deliverance to the Israel of God, His church. They are given to stand in Christ's stead and exercise the office of the keys, forgiving the sins of the penitent, but withholding forgiveness from the unrepentant as long as they do not repent. In infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, they are given to declare God's righteous judgment that in Christ the world has been reconciled to Himself, that all sin has been answered for and taken away by the holy Lamb of God, and that none who take refuge in Him will ever be put to shame.

Peter and the other disciples would get something quite different than what they expected, and very often so do we. The reality of our lives may not correspond to what we had first hoped Christianity or the ministry would be like. But the truth is, that is for our good. For that is the saving way of the cross. It is death to your self-referencing old Adam and his thinking. But it is new and everlasting life for you in Christ. As Jesus said, "Whoever loses his life for My sake will find it."

The conversion of St. Paul is certainly an illustration of this. He was in a very real sense put to death on the road to Damascus, stopped dead in his tracks, that he might be saved by the crucified and risen Lord. He made no decision for Christ. Christ made a decision for him and chose him to be the apostle to the Gentiles. Paul was put into the depths for three days, blinded, in token of the blindness of his unbelief, for which Jesus died. But then on the third day Paul was raised up to life and light again. Pastor Ananias came to him on that straight way and spoke to him the healing words of Christ, which restored his sight. Paul was baptized, enlightened and filled with the Holy Spirit. Paul would later write, "Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life." Crucified with Christ, you are also reborn in Him by water and the Word.

This is what Jesus is speaking of in the Gospel when He says, "in the regeneration." The word there for regeneration is literally "genesis again, a new genesis." The first genesis, this old creation, has been subjected to futility and will pass away; it is under the curse of sin which brings you sorrow, suffering, and death. But now, through Jesus' sorrow and suffering and death, the curse is removed, and there is a second genesis, a new creation in His risen body. The old order of death is defeated, and a new order of life has broken into this world in the resurrected flesh of Christ. And through the washing of regeneration at the font, you have passed with Christ from the old to the new, from this fallen creation into the everlasting creation, the new Genesis, as St. Paul writes, "If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation."

It is true that, for now, we live in the regeneration by faith and not yet by sight. The old and new creation overlap, so that we live yet under the cross in this world. But St. Paul reminds us, "I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."

St. Paul would learn well the present-time sufferings he must endure for the sake of Christ's name: beatings, stoning, imprisonment. Most of that he could have avoided if he had just given in a bit to the Judaizers, if he had boasted in the works of the law, if he had made man his reference point instead of Christ alone. After all, Paul had a great resume-a Hebrew of Hebrews; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, he was blameless; concerning zeal, he was ablaze with passion for what he thought was God's work. But, Paul says, "I [now] count all (such things) as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead."

Jesus said to the disciples, "Many who are first will be last, and the last first." So it was with Paul, who called himself the least of the apostles, not worthy even to be called an apostle because he persecuted the church of God. Nevertheless, He who was chief of sinners we now regard in many ways as chief of the apostles, even before Peter who was first among the apostles. Indeed, Paul would share a throne with the twelve and judge the Israel of God. For just as there were fourteen judges of old, one of whom was treacherous like Judas, so Paul was the fourteenth apostolic deliverer.

On his cruciform throne, Paul would come to take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake. "For," he said, "when I am weak, then I am strong." Dead to himself, he was alive to God in Christ Jesus, whose strength is made perfect in weakness.

Let it be so also among us, who have gained a hundred fold in our fellowship with one another in the Gospel. Count yourself blessed when you are reviled and persecuted and all kinds of evil is spoken against you falsely for Christ's sake; rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets, indeed, so they persecuted the Prophet, Jesus, who was before you. His death is your life, and He is with you in your suffering to carry you through to the resurrection, to give you the inheritance of everlasting life.

"What shall we have?" Peter asked. We shall have the cross and the salvation it brings. We shall have the fruit of the cross, the body and blood of Christ, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit