Peter Barnes: Zephaniah 3:17
(17 December 2017)
SERMON NOTES: QUIETENED BY LOVE, EXULTED IN PRAISE (Zephaniah 3:17)
O. Palmer Robertson calls it ‘the John 3:16 of the Old Testament.’
1. God is the Mighty One.
– 3:17. Calvin quotes the Roman pagan poet Ovid: ‘Not well do agree, nor dwell on the same throne,/ Majesty and love.’ But we do find the two together here. God rules – Isa.9:6-7; Psalm 110.
– Rom.8:31-39. The incarnation tells us that God comes among us in the person of Jesus Christ.
2. God exults over His people.
– 3:17. Calvin is startled by this:
Let every one of us come home also to himself, and acknowledge how deep is the root of unbelief; for God cannot provide for our good and correct this evil, to which we are all subject, without departing as it were from himself, that he might come nearer to us.
– 3:14 – that is what Zion does. 3:17 – that is what God does.
– Luke 15:20-24; Isa.62:4-5; Jer.32:40-41.
3. God quiets by His love.
This has been read in one of two ways:
(a) As a divine feeling. God rests in His own love for His people (Calvin, KJV, E. B. Pusey, O. Palmer Robertson).
(b) As a divine action. God quiets His people by His love (NIV, NKJV, ESV).
– like Gen.29:18.
Here is love, vast as the ocean,/ Lovingkindness as the flood,
When the Prince of Life, our Ransom,/ Shed for us His precious blood.