Understanding

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Transcript:

Turn with me to Romans chapter 3 this morning. Romans chapter 3. As I’ve been preaching on discipleship for the last month or so, part of that time we’ve been going through some of the places where people can be spiritually, some of the places where we might find them.

And these are just my categories as I’ve looked at it from experience and what I think is common sense. Some of the places where people can be. And we’ve talked about people that we may run into.

You may be more likely to run into people who are completely ignorant of God and completely ignorant of the gospel in other countries, but we’re getting to a point today where even our native-born people may not have much of a concept of God at all, and may, even here in Fayetteville, may never have heard the gospel at any point in their lives. We talked about people who are in the stage of irrelevance where they might have heard, but they didn’t pay much attention to the gospel, didn’t pay too much attention to the claims of Christianity, because to them it all seems irrelevant. And as we’ve been talking about these groups of people, we’ve talked about what we need to be equipped to do as followers of Jesus Christ to meet them where they are.

The people who are ignorant of the gospel, we need to go back and be able to explain the gospel from its foundations and talk about the holiness of God and talk about sin and a penalty being incurred. Not unlike our missionaries who go to some parts of the world and begin talking to the people from Genesis. And we need to be equipped to go back to the foundations of the gospel and explain to somebody, well, if Christ died for my sins, what is sin and why did he have to die?

People who are in the stage of irrelevance to demonstrate by our words and our attitudes and our actions that the gospel is relevant, that it has eternal implications. It bears a hearing because it’s something so significant you don’t want to be wrong on it. And we not only do that with our words, but by our actions, are our lives consistent with the gospel or not?

If we don’t treat the gospel by our lives as though it’s relevant, how do we expect the world outside to? Last week, we talked about people who believe and not believe in a scriptural sense because when they translated 400 years ago or so, the word believe had a stronger meaning. When the Bible says only believe, it’s not talking about just assent to a set of facts.

That yes, I believe Jesus Christ existed. Yes, maybe even I believe he died on the cross. Folks, even secular historians, even non-believing historians of the early days of Christianity, Jews and Romans admitted that Jesus Christ existed and that he died on the cross.

That in and of itself is not enough. We’ve got to talk to people about the reason for why he died, that he died for our sins. We talk about that a little bit this morning as well as we come to the point of understanding.

And some people we run across in our attempts to make disciples and speak to people about Jesus Christ, some of the people we come across will have a little bit of an understanding of who Jesus was and what he did. If you follow along with the blanks in the bulletin this morning, the first one is that some of the unconverted believe that Jesus died to save mankind. Now, we would agree with that statement, wouldn’t we?

We would agree that Jesus died on the cross to save mankind, but just on its own, it doesn’t go quite far enough. It’s like the people we talked about last week who believe that Jesus existed, believe God exists, believe heaven is real, maybe even believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross, maybe even believe that he was the son of God, but it’s not that they’re wrong. It’s not that they’re wrong in what they’re saying.

It’s in that what they’re saying doesn’t go quite far enough, doesn’t quite cover what the Bible calls the gospel. This morning, we’re going to talk about the unconverted who believe that Jesus died to save mankind and how maybe we can help them get that last little bit of the way. So we start today in Romans chapter 3.

We’re going to start looking at verse 19. Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God. Now it’s not just that we were guilty because of the law.

We were already guilty. We were already dead in sins and trespasses before the law was handed down through Moses. And so it’s not that the law makes us guilty.

When it says that we may become guilty before God, what that means is so that we understand our guilt. And the purpose of the law, one of the purposes of the law, was to show us just how hard God’s standard was to live up to. Even the Ten Commandments, Jesus made it clear, there’s not one of us who can perfectly follow the Ten Commandments.

On top of that, you’ve got some 600 plus other laws in the Old Testament, and it adds up very rapidly to where we realize God’s standard is absolute moral perfection and there’s not a thing that you or I can do to live up to that. And so when it says become guilty, it’s not that we become guilty because of the law, but in our own eyes we become guilty. We begin to see that we fall short of the holiness of God.

Therefore, by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. The law was there to show us, to demonstrate to us what sinners we are. And so we can’t just by adherence to the law be justified before God.

We can’t just by doing what the law says be acceptable to God because we’ve already sinned. And as I’ve given you the example before, if I killed somebody and went on trial and stood before the judge and he said, what do you have to say for yourself? And I said, well, I won’t kill anybody else.

Should the judge be happy and just let me go? No, by not killing everybody else, I’m just doing what the law demands. It doesn’t make up for, it’s not extra credit.

It doesn’t make up for where I’ve already fallen short. Well, the same thing is true with any sin. If we say to God, you know, I’ve sinned, but I’ll try to do better.

Folks, at that point, if we do better, assuming we could keep the law, which we can’t, but if we did better, we’re only doing what the law demands in the first place. It’s not extra credit toward where we’ve already fallen short. But now, verse 21, the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all them that believe, for there is no difference.

And when it says there is no difference, I believe it’s referring to the Jews and the Greeks because he spent the first three chapters talking about how the Jews did not get special favors from God in terms of eternity because of their being born into the Jewish nation. Neither did the Gentiles get any special benefit by being born Gentiles because he says, whether they had knowledge of the law or not, or whether they just had some revelation of God through nature and understood by conscience that there was a moral law that they had broken, all are convicted. All are guilty.

All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. As it says in the next verse, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Being justified freely in His grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ. When he says freely justified by His grace, it’s referring to God’s grace.

And that word grace, as I’ve told you before, means the unmerited, unearned favor of God. Grace, by definition, cannot be earned. Because, see, if I could earn it, I wouldn’t need it.

If I was good enough to deserve God’s forgiveness and God’s acceptance, I wouldn’t need it. I wouldn’t need God’s forgiveness. But since I need it, I fall short of being able to earn it.

Grace can’t be earned. And this justification means that the slate is wiped clean, that our sins are erased, our sins are remembered no more. And so this state of being justified, being acceptable, being completely forgiven, and the slate wiped clean comes by His grace, by God’s grace.

Just God in His mercy saying, you don’t deserve it, but I’m going to wipe the slate clean anyway. Why? Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

Folks, we can ask God for forgiveness all we want. We can repent all we want, but if Jesus Christ did not shed His blood on the cross, there’s no basis for God to forgive us. See, God is also a just God, and a penalty has to be paid for our sins.

Whom God, verse 25, Jesus Christ, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood. Propitiation means something that was put there to satisfy the demands of God’s justice. And God set Jesus forth to be the sacrifice, to be the perfect sacrifice through faith in His blood.

So when Jesus Christ shed His blood on the cross, it was for my sins and for your sins to satisfy the justice of a holy God, and to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God, through the patience of God. God forgives sins not because we deserve it, not because we’re good enough for it, but because God is patient and merciful. And even though we didn’t deserve it, God was willing to give mankind another chance.

He could have just written us off and said, okay, you all have sinned against me, hell for all eternity for all of you. And you know what? he would have been completely justified in doing that.

As much as we hate to admit it because we think we’re so wonderful, God had every right to send us to hell if he wanted to. And yet God, in his mercy and his love and his forbearance, said, I’m going to send my son to be the sacrifice, the propitiation for your sins. To declare, I say at this time, his righteousness, that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

Where is boasting then? It is excluded. There’s no possibility for you or me to boast, to brag about how good we are.

By what law? Of works? Nay, but by the law of faith.

Therefore, we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. Folks, it’s not something we earn. It was completely bought, purchased, and paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ shed on Calvary.

And we as Christians, even though we are supposed to live godly lives as a result of what he’s done. We don’t ever have anything to boast about or to brag about, really, because any good that’s, any change that’s been made in us, anything we have is as a result of what Jesus Christ has done. And even in believing unto salvation, we have no more to brag about than the beggar who sits there with his hands open, waiting to receive something from a rich man, and the man tosses him a coin, and he clutches that coin.

Does he have anything? Did he earn it? Does he have anything to brag about in possessing that gold coin?

No, all he did was stretch out his hands as a beggar. And you and I in faith, that’s what we do. We stretch out our hands and we accept what God is freely offering because Jesus Christ paid all of it.

And this morning, as I shared with you, there are some of the unconverted who believe that Jesus Christ died to save mankind. That’s good as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go quite far enough because it’s just a little too abstract to fit with what the Bible teaches about salvation. I’ve shared with you before that I don’t completely understand.

There are all these various theories of the atonement, the atonement meaning the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made to bring us forgiveness and peace with God. There are all these various theories about the atonement. I’ve shared with you before, I don’t understand why there could be all these other theories, because if Jesus Christ didn’t pay, didn’t die on the cross to pay for our sins, Him being on the cross was unnecessary.

But I looked because I wanted to share with you, lest you think I’m just talking in generalities here and nobody really believes all these other ideas. Nobody really believes Jesus died just for mankind and doesn’t make it personal. Folks, there are so many of these theories, they even have names for them. And they’re so widely believed by theologians and real people, theologians and real people, that they have names for them.

And some of these, again, are not wrong. They just don’t go far enough, and some of them are just downright goofy and have no basis in Scripture. One of them is the theory of ransom to Satan.

In this view, Christ died to pay a ransom to Satan to purchase our freedom. Yeah, goofy. Thank you.

The problem with this is it sees Satan as the one who requires a payment for sin rather than a holy God. Folks, Satan doesn’t have any claims over us when it comes to a holy God. God is the one who set up the game, set up the rules.

God is the one with the holy perfect standard. And throughout scripture, we see God requiring payment for sin. So this basically boils down to Jesus Christ paid something to the devil.

Folks, that doesn’t work. You could see why it would not be enough just to believe that Jesus died for mankind. If they’re believing, well, Jesus Christ died for mankind, so Satan could be bought off.

Then there’s what they call the recapitulation theory. This to me is just kind of a reset. It’s as though Jesus dying on the cross pressed a giant reset button.

It states that the atonement of Christ has reversed the course of human history from disobedience to obedience. Adam started us down this path of disobedience, and Jesus Christ came to fix what Adam did. And so he, in the ultimate act of obedience toward God the Father, he kind of hit the reset button in human history, and now we’re on the path to obedience.

Really, we’ve had 2,000 years. How’s that theory working out, that we’re more obedient now? I don’t think we are.

I don’t think that this reset button theory works, and yet there are still some who hold to this. Then there’s the dramatic theory, and I look at this kind of as a tiebreaker. And if you’re scrambling to get all these written down, I’m paraphrasing from an article, and I’ll put it on the bulletin board for you later.

But this view says the atonement was to secure victory in a divine conflict between good and evil, and win man’s release from bondage to Satan. So in other words, God and Satan were locked in epic battle, and Jesus provided the tiebreaker. I don’t think so, folks.

According to my Bible, Satan only has as much power as God allows him to have and for as long as he allows him to have it. God and Satan are not equals. We are not living in some dualistic universe where we’ve got opposites locked in pitched battle.

Folks, Jesus didn’t have to secure the victory in divine conflict. The victory was his. The victory was already his.

The victory has always been his. Then we’ve got the mystical theory. This is the goofiest one of all.

I think. It’s kind of a new age awakening kind of thing. The mystical theory sees the atonement of Christ, this article says, as a triumph over his own sinful nature through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Okay, I understand that the Bible says he was tempted in every way such as we were, but it also says without sin. And Hebrews, all through Hebrews, we see that he was a sinless, perfect God-man. And so those who hold to this view believe that knowledge of his will, Knowledge of, I’m sorry, knowledge of what Christ did will somehow mystically, mysteriously influence man and awake his God consciousness.

Let me share something with you today. If you read any book, if you hear any teacher, if you listen to any radio program or TV show or, folks, if you ever hear anybody talk about God consciousness, run. Run.

That is a New Age concept. I don’t even know what God consciousness is supposed to mean. It’s not even remotely biblical. And so they believe that humankind, our problem is not sin, it’s a lack of God consciousness, and Jesus kind of awakens us to the possibilities.

Folks, our problem is not a lack of God consciousness. Our problem is sin. Our problem is that God created us with free will, and we have been abusing that privilege now for 6,000 years.

Then we’ve got the moral influence theory. I was trying to think of a good word for this earlier and just couldn’t think of one. It’s kind of like a big gesture you would see in a movie where the man loves the woman, but the woman doesn’t quite return his feelings, and so he thinks, if I could just pull off this one big gesture to show her how much I love her, her heart would melt and she’d be mine forever.

This puts God, this theory of moral influence puts God in the place of the man who just has to win her over with the big gesture. It says that the atonement, that what Christ did on the cross, is a demonstration of God’s love which causes man’s heart to soften, and repent. And the idea there is that man will be moved so much by God’s love that he’ll run into the arms of God.

Folks, I do think the cross was a demonstration of God’s love. I think the cross was the ultimate demonstration of God’s love. But this again denies that our problem is sin, and just we don’t understand God’s love enough.

Folks, the problem is sin. The problem is that sin required a payment. Then we’ve got the example theory.

We’re getting close to the end of these theories. The example theory. That it was just what Christ did on the cross was just to provide us an example of how to be obedient to God.

Yeah, because we didn’t understand that in the garden. You know, not eating a certain kind of fruit was too difficult. We needed an example.

Folks, our problem was not lack of example. Our problem was not lack of example. If that was the case, Jesus Christ could have lived his sinless, godly life for three years on earth and given us a good enough example.

I think it’s insufficient to say that his death was just about teaching us how to live. No, his death dealt with the problem of sin. They’ve got the commercial theory, which is a little bit goofy and convoluted to me.

It’s an unneeded reward, and it was to restore God’s honor. And the idea was that we dishonored God when we sinned, which we did, that’s true. And so when Jesus died, he honored God infinitely and earned infinite reward.

But he didn’t need that infinite reward, and so he passed it belong to us, thinking, what Bible did you get this from? Yes, there’s benefit to us as a result of what Jesus Christ did, not only in salvation, but in, as the Bible says, being joint heirs with him. But folks, his death was not to earn rewards, infinite rewards for us.

It was to purchase salvation because of the problem of sin. The problem was not that we didn’t honor God enough. The problem was that we sinned against a holy God, and that dishonored him.

Then there’s the governmental theory, this one is pretty close, I think. And it says that the atonement of Christ demonstrates God’s high regard for his law and his attitude towards sin. That’s true.

We look at the cross and we see how seriously God takes sin, but it stops short when it says it gives him a reason to forgive us. It does. As I said before, we could ask God’s forgiveness and we could repent all we wanted, but if Jesus Christ had never died for us, there’d be no basis for God to forgive us and still remain a just holy God.

This theory is good, but it stops short of what I believe the Bible teaches, that there was an actual penalty due for sin. There was an actual penalty that you and I incurred for sin, and that’s where we come to the penal substitution theory, that Jesus Christ died in our place as our substitute because we had sinned against God, and he paid all that was necessary, all the penalty that was incurred for our sin, all the penalty that was due and took all the punishment and wipe the slate clean. Folks, as I told you, there are some of these that are good, there are some that are not so good, but I think that’s the one that best sums up what the Bible teaches, that Jesus Christ died in my place and in your place because of the sin we’d committed against a holy God.

It is not enough simply to believe that Jesus Christ died for mankind in some abstract way, because somebody who said, oh yeah, I believe Jesus Christ died for mankind, could believe one of these things. Even the articles of faith of the Mormon church, I believe, say that Jesus Christ died for Adam’s sin to wipe the slate clean so that now we through good works, I’m paraphrasing, but we now through good works can earn our way to heaven. That’s as far from biblical truth as you can get.

It’s not enough to say Jesus Christ died for mankind. Folks, Jesus Christ died for me. Jesus Christ died for you.

When we come across somebody who has some biblical beliefs that says, Jesus Christ, yeah, I believe he was real. I believe he was a great moral teacher. I believe he died to save mankind. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s not enough.

We’ve got to convey that Christ’s atonement is for each of us individually. It’s for each of us individually. He says in verse 19, that all the world may become guilty before God.

That doesn’t mean that the world somehow collectively was guilty. That means each and every one of us in the world are guilty before a holy God because we’ve sinned against a holy God. And he says in verses 23, well, starting in verse 23, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

Each of us, each of us have sinned and come short of the glory of God and being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God had set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God. And he tells us in verse 22 that this righteousness by faith is unto all and upon all them that believe. Folks, if Jesus Christ just died for mankind in some kind of abstract way, then we’re saved by default.

But that’s not what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that Jesus Christ died for our sins. He did die for all of mankind, but that now forgiveness of sins is available for all who believe.

Folks, Jesus Christ died for us individually. I’ve heard people say for years, ever since I was a child, that if you were the only person on earth, Jesus Christ would still have died for you. Okay, I can’t find that in the Bible, but it sounds good to me.

But whether or not that statement is true, the fact is he did die for me, and he did die for you. And salvation is available to all those who believe. The forgiveness of sins, this justification, the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ, is unto all and upon all them that believe.

Believe what? That he died for us. Because he starts out with talking about our sin.

Folks, Jesus didn’t die in some abstract way because our problem was a lack of knowledge or a lack of example or the fact that we didn’t honor God sufficiently. He died for us because we had sinned against a holy God and a penalty was due. And so when the unconverted believe that Jesus Christ died to save mankind, we have to convey that Christ’s atonement was for each of us individually.

That when he died, it was because there was a penalty due and a price to be paid, and you and I could not pay that penalty. We could spend the rest of eternity, the rest of the rest. I can’t even wrap my mind around eternity. I told you before, try thinking about it sometime, and it will give you a headache.

That as long as you can think, and then there’s still more after that. We could spend all of that time. We could spend an eternity separated from God in hell, trying to suffer enough to pay for the sins that we’ve committed and still would not suffer enough to make up for what we’ve committed, what we’ve transgressed against a holy and infinite God.

And yet Jesus Christ paid the penalty that was due. He paid it all because he was a perfect sacrifice. He was the propitiation for our sins.

And as God in human flesh, he was able to live a sinless life and be a perfect sacrifice for our sins. This morning, if you’ve never trusted Christ, I want to talk to you for just a minute. We’re not quite ready for the invitation, but I want to talk to you for just a minute.

I think believers in the room probably are pretty on board with the idea that Jesus Christ died for us individually. But if you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, I want to tell you, you’ve sinned against Him. I don’t say that to be mean.

You may be a completely nice person. I got saved when I was five years old, and I was scared of my mom and dad. I mean, they were good people, but I knew if I got out of line, they’d take care of it.

At five years old and raised in church and scared of my mom and dad, I hadn’t had time to get involved in too much mischief. By the world’s standards, I was a good kid. But even then, I realized when someone shared with us what the Bible said in children’s church, I realized that I had sinned against a holy God, and I deserved eternity in a place called hell.

And so when I say you’ve sinned against a holy God, I don’t mean that to be mean to you. That’s just the truth. I sinned against a holy God as well.

And the penalty due is eternal separation from him because, see, he’s a holy God. His standard, as I said earlier, is absolute moral perfection. And there’s not one of us in this room who can live up to that.

Not one of us. And if we said, hey, God, can’t you just be nice? Can’t you just let it go?

Can’t you just, you know, pretend like it didn’t happen? Or just forgive me just because? Folks, we’re asking him to bring sin into his presence and let down that standard of absolute moral perfection.

And we don’t realize it, but what we’re actually asking him to do is stop being God. And contrary to what you’ve heard, there are some things God can’t do. God is only limited by his own nature, and he cannot stop being God.

And so he can’t just let sin go and ignore it. It has to be punished, and it has to stay separate from him. But he sent his son, Jesus Christ, God in human flesh, to come down here and walk among us for about 30 years, and never sinned once, and he was able to do it because he was God.

Sent his son, Jesus Christ, to walk among us, live a perfect life, and to go to the cross. And when he went to the cross, it wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t against his will.

He knew what He came to do, and He did it out of love and out of mercy toward you, because God, as much as He has to punish sin, He also did not want us to suffer the penalty of our sins. And Jesus Christ came to suffer the penalty of our sins for us. And the Bible says that He took our sins upon Himself, and folks, those sins were nailed with Him to the cross.

And every drop of blood that He shed from that cross was for me and for you, for our sins, because we were guilty. And anybody could get nailed to a cross, and anybody could die and say they were God to forgive sins. But Jesus Christ, just like he said he would do, three days later, rose again from the grave, proving that he was God and that he’s able to save to the uttermost. And just like this passage tells us, forgiveness now is available by God’s grace, not because we’re good enough to earn it or deserve it, but because God is merciful and because Jesus Christ has paid the penalty.

God is willing to freely offer salvation by grace through faith. And that means all that’s necessary on your part. Not to do any good work, not to be nice, not to give money, not to come to church.

Those are all good things, and I’m not telling you not to do them. But those things don’t earn us salvation. Simply by faith, reaching out our hand like the beggar, taking hold of what’s freely offered.

This morning, simply believing that Jesus Christ died for your sins and asking God’s forgiveness on that basis. Brings us to the third and final point this morning. we as believers must convey that Christ’s atonement demands a response.

The Bible says in verse 26 that he is just and he’s a justifier of them that believe in him. When presented with the gospel, we every time respond in one way or another. We either accept God’s offered mercy or we reject it.

You may think, well, I’ve heard it and I’m not going to make a decision. I’m just putting it off, folks. That in and of itself is rejecting God’s offered mercy.

It’s not something we can put off and say, well, I’m saved by default because he died for mankind. Folks, he died for me and he died for you. And he offers salvation to those who believe.

And his atonement demands a response. And this morning, if you’ve never trusted him as your savior and you realize that you’ve sinned against him, you can continue to put him off. But folks, that’s a response as well.

But this morning, if you recognize that you’ve sinned against a holy God and you understand what the Bible teaches that there’s not a single thing you can do that’s good enough to earn God’s forgiveness or acceptance and you want to be forgiven. It’s available by grace through faith.