Jesus as Propitiation (Romans 3:21-26)

WEBVTT 1 00:00:01.600 --> 00:00:05.320 Well, if you are able, please remain standing, and let's give our 2 00:00:05.360 --> 00:00:09.910 attention now to another portion of God's word in Romans. This is Romans Chapter 3 00:00:10.109 --> 00:00:34.859 Three, Verses Twenty One through twenty six. This is God's word, but 4 00:00:35.060 --> 00:00:40.929 now the righteousness of God has been manifested, apart from the law, although 5 00:00:40.969 --> 00:00:45.649 the law and the prophets bear witness to it. The righteousness of God through 6 00:00:45.770 --> 00:00:51.280 faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe, for there is no distinction, 7 00:00:52.039 --> 00:00:56.320 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified 8 00:00:56.399 --> 00:01:00.000 by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ, 9 00:01:00.039 --> 00:01:06.230 Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be 10 00:01:06.349 --> 00:01:11.430 received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance, 11 00:01:11.510 --> 00:01:15.950 he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at 12 00:01:17.030 --> 00:01:22.540 the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one 13 00:01:22.620 --> 00:01:27.739 who has faith in Jesus and God bless his word to us. You may 14 00:01:27.780 --> 00:01:49.920 be seated. Well, if you're at all unfamiliar with the Bible, a 15 00:01:49.319 --> 00:01:55.719 passage like this is no doubt going to be a little overwhelming, even if 16 00:01:55.760 --> 00:01:57.920 you are familiar with the Bible, even if you've read Romans a number of 17 00:01:59.040 --> 00:02:02.349 times, no doubt some of this passage, even as you hear it, 18 00:02:02.870 --> 00:02:07.909 will go feel a little bit in one ear and out the other. It's 19 00:02:07.950 --> 00:02:10.229 the kind of thing that you can track with, maybe for a few verses, 20 00:02:10.949 --> 00:02:15.819 but then, at least for some of us, feels a little bit 21 00:02:15.939 --> 00:02:21.139 much. I'm even just a little bit in that's partly because there's a lot 22 00:02:21.219 --> 00:02:27.300 of big ideas that Paul is bringing up here all in one place. He's 23 00:02:27.539 --> 00:02:32.409 describing Jesus and all of these powerful ways, very deep and meaningful ways, 24 00:02:32.490 --> 00:02:38.090 and he's piling them up one after another after another. And if you hit 25 00:02:38.289 --> 00:02:42.129 any one of those terms and you feel like you're not entirely sure what it 26 00:02:42.330 --> 00:02:51.280 means, righteousness, Glory, redemption, propitiation, if you feel a little 27 00:02:51.280 --> 00:02:55.840 bit unsettled, or not necessarily unsettled but just a little ignorant, then soon 28 00:02:55.960 --> 00:03:01.189 it can feel like you don't really understand what's going on here. Well, 29 00:03:01.229 --> 00:03:05.590 I want to help with that this morning, because what we have here is 30 00:03:05.830 --> 00:03:10.389 not a bunch of sort of abstract truths cobbled together and a kind of random 31 00:03:10.469 --> 00:03:15.740 way, but we have some of the most important, some of the deepest 32 00:03:15.139 --> 00:03:23.539 and riches truths in the scriptures, all focusing our attention on Jesus. Words 33 00:03:23.580 --> 00:03:32.729 like I've mentioned righteousness, redemption, propitiation, sacrifice, glory. Now it 34 00:03:32.810 --> 00:03:37.930 might be nice if we had shorter or easier, less abstract words to help 35 00:03:37.969 --> 00:03:42.599 us remember these things, but we don't. This is how God has spoken 36 00:03:42.639 --> 00:03:46.280 to us and we don't need to be afraid of it. And now, 37 00:03:46.439 --> 00:03:51.439 of course, this doesn't mean that, though these cont that these are big 38 00:03:51.560 --> 00:03:57.389 ideas, that they lack concreteness and earthiness. These aren't ideas that just float 39 00:03:57.430 --> 00:04:01.830 around. Their true truths, truth that really matter, truths that affect our 40 00:04:01.949 --> 00:04:08.349 lives. They affect us in how we feel our guilt about the past, 41 00:04:09.389 --> 00:04:13.939 about our actions and the present, about our hopes and our fears for the 42 00:04:14.060 --> 00:04:19.300 future, even the afterlife. The discuss this is so this discussion doesn't have 43 00:04:19.420 --> 00:04:25.170 to be overly complicated or philosophical, because ultimately what we're talking about are not 44 00:04:25.410 --> 00:04:30.810 ideas but about a person. Ultimately, we're talking about Jesus and what he 45 00:04:30.889 --> 00:04:35.009 did on the Cross. And when you think about Jesus on the Cross, 46 00:04:35.889 --> 00:04:42.360 a crown of thorns, blood running down his side people mocking and jeering. 47 00:04:43.720 --> 00:04:48.160 Well, there's hardly anything abstract about that, is there? Well, the 48 00:04:48.240 --> 00:04:51.800 first big idea I want to bring your attention to is the glory of God. 49 00:04:53.990 --> 00:04:59.029 It's something this portion of scripture that God says we have fallen short of 50 00:04:59.110 --> 00:05:04.790 it. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Now, 51 00:05:04.829 --> 00:05:09.660 I suspect you can all fairly easily define what it means to sin, 52 00:05:11.220 --> 00:05:15.500 but what does it mean to fall short of the glory of God? To 53 00:05:15.660 --> 00:05:20.730 fall short of the glory of God? What is the glory of God? 54 00:05:20.930 --> 00:05:26.610 How would you describe that? How do you express it? The Glory of 55 00:05:26.689 --> 00:05:32.129 God is that Great Quality of God's Majesty, His honor, his praise that 56 00:05:32.329 --> 00:05:38.800 is internal to God, that is part of him in his nature, but 57 00:05:39.040 --> 00:05:44.160 is also externally evident in the things he's made, in the works that he 58 00:05:44.199 --> 00:05:49.000 has done. One recent theologian, James Hamilton, is expressed it in this 59 00:05:49.149 --> 00:05:56.149 way. The Glory of God is the weight of his majestic goodness, who 60 00:05:56.230 --> 00:06:01.949 God is and the resulting name or reputation he gains from his revelation of himself 61 00:06:02.029 --> 00:06:09.699 as Creator, sustain or judge and Redeemer. Another Biblical theologian, Thomas Shriner, 62 00:06:10.019 --> 00:06:14.500 has said that the word glory is used in scripture to broadly capture the 63 00:06:14.579 --> 00:06:20.689 supremacy of God in everything. You might imagine an earthly example. Imagine a 64 00:06:20.810 --> 00:06:26.649 King, a king who is glorious because, well, he's the king, 65 00:06:28.129 --> 00:06:32.600 but nevertheless who demonstrates that glory in various ways, the immensity of his palace, 66 00:06:32.759 --> 00:06:39.680 the vast store houses of his treasures, the powers of his rule. 67 00:06:40.959 --> 00:06:44.720 Now, human kings, we see them in this way, and yet we 68 00:06:44.879 --> 00:06:49.550 recognize that they themselves fall short of their own glory, don't they? But 69 00:06:49.670 --> 00:06:54.110 here it's not the king who falls short of his glory, it's the people 70 00:06:54.990 --> 00:07:00.949 who fall short of the glory of the king. This is both a remarkable 71 00:07:00.740 --> 00:07:05.379 and a depressing thought, I think. On the one hand, it means 72 00:07:05.660 --> 00:07:11.699 that the glory of God not only belongs to him in his divinity, but 73 00:07:11.819 --> 00:07:16.730 the glory of God also belongs to us in our humanity. That's the amazing 74 00:07:16.769 --> 00:07:21.889 thing, that's the remarkable thing, that the glory of the King Somehow also 75 00:07:21.970 --> 00:07:27.850 belongs to the people, that they can share in that, that they share 76 00:07:28.050 --> 00:07:33.439 in that wealth and in that treasure. In other words, as Paul Puts 77 00:07:33.439 --> 00:07:38.800 It, in First Corinthians, eleven seven. We are those who have been 78 00:07:38.839 --> 00:07:44.470 made in the image and glory of God. This is this remarkable fact. 79 00:07:45.110 --> 00:07:49.189 We have been created to be so close to him as his creatures, children, 80 00:07:49.790 --> 00:07:56.790 servants, that God manifests his glory in us. It's kind of like 81 00:07:56.910 --> 00:08:00.379 if you if you there was a king and you got a job serving in 82 00:08:00.540 --> 00:08:05.180 his courts, it would be a promotion right as opposed to just slaving away 83 00:08:05.259 --> 00:08:07.379 on your farm. You get to share in the glory of the King, 84 00:08:07.860 --> 00:08:11.579 even as a servant. You are part of the palace, you're part of 85 00:08:11.620 --> 00:08:16.290 the staff. Perhaps you even get to wear nice clothes and do nice things. 86 00:08:18.329 --> 00:08:22.449 You could think of it another way. When you shine a light on 87 00:08:22.529 --> 00:08:26.600 a mirror, the mirror is very bright, isn't it? It's maybe even 88 00:08:26.720 --> 00:08:31.159 blinding. Perhaps you've been driving one time and a mirror has been shining so 89 00:08:31.480 --> 00:08:39.399 brightly that it blinds your eyes. When a mirror shines brightly, though, 90 00:08:39.440 --> 00:08:43.549 it's shining because it's reff of its reflective power, and we're like that in 91 00:08:43.629 --> 00:08:48.470 terms of God's glory. We shine with the glory of God because his glory 92 00:08:48.669 --> 00:08:54.429 is shining on us and we reflect that. That's what we were made to 93 00:08:54.549 --> 00:08:58.820 do. It reflects back to him, and this is how we are by 94 00:08:58.899 --> 00:09:05.980 nature. And it was to be consummated in an eternal way, in an 95 00:09:05.379 --> 00:09:13.929 in a glorious sharing and shining of God and for God forever and ever and 96 00:09:15.129 --> 00:09:18.610 in Christ this is what we achieve. John Seventeen, twenty two, Jesus 97 00:09:18.649 --> 00:09:22.769 says this amazing thing. He says, I have given them, speaking of 98 00:09:24.090 --> 00:09:28.000 his disciples, I have given them the glory that you have given me. 99 00:09:30.639 --> 00:09:37.840 Jesus himself is talking about his disciples receiving this glory that the father has given 100 00:09:37.879 --> 00:09:45.509 to him. That's the remarkable thing. The depressing thing is that is that 101 00:09:46.710 --> 00:09:52.940 in all of this, or in or despite all of this, we've fallen 102 00:09:52.019 --> 00:10:01.779 away from it. Adam lost at all. This sharing and shining of the 103 00:10:01.899 --> 00:10:07.529 glory of God was lost. The image of God remained, but it becomes 104 00:10:07.610 --> 00:10:15.769 darken and broken. The Mirror, so to speak, turns inward and begins 105 00:10:15.889 --> 00:10:22.600 this quest of self, glorification, of self shining, of sharing in one's 106 00:10:22.639 --> 00:10:28.360 own glory. And what kind of mirror does that? A broken one, 107 00:10:31.519 --> 00:10:39.309 sinful, dark, dirty. These are the things that happen when those who 108 00:10:39.309 --> 00:10:45.389 are made to reflect and the glory of God to shine and share and the 109 00:10:45.509 --> 00:10:52.179 glory of God, begin focusing on their own glorification. Remember what Paul said. 110 00:10:52.179 --> 00:10:58.980 In Romans One, twenty one and twenty three, they exchanged the glory 111 00:10:58.419 --> 00:11:07.090 of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal things, worshiping the 112 00:11:07.250 --> 00:11:15.610 creature instead of the Creator. Our shorter catechism says that our chief end is 113 00:11:15.610 --> 00:11:20.960 to glorify God and enjoy him forever. But because of sin we fail to 114 00:11:20.120 --> 00:11:26.480 meet that end, we fail to obtain our God given goal, a glorious 115 00:11:26.559 --> 00:11:33.669 goal, a blessed goal. Because we sin, we fall short of the 116 00:11:33.750 --> 00:11:39.710 glory of God. You can see, then, why God says that he's 117 00:11:39.950 --> 00:11:43.990 just in condemning our sin. In Verse Twenty Six, we read that God 118 00:11:45.509 --> 00:11:50.740 is just. Earlier in that same passage we read in Verse Twenty Three. 119 00:11:50.779 --> 00:11:54.620 All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, every single one 120 00:11:54.659 --> 00:12:01.690 of us, educated uneducated, whatever the color of our skin. Here Paul 121 00:12:01.730 --> 00:12:07.649 puts it in the categories of Jew and gentile. Everyone, everyone has sinned 122 00:12:07.690 --> 00:12:11.690 and fallen short of the glory of God. When our first parents sinned, 123 00:12:11.690 --> 00:12:16.399 they took all that was glorious about God, all that was glorious about their 124 00:12:16.639 --> 00:12:22.399 place in creation, all that was glorious about them, and they threw it 125 00:12:22.519 --> 00:12:26.720 away, they spat on it, they despised it, they took his gifts 126 00:12:26.799 --> 00:12:33.110 and wasted them. They denied the all glorious God the worship he deserved and 127 00:12:33.269 --> 00:12:39.549 gave it to themselves. They refused obedience to his laws and they made themselves 128 00:12:39.669 --> 00:12:46.779 sovereign over and against him, against the one who had made them, against 129 00:12:46.820 --> 00:12:52.419 the one who had caused them to be these kinds of creatures, glorious creatures. 130 00:12:54.220 --> 00:12:58.490 The horror of this is expressed in earthly and common terms in the story 131 00:12:58.529 --> 00:13:03.129 of the Prodigal son, the beginning of the story. This is a story 132 00:13:03.169 --> 00:13:11.730 Jesus tells about a son of a wealthy man who disrespectfully demands his inheritance even 133 00:13:11.769 --> 00:13:18.039 before his father has died. He then takes that inheritance, despises his father 134 00:13:18.240 --> 00:13:22.759 and leaves him. Wastes the money then on his own sinful lusts and desires 135 00:13:24.399 --> 00:13:28.350 and plunges him into such a state of poverty, in despair, that he 136 00:13:28.509 --> 00:13:35.950 longs for the food of Pigs. We hear stories like this and we shake 137 00:13:37.070 --> 00:13:45.059 our heads. What a waste, what a fool, but this is our 138 00:13:45.220 --> 00:13:52.419 story as those who have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. 139 00:13:54.860 --> 00:13:58.690 This is exactly what we did, only far, far worse, because it 140 00:13:58.809 --> 00:14:03.970 wasn't just the wealth and in the inheritance of a earthly father, but it 141 00:14:05.090 --> 00:14:11.200 was all the blessings and glory of God that we despised. When Adam and 142 00:14:11.360 --> 00:14:15.600 Eve fell, they took all the God had given to them and demanded it 143 00:14:15.720 --> 00:14:22.080 for themselves and dishonor and disobedience. It wasn't just foolishness, it was treason, 144 00:14:22.080 --> 00:14:30.269 it was sin. And, as one commentator puts it colorfully, God 145 00:14:30.389 --> 00:14:35.950 is never to be accused of moral flabbiness. He is vigorously opposed to evil 146 00:14:35.149 --> 00:14:43.500 in every shape and form, and so when God came up against the sin 147 00:14:43.779 --> 00:14:50.460 of his creatures, he did not wink at it, he did not excuse 148 00:14:50.539 --> 00:14:56.409 it, he did not ignore it, but he was just and he condemned 149 00:14:56.450 --> 00:15:01.210 them to death and through them out of the garden and barred the way to 150 00:15:01.370 --> 00:15:09.639 that glory. The present glory that is theirs and is ours now was diminished 151 00:15:09.519 --> 00:15:16.480 and the future glory that would be there as was lost forever. This means 152 00:15:16.519 --> 00:15:20.039 that falling the short of the glory of God is worse than not getting an 153 00:15:20.039 --> 00:15:30.029 eternal reward. It means earning and eternal punishment. It means in our sin 154 00:15:30.230 --> 00:15:35.299 we stand before God and he is a just judge and he condemns us for 155 00:15:35.460 --> 00:15:41.899 our sins. It means that because we fall short of the glory of God, 156 00:15:43.340 --> 00:15:50.049 we also fall under the wrath of God, and God is justines. 157 00:15:52.090 --> 00:15:54.330 This is what God has been explaining to us in these first two chapters, 158 00:15:54.850 --> 00:16:00.289 over and over and over again, in various ways, impressing on our hearts, 159 00:16:00.409 --> 00:16:03.559 reminding us of the things that we know, that his wrath has been 160 00:16:03.639 --> 00:16:11.759 manifested against all unrighteousness, a fact we cannot ignore. But here we are 161 00:16:11.840 --> 00:16:17.080 reminded that God has not only just. Verse Twenty Six also tells us that 162 00:16:17.200 --> 00:16:22.389 he is the justifier. He is not only just, but he is the 163 00:16:22.590 --> 00:16:27.509 justife fire. What an interesting way of speaking. It's a way of saying 164 00:16:27.549 --> 00:16:33.460 God not only wants to declare the guilty guilty, he also wants to make 165 00:16:33.779 --> 00:16:40.019 the guilty innocent. Well, how does one do that? Usually, when 166 00:16:40.019 --> 00:16:45.179 we talk about someone, a guilty person, becoming innocent before the judge, 167 00:16:45.259 --> 00:16:52.129 were usually talking about a bad judge, right one who has taken a bribe, 168 00:16:52.370 --> 00:16:57.450 for example, and said okay, I declare you innocent, or someone 169 00:16:57.529 --> 00:17:02.759 who somehow ignores the sin or is it or is just incapable of judging, 170 00:17:03.399 --> 00:17:08.119 sees the problems and then just mishandles the whole case. But none of those 171 00:17:08.160 --> 00:17:11.559 things could be true of God, because God is perfect and everything that he 172 00:17:11.640 --> 00:17:21.309 does, our justice is always, I'm broken and and struggling and incomplete and 173 00:17:21.549 --> 00:17:25.950 imperfect. But not so with God. God knows our hearts, he knows 174 00:17:25.990 --> 00:17:30.660 our minds, he knows everything perfectly. He knows exactly what sin deserves, 175 00:17:30.059 --> 00:17:36.980 what his glory really is. So God is perfectly just. So how does 176 00:17:37.059 --> 00:17:42.500 a guilty person become innocent? Well, because God exercises not only the role 177 00:17:42.700 --> 00:17:51.369 as judge, but he also becomes a justifier. With God, he does 178 00:17:51.730 --> 00:17:55.650 something different and he doesn't hide the evidence or discount the sin or ignore the 179 00:17:55.769 --> 00:18:00.039 evil. He doesn't change his judgment by finding some error or mistake in himself. 180 00:18:02.200 --> 00:18:07.680 No, God declares innocent people innocent because he makes them innocent in Jesus, 181 00:18:08.839 --> 00:18:14.990 first by this act of justification, second by an act of sanctification and 182 00:18:15.029 --> 00:18:18.349 then finally and completely, in as an act of joy, of glorification, 183 00:18:21.190 --> 00:18:26.589 in justification. He declares us as righteousness he did, or he declares us 184 00:18:26.789 --> 00:18:34.779 as righteous by IMPUTING TO US Christ's righteousness. He gives to us what someone 185 00:18:34.819 --> 00:18:40.900 else has earned. You could think of it in terms of money. For 186 00:18:41.059 --> 00:18:45.690 example. Let's say you owed a great debt, a great debt. Here 187 00:18:45.970 --> 00:18:49.569 someone comes, this someone is Jesus, and he pays off the debt. 188 00:18:51.210 --> 00:18:57.519 The money that is belongs to him is credited to your account and you are 189 00:18:57.680 --> 00:19:06.640 declared righteous and perfectly righteous. You and in that you are declared innocent. 190 00:19:07.519 --> 00:19:15.029 God continues to make us righteous in his act of sanctification, this purifying of 191 00:19:15.109 --> 00:19:18.349 US inwardly, so that it's not only our standing before God, this legal 192 00:19:18.509 --> 00:19:23.420 standing before God, but personally, he subjectively, he's making us who he 193 00:19:23.579 --> 00:19:29.779 wants us to be, an act that's completed and consummated in our glorification when 194 00:19:29.819 --> 00:19:34.460 one day we stand before God without any sin, because it's all been removed, 195 00:19:37.740 --> 00:19:42.170 personally, legally, in every single way. As far as the East 196 00:19:42.250 --> 00:19:45.609 is from the West, God is forgotten. Our Sin, it is gone, 197 00:19:45.809 --> 00:19:51.569 it is no more, it has nothing to do with us. Because 198 00:19:51.609 --> 00:19:59.359 of Jesus, because of his sacrifice. In this God is the justifier and 199 00:19:59.440 --> 00:20:04.119 he does all of this through Jesus, this one who has been manifested apart 200 00:20:04.160 --> 00:20:11.309 from the law in a different way. The law, particularly as it comes 201 00:20:11.349 --> 00:20:15.349 to us in in Moses, particularly as it comes to us in nature, 202 00:20:15.230 --> 00:20:22.779 bears down on us and tells us and reminds us that we are incapable of 203 00:20:22.940 --> 00:20:30.460 doing the things that God commands, incapable, and our sinful selves are constantly 204 00:20:30.500 --> 00:20:37.369 being stirred up to other sins, sins that surprise us, since that that 205 00:20:37.690 --> 00:20:44.609 surprise other people. How could this thing be in me? But there it 206 00:20:44.809 --> 00:20:49.799 is, and through the law we comes knowledge of this sin. That's what 207 00:20:51.279 --> 00:20:56.680 all we read last time in verse twenty. For by the works of the 208 00:20:56.759 --> 00:21:00.440 law no human being will be justified in his sight, because through the law 209 00:21:02.039 --> 00:21:11.150 comes knowledge of Sin. But apart from the law, although the Law of 210 00:21:11.349 --> 00:21:17.309 Moses and the prophets bear witness to it, the revelation of g of another 211 00:21:17.470 --> 00:21:22.140 kind of righteousness has come, not a righteousness that we earn and not a 212 00:21:22.180 --> 00:21:26.980 righteousness that we can please God by, but a righteousness that is given to 213 00:21:27.099 --> 00:21:37.130 us as a gift. God righteous manifests makes known this righteousness apart from the 214 00:21:37.210 --> 00:21:41.890 law, in a sacrifice and it's helpful to remember the sacrifices in the Old 215 00:21:41.970 --> 00:21:48.920 Testament in this regard. Paul says that the law and the Prophets Bear Witness 216 00:21:48.519 --> 00:21:52.400 to this righteousness of God. Well, it's in the sacrificial system that it 217 00:21:52.480 --> 00:22:00.549 will one place which witness is born, one place in which the righteousness of 218 00:22:00.630 --> 00:22:07.910 God that comes apart from the law is manifested. You remember those sacrifices in 219 00:22:07.910 --> 00:22:11.230 the Old Testament? Right. There's all different kinds, but they all involved 220 00:22:11.349 --> 00:22:18.140 this kind of identification, a kind of offering of something to God that his 221 00:22:18.380 --> 00:22:22.460 wrath might be turned away, a saying here, I put my my sins 222 00:22:22.579 --> 00:22:27.539 on this animal, for example, in the hopes that you will see my 223 00:22:27.700 --> 00:22:32.849 sins, not on me but on it, that that animal would be put 224 00:22:32.849 --> 00:22:37.730 to death because of the sins and that your wrath would be turned away. 225 00:22:38.250 --> 00:22:48.119 That's what propitiation is. It's God's turning his wrath away because of this gift 226 00:22:48.240 --> 00:22:52.839 that is given, this sacrifice that is given. Now, that's all made 227 00:22:52.960 --> 00:23:00.309 possible because of God. It's not like human beings invented this thing and said, 228 00:23:00.509 --> 00:23:03.349 I know what we can do. We can take all of our sins 229 00:23:03.390 --> 00:23:07.150 and we'll put them on an animal and then God will be pleased by that. 230 00:23:07.470 --> 00:23:11.710 Right. That's nonsense. That doesn't make any sense that that would work. 231 00:23:12.619 --> 00:23:17.779 What did the Animal Do? How could my sins ever belong there? 232 00:23:18.700 --> 00:23:25.059 It only works because God has given it in that way, because God made 233 00:23:25.140 --> 00:23:30.130 the sacrifices affective for that, not in and of themselves, but because they 234 00:23:30.369 --> 00:23:37.569 pointed forward, because they were connected to the once and final sacrifice that Paul 235 00:23:37.690 --> 00:23:44.799 is speaking about here, the sacrifice of Jesus. The sacrifices were effective in 236 00:23:44.839 --> 00:23:51.279 the old testament because the sacrifices were essentially Jesus being sacrifice fast. They were 237 00:23:51.440 --> 00:23:56.509 that intimately connected by the promise, by the design, by the will of 238 00:23:56.670 --> 00:24:02.910 God. So when the people gave their sacrifices, they came in faith, 239 00:24:03.309 --> 00:24:07.789 not that the animal was somehow special in itself, but that God had made 240 00:24:07.789 --> 00:24:14.380 a promise that he would take care of their sin, that he, by 241 00:24:14.500 --> 00:24:19.380 his own promise, would turn away his wrath and would consider a person forgiven. 242 00:24:21.619 --> 00:24:25.730 They went not in the promises of a lamb but in the promises of 243 00:24:25.890 --> 00:24:33.009 the lamb, in the promises of God. It worked because this was God's 244 00:24:33.089 --> 00:24:41.400 will. The righteousness of God therefore was manifested in that way to show his 245 00:24:41.599 --> 00:24:51.920 wrath against sin and to point forward to this final sacrifice of Jesus. And 246 00:24:52.119 --> 00:24:59.470 that's exactly what happened on the cross. Paul uses these terms redemption and propitiation 247 00:24:59.869 --> 00:25:07.339 to describe what Jesus did. Redemption refers to a kind of buying back or 248 00:25:07.420 --> 00:25:15.140 a bringing something, paying for something to be rescued, redeemed. You remember, 249 00:25:15.619 --> 00:25:19.180 this is a something that can as spoken of in terms of slaves, 250 00:25:19.220 --> 00:25:25.049 slaves being brought out, and we are very much like this. Under the 251 00:25:25.130 --> 00:25:30.450 law, we find ourselves in a kind of debtors prison. God redeems as 252 00:25:30.529 --> 00:25:34.289 though he brings us out of slavery. Under the law, we also find 253 00:25:34.329 --> 00:25:40.160 ourselves condemned because of our sin. Under God's wrath and in his propitiation, 254 00:25:41.160 --> 00:25:45.480 he looks at that sacrifice and he turns it away. Now, the sacrifices 255 00:25:45.680 --> 00:25:51.430 of a lamb or a dove or something like that wouldn't seem to accomplish that. 256 00:25:52.109 --> 00:25:56.190 But what about the sacrifice of the son of God? Do you think 257 00:25:56.230 --> 00:26:03.549 that might be enough to cover for your sins, if God himself died on 258 00:26:03.589 --> 00:26:11.819 the Cross in your place? Well, indeed it is. Indeed it was. 259 00:26:12.859 --> 00:26:21.490 And when Jesus, God's beloved divine, all glorious, all powerful, 260 00:26:21.730 --> 00:26:32.920 eternal son, died on a cross. A sacrifice for sin was made in 261 00:26:33.119 --> 00:26:41.920 his blood. Propitiation happen? God puts forward a sacrifice. Jesus presents himself 262 00:26:41.960 --> 00:26:48.349 as a sacrifice for his people and says the lamb says, put the sin 263 00:26:48.869 --> 00:26:56.150 is on me so that they can be forgiven. And in Verse Twenty Five 264 00:26:56.269 --> 00:27:02.220 Paul Says Exactly this, that in Sin Jesus Christ, whom God put forward 265 00:27:02.220 --> 00:27:07.859 as a propitiation by his blood. And so when God, when we put 266 00:27:07.859 --> 00:27:11.099 our faith in Jesus Christ, we are trusting in him, whom God looks 267 00:27:11.140 --> 00:27:17.089 at and turns his wrath away from us. This is why we don't fear 268 00:27:17.650 --> 00:27:22.650 the Judgment Day, this is why we don't struggle and and despair of God 269 00:27:22.809 --> 00:27:27.690 judging us for our sins, because we know that all judgment has passed for 270 00:27:27.809 --> 00:27:37.720 us in Jesus Amazing Grace. When we look for salvation, therefore, when 271 00:27:37.799 --> 00:27:45.710 we feel the weight of our sins, you see how foolish and sinful it 272 00:27:45.829 --> 00:27:51.150 is to look anywhere other than the cross, to believe in anything other than 273 00:27:51.190 --> 00:28:00.700 the cross. In our sins we fell short totally missed the mark and failed 274 00:28:00.819 --> 00:28:06.180 to obtain the glory of God. But we not only felt short of his 275 00:28:06.339 --> 00:28:11.700 glory, we also fell under his wrath. We deserved nothing more, and 276 00:28:11.859 --> 00:28:15.529 God would have been glorified in punishing us. He would have been glorified in 277 00:28:15.690 --> 00:28:21.089 the exercise of his judgment, and he will be on the last day, 278 00:28:21.809 --> 00:28:26.279 when those who are judged from their sins are judged for their sins. He 279 00:28:26.440 --> 00:28:30.400 would be glorified and will be glorified, as any king would be and is, 280 00:28:30.960 --> 00:28:36.880 in conquering his enemies. But out of the goodness of his will and 281 00:28:37.000 --> 00:28:44.869 His grace, God also glorifies himself in salvation. He gives to US something 282 00:28:44.950 --> 00:28:49.190 else, freedom from the dead of our sins, the joy of seeing his 283 00:28:49.390 --> 00:28:56.539 wrath turn away from us and see his fatherly smile of love turn toward us. 284 00:28:56.859 --> 00:29:03.099 We received the heart pounding joy of belonging to Christ and knowing that we 285 00:29:03.380 --> 00:29:11.730 are those who are declared righteousness. And that's how things, miraculous, things 286 00:29:11.930 --> 00:29:17.730 begin to happen, like light shining out of darkness and the darkness not overcoming 287 00:29:17.769 --> 00:29:22.690 it, not only in Jesus, but also in us. How is it 288 00:29:22.890 --> 00:29:29.200 that ungodly, sinful people like us can be bright and shining lights of the 289 00:29:29.319 --> 00:29:34.440 glory of God in the world. It happens because of the power of the 290 00:29:34.519 --> 00:29:41.869 light, because of the change is that happens in US according to the promises 291 00:29:41.670 --> 00:29:48.910 of God. So when we think of Jesus on the Cross, or when 292 00:29:48.950 --> 00:29:55.339 we think of our sins and then think of Jesus on the Cross, let's 293 00:29:55.380 --> 00:29:59.220 consider the things that God puts forward here, that God tells us here. 294 00:29:59.299 --> 00:30:06.619 Jesus isn't just a story to remember. He's not just an idea that we 295 00:30:07.609 --> 00:30:12.529 hold onto or believe in some kind of way. He is our life. 296 00:30:14.569 --> 00:30:18.210 He is the thing by which we do not experience the wrath of God. 297 00:30:19.730 --> 00:30:27.519 He is the one who justifies us, who makes us righteous and makes us 298 00:30:29.720 --> 00:30:36.430 the people that God has saved us to be. So let us put our 299 00:30:36.470 --> 00:30:42.309 faith in him. Let's not go bow before God and make excuses or accusations, 300 00:30:44.549 --> 00:30:49.740 but freely admit what he says about us. Freely admit what is obviously 301 00:30:51.059 --> 00:30:56.539 true, that we have fallen, we have sinned, we have come short 302 00:30:56.579 --> 00:31:02.859 of the glory of God, but in the grace of God we are being 303 00:31:03.019 --> 00:31:11.049 conformed in the image of his glorious son. Now and unto eternity. This 304 00:31:11.250 --> 00:31:15.410 is his promise to us. Let us pray.