For Christ Also Suffered Once for Sins

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The message of today and this Lord's Day is for Christ also suffered once for sins.
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Now, the original text to this is the interpreters did not know to whether to put suffered once for sins or died once for sins.
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It was so interrelated, but it's interchangeable. So you could actually say for Christ also suffered and died once for sins.
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I believe that would be appropriate. Our scripture text is in 1 Peter 3 .18.
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So if you're not there, please turn with me, please, as we continue our wonderful study in the
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Word of God. Isn't this been a wonderful study? This is a wonderful, encouraging letter, especially to those that are suffering and going through hardships and trials and adversity.
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But the encouraging word that the Apostle Peter has for those who are suffering, to the saints that are suffering in that time period, is they can come through the suffering triumphantly.
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They can win through suffering. And only because Jesus Christ has triumphed in the sufferings and through the sufferings,
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He has, because He's risen again. He's at the right hand of the Father. And one day
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He's coming back to sin and salvation to once and all, once and for all as He died once and for all, but once and for all
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He will reign forever and ever. Isn't that going to be glorious? So our scripture text is 1
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Peter 3 .18. Hear the word of the living God. One verse today.
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For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the
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Spirit. Beloved, this text, this one verse demands a moment of silence as we go before the
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Lord in worship. Let's bow our heads. Oh Father, as we approach
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Your majestic throne, the throne of grace, we come into Your holy courts to worship
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You. Spirit and truth in the name that's above every name, the name of Jesus.
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We would pray, oh God, this morning, through and by the precious blood of the
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Lamb of God, that by faith, Lord, as we speak, cleanse us, cleanse us, wash us, and sanctify us, oh
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God, through Thy truth. Lord, give us ears to hear only by Your Spirit.
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Give us a heart, oh God, to perceive and help us by Your Holy Spirit to understand just a small portion of this great truth before us, the gospel, the good news.
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Father, our prayer is, Lord, speak, speak, for Thy servant hears.
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Speak for Thy servant hears. May we behold Jesus, the
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Lamb of God. Look and live. Look and live. And as David prayed, and let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, oh
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Lord, my rock, my Redeemer. We ask this in Jesus' name for Thy glory.
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Amen. Amen. But to the suffering saints in Asia Minor, the recipients of this letter are experiencing some very severe trials, harsh treatment, suffering.
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They underwent some great suffering in that time period, and therefore the
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Apostle Peter encourages them with a word from heaven. 1 Peter 1 .4
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He tells them to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled, and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you.
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Then he calls them to holy living. 1 Peter 1 .15 But like the
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Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your conduct and all your behavior.
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1 Peter 2 .9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.
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Then the Apostle Peter holds up the prospect of the rewards for the suffering saints in which they underwent, that they will receive in future glory one day, in which all of God's people will receive in future glory.
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And he says in 1 Peter 1 .8 -9 And though you have not seen Him, you love
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Him. Though you have not seen
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Him, you love Him. And though you do not see Him now, you but believe in Him.
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You greatly rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, joy inexpressible, obtaining, there's that word again, obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.
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1 Peter 4 .13 But to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation.
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That word exultation means it's a word of rejoice with rapturous joy.
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Almost again saying it, seethingly joyful. Rejoice with rapturous joy that you are even counted worthy to suffer for His name's sake.
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Then he encourages them to stand fast in their faith, in the midst of adversity.
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Isn't that what the Lord calls us to do when we're facing adversity? Stand fast.
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Brother Keith brought that to our attention this morning. Be steadfast. Stand firm.
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Steadfast. Stand fast. And this is what He calls them to do. 1 Peter 5 .10
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After you have suffered for a little while, just for a time, for a little while, the
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God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.
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And then He says in verse 11, to Him be dominion forever and ever. Amen. Then in verse 13 through 17, in which we looked at previously,
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Peter asked the question, who is there to harm you? If you prove zealous for what is good.
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Then He calls them to not fear. Not to fear. We're not to fear, right? But in verse 14, but even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed, and do not fear their intimidation, and do not be troubled.
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Beloved, that's a double exhortation. That is a double exhortation in that verse.
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Do not fear, and do not be troubled. We're not to fear, and we're not to be troubled.
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And then He calls the suffering saints, in verse 15, to sanctify Christ as Lord in their hearts.
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Always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence.
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That's the attitude in which we give a defense. Gentleness and reverence.
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Verse 16, Keep a good conscience, so that in the thing which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame.
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God knows how to deal with them. As we respond in a Christ -like attitude.
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And then He concludes in verse 17, For it is better, if God should will it so, that you suffer for doing what is right rather than doing what is wrong.
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You know, we're going to suffer. When you live godly in Christ Jesus, you will suffer persecution. There's no doubt about it.
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It's going to come. And I'd rather suffer at the hands of men rather than to suffer at the hands of God.
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Any day. And I tell you, that's really what Peter is saying. Choose your suffering, but choose it wisely.
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And choose to suffer for righteousness sake before men, and then
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God will have a reward for you rather than the reverse. The suffer under the hands of God for doing what is wrong.
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And then you have, and then we get chastisement from God. But, and then that's a loving rod.
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God always lovingly chastens His children. But then in the text, in verse 18,
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For also Christ, Christ also died or suffered for sins, once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God.
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Reconcile us, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the
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Spirit. Again, the apostle Peter stated this gospel truth earlier in chapter 20.
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I'm sorry, chapter 2, verse 20 through 21. For what credit or what glory is there if you sin and are harshly treated?
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You endure it with patience. But if when you do what is right, and suffer for what you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God.
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Verse 21, For you have been called for this purpose. There's the calling to suffer.
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Called for a purpose. Everything that God does in suffering, through suffering is, has a divine purpose to it.
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Sovereignly. God does nothing without purpose. Everything He does has a divine purpose.
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Isn't that wonderful? And since Christ also suffered for you, He says, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps.
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Do you see what Peter drives at? Do you see his point? His point, really, in the text that we're approaching, is that Jesus Christ endured the same kind of suffering, but even much more severe, because He was really the only righteous one, the only just one, that did not deserve the suffering.
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But He took upon Himself the suffering willingly, at the hands of unjust men.
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But He suffered a death. You cannot suffer even more than that.
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He suffered a horrific death physically, but a death spiritually, in a sense, under the wrath of Almighty God, that no one else could ever do.
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That calls the Christians to bear, and to follow in His footsteps.
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And that's what Peter is saying. So Christ is the righteous one that suffered at the hands of sinners on behalf of those who were unrighteous.
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Now why? Why? Isn't that a loaded question? Well, that He might bring us to God. That He might reconcile us to God.
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Who's to us? That's God's elect. That is the sheep. That is the people that God has handpicked and marked out before the foundation of the world.
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Even though His death is sufficient for all. That's what
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He says. Once and for all. But the us that He might bring us to God is the elect.
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Now the sufferings of the saints have a purpose. God's people have purpose in their suffering, and God has a purpose, in that it eventually leads to future glory.
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We will be glorified. If someone puts us to death for Jesus' sake, they usher us right into glory.
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And that's exactly what happens. It enters right into the blessedness of heaven forever and ever.
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And that's a glorious purpose, isn't it? But the sufferings of Christ had even a greater purpose.
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And we're going to look into that. It's deep waters here, folks. So have your scuba diving gear on. We're going to dive deep.
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Because when we look at the cross of Jesus Christ, there's depth. There's great depth, and we need the blessed
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Holy Spirit to help us to understand just a little of what He's telling us.
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What was that purpose in Jesus' death? It was redemptive. It had redemptive purposes.
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You see, all the death of the martyrs does not have redemptive purposes. Only Jesus' death has a redemptive purpose.
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So His death was not just a martyr's death. It was the death of the
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Lamb of God that took upon Himself. He became sin. The sin of the world was applied to Him, the
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Holy One, the Just One. And yet, He offered Himself up to God, the Holy God, and He's reconciling us back, sinners, right into the holiness of God.
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There's a great gulf, and we cannot do that within ourselves. It's impossible. There has to be a mediator.
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There has to be someone that was a substitute, and Jesus was that substitute. We're going to look at that.
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So His death was redemptive. There's redemption in His death. Something that the suffering saints cannot do.
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And that the sufferings of saints cannot pay for the sins.
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That's the word. They cannot pay for our sins, for the sins of the world.
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Jesus alone, in His death upon the cross of Calvary, paid the sin debt.
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He paid the sin debt in full. Once and for all.
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It doesn't have to be repeated. It does not have to be repeated. Aren't you glad? Isn't that something to rejoice in?
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When Jesus cried out His last words, before He took His last breath, He cried out three words of victory that went right into the very caverns of hell itself, and it still echoes today.
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Jesus says, It is finished. It is finished. Paid in full.
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Jesus paid it in full, and the just demands of a righteous, holy
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God were satisfied. Beloved, this is the heart of the gospel. This is the death of Jesus Christ.
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Though Peter used the sufferings of Jesus as an encouragement and a strength to those that are
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Asia Minor that was afflicted, and as they read this, we must also remember that Peter set
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Jesus completely apart from all others in his sufferings. We've got to remember that, that no one paid the price of our sin debt but only
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Jesus. Now, C .H. Spurgeon said this. He recalled a heroic sufferer of one godly man as he read the
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Fox's Book of Martyrs. This is what he says. I remember reading in the
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Fox's Book of Martyrs the story of a man of God who was burned to a stake to die for Christ.
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There he was, calm and quiet, till his legs had been burned away, and the bystanders looked to see his helpless body dropped from the chains as black as coal, and not a feature could be discerned.
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It was indescribable. It could not even tell. One, it goes on to say,
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Spurgeon says, but one who was near was greatly surprised to see that poor black carcass opened his mouth, and two words came out of it.
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And what do you suppose they were? The two words that this martyr said in his last breath,
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Sweet Jesus, sweet Jesus. And then the martyr fell over the chains, and at last the life was gone.
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Beloved, I want you to think of this. As dear as the godly saint was in giving his life up for God in the hands of sinful people for a just cause and for Christ's sake, his words were sweet Jesus.
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But when Jesus Christ died, Jesus did not have the
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Father's presence. Jesus, to give Him grace and help through this horrific suffering as the martyr had,
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Jesus Himself did not have the sweet presence of the Father to help Him. Think of this.
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While dying on the cross of Calvary, instead God the Father bruised
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Him. God the Father, His wrath was poured upon Him.
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And God the Father treated Jesus as if He were an enemy. This is the gospel, folks.
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We cannot understand the good news of the gospel until we understand the bad news. And I've been conversing with a person, years back, an old friend, and he's no more,
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I hate to say it, no more a friend because he's basically explained the existence of hell away.
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Folks, what are we saved from? Hell is the wrath of God. It's an eternal judgment, an eternal punishment forever and ever.
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And how can you understand and receive everything that Jesus did on the cross, taking the wrath of God for our sins, if you do not understand the bad news that we are saved from an eternal hell forever and ever?
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Doesn't it make it much more glorious to know that Jesus took the wrath of God?
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This is exactly what God saves us from. He saves us from God. He saves us from the wrath to come in Jesus.
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And as in the sense, the sufferings of Jesus on the cross was far worse than anyone that ever suffered a martyr's death.
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His suffering is unique. Again, Spurgeon says, quote, it is almost as if the
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Apostle Peter says this, You have none of you has suffered when compared with him, or at least he was the arch sufferer, the prince of sufferers, the emperor of the realm of agony.
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He goes on to say, Lord paramount in sorrow, you know a little about grief, but you do not know how much.
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The hymn of grief's garment is all you've ever touched, but Christ wore it as his daily robe.
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We do but sip the cup, but he drank it in its bitterest dregs.
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We feel just a little of the warmth of Nebuchadnezzar's furnace, but Jesus dwelt in the very midst of the fire.
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Praise God. There are six glorious features that is in our text this morning, and the sufferings of Jesus that we can glean from, and this is just scratching the surface, but we can glean from it in this text.
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The first one is this. The first one is that the sufferings of Jesus, the sufferings of Jesus made an atonement for sin.
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There's a word called expatory, expatory, expiation, expiation.
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The sufferings made atonement, atonement for sin once and for all.
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It freed the believing sinners from the eternal punishment of their sins forever.
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That's what the sufferings of Christ did. That's what the death of Christ did. As we all know, 2
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Corinthians 5, 21 is one of the most precious, wonderful verses in Scripture.
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The apostle Paul says, as Christ also died for sins, as Peter said,
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Paul says He made Him, God the Father made Jesus, who knew no sin, to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
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That's double imputation. Jesus takes our sins, the just for the unjust, and then we take
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His righteousness. Isn't that the gospel? Isn't this what being in Christ is all about?
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This is the heart of the gospel. This is that wonderful glorious message, atonement, atonement, atonement, reconciliation.
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It's called the great exchange. And here Paul summarizes the very heart of the gospel, and he explains how sinners can be reconciled to a holy
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God through Jesus Christ our Lord. That's glorious. This is the good news.
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To tell people as we evangelize, be reconciled to God. That Jesus took your sin, and you can have
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His righteousness. And He has literally earned your way into heaven. No one else has done that.
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And only Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. And no one comes to the Father but by Him. Well, Paul brings out those 15
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Greek words that express the glorious doctrine of imputation and substitution like no other single verse in the entire
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Bible. Jesus Christ who knew no sin became sin, became literally sin, a sin offering.
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That sin, He became sin. That's a mystery to us. But He took that sin upon Himself as the
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Lamb of God. The Father treated Jesus Christ as if He were a sinner and an enemy.
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Though He was not. But yet, He died a substitutional death in our place that we deserve.
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He did not deserve it. And He took it upon Himself and took it to the cross. The cross was the altar.
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And He presented Himself before the holy God of the universe to mediate us and to bring us to God, to reconcile us, to pay the penalty for the sins of those who believe in Him.
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And isn't that the glorious good news? Isaiah 53, 4 -6, 4 -6
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Surely our griefs He Himself bore. Listen closely. Surely our griefs
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He Himself bore. And our sorrows He carried. Yet, we ourselves esteemed
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Him stricken, smitten of God. You know what that means? God struck
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Him. God struck Him down. God struck Him because of sin.
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This is how much God hates sin. God afflicted Him. God, and He was afflicted.
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And then it says, but He was pierced. That means He was wounded. Threw for our transgressions.
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For our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. And the chastening of our well -being fell upon Him.
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And by His scourging, we are healed. We all, all of us, like sheep have gone astray.
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Each of us have turned to His own way. But the Lord, Yahweh, has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.
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It fell on Jesus. And has caused the iniquity of us, all of us, to fall on Him.
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That word, fall, literally means it encountered Him. God struck
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Him. It pleased the Lord to bruise Him. This is such love, isn't it?
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But yet, we see the ever -loving God loving sinners.
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And at the same time, we see God's hatred for the sin through the cross.
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Jesus, the suffering servant, prophesied by Isaiah the prophet, as the sinless
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Lamb of God, the substitute for sinners, Christ was the substitute, the recipient of God's wrath for sinners' sake.
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Chastisement He underwent from God in order to procure peace with God through the blood of His cross.
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Colossians 2, 13, 14. When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh,
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He made you alive together with Him. Having forgiven us all of our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of death consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us, and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.
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He nailed it to the cross once and for all.
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Once and for all. This verse is referring to the hand -written certificate of debt that we owed, beloved, which a debtor acknowledged his indebtedness.
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There was a debt we could not pay and He paid a price that we could not pay back, that we owed this sin debt.
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The Scripture says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All, everyone included.
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Every single person living owes God an unpayable debt, beloved, an unpayable debt for violating
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God's holy law. We've all transgressed, haven't we? We've all broken
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God's law. Guilty. Scripture says we're guilty. And that's the verdict.
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God Himself, and when the Apostle Paul writes this in the beginning of Romans, he basically says that the whole world might be silenced and come guilty before God.
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God knows how to shut the mouths of sinful people. They're all guilty. We're all guilty. And, but the good news is that Christ paid that debt.
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Then Paul, you know, Paul compares the forgiveness of all because of His mercy. Isn't that the reason why?
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Mercy, His love, His goodness. And then when the believer, the believing sinner puts his trust in Jesus Christ alone, that sin debt is wiped clean forever.
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And it's into the sea of forgetfulness. God does not remember it against us no more.
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That's enough right there. If I said amen and amen and let you go, you could shout all the way to heaven. Isn't that wonderful?
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That's the good news. Jesus Christ wiped it clean from off like a parchment, so to speak.
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Through Christ's sacrificial death on the cross, God totally erased our certificate of indebtedness and made our forgiveness complete.
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That's what He's saying. And all the believing sinners, that sin were all put on Jesus Christ, on His account, nailed it to the cross,
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He paid it in full, the full penalty. And then He took upon Himself sin and He paid it.
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And thus satisfying the just wrath of a holy God against the crimes requiring punishment in full.
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So death, the death, the sufferings of Christ were expiatory.
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It was expiation. That is being freed, the believing sinners, from eternal punishment of their sins.
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The just demands of a holy God had been satisfied. Only Jesus could do this. Only Jesus did this.
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Now, the second thing we observe and that we second feature is that the sufferings of Jesus were eternally effectual.
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Eternally effectual. He died once for all. He died once for all.
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And He settled the sin question, didn't He? Christ also died for sins once for all.
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Under the old covenant, the old economy and the Old Testament, put it either way, the
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Jewish people had to continually bring a sacrifice Brother Ben read a little bit about that this morning, about a sin sacrifice, a grain sacrifice for those in sin.
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And these sacrifices year upon year, especially in Passover, millions of sacrifices that was presented.
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Slaughtered animals, slaughtered rams, slaughtered lambs, and doves, and all these sacrifices had to be presented.
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But Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, was put to death as the offering of God once and for all.
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He is the Passover Lamb. He is the Passover. He is our Passover.
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The one sacrifice, Jesus Christ Himself, He is that sacrifice, on the cross, was sufficient, pleasing to Holy God, once and for all.
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I can't say that enough, beloved. Once and for all. The sacrifice of Jesus is what is said is the masterpiece of the ages.
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It stands unique and apart. And it's as if it's held up on a pole, the cross.
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For the world to see, look and live, there He is, the Lamb of God, that takes away the sin of the world.
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Beloved, that's where we need to look to. You know, I love this, no one can add to it, no one can take away from it.
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And if someone tries to add to it, the plagues of this Bible will be upon them, beloved. I'm telling you, that's a serious place to go.
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Hebrews 7, 27, the writer of Hebrews says, who does not need daily like those high priests to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people.
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Because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself, speaking of Jesus.
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Christ had no sin, He was sinless, He did not have to make any mediation for Himself in the sense, because He was sinless.
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He was the sinless one, He was the righteous one, the only one that ever lived that was perfect, with a perfect motive of pure love, not an evil thought, not an evil deed.
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Beloved, we're talking about His entire life, His life was fulfilling of righteousness before God.
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He lived unto God, He died unto God, and all of that, and He lived for us, and He died for us, as our substitute.
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Christ had no sin, He needed no sacrifice for Himself, for He was the sacrifice.
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And the only one sacrifice by Him was needed, one time only for all men,
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He offered up Himself before God once and for all. Once and for all. The sacrificial work of Jesus Christ never needed to be repeated.
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You know, that's the sin of Catholicism in repeating the Mass, isn't it? They crucify Jesus afresh, time and time and time again.
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Listen, that's blasphemous. That's heretical. Jesus' sacrifice is once and for all.
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Once and for all. Sacrificial work of Christ was never needed to be repeated. God's Lamb.
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I love John 3 .14, the whole Gospel of John chapter 3, verse 14,
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Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus. You know who Nicodemus is. A very religious teacher of the law.
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And yet, a teacher of the law, he really didn't understand the law, did he? Or the purpose of the promises.
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But if you look in John 3 .14, Jesus speaks about a story that is found in Numbers, chapter 21, verses 5 through 9.
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What's He referring to? This is what He says, Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness.
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He lifted it up in the wilderness. Even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.
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He's talking about being lifted up on His cross. On the cross in which He would sacrifice Himself.
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He tells Nicodemus, this religious man, basically, this is the sacrifice you need to look to.
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Myself, me, I am the Lamb. He goes on to say that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.
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Basically, He's saying look and live. Look and live. Nicodemus, the story, again, related to Numbers, chapter 21, verses 5 through 9.
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Jesus tells it. Where the Israelite people who looked at the serpent lifted up by Moses were healed after they were bitten by serpents.
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The only way that they can be healed was to look upon that serpent, upon the pole.
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And Jesus uses this as an illustration. He makes it an illustration or an analogy.
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In the lifting up, lifting up, lifting up. Isn't that what we need to do?
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We need to lift up Christ. When we tell people about the gospel, we need to tell them about the cross of Jesus Christ.
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That the penalty of their sins was laid upon Christ. And just as Moses lifted up the snake on the pole so that all who look upon Jesus might live spiritually.
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Those who look to Christ by faith, believing, Jesus was lifted up on the cross and will live spiritually and eternally.
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That's the only way to have eternal life. It's a look of faith. It's a look of faith. It's a believing of Jesus on that cross.
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Isn't this what we need? We always need to do this every day. Preach the gospel to ourselves. Christ was lifted up for our sins as the perfect Lamb of God, spotless once and for all.
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Well, the third feature in our text is, again it speaks of the substitutionary death of Jesus and His sufferings.
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Christ also suffered, died for sins once and for all. The just for the unjust.
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Underscore that. The just for the unjust. Jesus was the righteous, just one.
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We are the unjust. Another statement of the sinlessness of Jesus, right?
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He personally never sinned. He had no sin. He had no sin nature. Sin was not in Him.
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That's the reason of the virgin birth. He came into this world. He entered into the world because Adam's sin has ingrained in all of us.
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It's passed to every one of us. Jesus entered into this world a different way. He came supernaturally by the
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Spirit of God into the womb of the Virgin Mary. And then after that great immaculate miracle,
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Christ entered into the world. And when He entered into the world, as you well know, even the world didn't have room for Him.
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No room for Him in the end. Even then in His birth, they didn't want Him. But yet He comes into the world.
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He descends. He descends. And He comes to save. He comes into this world to save sinners lost.
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Jesus said that. I did not come for those that are healed or that's well, healthy.
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I come for the sick. I came for the ruined, the shipwrecked, sinnered, lost, and defiled, and ruined by sins, rages.
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1 Peter 2 .24 And He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.
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For by His wounds you were healed. Jesus, the Lamb of God, God's spotless Lamb, bore our sins to be punished for them.
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This is why He came. That was His purpose, is to die on the cross. Christ bore the punishment and the penalty for believers, thus satisfying the demands of a holy
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God. Again, this is the very heart of the Gospel. And in case if someone were to ask, is this actual atonement?
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Is this atonement sufficient? Oh beloved, it is sufficient and it is actual for the sins of the whole world was made for all who would ever believe.
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Again, it was sufficient for all, but the us is those who believe, the elect.
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That's basically in Scripture. The sacrifice of Christ is to whosoever will.
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It is to whosoever will. We do not know who the elect is. Every person that we witness to is a potential brother and sister in Jesus Christ.
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God knows who's those who will come to Him and believe. We don't. So we preach it to every preacher.
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That's why Jesus says preach it to every person. He's not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
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Isn't that wonderful? So the sacrifice of Christ is to whosoever will. And it has sufficient power to save all.
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It has enough power to save the world. But will the whole world come? No. Jesus says many will be doomed and go to the road and the road to destruction, right into eternal hellfire and punishment and suffer the wrath of God.
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But we are to tell people and warn them, flee from the wrath to come. There's a wrath that God's anger will be spilled out on you if you do not put your trust in Jesus and where He put
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His wrath on Him. That's why we come to Him and repent and believe the gospel.
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Well, what about those who believe? Is it according to foreknowledge? Well, yes, in one degree it is.
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But that has been misinterpreted, hasn't it? A lot of people place that also that foreknowledge that God knows in the future.
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This is where people get mixed up. That God knows in the future who's going to be saved, even though that is true.
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But what it's speaking of in the text is that God has already ordained and handpicked those in the past.
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See, that's what it's talking about in the text in Romans 8, 29. For those whom
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He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son.
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And again, this is not simply a reference to God's omniscience that He knows in the future. It's the past.
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That in eternity past, He knew who would come to Christ because He already handpicked them.
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Yes, He knows those who would come in the future, but it's more in the past, isn't it?
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Eternity past. But the context here speaks a predetermined choice that God in His loving kindness and His mercy chose some, the elect, that would believe in the past and future.
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Based solely on God's mercy. You see this in Romans 9. This is what Romans 9 is all about.
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A lot of people can't handle this because it's out of their control. But you know, we are to tell people, come to Christ.
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Come to Christ and believe. And repent. And as you come and repent in truth, that makes you one of the elect.
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As you believe. But God's already ordained it, right? He set
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His love on His elect, which He marked out before the foundation of the world. Give me chapter and verse.
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Oh my goodness. Do I have time? I really don't. Let me give you just one. Ephesians 1, 4 and 6.
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You well know it. Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him.
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It's before Him, right? In love, He predestined. That means He's already made it.
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It's in concrete. He's already made that. He's decreed it. Us to the adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which
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He freely bestowed on us and the beloved. You know what Spurgeon said about this? Don't you love
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Spurgeon? Quote, He thought of thee before thou hast a being, yet the sun and the moon were not.
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When the sun and the moon and the stars slept in the mind of God, like unborn forest in the acorn cup, when the old sea was not yet bloomed,
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I'm sorry, long ere this infant world lay in its swaddling bands in the mist, when
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God had inscribed thy name upon the heart and upon the hands of Jesus Christ indelibly to remain forever.
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That basically gets it right out of Scripture. Isaiah 49, 16, Behold, I've inscribed you on the palms of my hands.
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Your walls are continually before me. That's where Spurgeon got that. Right out of Scripture.
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Well, God has shown us His eternal goodness and drawn us to Himself with cords of love all because of Jesus Christ.
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Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Amen. This is what we are all about. This is what the Christian is all about.
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Christ and Him crucified. Nothing else. That's to heal the die on, beloved. Especially the sufferings of the doing what is good.
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He encourages those who suffered. And He says, It's Jesus Christ the just suffered for the unjust and for all of us who are unjust.
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All of us is unjust. The fourth feature is, Through His death on Calvary, His sufferings was reconciling.
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Reconciliation through His death we have been brought to God. For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might, what?
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Bring us to God. This is why He came down. This is why
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He came to reconcile us.
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What a wonderful word, isn't it? Biblically, that means to change completely. Change completely.
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Colossians 1, 20 -22 And through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross, through Him I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven, although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, but He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach.
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Isn't that glorious? Okay, aren't you glad that Jesus Christ came to pay that penalty in full so that He might reconcile us to God?
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And it has purpose. That purpose is to present us holy before God. This refers to believers' positional relationship to God.
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He is separated from sin and set apart to God by imputed righteousness. The doctrine of justification by faith alone, we need to hear it, don't we?
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And we need to remind ourselves of this great doctrine. Well, this leads me to the fifth feature of the sufferings of Christ and His death.
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His death was a violent death by execution, crucifixion.
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For Christ also died for sins once and for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh.
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A violent physical execution. Hebrews 5 ,7, In the days of His flesh, listen to this,
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He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the
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One able to save Him from death. And He was heard because of His piety. Beloved, in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus agonized and He wept with prayers, strong crying of tears, with loud crying tears to the
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Father, Not my will, but Thy will be done. And as He went a little further,
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He fell on His face, He poured out His soul into death. And His prayers was heard.
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He agonized so much, beloved, as you read in the scriptures, that His sweat literally became mingled with great drops of blood.
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That's praying. Beloved, ain't no one can touch that kind of praying.
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And though He bore the penalty in silence and did not seek to deliver Himself from it, He cried out in agony of the fury, of the wrath of God that would be poured out on Him, His perfect person,
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His perfect body for our sins. Notice what verse 8 says, Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which
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He suffered. He learned obedience. For the same reason He bore temptations, to confirm
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His humanity and experience the sufferings to the fullest. Does God care?
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Look at Jesus. He cares. So that He could fulfill all righteousness.
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That's the reason right there. Purpose. A perfect righteousness does prove to be the perfect sacrifice to take the place of sinners.
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He was that perfect righteous one. Verse 9, And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey
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Him and Him the source of eternal salvation. Notice what it said there.
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True salvation is always evident, always evident, in obedience to Jesus Christ.
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From the initial obedience to the gospel command to repent and believe. Well, it leads me to my last point.
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The sufferings of Jesus were climaxed by His resurrection. I don't have time to get into all this, but Jesus Christ was raised from the dead the third day and that made
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Him triumph through the sufferings. Made alive by the Spirit. Now a lot of people put a small s there, that was
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His own spirit, but it was made alive by the Holy Spirit. So Jesus died, listen to this,
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His fleshly body, but raised from the dead by the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. Here the Bible tells us that the
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Holy Spirit raised Him from the dead. Romans 6 -4 tells us that the Father raised Him from the dead.
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And in John 2, 18 -22 says that Jesus raised Himself from the dead.
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So who raised Him from the dead? The triune God. Come on, hallelujah.
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The triune God, just as He was active in creation, the
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Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the triune God was active in redemption. Raised Him from the dead.
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Jesus Christ died for sins once and for all, the just and the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh.
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Matthew, Henry. Let me conclude with this and the wonderful poem,
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Flame of God. Matthew, Henry says this, I'll leave this with you. Listen to these questions. Now, if Christ was not exempted from sufferings, why should
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Christians expect it? If He suffered to expiate sins, why should not we be content when our sufferings are only for trial and correction but not for expiation?
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Isn't these great questions? Oh, wow. Glorious. If He, though perfectly just, why should not we, who are all criminals, if He once suffered and then entered into glory, shall not we be patient under trouble, since it will be but a little time, and we shall follow
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Him to glory? And if He suffered to bring us to God, shall not we submit to difficulties, since they are of so much use to quicken us in our return to God and in the performance of our duty to Him?
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That's Matthew, Henry. Great questions. Those are Selahs. Selahs, Selahs.
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One of my favorite missionaries was Amy Carmichael. Read her life story.
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This was a godly woman brought up in a very rich home. She left all those riches, never married, went to India.
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She wrote this poem, Flame of God. Does it have chapter and verse? Oh, yes. Flame of God, Psalm 104, 4, who makes
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His angel spirits and His ministers a flame of God, a flame of fire. Flame of God.
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From prayer that asks that I may be sheltered from the winds that beat on thee, from fearing when
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I should expire, from faltering when I should climb higher, from silken self,
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O Captain Free, thy soldier who would follow thee, from subtle love of softening things, from easy choices, weakenings, not thus are spirits fortified, not this way went the crucified, from all that dims thy calvary.
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I love that, don't you? From all that dims thy calvary, O Lamb of God, deliver me.
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Deliver me. Give me the love that leads the way, the faith that nothing can dismay, the hope no disappointments tire, the passion that will burn like fire.
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Let me not sink to be a clot. Make me thy fuel.
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Flame of God. Let's pray. Father, we thank You. Lord, there's so much more that can be said, but Lord, I pray that what's been said is sufficient to burn within our hearts.
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Spirit of the living God, we thank You for this day. We rejoice in it that we can even come before You.
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We're grateful to even have breath, but Lord, we're most grateful for the great salvation that You alone has provided through Your one and only
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Son. Hallelujah, what a Savior. It's Jesus Christ, our
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Lord. Lord, help us to look and gaze upon the majesty and the triumph of Christ through the sufferings, the perfect sacrifice, the
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Lamb of God. Lord, I pray to give to us, O Lord, if You so will it, to suffer the way
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Christ did in the spirit of confidence, willingly, committing ourselves to a faithful Creator.
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Lord, this is so wonderful. If we even were counted worthy to suffer for His sake.
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O Lord, thank You for the sufferings of Jesus that He took our sin. It was redemption.
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No one else could do that. No one else but Jesus. He dealt with sin. The just for the unjust.
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Lord, thank You. We're counted a glorious privilege to even have the Spirit of Christ in us. The Spirit of glory to rest on us that we may ultimately, to the sufferings of Your Son, Jesus Christ, His sufferings, ultimately we triumph over them in all evil.
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Lord, I pray show us, show us through Jesus Christ's great example.
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Lord, may we meditate on this. Lord, we thank You for all that Calvary means to us today.
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Bless us in this time as we partake together remembering the sufferings of Jesus in communion. And we thank
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You, Father, for Your blessed Spirit being with us. And thank You for Your Word that assures us of these things.