Solus Christus - [1 John 2]

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple.

Above Him stood the seraphim, each had six wings. With two He covered His face, with two

He covered His feet, and with two He flew. And one called to another and said,

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory.

And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of Him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.

And I said, Woe is me, for I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.

For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. How is it possible for someone to stand in the presence of such a thrice holy

God? How do you stand before such a God? Isaiah, the prophet of God, the most holy man on earth, arguably at the time.

He was no terrorist. He was no murderer. He, Isaiah, knew He was undone when

He stood before the transcendently holy God. How can you stand before God?

Because it's important. Why? Because one day you will stand before this very God. Now, some people think the way that you stand before this

God is just die. Salvation by death. You go to funerals and people preach the deceased into heaven simply by death.

Salvation by death. Sometimes people think that the way to stand before God is as long as you're born, that's all you need to do.

God will accept you. He'll meet you halfway. He sees you're sincere. You just have to be alive.

You have to be born. You're good. Other people think it has to be a declaration based on the work of another.

Some think it's a process. How do you, how will you stand before God?

Now, we've been going through a little series on the Reformation here at the church. Two times ago, never mind that was back in June, but two times ago

I talked about faith alone in Christ Jesus. Sola Fide, faith alone, trust in the

Messiah. And last week we saw Sola Gratia, grace alone, God's initiating grace to go rescue those who could never save themselves.

And as the Reformers were dealing with the Roman Catholics in the 1500s, they were trying to make very clear the nuances of God's word.

It was a battle for the Bible is what it really was. So they set out to address something a little more nuanced than just faith alone through grace alone.

And it was the issue of the sufficiency of the work of Christ. Was Jesus' work sufficient to save people or was it deficient?

Christ is good, but is it Christ plus something else, someone else?

Is there anything you need besides Christ, an advocate to stand before God on that day?

Luther said, I have two days in my calendar, today and that day. And one day we'll stand before God and it needs to be on the basis of faith alone.

Yes, by grace alone, yes, but also based on Christ alone, the sufficiency of Christ Jesus' death.

In other words, do you need Jesus plus something else or someone else to get to heaven?

Maybe Jesus needs a little assistance. Maybe he needs a little bit of help. Maybe he needs a crush.

Maybe there's something that you do, a crutch. Maybe you need a little grace for the wheels of salvation.

My children, when we would teach them how to ride a bicycle, I remember on our little cul -de -sac that, you know, you'd push them and coach them and pick them up when they would skin their knees.

And not that I've been thinking about bicycling at all these days, but I've just been, I get to ride on Thursday.

I get to ride on Thursday, I know. It's a second blessing here. I'm charismatic, I get to ride.

And I remember putting a dollar 20 feet down the road. And I'd say, if you can ride 20 feet, you get that dollar.

It worked, we'd pay people off at our house. And here, you know, 50 yards, you get $5.

They just need a little more incentive. It's not enough to say you can ride your bike. It's not enough to say you please your parents.

But here, here's the extra incentive. Here's the extra push. Does Jesus, in fact, need a little bit of help when it comes to salvation?

Is Jesus enough? That's the question. And so we're going to look at the topic today.

If you turn your Bibles to 1 John 2, solo Christo, or it's commonly termed in the debates of the

Reformation, Protestants versus Catholics, solus Christus, through Christ alone.

And so we'll do solus Christus today, sola scriptura next time, and then sola dea gloria, and then back into Hebrews.

Jesus is the only high priest. He's the only mediator. He's the only advocate.

And if you have him and trust in him, you have everything. There's nothing added extra that you might need.

Hebrews 4 is true when it says, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Therefore, at this church, and by inference, and by mandate of the elders at Sunday schools, at VBS, Bible studies, we want you to proclaim the only one by which men must be saved, and that is

Christ Jesus. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4, for what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord.

Why? Because if there's any hope for heaven, and there is hope for heaven, it has to be on the work of Christ Jesus, not our own work.

And so when you pick up the Bible, this book is about Jesus from Genesis to Revelation. That's what

Jesus said in John 5. These scriptures, he was talking about the First Testament. The Old Testament is what we call it.

These scriptures bear witness of me. He says it in Luke 24. When you search

Moses and the prophets, you are going to be seeing them talk about me. Why? Because salvation through Christ Jesus is mandatory.

Now remember, there's all this stuff going on in evangelicalism right now. How can you get to heaven? Is Jesus the only way?

Is he the exclusive way? Maybe you can have a dream. Maybe you can have a vision. Maybe if you're just good, maybe if you just live up to the knowledge that you have.

Or is it Jesus alone? When you read the Bible, you'll find from front to back, it's all about Christ Jesus because he is the fundamental center of scripture.

Luther said he's the circumference of the Bible. Zwingli said Christ is the head of all believers.

Jesus lives the perfect life, dies on the cross, is raised from the dead, and we have no merit contributed for our salvation.

It is solus Christus, Christ alone. Without Christ, we can do nothing.

With Christ, we can do everything. Now, before we look at the text, there's one more little nuance here that the

Reformation brought out, and that is Christ for us, not Christ in us.

So we like to talk a lot about what Jesus did in our lives and gave us new affections and new desires and sanctified life.

That's all true and fine, but it cannot be eclipsed by Christ for us. You have a mediator for you.

Jesus obeyed. Jesus lived the perfect life. Jesus kept the law. That's all

Christ for you. Yes, he does things in your life, that's true, but you can't lose the fact that it was

Jesus who was crucified. Jesus was raised. Jesus ascended. Jesus will return. And not ourselves, not our faith.

Our faith did not die on the cross. And the reason why they were focused on this was Jesus did his part in salvation.

Now we do our part. That's what they were against because that's what the Bible's against. It is

Christ alone. No other mediator needed. And Paul knew early on, as he told the

Galatian church, this is not kind of like to be played with. This is not something that's just, you know, you're making a mountain out of a molehill.

No, Paul knew differently and he was not kidding nor exaggerating. I'm astonished that you so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel, a

Jesus plus gospel. Not that there's another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preach to you, what?

Let him be accursed. And if I ask you the question, why did

Jesus die? You probably would say because he can now grant forgiveness because he's paid for our penalty on the cross.

And that would be right. But the question with Solus Christus is also why did Jesus live?

Why did he live? We know he died because he wanted to seek and save those who were lost. But he also lived that he alone might grant his own law -keeping righteousness to those who break the law.

So John, the writer of how many books of the Bible? John's gospel, 1

John, 2 John, 3 John and the book of Revelation writes about this very issue that Jesus is the mediator.

He's the alone mediator. Now you might think in our day, that sounds odd.

Yes, it sounds odd. Can you get saved by other religions and pluralism? But back in the

Reformation day, in the Renaissance, in medieval times, they thought the same thing. It's nothing new.

And one of the things about this topic when it comes to Jesus alone is if you realize there's no hope for humanity in the sense of them saving themselves because they're so sinful, you have to go outside of yourself.

You need Christ for you. And that's exactly what happens. 1 John 2, verses one and two. My little children,

I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the father,

Jesus Christ, the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole.

Now, before I get there and we look at the text, I do want to say this up front. If you're saying yes to Jesus alone, you are saying no to every other mediator.

In our circles, people say we want to be a church that we're known for what we're for and not what we're against.

Listen, if you're always bashing people, all the time, I understand it. But truth by definition is propositional.

Right, wrong, there's no gray. And so if you're for Jesus alone as mediator, he's the only mediator, that means you're against other mediators.

And here, John, he knows there's only one mediator. And he's such a pastor too, my little children.

You can just hear loving John, the disciple whom Jesus loved. He doesn't want these readers to sin.

He's not giving them license to sin. But he says, if you do sin, guess what?

You have an advocate. And tenses of the Bible matter. We have and have right now, present tense, an advocate.

Can you imagine an advocate on your behalf? I don't know if you've ever been to court, but you stand before the judge and there's all these people and the desk and the gavel and the robes and everything else.

And you think, you know what? I have to be my own defense lawyer. Even I know that's a bad idea. And here, standing before that thrice holy

God, the one in whom angels even blushed, although they have never sinned. You need to have an advocate.

Satan is the accuser. Satan is the one who is the blasphemer. And here,

John says, but we've got an advocate. We have an advocate. You have a defense attorney. That's the language of a courtroom.

I wonder if this advocate knows the judge, as a matter of fact, look at the language. We, if you do sin, if you ever sin, you have currently an advocate with the

Father. Now in English, the word with isn't that significant seemingly, but it means before, in the face of.

It's used of John 1 .1. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, face to face before God, the fellowship of the

Father and the Son. And here you have an advocate that knows the Father. He could stand in God's presence, blameless as an intercessor.

And what does the text say? He's the righteous one. You want to know about his character? How can he stand before this thrice holy

God? Because he is in fact the righteous one. He's morally pure.

He's ethically holy. And he can stand before God in your place. You don't wanna have a crook standing up for you.

You wanna have someone like this stand for you. And it says in the text, and he himself is the atonement, our propitiation for our sins.

He doesn't want us to sin, but when we do, we have an advocate. Who else could live that life for us?

Who else could die on the cross for us? You need someone when you stand before God to help you in this lawsuit.

Now I hear people say all the time, well, I have a personal relationship with Jesus. Is that true?

Yes. But everyone has a personal relationship with Jesus. If you're not a

Christian, the personal relationship with Jesus is he's your arch enemy. And he takes sin against him personally.

How many times do you have to spit in his face before he's angry? And we have a personal relationship, why?

Because I did something, because I believe, because I loved, I repented or whatever.

Here's how you have a personal relationship with God the Father, through the advocate and through the advocate's worth alone.

Jesus is the only mediator. If you'd like to go to heaven when you die, it has to be through Jesus. I've told the story many times and I'm just hearken back to it because we are a dying congregation.

We are getting sick and older and one day we'll all face God. And when I visited Mark in the hospital when he had cancer, he was going to die certainly.

And he did die several days later. And when I went to Mark's room, I got back from South Africa and I said to Mark, I said,

Mark, it's Pastor Mike, I'm here to visit you. His eyes were closed. I said,

Mark, you know you're going to die, Mark Westcott. And he opened up his eyes. And I said, are you afraid to die?

He said, I'm not afraid to die at all. But if you didn't have a mediator, you should be very frightened.

I said, Mark, you're sinful. You're just like me. How can you stand before God? You should be afraid, shouldn't you?

And then Mark said, I'm not afraid because Jesus paid for all my sins. And I cried and he cried.

You have to have the advocate. You have to have one who's the mediator. And John says, we have this advocate and he's the righteous one who can just saunter into God's presence.

No one can except the righteous one. And he's on your side. He's your advocate. You have him now, no matter what the sins are.

Sins are not the barrier now for fellowship with God. And it probably doesn't take you very long to say to yourself, if Jesus is the only high priest

Hebrews 4, he's the only advocate. He's the only one who could say of the father, I always do what's pleasing to the father.

There are going to be competitions and competing forces for the mediatorial work of Christ. We were just in Europe and seeing the sites of the reformation.

And this was a battleground. This is not just Protestants flinging arrows against Roman Catholics.

It went both ways because they were battling for truth, for heaven, for hell. How was a man right in God's eyes?

How was a woman right in God's eyes? And both of them, you have Luther and Zwingli and Calvin, and you have the council of Trent.

It was a battle. And the battle was fought, yes, over scripture. Yes, over faith alone, through grace alone.

But the battle was, is Jesus your only mediator? And for Rome, he wasn't the only mediator because it was

Christ plus. And it doesn't take very long to make you think it's Christ plus the

Pope and the priests. The Pope is known as to this day, even the

Supreme Pontiff. You ever ask yourself what a pontiff is? Now, if you go to Florence, Italy, they have

Michelangelo's David, which is a sight to behold. And then they have a special bridge where they sell things.

And what's that name of that bridge? The, you ever been to Maine?

You ever been outside of Massachusetts? It's called the Ponte Vecchio. Went to Maine yesterday, by the way, and it said at the ice cream place, if you are pregnant, you get a free pickle with your ice cream.

I thought, this is just like Berkeley, as far as I'm concerned. What kind of place is this?

What if I self -identify as being pregnant? Then do I get one? It's crazy.

Ponte Vecchio is the name of the bridge because that's where we get the word bridge.

Pontifex, it's a bridge, it's a mediator. God is a holy, we're sinful and you need someone to bridge the gap, to mine the gap, to somehow be a mediator.

Remember it was Job in chapter nine. Job says, God, I know you're sovereign and I know you'd care for me. If there was just someone who could put their hand on you and at me at the same time,

I need to have a go -between. Otherwise, I'm just like Isaiah and stand before God and be undone.

Pontifus Maximus used to be for Roman Caesar, but soon after, gets transferred over to the

Bishop of Rome. The Pope called Pontifus Maximus the ultimate bridge builder.

That's a denial of Solus Christus. That's a denial of in Christ Jesus, we have an advocate. There's one mediator between God and man and it's who?

The man Christ Jesus. You need a man to be your mediator because he's your representative and you need to have a man

Christ Jesus who's the Messiah, the anointed one, the one who is the eternal son. You need both to be your mediator.

There's competition between Christ and Christ alone. Catholics said Christ, but it wasn't Christ alone because Christ works through the

Pope, through the Father, Holy Father. It doesn't take very long for us to say, do you know what?

If the scriptures teach Christ alone as a mediator, there are competitive people wanting mediatorial roles and the

Reformation was battling, men fighting it out doctrinally. Christ alone or Christ plus Mary.

The Roman Catholic catechism says she was preserved immune from all stain of original sin. They have to teach that because how can you have a mediator that's sinful?

Because a sinful mediator would need a mediator. She is called in the

Catholic catechism, capital letters, Advocate, Helper, Benefactress and Mediatrix.

I mean, Mary calls God her Savior, Savior from sin and after chapter one of Acts, she just walks right off the pages of scripture.

She's not a co -redeemer. She's not the righteous one. And furthermore, if you wanna see

Christ alone or in the Reformation, the battle was over something else. It was called the treasury of merit.

And here's the treasury of merit. Some saints are so holy that they can not only earn salvation by their own righteousness, they can earn extra.

They've got above and beyond, they've got surplus. And so I've got enough good deeds to save me, but I've been so good,

I've got extra deeds to save you. It's called the treasury of merit. And you can pray to saints and then they might give you some of their extra merit.

I'd like you to turn your Bibles to John chapter one. And we just briefly looked at first John two and the main text

I wanna look at today is from John chapter one, the mediatorial role of Jesus. So if you're here and you're a

Roman Catholic, you can say, you know what? I should probably find out if these things are true. And if you're a

Protestant, you should probably say the exact same thing. Who is the mediator? And does the glory of God diminish if you have an extra mediator?

Jesus is fine, but is Jesus enough? Is his life and death sufficient? So John chapter one, we're gonna look at the mediatorial role of only

Jesus. Now, of course, this starts off, this book does with a wonderful prologue.

Remember, if you go to Mark, there's no genealogy because Mark's a servant.

Slaves don't have genealogies. They don't know even when they were born. And when you go to Luke and here's this great king, there's gonna be a genealogy early on.

You go to Matthew, here's the Jewish king, there's gonna be a genealogy early on. John, is there a genealogy in the book of John?

Yes, but it's the divine genealogy. It's eternity past genealogy. Jesus exists with, or Christ exists with the father.

And John the Baptist knew of this Jesus. It says in verse 29 of chapter one, the next day he saw

Jesus coming toward him and said, behold, the lamb of God. You can just imagine all that Levitical sacrificial temporary system embodied in this.

You have to have death for sin to be assuaged. And now you have the ultimate lamb who takes away not just the sin of one person, not just the sin of a family in Passover, not just Yom Kippur with a nation, but of the world,

Jews, Gentiles, all those who would look. Verse 30, this is he of whom

I said, after me comes a man who ranks before me because he was before me. John the

Baptist is talking. I myself did not know him, but for this purpose, I came baptizing with water that he might be revealed to Israel.

John bore witness, I saw the spirit descend from heaven like a dove and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, he on whom you see the spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the

Holy Spirit. And I have seen and I bore witness that this is the son of God. The next day,

John was standing with his two disciples and he looked at Jesus as he walked and said, behold, the lamb of God. Two disciples heard him say this and they followed

Jesus. Jesus turned and saw them following and said, what are you seeking? Rabbi, where are you staying?

Come and you will see. So they came and saw where he was staying and they stayed with him that day for it was about the 10th hour.

One of the two who heard John speak and followed Andrew, Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first found his own brother

Simon and said to him, we have found the Messiah, which means Christ. He brought him to Jesus.

Jesus looked at him and said, you are Simon, the son of John. You shall be called Cephas, which means

Peter. And now we come into our text. The next day,

Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, follow me.

Just stop there for a second and just let that sink in. It's like a Selah moment. I don't know if it's a compelling force of Jesus's personhood.

I don't know if it's supernatural elements involved, probably both. And he says to someone, follow me.

This is Abraham -like. How long? Where to? No, you just follow me.

This is in essence, like a little mini picture of when we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. We have no idea where he'll take us or where we'll go.

Follow me. It's unconditional. You're all in. That's what

Johnson used to say. These are sealed orders. Follow me and I'll tell you later where you're going to go.

What's he do? He just drops everything to follow him. Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.

You're gonna get a hint of what's gonna happen right now. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, we found him of whom

Moses in the law, everything about the Messiah was found in Moses as well.

And the prophets also wrote Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.

Moses wrote about this Messiah. The prophets wrote about this Messiah and we found the Messiah.

Who is Nathanael? Most people think he's probably the personal name of Bartholomew. Nathanael said to him, can anything good come out of Nazareth?

Philip said to him, come and see. Nazareth was this bad town. This was like Crete in Greece.

Cretans are always liars and evil beasts and lazy gluttons. Those Cretes have a bad name.

I'm trying to think of a town around here. Where's everybody not from? Last week I said, when

I was criticizing Wonder Bread, I almost said, does anybody here work for Wonder Bread before I criticized? I didn't say it.

Guy at the door, visitor said, I worked for Wonder Bread for 10 years, I never knew that. Okay, I have tenure.

Does anything good come out of Fitchburg? I mean, it's

Fitchburg. People down in Jerusalem, in New York City, they don't care what's going on in Fitchburg.

The Messiah of the world is in Fitchburg. You've got to be kidding me. Nothing good comes out of Nazareth.

In John chapter seven, they answered and said, you are not also from Galilee, are you? Search the scriptures and see no prophet arises out of Galilee.

Jonah excluded, of course, but they were very selective. The Messiah is going to come from a wicked place.

But doesn't that make all the sense in the world? The Messiah doesn't come from a weird, isolated place where all the monks live, living holy lives.

The Messiah comes from a place full of sinners. You can almost feel and sense subjectively this whole come and see argument is given to you, the reader, too.

What's about all this Jesus stuff? Come and see, come and find out, come and believe. Matter of fact, the entire book is, do you believe?

Will you believe? You must believe. Verse 47 of John one,

Jesus saw Nathanael coming to Him and said of Him, behold, an Israelite indeed in whom is no guile.

That's what Jesus said of Nathanael. Now what's the point?

While everybody else is saying, yeah, who's from Nazareth? Who can come from Nazareth? It's a bum place.

It's a wicked place. Nathanael doesn't think that way. He doesn't have any hypocrisy when it comes to that.

Of course, he's a sinful person, but when it comes to this idea, there's no guile in Nathanael's life.

And he's an Israelite. Does the text not say that? An Israelite. He's a follower of Jacob.

S. Lewis Johnson translated it this way. Behold an Israelite in whom there's no Jacob. Jacob, that deceiver.

Nathanael said to him, because it was right, what Jesus said about him was right. Nathanael knew he was going there just to investigate with a clear conscience and no duplicitous motives.

And Nathanael knows he's been known. How do you know me? See, Jesus hit the nail on the head.

Jesus answered and said to him, something even more outstanding. Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree,

I saw you. If you think that's something, then let me tell you something else that I know about you.

When you were under the fig tree, by the way, what do you do under fig trees? Well, maybe if you're a kid, you say you eat the figs that drop.

It's like the orchard by our house. I asked the guy, could we eat some of the apples off the tree once in a while?

He said, no. So, no,

I'm just kidding. No, no, I didn't do that. I said to the kids, you could only pick up apples off the ground.

You're gonna throw those away anyway. They have machines, by the way, for almonds and pistachios and stuff like that, that just vibrates the tree and drops all the seeds down.

What do you do under a fig tree? Guess what you do under a fig tree? It was common knowledge within rabbinical circles and the traditions of the day.

You studied. You had a little devotion. It's quiet, shady, fruits around, and you go, you have quiet times under fig trees.

You have devotions where you think about the Bible and the Lord under fig trees. And Jesus said,

I saw you. I know you were engaged in this devotion. That's most likely exactly what's happening.

Before Philip called you when you were under the tree, I saw you. And by the way, the Lord Jesus Christ knew what he was reading in the

Bible. Let's say I'm right, he's reading the Bible, and I know what you were reading, and what was he reading? Any guesses on what

Nathaniel under the fig tree was reading from the Bible? Well, let's find out.

Turn to Genesis 28, please. He was reading Genesis 28 and Jesus knew it. And Jesus is going to talk to him like he knows what he was reading.

Genesis 28, I was reading some of this this morning, of course, Jacob and Esau, and Jacob, the younger, stealing the blessing by lying to his father and putting the skin on and duplicitous with his mother to steal the blessing.

And off he goes, Jacob leaving his mother, mama's boy, wondering what it's going to be like to go find a wife.

I'm not supposed to get a Canaanite wife, so find a different wife. And it says in Genesis 28, 10,

Jacob left Beersheba and went to Haran. We got about a 500 mile journey.

He's 50 miles in, maybe it's the second day or so. I don't know what he's thinking about, deceiving his dad, being a mama's boy, wishing he was with mom, where am

I gonna go? And it says in verse 11, and he came to a certain place. By the way, that's all providence language.

Oh, he came to a certain place, he stumbled on a such and such a place. By happen chance, he just stepped upon this place called

Bethel, house of God. This is all the providence of God. And stayed there that night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and laid down in that place to sleep.

That place, that certain place, that particular night. Out in the open field, there's supposed to be all kinds of rocks in this area.

One guy described it as a bleak moorland. Now it's weird for us to use a stone pillow.

Stones have been used back in Exodus 17. Moses' hand grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him.

I don't know if the stone was put under the head and then maybe put your cloak on top of that for a little padding. One guy said, there's so many rocks around there in Israel, it'd be impossible to lay your head down without putting it on a stone.

And three times you see the word behold in these next two verses, verse 12 and 13. Behold, and he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on earth.

The top reached up to heaven and behold, angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And behold,

Yahweh stood above it and said, I am Yahweh, the God of Abraham, your father, the God of Isaac, the land on which you lie,

I will give to you and to your offspring. Here's his confirmation.

He steals the blessing from his dad. He steals a blessing from God, from his dad, and now

God gives him the real blessing. And what's the text say? King James translated it ladder and we've always kept it as such.

But when you think of ladder, you think of like rungs of a ladder. This has nothing to do with rungs. This is like a staircase.

It's a stairway. It's a stairway to heaven is what it is. You should be thinking ziggurats and Mesopotamian temples that are painted blue up on top that kind of blend into the sky.

So you have access between earth and the people and God and heaven. God is standing over this stairway.

I mean, I think you could probably think of it like a, what are those things? Escalators. It's like an escalator.

It's a steep ramp of steps. And there's these angels everywhere.

I mean, we have these shows. Thankfully, it's just reruns now, Touched by an Angel. That was a rare occurrence to see an angel back in those days.

Daniel, yes. Mary, yes. Joseph, yes. The women of the tomb, yes. Paul, yes.

John the Evangelist, yes. And pretty much nobody else. And now here's angels that are ascending, descending this stairway, this entrance, this access point.

Thousands upon thousands. They're not talking because the point is that the angels talking.

I am Yahweh. God shows up. You build up this high ziggurat back in the old days of Mesopotamia.

I think Genesis 11 with the Tower of Babel. And we're gonna go up and meet God and seek

God and get to God. There's this ladder, this link.

And the angels are going up and down. There's this uninterrupted fellowship between God and earth.

God and man. And there's this gap, why?

Because sin has separated God and man. We've been separated and there needs to be a closing of the gap.

People think God is unreachable and far away. They at least wanna live like that.

And they deny that God is able to come to earth. Spurgeon said, how precious it must have seemed as if it came to Jacob in that den of a place where he lay with the hedges for his curtains, the heavens for his canopy, the earth for his bed, stones for his pillow, and God for his companion.

I am with thee. And I will not leave thee.

Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, surely Yahweh is in this place and I did not know it. God keeps all his promises, preserves all his intentions.

I'm at this very gate of heaven, this access point. And here we have a special manifestation of God.

And he was afraid, verse 17, how awesome is this place, how fearful is this place, how reverent

I should respond to this place. This is none other than the house of God and this is the gate of heaven.

And she's buying me a stairway to heaven. We are climbing, climbing

Jacob's ladder, soldiers of the Lord. But we are so dense and so pride -filled and so human -centered, we're thinking we're climbing up the

Tower of Babel to get to God, but it has to be God, the gateway of heaven, the transcendent

God who becomes relational and eminent through a ladder, through a stairway, through what the angels ascend and descend on.

And the Lord Jesus Christ sees Nathanael under a fig tree and says, I already know who you are.

I know there's no Guile, there's no Jacob in you. I know you're studying the Bible and I know you're studying

Genesis 28. I know you're studying the gateway of heaven and now I have some more news for you. Let's turn back to John chapter one and see what it is.

It's the best. By the way, this kind of message should motivate you to keep reading your

Old Testaments because that is the Testament that Jesus had and the apostles, and it's not old and archaic.

It's first maybe and older, but it's wonderful. Who is the mediator?

Is Christ enough? Do you need another? John 1 .48, let's read that again.

Nathanael said to him, how do you know me? Soon enough,

Jesus is gonna talk in John three about knowing him, knowing what's in a man, John two. Before Philip called you when you were under the fig tree,

I saw you, supernatural knowledge. You're meditating on Genesis 28.

How do I know that? Because Jesus is going to talk about that. But first Nathanael answered and said to him, with terms that are glowing, worshipful terms.

He says three things about Jesus. Rabbi, that's a little bit different than his earlier approach.

Rabbi, you are the son of God. The promised one of Israel, he's you.

You're the son of God. That's language from 2 Samuel seven. That's language from Psalm two.

That's language from John. I will tell of his decree, 2

Samuel seven. And the Lord said to me, you are my son. Today I've begotten you. And not only that, not only rabbi, not only son, but you're the king of Israel.

Hey, there's an Israelite in whom there's no guile. I'm an Israelite. You're the Messiah. You're my king.

I submit to you. I mean, later they'll say hail king of the

Jews, but this is said in a good way. Jesus is the Messiah. You're God in the flesh.

Whatever it is for praise, this is the highest expression of praise known to Nathanael. And here comes a connection.

Verse 50, Jesus answered and said to him, because I said to you that I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe?

You shall see greater things than these. I know you've been looking at Genesis 28.

I know you've been studying that passage about holy heavens opening up to allow communication with sinful man.

I know you've been studying on the idea that there's communion between God and man. There's communion between heaven and there's communion with heaven and earth.

I know you've been studying all that and you're gonna see something greater than that.

Verse 51, and he said to him, amen, amen, truly, truly, verily, verily,

I say to you, you shall see the heavens open. See, Jacob, I mean, see,

Nathanael, I know what you've been studying. You shall see the heavens open. It wasn't just Jacob laying there that night in Bethel.

You're going to see the heavens open. This is the greater thing. And the angels of God ascending and descending, just like in Genesis chapter 28, but there's no ladder here.

There's no stairway here. There's no escalator here. And there's nothing you can buy to earn it.

It's been done by the pleasure of God and because he loves sinners, descending on the son of man.

I am the access, Nathanael, between God and man. I am the one that can communicate to you how you're reconciled with God because I am that reconciliation incarnate.

I am the link between heaven and earth. You could probably even skip ahead to chapter three, verse 13, couldn't you?

Doesn't he say something very similar? No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the son of man.

Heaven's open. How do I get there? I need a mediator. Angels go up and down and communicate access, but he says,

I am the ladder. And everything you see in John so far is talking about the exaltation of Christ Jesus.

He's known as God, the light of men, the true life, only begotten from the Father, greater than John the

Baptist, only begotten God, Son, Lord, Lamb, person who baptizes with the

Holy Spirit, God's chosen one, the Son of God, Rabbi, the Messiah, the

King of Israel, of he whom Moses and the prophets wrote, and now he's the one who's the access to God.

He's the mediator. Jesus, as one man said, is the real ziggurat, the ultimate staircase, descending and ascending on the

Son of Man. S. Lewis Johnson, quote, the ladder is the

Son of Man, the angels ascending and descending upon him, point to the establishment of an enduring communion between heaven and earth through the mediation of the

Son of Man, the Pontifus Maximus. True or false?

Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father but through me. True, he is the mediator.

1 Timothy 2, 5, and 6, for there is one God and one mediator, also between God and men, the man

Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, the testimony born at the proper time.

So when you hear the word Jacob's ladder, I hope you don't think of the new cardio machine that they have at my gym in Clinton.

I tried it the other day. I'm too old to do these things. Back in the old days, I worked out with the free weights down below with all the guys, guys, and the girls who are like guys.

I used to work out with the American gladiators in North Hollywood, but I didn't really like it because even the girls could bench more weight than I could, and it was really a bad thing.

One time Denzel Washington needed a spot, and so I said, I'll spot you. And then it was so much weight, it went down, it was like on his neck, and I said, if you believe in the

Lord Jesus, I'll help you with this up. They have this machine at the gym,

Jacob's ladder cardio machine, and up the rungs you go, climbing higher and higher, and if you go a little bit lower, you'll slow down, go a little bit higher or go faster.

Maybe you think of Jacob's ladder as that little toy that they found in King Tut's tomb with strings and ribbons and tumbling blocks that pilgrims would allow their children to play with, except on Sundays.

But here, the American spiritual, we are climbing Jacob's ladder, we are climbing Jacob's ladder, we are climbing

Jacob's ladder, soldiers of the cross. Every round goes higher, higher, every round goes higher, higher, every round goes higher, higher, soldiers of the cross.

If I'm a kid, I'm thinking, help! Sinner, do you love Jesus? Sinner, do you love my

Jesus? Sinner, do you love my Jesus? Soldiers of the cross, I'm thinking, how much do you really love Jesus?

If that's what you have to do to get to heaven is to love Jesus with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, how are you doing?

This is a cardio workout. If you love Him, why not serve Him? If you love Him, why not serve

Him? If you love Him, why not serve Him? Soldier of the cross. But since the

Bible teaches solus Christus, through Jesus alone, to stand before God, that thrice holy

God of whom the angels say, holy, holy, holy, you need to do only one thing, and that is believe in the ladder, the staircase, the escalator, the

Son of Man, who's the King of Israel and everyone else, and trust that He grants access to the

Father as your advocate, who can make you stand in His presence with great joy, blameless.

Why would you settle for anyone else to have you help you in this role?

It is Christ alone. There's a song called the Litany of Loretto, and the

Virgin Mary is given the title Stairway to Heaven. You can't buy the stairway of heaven, and Mary's not the stairway of heaven.

Jesus is the only stairway of heaven. Do you believe Him? Because you will stand before Him one day, and you need an advocate.

You need a righteous advocate. You need an advocate who's paid for your sins, and that is the God of 1 John chapter two.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I do thank You for the truth that Jesus alone is

Savior. There are no other mediators. And Father, frankly, who would be the better mediator?

Who could love us more than Jesus? Who has more power than Jesus? Who's wiser than Jesus?

Who's more righteous than Jesus? Jesus knows us like He knew

Nathanael from the inside out. And He knew Nathanael needed a Savior because while there was no guile in His speech, there was guile in His heart, and we too are like that.

So we rejoice today as Christian people that you don't see us based on our sins. You don't identify us based on our problems.

We are in Christ Jesus, in Him, union with Christ. And for those that are here today, there must be some who are trusting in Jesus, plus I pray that You would have them repent and consider and come and see.