Sunday School - Back To Basic Part 6

your grace and your love towards us in Christ. We pray God, your blessing over our time together and our praise and worship and also our study.

We pray God that you'd illuminate in our minds the truth of your word and grant us the gift of thy Holy Spirit so that we may be able to understand and discern your truth that is from your word in power and in demonstration of the spirit.

And we pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. My voice sounds like a robot. It's because I've got a sore throat.

Not COVID, got tested like twice. And I don't feel sick otherwise other than a little bit of the sniffles here.

But we're gonna be studying a really interesting and important topic today and that's soteriology.

Anyone know what soteriology means? Yeah? That's right, it's, soteriology is a study.

It's the theological systematic study of the doctrine of salvation. And this is what we're gonna be attempting to go over in our time together is the doctrine of salvation.

This is a climax of, one of the climaxes of the study. And it's the climax of God's redemptive history,

God's redemptive story. It's one of redemption. It's one of salvation. It's one of deliverance. When you look at the

Old Testament, the story of the Old Testament, the themes, the thematic theme of the

Old Testament is one of deliverance, right? So what's probably the most well -known story of the

Old Testament? Yeah, what's the most well -known story of the

Old Testament? The Exodus, right? And it is a story of God delivering a people from oppression, from sin, from slavery and granting them passage into a new land, into a new world.

And that's really the metanarrative of the scriptures. It's a story of redemption. It's a story of God redeeming a people.

And now we're gonna study what the overall theology is surrounding salvation.

And we're gonna start with the doctrine of salvation in regard to why, like why is there a doctrine of salvation?

Why do we need deliverance? What's the problem at hand? What is the problem at hand?

Well, why does the

Bible have such a focus and emphasis on deliverance, on salvation? Why, why do we need it?

There's a three -letter word, right? And it's sin. We all have fallen short of the glory of God.

So Romans chapter three, verse 23, we're gonna be focusing a lot in Romans three. So why don't you turn there for a second. Romans three is gonna be a major focus of today's study.

And it says in verse 23 of Romans three, this is a really great text for you to remember.

It's nice and short to the point. It says, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Not some, not most, not a little, but all have fallen short.

All have sinned. All have gone astray. Therefore, we see the impetus, the reason for the need for salvation.

Therefore, the need also to understand the doctrine of salvation in soteriology, okay?

And so when we look at the issue at hand, the first part

I want you to write in, the doctrine of salvation deals with man's sin. You put the word sin or transgression, because what's the difference between a sin and a transgression?

Anyone know? What does it mean to transgress versus sin? Or is there a difference?

There is a distinction. Yeah, there is a distinction. Sin is a very general, it's a very general thing.

The word sin, you know what the word sin means? Anyone know? What does the word sin mean? Missing the mark.

That's exactly what it means. So the imagery behind the word sin is you take a dart, for instance, and take a, you know, what do you call that game?

When you throw a dart? Is it just throwing darts? Okay, all right. What's it called? Yeah, okay, just throwing darts, right?

So imagine like you've got the thing, you're trying to hit the bullseye, and you miss the mark, and you miss.

That's sin. Sin is missing a standard. It's missing the mark, right? So God says, this is what you're to do, and every time you don't do what

God says, that is a missing of the mark. It is a sin. Now, with regard to transgression, transgression is actually a legal term, and it's a legal term which means that you willingly, knowingly broke the law, okay?

Versus sometimes we're trying, but we missed the mark, right? Transgression is a whole nother level, because it's a willingness.

It's you willfully did this, right? And that's transgression. So if you lie to someone, you are transgressing them, because you are purposely being deceitful.

You are purposely withholding information or truth. So that's the difference between sin and transgression.

Does that make sense? But both are part of the deal here. They kind of both obviously end you in the same place, does it not?

Either whether you call it sin, missing the mark, or transgression, you inevitably lead down the road to destruction, and that's why you need a savior.

And so the doctrine of salvation deals with man's sin or transgression.

And so we see in Romans chapter three, starting in verse 21, I'm gonna read that again. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law through the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it.

The righteousness of God through faith in Christ, in Jesus Christ, for all who believe, for there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

So Paul's making a very clear statement. He's talking in context of the law, and that's why the word even transgression would make sense there too, because again, transgression is knowingly breaking the law, and you transgress

God's law. That's his standard. And so I want you to write in law at the last part there. The doctrine of salvation deals with man's sin or transgression of God's law.

First, I'm gonna read, you don't have to turn there, but I'm gonna read to you what 1 John chapter three verse four says. It says, everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness.

Sin is lawlessness, okay? Sin is transgression against the law of God.

That's what sin is. It's missing the mark. It's lawlessness. So God puts a standard.

God says do and do not, and any time we deviate from that standard, we are in sin, we are transgressing the holy law of God.

And just like we would talk to you in our class of evangelism, one of the things that we wanted to help people understand as we go through the gospel is the law of God.

Oftentimes, if we just start with, hey, Jesus loves you, like all modern day evangelicals, right? Like Jesus loves you, man, and Jesus just wants to win your heart over and all these nice platitudes, right?

But if you don't give them a reason why that's such good news, okay, well, of course Jesus loves me, because I'm awesome,

I'm perfect. I mean, who wouldn't love me? You see how many Instagram followers I have? Right? We make it, we are our own little idols, our own little gods and our own little islands, every single one of us, and especially this new generation.

We are just, we millennials and upward, we're just really self -absorbed. And so it's no wonder then when a preacher sells a sinner,

God loves them and Jesus loves them and Jesus wants to win your heart over, it's like, oh, of course he does.

Why wouldn't he? But that's not the gospel. The gospel isn't that God loves you so much because you're so perfect and you're so great and you're so beautiful, but rather because you are a sinner, rather because you have transgressed the law of God and because God, even in that state, still loves you.

That's amazing news, isn't it? And so we want to emphasize the reality of sin when we evangelize, when we tell people the good news about Jesus Christ, don't we not?

So I'm gonna print some more of these. And so, so again, we're looking at Romans 3.

We've been looking at a couple of verses there and we just looked at what 1 John 3, 4 says about sin. Sin is what again?

Missing the mark, but according to 1 John 3, 4, it is lawlessness. It's lawlessness, it's falling short, it's missing the mark, it's transgression against the law of God, thank you.

And so because of this reality, because of this truth, we recognize then that God's love, his grace, his mercy, his salvation is all the sweeter.

So one of the things that we've taught you is the way of the master, right? One of the things that we should do when we are evangelizing is we take a person through the law of God and we say, have you ever heard of the 10 commandments?

Would you mind if we go through them for a moment? Have you ever told a lie when the command says thou shalt not lie? Have you ever lied? And you ask the question, okay, yeah, okay, of course, everyone's lied, right?

Well, how many lies have you told? Well, I couldn't tell you. It's more than I can count.

Yet, scripture says, if you lie, you're a what? Liar, okay?

Scripture says, thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother. That's one of the commandments. Have you ever dishonored your father or mother?

Clearly, I have. We've missed the mark, we've sinned, we've dishonored.

We were taking God's name in vain. Absolutely, all of us are guilty of that, especially unbelievers, because they treat the name of Jesus and the name of God with such disregard and they use it as a swear word often to describe disgust.

And so we all have missed the mark in all of those things. But we have to take them through a very important exercise as well, is that we don't just show them the law, but we say also, listen, if God was a good judge, which he is, would you be guilty or innocent on the day of judgment?

What would be the proper response to that? Be guilty, just like if we went before the municipality here and we went before a judge and we said, well, judge,

I know I was speeding, but I'm a really good person. And you know, I don't really do that often and all this stuff.

And as soon as I say, well, you know, we've got you on camera and that's good enough.

Like you broke the law, you have to pay the fine. And the truth of the matter is the same is true in regard to the righteousness and holiness of God, even to the utmost degree that he is holy, perfect, and righteous.

Therefore, sin must be accounted for. Yes, I think we have some more.

So we want to remind people of the first line there again is the doctrine of salvation deals with man's sin or transgression of God's law.

So that's what sin is, it's transgression against the law. It's to miss the mark of God's perfect standard.

So the truth is we're all in trouble. Before we can get to the good news, we have to bear the bad news.

And the bad news is that we are all sinners. We've all fallen short. We've all missed the mark, but there's good news.

And the good news of salvation is a good news of starting with the work of God in election.

So the next line, salvation is God's work of the first mark. The first part of what you read is election.

I want you to turn to Romans chapter eight. Now, many

Arminians and Protestants would not consider this the first step of salvation.

In evangelicalism at large in America, the model salvation kind of looks like this.

You're a sinner because you chose to sin. And you can have eternal life if you choose

Jesus. And if you choose Jesus and you walk with him for the rest of your life, you'll be in heaven, okay?

I'm simplifying things, but really in actuality, what the

Bible teaches about salvation is that God before time, in eternity past, elected a people onto salvation.

And that's what we see in Romans chapter eight, starting in verse 28. For we know that those who love

God, all things work together for good. For those who are called according to whose purpose?

His purpose, God's purpose. For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined.

It's a very important part of the text here. Here's how some people might interpret that. They say, well, okay. So what

God did is that he looked down the corner of time. He saw all those who would choose him.

And by virtue of his foreknowledge, he elected or predestined those to salvation.

What's the problem with that interpretation? What's the problem, huh?

It contradicts what we just read in the previous part of the text. We were called according to whose purpose?

God's. Not your purpose that he foreknew. It was his purpose that he foreknew, not ours.

And it was not a base upon our decision or volition that brought us from eternity past to redemption in Jesus Christ, but rather it was according to his good purpose and will.

For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined. You see, it would be silly in the sense if God was basing his election of his people based upon the foreknowledge of those who would accept him, because if the future that God foresaw is the only future that could be, then predestination or an election would be redundant.

Would it not be? If God looked down the corner of history and saw those who would respond favorably to the gospel, and that outcome, that future that he saw is the only future that could be, then why elect?

Why predestine? Now, this gets into the discussion of open theism, and open theism actually does teach that there are infinite amount of possibilities, kind of like the

Marvel Universe multiverse, right? Anything and everything is possible. And there's other versions of you, maybe where you rejected

Jesus and you didn't reject Jesus. That's open theism. And open theism teaches that you can catch

God by surprise. 9 -11 probably caught God by surprise. I used to believe that. I was like, you know, God didn't know that was gonna happen, because if he did, he would have stopped it, right?

And so it must have caught him by surprise. Same thing in the Garden of Eden. In the Garden of Eden, God must have been taken by surprise because he goes into the garden and he asks

Adam, where are you? He didn't know, right? Of course, these are all very amateurish way of reading and understanding scripture.

But when we properly understand the doctrine of election, the doctrine of predestination, we see that it is

God and his eternal purpose, Ephesians 1. It is his, according to the counsel of his will, that he predestined all things, including you and I, for salvation.

And that's where salvation begins. It begins in the heart and mind of God in eternity past, in his election of his people in Jesus Christ.

That's right. That's right, we were spiritually dead in our trespasses and sins, and therefore, it's why the good news is such good news, is because God in his gracious forbearance and his love and his kindness, his mercy, has demonstrated his patience through vessels of honor.

That's Romans 9, right? Romans 9 talks about the vessels of honor and dishonor, and that God is the potter who chooses as he may to do what he has created.

And so the beauty of salvation starts with election. God is the one who has predetermined his people.

And election is important because, you know, we live in a democracy, in a republic, where we get to elect people every two years.

We get to fire our elected leaders and put in new ones if we want to. It's a pretty cool thing. But in God's economy, in God's kingdom, we don't get to vote for God.

We don't get to vote for who's king. Rather, the king gets to vote, elect his own people. And we are that people.

We're the people of God, whom he chose in eternity past. Isn't that gracious? Isn't that good? Don't you see the loving kindness of God in that?

Because in reality, God did not need to save anyone. God would be entirely just, righteous, holy, perfect, loving, if he allowed the whole human race to go to hell.

Take that in for a moment. He would still be just as glorious, just as marvelous, just as good, if he allowed all the human race to go to hell.

You see, the angels and the devil fell. God is not sending them a savior. They have no savior.

They will go to hell. The angels who rebelled will go into eternal punishment. They have no savior.

Yet, in his kindness and his mercy, God has given us and sent forth his son,

Jesus Christ, in the fullness of time. Born of the virgin, to die the death that we deserved, and was raised again on the third day.

And that's the good news. That's the good news. Any questions so far? See, the first part is election.

The second part is, I want you to write in regeneration. Regeneration.

So what does salvation look like? It is, again, God's work. It's God's work starting with election, and then regeneration.

What is regeneration? What is regeneration? That's right.

That's right. So regeneration, it's when you're born again. It's when

God has put his spirit in you, his seal of redemption, and he has granted you eternal life.

Though Jesus put it this way in John 5, verse 24, you will pass from death to life.

That's regeneration. It's Ephesians 2, where it says, you were once dead in your trespasses and sins, but God, being rich in mercy, made you alive, okay?

I wanna give you another great text in Titus 2. Actually, Titus 3, verse 5.

You can turn there. It says in Titus 3, verse 5, it's a beautiful text.

He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the

Holy Spirit. How does God save a person? Through regeneration.

Regeneration. So here's what regeneration looks like. God takes you, a sinner, dead in your trespasses and sins, and through the kindness of the mercy of the applied sacrifice of Jesus Christ, he

God counts you not only righteous, that's the next part of justification, but he gives you a spirit.

He grants you spiritual life at that moment, and you are regenerated.

You are a new man. Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5, verse 17, therefore, any man be in Christ, he's a new creature, a new creation, out with the old, in with the new.

Any questions on regeneration? This is what I believe Jesus was alluding to in John chapter three, when he was talking to Nicodemus, and he says, did

I marvel, did I tell you that you must be born again? That is regeneration. It is the spiritual man coming to life.

Remember, the spiritual man is dead. God breathes into you spiritual life.

Just as God formed Adam and Eve from the dust of the earth, breathe into him the breath of life, so God, through his spirit, breathes into you spiritual life through faith in Jesus Christ.

Does that make sense? Now, as Calvinists, we believe that regeneration precedes what?

Yeah? Technically, it's all kind of one big event, but there's a sequence to this event of salvation, right?

That's what I'm trying to lay out to you. There's a sequence to it. Search of election, God chose us.

God then regenerates us. We are then justified in that we can declare, we're declared righteous because of our faith in Jesus.

Okay? So the next part is justification. So salvation is God's work of election, regeneration, justification.

Does anyone know what the word justification means? To be declared righteous.

It is a legal term that is used throughout the New Testament. As a matter of fact,

Paul uses about four different Greek words in his description of this act of justification.

And so there's a lot of debate in Protestantism. There's a historically Protestant view,

Reform view. There is a Roman Catholic view and an Eastern Orthodox view of justification.

They all kind of differ, okay? And what's interesting about the connotation of the differences between those four major views of justification is, in my opinion,

I think, for instance, the Orthodox and the Catholic view conflate justification with sanctification. They believe that you are not just declared righteous, but that you are now perfectly righteous, okay?

And I don't think that's what the Bible means by justification.

You are declared righteous in that through the penal substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ, you are now declared righteous because of his perfect work, okay?

This is penal substitutionary atonement. God's perfect righteous standard has been violated by you, but Christ in his perfect obedience has won

God's favor, and he can now merit that to you. It is a merited justification.

It is a merited righteousness, but it's not merited by your own works.

It's merited through the work of Jesus Christ, and that's justification. It's Christ's perfect work being applied to you, a sinner, so that God can legally dismiss your case, so God can legally declare you righteous before the throne of grace.

Does that make sense? Any questions on any of these so far? Reflection, regeneration, justification.

Again, remember, justification is the act of God declaring one righteous by attributing to you the finished work of Jesus Christ.

It's not because of anything that you've done. Again, Titus 3 .5 makes it very clear. It is not by any work that you've done or done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration, the renewal of the

Holy Spirit. What do you think is the next one?

Sanctification. Sanctification, that's the next one. So this is all one grand work that has these aspects, election, regeneration, justification, sanctification.

What does sanctification mean? To make holy, the word, it comes from the

Latin sancti, which means holy, and holy means to be totally other than, or I like to give the analogy of being cut and separate.

It literally means to cut and separate something, just like when you're cutting a cucumber. You cut it and you separate it.

You cut it and you separate it, and that's what holiness means. That's why when sin infected the creation in Genesis 3, what did

God do? God had to sever ties of humanity, and he had to sever man from the garden.

There were cherubims with flaming swords protecting the garden so that man would not try to enter into the garden again, and this is a picture of God's holiness.

Where sin is, sin cannot dwell in the presence of God of all consequences.

Now, some people have said sin can't dwell in the presence of God. That's not true, because God's omnipresent, but what that means is that sin cannot be in the presence of God without consequence, and there will always be consequence for sin.

Does that make sense? And sanctification is the act of being cut and separate.

It is the process where God is making you holy, where God is conforming you to the image of his son,

Jesus Christ, and we'll go back to Romans 8 for a moment. So, Romans 8, verse 29, for those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son.

That's sanctification. Sanctification is you being conformed, you becoming like Jesus.

Jesus is the image of the invisible God. He is God in human flesh, and he is the one who leads us into the perfect image of himself.

We are being conformed to Jesus. Does that make sense? So, that's sanctification.

It's the being conformed part to the image of Christ, and that's the eventual hope.

As a Christian, we ought to be becoming more and more like Jesus, right? That's the hope.

That's how we know that the Spirit's at work in us, as if we're becoming more like Jesus. It doesn't mean that we're perfect. It doesn't mean that we won't stumble. It doesn't mean that we might, we could even backslide seriously in life, yet overall, the overall tenor of your life will be one that leads you to the closer image of Christ.

That's good news, isn't it? And so, that's how we know that he who began a good work in us will bring it to completion.

That's Philippians chapter one. Then it says also in verse 30, in those whom he predestined, he also called, in those whom he called, he also justified, and in those whom he justified, he will also glorify.

And that's the last part of this glorious act of redemption. It's glorification. Glorification.

What is glorification? Glorification is a final state of life.

It is the total transformation of the human estate, from that being under the condemnation of sin and slavery through Adam, to now being perfectly conformed in every way, not just spiritually, but physically conformed to the image of Christ.

Christ was raised bodily from the dead. He wasn't born, he wasn't resurrected in the spirit or as a ghost or as a apparition.

He truly became flesh in his incarnation, and he is truly flesh even now in his glorious estate in heaven as the

God -man. And we will be conformed to the perfect spiritual and physical image of Jesus Christ.

So we will share in his resurrection in the same way that Jesus was raised from the dead in the same glorious body that he holds now in heaven, we too will have and hold.

We will be truly like Christ in every regard, not that we become deified, because Jesus is the

God -man. He's truly human. He's truly God. We're never gonna become God, but we will be truly human even as he is so, truly human, without any defects of the fall, without any imperfections in the body, no sickness, no pain, no suffering, no more death.

Everything that was a result of Adam's sin will be undone. We will be perfectly whole, reconstituted as God has purposed for us in eternity past.

And this happens at the resurrection. At the resurrection, you will be totally transformed.

Paul puts it this way. You will be changed in a twinkling of an eye, okay? That's the resurrection of the dead.

We're gonna be changed. We're gonna be transferred. Our glory, our estate, our humble estate will now be conformed to his glorious estate or body.

Does that make sense? That's the hope. So sometimes as Christians, we kind of get it backwards.

When we share the gospel, we say, we want you to know Jesus so that you can go to heaven when you die.

And that's not the full gospel. Yes, when a believer dies, he goes to heaven, but that's not our final state.

That's not our final hope. We're not just, the Bible puts it this way, as a matter of fact, in 2 Corinthians 5, that while we're with Jesus, it is better.

We're at home with the Lord, but we groan because we are unclothed, okay?

When you die, your body goes in the ground, yet your spirit, soul is alive in Christ.

But it's not what God made you to be. God didn't made you to be a spirit. God didn't made you to be a ghost flying clouds in an ethereal, you know, pagan way.

Rather, what set Christianity apart from the early pagans was that Christianity was very carnal in that regard, not carnal in the sinful way, but carnal in that it focused and emphasized human life, dignity, worth, and experience, not only in this life, but in the life to come.

That's what set Christianity apart. Matter of fact, it's a pagan ideology that taught that we would just be ghosts flying in, you know, on Mount Olympus or something.

You know, that's not what the Bible teaches. So though it is true we die and we go be with the

Lord, that is not our glorification. We will be glorified when he comes in glory and he raises the dead in Christ.

Make sense? So that's a little bit of eschatology for you as well. Yes? That's right, that's right.

You know, and again, this is a unique Christian doctrine identity. And as the church became more paganized through Rome, the hope seemed to have dissipated on the resurrection and it became more focused on just dying, go to heaven.

And then evangelicals took that and ran with it. And we don't even talk about the resurrection anymore. We just talk about dying and go to heaven, dying and go to heaven.

I don't wanna die in the first place. Nobody wants to die. And so the hope really is the resurrection from the dead.

That's our glorification. So again, we see this beautiful work of redemption, of salvation, election, regeneration, justification, sanctification, and future glorification.

Praise God. Now the act of salvation is accomplished and merited.

I want you to turn to Matthew chapter 20. Can I have someone read chapter 20, verse 20 so I can conserve my voice a bit?

Yeah, Matthew 20, verse 28. You got that,

Manuel? Wanna say it nice and loud? Even as a son of man, even as a son of man, came not to be a church, but to serve, and to give his life as a representative.

What did Jesus accomplish on the ministry of the cross? What's that?

A ransom. Now what's a ransom? Think of a ransom for a moment. What is a ransom?

It's a payment. So there's always that famous ransom right from the 90s, like this little girl. I forget the details about it, but I remember when

I was a kid, this is all over the news, right? Might've been like 94 to 96, somewhere in there.

And it was about this little girl, little rich girl. I think it was in Colorado or something like that. And she was taken from her home.

It was like the prettiest little girl. She was like a little ballerina or something like that. And her life was held hostage for like a ridiculous amount of money.

And the FBI and all that stuff got involved. And it was a terrible situation. I think the little girl ended up dying. But when you think of ransom, we usually think of a kidnapping.

We think of a scenario similar to that. And in some respect, it actually is exactly that.

We are under slavery. We've been sold under sin, Paul says.

We're hostage to sin, death, and the devil, okay?

We're held hostage. And Jesus Christ has paid the ransom that was necessary to appease not

Satan, but to appease a holy and righteous God. He made the payment, paid the penalty for our sins.

That's the good news. That's the good news. And so the word

I want you to put in there is the act of salvation is accomplished and merited by the ransom or atonement of Jesus Christ, the ransom sacrifice or atonement of Jesus Christ.

Now, the word ransom and atonement are interchangeable, mean the same thing. To atone for something means to make payment, to satisfy a debt, okay?

And that's exactly what Jesus Christ did through the ministry of his cross. Let's turn to 1

Timothy chapter two for a moment. 1

Timothy chapter two, and can someone read verse five and six?

I'll read. Okay. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and man, the man

Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is a testimony given at the cross of his heart.

So what did Jesus Christ do? He's the first and foremost, the mediator between God and man, the man

Christ Jesus. So Jesus is again a man. He's human, he's fully human.

And he gave himself as a ransom for all. Now think of it this way.

Think of a scales, think of an ancient, like you know how those old scales, you've seen them for like in Roman times, they had these scales, and that's how they would weigh to see if you put enough money or product, and they would weigh on the scale.

Consider on one end, all of humanity, all of humanity under Adam is on a scale, and their sin has weighed them down.

There's only one way that the scales can be balanced, and it's through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the perfect Adam. He's the second Adam. Adam just means man. In Hebrew, Adam means man.

And so Jesus is the perfect man, the perfect Adam. And in Christ, through his perfect obedience, through his sacrifice on the cross, he brings one man is able to scale the balance of all of humanity's sins.

How incredible, or specifically of his elect. Because I believe that not one drop of blood was lost.

The blood of Jesus saves all those that it was intended to save. And so you see the scales of justice and of righteousness fully appeased, fully satisfied in the ransom of Jesus Christ.

So it was through one man's, or Paul puts it this way in Romans 5, it was by one man's transgression that sin entered the world, therefore all die.

But it is by one man's obedience that all can be made alive, and it's through the obedience of Jesus Christ.

One man's act of disobedience in Adam doomed the whole human race, and one act of obedience, salvation, the salvific work of Jesus Christ, through his death, burial, and resurrection, was able to counteract the balance, atone, ransom, satisfied for the sins of the world.

It's pretty amazing, isn't it? In Romans 3, we see this glorious doctrine emphasized, starting in verse 24, after it says, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, we are, and are justified by his grace as a gift of the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom

God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith, that this was to show

God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be the just, and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

This is incredible, because it says that God put forward Jesus as a propitiation.

Anyone know what the word means? It's a fancy word, propitiation. What does that word mean? That's right.

It's divine appeasement. It means that, again, it's very similar to the word ransom.

There was a debt, an obligation that was owed, and God righteously appointed a man to fill that obligation in Jesus Christ, and he is to receive by faith.

And this is to show God's righteousness and his forbearance, his kindness, and that he's the one who justifies the one who has faith in Jesus.

So this is a great text to highlight these truths. Now, what are we saved from?

We're saved from the wrath of God. Think about that for a moment. You can write that in the next part there.

We are saved from the wrath of God. Think of the implications of that for a moment.

We're not just saved from sin. We're not just saved from death. We're not just saved from the devil.

We're not just saved from any other host of enemies, of which there are many.

And we are saved from all those things, of course. But more greatly, the teaching of Scripture is that God saves us from himself and to himself.

He saves us from himself in that, again, he's a good and righteous judge. He has to hold sin to account.

But when he saves us from his wrath, he saves us unto himself to gather a people of all nations, tribes, and languages, and tongues so that he may have a redeemed people, a peculiar people is what the

New Testament calls us, a peculiar people for his own possession. And so God is indeed saving us from himself.

Some good scriptures that point to that truth, because some people might be uncomfortable with that truth and say, well, that just sounds terrible.

Like, you know, why does God have to save us from himself? Well, it's because it's a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living

God, the Bible says. And the Scripture says, in 1 Thessalonians 1, verse 10, it says, and to wait for his

Son from heaven, whom he has raised from the dead, Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come.

Jesus is the one who delivers us from the wrath to come.

In chapter five of that same, the same letter, he says in verse nine, for God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our

Lord Jesus Christ. And Romans chapter five, it says,

I'll read it for you as well. Verse nine says, since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.

We are saved by Christ from the wrath of God. Pretty clear, right? Can't argue with the facts here.

We can't argue with what the Scripture is saying and teaching here. God saves us from his wrath.

And that's what we see. So there's a kind of an inaccurate statement that a lot of Christians make in regard to hell, for instance.

People say that hell is the place that is devoid, hell is the place that's devoid of God.

No, no, no, no. Hell is not the place devoid of God's presence.

In fact, it is the place where you get God in all of his glory. God in all of his majesty and glory and might is poured out on the sinner and it crushes them for eternity.

That's hell. How do we know this? Revelation 14 says that they will be tormented day and night in the presence of God and of the

Lamb forever and ever in the presence of his holiness. You know, there's a famous atheist who

I got to meet several years ago before he died, Christopher Hitchens. And Christopher Hitchens was often asked a similar question in a lot of his debates.

He would ask him a question more or less like this. If you die, this is a man who died from cancer, he was sick, and you met

God, like what would you say to him, right? He's an atheist, he doesn't believe in God. He said, well, if God is real and there is a

God and I die, I'm just gonna throw all these, essentially, I'm paraphrasing, I'm gonna throw all these things in his face.

Why did you allow cancer for little kids? Why did you allow so many wars and famines? Why did you go off the list?

I forget who it was, but someone came up with a perfect response that says, the moment that you see Jesus, you will fall to your face because for the first time, you will know and be in the presence of true holiness.

You will not be able to utter a word before the majesty of heaven. And so that is exactly what happens in hell.

Hell is not the place that's devoid of God's presence, it's the place where God's presence crushes the sinner. This is why in the

Bible it says of the Messiah in Isaiah 53, that it pleased Yahweh to crush him.

Speaking of the Messiah's work on the cross, which is why Jesus could say on the cross, my God, my God, why art thou forsaken me?

Quoting from Psalm 22. And so the crushing of the, it's a crushing weight of the wrath of God.

It's a crushing weight of the wrath of God. And that's what we're saved from. And that's good news. We're saved from his wrath and we're delivered from his wrath.

That's the privilege of the Christian. Any questions on that? Last part of this is important.

And it's gonna segue into our next discussion. I won't be here next Sunday, but the following Sunday we'll be finishing up, or I might continue doing more of these if you guys like it.

Back to basics, there's a host of things I can keep doing. But the original idea was you just do like seven weeks.

And so the next one will be on the doctrines of great, or the doctrines of reformation, reformation doctrine.

So the doctrines of grace as we call them. But it really centers around these, this last part that we're gonna go into.

And it's how is a person saved? How is a person made right with God? Now that we learn what

God's, learning about soteriology, we're learning about God's active work of salvation through election, regeneration, justification, sanctification, future glorification, and how

God has made a means for that through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And he saves us from the wrath to come.

Yet, how does a man get there? How does a sinner get to benefit from such great a salvation?

And the Bible says in Ephesians chapter two, let's go there again. Today we'll be finishing our sermon series in Ephesians.

It'd be good to recap this in Ephesians chapter two.

Starting in verse one, you are dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind and work by nature, children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love of which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved.

And raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. This is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast.

For we are his worksmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

Man is not saved by what? Works, you can't earn it. There's not enough works that you can possibly muster to earn the righteousness, the favor, the loving kindness of God.

Yet, God has made a way for us to be made right with him. It is by grace, grace, which is the undeserved kindness, unmerited favor, that's what the word grace means.

And it's by grace through what mechanism? Faith, and not just any faith, but a faith that is in Jesus Christ.

It is true and saving faith, a salvific faith that understands that one, you are a sinner.

You've broken God's law, you've broken, you know, you've transgressed against God's holy standard.

And because of this transgression of the law, you are rightly under the penalty and condemnation of sin.

Yet, God being rich in mercy has made us alive in Christ by grace through faith in the

Lord Jesus Christ. And this is what we'll be focusing on more as we look at the doctrines of grace in the future.

Any thoughts or questions on soteriology? You've got something,

Pastor? Pastor? That's right.

That's right. That's right.

That is a debate amongst many Protestants and Christians as to the nature of what that means, that he who knew no sin became sin.

Is that a representative? Is it that, what does that mean? Was Jesus like a, in his flesh, was he a sponge that soaked up all the sins of humanity and then

God crushes that? I don't have an answer to that. It's a deep one.

But ultimately, what you just stated is true. We receive the righteousness of God by that act. And we're legally, our case, the case that, you know, the

Bible calls Satan the accuser of the brethren. When you see in Job chapter one, you see Job or Satan bartering with God, right?

Trying to get Moses or get Job to sin and God's going back and forth, wagering on the obedience of Job.

He's accusing him. So if I bet you, if I take this away, you know, he'll not serve you.

And I mentioned that because in the context, Satan is like a, what's the

Lord on the other side called? Not your defender, he's the prosecutor. Yeah, he's the prosecutor.

And he's saying all these things, like bring it to God's face and look what your servant did, look what he did, look what, you know.

And God can legally dismiss our case. There's now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.

I think that's completely,

I think in extreme, they make some really crazy connections.

The way that Jesus took on the nature of Satan. Yeah, no, no, no. Yeah, that's, I forget what the heresy is called, but.

That's way off. Yeah, and there's other heresies too, where they kind of make Satan the scapegoat, where that Satan or that Jesus takes the sins and then puts it on Satan.

And it's just really weird theology. It's not what the Bible teaches, clearly. I've heard the teaching from like. Yeah. Yeah, not good theology.

But here we've learned some good theology. We've learned some good truths about God's word and act of salvation. So let me pray for us and then we'll get ready for service in a few.

God, thank you so much, Lord, that you've given us this lesson today, that we can focus on the joy of our salvation.

Or we don't know what, we don't know what lies ahead in our day -to -day life, God, but we know how it'll end and that it'll end ultimately in glory because of your finished work, because of the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross and his obedience to the

Father, that he won for us and he won for God, a people of every tribe, nation, and tongue. So Lord, bless us as we go and prepare for service.