Death and Judgment, Part 2 - Hebrews 9:27-28

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Lesson 11: Defining and Defending the Canon, Part 3

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And if you're not there, please turn to Hebrews chapter nine in your copy of God's word. All right, and let's begin with a word of prayer.

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Our Father, our prayer is the same as that of the Lord Jesus that you would sanctify us by your truth. We thank you for your word, and we know that you use your word to conform us to the image of Christ, to inform our minds and transform our hearts and our lives, and we pray that you would do that work today, that you would make us more like Christ, and in the process, give us a love for your truth and incline our hearts to your word.

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It is in the light of your word that we see light, and we pray that you would incline us to love your word and to seek after your word and truth.

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We pray that we may bow our knees to the revelation of scripture and that you would grant to us grace in understanding the difficult and complex elements of your word today, for the glory of Christ our

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Lord, in whose name we pray, amen. Well, I know for a fact that none of us are ever saved with a perfect theology.

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In fact, I would be willing to bet that very few of us, if any of us, even die with a perfect theology. But when we come to the

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Lord, we come to the Lord through a very simple gospel with a very simple message that is easy to understand.

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You are a sinner. You needed a savior. Christ died to pay the price for sin, and if you will come to him in repentance and faith, you can have eternal life and be forgiven of all of your sin.

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And that is the simple gospel message. It is simple enough for a child to understand. It is simple enough for almost anybody to clearly explain and to preach or to teach and to share with another person, and yet it is one of those truths that is so complex that even theologians will spend a lifetime plumbing the depths of the implications of that gospel.

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A beautifully simplistic message, but very complex in its depth of truth that it communicates.

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And we really will spend the rest of our lives plumbing out the depths of the gospel. We'll spend the rest of our lives thinking through the implications of the death of Christ.

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How does the death of Christ save us? We understand that it does, but how does it do that? Why is it that one man's death can rescue a multitude of men and women from every tribe and tongue and kindred over all of human history and bring them into heaven and forgive their sins?

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How can one man's death do that? On what basis does God credit us with righteousness and credit

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Christ with that sin? And we spend our lives thinking through the implications of that. What does it mean to be saved?

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And how thorough is that salvation? And truly, what did the death of Christ accomplish? Did he just make salvation possible or did he actually secure salvation on behalf of his people?

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And we spend our lives refining our understanding of these deep and profound truths, growing in our appreciation of them, growing in our affection for truth, growing in our understanding of all of the implications of the gospel and the saving death of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. When I got saved, I didn't understand fully all the implications of the death of Christ.

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I just knew that I was a wretched, horrible sinner. I just knew that for the first time in my life, I knew that at that moment, if I were to die,

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I would perish everlastingly because I was a sinner and I felt the weight of the wrath of God over my head.

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I felt it hanging like the sword of Damocles over top of me and felt that at any moment, if I were to die or at any moment, if God should so will, that I would perish into everlasting flames and I knew that I deserved that.

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And all I understood at that moment when I trusted Christ was that I was unrighteous and he was righteous, that I was a sinner and he was the

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Savior and I was commanded to repent and to believe. And I repented and I believed that message.

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And at that moment when I got saved, I didn't understand all the depth of the truth of what Christ had done or all of its implications or all of even its ramifications.

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I didn't understand everything about the return of Christ. In fact, I don't even remember at that moment that I even knew anything about the return of Christ, that he was coming again.

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I didn't understand fully the doctrine of the Trinity. I didn't understand fully the doctrine of the virgin birth.

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I didn't understand fully the doctrine of divine election or even the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, the eternal security of the believer.

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I didn't understand those things in full. We spend our lives plumbing the depth of the gospel and bowing our knee to the challenging and difficult truths of Scripture.

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And coming to a robust and forming a robust and thorough understanding of the doctrines of Scripture is aided by going through the book of Hebrews.

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We have seen how our understanding of these truths has been enlightened and encouraged and how we have grown in our affection for what

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Christ has done and our appreciation for what Christ has done. Hebrews is essential to that. Last week we were in Hebrews chapter nine.

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We're finishing up this section that details the death of Christ, the one -time nature of his death and what some of those implications are.

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Last week we just looked at verse 27. And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes the judgment.

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And we just talked about death and judgment. And as if one sermon on that subject was not enough, decided to do part two.

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So today is death and judgment part two. And I know that had to have thrilled you when you saw that this morning.

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You thought, okay, one sermon on death and judgment was good and more's better. That's my motto.

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More is better. If one is good, then two will be fantastic. So that's what we're doing today. We're going through the second part of this.

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Because there are two parts to this passage or there are two parts to this argument. The author's laying out that Christ has died once because it is appointed to man to die once.

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So death is appointed for all of us. But there is a difference with the death of Christ. It has a significance that the death of one man or any other man does not have.

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So last week we looked at verse 27. What is appointed to man? It is appointed unto us to die once and after this comes the judgment.

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Well, there's things that are appointed for Christ as well, which is what verse 28 says. So also Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin to those who eagerly await him.

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We have been appointed to die and then to face judgment. Christ has been appointed to die once, just like we have been appointed to die once.

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He was appointed to die once and then to return a second time without reference to sin with salvation for those who eagerly await him.

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So today we're looking at what Christ has been appointed to do in verse 28. Now I want you to notice that the number of deaths for Christ and for us is the same.

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Both die once. Do you notice that? Just as it is appointed for man to die once, so also

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Christ, having been offered once. The number of our deaths is the same. He dies once and you die once.

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But the significance and the effects of the death are entirely different. And I want you to notice the difference in language that the author uses in verse 28.

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It is appointed unto man to die once, but it was appointed unto Christ to be offered once to bear the sins of many.

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Notice the word for his death is the word offering. It's the word that was used of a sacrifice. It's the language that is used of the

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Old Testament temple and tabernacle sacrifices. His death was not just a dying. My death, your death, it's just a dying.

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We just die. We die once. That's it. There's no significance to our death beyond the fact that it is appointed for us to die once and then after this comes the judgment.

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But the significance of Christ's death is summed up in that word offering. He was appointed, so also Christ, having been offered once.

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That's the language of sacrifice. He was offered once to bear the sins of many. And that is the language of substitution.

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I'm gonna talk to you for a moment about the doctrine of substitution. To bear the sins of many is the language of substitution, substitutionary atonement.

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In fact, the author is likely drawing on a familiar passage from Isaiah 53. I almost read that this morning for the scripture reading instead of Hebrews nine.

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The author is likely drawing on the familiar language from Isaiah 53. Do you remember that prophetic passage that describes the servant of the

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Lord who is chastened for our well -being and crushed for our iniquities, Isaiah 53? Listen to a couple of verses from Isaiah 53, verse 11 and 12.

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As a result of the anguish of his soul, he will see it and be satisfied. By his knowledge, the righteous one, my servant, will justify the many as he will bear their iniquities.

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Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great and he will divide the booty with the strong because he poured out himself to death and was numbered with the transgressors.

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Yet he himself bore the sin of many and interceded for the transgressors. That is language here in Hebrews chapter nine, verse 28, that is language pulled right out of Isaiah 53.

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He bore the sin of many. That's the prophecy that Isaiah gives in Isaiah 53. He also describes similarly in verses four to six,

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Isaiah does, of that same passage. Surely our griefs he himself bore and our sorrows he carried, yet we ourselves esteemed him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted.

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But he was pierced through for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The chastening for our well -being fell upon him and by his scourging we are healed.

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All of us like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him.

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Do you notice the contrast all the way through those verses? Us, it's our iniquity and his chastening.

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Our sin and his being crushed. Our transgressions and his chastisement.

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This is the language of substitution. Even back in Isaiah 53, Isaiah pictured or prophesied a

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Messiah who would come and die in a substitutionary way for his people. The Lord has caused the iniquity, the sin of all of us to fall upon him.

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Meaning that the father has treated him as if he committed all the sins that his people have committed.

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That's the language of substitution. He bears their sins. He bears up underneath of it.

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He suffers the wrath of it. All the chastening, the scourging, the stripes, the discipline, the suffering, the affliction that we deserve for our sin.

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The Lord has caused all of that, not some of it, but all of it to fall upon him.

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He is the substitute who bears the sins of his people, stands in their stead, bears their wrath, takes the anger of the father against sin, his righteousness and his justice.

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He is the one who does that as our substitute. This is the language of vicarious substitutionary atonement.

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Now listen, all three of those words are essential to a biblical and orthodox, small o orthodox, understanding of the death of Christ.

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Vicarious substitutionary atonement. Vicarious meaning it was voluntary. He suffered and he died on a voluntary basis.

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He was the one who willingly, voluntarily stepped in and bore our sin. He was a volunteer and not a victim.

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He suffered in our stead quite willingly. As he says in John chapter 10 verse 17, for this reason the father loves me because I lay down my life so that I may take it again.

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No one takes it from me. I lay it down on my own initiative. I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it up again.

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This commandment I received from the father. Nobody took his life from him. He left heaven, he came here.

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He left the glory of the father's side. He left the glory of the worship of angels.

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He left heaven and all of its attendant pleasures and glories and delights and joys and comforts. He left all of that to come down here.

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And he wasn't coerced to do that by the father. The father didn't make him do it. It was the father's will that he would do it.

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But when he did it, it was quite voluntary. This was his own will to come down here and to suffer and to die for his people.

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So it was a voluntary substitutionary atonement. And it was substitutionary. And look at all the sacrifices of the

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Old Testament, they were substitutionary in nature. The high priest on the day of atonement when he brought the bull and the goat to the tabernacle and they offered the blood of that sacrifice, he did it on behalf of the people as a substitute for the nation.

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That animal bore the sins of the people. That was the picture that was being portrayed. That's the Old Testament picture. The Passover lamb was brought and it was offered on behalf of others.

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This is the Old Testament picture. The Old Testament picture is that the guilty, sorry, the innocent substitute dies in the place of the guilty sinners.

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Over and over again, that is the sacrificial picture of the Old Testament. And that is the New Testament reality. Which is why

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Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter five, God made him 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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This is the exchange. Our sin for his righteousness. God makes him who knew no sin, who was perfect, to be sin, to be treated as sin, to be judged as sin, to pour out the wrath of sin upon him so that we might be credited the righteousness which we do not deserve.

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God made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf. That's substitution. That's the language, the kind of language that we have in Isaiah.

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That he bears the sins of his people. He bears up under and takes the iniquity and the wrath that was deserving of that sin.

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It's the language of substitution. And it was an atonement. When we say atonement, we're talking about an actual payment for sin, not a potential payment for sin.

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I'm gonna get into explaining that here in just a moment. We're talking about an actual payment for sin, not just a potential payment for sin.

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It was a voluntary, substitutionary atonement. This is what

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Peter describes in 1 Peter 2, verse 24, when he says, and he himself bore our sins in his body on the cross.

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There, Peter is borrowing, again, the language of Isaiah 53. He himself bore our sins in his own body on the cross.

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This is an explanation of what the author means back in verse 26 when he speaks of Christ being revealed or manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

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How did the Lord do this? How did the Lord annul sin, destroy sin, wipe it out, render it powerless?

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How did he do that? How did he deal entirely with the effects of sin and the curse of sin and the price of sin on behalf of his people?

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How did he do it? He was manifested to put away, to do away entirely with sin on behalf of those for whom he died.

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How did he do it? He did it through the sacrifice of himself. By that one offering, he, as our substitute, bore and took the penalty that was ours.

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Dying in our stead, taking our punishment, all the wrath that you and I deserved was poured out in full on him.

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He has caused all of our iniquities to fall on the head of a substitute so that he could declare us righteous when we are not righteous.

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So he then treats his son as if he has committed all the sin that I have committed so that he can treat me as if I have done all the righteousness that Jesus ever did.

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This is a substitutionary death. He stands in the place of, in the stead of, as a representative for those for whom he has died.

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Galatians 3, verse 10, says, "'For as many as are the works of the law "'are under a curse, for it is written, "'Cursed is everyone who does not abide "'by all things written in the book of the law to do them.'"

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We are under a curse because we have failed to keep the demands of the Old Testament law, all the moral law of God.

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Because we are liars, and thieves, and blasphemers, and fornicators, and adulterers, and effeminate, and homosexuals, and gossips, and slanderers, and men haters, because we are all of those things in thought, word, and deed, because all of the curse that is attendant to that law, because we have failed to live up to God's righteous standard, because all of that hung over our head,

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God has caused that curse not to fall upon us, but instead to fall upon the head of another.

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So Galatians 3 .13 says, "'Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, "'having become a curse for us.'"

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That's substitution. He becomes the cursed one in our stead. So another is cursed by the

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Father, because cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree, so another is cursed by the Father so that he might declare us righteous, so that he might forgive us.

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Whereas men are appointed to die once and then face judgment, Jesus Christ was appointed to die once and to bear that judgment.

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Does that make sense? He was appointed for us to die once and face judgment, it was appointed for him to die once and to bear our judgment.

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So the Lord Jesus does not put away sin by dismissing it, by ignoring it, by pretending that it doesn't exist.

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He doesn't put away sin by simply giving his life as a symbolic gesture of the power of love and self -sacrifice or some other wacky,

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New Age liberal idea like that. It's not how he puts away sin. He puts away sin by bearing all of the curse of it so that the full wrath of God, infinite in its measure, would fall upon the head of another so that divine justice could be satisfied by that one atoning death and we could be declared righteous and forgiven on the basis of what he has done.

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That is what it means to be a substitute. So if he has borne your sin, if he has put away your sin, then the justice of God is satisfied concerning your sin and that justice can never fall upon your head, ever.

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If he has borne your curse, the curse of God, the Father, against your sin can never be borne by you, ever.

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Because he has borne it as your substitute. If the substitute has been offered in your place, then you're free to go.

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God can declare us righteous, not on the basis of any deeds which we have done, but because of the work and sacrifice of another person.

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Because somebody else did all the deeds of righteousness that we were required to do, and then by that doing and then in his dying, he paid the penalty and bore the wrath and the curse of God for our sin.

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Because of his doing and his dying, we can be declared righteous by his doing and we can be forgiven by his dying because he bore all of the curse.

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That is how the substitute saves us, by standing in our stead.

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So we are declared righteous, listen, not because our act of faith warrants that declaration.

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Not because our act of faith warrants that declaration. We are declared righteous because somebody else bore the wrath in our stead.

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There's nothing about human faith that is worthy or noble enough to warrant

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God's mercy or his grace or his forgiveness. So we're declared righteous, not because our faith warrants that.

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We're declared righteous because of the doing and dying of the Lord Jesus warrants that. And he can declare righteous then all those for whom

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Christ has died. This was the purpose of God in the atonement of his son.

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God planned our salvation, he purposed it from eternity past, it was his design. He's the one who came up with it before he spoke a single molecule or atom into existence, before any angels existed, before any human beings existed, before planets or stars or galaxies or space or time or anything, before any of it came into being.

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He planned and ordained salvation to be exactly what it is. This was his purpose from eternity past.

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So what then was God's design or intention in the atonement that Christ offered? What did he come to do?

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He came to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself so that God would lay upon him all our sin and declare us righteous.

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Now, whenever we use the language of substitution to talk about the death of Christ, there's a question that always comes up.

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We dealt with it a couple weeks ago. I'm gonna deal with it again today. There's a question that always comes up. For whom was he a substitute?

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Whose sin did he bear? On whose behalf? On whose behalf did he do this?

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Did he do this for every person who has ever lived in all of human history?

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Or did he do this on behalf of his people? And if we are going to talk about the language of substitution, then friends, if his death was truly a substitution, if he truly bore that sin and took all of the wrath that those for whom he died deserve, and if he satisfied divine justice and he has put away sin on behalf of those for whom he has died through that one atoning death, then his death is not for all men without exception.

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It cannot be, otherwise hell would be empty. If he has satisfied the wrath of God for every last sin that has ever been committed in the history of humanity, then hell is empty.

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Because then those who are there have no sin debt, no curse that they are suffering for.

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So then we would say that the atonement is limited. Now this causes people to get all, it hurts our feels.

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It hurts us right in the feels to talk about a limited atonement. Because when we do, here's what people think.

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People think that when you describe the atonement of Jesus Christ as being limited, that you are saying the value of it is limited.

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That's not what we're saying. We're not saying the value of it is limited. We are saying the application of it is limited.

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We're saying that the scope of it is limited. We're saying that it is an actual payment for sin that was made on behalf of individuals and certain peoples, a limited number of people.

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That's what we're describing. We're not saying his atonement, his death, lacked value and was unable to save any more than it saves.

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That's not what we're describing. Certainly not what I'm describing. Listen, just my sin debt alone is an infinite debt.

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It would require an eternity in hell for me to pay off that one debt. My sin debt alone is of infinite weight.

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So if I were the only person to benefit from the death of Christ, if he had determined to just save me, it would still require the sacrifice, the doing and the dying and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the

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Son of God, even if he saved only one person, just me, the Son of God would still have to come into this world, live a perfect life, perform all of those righteous deeds, and then to give himself as a sacrifice in my stead to die as my substitute.

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He would still, if I were the only one to be saved, he still would have had to shed just as much blood, suffer all of that wrath, why?

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Because my debt was infinite and the price he paid was an infinite price. So if I were the only one to be saved, it would still require the

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Son of God to be manifested and to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself for me. And everything would have happened, had to have happened just as it happened just to save one of us.

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So we're not saying that the sacrifice that he offered was of limited value, it's not. We're suggesting that it was limited in its scope.

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Now, just in case you're somebody sitting here and you think, well, I don't believe in limited atonement, I believe in unlimited atonement. Let me share something with you.

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You believe in limited atonement. Everyone believes in limited atonement unless you believe that everyone goes to heaven.

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The only people who truly believe in an unlimited atonement are people who believe that everyone goes to heaven, that it's universalism, no matter what your belief about God is, no matter what you know about Jesus Christ, whether you have faith or not, you're gonna go to heaven.

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Those are the people who only believe, those are the only people who believe in a truly unlimited atonement. The question is not whether you believe in limited atonement if you're

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Orthodox. The question is what part of the atonement do you limit? Because see, I believe that the atonement is limited in the scope, whereas my

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Arminian brethren would say that the atonement is limited in its power, unlimited in its scope. So you might think that you believe in an unlimited atonement but you truly do not.

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Those who believe in an unlimited atonement would say that they believe that Jesus Christ died to pay all of the sin debt for all of the people who have ever lived in the history of humanity forever, that every last sin committed by every last person who has ever lived was laid upon the head of the son so that while Jesus was there suffering and dying on the cross,

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God took all of the sin of the Amorite high priest who lived and died in his ignorance and his rebellion and poured that out on Jesus, and God took all of Pharaoh's sin and he poured all of that out on Jesus.

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Every sin, every committed, all of the weight, all of the wrath of it for all of humanity whether they're ever saved or not, all of it was poured out on Jesus and he bore the full weight of that.

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That's what is typically called a universal atonement or unlimited atonement. But those who believe that he died for everyone, you limit the atonement as well because you believe that he died for a whole bunch of people that he doesn't actually save.

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Because you believe that while his death was made for all of those people, it doesn't actually save anybody.

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Something else is necessary to secure that salvation. And what is it? The faith of the recipient or the belief of the person who makes that atonement effective by his act of human faith.

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You would have to say that hell is filled with people whose full price has been paid by the death of Jesus.

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The full weight of their sin, the full wrath that was due them was poured out on the son and there is no more sin debt for those people who are in hell because the price has been paid in full.

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So you would say that though the scope, the number of people for whom Christ died is unlimited, it's everybody, you would have to say that the effectiveness is very limited because it was made for a whole bunch of people that it doesn't actually end up saving.

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So what then does the death of Christ do in that scenario? Does it actually pay the full price of the sin? Does it secure salvation?

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I would say that it does not. I would say that if that's what you believe, then you believe it was made for everybody, unlimited in its scope, infinite in its scope, but limited in its effectiveness because it doesn't secure or guarantee the salvation of anyone since millions of people whose price has been paid end up suffering in eternal hell.

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So everyone limits the atonement. You either limit the scope of it or you limit the effectiveness of it, but everybody limits it. Everybody has a limited atonement unless you're a heretic and you believe that everybody goes to heaven.

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Then you believe that that atonement was offered for everyone and it actually saves everyone. That's unlimited in scope and unlimited in power.

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So the question is not whether or not we limit the atonement. The question is what aspect of the atonement do we believe is limited?

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Because if people are in hell and Jesus died on a cross, then one of two things is true.

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Either Jesus died and fully saves and delivers forever all those for whom he has died, securing their salvation, securing their righteousness and their justification, and securing them eternally and everlastingly.

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Or he died for a whole bunch of people but secures none of those things since the good majority of those people on whose behalf he died ended up suffering in hell.

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So you will either limit the scope, the number of people that you think Christ died for, I would say the elect, those people whom the

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Father has given to him, or you would limit the power and effectiveness of that atonement, whether you think it saves only some or all.

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So everyone believes in limited atonement. Listen, you either believe that the atonement is limited by the sinner and his response to it or you believe that the atonement was limited by God and his intention in it, by the sinner and his response to it or by God, by his intention in it.

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Preaching to this doctrine in his ineffable way, preaching on this doctrine in his ineffable way,

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Charles Spurgeon, talking about particular redemption. By the way, that's what this doctrine is called, particular redemption. Spurgeon was addressing some

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Arminians in his audience and here's what he said. Now, who is it that limits the death of Christ?

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Why, you. You say that Christ did not die so as to infallibly secure the salvation of anybody.

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We beg your pardon. When you say we limit Christ's death, we say no, my dear sir, it is you that do it.

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We say Christ so died that he infallibly secured the salvation of a multitude that no man can number who through Christ's death not only may be saved but are saved, must be saved, and cannot by any possibility run the hazard of being anything but saved.

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You are welcome to your atonement. You may keep it. We will never renounce ours for the sake of it.

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Close quote. Give me a Christ who saves people and doesn't just make them savable.

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That's the savior we need. Give me a Christ who actually pays the price for sin, not just demonstrates what the payment for sin would look like, an actual payment and not a potential payment.

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Give me a Christ and a savior and atonement that actually releases me from my sin, not just clears the way for me to release myself by some act of human faith.

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What we need is a savior that is able to save to the uttermost all those who come to him because he has secured on their behalf righteousness, repentance, faith, justification, sanctification, and eternal glory and blessedness in that one death that he actually does on their behalf everything that is necessary for their salvation, not that he just makes it possible, not that he just makes it potential, but that he secures it.

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That is what the atonement has done. It has secured all of those blessings everlastingly, perfectly, and eternally on behalf of every last person for whom he has died.

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That is an atonement that is infinitely glorious in its power and ability to save, in its effectiveness, in its efficacy, infinite, but made specifically for a group of people, his people.

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Every last one for whom he has died, that is who it is made for.

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Every last one for whom he has died, limited in number. Now at this point, people who would agree with me and say that the atonement is limited in its scope, they would point out one word in this passage.

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Can you guess what it is in verse 28? So Christ also having been offered once to bear the sins of many.

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It's not all. The people who believe in limited atonement, they would take the word many there and they would say, listen, notice that it says many and not all.

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And that's true, it does say many and not all. In fact, I would argue, and I think quite accurately, that if you did believe in a limited atonement, this is exactly how you would describe the work that Christ has done.

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He has borne the sins of all. Has he taken away the sin debt of all humanity?

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Or has he taken away and borne away the sins of many? It says many, doesn't it?

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But that doesn't secure my case there. That doesn't make the case, just that word. And I'll tell you why.

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Because if Christ had borne the sins of all, we would still describe that as what? Many, I mean all is many, right?

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All is many. If it were all, you would certainly describe that as many.

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So all could be many, but it's possible that many does not include all.

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So the very existence of language like this is something that tells us that when the author speaks of bearing away and carrying away the sins of people, that he has in mind here an atonement that actually bears the sin, carries the cost, purchases the price, and does exactly what it is that the

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Father intended it to do. That it doesn't necessarily have to be all if it is many.

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Now if it is all, then it has to be many. But if it is many, it doesn't have to be all. You can write that down.

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That might be the most profound thing I've said all day. I'll try and say it again. If it is all, then it has to be many. But if it is many, it doesn't necessarily have to be all.

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So that's a possible point in my favor for that. But let me give you another one. Too often the discussion, too often the discussion regarding whether it's all or many revolves around these passages that describe all or many.

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So then people who believe that Jesus died for all people who have ever lived, and every last sin that they've ever committed was all borne by him, they would point to 1

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Timothy 2, verse six, where it says that he gave himself as a ransom for all. The testimony borne at the proper time.

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Ooh, ransom for all. And then the people who think that it's limited would turn around and say, but Mark 10, 45 says the

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Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for? Many. So it's many.

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No. Paul says in Timothy, it's all. But Mark says it's many. But Paul says it's all. And so then we have these controversies back and forth over many versus all.

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So then the people who believe that the death of Christ was for all people, for the whole world, would quote 1 John chapter two, verse two, where it says that Jesus Christ was the propitiation for our sins and not for our sins only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

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That sounds like all. But then somebody else would say, but hold on a second, because John also writes in John 10, 25,

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Jesus said I give my life for my sheep. And then he says to the Pharisees, you are not of my sheep, which is why you do not believe.

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You do not belong to me. The Father did not give you to me. I lay down my life for the sheep.

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And if you were one of my sheep, you would believe in me because I gave my life for you and I give eternal life to my sheep.

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So he says to the Pharisees, you're not my sheep. I lay down my life for my sheep, indicating that he didn't die for the

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Pharisees. So then we would say, it's for the sheep. No, it's for the whole world.

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No, it's for the sheep. No, it's for the whole world. And back and forth we go. We are served better to ask this question.

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What does Scripture say that the death of Christ has actually done? Does Scripture just say that the death of Christ made salvation possible?

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Or does the Scripture say that by his death, he has redeemed sinners?

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Does Scripture say that he paid a potential price or that he actually paid the price?

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That he made the taking away of sin a possibility or that he actually bore and took away sin?

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That really is the question. It's not an issue of all versus many or whole world versus sheep.

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Those words can be each described in their own context and there's nothing about any of those passages that would be necessarily contradictory to anything that I've said to you here this morning.

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So the issue is really not lining up verses on both sides and say we're gonna have an argument over how many verses say all and how many verses say many or how many verses say whole world and how many verses say just sheep or his bride or his people, et cetera.

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It's not an issue of how many verses you pile up on each side. The real issue is this. What does Scripture say that the death of Christ has done?

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Did he just make salvation possible or did he secure everlastingly and perfectly the salvation of his people?

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Did he secure their everlasting blessedness by taking away their sin and bearing the full portion of their wrath from the

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Father or did he just offer up his life to kind of show us what salvation would look like, to make salvation possible and then sit in heaven and wring his hands waiting to see if we will make his death effective by our sacrifice, sorry, by our faith.

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Now there's one little out and with this I close, mercifully I know you're thinking. There's one little out that people who believe in that Jesus died for all people who have ever lived in every last sin that they've ever committed.

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I won't call that unlimited atonement because it's not unlimited atonement. As I said, it's a limited atonement. It's just limited in a different way, different aspect of it.

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So people who believe that often have an out and they will say yes but it all hinges on belief and the way that this out is sometimes used is best illustrated in a conversation

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I had when I was teaching evangelism training out at the summer Bible camp before, a summer camp one year, a few years back.

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I was talking about how we communicate the gospel. I said we need to make sure that we are accurate in our communication of the gospel and we need to explain the gospel in terms of scripture used to explain the gospel.

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So when we are talking to campers about trusting Christ, we need to explain to them that Christ died in the stead of sinners.

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He died in the place of sinners as their substitute if they will trust him. So when we are communicating the gospel, we will say that Jesus Christ bore the wrath for sin from the father and he commands you this day to repent and to trust him.

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And I said we need to be careful that we don't use language that the scripture doesn't use to describe the death of Christ.

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Well, this one young man after that session, he kind of stormed over to me rather quickly and he wanted to have a conversation. He sniffed me out and smelled some

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Reformation doctrine hanging on me there and he thought this sounds a little bit like limited atonement. So he asked me, do you believe in limited atonement?

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And I said, well, let me describe to you what I believe by that. And I talked to him a little bit, like 30 seconds

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I gave him, I said everybody limits the atonement. You either limit the power of it, you limit the scope of it. But everybody limits the atonement.

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The only people who don't limit the atonement are people who believe that everybody goes to heaven. And since not everybody is in heaven, then the atonement has to be limited in some way.

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So I explained this to him quickly, defined some terms and he said, well, I believe then in an unlimited atonement, ignoring everything

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I just said, I believe in an unlimited atonement, he said, I believe that Jesus paid the full price for all the sins of all the people who have ever lived through all of human history, every last sin that they have ever committed,

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Jesus Christ paid the full price for all of that. So I said, do you believe in hell?

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He said, yes, I do. I said, do you believe that there are people in hell and people who will spend eternity in hell?

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And he said, yes, I do. And I said, if Jesus paid the full price for every last sin they have ever committed, then can you explain to me why it is that they are suffering in hell?

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And he said, ah, it's because they did not believe. You see, they must believe.

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And if they do not believe, then they can't have their sins forgiven. So I said, well, you're saying they're being punished for their unbelief.

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And he said, yes, all the sins are paid for, but they're being punished for unbelief.

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I said, why would God punish them for their unbelief? Is unbelief a sin? And he said, yes, it is. Absolutely, it's a sin.

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Scripture condemns it as a sin. I said, I agree with you. But riddle me this, Batman. Is unbelief a sin for which

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Christ died? He said, well, yes, absolutely. He died for every sin. I said, then why are they being punished for their sin of unbelief?

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What are they being punished for? If Christ paid the price for that sin of unbelief, then why are they being punished for that sin of unbelief?

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And he said, well, because you can't have forgiveness without believing in Christ. I said,

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I agree with you. But why are they being punished for that sin if Christ bore that sin?

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And he looked at me with a long, awkward pause. And he said, well,

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I think I would have to then say that Christ died for all the sins they have ever committed except the sin of unbelief.

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I said, welcome to limited atonement, because that's exactly what we're describing.

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Now we both agree that the atonement is limited. Now we're just talking about what aspect of it is limited.

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That's what we're talking about. Everybody believes in limited atonement. This shouldn't scare us.

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We're not talking about the value of Christ's death being less. It's of infinite value. Even to save one person, it has to be of infinite value.

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That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about what his death has actually accomplished. Does it make salvation possible?

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Or does it perfectly and infallibly secure your eternal blessedness?

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If it perfectly and infallibly secures your eternal blessedness, then it is limited in its scope, but unlimited in its power.

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If it doesn't secure your eternal blessedness and salvation, then it might be unlimited in its scope, but it is certainly limited in its effectiveness and its power.

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So to Christ, it was appointed to be offered once to bear the sins of many. The second, it was appointed to him to appear a second time for salvation.

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And for that, we'll have to wait till next week. Not that he's coming a second time next week, but I mean if we, the passage that talks about him coming a second time, we will handle that next week.

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Just to be clear, if he comes before next week, I won't be dealing with this passage next week.

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You'll be showing up here in vain. So we will, and you'll need salvation at that point too.

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Let's bow our heads. Yes. Father, what you have accomplished for us in the death of your son is beyond description.

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It is glorious beyond words, beyond our thoughts, beyond our ability to appreciate and comprehend this side of eternity.

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We pray that our time here today would give us a deep and profound and lasting appreciation for what

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Christ has accomplished for us. Thank you that that atonement has perfectly secured our everlasting blessedness, all because that is what you purposed and intended to do in the death of your son.

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You have left nothing up to chance. You have left nothing up to the will of men. You have in that death of Christ secured our repentance, our faith, our justification, our sanctification, our glorification, and our security, all because of what he has done, that one infinitely valuable, wondrous and glorious sacrifice for sin.

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By that one sacrifice, you have perfected forever all those who are sanctified. That is what you have accomplished.

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We thank you that that was your purpose, and we thank you that by your grace, you have brought our salvation to pass, accomplishing in time what you have predestined in eternity and what we will spend all of eternity hereafter, glorifying and thanking you for.