Christ Our Substitute - Isaiah 53:4-6

Good morning. Such a blessing to be here with you all on this Lord's Day. Thank you for joining us. If you're new here, welcome. We're so glad that you chose to worship Christ alongside of us this morning here at Hill City.

And thank you to those who came with me to Liberty Ridge Health and Rehab Center yesterday. It was truly a blessing to Sing hymns with the residents there share the gospel with them and to spend time with them in prayer at a fellowship.

It was funny. They were already asking us to come back before we had even left. But I just want to say before I start the sermon. Sadly as many of you know, this is Maggie and I's last Weekend here at Hill City as the Lord has called us to move to Mississippi.

We are incredibly grateful to have been a part of this church family. Serving Christ alongside each and every one of you. Being a part of this church family has been and forever will be one of the sweetest seasons of our lives.

Thank you to the elders the deacons and to all of you for showing us the love of Christ. But without further ado I got to start preaching or else I'm gonna start crying so I Could think of no better passage at the preach on today than Isaiah 53.

The Background and Theme of Isaiah 53

Let's turn there now. We're gonna be covering verses 4 through 6 before I read this text. This passage is likely familiar to you as it's referenced over 20 times in the New Testament. It's actually the passage that Philip uses in the conversion of Ethiopian eunuch in Acts chapter 8.

It's in this passage that Isaiah prophesies of Christ our Suffering servant who dies in our place. In this morning Isaiah, he's gonna give us a front row seat of the cross. He's gonna take us to the very foot of the work of Christ on the cross.

And as we look up, we're gonna see all the excellencies of Christ put on full display. The main thrust of our passage this morning in verses 4 through 6 is the substitutionary atonement of Christ. Or in other words Christ taking the place of sinners.

You see the substitutionary atonement of Christ is the very core and essence of our gospel. If you were to remove this Doctrine from Scripture if you were to remove this work of Christ in taking the place of sinners the entire Gospel would fall.

You see Jesus's earthly life is accepted by most as historical fact. Most scholars don't dispute his historical existence as an actual person. Jesus's teachings are considered by most to have actually occurred in history.

Even Muslims believe that he was a great teacher. Even Jesus's death on a cross is accepted by most to have actually happened. But it is not the mere existence of a historical figure or the factual occurrence of his teachings.

Or even the historical death of a person that saves a man. But whether this God-man stood before Almighty God on a cross as the substitute for sinners is what the entirety of our salvation rests upon.

This is the gospel that saves us. This is the gospel that sustains us. This is the gospel as Paul said upon which we stand. This is the gospel that motivates our obedience to Christ and this is the gospel that delivers us to glory with him forever.

All of your hope rests on him since we studied the infallible words of God. Spoken through the prophet Isaiah this morning. There's gonna be three points in our message. Our first point is going to be the promise of a substitute.

Here we're gonna compare the negative responses of sinful man and verses four and six with the sovereign Unchanging plan of God to send his son to earth. Our second point is gonna be Christ our substitute.

This is gonna be our main focus. It's gonna be answering the question. What happened on the cross? What is the spiritual transaction that took place on the cross to save sinners? And Our last point in our message this morning is the double cure of our substitute.

How Isaiah in verse 5 can say by his wounds we are healed. So we're gonna go to our text this morning now. Isaiah chapter 53 verses 4 through 6. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.

Yet we esteemed him stricken smitten by God and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions he was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace and with his wounds.

We are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray we have turned every one to his own way and The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Lord our words fail to capture Your boundless grace Mercy and love that has shown towards us in Christ.

This morning as we come to this passage as the psalmist said would we? Bless you with our soul because of this mercy that you have shown us. So often when we look to ourselves we see Lord that our Love for you is fickle it waivers.

We have struggles with sin and at times were discouraged. But Lord when we look to this cross to the man who is now seated at your right hand We find more motivation for holy and righteous living than we can find anywhere else.

We not only need to behold your son to be justified. But also to be sanctified to daily live unto righteousness and die to sin. Help me this morning to preach Christ and Christ crucified. That your people would be fed.

That your son's name would be exalted that he would be magnified. We ask this in the precious name of our elder brother Jesus Christ. So I want to give a quick background of this text as we've been preaching in the book of Galatians Isaiah he was a prophet that ministered likely between the years of 740 and 700 BC.

During the events of the book of 2nd Kings. And as a refresher at this point in redemptive history Israel had hurled themselves into an out-of-control spiral and ascend. Where Hosea says rightly that they left their God to play the whore.

Isaiah rails against the nation of Israel. For their rebellion against God and he spends the first 39 chapters of the book of Isaiah Crushing Israel under the weight of divine justice. But in the midst of this righteous divine crushing while Israel was utterly hopeless Isaiah sets before them one ultimate hope.

He answers their most burning question and the great question for all of us of all mankind. Of how they a sinful people can be reconciled to a holy God whose justice demands they be punished. And Isaiah answers this question in the person and work of Christ our substitute.

The Promise of a Substitute and the Rejection of Christ

Since we look at our first point this and our message this morning the promise of a substitute. We're gonna first deal with the negative responses of man in our text. We see not just in verses 4 through 6 but interwoven throughout this entire chapter.

There's this constant back and forth between God's action and man's response. Almost every positive Merciful act of God in Christ has a negative wicked response of mankind. Verse 3 Isaiah tells us that a man despised him that they rejected him.

They hid their faces from him. They believed he was of no value. Verse 4 they believed he was cursed by God and killed by God because he was a blasphemer. And Verse 6 tells us that all of us like sheep have gone astray.

This is the state of all mankind apart from Christ. John 1 says he came to the world. But the world did not know him because John chapter 3 men loved the darkness rather than the light. All men by their own willful rebellion Desperately desire at all costs to be divorced from their holy creator.

You see the light of Christ is the most offensive thing to the sinner because it commands him to bend the knee to the sovereign ruler of the universe and Give up the thing he loves the most the worship of himself.

This is why verse 3 says he was despised and rejected. But look at the beginning of verse 4 in our text this morning that starts with the words surely he. The Hebrew word for surely emphasizes a sharp or firm Contrast is this is the exact opposite of how we would expect God to react to this hidden in just these first two words surely he Stands the sovereign eternal plan of the Trinity Father Son and Holy Spirit from before the foundations of the earth.

That this promise of Christ to die for sinners was decided on by an inner Trinitarian covenant outside the space and time before man ever existed and No counsel no scheme of man. No rejection from the total depravity of man can fort this salvific plan of Almighty God.

Job chapter 42 verse 2 says I know that you can do all things and no purpose of yours can be thwarted. This salvation is all of grace. You see so much of the love that we understand because of our sin nature.

It's transactional, right? It's conditional. My spouse treated me poorly. So I'm not taking her on that surprise date that I had planned. Or my child he threw a fit so I'm gonna lash out at him in sinful anger.

Or my friend he spoke harshly to me. So I'm gonna give him some attitude back. But this love of God shown here is nothing like ours. It's on a plane that is above and outside of our comprehension. It's a love that's not innate within us at all and we cannot produce anything like it apart from Christ.

The love of God for sinners is not based on anything within us, but it flows freely from God's own Loving character and this is why the love of God is so high so deep and so wide. Because if you are in Christ, he called you by name.

He chose you personally Christian. He pulled you out of your own spiritual deadness and breathed new life into you that you would live for him and No sin of yours. No rebelling of yours. No rejection of yours could overcome his mercy to save you as the Bible says his love covers over a Multitude of sins and this is why if you are in Christ, you will love differently than the world.

The way that you love your spouse your children your parents. It will not be based on their sin or their reactions or their behavior. But it is unconditional as our love for others is an outpouring of Christ.

Unconditional love for us and because this promise of Christ. Taking the place of sinners is the infinite plan of God. We can trace it throughout all of Scripture we first see it in the very beginning of the Bible in Genesis chapter 3 verse 15.

When Adam rebels against God we learn from Hebrews That without the shedding of blood There is no remission of sin. Someone must die. Someone must pay the penalty for sin because God is just. But instead of God giving Adam what he deserves with an eternal punishment for his sin God promises that there will be a substitute Whose heel would be bruised in suffering and in death, but that he would deal a death blow to Satan to purchase Salvation for his bride and we see this promise of a substitute Increasingly unfold throughout the entirety of the Old Testament.

Genesis 18 instead of Abraham killing Isaac. God provides a substitutionary ram who dies in the place of Isaac. Exodus 12 God provides a Passover lamb who dies and its blood is spread on doorposts to protect God's people from the angel of death in the Old Testament in the entire sacrificial system God provides Substitutionary animals to bear the sins of his people and die in their place.

All these types all these shadows sit on this golden thread of promise that is pointing forward to someone else and. As we move throughout all of redemptive history this promise of a substitute Becomes more and more clear through farther steps until its full Revelation in the perfect person and final work of Jesus Christ.

Christ Our Substitute and the Great Exchange

And it all comes to climactic head here and Isaiah chapter 53. We come now to our second point in our message this morning. Christ our substitute look at the pronouns in this passage. You can almost underline them because how much they stand out.

He has borne our griefs. He has carried our sorrows. He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The passage reads he our he our he our. This is substitutionary language.

This is Christ in Christ alone who takes the place of his people as one commentator writes. He himself stood in our place. No one else it wasn't subbed out. It wasn't delegated to one of the angelic beings.

It wasn't passed down to one of the prophets, but he himself. He all by himself saved sinners. Here is the exclusivity of this Savior. Because he is both God and man Christ alone is qualified to undertake this calling from the Father.

You see Christ must be God to not crumble under the weight of God's wrath and to be able to impute his righteousness of sinners. And he must be man to be the representative of us to be our federal head to be the second Adam and this God man came to earth born to die for us and Though he was innocent.

He was crucified under Pontius Pilate on a cross. Suffered the death of death for sinners. We look now to answer the question What? happened on the cross. Isaiah tells us in verse 5 that he was pierced for our transgressions.

Christ was pierced with nails in his hands and in his feet. He was pierced with a crown of thorns in his head and at his side. He was pierced by a spear by Roman Roman soldiers to confirm his death. And while this physical pain and suffering Inflicted by man is important as it shows the the vileness of our sin and our hatred of mankind for our Creator.

It was not the nails in his hands or the crown of thorns. Or the Roman mechanism of death by crucifixion that saves the center. The salvific act of substitution rests in the spiritual transaction that took place on the cross between Christ and his bride.

2nd Corinthians 521 brings clarity to what Isaiah is saying here in this passage. 2nd Corinthians 521 says God made Christ Who knew no sin? to be sin for us. So that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

This is the gospel in one verse. So we see from what Isaiah is telling us. And in this verse in 2nd Corinthians, there are two halves of this spiritual transaction. Firstly that Christ bore the sins of his people and that he satisfies the wrath of God against his bride is the first half and the second half is that Christ's Righteousness was given to us.

This is known as the great exchange and Martin Luther, I love this quote. He says the entire gospel hinges upon this great exchange. Looking now at the first half of this spiritual transaction. Isaiah says in verse 4 That he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.

Sin always produces grief sin always produces sorrow. Verse 6 says the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Christ is Bearing our sin the entirety of it is removed from our account and laid upon him but we can't understand the magnitude of Christ being the substitute for our sin.

Until we understand the magnitude of our sin. As the Puritans would say until sin be bitter Christ cannot be sweet. But the problem is we have a such a distorted view of our own sinfulness. Because of our own corrupt sin nature.

Job 15 chapter 15 verse 16 says we drink down iniquity like it was water. When we look at God's law that the Bible tells us in Romans 2 is written on our hearts. When we look at the Ten Commandments, we look at it in such a superficial Man-centered way.

And we think well, I haven't ever murdered someone so I'm good there with the sixth commandment. I haven't ever committed adultery while being married. So I'm good there with the seventh commandment. And you know, I've lied but my last lie, you know, it's probably a few weeks ago.

You know, so I haven't sinned all that much. Maybe I'll break God's law here and there and then go about my life. But I'm really not that sinful. I'm a pretty good person. This is how most people View the law of God and this is how most people view sin.

But this is not a biblical view of sin. God's law cuts down to the deepest recesses of the heart. It exposes our motives and our intentions and nothing is hidden from the Holy Eye of God. Your every thought your every motive even now as you sit here is seen by God.

Jesus said if you have unrighteous anger against your brother, you've committed murder in your heart. Or if you've looked at a woman and wished her to be your wife, you've committed adultery in your heart.

Can you truly even number not only all of your out full sinful action outward sinful actions? But all of your inward sinful motives and sinful thoughts throughout your entire lifetime all your moments of selfishness pride deceit lust greed jealousy discontentment idolatry materialism.

Our transgressions of the law are both inside and out and they are Innumerable, but what is even more terrifying is the Bible's view of sin goes even deeper still. James 4 17 says to whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it for him.

It is sin. You see sin is not just a transgression of God's law through sinful actions or sinful thoughts. It's also not obeying God's law to the righteous standard that is required. In other words, it's not just what we have done rebelliously.

Sin is also what we have failed to do righteously. An example of this is Matthew 22 37 where Jesus said the greatest commandment is this You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart all your soul and all your mind.

And there is not one of us here this morning. For any moment of our lives that has loved the Lord our God With all our heart all our soul all our mind to the perfect and righteous standard that is required that he is due and.

This is the same with all other commands with every other command in Scripture. At every second when we were apart from Christ, we were not first Corinthians 1031 Doing everything for the glory of God or Matthew 22 39 loving our neighbor as ourselves because it was not from a Christlike motive.

We were not Hebrews 12 14 pursuing holiness or putting sin to death by the Holy Spirit. Romans 8 13 and On and on and on with every command from the Word of God. Apart from Christ the law of God is piling its guilty verdict upon us.

As every second sin upon sin upon sin is gushing out of our spiritually dead nature like a mortal wound. We are drowning in our filth with no hope of salvation in ourselves and Yet while humanity is at its most desperate breaking point Isaiah tells us here.

Yet he bore our sorrows our griefs. The iniquity of us all was laid upon him. God laid the sins of his people upon Christ. Your every iniquity Your every transgression every vile thing that you have done this whole incalculable Lot of sin was laid upon the Son in the same way in the Old Testament that the high priest laid his hand on the head of a sacrificial animal and The sins of his people were transferred unto him.

God laid his hand upon the Son and the sins of his people were laid upon Christ. And God views you Christian as if you had never committed even one of your sins. Psalm 103 in the passage that Reed preached on last week Says as far as the east is from the west.

So far as he removed our transgressions from us. Isaiah goes on in the first half of this magnificent spiritual transaction. Verse 5 I says he was. Isaiah says he was crushed for our iniquities. Verse 6 upon him was the chastisement that brings us peace with God.

Isaiah here tells us that our griefs our sorrows our iniquities they provoke a sort of Response from God that would cause him to crush his own son. This is the righteous response of God against sin. Owen Strahan he writes.

Though our sins may be finite because we are finite beings The God they blaspheme is infinitely offended by each one of them. It is the glory of God that we've offended above all and Thus we may say we have infinitely offended an infinitely holy God in reformed circles.

We love our theology, right? We love our study of God. Who God is? But even with all of our books all of our sermons all of our studies We still know nothing of the infinite holiness of God. He Is the God as scripture says who sits on the throne of the universe and All men are under his feet like grasshoppers beneath him.

He is nothing like us. We can't even begin to conceive of how separate how eternal how powerful this God of the universe is because the Bible tells us that no man can see God and live. Scripture says that God is light and in him is no darkness at all.

This is one of the most terrifying statements in all of Scripture. Because you and I apart from Christ when we were dead in our sins our darkness with absolutely no light at all and This light of God is greater than 10 ,000 Suns.

Scripture says our God is a consuming fire. You see it's God's holiness that motivates his justice. He must punish sin and we were every second by our ever-increasing sin provoking this wrath of God.

Jonathan Edwards the Puritan he writes tis true That judgment against your evil works has not been executed yet. The floods of God's vengeance have been withheld. But your guilt in the meantime is constantly increasing and you are every day treasuring up more wrath.

The waters are continually rising and waxing more and more mighty and There is nothing but the mere pleasure of God That holds the waters back that are unwilling to be stopped and press hard to go forward.

If God should only withdraw his hand from the floodgate It would immediately fly open and the fiery floods of the fierceness and wrath of God would rush forth with inconceivable fury and Would come upon you with omnipotent power.

And if your strength were 10 ,000 times greater than it is Yay, 10 ,000 times greater than the strength of the stoutest sturdiest devil in hell It would be nothing to withstand or endure it. You see this is the problem.

A man must die on behalf of men. But only God can withstand this wrath of God. Who can deal with this wrath. Who can satisfy this all-consuming? fire for sinners. The spotless lamb Jesus Christ is the only man in all of human history Who's qualified to stand before Almighty God to hang on that cross?

To look down the barrel of infinite justice. And While ordinary men would crumble and the entirety of all men put together would be laid waste. Christ does not sink under the infinite weight of the wrath of God because he alone is the perfect God man.

Isaiah says that he was crushed for our transgressions. Christ directs all the power of God's wrath all the immense pressure and burning rage against sin upon himself. Like a magnifying glass that's directed towards the Sun that harnesses the full spectrum of sunlight and Focuses it all into one intense point.

Christ takes the entire fullness of God's immense righteous fury That is due for his bride and it is all focused intensely Upon him and like a lamb that is led to the slaughter. He does not open his mouth to plead his innocence but instead he is crushed under the weight of God's divine hammer of justice as billow after billow after billow of God's Righteous fury comes crashing down upon him.

The Bible tells us that he was forsaken of God as there was no dispense of mercy. There was no restraint from the father on this crushing of his son until all was satisfied. Verse 10 it says it pleased the Lord to crush him.

This was not some sadistic crushing of the son by the father. So that the father may be persuaded to love sinners. Or so that this would somehow Enable God to show some measure of affection toward us.

No. Romans 5 8 says God Demonstrates his love for us in this. That while we were still sinners Christ died for us. Every blow that wounds every billow that crushes every pang of death. Every torment of hell that is laid upon the Sun.

It all screams of the love of God for sinners. The work of Christ did not make God love us. God crushed his son. Because he loves us and this is the love of God that he has for you. Oh sinner if you are his.

Not one drop is left from the cup of God's wrath because Christ has drank it all. How sweet is the blood of Christ that we never have to taste one drop of this holy? Vengeance and this is only the first half of the great exchange.

Where our sins were given to Christ and the punishment for our sin was satisfied in him. You know, we could argue that if Christ somehow ended his work there, it would be infinitely more than we ever deserve.

But this just erases our sin. Right. This just satisfies the wrath of God against us. This just takes our account back to zero. We're not accounted righteous by this. We can't truly stand before God as righteous but when God Gave us Christ He truly gave us everything and withheld from us.

Nothing. This is the love of Christ for sinners. Isaiah says in verse 9 that God gave the righteousness of Christ. From his perfect sinless life to his bride in the second half of this great exchange.

Once-so-often neglected truth of the gospel. Is that we're not just saved by the death of Christ. But by his perfect sinless life. To think and meditate on this is absolutely extraordinary. He is the mighty king of heaven who emptied himself of his high position of glory.

Taking the form of a servant in the flesh from birth to death 33 years. He never once sinned he never once gave into temptation. But perfectly obeyed to its fullest extent. Every command of God that you and I broke he never once fell short of absolute perfection and all of who he is as A child he never once disobeyed his parents.

He never once had a sinful thought about their parental instruction. Even though they were imperfect sinners, and he was not. As a teenager and a young man he never once fell the sexual temptation or lusted.

But kept his body his mind and his thoughts absolutely pure and in total alignment with God's commands. He never committed idolatry or had any other gods before the father. How many times even sitting at church does our mind wander about what we want to do for ourselves after service.

Jesus said the greatest commandment is this in Matthew 22 37. You shall love the Lord with all your heart all your soul and all your mind like we talked about. And we mentioned that never for one second has any of us Love the Lord with all our heart all our soul and all our mind to the righteous Standard that God requires.

But Christ every second of his life Loved the father perfectly. With all of his heart all of his soul and all of his mind. Christ kept every commandment perfectly for you. Every commandment that you and I could never keep and no other man of ordinary generation and Adam can do this.

If you and I were to live a million lives over and over again. Even knowing with full clarity the righteous standard of perfection that we must achieve. You and I could never live the life that Christ lived even if we had an eternity of chances where we could somehow die come back to life and try again and Die and come back to life and try again.

You could never live the life that Christ lived. The inward corruption of our sin poisons any work we try to attempt. We cannot be perfect as he is Perfect, and how often do we seek recognition when we do a good job at work or around the house?

For even the smallest things we think we did. But Christ saw sought no recognition from the father for the entirety of his perfect sinless life. But he selflessly and freely gave his righteousness to us.

God looks at us as if we had lived the life of Christ as if we had merited the works of Christ ourselves. That we could be accounted as righteous before God. This is the great exchange that saves sinners.

Isaiah tells us our sins were given to Christ. God's wrath against us was satisfied in the Son and we were accounted righteous By the imputation of Christ's righteousness to us. I love what the Puritans said they said on the cross is where mercy and justice kiss as.

The mercy of God was laid upon sinners and the justice of God was satisfied in the Sun. We come now to our final point in our message this morning the double cure of our substitute because of this extraordinary exchange on the cross.

The Double Cure of the Cross: Justification and Sanctification

Isaiah can declare here in verse 5 that by the wounds of Christ. We are healed. This is not talking about a outward physical healing. Isaiah is speaking here of an inward spiritual healing. And I believe there are two halves to this healing that Isaiah is talking about.

Firstly Christ heals us from the condemnation of sin that we may be justified and Secondly Christ heals us from the power of sin that we may be sanctified. Firstly regarding the condemnation of sin. We know that every man and Adam stands guilty before God.

That there stands an infinite chasm between a holy God and sinful man. And we are hopeless to work our way back to God let alone erase any sin that we've already committed. Jeremiah chapter 2 verse 22.

This is although you wash yourself with soap and lyre. The stain of your guilt is still before me, but the beautiful Divine triumph of the cross is the forgiveness of our sin as Christ died after this great exchange.

He said it is finished as our debt to God was paid in full. Jeremiah 31 34 says I will forgive their iniquities and remember their transgressions no more. And this forgiveness it can never be lost it can never be undone it is a completed and finished transaction a debt that has been forever canceled and this finality it Gives us it gives us such rest and assurance in our faith.

How many of us after we sin? Do we hide our face from God like Adam and Eve in the garden and draw away from him until you know? Maybe a few days go by. We think okay, maybe I've cleaned myself up a little bit.

Maybe God's not mad at me anymore. So now I can finally come back to God and tell him I'm sorry, but Romans 8 1 tells us that there is now. Therefore no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. Any sin that we commit as a believer does not change our standing before God and we always have free access to the fullness of his grace.

Because our standing before God it's not conditional upon our obedience. But rather it rests on the perfect obedience of Christ the Puritan. Samuel Bolton speaking of this legal condemnation Said God would sooner call Christ to account for your sin.

Then he would call you. Romans 8 39 says nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ. God's love for you is the same today as it was yesterday as it will be tomorrow. And this is the love that Paul says Constrains us.

This is the love that drives us to repentance. This is the love that drives us to obey God and to pursue all holy and righteous living. All stand forgiven in the Sun that we may be justified and declared righteous before him finally.

The second way Isaiah is here talking Is that we are healed from the power of sin. That we may be sanctified. All of us apart from Christ are all under the power of sin. And to be under the power of sin means that sin is your master that sin rules and reigns over every area of your life.

It's to have the moral inability to obey. Or in other words, you will only disobey because of your willful hostility towards God. Romans 8 7 says the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God and does not submit to God's law.

Indeed it cannot. But God saves all those in Christ. He gives us a new nature and he frees us from the power of sin to daily died to sin and live unto righteousness. First Peter 2 24, it's a helpful verse here that really brings light to what Isaiah is saying.

It's as in he himself bore our sins in his body on the cross. So that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. For by his wounds you were healed whereas before we were unable to obey because of our willful corruption.

We now can obey because of God's sovereign regeneration. All those in Christ no longer are under the reign of sin. But our Romans 6 slaves to righteousness and this healing from the power of our sorry from the power of sin is evidence of our sanctification.

From the moment we're converted to the moment we die. We are God's workmanship and we are constantly being transformed more and more into the image of Christ. First John 3 3 says we will purify ourselves as he is pure.

We will grow in holiness we will grow in obedience and we will bear fruit. The sins that beset us will gradually be removed. The idols that draw us away from God will gradually be destroyed. We will make progress in the things of God and this at times will feel like a constant fight with many backslidings and failures.

And while we will not be a completely sinless here in this earthly life. This work of sanctification will never nevertheless be present in the life of a believer. These are the two inseparable magnificent truths of the gospel.

That the wounds of Christ not only heal us from the condemnation of sin To be justified but they heal us from the power of our sin to be sanctified. Is this true of you? For if you claim to be a Christian if you claim to be forgiven of your sin.

But you're not being transformed into his image. You're not growing more and more like Christ and less and less like the world. If sin is not being put to death. If you have not been healed from the power of sin, then you are not his.

The work of Christ is a total and magnificent healing of a sinner and after this death of death for sinners. Which this great exchange took place for our healing? Christ was buried and he rose again on the third as a declaration that sin and death had been defeated.

That the head of the serpent from Genesis 3 had been crushed and that the father truly accepted the substitution of God the Son and Christ ascended into heaven where the Bible tells us he is now sitting at the right hand of God still interceding for his church.

And he is coming to judge the world and righteousness. Isaiah cries out only two chapters later in Isaiah 55. Come now Seek the Lord while he may be found as the Puritan said it is as if Christ is now holding back the floodwaters of the wrath of God with one hand and Then with the other he's extending the olive branch of peace of salvation to you By virtue of his triumphant victory on the cross.

But there will be a time when both hands are dropped and The father's wrath will consume all who reject the Son. Your sin is ever before you. The holy eye of God sees all. Nothing can be hidden from his sight.