Three Imputations (part 1) - [Romans 5:12ff]

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Examining The Purpose-Driven Ministry (part 2) - [Titus 1:9]

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Well, it was last Sunday, I had the privilege of baptizing Daniel and Eric Bilton, and remember the last question
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I asked Daniel Bilton. I asked Daniel some other questions like, did you contribute anything to your salvation?
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Do you love the Lord Jesus? Those kind of questions. And then I asked him at the end, kind of as a joke, what were the three great imputations?
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And I began to think about that question this week and reminded myself, what were the three great imputations and does it even matter?
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So this morning I'm going to do something that I've never done at Bethlehem Bible Church in the, I counted,
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I'm close to being correct, 736 weeks that I've been here. I'm going to switch
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Sunday morning sermon with Sunday night sermon because you need to learn about the three great imputations.
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If I preach it tonight, we'll probably have only about one -fifth of the people here. And so all of you need to understand the three great imputations.
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So tonight I'll do 1 Corinthians chapter 7, 17 through 24, we'll talk about contentment and how
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God deals with slaves and how their best life isn't today.
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They're not having their best life now if they're a slave. But this morning, three great imputations that if I could put it in the vernacular,
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I want to rock your world. I want you to say, what's an imputation? Now I get it and you'll be able to say to yourself,
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God, you are a great God. You're not like me at all. You're different. You are transcendent.
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The way you think, I would never think. And so if you want to understand salvation, if you want to understand the mind of God, and if you want to understand how
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God saves people, you need to know what imputation means. Now the
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Eshers are going to give you a little card as they come down the aisle and I want you to write a definition of imputation and we'll hand those in to Pastor Jeffreys afterwards.
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You guys all look really scared. We're not going to do that, but by the end of the sermon today and probably next week as well, you'll understand what does the
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Bible teach about imputation and why is it important. This is not some academic issue.
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This is not some kind of, I keep tripping on these things. This is not an academic issue. This is a biblical issue that you need to know and I think it's fairly underpreached so I want to preach that and if you say,
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I don't like big words. I just want to kind of lay back and let God, I'm not into big issues and big words.
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Well, this is going to be a biblical word that you need to know and whether you're in the kitchen or in corporate
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America, you use big words and the Bible is no different and so you need to know what imputation means because we are very, very concerned to understand how
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God saves and who God is. So let me give you a quick definition of imputation before we go to the text this morning.
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What is imputation? Imputation means to set something to one's account, to set something to one's account, to reckon it to a person, to charge it to a person, to number something, to attribute something to someone else.
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I can put it this way, when Paul sent Anesimus back to Philemon, here's what he told
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Philemon to do. If he has wronged you at all or owes anything to you, charge that to my account.
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We get the idea of imputation means to charge to another account. When I was in corporate America and I was not a
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Christian, we tried to find the hotel room that the big shot national sales manager was staying at because if we knew we were at the
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Four Seasons and the boss stayed at room 521, when we went down to get a massage, 521, charge it to his account.
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When we went and had a nice dinner, 521, charge it to his account. We tried to do that regularly.
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Now I'm not saying you should do that, don't try it at home, but it's charging something to someone's account. When you get married, the old terminology was, with all my worldly good,
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I thee endow. Everything I own is now placed to your account.
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If Kim would have been a multi -millionaire, all her assets would have been credited to my account.
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That would have been wonderful. And if you marry someone and they have a lot of debt, you say,
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I do, all their debt is credited to your account.
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With all my worldly good, I thee endow. That is imputation. God had
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Abraham look up at the stars, he was still Abram at the time, and so shall your seed be.
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And the text says Abraham believed God and it was counted, it was credited, it was charged to Abraham's account.
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It was reckoned, imputed to him for righteousness. And so to credit, to impute, simply means to count, to take an account, to credit something to someone, or to charge to someone else's account.
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Turn with me, if you would, to Romans chapter 4 and I'll show you just why this is important. This is called the imputation chapter.
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What is imputation? Well, I think we really need to understand imputation because it's everywhere in the
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Bible. If the word atonement's in the Bible, well, we should know it, satisfaction, we should know it, propitiation, we should know it, and imputation is in the
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Bible as well. The ESV translates it, count. This is found 10 times in Romans chapter 4.
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To count. Maybe if you have the King James Version, it's to reckon. And so this language that Paul uses, we ought to know what it means.
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To charge something to someone's account, to reckon. By the way, I hate accounting.
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How many people here hate accounting? How many people here despise cost accounting? Some do.
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This is accounting language, by the way, to take something and put it in the credit side, to take something and put it on the debit side.
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And for years, I hated poetry. I hated poetry because I thought, who could really be a man and like poetry?
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That's what I thought. I'm not saying I'm proud of that, but that's what I thought. Then I realized a lot of the
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Bible's poetry. I think I should probably learn to like poetry. I think very godly men have written wonderful poems.
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And David, I should learn to like poetry. Well, you know what? I hate accounting, but this language of imputation, reckoning, counting, taking from this side of the ledger to put over on that side, do you know what?
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It's biblical language. Now, I'm not saying you must love accounting, but you should want to understand accounting because that's the way
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God's universe works. Now, let me read Romans chapter 4, some of the verses, and you see if you can count the 10 times the word count or counted or counts is used.
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And you'll say after I read this, this whole counting imputation is very important.
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Romans chapter 4, Paul is trying to show us an illustration of Abraham and how justification is by faith alone, not by works.
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What then, Romans 4, 1, shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh?
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You want someone who models justification by faith alone? Verse 2, for if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.
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Well, what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteous.
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It was imputed to him. It was reckoned to him. It was charged to his account. Now, to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due.
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And to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.
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Just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts, credits, reckons, imputes righteousness apart from works.
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Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man against whom the
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Lord will not, what, impute, count, reckon his sin. He doesn't charge it to your spiritual account.
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That man's blessed. Verse 10, how then was it counted to him?
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Verse 11, towards the end, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well.
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Verse 22, that is why faith was counted or reckoned or imputed to him as righteousness.
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And not just for Abraham, hallelujah, to verse 23, but the words it was counted to him,
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Romans 4, 23, were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted, reckoned, imputed to us who believe in him who raised from the dead
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Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
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You need to know what the word counted or reckoned or imputed means, even if you wanted to understand
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Romans chapter 4. So let's give you the three biblical imputations this morning if you'd like to understand
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God's mind, God's salvation, God's universe, and what this word means.
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And hang in there with me. If you're new to the church, this will be still a good sermon for you, but I'm laying the groundwork here for understanding
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God and salvation. S. Lewis Johnson basically said, you don't understand God or salvation if you don't get imputation down.
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So it's not going to do us any good to say that's a polysyllabic word that we'll leave for another time.
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I just need to be kind of coaxed and cajoled, and I just need a feel -good sermon. May I challenge you that you'll feel good after you understand truth.
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I think you will feel good. This week, I could not wait to preach this sermon. This week,
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I had to say, I can't preach this on Sunday night to the elect 80 people who show up. I have to preach it to the reprobates too on Sunday morning.
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They need to know. I mean, who could take some kind of accounting language and think that it was going to be cool or exciting or wonderful?
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I think it would be boring, stuffy. I think the only D I got at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, the only
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D, was a degree in cost accounting. I've never been the same since.
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But it's exciting, and it has implications. So you need to understand biblical imputation, and there are three biblical imputations that you need to know.
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We'll go one, two, three. Let me give you all for right now. The first one is, Adam's sin in the garden was credited to your account, reckoned to your account, counted against your ledger.
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Adam, to all his posterity. That's one. Two, your sins, if you're a
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Christian, were counted to Christ, imputed to Christ, reckoned to Christ.
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He never sinned, but God credits Christ's account with your sin.
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Biblical imputation number two. And finally, number three, which one do you think it is? Adam to us, our sins to Christ, Christ's righteousness,
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Christ's perfection, Christ's righteous life is credited to, imputed to, reckoned to, charged to our account.
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Those are the three great imputations. And if you are thinking properly, you'll say to yourself, this has everything to do with everything.
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Original sin? Why do people die? How do you get saved? How does
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God save people? This is very, very important. And so we need to understand three biblical imputations to understand
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God properly. Implication. And by the way, if you understand God in a way that's not biblical,
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Tozer just said that's idolatry. And so you've got to get down this idea.
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God likes federal representation. God deals with things in a federal fashion.
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In a sense that someone else represents another person. That's just the way God works.
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Imputation number one. Adam's sin to all his posterity.
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To everyone except Christ Jesus, of course. Federal representation, the imputation of Adam's sin.
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Adam's sin was not his alone. God gave you credit for that sin.
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God said, I'm charging Adam's sin in the garden to you. Automatically, you might be saying to me, well, that's not fair.
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I don't like that arrangement. The sin of Adam was set to the account of all his descendants.
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And let's look at Romans chapter 5 to understand that. First Corinthians talks about death came by a man.
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Death came as in Adam all die. But let's look at the passage in Romans chapter 5.
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This is the sine qua non of all federal representation.
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Romans chapter 5 verse 12. This is why my professor, Dr. Zimmick, said at the Master's Seminary, when you open your
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Bibles up, they should automatically and always open to Romans chapter 5.
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Because this truth you've got to get. I'll go so far to say that you don't understand Christianity unless you get this truth.
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Romans chapter 5. Adam was our representative. God said in my wisdom, Adam will be in the garden and what he does will determine what everyone else will do.
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It was a representative arrangement. It was God's arrangement. And here in Romans chapter 5, we see the tale of two
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Adams. The first Adam and the last Adam, Jesus. How can
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God provide salvation for people? That's the context of Romans 5.
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And we're going to see that he does it by representation. Jesus was a representative of us, but so too is
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Adam. And so representation is nothing new in the Bible. And Paul is trying to say, hey, by the way,
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Jews, you want to go back and say it's Romans chapter 4, Father Abraham, and you don't really like universality of sin.
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Let's push you back, Jew, and you back, Gentile, all the way to your first father,
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Father Abraham, and talk about what he did or didn't do in the garden.
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It's a very simple comparison in Romans chapter 5, verses 12 and following. In both cases, the deed of the one affects the many.
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I'm going to read 5, 12 to 21, and here's what I want you to look at when I read it. Look at the word one, because we're going to be talking about the one sin in the garden.
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And look for the words, well, let me read that, and we'll just see if it kind of pops out.
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Romans 5, 12 to 21. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sin.
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For sin indeed was in the world before the law was given. But sin is not counted where there is no law.
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Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.
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But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, how much more have the grace of God, and by the free gift, by the grace of that one man,
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Christ Jesus, abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin.
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The judgment following one trespass brought condemnation. But the free gift following many trespasses brought justification.
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For if, verse 17, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundant grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man,
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Jesus Christ. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.
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For as by the one man's disobedience for the many, rather, were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous.
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The law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.
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So that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness, leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our
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Lord. See how many times one is there? You think it's important? One man's act,
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Adam in the garden, affected everybody in Adam because God said, Adam, you are my federal representative.
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You are my covenant representative. Now let's turn to Genesis chapter 3.
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Keep your Bible, your finger there in the Bible in Romans 5. Let's learn about the fall and let's see what happens.
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Let's see as William Jenkins said, our Puritan writer, our father was Abraham, our grandfather was dust, and our great grandfather was nothing.
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Let's look that up and see what that is all about. And we're going to see imputation. And I'm going to just tease you ahead of time.
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The federal head was not Eve. She sinned and the posterity of all
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Eve did not have sin credited to their account. Eve sinned first, but she wasn't the covenant head.
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And the covenant head, the federal head, Adam, when he sinned, then, as one commentator said, all hell broke loose.
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Genesis chapter 3 verse 1. Of course we get our corrupt nature from Adam, but that's not what
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Paul is talking about in Romans 5 and that has nothing to do with imputation. Genesis 3 verse 1.
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Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, did actually
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God say, did God actually say, you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? The woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden.
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Neither shall you touch it lest you die. But the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die.
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For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.
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So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and there was a delight to the eyes and the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.
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That was sin. But so far the federal representative,
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Adam, hadn't sinned yet. She also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate.
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Then the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves wine cloths.
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What was that tree that they weren't supposed to eat from? In the Middle Ages they said that tree was celibacy and once Adam and Eve had relations, that was the fall.
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Well, that's not right. I almost said that's stupid, but that's what
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I was thinking. Some say it was grapes and the fruit was grapes and you know what happens to grapes back in those days?
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They turn into wine and so they drank wine. It was a simple test of dependence.
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Will you obey me or will you not obey me? Will you believe me? Will you trust me? Will you obey me?
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That's all it was. They did not believe God. It was unbelief.
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They didn't believe God's word. They distrusted Him and then rebelled. And now because of this one man sin, we have universal sin and universal death.
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Now back to Romans chapter 5. This is very fascinating. Paul doesn't say in Romans 5 .12
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how did sin come into existence. It already was in existence, the fall of Satan.
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It just says how did it come into humanity. Notice the text in Romans 5 .12, as sin came into the world through the one man.
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It entered through Adam, not Eve. She wasn't the federal head, even though she sinned first.
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Now here's where we come to a very tricky part where you need to have your seat belts buckled.
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Verse 12, death through sin and so death spread to all men because all sinned.
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What does the all sin mean? Well, the Pelagians, those who don't really think much of man's depravity, they say, well, everybody sins today because they make the free choice to sin.
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But Romans 5 .12, all sin, that's imputed sin. Other people say, well, we've got an inherited depraved nature from Adam, therefore we sin.
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That's true, but that's not what Paul is trying to say. Of course that's true, but five times here in Romans 5.
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One man sin, one man sin, one man sin, one man sin, one man sin. How did everybody sin?
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Because the one man sin was credited to everyone else. Representatively, all sin because of imputation.
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You weren't in the loins of Adam, as it were, sinning. In Adam, his offspring, no.
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You have a divinely ordained representative, Adam. And when he sinned, the guilt of his sin was credited to everyone's account.
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You say, well, I don't like that, that's not fair. Let me just say a few things. One, if you were in the garden, would you have done better?
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Two, what if Adam would have been put in the garden, and God would have kept him from sinning, and he never sinned the whole time?
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What would we have said of Adam, our father? Great job,
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Adam, you did it. The way God has ordained all this is, you have a federal representative, and he sinned, and you get the credit.
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But that's not the end of the story, is it? What's the end of the story that we've already read a little bit in Romans 5, and I'm getting ahead of myself for Imputation 2 and 3, but I have to do it.
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You get another representative. Say, well, I don't want to have Adam as my representative. Then don't you dare want to claim
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Jesus for your representative. God's program is this. Adam was your representative, and therefore all sinned, because all received that credit into their account, that sin.
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And he's going to give another representative, Jesus Christ, to show his grace and his mercy, and where Adam fell,
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Jesus will succeed. Say, I don't like federal representation.
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Well, then you probably don't like President Obama representing you to the nations. Or Hillary Clinton.
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You probably don't like the two senators that we have here representing our state. Everywhere we go, we have representatives.
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And God, in his wisdom, says, Adam will be the representative for me in the garden.
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I'm God. I do whatever I want. And whatever Adam does, everybody gets credit for it. Say, I hate that.
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Do you know you were credited for Adam's sin before you were born? Who was in the garden?
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Well, some of you maybe look old enough to be in the garden, but nobody was there, and God gives you credit. By imputation.
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How can I be responsible for something that Adam did? Answer, God said, you get the credit, and you're responsible for what
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Adam did. That's so unjust. Well, would you rather be judged in your own righteousness, or judged based on Adam, and be condemned in Adam, yet be declared righteous by Christ?
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Now, if you take a look at verses 13 and 14, there's something that's very interesting here.
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If your ears don't have smoke coming out of them yet, I think they'll start coming out right now.
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So all have sinned because of imputation. Verse 12, now verse 13.
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For sin indeed was in the world before the law was given. But sin is not counted where there is no law.
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Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.
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Why did anyone die between Adam and Moses? No Mosaic law. No love your neighbors yourself in Leviticus.
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There's no law to break. How can I be condemned and judged and sent to hell for someone who hasn't even given me a law?
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Answer, because you've been credited with Adam's sin. And everybody between Adam and Moses who died, why did they die?
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The wages of sin is what? Death. Why did anyone between Adam and Moses die when there is no law to break?
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Answer, they died because of Adam's sin credited to their account. I ask this question.
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If a baby never personally sins, how could a baby ever die?
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Answer, unless you want to attribute to them some kind of sinning in the womb, sinning when they're days old.
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The only way you can get your mind wrapped around this is by believing in federal representation. The reason why babies die is because they have been credited with Adam's sin by imputation by a sovereign
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God. Because if you don't have sin in your account, you don't die.
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They're not dying for their own sins. By one transgression,
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Adam brings condemnation to all those connected with him. Now you say, you know what?
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I don't like this. I'm liking it less and less as you go. You might be excited about this,
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Mike, but I'm getting less and less excited about this. Let's go to 1 Corinthians. You are going to see soon.
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I don't mean to turn to 1 Corinthians. That was just talk. That's what I'm saying the detractors are saying.
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The retractors. Sorry. You are condemned for a sin that's not your own, yet you are going to be justified by a righteousness that's not your own.
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You will be, and you are condemned for a sin you did not commit, and you will be justified and declared righteous by a righteousness not of your own.
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That's the argument in Romans 5. Well, I wasn't there when
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Adam sinned, and you weren't there when Jesus made propitiation for sinners either, were you?
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Well, it's my sin and Adam's sin contributing to my problem.
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Then it's going to be Jesus' righteousness and your decision for Christ and your merit contributing to your solution?
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No. Romans 5 teaches this. Adam's sin is credited to your account, and you are condemned by a sin not your own, and you are going to be justified by a righteousness,
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Christ Jesus, that is not your own. By no personal fault of your own, Adam sinned, and God credits your account with that sin.
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And by no personal merit or work of your own, Jesus Christ lives righteously, and through faith alone credits
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His righteousness to you. So if you say, I want to be involved with Adam and sinning there in Adam, it's like I was in the garden sinning with Him.
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So now you're at Calvary making righteousness with Jesus? No. By no personal fault of your own,
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Adam sinned, and you get credit for it. And by no personal merit of your own, the last
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Adam, Jesus, the second and ultimate man, grants eternal life by a work of His own.
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That's Romans 5. Now, why am I getting so worked up about this? Here's why. This is what propelled me into this sermon.
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We have groups of people now saying, Adam wasn't a real person. Here's what happens.
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Genesis 1, evolution, poetry. It's not that big a deal.
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It's a myth. It's a legend. Can't do this six -day deal.
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When Genesis 1 falls, what's the next chapter that falls? Genesis 2.
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Romans 5 is a good answer too. When Genesis 1 is gone, then Genesis 2 is gone too.
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So if there's not a real six -day creation, if it's not divine fiat creating God as the one creating, then
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Genesis 2 with Adam, He wasn't really real either. So here's my question. If Adam isn't real, is the second
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Adam real? Can you have the gospel without Adam? You mean to tell me, like some do, and I'll quote them in just a second, we had some hominoids, and we had some
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Nathanael man, we had some Nebraska man, although they've determined the
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Nebraska man was just, they found a tooth and they said, that's the Nebraska man. Sadly, they just found that it's the tooth of a pig.
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It wasn't a man at all. No correlation between men and pigs in Nebraska. And so what we have,
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I've got to get you to laugh for just a second because your mind's going, Adam's sin, my account, I wasn't there. But here's the thing, you've got to tie both of them together.
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I can't teach second imputation without the first one, but I want to put them both together. If Adam was not true, how do we explain sin, and then how do we explain the last
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Adam as true? You say, I don't really want Adam, but I want the second Adam.
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Paul believed in the first Adam and the last Adam. Moses believed in the first Adam. So you know, we had all these
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Nathanael men, how do you even say that word? Neanderthal. Bidetas.
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Okay, and so, at a certain time, one became so kind of upright and erect,
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God said, you know what? That's Adam. There's a cover story this week on Christianity Today.
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The search for the historical Adam, and on the cover, it shows like a Nebraska man on there. Pro -evolution book,
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InterVarsity Press, the language and science of faith, Francis Collins. He started this group called
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Biologos, initially, he's not in it now. Theistic evolution. He said, unfortunately, the concepts of Adam and Eve as the literal first couple and the ancestors of all humans simply do not fit the evidence.
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A physics professor at Eastern Nazarene, Giberson, who wrote the book with him, said that Adam and Eve, quote, are a secondary or peripheral disagreement that shouldn't cause us to hurl accusations of infidelity at one another.
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It's not that big a deal. Adam wasn't real. They'll go on to say that, did you know monkeys and men are between 95 and 99 % exactly the same when it comes to genetic makeup, encoded
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DNA? Peter Enns talked about literal atoms, literal atom, quote, is at odds with everything else we know about the past from the natural sciences and cultural remains.
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And he was just kicked out of a seminary for teaching things just like that. Enns said, do you know
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Adam? He wasn't real. But Paul thought he was real. Paul thought
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Adam was real, even though he wasn't. Biologus writer
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Dennis Lamoureux said, Adam never existed, and this fact has no impact whatsoever on the foundational beliefs of Christianity.
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I'm trying to tell you, if you don't have imputation of Adam's sin to everyone else, you don't have Romans 5, and you don't have, indeed, for the solution, the second
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Adam. Tremper Longman, who's done a lot of good work in Christianity, has fallen off the deep end.
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I have not resolved this issue in my own mind, except to say that there's nothing that insists on a literal understanding of Adam in Genesis 1 to 3, so filled with obvious figurative descriptions.
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Friends, it's a toxic virus that's going around saying, first, there's not six -day creation, and once you get rid of Genesis 1, you go straight to chapter 2, and straight to chapter 3.
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I'm telling you, it's happening everywhere. Bruce Waltke trained at Dallas and went on and taught at RTS, a great scholar, has drunk the
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Kool -Aid. If the data is overwhelming in favor of evolution, to deny that reality will make us a cult.
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We can't go running around telling people that we want to dialogue with and engage in, and we want to evangelize without saying, you know what, evolution's true.
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Waltke, Scripture has a collectivity represented as an individual that doesn't bother me. We have to go with scientific evidence.
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I don't think we can ignore it. I have full confidence in Scripture. What's the next word? But, it does not represent what science represents.
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Professors at Calvin College, they're off the deep end. The evidence seems, quote, to discredit the fall.
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Eden cannot be a literal description of how things really were in the primal human past. One of their professors said, whether or not
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Adam was historical is not central to Biblical theology. Well, it's not really that new.
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C .S. Lewis believed that, so they try to claim him too. Derek Kidner, 1967.
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We had pre -Adamite humans, Adamites. If Adam doesn't exist, there's no reason for a real
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Jesus. The Bible is either credible or it's not credible. Rick Phillips, who we had here, said, can the
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Bible's theology be true if the historical facts on which the theology is based are false?
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If science trumps scripture, what does this mean for the virgin birth of Jesus, his resurrection?
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The hermeneutics behind theistic evolution are a Trojan horse that once inside our gates must cause the entire fortress of Christian beliefs to fall.
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That's exactly right. So what does Christianity today say in their final paragraph in an editorial?
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At this juncture, we counsel patience. We don't need another fundamentalist reaction against science.
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We need instead a positive, interdisciplinary engagement that recognizes the goodwill of all involved and that the creative thinking needs time.
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In the long run, it may be the humility of our scholars as much as their technical expertise that will bring us to a deeper knowledge of the truth.
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You see what's there? If you question any of this, A, it scopes trial fundamentalism, and B, you're not humble.
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I don't need to know and revisit this. This is just like what happened in the Presbyterian Church USA and the
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ELCA Lutheran Church years ago. We should revisit maybe are these, you know, should you really have women preachers or not?
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The Trojan horse comes through and then now we have full on what? Show me every time where women are ordained to the pope but what is the very next thing to follow?
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Marrying homosexuals and having homosexuals in the clergy. You show me when Genesis 1 goes out, I'll show you what goes out next.
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Genesis 2. And if the literal Adam and the imputation of Adam's sin to all his posterity goes out, you don't need a savior.
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I don't want to be patient. I don't want engagement. You said, well, you came for a sermon today and you got a no compromise radio show.
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Friends, as your pastor and as your friend and as your shepherd, you need to know that ideas have consequences.
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And if your idea is six day creation, I want to kind of, you know, not believe that because if I believe it, everybody will think
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I'm stupid, ignoramus, troglodyte, caveman.
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Well, I would just refer you to what was read to us this morning in Acts chapter 7. The first imputation in the
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Bible that cannot be abandoned is the imputation of Adam's sin to everyone except Christ.
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Number two. The imputation of the sins of his people to Christ Jesus.
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So the sins of every believer imputed to Christ's account, reckoned to Christ's account, counted to Christ's bank account as it were spiritually, even though Jesus never sinned.
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Holy, blameless, undefiled, he always does what's well pleasing to me.
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So we have Adam in God's divine plan saying Adam's sin credited to everybody else's account.
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Now we see the second Adam, the last Adam is a better term for him, Jesus Christ having taken all of our sins and bore them on Calvary even though he didn't commit one of them.
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Imputation. As Lewis Johnson said, when a father strikes oil, the children get rich.
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He lived in Dallas. We have hit a gusher in Jesus Christ. I don't like federal representation.
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Well, when your father hits oil, you like federal representation. You like it a lot.
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When your father squanders your inheritance, you don't like it so much. But here, the gusher hit is
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Christ bearing every one of your sins. He never committed one of them. They were imputed to Christ.
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Now let's turn our Bibles to Isaiah 53. And I want to show you substitution.
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I want to show you imputation. And last week I got two complaints about my sermon.
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Both were the same. Two people confronted me right at that door there. They said your sermon was too short.
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I said, well, we had two baptisms. We had the Lord's Supper, etc. So you make the inference on what that just meant.
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We are all sinful. We are all depraved. We are corrupt.
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We have Adam's sin credited to our account. The list goes on. And we need a Savior. We don't have to pay for our own sins.
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I sent out an email this week. And I'll read it again. William Newell was talking to W .M.
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Host of China Inland Mission quite a while ago. And they were talking about should
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Christians think of themselves as nothing because they're so sinful. Mr.
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Host, I wish you would pray that I may become nothing in the sight of God. Mr. Host said, well,
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Newell, there's no need to pray about that. You are nothing. Take it by faith. So we need a
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Savior. We need someone to have our sins placed upon, imputed to their account.
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Before I get into Isaiah 53, let me say this. If you are here today and you have haunting sins, sins that are in your mind and have replayed themselves on occasion, and there are things in your past that make you think, how could
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God ever love me because of those things? How could I ever be a Christian when I did those things when
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I was an unbeliever? I did those things when I was a believer. This is going to be very good for you because every sin that you committed, past, present, and future, has been imputed to the account of another and been paid in full.
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God has raised Jesus from the dead. You bear those no more. I love Pilgrim's Progress.
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Pilgrim was in the valley of the shadow of death and people were tormenting him with old sins.
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The text says, just when he was about to come over the mouth of the burning pit, one of the wicked ones got behind him and stepped up softly to him and whisperingly suggested many grievous blasphemies to him which
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Christian barely thought had proceeded from his own mind. This put
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Christian more to it than anything that he met with before, even to think that he should now blaspheme him that he loved so much.
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Yet if he could have helped it, he would have not done it. But he had not the discretion either to stop his ears or to know from whence these blasphemies came.
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Friends, you're going to be glad that every one of your sins imputed to the account of another and you need to take that by faith.
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Look at this imputation. Isaiah 53 verse 4. Seven substitutionary aspects to this imputation.
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We'll look at seven of these. We're just going to go fast. Isaiah 53 verse 4.
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Our sins imputed to Christ's account. Reckoned. Deposited to. Surely He has borne our griefs.
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He bore them vicariously. Put on His shoulders in our place as our representative.
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He carried them. Number two. And carried our sorrows.
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Sin causes sickness and sorrows and cause and effect are both put together here.
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The burden that we had is placed on Christ and carried our sorrows, our pains, our anguish, our sins, our trouble, our bodily infirmity, our disease.
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Jerome translates this. We thought Him to be a leper because of it. Smitten of God. God divinely smiting
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Jesus in our place. Not for His sin, but for imputed sin.
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Our imputed sin. Verse 5. Number 3. Christ was pierced for our transgression.
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I could put it this way. Christ was pierced for your transgression if you're a Christian. Wounded for your transgressions.
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Verse 5. For your transgressions, for all your rebellion, for all your high -handedly denying and defying
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God, Jesus was imputed with those sins. Not just for our sins, but look at transgressions.
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Deliberately crossing the line. Number 4. He was crushed for our iniquities.
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See that substitutionary language? Jesus didn't do this. It wasn't He was crushed for His own iniquities, but for our iniquities.
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Number 4. Crushed for our iniquities. 5. Chastened for our well -being. Upon Him was a chastisement that brought us peace, brought us shalom, laid upon Him that He might bear it so we might not.
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By imputation, He received those. Number 6. And with His stripes we are healed.
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More substitutionary language. On our behalf, in our place, in our stead, imputed to His account, our sins.
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And by His stripe, literally, it's a singular, take all the sins, put them all together, and He gets one massive scourge for that.
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In our place. Number 7.
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Found in verse 6. Christ has your iniquity placed on Him by the Father.
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All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to His own way. And the Lord has laid the iniquity of us all.
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God, holy, answering, sin. And can you believe it? Verse 10. It was all planned by God.
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Can you imagine this? Verse 10. This is shocking. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush Him. It was
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God's will to say, even though I've imputed Adam's sin to all his posterity, it is my will to take the sin of all those who look to the last
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Adam and I'll take their sin and credit it to Jesus' account. And even though He never sinned,
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He'll pay for those sins. Listen to this great new song.
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It's not that new, but it's not an old hymn. Listen carefully. When Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within, upward
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I look and see Him there who made an end of all my sin. Listen. Because the sinless
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Savior died, my sinful soul is what? Counted free.
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For God the just is satisfied to look on Him and pardon me. That is imputation.
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And next week we'll learn how His righteousness is imputed to our account. Friends, if you're here today and you would like to go to heaven, there are two ways for heaven.
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What are you doing putting your Bibles away? Everybody starts putting their Bible away. They're like, he's gonna wrap it up. The plane's ready to land.
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If you're a Christian, put your Bibles away. You don't need them. But if you're not a Christian, you need your Bibles because you need to understand there are two ways to get to heaven.
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The first way is to perfectly obey God's law. To perfectly obey God's law.
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The bad news is, A, you haven't done it, and B, you've got to pay for somebody else's sin that God has put into your account in His name is heaven.
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For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law will be justified.
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And we know that by the works of the law, no one can make it because no one's perfect enough. Justification by your own works cannot get you anything.
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It's a slap in God's face to think that you can get to heaven by simply being good. Why would
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He send Jesus to die on your behalf if you can be good enough to get to heaven without Jesus?
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That was a real nice sacrifice there, God, that you planned, but I don't need that. That is just like Genesis chapter 3 where Adam didn't believe the gospel.
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He didn't believe the word of God. The only other way to get to heaven is by faith alone.
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Trusting in the works of the second Adam, the last Adam, Jesus Christ, who did perfectly obey the works of the law.
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That's why when it comes to the death and resurrection of Christ, you must believe. You must repent. You must forsake your sins and say,
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I've been trying to get to heaven by my own goodness and my own righteousness and by my own sacraments and all these other things
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I've done. God says He's done it all and you need to look away from yourself to God in faith.
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The top lady said, of covenant mercy I sing. No fear with thy righteousness on, my person and offering to bring.
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The terrors of law and of God with me can have nothing to do. My Savior's obedience and blood hide all my transgressions from view.
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The work which His goodness began, the arm of His strength will complete. His promises yes and amen and never was forfeited yet.
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Things future, things nor things that are now, nor things below or above can make
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Him and His purpose forego are sever my soul from His love. My name from the palms of His hands eternity will not erase.
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Impressed on His heart it remains in marks of indelible grace. Yes, I to the end shall endure as sure as the earnest is given.
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More happy but not more secure the glorified spirits in heaven.
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Let's pray. Father in heaven, it is good to be in the house of the Lord to hear your word preached and we are thankful that you're such a wise
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God. Wise in having Adam as our representative and wise and gracious in having
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Christ as our representative. I pray for those here today that they would look to you with eyes of faith and assurance for those who are
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Christians and I pray for those who aren't saved this morning. Those that aren't born again. Those that still trust in their own righteousness.
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I pray that you'd give them neither sleep nor slumber until they are trusting fully on Christ's righteousness on their behalf.
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I pray that you would convict them of their sin and have them call out, God have mercy upon me the sinner. Lord we're thankful for imputed righteousness by Christ Jesus.