Salvation Quiz

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night, and other people are out doing other things, and so I thought, well, what should we do tonight?
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And any time the pastor asks that question, there's usually an answer, and that answer comes in the form of a handout.
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And so, we have a quiz tonight, congregation, and I want to engage you, and I want to talk a little bit about the greatness of the
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Savior's work at Calvary. This morning we looked at the substitutionary aspect, those 11 aspects of Isaiah chapter 53, and how
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Jesus died in our place, on our behalf. And tonight I want to look at some other words.
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You know, Machen once said, everyone uses big words at work, but when it comes to the Bible, no three -syllable words, nothing but monosyllabic words.
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We don't want to hear justification, propitiation, all these big words. We want it just watered down. But tonight we're going to have an experience of looking at what the
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Bible says using these big words. God wants you to know, and if you do know them, you will see the facets of the diamond of salvation much better.
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This may be a review for some, but you can always be reminded, even if you know these words in Greek, that we have a great
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Savior who paid the ultimate price to give us wonderful salvation. So my goal tonight is, not for you to hand these in, but for you to just be reminded again how great
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God is, and what He provided at Calvary. You'll see that the handouts first have a set of words there, and I gave you the first letter so you would get an idea.
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There's one that you could use two words, but then there's true and false at the bottom.
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My goal is not for you necessarily to know them all immediately, but by the end of the night so you might know them. These are all words and all discussions of true and false regarding salvation and what happened at Calvary.
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Maybe some man -centered, maybe some God -centered, and so why don't you just take a moment and go ahead and see if you can fill some of those out, and then we'll look at the
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Bible and what it says about each one. My goal tonight is for you to better understand and then have an increased thankfulness for God's saving you.
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If you're not a Christian, my goal would be for you to see what greatest salvation would be, for you to be saved, and for you to bow your knee and no longer spit in the face of God and deny
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Him His ownership in your life. So go ahead and take a minute to do this. I'll give you a few minutes.
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Before I came up to do this, Kim asked for the answer key, and I did not give it to her.
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While they're not working, I just pulled them out of the secretary's office, and the only ones
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I'll collect tonight are from the elders, and they better have 100%. It's open book, sure.
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That's the great thing about seminary, and the great thing about the church is if you have a Bible, it's open book. We do quizzes about once a year here on Sunday nights, and I'm always interested to know who the visitors will be as they come in and say, is this a quiz for Sunday nights?
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Bill, can I tell the story about you and your first time here at the church? Bill and I were painting the house last night and just talking, having good fellowship, and Bill said,
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I knew this church was for me because the first time I attended Bethlehem Baptist Church, you elders excommunicated a man who left his wife, and he said,
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I want to be at a church that if I sin, the elders will come after me, and he said, that was my first day here, and I thought, praise the
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Lord. You need some more time?
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How are you doing? All right, a couple more minutes, and we can kind of go together on some of this, too.
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Scott Goddard, I'd like you to write them down in Greek, please. I can just hear your friends now.
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Did you watch the Super Bowl? No. I had a Bible class. I had a quiz. All right, maybe let's just do one more minute, even if you're not finished, we'll go ahead and wrap it up.
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Lord willing, once we get into this new home, we're going to start a Bible study at our home on one of the weeknights, and I'll probably do quizzes almost every single time we get together just because it helps you learn.
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It's one thing if I'm just up here speaking, it's kind of one way, but when you're actually involved and, yes,
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I got that right, or no, I didn't, I think that's a good way to learn with this question and answer quiz style.
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All right, well, let's just stop now, and everybody put their pencils down,
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I'm just kidding. Let's just work through this, and I'm going to do this almost like a question and answer time where I'm going to ask the congregation the questions, and you can formulate some of the thoughts.
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I'll rough the edges out a little bit or smooth them over, rather, and we can work through this together. And again, my purpose tonight is
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I want you to make sure you understand the glory of our salvation. Isn't it true when you first get saved, you understand
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Jesus died for me? I'm a sinner, Jesus died for my sins at Calvary, and he was raised from the dead, and God confirmed that.
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And then you become more and more of a Bible student, and you become deeper in your knowledge of that very fact.
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Wow, Jesus was treated as a sinner even though he wasn't. God treats me like I was righteous even though I'm not, and you start understanding that.
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You understand all the different facets, and you, I think, if you're the average person, you'll be more thankful as you understand these ideas.
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Even if you're not more thankful, you still need to understand what God has done at Calvary with all the different terms.
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Propitiation is in the Bible, redemption, reconciliation, justification. They're all in there, and God wants you to know them.
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We don't want to be biblically illiterate people. We want to know the depth and joys of salvation. So let's go through these.
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I'll ask you some questions. For those of you who might be new, Sunday night, if you'd like to just raise your hand,
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I'll call on you. We'll do it that way, and then we'll look to the text. All right, New Testament terms that summarize our salvation.
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There's a variety of those, and I just picked out a few. Number one, when the sinner stands before God as accused but is declared righteous, that is what?
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Justification. What does that really mean, justification? There's an easy way to remember what it is with a children's kind of rhyme, but it's not very complete, and it's not that biblical.
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Justification, we teach kids, what do we say? Just as if I've never sinned.
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The only problem is what happens the next time I sin? And so I don't know if I ever use that with kids.
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If I do, I say it, and then I expand it a little bit more. Who could tell me what justification is?
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What kind of picture? Is this a farming picture? Is this a church picture?
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Yes, Dave. Okay, so if we were thinking about a
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TV show, I would be thinking about Perry Mason. We're here, this is a judicial scene, a courtroom scene, and something's going on, and the judge has the authority to say you're guilty or not guilty.
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Steve, you were going to say something? Okay, I'm going to use that for something else.
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Let's hold that off, but that's excellent. Let's turn to Romans chapter 3 and see this legal act where God takes the gavel, he slams it down, and he says what?
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Not guilty. You're justified. I declare you with my authority and with my rights and my privileges of God of the universe based on my son's life and death, you are acquitted.
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And this is certainly by the grace of God. It's something that is done to us. You will notice that many, many things that happen tonight are not things that we do.
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Salvation is outside of us. In Latin, that would be extra nos, it's something outside of us. We are passive in salvation, we are recipients of salvation, we don't come up with it.
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Even when you give your testimony, maybe tonight would be helpful if you remember these words so you might give
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God glory. When you give your testimony and you say, not when I repented, the day
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I believed, you could say when God saved me, when God justified me, when
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God came into my life and he's the one that redeemed me from my sins. I think that is more honoring to God than this is the day that I figured out my salvation, whatever we might say.
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Look at here in Romans chapter 3 verse 21 to set it up a little bit as we see this declaration of righteousness.
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By the way, there's a big war going on out there in evangelical circles. What does justification mean?
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You'll see a lot of people attacking this very doctrine and I think they do that to their harm because it is very important and this is part of the key to the gospel.
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But now apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested. How righteous is
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God? Very righteous, being witnessed by the law and prophets. Here we come to the central place of the epistle and of the whole
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Bible, Luther said. Calvin said there's not probably in the whole Bible a passage which sets forth more profoundly the righteousness of God in Christ.
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I mean we're boiling it down here to the very essence. Even the righteousness of God, his righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe.
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Certainly, he's thinking Jew and Gentile distinctions here. For there is no distinction for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
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The very interesting thing to give you a little primer on Greek, when I say it's a present tense in Greek, that means it's a habitual thing, it's something that's continual and that's exactly that word here, they've fallen short.
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They keep falling short, they habitually fall short. You're going to stand down at Woods Hole and try to jump to Martha's Vineyard.
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You try once and you try a thousand times and I might be a better jumper than you guys are.
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I used to do the triple jump in junior high, hop, skip and jump or whatever you do and I can go farther but all of us are going to meet the same end.
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It's going to be cold and we will not make it and this is habitual. This is why God has to do something for us.
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Being justified and there's that word to be declared righteous as a gift by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.
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Here on the basis of what Jesus has done, his perfect life, his merits, his righteousness, his saying yes to God's law in every case, with his mind, with his heart, with his soul, with all his actions, we have this justification.
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Verse 25, and God's made it very obvious, I'm almost getting into some other big words that I don't want to but I'll just read this verse anyway, whom
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God displayed publicly as a propitiation in his blood through faith. This was to demonstrate his righteousness because in the forbearance of God, he passed over the sins previously committed.
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He was very kind as he would hold back the floodgates of his wrath that we so deserved.
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I've got a question for you, class. Does justification change you on the inside?
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Does it make you more holy, in other words? Answer, no.
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That would be Roman Catholic justification which somehow on the inside, it affects us. Regeneration affects us but justification is just a declaration.
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Mike Ebendroth, wicked as he may be, is right in my eyes. He's from God's perspective and that's why
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I said, as we look at this viewed manward in your handout there, man has sinned and broken
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God's standard. Man was in need of receiving the righteousness of God to enter into fellowship with him and basically God says, you have my son's righteousness,
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I declare you not guilty. All right, let's go to the second one. The sinner stands before God as a slave and is granted freedom by ransom.
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What's that R word? Redemption. What do we have right up the street? Is there a little, read the redemption rock.
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That's exactly right. Who can tell me about redemption? Who could paint the picture? If you're going to teach an eighth grade class, how could you do that?
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How would you describe redemption with some kind of other models of redeeming people? We're going to go down to the redemption center and bring all our two liter bottles of Diet Mountain Dew down there, or excuse me, polar soda.
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All right, go ahead. Great, that's a great way to think about it.
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Remember last week in Hosea chapter three, Hosea had to go buy Gomer out of a slave market.
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Can you imagine? Most likely she's standing there naked. She has chains on and he's sitting there saying, five shekels.
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And some other man says, no, six shekels. And he's like 10 shekels. And another guy says, 14 shekels.
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And he says, 15 shekels. The other guy says, 20 shekels. And finally, he says, 15 shekels of silver and the equivalent of barley.
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And then no one else outbids. And so here we are, slaves to sin. And how can we get out?
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Everything we do is tainted by sin. And how can somehow we get out of our own skin? We cannot. Can you think of a good
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Bible verse to look up where it says we have redemption? We've been redeemed. We've been bought with a price.
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Yes. Great. And what's the reference there?
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Excellent. Let's go there. Ephesians 1 -7. You didn't think I was going to preach from Ephesians today, did you?
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You thought I was preaching part two. But let's look at Ephesians. This is wonderful. We were slaves and God has granted us freedom.
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You can think of all the stories of John Newton being actually a slave himself and also being taken care of slaves, if you can call it that.
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And he's been on both sides of it. And here we have people we have been purchased out of a marketplace.
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This is amazing. Ephesians 1 -7, it says, in him we have redemption. Redeemed slaves, you think about in the old days and the
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Civil War and all kinds of other things. But if you were a Jew and you heard the word redemption, what would come into your mind more than anything else?
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Remember, we've got to have that Jewish mindset as we look at the Scriptures. You were a Jew and you heard the word redemption.
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It was a paradigm for salvation and you would think of one thing and one thing only, and that would be the
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Exodus. You have been redeemed. God redeemed you out of there. Listen to Deuteronomy 7 -8, but because the
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Lord loved you and kept the oath which he swore to your forefathers, the Lord brought you out by a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery from the hand of Pharaoh of Egypt.
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I think of Boaz, redeemed the land belonging to Naomi's husband. I think about a slave unable to free himself, but he could be freed by a relative.
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And why did Jesus have to become a human being? Because in a sense, he would be our relative. He would be a human who could redeem someone from his own family.
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Now, this word here, redemption, in Ephesians 1 -7, basically means, well, let me ask you the question.
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What does it mean to redeem? Can anybody tell me generally what that means? Excellent.
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It comes from a root word, letruo, and it means to obtain release by payment of a price. What was the price?
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What was the currency? What were we using to trade? What were we using to buy out? Monopoly money?
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Christ's blood. Could he have just bled? We're just going to go ahead and bleed into a pool like that old
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Charlton Heston science fiction movie, Omega Man, and as long as you got the blood, you were okay from that disease.
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Just his blood. What does blood mean? His life.
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And by Christ's sacrificial, vicious death, he has redeemed us. And you'll notice the passage here, in him we have.
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I don't want to re -preach you Ephesians 1, but it's an ongoing thing. We have that. New Testament redemption,
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Titus 2 .14, he gave himself for us that he might redeem us from every lawless deed. First Peter 1 .18,
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knowing that you were redeemed not with precious things like silver or gold, but with precious blood.
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By the way, do you notice it says in him? There's no redemption in anyone else. Not yourself, not other people, not
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Buddha, not Confucius, not Gandhi, not you fill in the blanks. If you notice on your sheet, this word is viewed sinward.
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Mankind was in bondage to sin and is in need of release from bondage and slavery to sin. You'll be blessed by this quote by Wheeler.
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If I had the wisdom of Solomon, the patience of John, the meekness of Moses, the strength of Samson, the obedience of Abraham, the compassion of Joseph, the tears of Jeremiah, the poetic skill of David, the prophetic voice of Elijah, the courage of Daniel, the greatness of Jesus, the grace of John the
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Baptist, the endurance and love of Paul, I would still need redemption through Christ's blood. We have to have redemption from that slave pit of sin.
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Okay, good. So far, how are you doing? Two for two. This is not like salvation where you have to obey the law perfectly.
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There is grace here. All right, number three, the sinner stands before God as a debtor.
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We owe, we've done sin, we've done the wages of sin, and the debt has been paid for and is forgotten.
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What do we call that? Forgiveness. That's exactly right. Here again is a legal act, forgiveness.
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Can you think of a Bible verse that talks about forgiveness for all our sins? There's a man who's on the radio, a very destructive ministry.
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His name's Bob George, and he believes that once you ask God for forgiveness at salvation, you no longer need to ask for forgiveness every other time you sin.
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And I would tell you that that is not only unbiblical, but just try it. You will not be able to function in life going around never asking for forgiveness.
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Where's one of the best passages on forgiveness where you think God has forgiven every sin, past, present, and future?
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They're all gone. That's a great one. I like that one. That's not the one
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I was thinking of. That's excellent. Yes? 1 John 1 .9. That's a good one too.
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The one I was thinking about, and since I'm the one behind the pulpit, we'll go to the verse I picked, Colossians 2.
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Let's look there. Here we have forgiveness, and we have this great debt. We have worked hard to sin.
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Sometimes the Bible speaks about evil people who will not go to bed unless they sin. People sweat to sin.
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They work to sin. They toil. They love their sin. By the way, sin is fun for a season, but then it's anti -uptime.
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Colossians 2 .13. When you were dead in your transgressions, in the uncircumcision of your flesh,
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He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven.
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Does anybody remember there what the root word is, forgiven? He's graced us.
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The root word there has the root word of a favor, our grant, our grace. He's graced us, all our transgressions.
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It's all of God's grace, 100%. He's forgiven us all of our sins. Can you think of any kind of sins?
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I wrote down a few. Ignorant, high -handed, original, from Adam, actually that we've done, past, present, future, with our thoughts, with our words, with our deeds, sins of omission, sins of commission.
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They are gone. Can you imagine just when Pilgrim, when he looked at the cross finally and he had the burden of all his sins on his back, it just was that relief.
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It was that release. Psalm 32 says, verse 1, how blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
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I'll tell you, I lived long enough as an unbeliever until I was 29 years old, and I would do anything for my conscience just to be kind of balmed and soothed.
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I don't care if it was alcohol or drugs or whatever it was, just soothe my conscience. I knew
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I was sinful. I just didn't want to say, yes, Lord, I want you to be my
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Savior, but I don't want you to be my Lord. And the last time I checked, Acts chapter 2 said that the Father has made him both
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Lord and Savior. Okay, so we've got forgiveness, we've got redemption, we've got all these other things.
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By the way your sheet says, quote, this is viewed manward, man had sinned and needed to have his sins dealt with and removed.
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There's all kinds of other words for forgiveness. It just kinds of, to go away is another word. Micah 7 .18
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says, who is a God like thee who pardons iniquity and passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of his possession?
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What other God does that? I'm used to having these wicked gods back in the New Testament time and the Old Testament time, the
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Canaanite gods who would exact punishment and here we go again, that one Star Trek episode where there's that big, huge dragon and they have to come over and bring it fruit baskets when it's mad.
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Or have to bring it young virgins and girls, somehow don't get so mad. What kind of God have you ever came up with in the universe?
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Zeus or Hermes or anyone else who says, you know, I'll forgive you and I'll forgive you because I'll punish my own son.
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Who made that up? Nate, I have to tell you the story about Nate since this is a family time.
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I've been always discussing 2 Peter 3 about how God will melt this world with a fervent heat and a roar, remember?
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And that word there, the new heavens and the new earth, it's not new out of new material, it's new out of existing material.
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So God will take this globe and he will burn it and purify it with fire and make it new.
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By the way, then that's when heaven will come down and all that stuff and land on this earth, but that's new.
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And so Nate said to me the other day, he said, that's just like that Star Trek number three where it's the Genesis effect where that one thing happens and just burns it all.
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So those of you who know Star Trek know it. Those of you that don't, I'll get an F in homiletics for tonight.
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But which God does that? Baal doesn't do that. Ashtaroth doesn't do that.
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All right, number four, the sinner stands before God as an enemy and becomes a friend. I mean, this is amazing too.
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It's stuff we all know. My prayer tonight for my own self and for you is this would hit us again. And we would be reminded we should be the most thankful people alive.
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Peace with God is made. Is it an irreconcilable difference between sinful man and God?
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Not when Christ is there. What do we call this? Reconciliation. That we two people were enemies, they were at odds, they were fighting, and now they become friends.
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And we're not the initiator, of course, we are the recipient. Fellowship has been restored.
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Why don't we turn to Romans chapter five and take a look at this, that we have been justified and we've been forgiven, we've been redeemed.
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And now let's look at this passage where we have reconciliation. By the way, beloved, if you'd like to preach the gospel to someone and you want to use the
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Roman road, great. If you'd like to use these words, this is a good way to preach the gospel to someone.
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And you tell them, look my friend, one day you'll stand before the court of God and you'll have to answer for your sins.
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And if your sins have been paid for by Christ, God declares you not guilty. By the way, my friend, you are at odds with God and you have a bad relationship with Him and He's mad at you,
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He's angry with you, and there's a way to become friends with God. Do you know, my friend, that you are a slave to sin even by your own life?
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You might not admit it, but you are a slave to sin and you can have that slavery broken by having
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God redeem you out of that. You can just work through this as a great way to preach the gospel. Look at Romans chapter 5 verse 9.
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This is what we call an argument from the greater to the lesser. Much more than having been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.
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For if we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son. Much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
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Not only this, but we exalt in God through the Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have now received the reconciliation.
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The primary focus isn't on reconciliation, but it is on this. If God loved you when you were an enemy, how much does
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He love you now as a friend? Can you imagine? God loved me when I would kill
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God if my arms were long enough and my biceps were big enough. And He loved me then.
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Do you think He loves me more now? He says much more. Having been reconciled, we'll be saved by His life.
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That's why when people try to tell me, I think I can lose my salvation, you don't understand God's long arm.
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You don't understand salvation. That if He loved you while you were an enemy, and you're a Christian now, the next time you sin,
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He's going to go, bumming me out. You're out of here. No, He wouldn't do that.
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You've been reconciled. Side note, I don't struggle with it that much anymore.
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Some days, it goes through my mind, but have you ever struggled with assurance of salvation?
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Am I really a Christian? If you haven't, you're probably not a Christian. Everyone struggles, and those that don't,
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I always have to wonder. I've only met two people in my life who have said, I've never struggled with my assurance.
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I struggle with their lack of struggle. It's like the boys in the cart there with the horse cart in the old days in Amish country or whatever.
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They said to the church -going boy, all the wicked rebels said to the church -going boy, if Satan were to get on this ox cart right now and try to get after us or you, who would he get?
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He said, well, he'd attack me because he's already got you. What does Satan do? I think he attacks the assurance of believers, of course.
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Our own sin makes our assurance go down, but this is the kind of stuff that I would study if I were you, if you're having problems with assurance.
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I don't go to 1 John when I struggle with assurance. Do you know which book I go to? It may sound clinical.
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It may sound not very spiritual, but I go to the book of Galatians because Galatians says it is
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Christ's death at Calvary and nothing else that grants you salvation. So it's not Christ's death plus,
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I really had good devos this week, devotions, Christ's death plus, I really didn't pray like I should this week,
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Christ's death plus, I didn't confess my sins as fast as I should and I fell back in that same pattern. No, it's the death of Christ and only the death of Christ, and if I add anything else, it's a false gospel.
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And I say, would I stake my eternal life and my kid's eternal life on the doctrine of salvation and substitution?
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Yes, I would. I believe that, and my assurance comes zooming right back. It's the same thing with Spurgeon, where he said to people who were always running around for assurance, oh,
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I'm losing my assurance. He said it's like a dove, and you're trying to get that dove. You ever try to catch a dove? You can't catch that dove.
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If you just leave that dove away of assurance and focus on Christ and His work and His person and the
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Calvary, lo and behold, that dove just comes right back on your shoulder. I thought that's exactly right.
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So when you struggle with assurance, these are some of the things that you study. Number five.
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Well, let me just read at the end of number four. This word is viewed manward. This is right out of N's Moody Handbook of Bible Dictionary or Bible Theology.
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Man was the one that had moved out of fellowship because of sin, and man needed to be reconciled to renew the friendship. Number five.
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You could use this word starting with an A if you'd like, or I put S here. The sinner stands before God as a stranger and has made a son.
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A would probably be better. What adoption? You've become a son. Maybe politically correct, we'll use adoption so people don't think sons and daughters and all that stuff.
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Ephesians chapter one, verse five. Let's go there and look at adoption. I mean, it still rings in my mind when
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I think of Scott Ferrer, when he said to Doug, I said in Ephesians one, six years ago, whenever we were in Ephesians one, you know, and is it true,
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Scott, that you said when you looked at Doug, anything it takes to get that boy, to adopt that boy.
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Anything it takes. It's the same thing here. Look at adoption.
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He predestined, he carved out us to adoption as son through Jesus Christ to himself.
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Who does the adoption? Doug, do you remember how old you were when you got adopted? Can't remember?
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Around two. So you didn't, when they came, did you say, I choose those parents? I'm sorry.
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I don't want to embarrass you. But the idea is Scott and Cindy chose,
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Doug was a recipient of adoption and all the benefits. And in those days, if you were adopted, the first thing they would do is you would change your name.
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Did you know what they would also do is all your old debts that you had to pay were gone and taken care of.
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And you can now start thinking spiritually from the spiritual aspect. All my old debts were gone.
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Why? Because somebody else paid for them. I've been adopted as a son. I can say to God, Abba, father.
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I'm an heir to the new estate. Your old life was gone.
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You can just take it. You know how people steal identities these days through the computer and stuff? This is the positive side of the stolen identity.
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Your old identity has been taken away and now God has given you a new identity. And you know,
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I always would think about that when I was a kid and you see the old movies and they've got a bunch of checks and somehow they put the magnetic marker at the bottom of the checks and it's your check.
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And you know, people would go into the savings institution and there's all the deposit slips and you know what?
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You'd have all your magnetic markers on there. So when they would deposit any money, it would all go into your account.
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Wow. You could tell, see, I was depraved as a kid too. And here all the spiritual bank account is everything that your father owns.
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It's yours. Doug, do you know one day when your mom and dad die, you get it all. Oh, excuse me.
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Divided by six. Zero divided by six is how much again?
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What was that? You just think adopted with all the rights and privileges, love like your own son.
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And it is true because John chapter 10 teaches it. Jesus is loved by God with the same love that God loves us.
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In other words, God doesn't love you any less than he loves his own son because he loves us in his son.
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We're adopted right into the family. And that's pretty amazing considering we used to have a different daddy and our daddy had a different name and his name was what?
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Diabolos. That's my dad. Can you imagine? And now we have the father, the glorious father, the triune
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God. It's amazing. Harry Ironside said, so dear, so very dear to God, more dear
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I cannot be. The love wherein he loves his son, such is his love to me. So near, so very near to God, near I could not be for in the person of his son,
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I am as near as he. All right. Let's go to number, yes, as a sonship or adoption, either one.
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All right. Number six. How are we doing for time? All right.
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Number six. What do you have there? Propitiation. Don't you just like the way that rolls off your tongue?
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There's two great words around this church. One is sacerdotalism and the other is propitiation. This is a better word.
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Sacerdotalism is something that we don't endorse. Propitiation we do. And it's a shame that I think the NIV translates it satisfaction many times.
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Propitiation is a little bit better. But what is propitiation? Who could tell me? Anyone? Bruce. Bruce.
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Okay. Excellent. Did you all hear that? Good. Let's go to Hebrews chapter two for a verse you might not be familiar with and just take a look at it where, again, salvation is from the
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Lord and Jonah knew that. Salvation is started by God. It's worked out by God. It's finished by God.
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It's all of God. He gets all the credit. And what's the difference between you and your neighbor? God. That's the difference.
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It's not you. It's not your repentance. It's not that you're better. It's not that you tithe. It's not that you had a friend who preached the gospel to you.
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It is God and God alone. That's why you're in heaven. It's his sovereign choice by his goodwill.
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How and why? I don't know. I'm just glad I'm chosen. Some things we're not to know and that bugs us at times, but it's just in the
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Bible. What am I going to do? Hebrews 2 .17. Therefore, he had to be made like his brethren in all things that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in pertaining to God and things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.
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If he was to represent the people, identify with the people, God says, I'm angry with the wicked every day.
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God not only hates the sin, but hates the sinner. He pours out his wrath on something or someone.
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In this case, it has to be Jesus, who's not only God, but also human. Some people think that God forgives sin without a payment for sin.
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I would say that's not true. That's actually called the governmental theory of the atonement. You can study that if you'd like, but it's not going to get you too far.
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This is viewed Godward. God is propitiated. He's satisfied. His holiness is vindicated, it should read, and satisfied by the death of Christ.
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The next one from this morning. If you missed this one, you've got to get the tape and transcribe it for me. All right, here we go.
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Number seven is substitution. That's exactly right. Just as the lamb was substituted in the
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Old Testament, now we have the lamb of God who's substituted. Why don't we just look at 1 Peter 2, and let's see the verses with our own eyes.
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When you read these, you'll be thinking of Isaiah 53 from this morning. It's a very interesting discussion around the lunch table at the
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Ebenroth's today. My son, Luke 6, asked me the first question as we talked about the service.
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He said, Daddy, what's an eunuch? And so, Kim looked at me like, what are you going to say?
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How are you going to describe this one? I did my best. What's an eunuch?
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And he himself, notice very emphatic. By the way, congregation, when you see himself right next to he, that's usually a
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Greek word that's telling you this is for emphasis. He could easily have said, and he bore our sins. That's true.
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But when you see the himself there, he himself, you should underline that and say, yes, the writer's trying to make a point.
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He himself and no one else bore our sins in his body on the cross that we might die to sin and live to righteousness, for by his wounds we were healed.
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There's that terminology again. He bore our sins, just like we saw 11 times this morning in that short passage in Isaiah.
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Just like Isaiah talks about in verse 25. You think Peter knew Isaiah 53? I think he did, for you were continually straying like sheep, but now you've returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls because of what
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God had done. All right, so in the time we have left, let's do some true and false.
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Remember, if there's anything false, it's all false. But before we do that, any questions so far on some of these big words?
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All right. Number one, true or false. The death of Christ was a ransom paid to Satan.
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Where did we get that, by the way? Remember, there's nothing new under the sun and TBN did not come up with that doctrine, although you might think they did.
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TBN, by the way, Trinity Broadcasting Network, I wish they'd change their name because they have some people on there who deny the
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Trinity. And so, I would not watch that show if I were you very much.
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The Trinity Broadcasting Network, be very careful because you could be influenced.
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And I think there's maybe two or three men on there that I would think that would be solid, but I question how solid they are when they put themselves on.
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Why would you do that? It was a ransom paid to Satan.
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Origin first came up with this in around 200 AD. And basically, it was this,
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Satan is the owner of the world now in a small, and he's got all these captives, and all these captives he owns, and somehow now
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Jesus has to die, and that payment will be given to Satan, so Satan will have to release his people.
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Augustine also held this view. Did you know that? Beware. The ransom was paid, but the ransom was paid to Satan or who was the ransom paid?
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To whom was the ransom paid? God, that's exactly right. Satan is not the beneficiary of Christ's work.
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Romans 5 .10, for while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son. 1 John 2 .2,
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and He Himself is a propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also those of the whole world. That one is for sure false.
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We don't want to believe that. Number two, the purpose of Christ's death was to provide a good example.
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Tricky question. 1 Peter 2 .21,
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for you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps.
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Alright, well, first of all, for the verse that I just read, that was given to believers anyway, and the context was not suffering on the cross, but the context was we were to suffer, and we might suffer up and to the cross, but the key here is the death was not just a good example, because that's a liberal belief, and it's called the example or martyr theory of the atonement.
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Instead of substitution, Christ for us, they say, well, He was just a good example. Matter of fact, in says this, there was no relationship between the salvation of sinners and Christ's death.
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Rather, Christ was an example of obedience, and it was that example of obedience to the point of death that ought to inspire people to reform and live like Christ lived.
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Yeah, He was just so giving and so sacrificial, we should all be inspired by that.
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That would be wrong. Certainly, should we be inspired to live, to suffer under God's will?
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Yes, but for unbelievers, they should look at the cross and say, boy, what a great example.
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No, they should look and say, He's the Lamb of God. Alright, number three, we're going to have to speed this up a little bit.
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Number three, true or false, Jesus became a sinner on our behalf so that we might be saved. I have in my notes, shame on you if you called
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Christ a sinner. Now, the language in 2
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Corinthians 5 .21 might seem like it, so let's go there, but we want to clear this up, because whatever you do, you have to remember,
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Jesus was fully God and fully man, and as fully God, He could not sin. He was tempted in all things, like we were, but He did not sin.
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And God can't sin, and God can't deny His nature. He cannot do something unholy or unrighteous or contradict even
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His own standards in person and work. So, Jesus didn't become a sinner, but God treated
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Him like He was. Even though He wasn't, God treated Him like a sinner. God exacted that punishment on Christ like He was a sinner, even though He wasn't.
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And when God does His work towards us, He treats us like we're righteous, even though we are not.
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That's exactly right. 2 Corinthians 5 .21, He made Him, He, the
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Father, made Him, the Son, who knew no sin. We know it's the Son, because there's only one in the universe who's never sinned.
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To be sinned on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. I would translate that a lot differently, but the point is not that Jesus was treated as a sinner.
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That would be okay to say. He was treated as a sinner, but He was not a sinner. Jesus did not sin ever in His thoughts, ever with His deeds.
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He never sinned. He did not become a sinner on our behalf. He became a human on our behalf.
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He added human nature to His already divine nature, lived a perfect life. But God said, in My judicial law, the wages of sin is death.
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Someone has to die, and it's going to be My Son. So, we just have to be careful. Number four, with the same verse we could use,
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Jesus died in the place of sinners. Yes, that one's true. On our behalf, in our stead, just like we learned this morning.
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Eleven times in Isaiah 53, the substitutionary atonement. He's our substitute.
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Number five, the death of Christ fully and completely satisfied the righteous demands of God. True. Remember this morning?
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He looked at His Son, and He was what? Satisfied. He said, yes, that's done it.
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They don't have to say, well, you know, 99 % of the wrath has poured out, and Christ, you did a 99 % good job, but, you know,
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I think you better have Mass every single week and kind of make up the 1 % difference. What did
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Jesus do when He went to the right hand of Majesty on high, according to Hebrews chapter 1?
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He sat down. Well, what about when Stephen was getting stoned and said he stood up to help?
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Stand up, sit down? Pardon me? Stand up, sit down, fight, fight, fight?
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What does that mean, He sat down? Now, think, okay, the Bible, most of the men who wrote the
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Bible were Jewish. It's all in the Jewish context, and when you were a high priest, or you were a priest, and you went in and you slayed some animals and you put them on the altar, what did you never do?
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You never sat down. You were never done, that's right, because just by the time somebody got their sins done, they would sin again.
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And so Jesus sat down is good language for us, good figurative language to denote, to connote rather, that sacrifice was complete and God was satisfied.
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And we know He was satisfied because God did one thing, a very brilliant thing, not by smart, but just by something amazing to say, yes,
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I was pleased with that substitutionary atonement and I'm satisfied with it, and He did something to show
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His effort, that He affirmed that. And what did He do? Veil was done, good,
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He did something else. Resurrection, according to Romans chapter 4, verse 25, He raised
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Christ from the dead to say, yes, that was right, that was good, I affirmed that. I think that's one of the next numbers here.
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Number six, we're almost done, hang in there. The bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ is very important and should be emphasized, but it is not absolutely essential for Christianity to be valid.
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Christ has not been raised and our preaching is vain. I'm not here to toot my horn, but I usually spend a lot of time studying and preparing and preaching, it's emotionally draining,
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I go home at night and I try to do godly things, I think I'll be like Martin Lloyd -Jones and Spurgeon on Sunday night and read biographies of Christian saints.
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I am just jello on Sunday night. How would you like to have all this in vain? I wouldn't like it to be.
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What about your whole life? You're not home watching the Super Bowl with all your friends?
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This is all just a big joke. There's no resurrection, it would be a joke, and people should laugh at us and just go...
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All the self -denial, but God has raised him from the dead. The focal point of true
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Christianity is cross -work of Jesus Christ. I think that's true, I think that's the fulcrum, that's the center.
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That's why Paul said, yes, I preach the Bible. He didn't say, well, there's other verses I don't preach, but he says,
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I've got a job to do and I preach Jesus Christ and him what? Crucified. That was the focal point of Paul's ministry, to preach the death of Christ and his resurrection.
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It's the focal point. 1 Corinthians 1 .23, we preach Christ crucified to the Jews a stumbling block, to the
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Gentiles foolishness. All right, number eight, it's getting trickier. Let's see if we have any
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Sabellian modalism heresies here. God the
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Father came to the earth as God the Son. Now he ministers to us as God the
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Holy Spirit. False. Here's what happens. There is the
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Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. But what the Trinity is not, some people like to do this.
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Well, in the old days he was the Father, then he came as the Son, and now he's the Spirit. That is modalism, that is heresy.
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The Spirit of God, just like in Isaiah 48. I was just listening to you tonight, Lewis, when you were reading
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Isaiah 48, and I didn't have my Bible open, I was just listening, and one of the things we first learned in seminary, if you'd like to prove the
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Old Testament, teaches the Trinity with one verse here to go to Isaiah 48, 16, because it's there. The Trinity has always been the
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Trinity. Immortal, forever lasting. I am God, and here's the Trinity, and God does not say,
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I'm going to just be in different forms. I could ask it this way. What was the Son doing while the
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Father was creating? What was the Spirit doing while Jesus was on earth? What was the
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Father doing while the Spirit was on earth, when Jesus was on earth? Was Jesus praying to the Father, but he was really praying to himself?
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No, there's three distinct persons, but one God. If you can understand it, you're
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God, and if you deny it, you're not going to heaven. I mean, that's the Trinity. We can't. It's just we're in awe of God. The Bible teaches he's one, but there's three persons.
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The only time I really ever hear this around this church is sometimes when I hear people pray. I hear them pray in this modalism form,
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God, thank you, Father. It's easy to do. Father, we praise you and bless your holy name.
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We're thankful that you came on earth. I never say anything. It would be ticky -tack, but sometimes you hear this modalism expressed in prayers because we're to pray to the
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Father in the Son's name by the power of the Spirit. All right, last one.
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Every man needs a Savior. True. If you look at the sheet here, I think it says
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B on mine. It should be A. Man is a slave to sin. You can look that up in Romans 6.
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C, or technically the second one, B. Man is what? Dead in trespasses and sins, and man's got a horrible condition, and that condition is their hearts are wicked.
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My heart's wicked, so we need to have a Savior. Last question.
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What about the people who haven't heard? What about the proverbial person in Antarctica?
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What about the people on the Antares Nebula or whatever, those people who actually live in a different planet?
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If they did, what about that? Yes. Which says, summarized, that's right.
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Why do we send missionaries out? Because you've got to know the gospel. You've got to hear it so you might know the object of your faith.
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We have to go send missionaries out. It's not found in the stars or not found in our person that we can have salvation.
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What is found in ourselves is that we are sinners and we have a need. Well, that went fast tonight.
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I was talking about family devotions earlier. Let me just read you this last little snippet, and then we'll close.
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For family devotions, Martin Luther once read the account of Abraham offering Isaac on the altar in Genesis 22.
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Katie, his wife, said, I don't believe it. God would not have treated his son like that. And I've got a son.
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Some of you do, too. Would you treat your son like that? But Katie Luther replied, he did.
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He did. And that is just amazing to me that I could stand up here and proclaim the grace of God that what
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I deserved, he gave his son. And so, therefore, we stand in people who should be super thankful.
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Not only should we be thankful for salvation, but everything that comes our way, because if God has given us his son, do you think the trials that he gives you this week come out of anything else but love?
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If I take a collective poll tonight and then next week, who's going to have the big trials? I just want you to know that you may have trials, but you will have trials that come from the loving hand of God, because if he's given you the greater salvation, won't he give you the lesser?
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And I might be the one having the trials, too. It's the bad part about preaching. All right.
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Well, I trust tonight that you learned more about the gospel, more about salvation. You can use it for your own heart or even for the preaching of the gospel to others.
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And for those who might be here that aren't saved, God has done his work, and he calls all men to bow the knee, because you will bow one day or the other.
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And we trust that you bow while you're alive. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this night. And those words roll off my tongue so easily.
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I bow and say thank you, yet I know I don't know the gravity of what you've done like I should.
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So would you take these truths tonight and these dear saints who would come out and help them to just look back and think about their great salvation and to remember that you're a
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God who cares and who loves and who's done everything, Father, at great expense. And Father, I don't know what it's like to give a gift that costs so much, but I do know, at least from the scriptures and in my own life, that you've done that for me and most of these dear people.
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Help us to be thankful Christians this week, relying upon your spirit, ever rejoicing like Fanny Crosby, who couldn't see and then who didn't even want to see until she could see you face to face.