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We have been, we are currently addressing the prelude to Jesus' public ministry.
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And this prelude followed the prologue. The prelude is found in verses 19 through 51.
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This is the third Sunday we're in this prelude, and we're going to be here a few more. I think we're only going to get through three verses today, and that'll probably be doing pretty well.
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We'll see. Here we have, of course, the ministry of John the
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Baptist being described still, or again we might even say. Last week we completed our attention to the evangelist's emphasis, and the evangelist would be the writer of the gospel,
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John the Apostle, the evangelist's emphasis on John the Baptist and the Jews. They were in Jerusalem, but they sent an embassy to John the
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Baptist. And today we'll give more consideration to the witness of John the
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Baptist, which he rendered directly to our Savior, the Lord Jesus. And so I had hoped originally to address verses 29 through 34, but we're not, we're only going to get half that, perhaps, verses 29 through 31.
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Here's the outline that we've been following of so far. We have the prologue, first 18 verses.
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We have the prelude, the rest of chapter one. And this prelude to the public ministry of Jesus is divided into really two sections, the witness of John the
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Baptist being the first, the second being the first disciples. And considering this witness of John the
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Baptist, again last week we addressed John and the Jews, actually the last two weeks. And today
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I hope that we can begin to address this John and Jesus, verses 29 through 34.
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And especially this first half of this, this in John revealed the identity of Jesus as the promised
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Savior of the world, verses 29 through 31. And so we'll address this,
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Lord willing. Let's read, however, verses 29 through 34 and then we'll zero in on the first three verses.
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The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, Behold, the
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Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. This is he of whom I said,
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After me comes a man who is preferred before me, for he was before me. I did not know him, but that he should be revealed to Israel.
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Therefore, I came baptizing with water. And John bore witness, saying,
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I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and he remained upon him. I did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me,
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Upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining on him, this is he who baptizes with the
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Holy Spirit. And I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God.
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So John's witness to Jesus. Our New King James translation, which we just read, has these verses, verses 29 through 34, set forth in two paragraphs of three verses each.
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And so we can perhaps posit this more detailed outline, top of page two, if you're following in the notes.
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John revealed the identity of Jesus as the promised Savior of the world, and then a sub point for each verse.
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Verse 29, John identified Jesus as the sacrificial Lamb of God. Secondly, verse 30,
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John identified Jesus as the one he had previously declared was coming. And then thirdly,
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John declared his calling to reveal Jesus to Israel, verse 31. Next week, we'll look at Roman numeral two and the details.
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And so let's zero in beginning with verse 29 to 31. John revealed the identity of Jesus as the promised
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Savior of the world. God had called John to be a witness of the pre -incarnate
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Son of God in the man Christ Jesus. We see that first,
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John identified Jesus as the sacrificial Lamb of God. Verse 29, the next day,
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John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
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Well -known verse, isn't it? Probably most of us recite that or think about it.
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John declared forthrightly the next day this happened. This is a reference this next day to the day following the inquiry of the
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Jews from Jerusalem who had sent an embassy to John asking, who are you and why are you baptizing?
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And so it was the day after this inquiry of John the Baptist that John saw
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Jesus coming to him. John declared to them that he wasn't the Messiah, he wasn't
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Elijah, the literal prophet that they were wrongly anticipating coming, nor was he the prophet that Moses had foretold would arise.
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Rather, he declared that he was the voice of Isaiah 40, the herald of the imminent arrival of the
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Messiah, the promised King who would inaugurate the long -awaited promised kingdom of God and the salvation that would bring for his people.
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And verse 19 serves to accentuate John's declarative ministry in which he announced before all that Jesus was the promised
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Savior. The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, behold the
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Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Now notice the description that we have.
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John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him. As we attempted to explain last week, this was not the occasion when
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Jesus came to be baptized by John. We might wrongly assume that's the case.
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We read of that, of course, in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the Synoptic Gospels. This event recorded in John 1, however, is at least 40 days after Jesus had been baptized.
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Some weeks had probably elapsed since Jesus received baptism at John's hands.
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He had been away since then, but now he's back and John draws the crowd's attention to him.
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It may be that John made this announcement, behold the Lamb of God, even as our Lord was returning from the wilderness, those desert regions where he had just been tempted, tested by the devil for a period of 40 days.
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Now we know this must be the case because in John's account, after this event, we read of Jesus calling his disciples, four of them, and then he immediately travels to Galilee.
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And yet we know when he was baptized, according to the Synoptic Gospels, immediately the
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Spirit drove him into the wilderness for 40 days. And so this was not when Jesus came to John initially to be baptized.
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It was probably when Jesus was returning from his temptation and he was, and John saw him coming, and John had saw the
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Spirit come upon him 40 days before. And now John announces to Israel, basically, this is he, this is the promised one, the
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Messiah. The initial word that is recorded here on John's lips is significant.
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We might pass over it rather easily. He declared, behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.
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The evangelist who penned this gospel used this word to precede his statements in his gospel more than all of the other writers of the
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New Testament combined. Behold is a significant word for John, that is the
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Apostle John. One wrote of John's use of this term, first John begins the witness with the particle of explanation, behold, and by the word particle that's a part of speech, just like a noun or adjective, behold is a particle.
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The conventional particle is used in Greek to draw attention to what follows. In other words, it's there for a reason.
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When used before a verb, it serves as a promoter of attention, but when used before a noun, which is in this case, behold the
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Lamb of God, it serves as a marker of strong emphasis, behold.
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So the fourth gospel uses it in this latter sense when there is a challenge to proceed with a mind, a truth not outwardly evident to human eyes.
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Behold, look at this, you're not going to notice it otherwise. For example, it's used as a marker of strong emphasis in John 19 .14
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when Pilate says to the Jews, behold your king, and thus the particle sets the tone regarding the importance of the person being emphatically introduced.
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Behold the Lamb of God. John identified Jesus as the
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Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Jesus is the Lamb of God. Probably one of the most common descriptions in the
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Christian's thinking about Jesus. He's the Lamb of God. Interestingly, however, besides this verse, verse 29, and it's repeated in verse 36, just a few verses down the line, this is the only place in the
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Bible where Jesus is referred to as the Lamb of God. Yes, Jesus is depicted and declared to be the
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Lamb elsewhere in the Bible. In fact, he is so in the book of Acts, first Peter, and then
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I forget how many times in the book of Revelation, I think I might have listed it somewhere, but he's mentioned as the
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Lamb numerous times in the book of Revelation, but this is the only place in the Bible where he's described as the
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Lamb of God. That Jesus is the
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Lamb suggests several ideas regarding our Lord's person and ministry. By the way, this is one of the kinds of things that you can just kind of meditate upon during the week as you think about Jesus is the
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Lamb of God. What's being conveyed by the idea of Jesus as a lamb? What is suggested by that?
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A lamb is a young sheep, of course, which is commonly perceived as rather docile and non -threatening.
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There's nothing probably less threatening than a lamb. A lamb is certainly not a danger to anything about it.
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A lamb conveys the idea of purity or innocence. A lamb is vulnerable to abuse and is a rather helpless creature which may be slaughtered with little defense or even resistance.
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So a lamb is easily slain, consumed by most every kind of carnivore it encounters.
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And yes, we read a paradoxical descriptions of the lamb in that one day there will be unleashed the wrath of the lamb.
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Now, that's a paradox, isn't it? The wrath of the lamb. Revelation 6, 15 and 16, and the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains and said to the mountains and rocks, fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the lamb.
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That's quite a paradoxical statement. And I think here probably the incongruent nature of a lamb manifesting great wrath that will strike terror into the great men of the earth serves to accentuate both the surprise and the terrible terror that will strike the hearts of those on whom his wrath will be unleashed one day.
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The wrath of the lamb. Thirdly, John identified
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Jesus to be the lamb of God. The qualifier could mean that he's the lamb provided by God.
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That word of carries all kinds of possible different meanings, or perhaps belonging to God, like in possession, this is
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God's lamb, or even the lamb who comes from God.
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The lamb is God's provision for sinners, God provided for himself a sacrifice for sinners.
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He's the lamb of God. However, attempt to answer the question to what does the lamb point to specifically?
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When John declared, behold, the lamb of God. What Old Testament event or sacrifice was
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John alluding to when he declared Jesus, behold, the lamb of God. And there is no settled opinion about this.
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In fact, there's wide ranging opinion as to what John was referring. I came across nine proposals and here they are.
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The Passover lamb. That's what John was indicating. Behold, the lamb, the
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Passover lamb. Secondly, the lamb that is led to the slaughter in Isaiah 53, seven, third, the servant of the
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Lord, which is set forth in all the fourth servant song that is in Isaiah 52, 53.
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Four, the lamb of the daily sacrifices offered morning and evening in the temple. Lambs were sacrificed daily.
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Fifth, some reason it was the gentle lamb. That's what John was pointing out, the gentle lamb that's spoken about in Jeremiah 11, 19.
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Others argue it's the scapegoat, the lamb of God, the scapegoat on the day of atonement.
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And what's attractive of this proposal is that the scapegoat took away the sins. Of course, a figure of Christ took away the sin of Israel into the wilderness.
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Behold, the lamb of God. The problem with this position, however, of course, the sacrifice was a goat, not a lamb.
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Some argue that it's the triumphant lamb of revelation. Same author, John the apostle, John's gospel revelation.
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Some argue is the God provided lamb of Genesis 22, eight. You know, Isaac asked his father, father,
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I see the wood. I see we're going to have a sacrifice. Where's the animal? God himself will provide a lamb for the sacrifice is what
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Abraham told Isaac. Or nine, some propose a guilt offering since sometimes this was a lamb.
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Guilt offerings were an offering that was presented in the temple by a sinner.
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Probably the way to address this meaning of the lamb of God is as follows. If the writer really had in mind an allusion to one particular offering, we are not able any longer to detect it with certainty.
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And I think that's true. But it seems more probable that of set purpose, he used an expression which cannot be confined to any one view.
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He's making a general allusion to sacrifice. The lamb figure may well be intended to be a composite evoking memories of several, perhaps all of the suggestions we have canvassed.
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All that the ancient sacrifices foreshadowed was perfectly fulfilled in the sacrifice of Christ.
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And I think that's a legitimate assertion. I suppose if I were to express a preference, it would be the first one listed.
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He's the Passover lamb. Because of John's emphasis that the Lord Jesus died during the
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Feast of the Passover, John, it would seem to me, it would be fitting that John would set forth
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Jesus as the lamb of God at the onset of his gospel, even as he has
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Jesus dying as a Passover lamb at the end of his gospel. But that's just my personal preference.
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I think he's just signifying that all the sacrifices that have been set forth in scripture point to Jesus Christ.
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Fifth, we see that, again, John the Baptist identified Jesus as the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
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This is a present tense verb. Doesn't say will take away, future tense, had take away, no, takes away, present tense.
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I read an extended comment of Spurgeon on this, and I wish
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I could relate it, but it was just too much, too involved, but what a blessing it is about the fact that the
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Lord Jesus is presently taking our sin away today, too, isn't he? And he's capable of doing so, too.
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Again, it's a present tense verb, stresses continuous action. Jesus is the lamb of God who is continuously taking away the sin of the world.
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This is what he's doing in history. He's taking away the sin of his people by way of expiation, removal, removing sin from his people.
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Psalm 103, 12, blessed verse, as far as the east is from the west, so far as he removed our transgressions from us.
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That's the Christian. They're gone as far as their ability to condemn. They still defile us, but they cannot condemn us.
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They've been removed by the death of Jesus. And Trent mentions, as far as he removed our transgressions from us, transgressions is simply, you know, the declared or qualified description of sin.
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Transgressions are our sins, which are violations of God's law. And so this is what sin is by definition, transgression of God's law.
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Whosoever commits sin transgresses also the law, for sin is the transgression of the law.
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When you sin, you're breaking God's law, and that's why it is so damnable.
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But again, thankfully, Jesus Christ is the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. But in addition,
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Jesus Christ has also taken away all the sin of the world through the exercise of his judgment. Those who refuse to repent of their sins and believe on him as their savior, he gives them time to consider their ways.
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He gives them time to turn from their sins. He gives space to repent, but if they refuse, then he removes them from the world upon their death.
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He takes away sin, and he will see to it that no one but those who have come to him in repentance and have believed on him as savior lord will be permitted to continue with him and his people into eternity.
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He takes away sin. One wrote of Christ having come as a savior of his people.
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Christ is a savior. He did not come on earth to be a conqueror, a philosopher, a mere teacher of morality.
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He came to save sinners. He came to do that which man could never do himself, to do that which money and learning could never obtain, to do that which is essential to man's happiness.
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He came to take away sin. Christ is a complete savior.
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He taketh away sin. He did not merely make vague proclamations of pardon, mercy, and forgiveness.
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He took our sins upon himself and carried them away. He allowed them to be laid upon himself and bore them in his own body on the tree.
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The sins of everyone that believes on Jesus are made as though they never had sinned at all.
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That's how you as a Christian are regarded by God. You're as righteous as Jesus Christ himself.
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The lamb of God has taken them away. Christ is an almighty savior, a savior of all mankind.
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He taketh away the sin of the world. He did not die for the Jews only, but for the Gentiles as well as the
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Jew. He did not suffer for a few persons only, but for all mankind. The payment that he made on the cross was more than enough to make satisfaction for the debts of all.
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The blood that he shed was precious enough to wash away the sins of all. His atonement on the cross was sufficient for all mankind, though efficient only for them that believe.
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And we'll talk a little bit more about that here shortly. And then we mention, or we see,
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John the Baptist identified Jesus as the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
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There's a universal aspect to his statement, isn't it? We mentioned earlier in our study of John that the word world is used many times by our writer, a total of 70 times in the gospel.
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And this is actually the fifth time that we've already seen it here in John 1, 29.
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Dwayne Spencer, who is on the radio still every week on family radio,
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Sunday morning, I hear him generally on Sunday mornings, he wrote a little book on the doctrines of grace entitled
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Tulip. And in this book, he spoke about the matter of the world and how it's used in John's gospel in many different ways.
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And it's important when you find the word world that you consider the immediate context in which it's found to determine the precise meaning.
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And so he wrote this regarding the word world. Much of what we think about the atoning death of Christ will be tempered by what we understand the simple word world to mean.
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In the gospel of John, this word has special significance in that it may have any one of seven different meanings.
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First, the classical sense, the orderly universe, the cosmos. Second, the earth itself.
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Third, the human inhabitants of the earth by metonymy or representation.
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Four, mankind under the creator's judgment, alienated from his life in the ethical sense, the world under God's wrath.
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Fifth, the public who are about Christ, Jews in particular. All the world has gone after him.
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Six, the kingdom of evil forces, angelic as well as human as related to the earth.
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And seven, men out of every tribe and nation, but not all tribes and nations as a whole.
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In other words, the term world may refer to all that God has created or to the earth and sphere upon which mankind dwells or to mankind as a whole or to the
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Palestinian contemporaries of our Lord, the Jew in particular, or to all evil forces related to the earth and in rebellion against God or to persons selected out of every tribe and nation upon the face of the earth.
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The word world is used to depict all of these depending on the context. Wherever the word appears, it must be dealt with in context in much the same way that the word all must be examined.
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For example, the scripture records the Pharisees as saying, behold, the world has gone after him,
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John 12, 19. Now it's obvious from the context that not all humanity was following Jesus for the speakers themselves refused to do so.
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Furthermore, we may be assured that not every human being on the face of the earth was following the savior. On that occasion, the world includes only those persons, whether Jew or Gentile, who were drawn enthusiastically to follow our
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Lord. And the reason in that context is they heard that Jesus had raised
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Lazarus from the dead. Now with the expression the sin of the world, it presses upon us the need to address the nature and extent of the atonement of Jesus Christ.
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When Jesus died, he made an atonement for sin on behalf of sinners.
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For whom did Christ die? Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.
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Among the differences between Calvinists, who are reformed, that's what reformed people are, another description is that they're
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Calvinists, and Arminians, they're ones, they may not be aware of it, but they espouse the same teachings or doctrines of Jacobus Arminius.
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There are differences of opinion. They differ in their understanding of the extent of the atonement of Jesus Christ.
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It's a matter of great debate and disagreement between reformed and Arminians, non -reformed
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Christians. Arminians argue that when Jesus Christ died on the cross, he paid for all the sins of all the people that ever lived in the world, all humanity.
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They teach that God is trying to save everybody, that Jesus Christ's death paid for everybody's sin.
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They believe in what is commonly referred to as a universal or general atonement.
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Jesus died equally in the same way for all humanity. They would argue from this verse, see, the
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Lord Jesus is the Lamb who takes away the sin of the entire world, and they use this verse commonly in their argument.
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Those who are reformed, however, disagree with Arminians. We teach that when Jesus Christ died on the cross, he provided an atonement for the sins of the elect only.
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In other words, we assert that the Bible teaches Christ's particular atonement, that he died to atone for the redeemed only, and this understanding of the atonement is commonly referred to as Christ's limited atonement or definite atonement or particular atonement.
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And this understanding of the atonement has historically been really a defining distinction between Baptists in history.
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And so during the 17th and 18th centuries, Arminian Baptists were known as general
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Baptists because they believed in a general atonement of all mankind. And then particular
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Baptists were reformed Baptists. Particular Baptists believed in the atonement of Jesus Christ for the elect only.
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And so we who are reformed advocate Jesus actually paid for the sins of the elect, and I've included a number of verses here that underscore that.
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Matthew 121, he'll save his people, not all people, his people. John 10,
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I will lay my life down for the sheep. He doesn't lay down his life for the goats, for his people.
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John 15, he lays down his life for his friends, those being Christians.
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John 17, he lays down his life, he gives his life for all the ones that the father had given him, that would be the elect, the redeemed.
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Romans 8, he delivered him up for us all who are all the elect. Ephesians 5, he loved the church, he gave himself for the church, being all the redeemed.
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And Romans 5, 9, the doxology expresses you were slain and have redeemed us to God by your blood, the people of God only.
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We could set forth a rational defense for this doctrine of particular atonement.
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First, if one considers the matter rightly, he'll see that every position on the atonement is limited in one way or another.
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People argue against us, oh you believe in a limited atonement, they do too, they just limit it in a different way.
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We argue, of course, Christ provided a limited atonement in that he secured the salvation of the elect only.
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However, they limit the atonement also because they don't believe Christ secured the salvation of anybody when he died.
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They argue that it was limited in that Christ provided an opportunity for forgiveness for everybody, but he didn't secure the salvation for anybody.
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They limit the effect or the result of the death of Jesus.
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And we all came to this struggle, most of us become four pointers, and then finally we struggle with that limited atonement and we understand it.
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And the verse that convinced me back in 1980 that the scriptures clearly teach this particular atonement was the book of Hebrews when it says when
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Jesus died he sat down having accomplished eternal salvation for his people.
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And I realized there it talks about Jesus not just making possible salvation for everybody, but he secured the salvation for somebody and that was his people.
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And so I realized this unlimited atonement is just is not true to scripture.
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And so secondly we could argue that Christ, if he intended to die equally for everybody and he paid the price for everybody, then there are souls in hell who have had their or will have had their sins paid for twice by Christ dying on the cross and by them suffering in hell.
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And that is illogical, not even sensical. And third, if Christ intended to die equally for everybody, then you have a divided
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Godhead. For Christ then atoned for more people than the Father intended to give him.
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And that cannot be. The Godhead is not divided. God gave the elect to Jesus and Jesus died for the elect in order to save them from their sin leaving the rest to their just condemnation in their sins.
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Here's a classical argument of the Puritan John Owen back in the 17th century and no
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Arminian has ever been able to counter this argument of John Owen.
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I may add this dilemma to our universalists. He was talking about those who believe in universal salvation for everybody and not just that but a general atonement for the universalists who argued
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Jesus died for everybody's sins. God imposed his wrath due unto and Christ underwent the pains of hell for either all the sins of all men, that's one alternative, or all the sins of some men, that would be the elect, or third, some sins of all men.
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Those are the only three possibilities. And then he goes on to reason. If the last, in other words, some sins of all men, then have all men some sins answered for?
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So shall no man be saved? And if the second, and that's our position, that is which we affirm, that Christ in their stead and room suffered for all the sins of all the elect in the world, but if the first, why are not all freed from the punishment of all their sins?
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In other words, isn't all humanity saved if he died for all sins?
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And then he, you know, supposes an argument, but you will say because of their unbelief they will not believe.
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But this unbelief is a sin, isn't it? Or not?
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If not, why should they be punished for it? Why should they be punished for unbelief if it's not a sin?
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And if it be a sin, their unbelief, then Christ underwent the punishment, do it or not.
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And so then why must that hinder them more than their other sins for which they died?
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And if he did not, then he did not die for all their sins. Let them choose which part they will. Nobody is, that is a reasonable, logical, and I would argue biblical conclusion that he draws.
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And no one has ever been able to refute it. How do reformed people then deal with what appears to be the universal atonement of John 129, which
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John declared, behold, the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.
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Well, they do it in one of two ways generally, and we're talking about reformed people now. First, there are those who are reformed who argue that John's use of the term world is used to depict
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Christians, not of Jews only but Gentiles also. In other words, the world of Jews and Gentiles, not of every last individual in the world, but of the broader world beyond Israel, but long beyond the
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Jews. That's what they would argue. William Hendrickson, who is a very good reformed commentator,
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I don't imagine he's still alive, but he may be, I don't know. He wrote, according to the
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Baptist, that is John, it is the sin of the world, men of every tribe and people by nature lost in sin.
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Notice how he qualifies it here. In other words, not just Jews only but Gentile also, which the
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Lamb has taken away, not merely the sin of a particular nation. In other words, Jewish. This passage does not teach a universal atonement.
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And then Charles Spurgeon has this view also, as suggested in these words, commenting on John 129.
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This was an extraordinary truth to John. It took a miracle of grace to make a Jew see the
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Lamb which takes away the sin of the world. The Jew thought that the sacrifice of God must be for his chosen people only, but John saw beyond all bounds of nationality and restrictions of race and clearly perceived
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Jesus, the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world. In other words, Jews and Gentiles both, not just Jews only.
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Not saying a universal, you know, a redemption of all humanity, but rather no distinction between Jew and Gentile.
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I won't read that long block quote of Spurgeon, but he basically says the same thing, that when
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John said, behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world, he's talking about all sin of all peoples everywhere, the elect,
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God takes it away. John Gill, who was an English Baptist pastor, who has pastored the church that Spurgeon would pastor a hundred years afterward, he wrote a book in defense of God's sovereign grace in which he dealt with every disputable passage in Scripture, the cause of God and truth.
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And so I pulled that book off my shelf and looked up John 129, and he wrote these words.
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The Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world, by the world cannot be meant every individual of mankind, for it is true, it is not fact,
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Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, takes away the sins of every individual man, since there are some who die in their sins, that's what the
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Scriptures declare, whose sins go before the judgment, Paul wrote that, I think to Timothy, and others follow after, for which they will be righteously and everlastingly condemned, which could never be, if Christ has taken away their sins.
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So that's one way Reformed men deal with the world, in this verse, he takes away the sin of the world, in other words
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Jews and Gentiles, not just Jews only. But there are other Reformed men, however, who although believe in the limited atonement of Christ, do not limit the number of people referred to in John's use of the world.
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They do not believe that Jesus died to atone for the sins of all people, but rather they emphasize that the value of Christ's death was sufficient to atone for all the sins of all people of all the world, but that God intended
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Christ's death to atone only for the sins of the elect. And so J .C.
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Ryle, who's a solid Reformed guy, took this view, and here's his discussion on verse 29, it is almost needless to say that there are two views of this expression, and he's talking about behold the
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Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. Some say that it only means that Christ takes away the sin of Gentiles as well as Jews, he's dealing with that argument that we just set forth, and that it does not mean the sin of any but the elect.
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Others say it really means that Christ takes away the sin of all mankind, and that he is, that he made an atonement sufficient for all, and that all are salvable, though not all saved in consequence of his death.
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And then Ryle said this, I decidedly prefer the latter of these two views.
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I hold as strongly as anyone that Christ's death is profitable to none but to the elect who believe on his name.
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See, he believes in limited atonement. But I dare not limit and tear down such expressions as the one before us.
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I dare not say that no atonement has been made in any sense except for the elect. I believe it's possible to be more systematic than the
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Bible in our statements. When I read that the wicked who are lost deny the
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Lord that bought them, that's a
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Christ reconciling the world unto himself. I dare not confine the intention of redemption to the saints alone.
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Christ is for every man. Christ as a man came and died for humanity, is what he's arguing.
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So Ryle's view is stated is not Arminian, by the way, it is Calvinistic. He argued for the sufficiency of Christ's death to save any sinner anywhere, even while he held strongly that God intended
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Christ's death to atone only for the elect. I'm sympathetic with that.
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I think you can go up to any sinner in this world and tell them that if you come to faith in Christ and turn from your sin, you can have forgiveness of sins because there is a
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Savior who died. That's not to tell them that their sins have been atoned for or forgiven, but you can tell them that there's a
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Savior and there's forgiveness in him. The point is this, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross was of infinite value.
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His death is not only capable of saving every human being in this world, it's capable of saving all people in ten thousand worlds.
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His death is of infinite value. Let's suppose the number of the elect were double what they are, would
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Christ have had to suffer more on the cross? Obviously not. His death was of infinite value, but the intention of God was not to save all mankind, but to save those whom the
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Father chose or elected onto salvation, those whom he gave to his Son to redeem from their sin.
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But his death is of infinite value, and I remember the quote from Sturgeon. I couldn't find it, however, or else
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I'd have it in a block quote. You know, Christ's death is of infinite worth, and it could save ten thousand worlds, not just this world.
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But it was only intended to save the elect. We believe in definite atonement.
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There's actually another view of Christ's atonement. I realize the time's slipping away, but you know, this is the kind of thing that you really have to address in one shot, not divide it up, and we'll wrap it up here shortly.
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There's another view of Christ's atonement, which is very commonly believed by evangelicals, and it's errant in my opinion.
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They refer to themselves as four -point Calvinists, not five -pointers like we are. They reject the limited atonement of Christ, that is, the
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L in TULIP, and I gave a long footnote, by the way, talking about TULIP, Calvinists, and Armenians, and they have this modified universal atonement of Christ.
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They actually call it modified universal atonement. This view of Christ's atonement is called
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Amaraldianism, sometimes just Amaraldism or Amaraldians, and because they espouse the doctrine of the atonement first promoted by Moses Amaral, who was a
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French theologian, he agreed with four of the five points of Calvinism, or the doctrines of grace, but rather than a limited atonement in that Jesus Christ died only for the elect,
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Amaral, taught that Christ atoned for all the sins of humanity, but it's only through faith that his atonement becomes effective in saving the sinner.
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He actually says the death of Christ atoned for everyone's sin. All humanity is sin, but it's the sinner's faith that makes it effective.
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Amaraldianism is common among Southern Baptist churches, evangelical free churches, dispensationalist independent
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Bible and Baptist churches. R .C. Sproul wrote against it in his book, and we all know him, don't we?
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And he argued against this doctrine, saying it's wrong to think Christ died for all the people of the world if all the people of the world are not
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Israel saved, and he's absolutely right. Amaraldianism is not biblical.
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The Bible clearly teaches that God intended the death of Jesus Christ to atone only for the sins of his chosen people, and yet again we would declare that the death of Jesus Christ was of infinite worth, that his death was capable of saving any sinner that comes to him in repentance and faith, but that's not what the
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Amaraldians teach. They say Christ did indeed die for every human being in same equal way, and we reject that.
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And there's, I could give a whole sermon giving biblical reasons why that is a false doctrine.
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But aside from the atonement of Jesus Christ on his cross and he takes away the sin of his people, Jesus Christ also takes away, again, the sin of the world of those who don't repent of sin and believe on him as Savior.
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When history's all done, when the new heavens and the new earth are created, when this world we're living on as Christians in our eternal state, there will be no sin present whatsoever.
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Why will there be no sin present when Jesus returns?
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Because the Lamb of God took away the sin of the world, that's why. And I think that's the declaration here.
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We're gonna stop there. We only got with one verse, and it's rather frustrating to me, but, and there's not much to these next two verses, but I think we can cover it sufficiently at the beginning of next
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Lord's Day, Lord willing. The bottom line is, is that we shouldn't be so limited in our understanding of limited atonement that we fail to offer
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Christ to every sinner everywhere. And that's been a problem in the past among some hyper -Calvinistic
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Baptists. They're almost afraid to offer Christ to sinners because they think that somehow is incompatible with definite atonement, and it's not.
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Christ is a Savior for any sinner anywhere, and we're to tell them that they can have life.
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They can have forgiveness of sins. They can have new life if they turn from their sin, believe on Jesus Christ.
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And we know if he or she does, it's due to the grace of God operating in them.
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The greatest soul winners, the greatest missionaries of the past have been Calvinists, who believed in limited atonement.
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While there are others telling William Carey, no, if God wants to save the heathen, he can do it without the likes of you.
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William Carey said no. God has given a people to Jesus Christ, and they're all over the world in pagan lands, and he's bought them through his death.
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I'm going to go out and tell them about the Savior. And it spawned the missionary movement of the 19th century.
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William Carey, a Baptist, a Calvinistic Baptist, who is the father of modern -day missions.
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Calvinism historically can be proven, and if it's understood rightly, is a promoter of confidence in faith in God's ability to save sinners.
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Spurgeon was, Whitfield was, they all were, except for the Wesleys and a few others.
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But we have confidence in a sovereign God who takes away sin.
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Amen? Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for your word. Thank you, our God, for the history that we have to benefit from Lord, even as we are able to rehearse errors of judgment, errors of doctrine.
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And as you have borne out, Lord, the truth of your word, we thank you, our
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God, that we benefit from those who have gone on before us. Help us, our
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Lord, to be compassionate for the world about us, and help us, our Lord, to present
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Christ clearly and fully before them. And may you in this day save a great number of people through Jesus Christ, all to your glory,