The Atonement

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Now, this last portion we're going to discuss tonight is specifically on the doctrine of the atonement.
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And ordinarily, I would have reserved this conversation for soteriology.
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But in our textbook, Dr.
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Sproul includes this in our conversation about Christology.
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So I thought, well, it certainly, I think, fits together with what we've discussed tonight as Christ being the Messiah, Christ being our high priest, and our high priest is the one who makes the atonement for us.
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So we're going to discuss a little bit for the last 25 minutes or so about the doctrine of the atonement.
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First of all, let's just define terms.
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When we define the word atonement, the Hebrew word for atonement is the same word that is used for covering, a covering of something.
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In fact, an interesting connection will be made, and I'll be making this in a sermon in a couple weeks.
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When Noah was commanded to build the ark out of gopher wood, he was commanded to cover it with pitch, which, of course, was intended to make it watertight.
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Well, the same word for covering there is the word for atonement, which is interesting if we think about what the ark represents in protecting the people from the judgment of God, because, of course, the ark was a form of protection.
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The people in the ark were protected from the wrath of God.
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The people outside of the ark received the wrath of God, and what really was the separation was that pitch.
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It was that watertight seal that kept them safe and dry inside.
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So that's just a thought that the Hebrew word means covering.
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If you think about making, when the priest made the atonement, he would cover the mercy seat with the blood.
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Now, in the New Testament, the word is reconciliation, reconciliation, and this is where the actual English word comes from, because the English word atonement is actually a, is a compound of the concept of at one.
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To be at one refers to reconciling two who are separated.
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If I said, you know, you two men have been at war with one another, and I'm going to come in and mediate the situation and try to bring you back to where you were at one with one another, that would be an act of reconciliation.
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That would be, in that sense, an act of atonement, bringing two back to one, establishing reconciliation.
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Now what's interesting is the word atonement is all through the Old Testament, but it is not in the New Testament.
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The word atonement in your ESV Bible never shows up in the New Testament.
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You won't find any verse that uses the word atonement in the ESV.
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In the King James Bible, it is only used once.
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Romans chapter 5, verse 11 says this, and not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom we have received the atonement.
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That's what the King James says, by whom we have received the atonement, but the ESV says by whom we have received reconciliation.
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So, that is the way that the ESV chooses to translate that word, and I think appropriately so.
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However, even though the word atonement does not show up in the English New Testament, well, the King James the one time, the concept of atonement is all throughout the New Testament Scriptures, and it finds its culmination, of course, in the death of Christ, because it is in the death of Christ that we have reconciliation between God and man.
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Turn in your Bibles to Galatians chapter 3.
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In Galatians chapter 3, verse 13, it says Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, because it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree, in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham would come to the Gentiles so that we could receive the promise of the Spirit by faith.
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So, what does that tell us? It says Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, and ultimately, he reconciled us to God.
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And again, we see that language in Romans 5.11.
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It says that through our Lord Jesus, we have received reconciliation.
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Now, that's the concept of atonement.
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We who were at war with God have been made right with God.
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We who were separated from God have been brought back into relationship with God.
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We who were divided have been reunited.
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So, that's the concept.
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Now, when we discuss atonement, there are several false views that need to at least be recognized, even though we don't have time to express them.
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There are some views, and if you read your book, you would have read some of them.
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The ransom to Satan view.
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Remember that? Dr.
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Sproul talks about that in the book.
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That some people believe that when Christ died, a ransom was paid.
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Now, the Bible does use the word ransom.
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And so, some people will say, well, to whom was the ransom paid? And some people believe that it was paid to Satan.
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What would that do in the relationship between God and Satan? Make them equal? But it would also...
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True.
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He was going to destroy as much as possible.
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Why would he want to give him up? I mean, something to think about.
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Are you thinking that from a pragmatic perspective? No, from a pragmatic perspective, sure.
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But the word I'm looking specifically for here is debt.
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Does God owe Satan a debt? If the ransom theory is correct, then God owes Satan something.
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And that's one of the reasons why, historically, the church has rejected the ransom to Satan theory.
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There are some others.
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There is the theory of martyr, that Christ died as a martyr.
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In a sense, to exemplify God's love in the face of men's sin.
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That's an argument that's been made.
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Christ, by going to the cross willingly, by taking the punishment of the cross willingly, he demonstrated the love of God in the face of men's sin.
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And that's how he overcame the power of death and hell, was simply by demonstrating his willingness to receive all the pain that men could give and still love them.
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And that is sometimes called the example theory or the martyr theory.
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And that one sounds nice.
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That's not going to be a meme.
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It does.
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It sounds very reasonable.
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Christ is an example of love in the face of hate.
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Now, is that true? Yeah, for as far as it goes.
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He didn't curse them or anything.
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He took it and he showed love.
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And what did he even say? He says, Father, forgive them.
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So there is an expression of love on the cross.
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So I think the example martyr theory says some things that are not untrue.
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But but but the wholeness of the concept is untrue because the idea that that's what the atonement was about.
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That's how atonement was made, I think, is where the mistake is.
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Not that it's untrue that Christ showed love in the face of hate.
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I think that's true.
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But saying that that's how atonement was made.
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How many of you know who Brian Zahn is? Michael Brown.
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Anybody know Michael Brown? Bobby, you've heard of Michael Brown, probably.
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He did a couple of debates for James White.
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Yeah.
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Well, Michael Brown is a man who has a lot of issues.
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I take a lot of issue with some of what he teaches.
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He's hyper charismatic and he's got a lot of positions that I would disagree with.
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But he is probably one of the best at describing and defending what we would call penal substitutionary atonement from the Old Testament because he is a converted Jew.
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And he has great insight into Hebrew and was trained in that.
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And so when he defends the penal substitutionary atonement theory, which is the theory I'm going to espouse, he defends it very well.
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Even though I would say his Arminianism almost precludes it because there's but that's a whole other topic.
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Here's here's here's the reason why I bring it up.
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If you want to look if you want to hear a great debate, look up the debate between Brian Zahn and I think it's Z-A-H-N-D.
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Brian Zahn and Michael Brown in the title of the debate is the Monster God Debate.
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That's the title of it.
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The Monster God Debate.
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And they debated, I think, for almost two hours over the subject of the atonement.
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Was it a penal substitutionary atonement? Brian Zahn says, no, if penal substitutionary atonement is true, God is a monster.
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He is a cosmic child abuser.
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He is an awful God.
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And this is a man who claims to be a Christian preacher.
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That's the second one.
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Yes, the second one, the American gospel, Christ crucified is all about this.
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So, yes, that's the first one.
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The second one is all about this.
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And you'll hear a guy who says penal substitutionary atonement is awful.
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And I can't accept it that God would punish his son.
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You know, that's that's because that's what penal substitutionary is.
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Christ takes the punishment of the wrath of God for us.
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Go ahead.
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The Monster God Debate.
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And I would definitely recommend all of you take the time.
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Put it on your phone or put it on your iPad or whatever and listen to it while you're doing dishes or cleaning your house or whatever.
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It's worth the time because you'll hear somebody articulate this martyr theory that Christ died to take the sin of the world and take.
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And yet still demonstrate love.
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The same thing I was saying a minute ago.
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But when when Michael Brown starts to question him, when they get to the Q&A, that's when debates really happen.
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Anybody can stand up, present something.
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Somebody else stand up, present something.
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If there's no cross examination, there's really no debate.
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But when Michael Brown cross examines Brian Zahn on the subject of penal substitutionary atonement from the Old Testament.
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The wheels fall off the cart and Brian Zahn literally is just left with his mouth hanging open.
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I mean, he keeps jabbering on.
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But at certain points, he has no answer because Brown nails him to the wall on atonement.
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So my encouragement to you is to watch that debate.
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So here are here are.
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Since we've looked at false views, we talk about the ransom theory, talk about martyr theory or sometimes known as the example theory.
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Let's discuss what we would say is the biblical understanding of atonement.
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And I don't I want to say this and without without sounding without sounding like I'm saying something wrong.
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To say that there's only one way or one understanding of the atonement, I think is to miss out on the fact that there is a lot happening in the atonement.
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Penal substitution is happening and thereby we talk about propitiation.
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But if you remember in the book, it also referred to expiation.
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Not only is our sin paid for, but our sin is removed from us.
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That's expiation that remember the Old Testament.
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The promise is that your sins will be taken as far as the east is from the west.
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Right.
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And that's expiation.
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Christ becomes both of the sacrifices.
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You have the scapegoat and the blood offering.
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The scapegoat, the sins were preyed upon him and he was sent out into the wilderness to carry the sins away, to expiate the sin.
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And when that happened, the sins were carried away.
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Christ does that, he takes away our sin.
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But then what does he do? He dies and suffers the punishment of our sin to satisfy the wrath of God.
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That's the penal substitutionary atonement.
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He is suffering a penalty as a substitute to make our atonement.
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So we have expiation and propitiation.
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That's why I said there's it's it's a it's when you look at it in its full sense, there's there's much that is happening.
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In fact, I'll give you six words if you want to write down these six things.
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First is substitution.
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Second Corinthians 521, God made him who knew no sin to become sin for us, that in him we can become the righteousness of God.
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That substitution.
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Number two, redemption.
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Galatians 313, we read it a minute ago.
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Through him, we have redemption.
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He's he's redeemed us.
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He's purchased us.
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What's that? OK, no, that's fine.
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I know if you add verses, that's great.
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Number three, reconciliation.
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Romans 5, 10, 11.
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Through him, we have reconciliation.
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Propitiation, satisfaction of the wrath of God.
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That's Romans 3, 25 and 26.
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Forgiveness.
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Colossians 2, 13.
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In him, we have forgiveness.
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By the way, what does forgiveness mean? It means you're dead is covered.
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Remember going back to the idea of covering.
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Colossians 2, 13.
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And finally, of the six, and this is not the only thing, but of the six things, justification.
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Romans 4, 5.
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We are justified.
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Go ahead and ask another question.
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Propitiation, Romans 3, 25, 26.
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Forgiveness, Colossians 2, 13.
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So we have substitution.
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On the cross, Christ takes our place.
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Redemption, Christ makes the payment for the debt our sins have earned.
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Reconciliation, Christ restores the relationship between us and God.
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Propitiation, Christ satisfies God's wrath on our behalf against sin.
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Number five, forgiveness.
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Christ removes our condemnation.
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I want to come back to forgiveness in a moment, but for now, we'll just say it's the legal act of removing condemnation.
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And number six, justification is the legal declaration of righteousness.
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Forgiveness is taking the debt away.
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He covers the debt, he takes it away.
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But justification is declaration of righteousness.
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You see, if all Christ did was take away your sin, you still wouldn't be fit for heaven.
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Because you still wouldn't be righteous.
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If you had no sin, you would be neutral, not righteous.
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You need righteousness, and Christ provides it.
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You see, your sin is taken away, and you are given righteousness.
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And this is what we call double imputation.
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Our sin is imputed to Christ.
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His righteousness is imputed to us.
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In fact, we could even go further.
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We could say there's a triple imputation.
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Because Adam's sin is imputed to us.
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We are declared guilty.
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We are suffering because of Adam's sin.
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He was our representative, and he acted on our behalf.
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Right? We talked about that last week, federal headship.
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He acted on our behalf, his sin is imputed to us.
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We suffer based upon his sin.
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Christ's death, our sin is imputed to him.
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His righteousness is imputed to us.
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So in that sense, there's three acts of imputation.
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Alright, so, on the subject of atonement, Christ died to take the penalty for believers acting as their substitute.
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In receiving God's wrath, and thereby made an atonement between them and God.
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Therefore, we call our version, or excuse me, not our version, the biblical version, or the biblical understanding of atonement, is penal substitutionary atonement.
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PSA, for short.
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Like a public service announcement.
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But when people say, what is your view of the atonement? Very few people come to church and ask that question.
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That really should be a question you ask, though.
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You know, some churches don't believe in that.
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Some churches deny penal substitutionary atonement.
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There's a song that has the words, For on that cross, when Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied.
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In Christ alone, is the name of the song.
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Right? That hymn was written with those words.
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For on the cross, where Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied.
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When, I think it was the Methodists, but I could be wrong.
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Well, they didn't.
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They tried to.
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They sought permission to change the lyric.
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When they were adding it into their, when they added it into their hymnal, they wanted to change it from, On that cross, when Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied.
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They wanted it to say, On that cross, when Jesus died, the love of God was magnified.
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So, go back to what I said earlier about the example theory, the martyr theory.
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It's not that he's dying to take the wrath of God.
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He's dying to show the love of God.
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Again, while that may be true, that's not the fullness of the truth.
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And therefore, half a truth is a whole error.
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Something that's half true is all wrong.
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And so, the people who wrote, I think it was the Gettys, but I could be wrong.
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Whoever the author was would not allow them to do it.
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So, they ended up not including it.
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All right.
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Final discussion, since we have three minutes, and that's all we need to discuss this topic.
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Let's talk about limited atonement.
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Well, on your notes, just write extent of the atonement.
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The extent of the atonement.
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Because when we talk about the atonement, we're talking about the work of God, or excuse me, the work of Christ, whereby he made reconciliation on behalf of someone.
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And the question of limited atonement versus universal atonement is, for whom did Christ make the atonement? Or for whom did he perform the act of reconciliation? Well, before we get to whosoever, some people would say, Christ made atonement for the whole world.
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There's an immediate problem with that.
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If Christ has made an atonement for the whole world, then that would mean that hell is empty.
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Because if Christ has paid the penalty for all people's sins, then all people would go to heaven.
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And because no one worth his salt believes that everybody goes to heaven who reads the Bible, then no one can hold to a true version of universal atonement without giving up something.
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And what generally is said by those who hold to universal atonement is that Christ's death was made for everyone, but it only gets actuated when a person believes.
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So the payment has been made, but it's not activated or actuated until the person believes, and that's when it becomes real.
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That's when the payment is actually made.
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My issue with that is multifold, but my biggest issue is this.
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If you were at a dinner, let's say at Outback, and you went to dinner, and you were sitting there eating, and the check came, and you paid the debt of the check, and the waitress took your check and took your payment, and then she came back to the table and someone else at the table said, I will also pay the check, and she took his money as well, then she has taken a double payment on a single debt, and that would be unjust.
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Therefore, if Christ has paid the penalty in actuality for the sins of the world, and Christ sends them to hell, then he is unjust because he has exacted a double payment.
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Therefore, the atonement was made only for those who believe.
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Now, we'll identify those later as the elect, but for tonight, it's enough to say that the atonement is limited to believers.
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Those who are outside of Christ do not receive the substitutionary benefit of his atonement.
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And those who argue that he does can take it up with John Owen.
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Well, they're wrong, but I would say take it up with John Owen.
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In the book, The Death of Death and the Death of Christ.
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Again, but there's so much in this argument that people would say, well, he died for everybody, but they only get the benefits of it when they believe, and I would say if he died for everybody, it would by nature receive the benefit.
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Yeah, Bobby.
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That's right.
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And that's why I don't like, you know, I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Calvinist.
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I don't mind saying I believe in the five points of Calvinism, T-U-L-I-P.
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The limited atonement is the part that most people have an issue with, when it really shouldn't be, but that's the part most people have an issue with.
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But I say if it makes you feel better, don't call it limited.
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Call it actual, like what you just said.
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It's not a limited atonement.
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It's an actual atonement.
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Some of the old Calvinists called it particular redemption.
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It's either universal redemption or a particular redemption.
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All right.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you for this truth.
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I pray that this has been useful and that we will from it grow in our understanding of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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What a life.
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What a study.
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What a Savior.
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Father, thank you so much for this time.
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In Christ's name, amen.
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Yep.