Updated 4-10-17
6. How God Redeemed Mankind
I.
The Perfect Sacrifice
II.
The Cross
III.
The Cup
IV. The Resurrection
I. The Perfect Sacrifice
“He entered once
for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and
calves but by means of His own blood, thus securing an eternal
redemption.”
Hebrews 9:12
“He
himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, that we might die to sin and
live to righteousness.”
1
Peter 2:24
“We
have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for
all.”
Hebrews
10:10
“For
there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ.”
1
Timothy 2:5
“Therefore
He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive
the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them
from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.”
Hebrews
9:15
How
can the death of one man pay for the sins of every believer who has ever
lived? Jesus Christ had to be both God
and man. As God, He is of infinite worth and as a man, He lived a righteous,
perfect, and holy life; obeying and loving God the Father perfectly every
moment of His life on earth. Any other
person or angel attempting to sacrifice himself for the sins of others would be
insufficient. It is the infinite worth
of Christ that makes His sacrifice more than sufficient to pay for the sins of
every believer who ever lived. A man
living a perfect life would only be able to save himself. Only God Himself, Jesus Christ, can pay for
the sins of mankind.
Jesus
says this about Himself in Isaiah 43:11:
“I,
I am the LORD, and besides Me there is no Savior.”
Peter
says this about Jesus in Acts 4:12:
“And
there is a salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven
given among men by which we must be saved.”
The
Old Testament teaches us that the only sacrifice acceptable to God the Father
is a perfect and unblemished sacrifice. Jesus
Christ, God the Son, was the one and only perfect sacrifice that could be our propitiation
(something that satisfies the wrath of God the Father). Hebrews 12:29 says, “Our God is a consuming
fire,” who “dwells in unapproachable light” (1 Timothy 6:16). Sinful man has no hope of standing before a
holy God. The seraphim were created
beings who could barely approach the holy presence of God, and even then only
with the holiness given to them by God.
They did so with much fear and with their faces and feet covered and
hidden by their wings. The only mediator in the entire universe who
could reconcile and bring a holy God and unholy mankind together was the
God-man, Jesus Christ.
If
only God can save, then why did Christ become a man?
“Since
therefore the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise partook of
the same things, that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of
death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were
subject to lifelong slavery…Therefore He had to be made like his brothers in
every respect, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in
the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.”
Hebrews
2:14-15, 17
“For
every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in
relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He can deal gently with the ignorant and
wayward, since he himself is beset with weakness.”
Hebrews
5:1-2
“For
we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses,
but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”
Hebrews
4:15
What
can wash away my sin? Nothing but the
blood of Jesus. It was necessary that
Jesus die as our perfect sacrifice and that His blood be shed in order to
satisfy God’s wrath and to pay for our sins:
“Knowing
that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers,
not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood
of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.”
1
Peter 1:18-19
“Without
the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.”
Hebrews
9:22
“Christ
Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood.”
Romans
3:24-25
“For
the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar
to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by
the life.”
Leviticus
17:11
“For
Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of
the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God
on our behalf. Nor was it to offer Himself
repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not
his own, for then He would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation
of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages
to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.”
Hebrews
9:24-26
The
high priest in the Old Testament presented an offering to God for the sins of
the people. This offering was the blood
of bulls and goats, but it was not sufficient to pay for man’s sins—it only
covered them up temporarily, hence the need for continual sacrifices.
“In
these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls
and goats to take away sins.”
Hebrews
10:3-4
“And
every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same
sacrifices, which can never take away sins.
But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, He
sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until His enemies should
be made a footstool for His feet. For by
a single offering He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.”
Hebrews
10:11-14
The
payment required to sufficiently pay for sins was for the blood of a man to pay for the sins of a man.
Jesus came to earth as a man and it was His blood that was able to pay
for the sins of His brothers and to propitiate and satisfy the wrath of a holy
and righteous God. His sacrifice was of
infinite worth, and it was more than sufficient to once for all pay for the sins of all believers. The blood of
bulls and goats only covered sins,
but they did not make one righteous
in God’s sight. The precious blood of
Christ is how we are made to be righteous in the sight of God.
“Who
shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And
who shall stand in his holy place? He
who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up His soul to what is
false and does not swear deceitfully.”
Psalm
24:3-4
“Strive
for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the
Lord.”
Hebrews
12:14
“For
our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become
the righteousness of God.”
2
Corinthians 5:21
Christ
not only died for us, He lived for us.
He lived a perfect, holy, and righteous life on our behalf that we are
given credit for. Without this holiness,
we would have no access into heaven. We
were sinners and still are sinners, and yet those who are His are now credited
as being righteous before a holy God. There
is a transfer that occurs: Christ is made to be sin and we are made to be
righteous. Christ did not become sinful,
He has always been and always will be perfect.
Ephesians 5:2 says He was a “fragrant offering and sacrifice to God,”
made on our behalf. Christ is imputed with
our sin and we are imputed with His righteousness. The result is that God the Father sees us as
having lived the perfect life of Christ, and Jesus was given our debt of sin,
which He paid for on the cross.
We
must always remember and treasure in our hearts the fact that we are not saved
merely by what Christ has done for us, but by who He was, is, and will be
forever!
II. The Cross
Christ
redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is
written, "CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO HANGS ON A TREE."
Galatians
3:13
“At
the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama
sabachthani?’ which is translated, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?’”
Mark
15:34
When
Jesus said these words on the cross, He was directing His hearers to Psalm
22. There were no chapters of Scripture
to give others in those days, so a teacher of the law would instead recite the
first words of the text. These words
were also told in the original Hebrew for added emphasis.
“My
God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?
Why are You so far from helping Me, and from the words of My
groaning? O My God, I cry in the
daytime, but You do not hear; and in the night season, and am not silent. But You are holy, enthroned on the praises of
Israel. Our fathers trusted in You; they
trusted, and You delivered them. They
cried to You, and were delivered; they trusted in You, and were not
ashamed. But I am a worm, and no man; a
reproach of men, and despised by the people.”
Psalm
22:1-6
God
the Son was forsaken by God the Father, causing Jesus much agony as prophesied
in Psalm 22. God the Father always heard
the prayers of a righteous man and delivered them, except for this one instance.
Jesus affirms that God the Father is holy, but says that He is a worm, a
reproach, and despised.
The
color purple was associated with royalty in ancient times because it was so
rare. It came from a certain type of
worm that was crushed to produce the color.
Jesus compares Himself to a worm because for our sins He was crushed
under the holy and righteous wrath of God the Father.
The
Bible also compares Jesus to a snake and two goats in the Bible, as well as a
worm. Israel’s rebellion in the
wilderness caused God to send fiery serpents to bite the people, which stopped
when the people repented and Moses prayed for them. God then told Moses to make a fiery serpent
and set it on a pole and whoever was bitten could look up at it and live. I had always thought this was one of the
weirdest sections of the Bible and for some time I never fully understand its
significance.
Paul Washer
explains in The Gospel’s Power and
Message that, “At first, it seems contrary to reason that ‘that which was
cured was shaped in the likeness of that which wounded.’ However, it provides a powerful picture of
the cross. The Israelites were dying
from the venom of the fiery serpents.
Men die from the venom of their own sin.
God commanded Moses to place the cause of death high upon a pole. God placed the cause of our death upon His
own Son as He hung high upon a cross…The Israelite who believed God and looked
upon the brazen serpent would live. The
man who believes God’s testimony concerning His Son and looks upon Him with
faith will be saved.”
The goat is
typically used in the Bible to represent unbelievers, whereas sheep is used to
represent believers. Why then is Christ
compared to a goat? The high priest
would use two goats to make atonement for the sins of the people. The first goat was killed and its blood was
sprinkled on the mercy seat in the Holy of Holies. The high priest then put his hands on the
other goat, called the scapegoat, and confessed over it the sins of all the
people and then he sent the goat away into the wilderness to bear the sins of
all the people.
Jesus was like
the first goat in that his blood takes away our sins and He is like the
scapegoat in that He bore our sins and was forsaken and sent away from the rest
of the people.
It is amazing
to think that a worm, a venomous serpent, and a goat should be symbols of
Christ. It seems like blasphemy to do so
except that these images come from the Old Testament as well as the New
Testament.
“And you, who were dead in your trespasses and
the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with Him, having
forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt
that stood against us with its legal demands.
This He set aside, nailing it to the cross.”
Colossians 2:13-14
“For the word
of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being
saved it is the power of God...For since in the wisdom of God the world through
its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the
foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks
search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block
and to Gentiles foolishness.”
1 Corinthians
1:18, 21-23
The Jews
expected Jesus to be a political savior and to deliver them from Roman
oppression. The fact that Jesus was
crucified was a stumbling block to them, because they thought that He couldn’t
be the promised Messiah if He died on a cross.
Isaiah 53:4 says, “Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He
carried; yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and
afflicted.” The Greeks loved wisdom and thought
it foolish that anyone who was crucified could have the power to save. “He couldn’t even save Himself,” they surely
said. Today, we find the message of the
cross to be foolish because we think it to be unnecessary.
Unconverted
man is not able to recognize his own depravity and sinfulness. When he hears that Jesus died for his sins,
he thinks, “That was kind of stupid. He
didn’t have to do all that. I’m not that
bad of a person. He did all that for
nothing.”
When
unconverted man does hear about how he is a sinner, he either dismisses it
because he thinks himself to already be “pretty good,” or it causes him to be
offended and to hate God. He cannot
think any other way because he is blinded by Satan and by his own sin and he cannot
understand the truth. Only the Holy
Spirit can transform his mind to understand the truth of the gospel for the
first time and to see God’s holiness and righteousness in contrast with his own
wickedness and depravity. It is only
after this work of the Holy Spirit that man can repent and believe in Christ. Human wisdom dismisses the cross as
foolishness—only the Holy Spirit can reveal the need for Christ to redeem us
from the wrath that our sins deserve.
The greatest problem in the Scriptures is: How can a holy and just
God forgive the sinner and still remain just? This is the Great Dilemma. Man's problem is that he does not recognize God’s
holy and just nature that must hate and punish all sin. He also does not recognize his own
depravity. Therefore, to sinful man,
there is no Great Dilemma; and this is the Great Problem. Man is self-righteous because he is blinded
by the Devil and his own sin. He thinks
that he is already good enough to get into heaven and that God should be loving
enough to forgive him—regardless of if he repents of his sin and believes in
Jesus.
“23 For
all have sinned
and fall short
of the glory of God,
24 being justified
as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus;
25 whom 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;
26 for the demonstration,
I say, of His righteousness at the present time,
so that He would be just
and the justifier of the one
who has faith in Jesus.”
Romans
3:23-26
(From the sermon The Meaning
of the Cross by Paul Washer):
Many
preachers talk about the Cross of Christ, but they emphasize the wrong things
and do not truly explain the meaning of the cross. The church at large is basically missing the
point about the Gospel of Christ.
Why? Because of what the Bible
says and 2,000 years of church history.
Theology is
the study of God. There is a difference
between a theologian and a “pop” theologian.
You ever heard of pop music? It’s
music that is popular and is pretty superficial. Pop theologians are not really trained, they
just have a following. They dedicate
themselves to preaching, not studying.
They have a lot of illustrations, stories, and cute sayings, but not so
much theology.
Both pop
theologians and true theologians will claim that they teach what they teach
“because it’s what the Bible says.” So
how do we know who is right? There’s two
things that you need to look at. One is
called context, the other is called history.
If the Bible says “the barn is red,” that means the barn is red!” I’m so tired of preaching and having students
say, “Well, that’s your interpretation.”
It’s not interpretation if it’s spelled out in black and white.
The other
thing is comparing what the theologian says compared to 2,000 years of church
history. If what I say is different from
them, you have to decide: “Who is right, Paul Washer, or 2,000 years of
Christian history?” Well obviously 2,000
years of Christian history and teachers are right. If nobody in 2,000 years agrees with them,
they’re probably wrong, aren’t they? If
we as Americans come up with a new way to do Christianity, yet it disagrees
with 2,000 years of Christians from all over the world, who’s probably
wrong? We are. That’s why I say on the cross that most
people are missing the point.
Many
preachers when they preach on the suffering of Jesus, what is it that you hear
about? Physical suffering. He’ll start crying and the whole congregation
starts crying as he talks about how the nails went through a certain part of
the wrist because that’s the only thing that could hold him up, how the nails
went through the feet, and how you would have to push up to get a breath of
air, because when you die of crucifixion, you die of suffocation, the spear in
the side, the crown of thorns on the head, the pieces of metal on the ends of
the whip that tear the skin on the back, how He drug His cross, blood flowing
down; they’ll talk about all these things and say that by all of these things
Jesus suffered we are saved.
The movie, The Passion of the Christ, shows all of
these things that Christ suffered physically at the hands of men, but it too
misses the point. Many preachers teach
that the physical sufferings of Jesus are what paid for our sins. Now, a lot of people say, “Yeah, that sounds
good.” Actually, that’s heresy when we compare it to what 2,000
years of historical Christianity has taught.
That’s the deepest form of heresy.
You can be wrong about a lot of things, but if you’re wrong about the cross,
you’re in trouble.
God is righteous and just. He must punish sin. The only way that God can forgive sinful men
is if God, who made the Law and demands justice; if He Himself comes down and
pays the penalty. The only way the Law
of God can be satisfied is by
God. Only God can satisfy God’s justice
and pay the price.
God, in order to forgive the wicked and
still be just, must die in the wicked’s place.
That’s the only way He can forgive.
God, in
order to forgive the wicked and still be just, must die in the wicked’s
place. That’s the only way He can
forgive.
How does He die? What is it about the death of the Son that
leads to our forgiveness? How does His
death satisfy the Law? When a seminary student
tells me that he has been saved, I ask him, “From what?” People usually say, “Sin.” Nope.
Sin wasn’t after you. Sin wasn’t
going to throw you in hell. Sin is not a
person or being that’s going to judge you.
This is really going to rock your
boat. From what you have been saved is
not a “what” but a “who.” You have been
saved; not from sin, but from God. You see, God is the Judge over all the
universe. You have sinned and made
yourself an enemy of God, who being just, will throw you in hell.
You
have been saved; not from sin, but from God.
You hear a lot of people say, “Well, God
doesn’t throw anybody in hell.” That’s a
nice saying, but it’s not in the Bible.
Jesus said, “Do not fear men who can kill your body, but fear God, who
can kill your body and throw you in hell.”
This God of ours is not very politically correct.
Have you ever seen the statement in
Romans, “enemy of God” and “hater of God?”
When the Bible says “we were an enemy of God,” it means that
literally. God was also our enemy.
“God is a righteous judge and a God who
has indignation every day. If a man does
not repent, He will sharpen His sword; He has bent His bow and made it ready.”
Psalm 7:11-12
This God in the Bible that has been
preached through 2,000 years of Christian history is a lot different from the
“god” that’s being preached today. The
One from whom you need to be saved is God.
We have broken God’s Law; now, we
deserve to be punished. We have to be
saved from God and His punishment. How
can we do that? When Jesus died, it was
not the nails or the spear or any of those things that save you or pays for the
crime.
“But the Lord was pleased to crush Him.”
Isaiah 53:10
It’s funny when you hear a sermon about
Isaiah 53, it’s always verses 3-6 that talk about the suffering of Christ
heaped upon Him by men. Very rarely do
you hear verse 10. It pleased God the
Father to crush God the Son.
Imagine you’re standing in front of a
huge dam and the walls were removed, what do you think is going to happen to
you? It’s over. Your body’s never going to be found.
How is it that the cross can save
you? It’s because on that cross, all of
the punishment for the sin that God hates and has held back before, was
unleashed and released on His Son. All
the sin of God’s people from all of history was placed on Jesus. All of God’s hatred for all of our sins,
everything that we deserved, God used to crush His own Son.
How is
it that the cross can save you? It’s
because on that cross, all of the punishment for the sin that God hates and has
held back before, was unleashed and released on His Son.
III.
The Cup
(Paul Washer
continued:)
Jesus said, “Let this cup pass from Me.” He was not afraid of the physical experience
of dying on the Cross. Listen, there
have been martyrs who have been burned at the stake, and as they were burned,
they lifted their hands and sang out with joy and praised the Lord. Do you think they’re greater than our Lord
Jesus? Do you think Jesus would be
afraid of a punishment that some of His followers were able to endure with
joy? You have a low opinion of our Lord.
When Jesus was in the garden of
Gethsemene, he wasn’t thinking about the cross or the nails in His hands or a
spear in His side or Romans or anything else.
What He was thinking about was this: “Father, I have never been out of
Your bosom. I have always been in the
most perfect, beautiful, and wonderful relationship with You.” Jesus experienced anguish because of the
thought of being separated from God and having the Father turn His face from
Him.
We hear that God the Father turned His
face away because He couldn’t bear to see His Son suffer. That’s wrong.
He turned His face away because His Son became detestable. His Son had become sin.
Because of our sin, you and I are an
abomination before God. In order for us
to be forgiven, God has to die as an abomination in our place. We deserve to be crushed under God’s wrath,
but to save us; Jesus was crushed under His wrath. That’s what the cross is! That’s what it means.
Because
of our sin, you and I are an abomination before God. In order for us to be forgiven, God has to
die as an abomination in our place.
If you ever get a heavenly vision of
what truly happened on that cross, it will affect you for the rest of your
life. You will become a prisoner to that
thing. You won’t be able to get away from
it.
The biggest argument I get when I speak
at universities is that, “A loving Jesus would never send anyone to hell.” Do you want to know something? If it were not for the loving Jesus, we would
not even have a doctrine of hell.
There’s hardly anything in the Old Testament that talks about hell. Virtually everything we know about hell comes
from Jesus. The loving Jesus spoke more
about hell than everyone else in the Bible put together.
Why?
I believe that hell is so horrible that man cannot comprehend it. The only One who can truly comprehend it is
God Himself.
Now, when you hear about Jesus dying for
you, it was more than whips. I don’t
want to take away from His physical suffering, but the cross was about God the
Son being crushed by His own Father.
When He cried out, “It is finished,” that meant paid in full. Do you know
why God can never pour out His wrath on you if you’re a Christian? He can never pour out his wrath on you, He
can only act toward you with the greatest love with which he loves His
Son. The reason why is because His Son
drank it, it doesn’t exist anymore.
There’s no more punishment for you if you are a Christian.
But if you’re not a Christian? You don’t even want to know.
There
are some questions about the cup that we will never be able to comprehend until
we get to heaven. What exactly was in
the cup? How horrible really is our sin? How horrible was the wrath of God in that
cup? It is something in which I still
feel ignorant, but I need to understand more so I can better comprehend what
Jesus did for me so I can grow in my love and devotion for Him.
There was no literal cup that Jesus
drank. The cup is a figure of speech
that is used to represent the wrath that God the Father pours out upon the
wicked. It is this same cup that Jesus
willingly drank. The issue of our
ignorance is not what was in the cup,
but the magnitude of what was in the
cup. Consider Nahum 1:6: “The mountains
quake before Him; the hills melt; the earth heaves before Him, the world and
all who dwell in it. Who can stand
before His indignation? Who can endure
the heat of His anger? His wrath is
poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken into pieces by Him.”
Who then can stand this wrath? Only Christ Jesus, who said in Isaiah
43:11 that, “I, I am the LORD, and besides Me there is no Savior.” Only Jesus, being God, could be able to
withstand the wrath of God the Father being poured out for a multitude of sins.
“Surely
he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted. But He
was pierced for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him
was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His wounds we are healed.”
Isaiah
53:4-5
We
know the Bible talks about the wrath of God the Father being in the cup, but
more specifically it is the wrath of God for all of the sins of every believer
who ever lived in that one cup. The
punishment of one man’s sins is an eternity in hell. Eternity is not a couple hundred of years, it
is infinite! We cannot imagine what
suffering would be in that cup for just one person, much less the one that
Jesus drank. You would have to take the
magnitude of that one-person cup and multiply it times all of the believers who
ever lived. We think those little cups
of Cuban coffee are strong, they are ridiculously impotent compared to the fury
of God that Jesus drank.
What
was in that cup? It is the wrath of God
for all of the sins of every believer who ever lived.
Psalm
75:8 says, “For in the hand of the LORD there is a cup with foaming wine, well
mixed, and He pours out from it, and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it
down to the dregs.” The dregs of the cup
are the bitter part left at the end that Jesus drank all the way down. The New Oxford American Dictionary describes
it as, “the remnants of liquid left in a container, together with any sediment
or grounds, coffee dregs.” It also has a figurative definition of, “the
most worthless part or parts of something, the
dregs of society.”
Revelation
14:9-11 talks more about the cup of the Father’s wrath that Christ drank, “If
anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or
on his hand, he also will drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into
the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the
presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up
forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the
beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.”
Carl
Haake described the cup in his sermon The
Cup Our Savior Drank, “It is the picture of the cup of God's wrath unmixed
with mercy or pity, poured out upon Him. It was this cup which was presented to Christ,
the cup all the elect would have to drink personally if Christ did not drink it
in their place. A cup composed of all
the elements which the righteousness and justice of God demanded as He beheld
the sins of God's people. Those sins
were imputed or reckoned or given over unto Christ, the Lamb of God, so that
the cup that He must drink is the undiluted wrath of God against the sins of
God's people, the cup which began to be filled in Adam, his original sin, and
is still being filled with every sin you and I commit, filled with the sins of
all of God's elect, the burning lava of God's holiness against their sins.”
“What
was Jesus to do with that cup? He was to
drink it. He was to drain it until empty
and not an ounce left within.” He said
in John 18:11: “Shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?”
Carl
Haake also said, “Sin has blinded us so we do not see what sin deserves. We do not fear the wrath of God as we ought.” Jesus did know what sin deserves and He did
fear the wrath of God the Father. In the
Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed in Matthew 26:39: “My Father, if it be
possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you
will.” Why was Jesus not looking forward
to the cup? Why did He agonize at the
thought of it so that He sweated drops of blood? It is because it contained the holy, righteous,
and furious wrath of God the Father, something that we cannot comprehend, but Jesus
knew perfectly. It is because Christ the
Holy One, who has never known anything
of sin, would become sin! It is because of the closeness of God the Son
with God the Father that would be violently separated by this sin when Jesus
said on the cross, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” Jesus and God the Father were not only
separated by the sin that Jesus took on, but God the Father cast Jesus away and
said in essence, “The Lord your God damns you!” as He poured out His holy wrath
and hatred upon Jesus for an incredible multitude of sins.
Despite
the agony of being forsaken by God and the fear of the wrath of God, Jesus
willingly drank the cup of God’s wrath in our place. Why?
Jesus came in flesh for this very purpose! Psalm 40:8 says, “I delight to do your will,
O my God.” Jesus came to do the will of
God the Father and take our punishment.
He was able to drink the cup that would take us an eternity in Hell to
drink.
Carl
Haake said, “There on the cross the eternal flames and burnings earned by our
sins were quenched by the Son of God in our place, quenched by the Son of God
drinking it, taking it to Himself…He drank the cup of fury dry, every little
ounce of it until the cup was empty. Then
the cup, being empty, may be smashed at the foot of the cross. For that cup no longer exists for the people
of God. That cup cannot be refilled. It is not only empty, it is broken at the foot
of the cross!” He drank down all the
punishment for our sins. Romans 8:1
says, "There is therefore now no
condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."
He
drank the cup of fury dry, every little ounce of it until the cup was
empty. Then the cup, being empty, may be
smashed at the foot of the cross.
Carl
Haake said, “What a wonderful word. It is a very sobering word. When you begin
to view your sins in the light of the sufferings of Jesus Christ, and when you
look into the cup which caused Him to be sore amazed, can you talk then about
little sins? Can you look into the cup
of His sufferings, the very sight of which caused Him to stagger to His knees
in intense agony, and can you talk then of little sins?...Here is the true
estimation of your and my sin which we readily minimize and justify and
overlook. You want to know what sin is? Look into the cup! That is what our sins
deserve! Bring the cup He drank before
you and see if you can talk yourself into the idea of little sins.”
The
undeserved grace we enjoy is so unbelievable.
He drank this cup willingly and He drank it down completely! Lord, help us to not take it lightly and help
us to remember it—that we would not sin and add another drop to that cup. What joy should we have that He drank the
wrath of the Father down to the dregs and then smashed the cup, never for us to
have to drink even a drop of it! What phenomenal
gratitude, love, and obedience should it stir up in us for Him!
For
those of you who do not know Christ, consider how even He agonized at the thought of the wrath of God the Father and fear. Repent and flee from the wrath of the holy
Judge so you will not have to drink of the cup for yourself for all of
eternity.
For
those who do know Christ, rejoice that He has replaced the cup of wrath that
should have been yours to drink with a cup of blessing instead, as described in
Psalm 116:13: “I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the
LORD.” Amazing grace. Amazing grace indeed.
IV.
The Resurrection
"Therefore
having overlooked the times
of ignorance, God
is now declaring
to men that all
people everywhere should repent,
because He has fixed
a day in which
He will judge the world
in righteousness through a Man whom
He has appointed, having furnished proof
to all men by raising
Him from the dead."
Acts 17:30-31
“He who was
delivered over because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our
justification.”
Romans 4:25
"If you
confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God has
raised Him from the dead, you will be saved."
Romans 10:9-10
(from John MacArthur sermon on Romans
10:9-10):
But what were
they to believe? What was the point of
their faith? What was it about Jesus
Christ that they were to accept? It was
the resurrection. Because the
resurrection from the dead proved that Christ was and did all He said He was
and said He would do. I mean, that's the
whole thing, folks. The verification and
the proof and the validity of the ministry of Jesus Christ is the
resurrection—that's the key. The resurrection from the dead is the way that God
fully and finally declared that Jesus was His Son, in an utterly incredible
display of divine power and divine approval.
When God raised Jesus from the dead, He was saying this indeed is My Son
in whom I am well pleased.
But what were they to
believe? What was the point of their
faith? What was it about Jesus Christ
that they were to accept? It was the
resurrection.
The
resurrection was Christ showing that He had won the battle over hell and won
the battle over sin and won the battle over Satan. He came out of the other
side of the grave. He showed His
power. He showed His victory. He showed that He had indeed accomplished our
salvation and won the battle and the Father approved by receiving Him to
Himself and setting Him at His own right hand.
"And
if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your
sins."
1
Corinthians 15:17
We must
believe the resurrection because the resurrection proved that He accomplished
our salvation on the cross. What happens
if He dies on the cross and never rises?
He lost. He didn't purchase any
salvation. He didn't conquer death. He
didn't conquer sin. Sin killed Him. Death killed Him. Satan did hold Him in
bondage. If Christ doesn't rise there's no hope for anybody any time anywhere;
but if He did, if God lifted Him up then He had
done His work, He had conquered
death, conquered sin, conquered hell, conquered Satan, and is delivered and
lifted and exalted because of that perfect work being accomplished.
We must believe the resurrection
because the resurrection proved that He accomplished our salvation on the
cross. What happens if He dies on the
cross and never rises? He lost.
The
resurrection was the Father's stamp of approval, an infinitely holy God put His
stamp of approval on the work of Jesus Christ.
"Concerning
His Son, who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh, who was
declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according
to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord."
Romans
1:3-4
So when
you say you are to believe in your heart that God hath raised Him from the
dead, now you can go back to Romans 10—that you believe in your heart that God hath
raised Him from the dead, you're saying something that's far more than just
believing in an isolated event. In
essence, what you're saying is that you believe that this is the incarnate God
who came into the world. God in human
flesh, lived a perfect life, died a substitutionary death, went into the grave
and conquered death, came out the other side having purchased salvation for us,
is now seated at the right hand of God the Father, and some day will come as
the Father's appointed Judge and King to judge men and to rule the world
forever. That's all bound up in the
resurrection.
The
resurrection was the divine verification of all that Jesus claimed to be and do. The issue is believing that.
You were born
an enemy of God and a slave to sin and to the devil and deserve to be punished
by a holy and just God for your sins; but thanks be to God, Jesus Christ came
in the flesh to Earth as our perfect sacrifice to redeem us and pay the price
for our sins. He paid this price not
with nails, or whips, or a crown of thorns, nor by hanging on a cross for a few
hours. Those things He suffered
physically were significant but they did not redeem us. He redeemed
us by drinking down the cup of the wrath from God the Father containing the
infinite punishment for the sins of every believer who ever lived!
Why would He
do all that? We take this for granted,
but why would the King of the Universe come to Earth and take the punishment
that we deserved? We are not
worthy. But…His grace and His love are
beyond what we can comprehend.
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