"What Is the Gospel?" Romans 3:21-26 Sunday Morning Worship Service: 10:45AM

The text that I have read today has been considered by some of the greatest theologians and preachers down through the history of Christianity as possibly the greatest text in the entire Bible, the most essential text, the center text, that key that makes everything else understandable, comprehensible.

Spurgeon and Martin Lloyd Jones referred to it as the Acropolis of the Christian faith, the fortified city of Christianity.

So we're going to take a look at this text in light of the scripture itself.

And our goal is to see the gospel.

I have said oftentimes that the problem in our country and in the world is not so much that the people are gospel hardened as much as they are gospel ignorant.

They are gospel ignorant because the pulpit seem to be so ignorant of the gospel.

When you consider the gospel that is taught today compared to even 75 years ago, but especially in the Victorian era, time of Spurgeon, and then going on back to the Puritans and the Reformers, you would see an extraordinary difference.

And so our goal is to get back, of course, to the first century.

But we must pass through 2,000 years of Christian history to get there.

And so let's take a look at this text.

First of all, verse 23 may be one of the verses that you memorize first if you were raised in Christianity.

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

As they're making their way through the darkness, they come upon a sailor who is adrift in the waters, and he was pale with terror, screaming, and they brought him on board, and he says, Turn the ship, turn the ship, turn the ship.

And all the sailors are saying, you know, we're men of war, we're afraid of nothing.

He says, Turn the ship, you fools, fly.

They said, What great danger lays here?

And the man said, This is the place where all your dreams come true.

The sailors begin to smile, and he said, You fools, think, think, think.

And all of a sudden you see their smiles change to frowns, and terror encompasses them.

Because they realized what he was saying.

This is a place where all your dreams come true.

You see, they'd heard it, but they didn't understand it.

It says, for all have sinned.

We're a culture that laughs about sin, that boasts about sin, that takes sin so lightly.

Why are we that way?

I mean, if you walk up to someone in the street and say you're a sinner, they won't deny it.

They'll laugh about it.

But how can they laugh about it?

It's not because they do not know that they are sinners.

They laugh about it because they do not know what sin is, and they do not know what sin is because they do not understand who God is.

There is so much ignorance of who God truly is.

Many times I'm I'm around PhD students and men such as that, and I'll go, I'll go, let me ask you a question.

You have your PhD, right?

After you were converted, how many years did you spend studying the doctrine of God?

And they'll go, well, I, you know, I read my Bible.

Okay, when you went to Bible college, how many semesters were dedicated to just the doctrine of God?

Well, I had a systematic theology for one semester, and for a few weeks there we did talk about the attributes of God.

Okay, when you went into your master's level program, how much did you study God?

Of those three years, how many of those years were dedicated to the study of God?

Well, again, we had a systematic, and I think the second semester we did spend like three or four months.

They go in your PhD, how much of those years were dedicated to God, to knowing who God is?

And they go, well, my PhD wasn't in God.

Do you see what's going on?

Let me ask you a question.

How much time in your Christian life have you spent studying the attributes of God to know who this God is?

And if you haven't, could it not be true that every Sunday your worship is nothing more than idolatry?

Because in the absence of a biblical knowledge of God, the only thing to replace is your imagination.

So could it be possible that you have made a God in your own image and you're worshiping the God you made?

What makes you think you have a biblical view of God?

Because a biblical view of God will cause us to have a biblical view of sin.

And the mere mention that all have sinned would be a statement of such utter terror that we would hardly be able to control our faculties.

All have sinned.

I mean, it's one thing, isn't it, to sin against the, you know, I guess some mayor of some small village?

To trespass against his laws may be a small thing, but this is the king of glory against whom you've sinned.

One sin in the garden sent the entire universe into chaos until today it groans under the weight of it.

One sin.

Nibbling on a fruit.

And yet your sins have so surpassed that.

So many sins that you could not even begin to count them with a calculator.

All have sinned.

When God created the world, he commanded stars to put themselves in their place, and they all obeyed.

He told planets to move in certain spheres and orbits.

They bowed down and worshiped.

He told mountains to be lifted up and they came forth.

He told valleys to be cast down and they threw themselves down.

He told the sea, you will come to this point and no further.

And the sea worshiped.

He looked at you and said, Come, and you said, No.

That's why on the day of judgment, all of creation will stand to his feet and applaud God when he rids the earth of you.

All have sinned.

We don't understand what it means because we don't know God.

And we've replaced God with our own construction.

He told Israel, You did all this because you thought I was like you.

All have sinned.

Are you afraid?

You should be.

And fall short of the glory of God.

Oh, I know what your prophets say.

God has a wonderful plan for your life, and you'll never attain it because you've sinned.

That's not what this passage means.

It's not even close to what this passage means.

What this passage means is this Romans 1.

For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks.

That's what it means.

You were made for Him.

Think.

I know in all this entertainment and all this silliness and all these sports and all these different ideas running around the world, all these things sucking up your time.

You have no time to think, but think you were made for him.

Not for you.

You were made for him.

Do you know for years I would make longbows, primitive longbows to hunt with.

Just take one limb, work it down, put a string on it, hunt.

Some of my bows, they could kill an elk, a bear.

But you can't play a song with them.

They weren't made for that.

When you take them out of the purpose for which they were made, they become dislocated, limp, useless.

That's humanity.

We were made for him.

Everything that we do, whether we eat or drink, explore, invent, create, mathematics, architecture, astronomy, geology, microbiology, physics.

Everything was to be done for him, to discover him.

All our relationships, marriage were to be an example of him.

What a pitiful thing when you are given the highest privilege and you waste your life on the smallest trifles.

That's what this passage means.

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Instead of looking into the word, you look into your camera and TikTok and all those types of things.

It is one thing to, I guess, even a platterpus or a worm has a purpose.

That if it is accomplished, it's a noble purpose.

But you were made in the image of God.

A sentient being, capable of knowing him, loving him, following him, imitating him.

We have not done it.

Mars did it.

The moon did it.

Crickets do it.

Amoebas do it.

Black holes do it.

Only you don't do it.

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Now the question is, what should a God do with people like us?

Sometimes when I'm sharing the gospel, one of the ways I'll start is just say, what should God do with a person like you?

I mean, what should he do with you?

We have sinned.

And our sin leads to judgment.

A judgment of wrath, an expression of divine hatred.

As the love of God has no, there's no possible way that we could comprehend the magnitude or the quality of the love of God.

In the same way, there's no possible means of comprehending the magnitude, the quality of God's hatred, of his wrath, of his anger.

And think about it.

Not angry with the sun, moon, stars, lower life forms, for they've all done what they were told.

But with you and me, think about it.

What does God do with a race such as us?

Now you might be thinking, oh, what did this young man read?

Well, used to be young man, old man read sinners in the hands of an angry God this morning?

Why is he coming at us with this archaic view of God?

I'm not coming to you with an archaic view of God.

I'm coming to you with a historic view of God.

But more importantly, a biblical view of God.

You see, here's what I want you to understand.

All these teachers that will tell you things, they'll begin their evangelistic crusades by telling you the first thing I want you to know is that God's not an angry God.

Well, the first thing I want you to know is that He is.

He really and truly is angry.

Just hold your place in Romans for a moment.

Go with me to Psalms chapter 5.

Psalms 5 · chapter mention

Look in Psalms 5.

Verse 4, for you are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness.

No evil dwells with you.

The boastful shall not stand before your eyes.

You hate all who do iniquity.

Well, God loves the sinner and hates the sin.

Well, I'm sorry, that's not what the Bible says.

He is not demonstrating hatred toward the iniquity, but toward all who do it.

Look at it clearly.

Then look over in chapter 7, look at verse 11.

God is a righteous judge and a God who has indignation every day.

He has anger every day.

So here we've learned something that the God of love hates.

And the God who is patient is angry every day.

Now, you have two choices when you come to a crossroad like this.

You have two choices academically, intellectually, logically, rationally.

You have to see how they work together biblically, or you have to deny one of them.

And your culture has primarily denied one of them.

God is a God of love.

He's not a God who hates.

He's not a God who's angry.

Well, if he's not a God who's angry, and he's not a God who hates, then guess what?

He's no longer a God that's righteous.

You say, Well, I don't understand.

Well, let me ask you a question.

Let's mention just three of the great atrocities of mankind.

Auschwitz.

Nazi Germany.

The elimination of six million Jews.

That's one of them.

So if I walked up to a man and I said, What do you think of Auschwitz?

What was done to the Jews?

And he said, Well, you know, things happen.

I mean, it doesn't really bother me.

I don't I don't feel one way or the other.

What would you think about that man?

That he was immoral?

That he was just as immoral as the murderers, the slaughterers at Auschwitz?

Let's take another example.

Slavery of Africans in the colonial period.

What if I walked up to someone and said, what do you think about slavery?

And they said, well, you know, economics is economics.

It worked.

I don't really feel bad about it.

What would you think about that person?

Would you think they were a moral person?

Would you think they were good?

Would you think they were loving?

Would you think they were righteous?

No, you'd think they were a monster, wouldn't you?

Now let's think about the 65 million babies that have been slaughtered here in America.

You walk up to somebody, what do you think about that?

Well, you know, choice is a choice.

What would you think about that person?

Do we not expect that when someone is confronted with the reality of Auschwitz or the reality of human slavery, do not we expect a moral man to be angry?

Do we not expect a moral man if we become so effeminate in this country that we don't even expect moral men to be angry anymore?

Yes, you would be angry.

As a matter of fact, everyone in this room, you have been righteously angry about something.

Isn't it amazing that you have the right to hate things, but God doesn't, in your opinion?

And you have the right to be righteously angry about things and God does not.

If God, if a person is righteously angry, it means they are righteous about some wrong.

God is more righteous than you could ever imagine.

And if that is true, and it is true, then his anger and hatred of evil goes so far beyond anything you could imagine, he will eat whirls and swallow them.

C.S.

Lewis was trying to get to this point when little Lucy asked Aslan, you know, are you are you safe?

Do you eat girl little girls?

And he goes, I eat whirls.

He's not a safe lion, but he is good.

You see, we're not understanding what's going on here.

This is not some little religious thing.

God is love.

I love my family.

When I was a missionary in Peru, there were times I'd have to go into red zones where there were the terrorists and all these different things, or corrupt officials and police and military and everything.

And when I got into those places, my wife did not come with me.

Why?

They pulled me off a bus, they pushed me around, smacked me around, whatever they want to do, no big deal, been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

But they touch my bride.

The wife of my love, it's not gonna go well.

Because I love her.

I am 61.

I have a God has given me a six-year-old daughter.

She's the world to me.

My 15-year-old daughter, I would die a thousand deaths for her.

My two boys, they're on their own.

But you see, I love them.

And I will hurt you if you try to hurt them, if I have to.

He hates it.

And we've all committed it.

And we've all become it.

All of us.

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Now here's the question.

Here's the question.

If God is good, how can he forgive us?

If God is righteous, he can't.

This is Paul's argument here.

The great question of Scripture.

If you want to condense everything together and wonder what is this whole thing about, it's all about this.

How can a righteous God pardon wicked people and still be righteous?

That is the problem of the scriptures.

That is the divine dilemma.

And if you go back to the patristics, I have found it in the patristics.

If you go back to the reformers, if you go back to the Puritans, if you go back to the early evangelicals, you will find this in every gospel sermon, but not today.

William Bates wrote a magnificent work in the 17th century The Harmony of the Attributes of God in the Cross of Christ.

How do you harmonize God's attributes?

How do they work together?

How can God be just?

And at the same time, how can God be merciful?

Let me put it before you this way.

Let's say that a terrible thing, grotesque, but let's use it anyways.

You were to go home from here and find your entire family slaughtered.

And the man who slaughtered them is standing over your last family member, strangling them.

You run across the room, you throw the man to the ground, you tie him up, and you call the police.

Everybody in the neighborhood knew your family, loved your family.

So it's the day for the court to come together, for the sentence to be given, and the judge looks down at the man who slaughtered your entire family and says, This I am a loving judge, slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness.

Therefore, sir, I pardon you.

You're free to go.

What would you do?

Would you say, oh, what a magnificent expression of mercy?

You would not do that.

You would be writing the Congress, presidents, you would be going on the news channels, you would, you, the townspeople, everyone would be in an uproar.

Isn't that our complaint today that the judges are corrupt?

That they don't do justice?

That politicians can be bought off.

So the real question is, how do a God who is truly just, how does he pardon and maintain his justice?

That is the question of this text.

Now I want us to look for a moment, because I want to prove my point and show you how that throughout scripture this has been a dilemma.

Look in Exodus 34.

This is one of the greatest revelations of God in the Old Testament, on par with Isaiah 6.

In 34, verse 6, then the Lord passed by in front of him, that is Moses, and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness and truth, who keeps loving kindness for thousands.

So far so good.

What a beautiful declaration of who God is.

Magnificent declaration.

But let's go on.

Who forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin.

What he's doing is this is very, very Hebrew literature-like of heaping one term upon another for emphasis, for further explanation.

Just keep going on.

It's called a Hebrew parallelism.

Just keeps going and going to explain to you what God means.

And what this text means is that God is declaring that he forgives all types and kinds of sin.

And isn't that a great comfort?

There is no sin he does not forgive.

He forgives all types and kinds of sin.

But now here comes the problem.

It says, who forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin, yet he will by no means leave the guilty unpunished.

Well, hold on.

He will punish every type and kind of sin without exception.

Well, how do you do that?

He says he forgives all types and kinds of sin, but every sin will be punished.

How do you do that?

Every sin on this planet, from Adam to the last man standing, every sin that you have committed will be punished.

Now there are two possible ways in which that punishment can occur.

One.

You can receive penalty, you can receive punishment for your sin by passing an eternity of suffering in hell personally.

That's one way that your sins will be punished.

Your iniquity will be punished.

You in hell for an eternity.

But there's another way that sin can be punished.

Punished upon Jesus Christ.

So you'd make your choice.

You can stand in your own self-righteousness and say, I'm good with God and have no need of that atonement that was made on Calvary.

And you will be punished, your sins will be punished throughout eternity in hell.

Or you trust in Christ Jesus, and all your sins were punished on him.

But make no mistake, every sin will be punished because God is a righteous God.

Either you will absorb that punishment in hell, or that punish will punishment will have been absorbed by Christ on Calvary.

You make your choice.

Now, let's go on and look at it.

From Proverbs.

What's the theme of most of the hymns that you sing?

That God justifies the wicked.

Yet Scripture speaks and cannot be broken.

Whoever justifies the wicked is an abomination before God.

And yet you're constantly singing about how God justifies the wicked.

And so the question again, how can God justify the wicked, declare them right when they're not right, and not be an abomination himself?

Again, the answer is found where?

On Calvary, in the person of Jesus Christ.

God can declare the wicked righteous if they have put their faith in the person of Christ who bore their iniquity on Calvary and was crushed under the just and holy wrath of God in their place.

Now, let's go a little further.

Go to Micah.

Micah 7:18

Chapter 7, verse 18.

Who is a God like you who pardons iniquity and passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of his possession?

Now, I want you to think about this.

You heard it.

You just heard me read this.

Did it shock you?

You say, well, what should shock me?

God passes over the rebellious acts of his people?

What would you think about a judge who passes over the rebellious acts of the person being judged?

David is even stronger in the Psalms, and it's repeated again in Romans 4.

He says, you cover sin.

What do you think about a judge who covers the crime?

What do you think about a judge who sweeps it under the rug?

Is that judge righteous?

No, of course not.

That's our great complaint about judges, politicians, so on and so forth.

So you read this and you're not astounded, but you're not thinking.

This is dreadful language.

He pardons iniquity and passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of his possession.

But how can he do that?

And be a righteous and holy God.

It continues.

He does not retain his anger forever because he delights in unchanging love.

He will have compassion on us.

He will tread our iniquities underfoot.

Yes, you will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.

Again, he hides them.

How can a righteous God do such a thing?

It's a very important question.

And at the risk of redundancy, I keep stating it over and over because I want you to see this is the kernel truth of the gospel.

That Christ had to die on that tree.

You say Jesus had to die because we were sinners.

Well, that's true, but that's not getting at the main truth.

And you say, why?

Well, let me give you an example.

Let's say that there is a uh a mafioso that is our crime boss who's just committed atrocities and he's finally been arrested.

But as he's in prison, he's whistling and he's happy and he's smiling and he's laughing.

And even as they're bringing him in the courtroom for the final sentencing, he's just so he just not doesn't have a care in the world.

Doesn't, he's not bothered.

Why?

Because the judge is just as corrupt as he is.

He's bought off the judge.

But oh the terror in his face when he turns the corner and he finds out that corrupt judge has been replaced by a righteous one.

Oh, the terror.

You see, it isn't just merely the problem that we're sinners.

Sin would not be a problem at all if God was like us.

Do you see that?

But he's not like us.

That's where the problem happens.

Christ had to die, not just because we're sinners, but because God is righteous.

So, how does he solve the problem here in Malachi?

In Micah, he will tread our iniquities under foot.

He will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.

So often these verses are found in song.

But a lot of times the song, the author of those songs, don't understand exactly what's going on here.

Do you think that God actually took care of your sin by kind of raking it off of you and stomping it?

Do you think that your sins were paid for because he kind of rolled it up all off of your back and made it into a ball and threw it far from him, as far as the east is from the west?

Do you think that would that would work?

We sing those so gleefully, those songs, but I want you to think about something.

What is this really saying?

He didn't take our iniquities off our backs and stomp them under his foot.

He took our iniquities off his our back and he placed them upon his son and he crushed his only begotten son under his foot.

He didn't take your sins and roll them up in a ball and throw them into the depths of the sea.

He took your sins and placed them on his son and cast his son into the sea of his wrath, his righteous indignation, and his holy anger against those sins and against you.

Changes things, doesn't it?

When you think about it that way.

Straight out of the old.

So you read about Jonah.

He's a disobedient prophet.

He's crossing the sea.

The storms come up.

He's asleep.

They awake, they wake him up.

He comes out, he says, It's me.

Throw me into the water.

And that water, that rage, that storm was a natural manifestation of the wrath of God.

Throw me into the storm.

They threw him into the sea, and the sea was calmed.

The wrath was over.

So you come to the New Testament, and Jesus is telling them, let's get in a boat and go across.

But then there's a raging storm, and there's a raging storm while Jesus is asleep, just like Jonah.

The parallel is just striking.

So those disciples must have been thinking, oh no, maybe the Pharisees are right, maybe the Sadducees are right, maybe this is a disobedient prophet.

Because we're in the case just like Jonah now.

We're crossing the sea, a storm comes up, we're going to drown, there's no way out.

And he's asleep.

They wake him up and he comes out and he stills the sea.

Proving he's not the disobedient prophet.

He's the prophet, the son of God.

But it is also a picture, though a slight one, of Christ on Calvary throwing himself into the wrath of God on your behalf and suffering there until every demand of justice is met.

Now, I want us to go back to Romans.

Romans 3 · chapter mention

Chapter 3.

Verse 24, being justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.

In verse 23, we hear the bell toll of condemnation.

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

But in 24, Paul is speaking to the Roman Christians, and he says something absolutely astounding, extraordinary about them.

He says, You've been justified.

Justification is a legal or forensic term.

It means that someone has been legally declared right before God.

Not just pardoned, but right.

A complete, perfect, right standing before God.

How did this happen?

As a gift by his grace.

It's almost as though Paul is saying, being redundant, as Paul often is.

It's justification as a gift, as a gift, as a gift, as a gift, as a gift.

And this separates Christianity from all the other religions in the world.

As I said earlier, if you took a contemporary religion class with me, you would be doing okay because all the other people are going to say there are thousands and thousands of religions.

I'm going to tell you there's only two.

Because every religion outside of Christianity can be grouped into one massive category: a religion of works.

A religion of works.

Do this and you will save yourself.

Christianity alone is a religion of grace.

I'll give you an example of imagine a reporter interviewing the different religions in the world.

He goes to the Orthodox Jew and says, If you die right now, where would you go?

The Orthodox Jew might say, I believe I would go to heaven, the way of the righteous, because I love the law of God.

And I have attempted to do the law of God.

I am a righteous man.

Go to the Muslim and say, if you died right now, where would you go?

I believe I would go to paradise.

Why would you go to paradise?

Well, I have done the pilgrimages, I've respected the five pillars.

I am a righteous man.

Okay.

Comes to the Christian.

And it's hard for me to just say that word because in evangelicalism today you must be very, very careful.

For many think they are Christians when they are not.

But the real Christian.

He comes to the Christian and he says, This, if you died right now, where would you go?

And the Christian says, Heaven.

And the reporter says, why?

And he's the Christian responds.

In sin, I was, I was born in sin.

Did my mother conceive me?

I have broken every law of God.

And I deserve condemnation.

And the reporter stops him and says, I hold it.

I understand the other guys.

I mean, it makes sense, you know.

God has given them certain things to do.

They've done those things in a satisfactory manner.

God accepts them based upon their own righteousness.

But you, sir, are telling me that you're going to heaven and you have no righteousness of your own.

None.

How are you going to heaven, sir?

And the man says with a smile on his face, I am going to heaven based upon the righteousness of another, my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

It's a gift.

But that still doesn't solve the problem.

I mean, we know that faith saves us, but faith in something that had to be done, because faith alone is not an atonement.

Faith cannot atone for your sin.

Faith cannot satisfy the offended holiness of God, the offended justice of God.

Faith cannot satisfy it.

Something has to happen.

And that's what Paul talks about here.

He says, being justified is a gift by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.

Redemption.

I would really admonish many people, be careful how you pronounce certain words.

We are not any longer a noble people, nor do we find nobility in hardly anything.

We're a vain and vulgar and stupid people.

We've become a nation of just.

It's unspeakable.

And so there's there's just no sense of honor.

And sometimes we treat words in scripture as though we could just fling them out like they were some the name of some cartoon character.

There are certain words that the Puritans used to say that you should only pronounce with a trembling lip.

Redemption is one of them.

We were redeemed.

We were bought.

We were not bought by silver or gold.

All the coffers of heaven were not emptied.

We were bought by the blood of God's own son.

And it's the reality of that.

It's not the freedom that motivates us so much.

It's the price paid for the freedom that moves men and women to piety.

That's why the gospel is the mystery of godliness.

Our faith would mean nothing if sins had not been atoned for.

And sins were atoned for through the blood of Jesus Christ.

Christ.

We're not a medit meditative people.

We can't put our phones down long enough to do that anymore.

But we ought to read scripture at times and think, what does it mean?

Through the redemption.

No, no, no.

Through through him.

My my creator, my sustainer, my master died.

It was him.

I'm saved because of him.

Atonement was made because of him.

There was a film made years ago and it shows this man chained to a wall and about to be whipped and condemned and beaten to death.

You see this hand raised against him, you see only the shadow of it with a whip.

And the narrator is going on about how Satan had us chained to a wall and was about to whip us to death.

But Christ, he uh mediated and stood between us and the harm, and he took those stripes on his back, and that was just so wrong.

That's not what happened.

First of all, you and I weren't chained there as victims, we were chained there as enemies.

Vulgar, sinful, immoral enemies.

And it wasn't the devil coming after us.

It was the righteousness of God.

Christ didn't interpose between us and the devil.

He interposed between us and God.

And all that should have fallen upon us fell upon him.

Fell upon him.

Oh, I know you kind of preacher.

Sinners in the hands of an angry God, and here you have this nice Jesus saving us from a mean father.

Let me share with you something about that.

First of all, when you talk that way, shut your mouth because you're just showing your stupidity.

Second, you need to understand this.

The Father, Son, and the Spirit were in agreement with regard to our redemption and the way it should be carried out.

But more importantly, the Father, Son, and the Spirit were also in agreement with regard to our condemnation.

The Son agreed with the Father that we all should die.

And if the Son hadn't been the one who gave himself as an atonement, he would have been our executioner.

Because everything the Father does, he does through the Son.

This is not the Son saving us from the Father.

This is God saving us from God.

It is seeing.

It's the turning of the cheek.

We deserve to die.

God is righteous and we must die.

God becomes a man and absorbs the righteousness to us.

Imagine for a moment that there is a dam a thousand miles high and a thousand miles wide, and it's filled to the brim.

And at the bottom of that little of that immense dam is a tiny little village.

And you're in that village.

And then one moment you wake up to a crack that seems like the world is split in two.

And you make it to the doorway of your hut only to see that that huge thousand-foot wall, thousand feet wide, has now just disintegrated and coming toward you is a mass of water that will, when it hits you, there will be nothing left of you.

Nothing.

And right before it reaches you, the ground opens up and swallows the full force of that mass of water down, and not one drop of water falls on the leg of your pants.

That's what God did.

It was God's wrath set against you.

And it was God who absorbed it in his son.

This is a saving work of the Son.

It is a saving work of the Father.

It is the saving work of the Spirit.

And in condemnation, and many will be condemned, it will be the condemning work of the Father, and the condemning work of the Son, and the condemning work of the Spirit.

They are in agreement.

God has saved you from Himself, for Himself, and by Himself.

Then it says here, verse 25, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith.

A propitiation.

Maybe the most important word.

Maybe one of the most important, if not the most important word in all the Bible.

I'll never forget years ago as a young boy preacher.

I was going to preach and I walked in and found out that preaching in front of me was Vernon Hyam, one of Martin Lloyd Jones' best friends.

I thought, oh my.

And I preached on propitiation that day, and I'll never forget that old man.

What a preacher.

Oh my gosh, what a preacher.

I came down from the pulpit and he had his Bible like this.

And he goes, boy, we got the word back in the book.

We got it back in the book.

And he was talking about the word had been retranslated again into propitiation.

The word is so important, so dear.

And if most Christians were even asked about it, they wouldn't be able to even know where it is or or what it means.

And yet it possibly is the greatest word of all to describe Calvary.

It's referring to a sacrifice that satisfies the demands of justice.

God's justice.

So that God can now be just because his demands have been met and merciful to sinners because their sins have been paid for by him.

A propitiation in his blood through faith, through faith, through faith.

Recognize this.

The only thing that the Christian contributes to their salvation is their sin.

We are saved by throwing ourselves upon Christ and Christ alone, boasting in nothing and no one but Christ.

You will not get into heaven with one shred of self-righteousness on your back.

Every inward look only brings despair for you.

But every look upon Christ brings hope and joy.

Christ is everything.

Christ is everything.

And it is by faith.

It begins by faith, it continues by faith, it ends by faith.

If I died right now after 40 years of being rode hard, hard service, for 40 years, if I died right now, I would go to heaven for one reason.

Jesus Christ died for sinners.

That is it.

That was the only boast Paul had when he laid his head on the chopping block.

He had no more boast than that thief on the cross.

Christ died for sinners.

Man is abase, and God is glorified.

Now I want us to think for a moment.

If you just give me a little bit of time here, I know I've gone over a little, but I want you to think for a moment.

What does it mean that he gave his life as a propitiation?

What does it mean that he died?

I hear these Easter sermons, and they're all about thorns and nails and whips, and all that was an aspect of a manifestation of the wrath of God.

But what happened on that tree?

You see, because there's a great problem.

You're celebrating, not celebrating, but you're acknowledging today a day with regard to the persecuted church.

Even for the last 2,000 years, Christians have been crucified.

Crucified, covered with tar, set on fire, crucified.

And there are accounts after accounts of Christians going to the cross, singing hymns, saying things like, play the man.

Today we die.

Christopher Love, his wife told him, don't back down.

Send him a letter in prison.

Said, tomorrow morning, they're gonna take off your head.

But she said, tomorrow morning when you get up and you dress yourself, you'll be putting on your wedding garments.

Go forth, man.

Die.

How many people have gone to crosses singing and bold, and yet the captain of our salvation is in a garden saying, No, no, let this pass from me.

So obviously, there's something going on in Calvary that doesn't just go on in a normal crucifixion.

And what is it?

It's the cup.

It's the cup.

What is the cup?

Let me read to you a passage in Jeremiah.

Just listen.

For thus the Lord, the God of Israel, says to me, Take this cup of the wine of wrath from my hand, and cause all the nations to whom I send you to drink it.

They will drink and stagger and go mad.

You see, every Christian that's ever died on a cross, they could die there with some sense of joy.

Why?

Because they had the presence of God.

They knew they were in the will of God, they knew God was looking down upon them with favor, but not so with Christ.

When he took our sins upon himself, the only thing for him then was the absence of the good pleasure of God and the wrath of Almighty God upon him.

Now you have to understand from the moment that Jesus was born, as a little boy, even, he always knew the Father's pleasure in a way that you and I could never even begin to describe it.

His communion with the Father was never broken.

And he reached such heights of communion.

If you study the servant songs in Isaiah, they were absolutely astounding.

But now it is the utter and complete absence of God in the sense of his good pleasure.

Now it is only the fierce hatred of God against the sin bearer.

And those hours of darkness on that tree, unlike filmmakers say it was not a cloudy day, it was not a rainy day, I believe that the darkness that enshrouded him was like the darkness that enshrouded Egypt.

You could not see your hand in front of your face.

Because he had to be shut up, unable to look out even in the masses and find any comfort.

Shut up in a room unspeakable, while billow after billow after billow of the wrath of God poured down upon his head.

Until finally every last cent was paid for the sins of his people.

So that when he cried out, it is finished, it's as though he turned over the chalice of God's wrath, and not one drop came out because he had drank it all on behalf of his people.

Now he goes on and he says, This was to demonstrate, it says, that God displayed him 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.

What does that mean?

It's utterly, it's it's essential that you understand this.

Essential.

God publicly displayed his son.

He placarded him, as the British would say.

He placarded him on the tree.

In the very center of the religious universe, he hung him up for all to see.

Why?

To give a demonstration.

To make an atonement, absolutely, but also to give a demonstration.

Well, what's the demonstration?

To prove once and for all that God is righteous.

You say, well, why would God have to prove that?

I mean, you go back in the Old Testament, you see all these judgments and things.

Why would God have to prove that he is righteous?

Because all throughout history, that those judgments have been mingled with mercy.

And that was unacceptable.

Justice was saying no.

Let me explain.

Imagine.

Imagine Satan is beholding the history of redemption.

And he's standing before the throne of God.

And he looks at our fallen parents.

And he says, Where is your justice, God?

Where's your justice?

They have sinned and they must die.

But you not only give them a promise, you give a promise to their seed.

You're going to redeem them.

You're going to help them.

Where's your justice?

Now imagine Noah.

God, where's your justice?

Huh?

You flooded the world.

That's not enough.

Noah should have died.

Noah was a sinner.

His family, sinners.

They proved it as soon as they got off the boat.

Where's your justice?

Oh, Abraham?

Abraham, your friend.

He lied about his wife.

He did not believe you.

He put her in jeopardy.

Israel?

Israel?

Your people?

They worshiped me in the wilderness, not you.

The prophets even said so.

Where's your justice?

Why do you tarry with them?

Oh, David, man after your own heart, he's a murderer and an adulterer.

Where's your justice?

They should all die.

On the day of Calvary, it's though God may have called Satan front and center.

And said, Do you want to know how I could give a promise to those fallen parents of the entire race?

Do you want to know how I could save Noah and his family from the flood?

Do you want to know how I can be faithful even now to Israel?

Do you want to know how I could call Abraham my friend and call David my son?

Look to Jerusalem now.

Turn your face toward the cross.

There, my son dies for them all.

And when he died, he proved that God was just and the justifier of the wicked.

The divine dilemma is finally solved.

How can God be just and yet pardon wicked people like us?

Maybe in your fine Washington culture, being called wicked is a little bothersome for you.

But you are apart from Christ.

How could he save the likes of you?

That would be the thing on that day when you stood before him.

Do you realize on that day if you stand before him without Christ, all of creation stands up and accuses you?

There's no hope.

And if God were to accept you, there would be the declaration of unrighteousness against him, except for the fact that God has atoned for your sins through his own son, who died on a cross in your place.

And then on the third day, he arose.

And Paul goes on in chapter 4, and I wish we had time to go through it, chapter 4, verse 25, he was delivered over because of our transgressions, and he was raised because of our justification.

He was raised, why?

Because what he did on that tree perfectly satisfied God's justice once and for all.

Do you understand, believer, that if you're trusting in Christ at this moment, you are righteous before him.

That means more than just you've been pardoned.

Because you've got to be more than neutral to go to heaven.

You have to be righteous to go to heaven.

The moment you believed in Jesus, all your sins, past, present, and future, were pardoned, were atoned for.

And not only that, that perfect life that Jesus lived for all those years, that perfect righteousness of his, he dresses you in it.

It's imputed to you.

That's why he's greater than Joseph.

Joseph would not share his coat of many colors with his brethren.

Jesus shares his coat of righteousness with all.

Not enough is said about his ascension.

I am, I love the ancients, I love the patristics, I love the reformers, the Puritans.

They spoke much of the ascension.

And there's a passage that they would take, and some could say, too much metaphor for me, or there's too much beauty in it for me not to say it.

They would go to Psalms 24.

You see, when Jesus ascended up, what you've got to realize is this.

The Son is eternal.

He's eternal.

He's the eternal God.

He has always sat on that throne.

He's always been there.

So what's so big about him retaking the throne?

What's so big about it?

You've got to see this.

This is why we're sometimes you turn off television sets, practice the night watch, wake up in the middle of the morning, read your Bibles, understand this is amazing.

When he takes his throne again, he takes it in our flesh.

Flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone.

That is our brother there.

It's our champion.

All of us have failed.

Every last one of us.

Sons of Adam, daughters of Eve.

Every one of us has failed.

There has only been one among us who has triumphed.

Who is righteous.

And it's him.

It's him.

It's him.

What a hero.

And he is flesh of my flesh.

And bone of my bone.

And elder, the elder.

Brother.

All of our saints that have died, all of our brothers and sisters that have gone on before us have entered through the gates by grace.

Is that not true?

He did not enter in by grace.

He entered in by his own virtue.

Think about that.

Think about that.

So in Psalms 24, we read the Puritans would say, Spurgeon also.

So the Son, our Lord, our captain, our brother, comes to the gates of heaven and he cries out in verse 7: Lift up your heads, O gates, and be lifted up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory will come in.

Spurgeon says that all the angels run to the parapet of the wall and they look over.

And I would add, not only did they look over, but they said, Who is this?

No one has ever reached these gates.

What man calls out to them, what man would dare lay his hand to the latch of these doors?

And they answer back, Who is this King of Glory?

Then our Lord answers back.

The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.

Lift up your heads, O gates, and lift them up, old ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in.

And for the first time in all of time, a man by his own virtue commands the gates of heaven to be thrown open, and they are.

And he walks in there.

Man, I hope I get to see that.

There's got to be a replay button.

I've got to see that.

He walks in.

In all of creation.

Angels, cherubim, seraphim, things that we know not of, cannot even comprehend, that would fracture our minds.

They fall to the ground before him.

And he ascends the throne of his father.

And he sits down at his right hand.

And I can imagine the father saying, Son, it is done.

And the son, father, it is done indeed.

My grandfather's favorite song was, Take the royal diadem and crown him Lord of all.

This is not about religion, it's not about ethics, it's not about your puny morality, it's not about culture, it's about him.

It's all about him.

It's all about him.

I don't need educated men.

I don't need polite men.

I don't even need clean men.

Just give me a hundred men that will follow the Lamb wherever He goes and will take on any empire.

It's all about Him.

Piety is not something that comes from us, it's our affections being drawn out of us when we see Him.

It's all about Him.

It's all about Him.

It's all about Him.

And in your life, so surrounded, especially in this area, by so much nonsense and entertainment and triviality and so many things.

Turn your face to this book.

Turn your knees to the floor and catch a vision.

I have had the privilege over my many years of being with some of the greatest Christians, knowing them, men who suffer.

And you ask yourself this question: well, how did they get that way?

We know from Scripture that they were sons of Adam, daughters of Adam.

They weren't born any better than we were.

We know that when they were born again, they were born again by the same spirit that regenerated us.

So what made some people be willing to do anything for the cause of Christ?

It was simply this.

They saw a greater vision of him.

A greater vision of what he did.

And that is the task of preaching, and that is the pain of preaching.

We need men of God, and we need congregations who will allow men of God to do this.

We need men who will study and pray and study and pray and study and pray because they know that their congregation, many are working as mechanics and doctors and lawyers and house moms and everything else, and even though they would like to, they cannot spend as much time in the word.

And you need to give your men time to do nothing but live in the word, eat the word, search out Christ, search out the beauties of Christ, search out more and more beauty of Christ, and every Sunday and every Wednesday present Christ.

Because all you need to fix anything is a greater vision of Christ and what he did on Calvary.

And if God has worked in your heart today, you're not just supposed to go out here and go, oh, that was that was nice.

How then shall we live?

What will you do?

Are you unconverted?

And stand naked and alone before God on that day.

Do you know him?

Because if you do not repent, see your sin.

Turn from it and run to Christ.

In Christ alone.

Desire to be clothed in him alone.

I've told people at times, run to Christ.

They say, but I have no strength to even run.

I say that then walk to Christ.

I can't walk, crawl to Christ, I can't.

I say, fall down.

Can you fall down on Christ?

You can do that, can't you?

Repentance and faith is basically falling down.

I have nothing left.

If you don't catch me, if your righteousness, if your work does not catch me, I will not be caught.

If Jesus is not enough, Jesus and Jesus alone is not enough to save this sinner from hell, then I'm going to hell because I refuse to trust in any other person or now for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us.

If you're in the Washington, DC area, I would love to see you at Emanuel Bible Church.

For more information on our church or our current service times, go to IBC.church.

For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to TMS.edu.

I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with Jesus.