Rom 3:9b-26
I feel I stand on holy ground tonight, For we come to think of that which stands at the heart of our faith that without which there would be nothing. And it is incumbent upon me to lead your thoughts. So before I proceed any further I would pause, and ask the Holy Spirit to anoint my words and to anoint our hearts our minds and our wills. ..
The Apostle Paul, writing to the Corinthians said. that when he came among them first of all’ with the gospel he had resolved to know nothing....except Jesus Christ, and him crucified (1 Cor 2;2) He had came with the message of the cross (which) was foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God (1 Cor 1:18). To the Galatians he wrote May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ (6: 14)
The Cross is the power of Gad- and I would suggest that if it is not the felt-power in our lives we have some bard thinking, searching and questioning to do.
I want tonight to see why the cross is so central, important and powerful. And that we cannot divorce
from the Cross the precious blood. of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Cross is God’s response to man’s sin, to man’s rebellion, to the crafty schemes of Satan. We thought two weeks ago of how that situation of sin and human guilt and helplessness meant that it was necessary that One came who was both God and man- and such is our Lord Jesus Christ, He is (Isa 7:4) Immanuel; ’God with us’, Yet, the coming of God in human form would not, of itself have done anything for the human situation, The Lord Jesus spoke not just to his hearers, but of himself when he said
Unless a grain of wheat falls to the g:round and dies, it remains only a single seed (John 12:24)
He knew his Father could save him from what was tn come upon him, but ’No’ , he said It was for this very reason that I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name (John 12:27-28)
There are many words used to try and describe and explain what happened. at the Cross and it would be foolish to try and look at them all in 20 minutes of one evening!.
Nothing , either, can fully describe what happened in those few hours. One of the must commonly used, and on which I wish especially to focus this evening is REDEMPTION.
Paul, there is Romans 3 has it. In verse 24 (I’ll begin in verse 23)
All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Jesus Christ
I feel we need to go one step further back and remind ourselves of the extent and nature of the problem, One of the greatest of preachers of this century, Martyn Lloyd-Jones said this
"In the same way look at the cross on Calvary’s hill, What is it? What does it mean? What is it telling us? What is happening there? I say...you cannot possibly understand the death of our Lord and what he did there on that cross unless you are very clear about this doctrine of sin, ..(Many people) have never understood the problem."
Sin is the problem. All have sinned. Tho first sin and its consequences we thought of some weeks ago when looking at Genesis. We saw then that sin has three consequences
1. Guilt. We know at root that are are responsible to God. We may try to evade the issue. He may try and hide away our feelings of guilt and shame; they make us mighty uncomfortable. If, as we ought we pray for God to act in sovereign revival Holy Spirit power’ let us know that if he answers we shall see sin as we’ve never seen it
before and will cry out to God for mercy.
(Adam and Eve) realized that they were naked, so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. Then the.man and his wife heard the sound of
the Lord...and they hid themselves from the Lord God (Gen 3:7-8)
Guilt, share and fear go together and we’re all surely familiar with this truth,
2’ Alienation. The Lord God called to the man, Where are you? (Gen 3:9), His union with God; his knowledge of God were lost. So, there’s a barrier between us and God in his holiness. And , again there are barriers between individuals, Again I would call upon our experiences. Haw a thoughtless word can produce ran atmosphere you could cut with a knife
3. Curse. God is holy; God must act against sin. If sin left no curse, would we ever bother? If everything in the garden was lovely- what a fascinating expression! But everything in the garden is not lovely. It grows weeds. And the greatest curse is death
For dust you are, and to dust you shall return (Gen 3:19)
And in the face of all this, we know that we are helpless; that we can’t do anything about it. we nay think so; we may try to. But out personal history and human history proves the impossibility: mankind is not evolving and getting better, Is not the human situation getting worse? Jesus said
I tell you the truth (which meant he was saying a truth of great importance)- Everyone who sins is a slave of sin (John 8:34) How do we realize what slavery really involves? The slave as Jesus spoke of slavery and as the New Testament writers spoke meant total servitude. The slave was at his master’s beck-and-call 24 hours,a day, 7 days a week, He owned nothing. The only way
to freedom was to buy it, Since he had no possessions and since he had no free time to earn any money his position hopeless, Everyone who sins is a slave to sin. The only way
a slave could be freed was If someone bought his freedom by paying his master the
price he demanded he was ’redeemed’ .
Romans 3:24: The redemption that came through Jesus Christ. And the glorious truth of the Christian Gospel is that our freedom-price was paid. at the Cross by the blood
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, It may offend our pride and sense of religious duty, It may offend our logic.
Christ crucified (is) a stumbling block to the Jews and. foolishness to the Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, . . Christ (is) the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Cor 1:23-24)
It is because of (God) that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us
wisdom from God- that is our righteousness, holiness and redemption (v30)
The Scriptures are full of it-
O Israel put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord ls unfailing love and with him is full redemption (Psa 130:7)
God sent his own Son, born of a woman born, under the law, to redeem those under the law (Gal 4:7)
In him we have redemption, through his blood,..the forgiveness of sins (Eph 1:7) (Christ) entered the Most Holy place once for all by his own blood. having obtained eternal, redemption (Heb 9:12)
Hallelujah!
Let’s just look at those consequences of sin and see how redemption works;
GUILT. We are guilty; we feel shame; we hide away from God; we fear him! Our God is a consuming fire. And full of sin, we know that that fire must consume us. We fear God’s wrath. The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness (Pro:m 1:18).
We can never fully appreciate the cross without an awareness and a knowledge of the wrath of God; his holy wrath against sin. Those who would stop speaking of the wrath
of God and say it is a primitive idea that we outgrew when Christ came and revealed the love of God, and say that God’s wrath stands in contradiction of his love, serve only
thereby to rob the cross of its glory and diminish the gospel.
To reject Christ is to be subject to God’s wrath; not an anger as men think of or how anger, but that which was shown in the Cleansing of the Temple. Listen to words
from John’s gospel
Whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God.’s wrath remains on him (3:36)
If you do not believe I am who I claim to be, you will indeed die in your sins
(8:24)
Sin is something terrible, Guilt is implacable. Unless! God requires and has provided a way out: the shedding of blood by a sacrifice as atonement. Yom Kippur the ’Day of Atonement’ devolved round three sacrifices, They’re there in Leviticus 16,
Basically, once a year the High Priest went into the Holy of Holies
1. He sacrificed a bull to atone for his own sins
2, He sacrificed a goat to atone for the sins of the people
3, He took another goat, laid his hand on it, to identify it with the sins of the people, and drove it off into the wilderness never to return,
Hebrews deals fully with how the Old Testament sacrifices were but temporary things which did of themselves no more than provide ceremonial clean-ness, but which also pointed to the coming of Christ, who would be the atonement sacrifice. 10:10-11 says
day by day every priest...offers the same sacrifice, which can never take away sins. But when this priest (Christ) had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, The blood of Jesus shed at Calvary covers every sin and cleanses from every sin,
Whatever troubles our conscience is dealt with at the cross and by the blood of Jesus Christ; without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness (9:22)
Read the early preaching’ In Acts and again and again it is, that which in the first
place. Jesus told his disciples (Luke 24:47) Repentance and forgiveness of sins will be
preached in my name.
I have labored this paint of guilt for it is ,at the heart of
the gospel. Until and unless the blood of Jesus is applied to the repentant sinner he
remains in his sin and in its slavery! But if the blood is applied and forgiveness is
appropriated and sin turned from there is knowledge that there is cleansing, there is
forgiveness, there is freedom. If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed,
(John 8:36), But not only are guilt and share gone.
2. So too is ALIENATION
At the outset I quoted Gal 4:5
God sent his Son. , to redeem those under the law
.To conclude the scripture: that we might receive full rights as sons Because of the Cross we can be restored to God; we can be his sons Because of our sin, God could not look on us. Hab 1: 13 reminds us (God’s) eyes are too pure to look on evil But as Jesus hung on the cross there was darkness and he cried out (Matt 27:46) My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?, Christ, in Paul’s profound words was made sin for us (2 Cor 5:21) He bore our sin, and, like the Levitical scapegoat, he was driven away; away from his Father. He bare our sin, and hie Father disowned him!
I’ll say no more. The words are too full of God,s glory. And because cf all this we may become God’s sons, Cherished, Objects of his delight and love. For through him we have access to the Father by one Spirit (Eph 1:8), We may revel and delight. his banner over us is love (Song of Songs 2:4), And all because Jesus died on the Cross
Lastly, and briefly, the CURSE of sin is reversed, Galatians 3: 13 says
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law (the law being given because of sin)
by becoming a curse for us, for it is written ’Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree
The curse was pronounced in the Garden of Eden, 1 believe the curse of sin began to fall on the Lord Jesus Christ in another garden- Gethsemane where he prayed that the cup might be taken from him, but he submitted to his Father’s will, Luke tells us of time of agonizing: his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground (22:44) , In Eden, and I sense a significance here God, in pronouncing the curse on Adam said By the sweat, of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground (Gen 3:19). Now the blood of Jesus fell as sweat from his brow as the curse
fell on him- and medical science knows of the possibility in extreme stress of literally sweating blood.
I’ve said so much and left so much unsaid. The Cross- the center of our faith, is not something fanciful or imaginary or elusive, It’s an historical and objective fact.
That’s one, and an important side of the coin, The other is to be sure that the fact of the cross; the truth of the cross, the blood of the cross; the Saviour who died on the cross are personally ours; not just in a once-far-all repentance. That is essential. Repentance and forgiveness of sins; redemption. That is where we begin as Christians And repentance is a key word. For in the cross we have redemption, we have freedom. The cross must be that which goes on changing us. Paul said of that Cross God forbid that I should boast, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ Gal 6:14)- yes- and By which I am crucified to the world and the world to me. How much are we separated. from the world and it’s sin and its outright opposition to God, this world which (1 John 5:18) lies in the power of the evil one. Oh my friends We need constantly to come to the Cross to be cleansed and set free and changed.
