If you would turn with me to
the book of Job chapter nine. Just wanna look at one verse
here. I want you to consider this one
verse, and then we'll move on to other scripture. Job chapter
nine, verse two. Here Job asked a question. It's a vital question, a life
and death question. The question is this, how should
man be just with God? If you have a marginal Bible,
it may read, how should man be just before God? Same thing,
same thing. And the heart of the question
is this. How is an ungodly sinner? That's what we all are. That's
what this book declares us to be. If you have a problem with
being a sinner, then you've got a problem with God. God said
that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Your heart? Yes. My heart? Yes. That's what the Lord says
about our hearts. In Genesis chapter 6, the Lord
looked down from heaven, and the thoughts of every man's and
woman's heart was only evil continually. Only evil continually. How is
this ungodly sinner going to be made perfectly, just, holy,
and righteous before God? That's the issue. That's the
issue at hand. and perfect before God is what
a sinner must be in order for God to accept them. The scripture
is clear. It must be perfect to be accepted. Man's answer to this question
has always been one that looked within for an answer instead
of looking to God. Man's thoughts of himself are
just way too high. and his thoughts and views of
God are way too low. And men by nature treat sin more
as a misfortune or more as a mistake rather than a crime. We don't
mind having our sin called a disease or a sickness, but we don't like
it when it's called wickedness and depravity. You see, we believe
our sin to be more of a case for a physician than a case for
a judge, or even a case for law enforcement. But that's where
our problem lies. The judicial side of God's law
and God's justice must deal with the sinner's sin. Concerning
His elect, yes, God is a loving Father, but He is no less a righteous
Judge. Yes, God has sworn in this book
that He finds no pleasure in the death of the wicked, and
He doesn't. Yet, He also has sworn that the soul that sinneth,
it shall die. Can both of these sworn oaths
be kept by God? Well, let me tell you this much.
They must be in order for God to be just. Everybody today talks
about God's love. Everybody loves Jesus. God loves
everybody. Does God love those who hate
and reject His Son? Does God love those who go to
hell? Would there be any in hell for
whom Christ died? Does God love those who sin against
Him? David said, against thee and
thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. Have
you seen that our sin is against God and against God only? Does God love those that sin
against him? Well, he says, the soul that
sinneth, it shall die. God's law and God's love are
going to have to be reconciled. One cannot give way to the other.
Not one jot, not one tittle can be surrendered by either side.
Both must be satisfied to the fullest. The law in all its severity
and grace in all its tenderness. They have to be at peace with
one another. And hear me when I say that love
has never been more lovely and grace has never been more gracious
than when Christ Himself fulfilled and satisfied the demands of
God's law and God's justice in the chosen sinner's place. How
shall man be just before God? I know this much. It has everything
to do with what God does for us. And not a thing to do what
sinners do for God. This is a reconciliation with
no compromise. God's honor must be maintained. And yet God's elect must be redeemed. God's law will not excuse our
sin. God's justice will not look the
other way. We cannot provide what God requires. So, man can only be saved by
a substitute. And a perfect substitute at that.
Christ is the way. Christ is the truth. And Christ
is the life. And no man, no woman, no body,
no sinner cometh to the Father but by Him. When we attempt to
remove our sin, ourselves, we only increase it. And the heart
of the gospel is substitution. How many times have you heard
that? Jesus Christ and Him crucified is our message. How many times
have you heard that? It's the only way that God can
remain just and justify ungodly sinners. I find it interesting
that the English word substitute or substitution is not found
in the Bible. Did you know that? Yet that is
the theme of all Scripture. The promise of a Redeemer, the
coming of a Savior, the Lamb slain before the foundation of
the world. It's all about a substitute.
Adam and his wife sewed fig leaves together to cover their nakedness.
But can we personally provide a covering for our nakedness?
No. All our righteousness is filthy
rags. It's Christ's righteousness that
we see in the skins of the lambs that God sacrificed to cover
Adam and Eve's sins. perfect covering of righteousness
that we require comes by the shedding of blood and by the
sacrifice of one who is innocent. Only the blood and perfect righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, can wash and take
away the sin of His people in this world. Isn't that what John
said the day that he walked upon the scene there when John was
baptizing in the Jordan? Behold the Lamb of God that taketh
away the sin of the world. The whole world? No. His people
in the world. And all their sin will be taken away. All of it. Immediately following the fall
of man, God promised a seed to the woman. God promised victory
over the enemy by subjecting him to the bruising of that enemy,
picturing Christ, our blessed Savior, who came to crush the
serpent's head. From the moment man failed, God
promised a redeemer, promised a sacrifice, promised a substitute. It's Christ and His blood that
we see in the sacrifice of the offering of Abel. Cain's offering
by the work of his own hands again reveals to us that God
will never ever accept the self-righteous works of man. Without the shedding
of blood, there is no remission for sin. None. Not one ounce
of forgiveness apart from the shedding of blood. The innocent
must die in the place of the guilty in order for sin to be
atoned for. Just as the blood of the Passover
lamb was applied to the doors and the lintels of the people
of God, and God saw the blood and passed over their sin, that
pictured Christ, the believer's Passover lamb, whose blood is
applied to the heart's door of His elect. And when God sees
that blood, He passes over them in love and forgiveness. And
that's the only hope that you and I have of having our sin
forgiven. This book is about God the Son
substituting Himself in the place of all that God gave Him, fulfilling
every requirement, satisfying every judgment, and handwriting
of ordinance that was against them. Not only did He provide
our salvation, He is our salvation. Such is our union with Christ
that everything is provided for us. Isaac's ram caught by the
horns and the thicket on Mount Moriah. You know what that points
to? That points to Christ, the Lamb of God, and God the Lamb,
who as I said, not only provided for Himself the sacrifice, but
provided Himself as the sacrifice on Mount Calvary. That's what's
pictured on Mount Moriah. And again, it was the only way.
that God could be a just God and a Savior. It sounds like
substitution to me. We did nothing to obtain our
salvation. It's a free gift. It's a free
gift to a believer. For by grace are you saved through
faith and that is not of yourself. What is it then? It's a gift
of God. God gave it. It's not of works. It's not produced
by something that you and I do. Not by works lest any man should
boast. And this glorious book that you
hold this morning called the Bible is about how man can be
just before God. Are you interested? There's only
one way that a man can be just before God. And it's a very narrow
way. Very narrow. It's about the work,
worth, will, and way of another, doing for me what I could not
do. It's called substitution. And
the amazing thing about it is that it's God that does it. Have
you ever heard such a thing? This is a faithful saying and
worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners. And Paul said, of whom I am chief.
Substitution. For when we were yet without
strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. Substitution. Therefore, if any man be in Christ,
he's a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold,
all things are become new. That sounds like substitution
to me. For He, God, hath made Him, Christ,
to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the
righteousness of God in Him. 2 Corinthians 5.21 What does
that sound like to you? Substitution. Turn with me to
Ephesians chapter 1. Paul made this comment in the
men's meeting. It seems like we're always turning
to Ephesians 1. We're always turning there, referring
to a passage of scripture or something. Let me quickly show
you substitution here in several verses. Ephesians 1 verse 1. Notice that Paul writes this
letter to the saints at Ephesus and to the faithful in Christ
Jesus. Where are God's people faithful?
In Christ Jesus. That sounds like Christ taking
my place. Look at verse 3. It tells us
that God has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places. Where? In Christ. We are blessed
in Christ. That sounds like substitution.
Verse 4 tells us that God chose us in Christ before the foundation
of the world that we should be holy and without blame before
Him in love. Believers are chosen in Christ. They're made holy. They're made
just. They're made without blame before
Him in love. That sounds a whole lot like
Christ taking my place to me. Doesn't it to you? In verse 5,
we see that God predestinated. God predetermined. He determined
beforehand to adopt us, His people, into the adoption of children.
How? By Jesus Christ to Himself. In
verse 6, we see that we're accepted where? In the Beloved. Beloved,
that beloved is Christ. That's where we're accepted.
In verse 7, we're told that it's in Christ, our substitute, that
we have redemption. How? Through His blood. Through
His blood we have the forgiveness of sins. And it's all according
to what? The riches of His grace. What
does that sound like to you? It sounds a lot like substitution.
My only hope of being saved is to be found in Him. In verse
9, Christ makes known unto us the mystery of His will. In verse
10, in the fullness of time, He'll gather together in one
all things were in Christ. In verse 11, we see that in Christ
we obtain an inheritance. and that God predestinated all
things according to His purpose, and after the counsel of His
own will, and in verse 12 it says, and it's all to the praise
and the glory of His name. Where are you going to glory
in any of that? He didn't do anything. He did it all. That
sounds to me like salvations of the Lord. It's all by what
Christ, as our substitute, did for us. God has made the provision
of life for His people by means of substitution. God, by the
transfer of the penalty of sin from the one who had incurred
it to the one who had not. It's substitution. Now I want
you to turn with me to 1 Peter if you would. The last place
I'll turn you. I don't think we have a clearer
declaration of our Lord's substitution than we do here. 1 Peter chapter
2. Peter wrote here in verse 24,
look at these words. Peter said, who his own self
bear our sins in his own body on the tree. Who his own self
bear our sins in his own body on the tree. The fact we see
here is that Jesus Christ himself bore our sins. And He bore those
sins in His own body while He was on the tree. And that's the
sum and the substance of the whole Gospel. The efficacy, the
effectiveness of our salvation is found in who bore our sins. God in the person of His Son
bore His people's sin. Who? His own self bore our sin. God bore our sins. No one else
could bear them. In order to justify, or to justly
put our sin away, God, the Son of Glory, became a man. And He
took on the likeness of sinful flesh, the Scripture said. And
He did so in order to condemn sin in the flesh. In order to
put sin away. To condemn it. And God the Son
was made of a woman, the Scripture says, made under the law to redeem
them that were under the law, that they might what? Receive
the adoption of sons. Now that's something I'm interested
in. I want to be God's son. Don't
you? Don't you want to be God's son,
God's daughter? Always doing that which was just,
always doing that which was right, and God honoring the Lord Jesus
Christ worked out a perfect righteousness as a man, and man by and with
wicked hands took and crucified Him. Thus was He, His own self
bearing in His own body, the sins of all His people on the
tree. And all the while His soul was
tortured with sufferings that can't be described with human
language. Oh, we see the thorns on His
head and the blood rolling down. We see the nail prints in His
hands and in His feet and the spear in His side. But let me
tell you what we don't see. We don't see the soul anguish
that our Savior is going through as He pays the debt of our sin
in our place. And God's holy justice extracts
every ounce of payment from Him instead of us. We don't see that.
That's the real suffering. While in the Garden of Gethsemane,
as it were, He sweat great drops of blood. This is the Lord's
substitution. As our substitute, He took our
sin, and therefore He took the sorrow which resulted from the
sin. He took the place of the guilty,
so He must suffer the penalty that the guilty had incurred.
And the Lord Jesus, who, His own self, bear our sins in His
own body on the tree. Oh, do you see the preciousness
of those words? His own self bear our sins in
His own body on the tree. And therefore He gets all the
honor and the glory according to the will of the Father. All
of it. If Christ bore our sins, we need
not bear them. And we did not bear them. My
sin cannot be on my back and also on His. It can't be at two
places at once. If Christ bore my sin, guess
what? I'm clear of it. Clear of it. Don't have any. Who? His own
self bear our sins. Original sin, natural sin, actual
sin, practical sin, all of it, sin of thought, sin of words,
sin of deed, major sins, heinous sins, evil imagination, is not
the gospel found in those words. Who? His own self. bore our sins
in His own body on the tree. All the sins of God's elect throughout
all time were laid upon Him, who His own self bare our sins. Wasn't any Peter, James, or John
to help in the hour of His deepest need? There was no angel treading
the winepress with the Lord. He treaded alone. Alone and single-handed,
our great champion, and that's what He is. He entered into the
arena of perfect righteousness and won the victory for His people. What self-denial. What a stoop
of love. Our Lord didn't employ anyone
else to accomplish this great work of redemption. He did it
Himself. Who? His own self bear our sins. God actually hung on a cross
to bear our sins. Now you either believe that or
you don't. And if you do, it's because God enabled you to believe
it. What an amazing thought. What
an amazing substitution. God dying for a sinner like me. He didn't bear the sins of the
world. He bore the sins of those that God gave Him. And on the
tree, Christ said of His own atoning sacrifice, He said, it's
finished. This man, after he had offered
one sacrifice for sin forever, sat down on the right hand of
God. You know when you sit down, when
you've finished. By one offering, he hath perfected
forever them that are sanctified. Christ bore our sin, and He did
it in His own body, and He did it on Calvary's tree. The Scripture's
clear. Christ loved the church, and
He gave Himself for it. Do you mind if I make it personal
just for a second? Who His own self bore my sins
in His own body of nature? Put your name in there, child
of God. My sins, so many, so heavy, they're all gone. He bore
them all. I no longer bear them. Did you
notice His willingness? Who? His own self bear our sins. Nobody pressed Him to bear our
sins. Christ of His own will bore our
sins. He was the only one that could
bear our sins. No necessity except the wondrous
love of His own heart constrained Him to be His people's substitute. If Christ denied Himself for
my sake, if He bore my sin on Calvary's cross, And if His blessed
shoulders carried and could carry all the load of the elect's sin
to the cross and crucify them there, let me ask you sincerely,
shall we not take His yoke upon us and learn of Him? Is it not
our reasonable service to do so? Only Christ could truly say,
Lo, I come in the volume of the book that's written in me. I'd
like to do thy will, O my God. And this verse doesn't say that
Christ purposed to bear our sins. It doesn't say that Christ promised
to bear our sins. The verse doesn't claim who His
own self began to bear our sins and then became part of the task.
It doesn't say that He simply talked about bearing our sins. He bore our sins. Not according
to fiction, not according to imagination, but in His own body,
in His own hands, in His own feet, in His own side, in His
own body on the tree. Christ bearing our sins was as
real as our sins themselves were. The child of God, Christ's redemption
and substitution for His elect people is real. Don't go out
to meet God in eternity without Christ. Look at verse 24 one
more time. I'll wrap this up. Christ, who
is own self, bear our sins in His own body on the tree, that
we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness. Do you
see that God the Son is your only sacrifice for sin? There's
only one. There's only one mediator between
God and man, the man Christ Jesus. A substitute interbeing. And
He, His own self, bear the sins of God's people in His own body
in the tree. And that's the best news. ever
hurt. The law comes to me and it says,
I'm going to arrest you because of sin. And I say, you can't. I have no sin. The Lord put all
my sin away forever by His death on the tree. When we by faith
died and was buried with Him, we, now being dead to sin, live
unto righteousness by whose stripes we were healed. Already healed. We were healed, past tense. We're
dead to the condemning power of sin. No sin can condemn a
believer that's in Jesus Christ. Because Christ is our substitute,
has suffered what we ought to have suffered on the account
of our sin, and He's rendered a full recompense and payment
to God's divine justice in our place. And God says, enter in,
thou good and faithful servant, you have no sin. We're dead to
sin. Another passion. Our love for
Christ is now the dominant concern of our hearts. We love Him because
He first loved us. We can claim that we've not chosen
Him, but that He's chosen us. And it's called substitution.
How wonderful is it that God and substitution does for me
what I can never do for myself. It's the most wonderful news
that I've ever heard. Look at verse 25, I'll leave
you with this. For ye were as sheep going astray,
but are now returned unto the shepherd and bishop of your soul. May God enable us to trust in
Christ and in Him alone.