If you want to turn in your Bibles
to 1 Corinthians 15, we're going to just read a couple of verses
there and then we will be elsewhere. This is part two of last week's
message entitled, Baptized for the Dead. Seems like a very strange
phrase. What does baptism mean, and how
could people be baptized for the dead? I heard someone say,
I don't know, but Mormons believe that for people who have died,
they get baptized, and somehow it helps them. That is completely
false, and it's certainly not what this text of scripture is
teaching. So I'll just make sure we set that record straight.
But in order to understand what it means to be baptized for the
dead, we've been looking at what does baptism mean. And it's a
glorious truth. It's not just a doctrine or a
practice that we do like a bunch of religious idiots. And I use
that word decidedly. I don't want to be a religious
idiot. Colossians 2 is an example of
not allowing religious idiots to spoil you. That means first
they overcome you by their philosophies and their religion, and then
they take away from you what is your riches, which is faith
in Christ. And so we certainly don't want
that. The apostle tells them, you need to remember the one
you believed and what you are in him and what he did for you. What glorious, glorious text
of scripture that is. But I want to look today at baptism
again, as we started to do last week. Baptism is a word in scripture
that is a transliteration of the actual word that was in the
original, and it simply means immersion or being overwhelmed,
being covered, plunged. And they used it in literature
to indicate several things. One was the washing of dishes.
They would put them into the water and wash them and take
them out. Another way they used it in literature was when they
canned pickles, they would baptize the pickles into the vinegar.
These are the ways that they use the word and that's what
it meant, to immerse, to plunge, to overwhelm. But it's a word
used in the New Testament to indicate something far, far more
important than those things. It's used to indicate what took
place when the Lord Jesus Christ came into this world and gave
his life for his people and what he accomplished by that and our
faith in him. And we confess that faith and
what he did and our and our place with him, our interest in him
in believers' baptism. So in 1 Corinthians chapter 15,
the entire chapter is to convince the Corinthians of the truth
of the resurrection of our bodies. And this truth stands on the
resurrection of Christ and his body. The Lord Jesus Christ died,
which is perhaps a more phenomenal fact, a truth declared to us
than we can possibly wrap our minds around. Why would Jesus
Christ die? He had no sin. Death is a wage
for sin. Why did Christ die? And we could
spend a long time on that one. But he died because he died for
our sins. He was, Isaiah 53 says, he was
wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon him. And with his stripes, we are
healed. So it's what he did. And that's
why 1 Corinthians 15 opens with the gospel. If Christ did it,
He didn't do it by Himself. He didn't do it for Himself.
He didn't need to die. He didn't have any sins. He certainly
didn't need to go through life and obey God's law because He's
the lawgiver. He's the Son of God. And even
in His human nature, He didn't need to do those things, but
he did it for his people. He acted as Adam acted for all
of his children, so the Lord Jesus Christ acted in all that
he did for his own children, his people. Now, this is so important
that this is the basis on which the apostle argues the resurrection
of our bodies. that because this happened to
Christ, this happens to his people. What he did, we did. What he
went through, we went through with him. And that's a simplified
way of trying to build the case of the resurrection of our bodies
because of what happened to the Lord Jesus Christ. And so when
he gets to verse 29, he says, else, in support of the argument
of the resurrection of our bodies because of Christ and our union
with him and his death and his burial and his resurrection,
he says in verse 29, else, what shall they do which are baptized
for the dead if the dead rise not at all? Why are they then
baptized for the dead? Now, this is because baptism is a symbol, it's a baptism in
water, is emblematic. It signifies something, it pictures
for us, illustrating something that's real and substantive and
spiritual. And what that is is a death,
a burial, and a resurrection. And because it is a resurrection,
baptism illustrates this in the plunging, the immersion of a
person under the water and raising them back up. Therefore, baptism
signifies the believer's hope in the resurrection of our bodies. Of course, that's because Christ
rose. And because we live, because
He lives, we live. Because He rose, we rise. And
this is the argument of 1 Corinthians 15. This is the argument of the
gospel. This is the truth declared to
us. It's not just an argument. It's
the truth declared and the consequences of Christ's death. So those who
are baptized are believing God's people who believe on Christ,
and in their water baptism they're confessing that when the Lord
Jesus Christ died and was buried and rose again, I was with Him. joined to Him in His death, in
His burial, and in His resurrection. And I not only was joined to
Him then, but that accomplishment that He accomplished in His death
and His burial and His resurrection was my accomplishment. He did
it for me. And as He obtained eternal redemption
by His offering of His blood, as He made His people holy by
His blood, as He perfected forever by His one offering, so He perfected
in His death and His burial and His resurrection, perfected me.
I'm made holy to God. I've been perfected in His offering. And all of my sins have been
forgiven. I've been justified. And that's
what we're saying in the baptism underwater. And so the meaning of baptism
is actually brought out in many ways, and that's what we need
to look at here. I'm summarizing the meaning of
this verse for us so that we get to it. But in our baptism
in water, we are also not only confessing our union with Christ
in the atonement of our sins, in our resurrection to justification,
but we're also expressing our hope, our expectation, our firm
confidence and expectation of assurance that because Christ
is now in glory, in his resurrected glorified body, that we also,
Christ now dwelling in us, shall be raised in our body and be
with him. will be with him in glory too.
We're expecting this. We look forward to this. It's
not something we just, well, yeah, we talk about this once
a year at Easter time. This is something that the believer
lives daily upon in the hope and the expectation of this,
that someday I'm going to be with Christ. We look forward
to this as those Israelites pass through the wilderness. those
40 years in the wilderness, looking forward to the eternal inheritance
of Canaan. Well, it was a picture of that
eternal inheritance. And the rest they would have
from all of their enemies in that land. And God's plenty poured
out and provided for them entirely out of his goodness by grace.
And so that's the believer's life. We live in the wilderness
of this world, in the wilderness of this fallen sinful nature,
and looking forward to our eternal inheritance in glory. And the
basis for all of this is our union with Christ in his life,
and his death, and his burial, and his resurrection, and even
in his ascension to glory. So that's what baptism signifies.
Our water baptism signifies our union with Christ, a real union
made by God that resulted in our salvation, our justification
before God. We've been made holy by the blood
of Jesus. We've been perfected forever
by that one offering of Christ. And now we have this hope that
because we were joined to Christ by God's doing and have been
given this faith, which is the result of the Spirit of God given
to us, we now expect to be raised in our body. So that when a believer
gets sick, Or when a believer dies, what do we do? We're glad. We're glad. Precious in the sight of the
Lord is the death of his saints. And so we look forward to this.
I will be satisfied when I awaken thy likeness. This is what we've
been chosen and predestined to, is to be conformed to the image
of his son, which includes the resurrection of our body. Not
just in soul, not just in spirit, not just in faith, but in reality,
the consummation of our salvation in the resurrection of our body.
So let's consider these things now, the baptism and what it
means. The first thing we need to understand
is the baptism of the Lord Jesus Christ. Last week we saw in Matthew
3 that the Lord Jesus Christ came to John the Baptist to be
baptized of John. And we wondered at that, even
as John did, why are you coming to me to be baptized? And Jesus
said, allow this now. It becomes us, it's necessary
for us to fulfill all righteousness, remember? So in the baptism of
Christ, we saw that his baptism was in reference to his people,
because he used the word us, it becometh us to fulfill all
righteousness. And in his baptism, he was identifying
with his people. He was confessing his union with
them in his baptism. And this is what he says would
be a fulfillment of all righteousness. Now, if you realize what happened
in history, when the Lord Jesus Christ was baptized, he immediately
began his ministry. And in that ministry, what did
he do? Well, he preached the gospel. He preached the gospel
of his own being sent by God in order to save his people from
their sins, which would require him, as the high priest, to offer
himself as the Lamb of God. And so when John the Baptist
preached, and people like you and me heard him preaching, us
sinners, we heard him say, behold the Lamb of God. He's the Son
of God. And the Son of God is the eternal
God. And yet he's the Lamb of God.
And as he came in our nature, he's going to endure, he's going
to bear the sins of his people and endure the punishment for
those sins. And in fact, not only that, but he, as the high
priest, would give himself to make the atonement. And so John came preaching Christ.
And in Acts 19, in verse 4, He says this, this was the purpose
of John's baptism in Acts 19.4. He said, Paul told those who
had been baptized by John, John verily baptized with a baptism
of repentance, saying to the people, notice, this is what
they were repenting to, that you should believe on him which
should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus. Do you see that? Why did John come baptizing?
Well, he came to prepare the way of the Lord. And what would
this way be? Well, it would be the way by
which God would say to his people, Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,
saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem,
that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned,
she has received of the Lord double for all her sins. Remember?
from Isaiah 40, and then it says in that same chapter that this
would be coincident with, it would occur with John the Baptist
coming, being sent to prepare the way of the Lord. The voice
of one crying in the wilderness. That was John the Baptist, and
what did he say? That men should repent and believe on him who
would come after him. Alright, so his baptism was a
baptism. of repentance unto faith in Christ
who would come. And all who were baptized by
John came to him confessing their sins, and with a change of mind,
looking to Christ who would come, who would take away their sins
as the Lamb of God. The Son of God would come, being
sent by the Father, to bear away and take away the sins of His
people. And they would come, believing this, believing Christ
who would come, and they would submit to this baptism by John.
So it was a baptism of those who believed on Christ who would
come to bear away their sins. And the repentance that they
were to have was a change of mind. That's what repentance
means, by the way. It means a change of mind. Now, the problem with this is
that we can't change our minds, can we? You can no more change
your mind than you can change your nature. You can't make yourself
stop thinking wrong and thinking right. The truth has to be given
to you. You have to be taught of God.
As Jesus said in John 6, all of God's children are taught
of God. And what are they taught? To come to Christ. He says in
John 6, 44 and 45, they shall all be taught of God. Everyone
who has seen and heard of the Father comes to me. No man can
come to me except the Father which has sent me. Draw him."
So the ministry of John the Baptist was centered around the preaching
of Christ, and baptism was administered to those who were believing on
him who should come. That's undeniable from this text
of scripture in Acts 19.4. So it's important that we see
this. John was a prophet. In fact, Jesus said he was the
greatest prophet that ever lived. Greater than all Old Testament
prophets. And yet he did no miracle. Why was he then so great? Because
he came preaching the fulfillment of all of the law and the prophets
and the Psalms. And this would be fulfilled in
the baptism of Christ. This would fulfill all righteousness. And Jesus said when he was baptized
by John, it is necessary, suffer it to be so now, allow this because
it's necessary for us to fulfill all righteousness. And he's speaking
of the us there, of all of his people, with him in the baptism,
even though John was the one who was baptizing Christ then
in water. And so that's the first thing
we need to see is John, the prophet that finalized the whole Old
Testament prophecy at the pivot of the Old Testament close and
the dawn of the New Testament revelation, came preaching Christ
crucified and baptizing those who would believe on him who
was to come. And in their baptism, they were
saying this. They were confessing their sins.
I have no hope except the Lamb of God, the one who is the Son
of God sent by God to take our nature, and in our nature, take
away our sins by the sacrifice of himself. And this is essential
that we see this. It's not like John just came,
baptized him, and no one knew what he was doing. Yes, they
did. They knew he was pointed to Christ.
That was his whole message. Behold the Lamb of God, believe
on him who is to come. Now, after Christ rose again
from the dead, he sent his apostles into the world to preach the
gospel. And he told them, at the end of Matthew, Matthew 28,
he told them, now here's what you are to do. He says in verse
18, Jesus spoke to them. He came and spoke to them, his
apostles. He said, all power is given to
me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and teach all
nations, not just the Jews, but the Jews and the Gentiles. Notice,
baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and
of the Holy Ghost. teaching them to observe all
things whatsoever I've commanded you. And lo, I am with you always,
even to the end of the world." So the Lord Jesus himself commissions
his apostles to go preach the gospel and do what? And baptize. And so these apostles were going
to do that. And what were they going to do?
They were going to teach these, disciple these people, those
whom they preach the gospel, And what they would teach them
is in believing Christ, in believing Christ, you're justified from
everything the law of Moses couldn't justify you. Believing Christ,
all who believe Christ are justified from all things from which the
law of God could not justify you. Yes, God gave the law through
Moses, but the law was given in order to convince you that
you are guilty, that you were corrupt in your nature, that
you can do nothing to fulfill God's law in order to have righteousness. Therefore, righteousness has
to be given. And it's given after it's produced,
after it's worked out, after it's established. And that righteousness
would be the obedience of Christ. Not the obedience of the sinner,
but the obedience of Christ, the Son of God. And His obedience
would be fulfilled in offering Himself and obedience of service
to God and his people when he sacrificed himself, bearing their
sins as an offering to God for their sins and took their sins
away. And this is what the teaching of the gospel was. This is what
they were to teach them. And so this was God the Father. This was in the name of God the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, because this
is what God the Father sent his Son to do. This is what Christ
accomplished. And this is the testimony of
the Spirit of God. It's all wrapped up in the gospel,
and believers are expressing their confidence and faith in
Christ. that God the Father sent him
to do this, that he accomplished this, and the Holy Spirit now
bears record to it in the gospel, therefore in their baptism in
water, they're openly confessing this truth which they believe
in their hearts. And so we see then that the apostles,
just like John, emphasized Christ and him crucified. And not only
that, but they emphasized faith in Christ. just like John the
Baptist. So the baptism of John and the
baptism of the apostles after the resurrection of Christ was
really the same baptism except for this one thing. John the
Baptist prophesied and spoke of Christ who would come and
fulfill all righteousness. And the apostles look back to
point to Christ who did come and has fulfilled all righteousness. But the baptism was the same
mode. It was by immersion in water
and it was given to the same subjects who were believers in
Christ. And if we see this, it helps
strengthen our understanding. It helps us to see how that baptism
is both a sign before Christ went to the cross and after he
went to the cross, emphasizing all of it is in what Christ did
on the cross. And now look at Matthew chapter
20. In Matthew chapter 20, he explains
the baptism of Christ. Jesus himself explains his own
baptism. He says here, remember the word,
it means to be immersed, to be overwhelmed. And he says in chapter
20, in verse 20, the setting here is that the mother of James
and John came to Jesus. It says in verse 20, Matthew
20, Then came to him the mother of Zebedee's children with her
sons, worshipping him and desiring a certain thing of him. And he
said to her, Jesus said to this mother of James and John, what
wilt thou? She said to him, grant that these
my two sons may sit the one on my right hand and the other on
the left in thy kingdom. But Jesus answered and said,
you know not what you ask. Are you able, notice, to drink
of the cup that I shall drink of and to be baptized with the
baptism that I'm baptized with? They said, we are able. And he
said to them, you shall drink indeed of my cup and be baptized
with the baptism that I'm baptized with, but to sit on my right
hand and on my left is not mine to give, but it shall be given
to them for whom it is prepared of my father. Now, Jesus is speaking
of baptism. He's speaking of his baptism. He says, are you able to be baptized
with the baptism that I am baptized with? This was not the baptism
John baptizing Christ in water, is it? This is a baptism yet
to be done. And what was this baptism? Well,
this was the baptism of being overwhelmed under the judgment
of God for the sins of his people. This is a baptism of wrath poured
out, and Christ, as he says in Matthew chapter 26, a little
later, when he was with the disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane,
he said to them, In Matthew 26, he says, then cometh Jesus with
them to a place called Gethsemane, which means the olive press,
where the oil was pressed out and the wine from the grapes
were pressed out. That's what the word means. And
Jesus is that olive, that oil that's going to be pressed out
and the blood, his blood was being poured out in the garden
even before the enemies of Christ took hold of him. because this
is the beginning of the pouring out and being overwhelmed by
the wrath of God poured out upon him for our sins. And he says
that he came to them to the place called Gethsemane and he said
to his disciples, sit ye here while I go and pray yonder. And
he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee again and
began to be sorrowful and very heavy. And he said to them, my
soul, notice, my soul, his body didn't seem to be under any There
were no nails in his hands, no spear in his side, no crown of
thorns, yet no lash upon his back. Not yet, and yet his soul
is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. Carry ye here and
watch with me. He went a little further, fell
on his face, and prayed, saying, oh, my father, if it be possible,
let this, what? Cup. pass from me nevertheless
not as I will but as thou wilt." And so he did this three times.
He had to drink a cup. This was the baptism. This is
what he spoke of. It was the coming under the judgment
of God against the sins of his people, which he bore now. He
had taken them in his own body. He bore them up to the tree.
It says in 1 Peter 2, verse 24. And as we read last week in John
8, verse 11, when Peter took out his sword and whacked off
the ear of the servant of the high priest, and Jesus said,
put up your sword. Don't you know that the cup which
my father has given me to drink, I'm going to drink that. I must
drink it. So this is the baptism. So Christ
undergoes this pouring out of God's judgment because he bore
the curse of God's holy law. Christ hath redeemed us from
the curse of the law being made a curse for us. That's what it
was. That was his baptism. In the
book of Genesis, in chapter 6 and following, God looked down upon
the earth and he looked upon men and he saw that all of the
thoughts and all of the imaginations of the hearts of men were only
evil continually. And he determined he was going
to destroy man whom he had created on the earth. But Noah found
grace in the eyes of the Lord. And God told Noah, now I want
you to build an ark. And here are the specifications.
And when the ark was built, and God told Noah specifically, he
said, now you pitch it. You smear this pitch throughout
the entire covering of the ark. And then the Lord brought Noah
into the ark. Not only Noah, but his wife and
his three sons and their wives. Eight people. God saw Noah. He had grace on Noah. He had
him build the ark. He pitched the ark according
to God's design and specifications. And then he brought Noah and
then he closed the door. And then God dumped rain out
of heaven. And all flesh on earth died. All people, all animals, everything
that had breath of life in it died. Because the rain came down
and the floods overwhelmed. It came over everything on the
earth. But the people in the ark, though they experienced
the outpouring of the judgment of God against sin, They being
in the ark, and the ark being pitched all over, was lifted
up in that flood, and though the rains and the judgment of
God came down upon the ark, all in the ark were delivered through
the flood." And then, After the flood, the waters stopped, and
then they dried up, and there was enough earth for Noah and
his family to come out of the ark and everything in the ark.
God told him to come out, and he came out, and Noah offered,
and guess what he saw? A rainbow. And that rainbow,
God said, is a covenant between me and all flesh, that I will
no more bring the flood of waters to destroy the earth." He said,
as long as the earth endures, seed time and harvest, winter
and heat, cold and heat, would not stop until the end of the
earth. And this was God's promise, His
covenant in the rainbow. Now, all of that is given as
a picture of baptism. In Isaiah chapter 54, Isaiah
54, if you want to turn there, I want you to see this. What
amazing grace that God would spare this family from the flood. They were sinners. They were
sinners. God saw that every imagination
of the thoughts of men was only evil continually. Noah didn't
find justice in the eyes of the Lord. He found grace. Grace relies on righteousness
accomplished, and that would be in the Lord Jesus Christ.
So he says here in Isaiah 54, In verse 5, thy maker is thine
husband, thy redeemer. The Lord of hosts is his name,
and thy redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, the God of the whole
earth, shall he be called. For the Lord hath called thee
as a woman forsaken, and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth,
when thou wast refused, saith God. He's talking about a wife.
She seemed as she has no children. She was rejected. She was refused.
And then he's comparing all of his people to this woman. He
says in verse 7, For a small moment have I forsaken thee,
but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid
my face from thee for a moment. But with everlasting kindness
will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer. For this
is as the waters of Noah unto me. For as I have sworn, remember
the rainbow, that the waters of Noah should no more go over
the earth, so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee,
nor rebuke thee. Now look at Revelation chapter
four. Revelation chapter four, I want
you to see this. This rainbow, after the flood,
the judgment is passed, a promise of no more judgment because of
the flood, because it was dumped out already. But in Revelation
chapter four, in verse two, it says, immediately I was in the
spirit and behold, what does he see? This is the Apostle John
speaking. He was in the spirit and he sees
a picture of what is happening in heaven. This is so important. I was in the spirit and behold,
what? A throne. A throne set in heaven. Now what
God is giving to the Apostle John here is a view God's view
of all things throughout eternity. Time and eternity. What does
John see? A throne. A throne, that's the
importance, that's the center of all of heaven, is the throne. He says, and I saw a throne set
in heaven, and one sat on the throne. And he that sat was to
look upon like a jasper, and a sardine stone, and there was
a rainbow round about the throne in sight like unto an emerald.
What does he see here? He sees the throne of God. This
is the sovereign of eternal heaven and earth. Everybody has to yield
to his authority and his power and all wisdom. Everything is
his. He's the creator. He's the sovereign. And what
does he see around about the throne? A rainbow. What is it
saying here? It's saying that for God's people,
represented by Noah and his family in the ark, God's people have
undergone the judgment of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. The ark pictures the Lord Jesus
Christ. The pitch God told Noah to put
on the ark is the word for atonement. And the Lord says in Leviticus,
He says, It's the blood that makes atonement for your souls. So Christ is pictured and his
atoning work is pictured into which God put Noah and his family. All of God's elect who found
grace in the eyes of the Lord. And the throne in heaven is surrounded
by this rainbow which represents God's covenant with his people.
And we just read that this is as the waters of Noah. God says,
for a small moment have I forsaken
thee, but with, let me go back and read it as it says it there
in Isaiah 54. He says, verse 7 of Isaiah 54,
for a small moment have I forsaken thee. Isn't that what happened
in the ark? It was just a brief time. It was a year and a few days,
more than a year that they were in the ark. It's a short time
compared to eternity. A brief moment. But when did
God forsake his people? What was this small moment? And
after that moment that he had everlasting kindness and mercy
upon them, it was in the Redeemer. It was in the Lord Jesus Christ.
It was in his baptism under the judgment of God, bearing the
consequences of their sins and so making atonement for their
sins. Look at Leviticus chapter 16.
Atonement, that's something. We use the word. We can pronounce
the word, but we may not know what it means. We need to understand
what this atonement is. Notice in Leviticus. Chapter
16, this is the day of atonement. The day of atonement, the high
priest made atonement for the sins of the people. He made atonement
for their sins with God. And God is the one, and whenever
God is joining in covenant with His people, He's going to specify
what's done. And that's what happens in this
chapter. And all of this chapter is but a shadow of the true. It's just an image of the reality. It's a type which would be fulfilled
when the Lord Jesus Christ came and actually did what is specified
in the ceremonial act of this Day of Atonement. Now, in this
chapter, what we see is there's a high priest. And the high priest
takes the blood. He takes the blood of a bullock
and then he takes the blood of a goat. He takes the blood of
the bullock in first to make atonement for himself and for
his household. Then he takes the blood of the
goat and he sprinkles that on the mercy seat. and atonement
is made on the mercy seat for the people. Then he goes out
after having done that, and he lays his hands on the scapegoat,
and he transfers the sins of all of the children of Israel
from them onto the head of that scapegoat, and then he tells
a very capable man, a fit man, take this goat into the wilderness
to a land uninhabited, and leave it there, and come back, and
then wash your clothes. Now, all of this happens And
I want you to see this in verse 30. Leviticus 16 verse 30. On that day, on that day shall
the priest make an atonement for you. So it was done on that
day, right? And he says, this is the result
of that. to cleanse you that you may be
clean from all your sins before the Lord. So what is atonement? It's God's offering, specified
by God, offered by the high priest, the blood of this goat, sprinkled
on the mercy seat, and the goat then, with the sins of God's
people on its head, imputed to that goat, sent away into an
uninhabited land, never to return, and on that day, God was satisfied
with the sacrifice, and his people's sins were taken from them, and
they were clean. of all their sins." Now, the
fulfillment of this. Remember, the high priest lays
his hand on that scapegoat. The high priest, that's the Lord
Jesus Christ. The scapegoat, that's the Lord
Jesus Christ, too. He's the Lamb of God. And he
lays his hands on that scapegoat's head, and he confesses the high
priest now. the one who knows, the one who
stands for his people, appointed by God for this purpose. He confesses
their sins upon that head of himself, and he owns them, and
then he bears their sins away, and they are clean. They have
no sin. Look at Hebrews chapter 1. Hebrews
chapter 1, he says, speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, In
verse 3, who being the brightness of His glory and the express
image of His person, there is not a width difference between
His glory and the glory of the Father. And the express image
of His person upholding all things by the word of His power, when
He, God the Son, in our nature, had by Himself purged our sins. That's what it means to be clean.
Notice the language. It's just like Leviticus 16.30,
when he had by himself cleansed us, purged, removed, so as to
make us without sin. The only way. The gospel gives
us no other way to consider our sins, but this way. that they
are no more, that they're clean, that we're clean from our sins
because of the blood of Jesus. When he had done this, then he
sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. Everything
is done. And so he takes his place. He
sits down. The work is complete. He reigns. Our Lord Jesus Christ. Look at
Hebrews chapter 9. Hebrews chapter 9. He says in
this verse, He says in verse 9, let me read up a couple of
verses before this. He says, the Holy Ghost, this
signifying, this repetitious, continuous offering of animals
and their blood throughout the Old Testament time, the Holy
Ghost, this signifying that the way into the holiest of all,
which is heaven itself, was not yet made manifest, it wasn't
revealed, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing,
which was a figure for the time then present, it was just a type,
in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices that could not
make him that did the service perfect as pertaining to what?
The conscience. The conscience. What does conscience
mean? Oh, it's made up of two words
actually, con and science. Science means knowledge. Con
means with, with knowledge. And God has given every person
a conscience, a place in their mind where God applies his knowledge
in light of what they know about themselves. And when the law
is applied to our conscience, what does it do? It makes us
realize our guilt. It makes us realize our corruptions.
It makes us realize our impotence. We have no ability to do one
thing of all that God has said. And it makes us afraid. It terrorizes
us when God applies the law to our conscience. And we go around
with a guilty conscience. What makes our conscience clean?
Well, it goes on. He says, those sacrifices could
not make the person doing the service perfect as pertaining
to their conscience. Something else has to be applied
to our conscience besides the law. And those things stood only
in meats and drinks and divers washings and carnal ordinances
imposed on them until the time of Reformation. This is the time
John the Baptist was preaching about. This is the time the apostles
preached about. This is the time of Christ's
coming. This is about Christ doing what he did. Notice verse
11. But Christ being come, and high
priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect
tabernacle, meaning himself, his body, his human nature, and
not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building,
neither by the blood of goats and calves, Leviticus 16, but
by his own blood. He entered in once into the holy
place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. Now that's
going to cleanse our conscience. Look at the next verse. For if
the blood of bulls and of goats and the ashes of an heifer, sprinkling
the unclean, sanctifyeth to the purifying of the flesh, what
that means is those who, according to the law, carried out the ceremony,
which was just a picture of the truth, it made them suitable
in their bodies to perform that typical sacrifice. But it never
affected their conscience and it never took away sin. He says,
how much more if those animal sacrifices allowed them to perform
the typical service, how much more shall the blood of Christ,
who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot
to God, do what? Clean your conscience. Purge
your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Dead
works are works done in order to obtain righteousness. That's dead works. That's called
works of the flesh. Our flesh produces only dead
works. All that they did without faith
in the Old Testament was dead works. If they didn't see Christ
in it, it was dead works. All that we do, it doesn't matter
how carefully you carry out the routine of religion, praying
and reading and thinking and preaching, it doesn't matter
what it is, giving, all those things are dead works without
faith in Christ. And he says, how much more shall
the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself
without spot to God, purge your conscience? He takes the truth
that God is pleased with, the only thing with which God is
satisfied. It pleased the Lord to bruise
him when he shall make his soul an offering for sin, you see. When Christ was made an offering
for sin, God was satisfied. He was well pleased. Ephesians
chapter 5 verse 2 says, Christ loved us and gave himself an
offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor. You see, that pleases God. And
the only thing that pleases God is what Christ did. The only
way God can look upon us with favor and give us life and blessings
and receive us into glory and give us eternal glory with Christ
is what Christ did. He has to consider only what
Christ did. If he considers us and what we
do at all, we will be rejected. And our conscience won't be clear.
Because God is not satisfied. If anything about us is necessary
to satisfy God, we will never satisfy God. We can't. Because
we're sinners. That's what the law was given
to prove. And to convince us of. That God is only satisfied
with what God does in Christ. What He provided. What He accepted.
And the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled that in this. This is so essential. So essential. So we're going
to have to continue this again next week. We're just going to
keep preaching this until we get through it. Don't you see
how wonderful it is? The baptism of Christ. is what
saves us. When Jesus told John, we have
to do this to fulfill all righteousness, he was not speaking only of his
water baptism, although that was the launching of his ministry
in which he would complete the work God gave him to do over
his life and his sufferings and death and resurrection. but he
was particularly referring to his actual baptism and our baptism
under the judgment of God and our deliverance from that judgment
and the cleansing of our sin in his atoning work. And this
is so essential that our faith is in Christ crucified. It's
not in an ordinance. It's not in what we do for somebody
else, it's not in what we do for ourselves, it's in what Christ
did for us. And faith, the faith that John
the Baptist told them, you need to look to Christ. And the faith
of the apostles instructed us through the gospel, you need
to look to Christ. And Jesus himself said, look unto me and
be ye saved, all the ends of the earth. And in the Lord have
I righteousness, you see. That's where it is. What Christ
did, he did for his people, he identified with them in it, and
all that he did, he did it as an us. He didn't do it for himself. He didn't do it to be glorified
alone. He did everything. He received
everything for himself with his people. This is the humility
and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. You know his grace, that
though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you,
through his poverty, might be made rich, rich in faith, rich
in righteousness, rich in life. The Lord Jesus Christ, it's all
in him, let's pray. Thank you, Father, for the Lord
Jesus Christ. We pray you would magnify him
in our eyes and give us this heart faith in him as our savior
and cause us to rejoice with full assurance of faith in him. He's done it all. We could do
nothing and we won't do anything and you must receive us by grace
alone in him as you did Noah and his family. In Jesus' name,
amen.