Okay, John chapter eight. I wanna
begin at verse 10, where Brad read for us there. Last week we went over those
first 12 verses in John chapter eight. And today I wanna begin
at verse 10, which is an overlap, because I find the last thing
said there by Jesus to this woman to be so compelling that I can't
get it out of my mind. I find it very important that
we, as the Lord's people, hear Christ's words to her as words
to us. So that's always the case of
Scripture. The Bible, as I've said many times before, was not
written for that other person. It was written to me. And you'll
hear people say this, and there's nothing wrong with it. The word
religion, if understood properly, means the truth of scripture,
true religion. But true religion is a personal
matter. It's something that is individual. And I know I've read heretics,
like John Clark, ending with an E. I'm not ashamed to admit
that his name, he wrote a commentary on the entire Bible. But he was
still wrong, and he claimed that there was no personal election,
but just the election of nations. That's not right. Jesus said
in Luke 10, verse 20, rejoice that your names are written in
heaven. He didn't say that your nation,
but your names. So I haven't read his commentary
on that verse, but I don't really care. The point here is that
God speaks to us things that are to us personally, and the
message of the Word of God is meant to be for us personally.
And religion is a thing that's personal. The gospel is something
that we individually believe, or we don't believe it. It's
not what my mom thinks. My mom might be wrong. And it's
not what my dad thinks, or my wife, or my husband, or anybody.
It's what the Lord is saying to me. And so that's why this
text of scripture is so compelling, because the Lord Jesus Christ
is dealing with this one person, this one woman. In the book of
John, as we began looking at the book of John together, we
pointed this out, that often in the book of John, it's a one-on-one,
engagement between the Son of God and an individual, a certain
single individual. And that, I think, is significant
because it personalizes the message to us, and so I say all that
sort of as an introduction. Now, in John 8, in verse 10,
don't miss, don't ever miss the fact that when God in Scripture
speaks of events, and of circumstances, he is using those events and
circumstances pictorially in a description in order to bring
the gospel to our minds through those events and circumstances
and people. And so this text of scripture constantly is doing that for
us as we saw in Jesus coming to the temple as the place where
God meets with his people and Christ as the master and the
Lord had appointed him to be our savior. and to be our Lord
as Christ and Him coming and these accusers bringing this
woman who was obviously guilty and had nothing to say in her
own defense, because there was nothing she could say in her
own defense. These men could only accuse her,
they could only hold the law as a testimony against her. There
was no way, it was impossible for men to do anything but condemn
her, and yet the Lord Jesus Christ stoops and silences her accusers
and stoops again and rises, as it says in this verse here, and
speaks to her and does not condemn her, but in fact he justifies
her. So I want to consider some of
the thoughts around this with you as we saw in the introduction
really last time of this text of scripture. In verse 10, it
says that when Jesus had lifted up himself and saw none but the
woman, he said to her, woman, where are those thine accusers?
Hath no man condemned thee? Now, the Lord draws her attention
to himself. He was there alone with her. Well, there was a crowd, obviously,
there was the entire company the congregation of the temple,
but it was as if the spotlight was on her and him only. That
was the entire lesson that the Master was giving here is the
Lord Jesus Christ with this woman only. Now, the woman here was
guilty. The woman was defenseless. She couldn't defend herself.
She had nothing or anyone else who could defend her. She was
helpless. It was impossible. Her case was
a lost case. But the Lord Jesus Christ can
do the impossible. And that's the gospel. that God could be both just and
justify the ungodly is done by the Lord Jesus Christ in this
text. And so when it says in verse
10, when Jesus had lifted up himself, immediately it brings
to our mind everything God says about the Lord Jesus rising from
the dead for our justification, doesn't it? Romans 4.25 says
he was delivered for our offenses. That's why Christ went to the
cross, because of our offenses laid on Him, and He, in obedience,
taking them and bearing our sins as His sins, and then enduring
the wrath of God against us for our sins in our place, as our
surety to answer God with Himself for us. He was delivered for
our offenses, Christ bearing our sins and enduring God's wrath,
answering God with himself for us in order to free us, to deliver
us from our sins. And then it says in Romans 4,
25, the rest of the verse, he was not only delivered for our
offenses, but he was raised again for our justification. He didn't
die and He didn't rise as a private person. He died, He suffered
for our sins, He died for our sins, and He rose again because
He was justified having put away our sins. When Christ bore our
sins, we bore them no more. We believe, because of Scripture,
that when Christ died, our sins died with Him. The body of our
sins died in the death of Christ. That's what the Apostle Paul
says in Galatians 2.19, I am crucified with Christ. I'm crucified. The law has condemned me and
I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. So that's
the gospel. I'm crucified. I was crucified
when Christ was crucified because I was with him. He took me into
death. He took my sins into death. And
the body of my sins was destroyed in his death. God condemned my
sins in his flesh. Romans 8, chapter 3. Romans 8
verses 3. So here he says that the Lord
Jesus Christ, when he had lifted up himself, he had lifted. In other words, his stoop then
was significant. It signified It set forth, as
the Apostle Paul says in Galatians, evidently, it set forth in evidence
Jesus Christ and Him crucified. It was pictorial of the death
of Christ. It was an obedience, it was a
stoop of humility, and it was a stoop in humiliation, and yet
it was a stoop by the will of God and by the power of God in
order to put away our sins according to the truth and justice of God
and to make a judgment from God's throne on behalf of
his people because of Christ that we were justified. We were
counted righteous in the eyes of God. Our sins had been put
away and so Jesus therefore lifted up himself And he saw none but
the woman, because her accusers had been sent out. All of the
condemnation against her had been answered in the stoop of
Christ and in his resurrection. And so he says to the woman.
Now he accomplished it, and what does he do next? He speaks to
the woman. He tells her what he accomplished. And this is the gospel preached
to us. God not only accomplished our
salvation, but he tells us of it, and he tells us of it through
the gospel, and he speaks to us in that message with power,
with penetrating God, penetrating power when he says to her, woman,
where are those thine accusers? He's asking her to consider where
her accusers are, and she answers, and he says, he raises the question
to her to consider, has no man condemned thee? Now these men
thought they could stand in the place of the law and judgment
of God and condemn her, but Jesus said, no, only one without sin
can condemn this woman. And he's the only one without
sin, and he came in order to bear her sins. So they couldn't
condemn her. They were guilty. We can't condemn
others. We can't stand in moral judgment
of others. We're guilty ourselves. God is
the one who takes vengeance, and only he can. Only he can
judge in that way. And so we leave the judgment
to his hands, and we trust him to do it. Otherwise, we'd be
taking up arms. We'd be doing like we're encouraged
to do in politics, to rise up against those that God has rule
over. That's not our job. We're to
submit to the Lord and let Him deal with those who are outside
of His obedience, outside of His not submitting to Him. So
here He says to the woman, where are your accusers? Has no one
condemned thee? He's asking her the question
pointedly in order to raise her awareness that there is now no
condemnation. That's the message of what's
about to follow. There is therefore now, now, no condemnation. Notice, what happened here is
she was guilty. She was publicly shamed for her
sin. She had nothing to say. She's
silent the entire account here until this point. She's asked
the question now, consider what Christ has done. Where are your
accusers? Is no one left to condemn thee? Is anyone there to charge one
of God's elect? He's asking the question in order
to bring it. There's nothing to condemn her
for. Because Christ stooped for her. Because Christ rose for
her. And she said, no man, Lord. As she looks around, there's
no condemners left, no accusers. And so she says, there's no man,
Lord. So she realizes through the word
of Christ and the actions of Christ, where his death and his
resurrection were evidently set forth in a signifying stew here,
that that is what answered the accusation against her according
to the holiness of God. Angels are watching, the public
is watching. He doesn't do it in a closet,
it's made public here. And he says to her, no man? And now listen to him as he speaks
as God. as the mediator. Neither do I
condemn thee. This is justification. The Lord
of all, the judge of all, speaking with the decision of the court
of heaven says, I do not condemn thee. But there was plenty, we
would say, to condemn her for. Why did he not condemn her? because
He took her sins from her. There was nothing left on her
to condemn her for. And He bore those sins in His
stoop and fulfilling the law and being the propitiation for
our sins and His blood sprinkled on the mercy seat. And in that
ark was the law of God accusing us and yet He bore that law in
His own heart and fulfilled it too. When He shed His blood and
God saw the blood and He passed over us, And Christ's blood made
propitiation for our sins and God was pleased with what he
did and pleased with us because he saw our sins covered in his
blood. He took our sins, he confessed
them upon his own head, he owned them as his and he bore the wrath
of God for them. Justice was satisfied and notice
now, Notice now, there's only Christ and this woman. Jesus
said in verse 10, it says, Jesus lifted up himself and he saw
none but the woman. In Isaiah 53 verse 11, it says,
and he shall see his seed and he shall be satisfied. The Lord
Jesus Christ poured out His life's blood for His people in obedience
and in love to His Father, and for them in the greatest stoop
of humility, and He saw His seed. He saw none but the woman, the
one He laid His life down for. He sees her, and notice, and
she sees only Him. There He is with her, and the
woman sees only Him. There are no accusers. No accusers,
just the crowd, the congregation watching, as it were, in the
temple of God, God setting forth this greatest of all work, this
mystery unfolded, the glory of God set forth in the work of
the Lord Jesus Christ. And this declaration, this proclamation,
so endearing, so adoring, so admiring, it made her, no doubt,
Just fall in love with him because he said, neither do I condemn
thee, the master, the Lord from heaven, her Lord. And he says,
I do not condemn thee. But I'm guilty. No, Christ, you
can only consider your sins in the light that God considers
them. And he sees them on his son and he put them away. And
he received from the Lord a full remission for our sins according
to that eternal covenant of grace. Neither do I condemn thee. So
here we see the matter of this text of scripture is our sin
and God's holiness and our acceptance and our deliverance. Our deliverance from the guilt
of our sin in these words, neither do I condemn thee. But more than
that, Jesus goes on. And he says, neither do I condemn
thee, go and sin no more. Now that's the title of today's
message, go and sin no more, or just simply sin no more. Now, there's a couple of ways
of looking at this. The first way is to say, well,
Jesus was talking to her about this single sin, this sin of
adultery that she had committed. And he's telling her, don't do
that again now. Now that I've cleared you of
that and all of your accusers are gone out, don't do that again.
In other words, he did something for her. Now she needs to follow
through and stop doing what she had gotten in trouble by which
she had gotten in trouble already publicly. But if that were the
case, if it was only that he had forgiven her that one sin,
and that that was the only sin, then really, we don't have much
hope, do we? For several reasons. First of
all, we have many sins. And we need a savior who can
save us from all of our sins, don't we? And not only the physical
acts of our sins, but the thought of sin. The thought of foolishness
is sin, the scripture says. And Jesus had said that many
times in the Sermon on the Mount. It was not just the action, it
was the thought. It was anger towards your brother
that was murder in the heart. It was the eye of lust that was
adultery. So it was much deeper than just
simple acts. And Paul in Romans 7 summarizes
it this way, when the law says, thou shalt not covet, covetousness
was all throughout me. I was infected with it. And it
seemed like it tainted everything, because it did. And so we can't
allow that the entire matter of go and sin no more means simply
that stop doing, don't do, don't commit that act of adultery again.
I've forgiven you for that one act. That can't be it. Because
the Lord is the savior of his people when it says in Matthew
121, he shall save his people from their, plural, sins. And scripture throughout talks
about our sins being put away, not just one sin, but all of
our sins. And in fact, in 1 John 1 and
verse 7, it says, the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses
us from all sin. So the blood of Jesus Christ
not only cleansed us in the past, but is now cleansing us from
all sin. And so that's the issue, is all
of our sins, and many things could be brought to bear upon
this. It says in Hebrews 1, 3, when he, Christ, had by himself
purged our sins, plural, then he sat down on the right hand
of the majesty on high. He had to deal with all of our
sins. Psalm 85, verse 2, it says, thou
hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people, thou hast covered
all their sin, all their sin. That's the important part. In
Psalm 25, verse 18, it says, look upon mine affliction and
my pain and forgive all my sins. So it's not just a single sin.
And look at 1 John 2. 1 John 2 bears heavily upon this
because it's very similar in the way it's spoken. He says
in 1 John 2, my little children, these things write I, verse 1
of 1 John 2, my little children, this is the apostle Paul writing. But when the Lord speaks of his
people, he calls them his little ones. For example, Matthew 18,
he says, if anyone offend one of these little ones, it had
been better if a millstone were hanged about his neck and he
was cast into the sea. So the Lord's speaking through
the apostle John by his spirit when he says, my little children,
these are God's people, not all people, but his children. These
things write I unto you that you sin not." Okay, so this is
not just a single sin, is it? It's all sin. He writes to you
that you sin not. Well, what had he written that
we sin not? Well, I just quoted one in chapter
one, verse seven. He says, if we walk in the light
as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another.
And the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses us from all
sin. If we say we have no sin, we
deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our
sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So the Lord is not talking about
a single sin. He's talking about sin as an
act, sin as an offense, and sin as our corrupt nature here. And that's why he says in verse
1, my little children, these things I write to you, because
Christ's blood does cleanse us from all sin, I write to you
that you sin not, and if any man sin, not any man, not anyone
in the world, but any one of these little children, any one
of God's people, because that's who he's writing to you from.
He says in the very first verse of this epistle, that which was
from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen
with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have
handled of the word of life. And he goes on, he's talking
to believers. It's clear he's talking to those who have confessed
their sins and trust Christ. He goes on here in chapter two,
verse one, If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our
sins. Okay, now, understand that as
a believer, the first thing we hear, our experience now in the
gospel is the first thing we hear is something that causes
us consternation and grief, isn't it? And then further, we go on
hearing according to God's grace given to us. For example, in
Romans chapter 1 and 2 and 3, he summarizes, he says, for all
have sinned. and come short of the glory of
God. And what do we do? We were condemned and it gives
us great trouble. We're like the woman, we're guilty.
We have no answer. We don't know what to say. We
wonder what can be done. And he goes on and he says that
the Lord Jesus Christ, we're justified freely because of his
redeeming blood. And so here, in John chapter
8, when the Lord speaks to the woman, and hold your place still
in 1 John chapter 2, in John chapter 8, when he says to the
woman, Where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee? And
she said, no man, Lord. And Jesus said to her, neither
do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more. Notice what
he says here and the order. First, he tells her who was guilty
and had no answer and was silent. He asks her to consider his own
work and his own resurrection, as we've seen here, and to consider
that all of her accusers are sent out And he says, who is
left to condemn you? She says, none, no man. And then
he says, neither do I condemn thee. That's the Lord Jesus Christ,
the God of glory speaking. And then he says, I don't condemn
thee. This is his justifying gospel,
isn't it? This is the word of the gospel
telling us that by the blood of Jesus we're justified. But
it doesn't stop there. It doesn't stop there. Go and
sin no more. Now, back at 1 John 2, notice
the same thing is said. I write these things to you that
you sin not, and if any man sin, now, these are little children. These are God's people. Think
about Noah. Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord, didn't he? And yet Noah, after the flood,
sinned against God. He got drunk. He was uncovered
in his tent. It was a sin. And Abraham, remember,
he exposed his wife Sarah to all kind of danger when he lied
twice to two different men. And so we see that Abraham was
a sinner and Noah was a sinner. And we could go on and on. David,
he committed murder and adultery. He was a sinner. Solomon, his
son. Isaiah said, I'm a man of unclean
lips. Job said, I'm vile. We could
just go on and on, couldn't we? Peter denied the Lord. And Paul
said, oh, wretched man that I am. God's people are not free. They are not sinless in their
actions or in their thoughts or in their motives, are they?
We sin. So how can we understand these
words then when Jesus said to her, go and sin no more? Does
everyone fail to keep those words? Do we all fail to keep that? Why would he say it then? And
I think that we have this wrong thinking that comes about because
of this when we hear the Lord's words say to us, go and sin no
more, that we take it wrong. We think, well, I've got to stop
doing the things that got me into trouble. And if I don't,
then I'm facing condemnation again. And I prove myself to
be unjust in the eyes of the Lord. And what hope do I have
then? Because I sin daily. And covetousness,
the root of idolatry, and the product of my self-righteous
pride that I could promote myself and obtain or seek things for
myself rather than to glorify God and worship Him. In faith,
and trust, and worship, these things are against me, aren't
they? They're constantly crying out against me. So what do we
say about these words, go and sin no more? If David, and Noah,
and Abraham, and Solomon, and Isaiah, and Job, and Peter, and
Paul were sinners and they were believers, What do these words
of the Lord mean here? Well, he says here in 1 John
2, I write these things to you, little children, that you sin
not, and if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ, the righteous, and he is the propitiation for
our sins. Notice this, first of all, in understanding these
words, go and sin no more. That when the Lord speaks to
us of this command, we want to be obedient. And yet, like the
Apostle Paul says, the good that I would, I find not, but the
evil which I would not, that I do. So we want to be obedient
to the Lord because we want to follow the Master who just delivered
us from all of our sins and all of our accusers and justified
us by His blood. Isn't that true? Like this woman
must have been so adoringly looking and admiring Him for His wisdom
and His humility and His grace towards her. that he had spoken
to her out of this grace and this stoop to justify her from
all her sin. And then when he says this, she
wants to be obedient. More than anything, she wants
to follow him to the ends of the earth. No doubt about it. And so that's the first thing.
We want to be obedient, don't we? And yet we find, according
to 1 John 2 verse 1, that we do sin. And what is the Lord
Jesus Christ writing to us as his little children tell us?
He says, now, when you sin, know this, that we have an advocate
with the Father, and he is the propitiation for our sins. So
the second thing we learn here, is not only do we want to follow
the Lord, but the Lord Himself gives us the way to follow Him. When we sin, we have an advocate
who is the propitiation for our sins. So that following the Lord
in faith is that obedience to His command, which always applies
to and pleads to God to be in Christ, to be our advocate by
His blood. Isn't that what the publican
did? God be merciful to me, be propitious to me, the sinner.
He just said in chapter one of 1 John, if we say we have no
sin, then we lie, we deceive ourselves. The truth is not in
us. But here's the thing. Before grace came, we were in
denial. We were hiding. And we not only
were in denial about our sin and hiding our sin, but we promoted
our own goodness. And we were in idolatry against
Christ's righteousness and his shed blood, thinking that we
could somehow make up whatever conditions needed to be fulfilled
in order for God to be gracious to us. But no, the publican said,
I have nothing. but the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And God be, consider what you
did in your son in satisfaction to your justice to remove my
sins and to bring me the very grace and favor of God on the
basis of his redeeming work and receive me for Christ's sake."
That was a an amplified version of that text of scripture. He
was looking to the blood of Christ that God would look upon Christ
and receive him for Christ's sake. And that's what we do in
the obedience of faith. We don't say, well, now I've
got to get busy and do this. The Lord says, go and sin no
more. And he did justify me by his grace, but now I've got to
finish the job. I've got to stop doing what got
me in this mess. No, that's the whole point here. You were not only guilty and
defenseless and silent before God's accusers, before these
accusers, which were men, but before God himself. And the Lord
himself laid upon Christ the iniquity of us all, and God was
pleased to bruise him for our sins, and he received from him
full satisfaction. So that the Lord himself says,
neither do I condemn thee. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus. And so, given this then, we are
constantly not hiding and in denial and promoting our own
self-righteousness. going about saying, well, you
know, I conquered this sin or that sin. I stopped smoking or
drinking or whatever it was, some external sin that we conquered,
because those things are just superficial. Men can see that,
and we can boast in our ability to have overcome that habit.
But the problem is much deeper. The problem is so deep that we
can't rid ourselves of this unbelief, of this pride, and this lust,
and this constant self-serving attitude, and this desire to
have some credit, and take some glory even from others, and envy,
and hate, and all these things that are constantly boiling around
inside of us. We can't rid ourselves of that,
so the Lord says, now. Just like the apostle in Romans
7, who is going to deliver me from this wretched man that I
am? Oh, I thank God through Jesus
Christ our Lord. He's the propitiation. He's my
advocate. And He who laid His life down
for my sins and shed His blood to take away my sins is the same
Savior who has promised to deliver me from all iniquity. You see? So she doesn't look
upon Christ as saying, well, he did that part and I do this
part. No, she sees in him her savior
from all of her sins, whether it be the guilt of it or the
power of it. And this is so important because
if we saw that, if we misunderstood this text of scripture and saw
ourselves now being responsible for the second part, then we've
done what the Apostle Paul told the Galatians they were doing.
Have you begun in the Spirit and now are you made perfect
by the flesh? Come on! Jesus Christ has been
evidently set forth crucified among you. Don't you know that
you were crucified with Christ, you were buried with Him, you
were risen with Him? Now you need to live in consistent
with that as you receive Christ Jesus, the Lord, so walk ye in
Him. If we were buried with Him and
rose again with Him, then that's the basis of our confidence that
by the Word of Christ, we will be delivered from all of our
sins by the grace of Christ, the same grace and the same blood
that delivered us from the guilt of our sins, that justified us. He who justified us also is our
sanctifier. It is the Lord who sanctifies
thee. That's his name. Jesus Christ sanctified his people
with his own blood and he sanctifies them with the word. And so he's
going to present those he loved and laid his life down for perfect
before himself in love. Look at Ephesians chapter five.
Ephesians chapter 5, it makes this clear now here that the
Lord Jesus Christ is the Savior. He who justified us is going
to finish the work. We are His workmanship. We are not our own workmanship. That's what Ephesians 2.10 says.
Ephesians 2.10, we are His workmanship. Here we have it in Ephesians
chapter 5. He says, husbands, love your wives even as Christ
also loved the church and gave himself for it. That's the woman
in John 8, isn't it? That's the woman, the wife. that
he gave himself for. He saw her only, she saw him
only, and she was justified by his great love, by giving himself
for her. And verse 26, in order that he
might sanctify and cleanse the church with the washing of water
by the word, the word of God, the gospel is preached to us. And what does it do? Christ our
advocate, Christ our righteousness, Christ our propitiation, Christ
our all. The washing of the water, a continual
cleansing. The fountain was open for sin
and uncleanness. And what are we going to do?
Go drink somewhere else now that we're justified? No, this is
our drink. This is our life. The Word washes
us. And that he might do this, present
the church to himself, a glorious church. Notice who's doing the
work. that he might present it to himself, a glorious church,
not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should
be holy and without blemish. This is the love and the work
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is what he's saying
to her, to us, go and sin no more. We take his word as a promise. of His work that He will perform
for us and in us. Look at Romans chapter 8, Romans
chapter 8. If you read the whole chapter,
you'll be especially convinced that this is the message now
of the book of Romans when you read chapter 8. He says in verse
1 of Romans 8, there is therefore now no condemnation. You see, the power over sin is
given to the believer through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ
and through the gospel where he says immediate, full justification
and forgiveness by the blood of Christ. Access by the blood
of Christ. Remission of all of our sins
by the blood of Christ. Redemption through His blood
by the blood. We're delivered from our iniquities
by the blood of Christ. We're sanctified by the blood
of Christ. Nothing but the blood. And so he says here, there is
therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus,
who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. In other
words, they believe the gospel. They don't live according to
their own personal obedience as the way of coming to God.
They come to God through the blood of Christ. That's what
the Spirit is teaching his people. If you begun in the Spirit, then
you began on the basis of God's promise of His work that He performed
and accomplished and accepted in Christ. And Christ is now
seated in glory to prove it. And the gospel is declared to
you and the spirit applies it to us. So he says in verse two,
for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made
me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could
not do in that it was weak through the flesh, my sinful nature. God sending his own son in the
likeness of sinful flesh, this is Christ's second stoop. And
for sin, my sin. Condemn sin in the flesh. His
flesh was condemned. My sin was condemned in His flesh.
Notice in verse 4, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled
in us. Go and sin no more. Doesn't that
match what he's saying here? How are we going to go and sin
no more? We're applying at all times, continuously taking from
the stream and the fountain and the bread broken and the water
of life, Christ being the bread of life and His body broken and
His blood poured out, our drink. We're continually availing ourselves
of Him and applying to Him and asking Him to give us the cleansing
of our sin and the life that is the result of that cleansing
and the right and the result of his righteousness given to
us. He says here in this walking in the spirit, constantly looking
to Christ, he says the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us. The testimony of God is for us. And Christ has promised, go and
sin no more. Look upon his word as Abraham
did when he says, you're going to have a son. Go and sin no
more. You're going to be delivered
from all your sins by the blood of Jesus. You're going to be
conformed to the image of his son. You will be satisfied, Psalm
1715, when you awake in his likeness. You see, it's all the work of
God. And the believer is made to be
so impressed with the resurrection of Christ and his seeding and
glory that he would speak justification to us in the gospel and it was
free and full and immediate and by his blood accomplished and
obtained and given and declared to us through the gospel that
now we're looking and looking and looking to Christ. And he
says, the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us. who walked
not after the flesh but after the spirit. What did Abraham
do? I've got to get somebody here that can have a baby because
I can't have one unless we find a substitute for Sarah. No! No,
he did not consider his own body now dead. when he was about a
hundred years old, nor the deadness of Sarah's womb, he staggered
not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith,
giving glory to God, being fully persuaded that what he had promised,
he was able also to perform. You see? Go and sin no more. We return again to Him who spoke
the word of grace to us. If it's of grace, then it's all
of grace from first to last. And those things that upset us
at first when we first heard them, that we're sinners, what
do I do then? That we're without strength,
I'm helpless then. God saves by His sovereign will,
what do I do then? It always brings us back to see
that God's will is a saving will, that His character is a good
and gracious, He's a good and gracious God. His glory is to
forgive sins and He did it by the blood of His Son and exalted
His own attributes above everything in order that we might see His
glory in His work for us to deliver us from our sins. This is the
promise, isn't it? He's doing the work. Go and sin
no more. We come to him like the apostle
Paul, continuously. Lord, I'm a wretched man. Who shall deliver me? He doesn't
say, I'm going to deliver myself. He says, who? God calls those
things which be not as though they were. And Abraham believed
in him. He raises the dead when they
have no life. He gives them life. Now if we
see ourselves in some way as enabling ourselves to do what
Christ said to do here, go and sin no more, then we're in denial,
aren't we? We're walking by the flesh, and
we're gonna hide, and we're gonna think hostile thoughts towards
God. But when God speaks to us freely
by his grace in the gospel, then what do we do? We come out from
behind the trees. We don't need to hide. The song
says, the law says, do this and live. The law commands, but gives
me neither feet nor hands. But the gospel says, fly and
gives me wings. You see the difference? Live,
but I'm dead. It's the power of Christ, isn't
it? Go and sin no more. This is our hope, isn't it? This
is our eternal promise from God. We will be saved as the hymn,
There is a Fountain says, we will be saved to sin no more. He is able to present you faultless
before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. Jude 24 and
25. What a blessing it is. Go and
sin no more. We don't have to fear this. We
don't have to avoid that text of scripture. We can run to the
Lord with it. This is his promise. Lord, do
as you have said. Let's pray. Lord, we pray for
the grace to continue believing Christ. in all of our troubles
and all of our failures to seek him who is our advocate and his
body and blood given as our propitiation to God as our surety to bring
us to God to give us the liberty of redemption redeeming grace
to deliver us from all of our sins, the guilt of them and the
power of them, in every way to bring us to God and present us,
according to His eternal purpose, conformed to the image of His
dear Son. Lord, we pray that we would see only Christ, risen,
speaking to us of His justifying blood and righteousness, and
hearing His word of promise to us, that in Him, the righteousness
of the law will be fulfilled in us. What a blessing, what
a great and mighty Savior, His wisdom and faithfulness to do
all of this for our salvation and His glory. In His name we
pray, amen.