This passage here brings us to
the final months of Christ's public ministry. You know, since
his baptism and he went out preaching the gospel, calling his disciples,
he spoke to multitudes and had many, many people who had heard
him preach repentance of dead works and faith toward the Lord
Jesus Christ. He said, repent ye for the kingdom
of God is at hand. He told sinners the truth. He
gathered his disciples, though they were few. Multitudes followed
him for the miracles, remember he said for the loaves and the
fishes and things like that, and then left him. Now here we're
coming to a point where his main ministry is to be directed solely
to his disciples, especially those who would become apostles.
And he's preparing them. Look at verse 22. It says, and
this is Matthew 17, 22. It says, and while they abode
in Galilee, Jesus said unto them, Now he's not going to tell them
anything new, he's already told them this, but listen, he says,
the son of man, that's the messianic title of Christ, he's God and
man in one person, shall be betrayed into the hands of men. Now he's
beginning to tell them how all of this is going to come about.
There's going to be a betrayal. And the betrayal, as you know,
is going to be brought forth by the hand of Judas Iscariot. Gonna betray the Lord. He's gonna
be betrayed. Into the hands of men, he says. And they shall kill him. And
the third day he shall be raised again. And it says the disciples
were exceeding sorry. They were sorrowful. They were
sad about this. Now, again, his purpose is to prepare them for
what's coming. He never held back. He never
sugarcoated it. He told them exactly what he
had to do. And of course, he told them over and over again
that this is the reason he came into the world. And this is the
ministry that he would accomplish on Calvary to save his people
from their sins. This was necessary. Remember
in John 16, he said, it's necessary for you that I go away. Well, where was he going to?
Well, he was going to the cross. He was going to the grave. But
ultimately, he was going to his father in heaven. And he said,
if I go not away, the Comforter will not come. There'll be no
life. The Comforter, there's the Holy Spirit. And the Holy
Spirit's work in the covenant of salvation is to apply the
resurrection life of Christ to each and every one of God's elect
in time under the preaching of the gospel. And that was taking
place, we talked about, in the Old Testament too. Abel was regenerated
and converted, born again, based upon what the Lord Jesus Christ
would come and do in time several thousand years later. But it
was so sure and certain that he would come and that he would
do his work and accomplish it and be victorious in it that
God applied the benefits of it to his people even in the Old
Testament. And of course, he certainly applies
it to us in the New Testament. But you remember, all of this
is taking place after some great events had occurred. You know,
Christ, I've got in your lesson here, he'd been in Caesarea Philippi,
where his identity as the Messiah was totally revealed. God manifest in the flesh. Remember
Peter said, you are the Christ, the Son of God, the Son of the
living God. And then he announced how he's
got to be killed and raised up. And you remember what Peter did.
He said, no, no, not so, Lord, not so with you. And Christ said,
get thee behind me, Satan. In other words, Peter was acting
according to the same way that Satan was acting in a different
way. The same way in a different way. It sounds contradictory.
Satan wanted to keep Christ from going to the cross. We see that
in Matthew 4 on the Mount of Temptation. But Peter wanted
to keep him for a different reason, for selfish reasons. But it's
still, they needed to understand that what Christ was headed for,
to be betrayed, to be killed, and to be raised again the third
day, was necessary for him to fulfill all righteousness. Remember
at his baptism, that's what he said. He was baptized for what
reason? to show people that going down
into the water and being buried, that's his death and his burial,
coming up out of the water was his resurrection, to do what? To fulfill all righteousness.
And that's the very righteousness that God has imputed to all of
his people, from which we are justified before God, forgiven
of all our sins by the blood of Jesus Christ, and declared
righteous in God's sight. So all of this is coming about. Remember they had just come down
from the Mount of Transfiguration, where James and John and Peter
were given that vision of Christ speaking with Moses and Elijah
concerning his death, his exodus, which he would accomplish in
Jerusalem. So they had that. And now he
manifested his powers over darkness, in casting out a demon and healing
a young man. So here they are. And having
already announced that the necessity and the certainty of his death,
he builds on that truth here. The son of man shall be betrayed
into the hands of men. Now think about that. The death
of Christ for the sins of his people was ultimately the work
The purpose, put it this way, I've got in your lesson, the
purpose, the will, and the hand or power of God Almighty. And you can see that in the scriptures.
I've got cited here, Isaiah 53 10, listen to it. Now he's gonna
be delivered into the hands of men. He's gonna be betrayed by
Judas. But look what it says in Isaiah
53 10, yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. This is the work
of God. And from God's point of view,
it's not an evil work. From man's point of view, it
is an evil work. Sinful man wanted to kill him,
murder him. But from God's point of view,
it's a work that was predetermined before the foundation of the
world for the salvation of His people. And it pleased the Lord
to crush Him. Now when it says it pleased the
Lord there, it doesn't mean that God takes delight in giving out
pain or anything like that. It means God is satisfied with
the work of the Son in His death. for the sins of his people as
our surety, our substitute, and our redeemer. This is propitiation,
satisfaction to God's law and justice. So it says, yet it pleased
the Lord to bruise him. He, that is God, hath put him
to grief, and thou shalt make his so. God shalt make his so
in offering for sin, the substitutionary work of Christ, He shall see
his seed. Christ shall see the results
in the salvation of his children. He shall prolong his days. In
other words, he's not gonna stay dead. He said the Son of Man
must be betrayed, he must be killed, and he must be raised
again from the dead. He's not gonna stay dead. And
the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. What God
is pleased to do in the salvation of His people will be successful,
prosper, not in the hands of men and women, but in the hands
of Christ. Because all of our salvation
conditioned on Him. And in His death, burial, and
resurrection, in His obedience unto death, He fulfilled all
the conditions of the salvation of His people, His sheep, His
church, His brethren. I also put in here John 17, four. Listen to this. This is in the
high priestly prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, I have
glorified thee on the earth. He's talking about the son praying
to the father. I have glorified thee on the
earth. I have finished the work which thou gave us me to do. See, this is a work that the
father gave to the son. And Peter preached this in Acts
two and verse 23. It says, Him, Christ, being delivered by the
determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken and by
wicked hands have crucified and slain. Now see, he didn't excuse
the sinfulness of man there. It's kind of like what Joseph
said back in Genesis chapter 50, a precedent that has been
set. As we go through this life, And
we do different things. We sin. God eventually brings
us to seek the Lord and to believe in Him. We still sin. We know
that God's in control. We know, according to passages
like Ephesians 111, that God is working all things after the
counsel of His own will. How do we justify in our minds
when we sin, when Judas did what he did. And it was according
to God's sovereignty, sovereign will that he do this. How do
we justify that or how do we bring that together in our minds?
And the only answer is what Joseph said. He told his brethren, you
know, when they sold him into slavery, he said, you meant it
for evil, but God meant it for good. That's the only answer. And somebody says, well, if that's
the case, I'll just go out and sin as much as I want to. The
problem with that is you're not God. I'm not God. Only God can control and overrule
evil for good. You can't do that. I can't do
that. And we're held accountable for
it. Judas was held accountable for what he did, but he was the
man of perdition from the beginning. And all of that, you say, well,
that's not fair. Well, you take that up with God.
You're going to have to have a debate with God. And who are
you to do that? Romans 9. Who are you to reply
against God? Or Daniel 4, saying to him, what
do you think you're doing? You ever said that to your kids?
They mess up or do something. You say, what do you think you're
doing? Because they had no right to do that. But God has a right.
to do with his own as he will. He's the potter, we're the clay. But out of all this, think about
Romans 8, 28. All things work together for
good to them that love God, who are the called according to his
purpose. How can that be? All things, good things, bad
things, everything. is ultimately gonna work for
the glory of God and the eternal good of his people. Well, the
only way that can be so is that God is the one who's working
it and not man. I put one more verse in here,
Galatians 4 and 5. It says, Paul wrote, When the fullness of the time
was come, God sent forth his son, made of a woman, made under
the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might
receive the adoption of sons. Now how did he redeem us? He
was betrayed, he was killed, and he was raised. As our surety,
as our substitute, as our redeemer. As I put in this lesson, to accomplish
his sovereign will to save his people from sin, to establish
a perfect righteousness that he imputes to us, and to ensure
our spiritual life and complete salvation, God delivered his
son into the hands of sinful men. And as Peter, or as it says
in Acts chapter four, for to do whatsoever God's hand and
God's counsel determined before to be done. And it says here, and they shall
kill him. His death was necessary. His death is the wages of sin. The wages of sin is death. God
established that early on when Adam and Eve fell. He slew an
animal and made coats of skin, showing that sin demands death. And it takes righteousness to
bring life. So his death was necessary to
satisfy the justice of God. And that's what propitiation
is about. That's a word that most people
in religion today who claim to be Christian and read their Bibles,
they really don't understand what propitiation is. You know,
if you look over in 1 John, chapter 2, I was reading a little pamphlet
about presenting the gospel, and a man was asking a person
who claimed to be Christian, Did Christ die only for the elect,
or did he die for all people without exception? And most people
who call themselves Christian today will say, well, he died
for everybody without exception. And he asked this man, well,
what verse would you use to prove that? And he went here to 1 John
2. Look at verse one. My little
children, these things write I unto you, 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,
and not for our sins only. Now this is where he went to
try to prove universalism, but also for the sins of the whole
world. And the man told him, he said,
well the whole world there doesn't mean everybody without exception,
universally. It means God's elect over the
whole world. But here's what he asked the man. He said, you
believe that's talking about everybody without exception?
He said, yes. He said, what is propitiation? The man didn't
know. Well, propitiation, I've often
stated it this way. It's a sin-bearing sacrifice
that brings what? Satisfaction. That means God's
law and justice, his wrath, is satisfied. Now what does that
tell you? If his wrath was satisfied, if
his wrath was, as I say, Christ drank the cup of God's wrath,
drank damnation dry, for everybody without exception, what are you
to conclude? Well, everybody without exception's
gonna be saved. The ones for whom he made propitiation,
in this verse, whoever the whole world is now, are the ones for
whom he stands as an advocate with the Father, pleading the
merits of his righteousness so that they cannot be condemned.
They're justified. They're forgiven. They're righteous
in God's sight. Well, we know what that verse
teaches. The whole world means that God
has an elect people out of every tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation,
Jew and Gentile. This is not just for Jewish believers. This is for all believers. And
that's what it means. We'll go back to our text now. Christ being killed and raised
again is the foundation the very foundation of our whole salvation,
and it's the heart of the gospel, which concerns his person and
his work for his people. His death is our surety, our
substitute, our redeemer. It's been revealed in the Bible.
It's prophesied from the very beginning throughout the Old
Testament. But it also reveals that his
death would be a victory. Look at it again in verse 23.
And they shall kill him, and the third day he shall be raised
again. That's a victory. That's the resurrection of Christ
because he finished the work. Daniel chapter nine. He made
an end of sin, he finished the transgression, He brought in
everlasting righteousness. He sealed up the testimony and
entered the holiest of all. And it's amazing as you see how,
how the disciples acting in the flesh, they were exceeding sorry.
They didn't want him to go. It's kind of like, we're going
to miss you, you know, that kind of thing. What does that say
about him? It's well, speaks of their ignorance.
even though he told them that he's going to be raised again
from the dead. And he said, I've got to be betrayed.
I'm going to be delivered into the hands of men. And it's determined
beforehand that they would do what they want to do. And what
is it they wanted to do? They wanted to kill him. They
wanted him dead. His message is one that they
hated. because it revealed them to be
lost self-righteous, though religious, lost self-righteous sinners who
have no righteousness, but claim to have one. It's the light that
exposed the darkness. It told them that their ground
and hope of salvation was a sham profession of false religion. People don't wanna hear that.
So they wanted to kill him. And they were going to. Murder. From the viewpoint of the law,
the viewpoint of man, it was murder. But you know what Christ
said? He said, no one takes my life
from me. This is in John, what, six or
10, I can't remember. I think it's John 10. He said,
nobody takes my life from me. I lay it down of myself. Do you
know that they could not have harmed one hair on his head except
he determined they'd do it? Think about it. Well, they were
still thinking in terms of the flesh. They were exceeding sorry.
They weren't thinking in terms of the spiritual truths, of the
good news of the gospel and their salvation. Now, the rest of this
chapter is an episode where he performed another miracle. Look
at verse 24. When they were come to Capernaum, they that received
tribute money came to Peter and said, doth not your master pay
tribute? Now what they're talking about
is a temple tax here that was levied on the Jews by the Pharisees
and the Sadducees. I put in your lesson here some
historical things about this. There was a temple tribute to
be paid in redemption's money, silver, that every Jew had to
give. But that was back in the Old
Covenant. And it was to support the temple
or the tabernacle and all of that. And that was a picture
of redemption by the blood of Christ. That's what it was. A
Jew bringing the silver to support the temple, that was the picture
of a sinner coming to God through the blood of Christ. That's what
that was about. But as in everything, the Pharisees,
the Sadducees, the scribes, the people who were in control, they
turned it into a sinful, fleshly act, and they required it. Actually, the temple tax back
in Exodus 30 It was only to be brought when Israel was to be
numbered. And that's the only time it was
to be brought. But they turned it into a yearly thing because
they wanted to fill their own coffers. And so, look at what
Peter said when they said, does your master pay tribute? And
Peter said yes, and when he was coming to the house, Jesus prevented
him. What happened was, Christ, even
though he was outside the house when Peter made the statement,
he knew what Peter said, because he's omniscient. And he prevented
him, in other words, he spoke up before Peter could answer.
That's what that means. And he said, what thinkest thou,
Simon, Peter, of whom do the kings of the earth take custom
or tribute, of their own children or of strangers? And the answer
is of strangers. In verse 26, Peter saith unto
him, of strangers. Jesus saith unto him, then are
the children free. Now what he's talking about is
kings of the earth, They don't take tax money from their children,
but they take it from the other people, from strangers. Children
are free. Well, what point is he making?
Well, look at verse 27. Notwithstanding, lest we should
offend them, go thou to the sea and cast and hook. Just the hook
now, no bait. You ever caught a fish with no
bait, Jim? On a hook. You don't do that, do you? Gotta
have some bait there. Gotta have a lure. Well, he said,
you cast in the hook and take up the fish that first cometh
up, and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a
piece of money that take and give unto them for me and thee. Well, what's he, he's telling,
well, first of all, this, whatever's going on here about this temple
tax is not a gospel issue. And so he gave in to them. It
says here that, lest he should offend them. Now let me ask you
a question. Was Christ afraid of offending
the Pharisees and the Sadducees over the gospel? If you think
he was, read Matthew chapter 23. Remember all the things he
said about them? blind leaders of the blind, open
sepulchers, the dead leading the dead. You go out and make
converts, you make them twofold more the child of hell than you
are. What had he said to them before? He wasn't afraid of offending
them over the gospel, but not over this, this temple tax. He
said, let's pay it. In other words, what he's saying,
He wouldn't hesitate to offend them over the preaching of the
cross, but over this, this is a non-issue. Pay the tax. You remember when they asked
him about paying taxes to Caesar, he said, well, render unto Caesar
that which is Caesar, and to God that which is God's. So he
wasn't compromising the gospel here. He's simply just teaching
this is a non-issue. This is something we can give
in to them and go on about our business, but when it comes to
the gospel, we don't budge an inch. And also I'll put in here
too that you see a good picture of salvation here. They didn't
have any tribute money to pay. But Christ provided money. And
when I think about that, I think about Isaiah 55 when it says,
come and buy without money, without price. That's a picture of the
gospel, isn't it? We don't have any money to pay
for our salvation. We don't have any works to pay
for our salvation. But Christ provides all that
we need and all that is necessary for our salvation. Okay, we'll
stop there.