Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening. And
now for today's program. Welcome to our program today.
I'm glad you could join us. If you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles, I'll be preaching from the book of John, chapter
18. I'm going to begin in verse 28. But what I want to talk about
today is the righteous cause of Jesus Christ. The righteous
cause. And I've taken the title from
the text here, when Christ, here he is before Pilate. He'd gone
before Caiaphas, the high priest of the Jews, and confronted Caiaphas,
and then Caiaphas wanted Pilate and the Roman law to convict
Jesus of Nazareth. They wanted to pass the buck,
but they wanted him dead. And so Christ came before Pilate,
And he told Pilate, he said, to this end was I born, for this
cause came I into the world. Well, what was his cause? Well,
his cause was to establish a kingdom and to establish himself as the
king of this kingdom. And that was involving the redemption
of his people from their sins and their full salvation. And
Christ was exalted in the place that He belonged, pointed out
for Him and set up for Him before the foundation of the world as
the Savior of sinners, the King of kings, the Lord of lords.
And it was a righteous cause, and we're gonna talk about that.
Let's look at the passage, though, in John 18 and verse 28. It says,
then led they Jesus from Caiaphas, the high priest, unto the hall
of judgment, and it was early, and they themselves went not
into the judgment hall, lest they should be defiled." Now
this is the soldiers who were in the service of the high priest
and the Pharisees and the Sadducees. They were Jews. and they wouldn't
go into a Gentile judgment hall. They wouldn't go into a Gentile,
even a Gentile home on their holy days, which was the Passover
and all of that. And what that shows you is that
as wicked and evil as they were and hypocritical as they were,
they were so intent on what they thought was keeping the law.
They wanted to keep their law. They didn't want to be defiled
by going into Pilate's house or the judgment hall or anything
like that. They were conniving and scheming
to crucify this innocent person. And I'll talk about that in just
a moment. Because Jesus of Nazareth was an innocent person. He did
no sin. He knew no sin. And even Pilate
recognized that he wasn't guilty of what they were accusing him.
Now, then we have a question that comes up and I'll deal with
that in just a moment. Question of all questions. But
it says, they didn't want to be defiled, but that they might
eat the Passover. Verse 28. So what you have here
is hypocritical religious people And you see that all the time
and we're all prone to that unless the Lord of glory preserves us
in His grace and His goodness and His love. We're all by nature
spiritual hypocrites because we all think we're saved before
we're saved until we're saved. We think we can do good enough
or we can be good enough. And I hear people all the time
saying, well, that person is a good Christian man, he does
everything right. Well, nobody does everything
right, we're sinners. And I've often said this, there's
only two types of people in this world, there's sinners lost in
their sins and there's sinners saved by grace. The only one
who ever did everything right is Jesus of Nazareth, the Lord
Jesus Christ. And here they're bringing him
up on charges. They wanted to charge him with
sedition. They wanted to charge him with
breaking their Sabbath laws, all of that, their laws of defilement
and cleansing. And you remember Pilate didn't
care about their Sabbath laws or anything like that. So when
they brought him before Pilate, they wanted to try to make sure
that he was accused of being an enemy of Caesar, an enemy
of Rome. So look at what it says in verse
29. Pilate then went out unto them. You remember, Pilate is the Roman
governor of this province. And Pilate then went out unto
them and said, what accusation bring you against this man? What
are you gonna accuse him? In verse 30 says, they answered
and said unto him, if he were not a malefactor, we would not
have delivered him up unto thee. Now what they're saying, a malefactor
is a criminal. And they're saying, well, are
you questioning us? If he weren't a criminal, we wouldn't have
brought him before you. And then verse 31, then said Pilate unto
them, take ye him and judge him according to your law. Well,
judge him according to your law. What laws he broke. And the Jews
therefore said unto him, it is not lawful for us to put any
man to death. Now, what happened is, is the
Roman conquerors had outlawed the capital punishment that was
due under the Mosaic Law. Wouldn't let him do it. And so
they're telling Pilate, it's not lawful under your law for
us to put somebody to death. And look at verse 32, it says,
that the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled, which he spoke,
signifying what death he should die. Now what's the significance
of that? Now he spoke of that back in
John chapter 12, verses 31 and 32, when he said, if I be lifted
up, I will draw all men unto me.
And he said this signifying what death he should die. Well, what
death is going to be that lifts him up? Crucifixion. Now, what
death was required under the law of Moses? Stoning. Well,
he told him back then, he said he wasn't gonna be put to death
by stoning, like some were, like Stephen was, for example. He
was gonna be put to death by crucifixion. And that was the
way that God planned it out. Well, crucifixion was not a Jewish
way of capital punishment, it was a Roman way. So they're wanting
to pass the buck and have him persecuted unto death under the
Roman law. But this was all, it's amazing,
this was all according to his plan and his purpose in coming
into the world, that he would be crucified. You remember back
over in Deuteronomy where it predicted the death of Christ,
the death of the Messiah. Cursed is everyone that hangeth
on a tree. And Paul quoted that in Galatians,
referring to the death of Christ. And it says in verse 33, then
Pilate entered into the judgment hall again and called Jesus and
said unto him, art thou the king of the Jews? Now he's trying
to trap the Lord Jesus Christ. If you claim to be a king, then
you're in competition with Caesar, and that would be punishable
by death. In verse 34, Jesus answered him,
sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of
me? In other words, are you telling
me this is what you think, or I have said, or did others say
this of me? And Pilate answered, verse 35,
am I a Jew? Now, in other words, you think
these people are consorting with me and confiding in me, am I
a Jew? Thine own nation and the chief
priest have delivered thee unto me. What hast thou done? What
have you done? What crime have you committed?
In verse 36, Jesus answered, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world,
then would my servants fight that I should not be delivered
to the Jews, but now is my kingdom not from hence. Now Christ is
telling him, yeah, he's a king, but not on this earth. He's in
no competition with Caesar on this earth. His kingdom is a
spiritual kingdom. His kingdom is a heavenly kingdom.
His kingdom is within his people, the hearts of his people. That's
where he rules. His kingdom is his church. His
kingdom is not earthly Jerusalem. His kingdom is spiritual Jerusalem,
that heavenly city. Now, let me make a distinction
here now. The Lord Jesus Christ as God,
the Son, the second person of the Trinity. along with the Father
and the Spirit, is the sovereign of the whole universe. He owns
it all. He created it all. He's over Caesar. He's over all
kings. But as far as His mediatorial
work of salvation, this world is not His kingdom. This world
is His enemy, and it's going to be destroyed. He told His
disciples, He said, in the world you'll have tribulation. He said,
but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. Peter wrote
later on in 2 Peter, this world's gonna be burned up and a new
heavens and a new earth. So although He is the sovereign,
powerful God of the whole universe, He owns it all, created it all. The kingdom that He's speaking
of here is the kingdom of His saints. Sinners saved by grace. It's the kingdom of his church.
The kingdom of heaven. And it's not of this world. What Caesar has, you remember
he said that about taxes. When they said, should we pay
tribute to Caesar? He said, render unto Caesar that
which is Caesar's. It belongs to Caesar. That's
what he's saying. Well, who gave it to Caesar?
God did. You think God couldn't have stopped it if he wanted
Caesar snuffed out and destroyed? And this is one of the things
the Jews had a problem with. They wanted an earthly kingdom
that would exalt and glorify them. Their idea of the Messiah
was as a conquering king riding in on a white horse who would
destroy their enemies, like Rome, and set up his rule on earth
and rule through them. They would be his lieutenants
and his generals, and he would pat them on the back and say,
well, but that's not what it was. He didn't come to set up
His kingdom on earth. He came to set up a heavenly
kingdom through His church, the people He came to redeem. And
so, when Pilate's asking him these questions, look at verse
37. Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? And
Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was
I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should
bear witness unto the truth, and everyone that is of the truth
heareth my voice. This is why I came into the world.
You know, back over in the book of Matthew chapter three, and
as I said, the title of this message is The Righteous Cause
of Jesus Christ. This is why I came into the world.
to establish this kingdom, this spiritual, heavenly, eternal
kingdom. Not a kingdom, see all the kingdoms
of the earth, temporary, sinful, that's the way it was. But His
kingdom was a kingdom of righteousness, perfection, eternal, of which
there would be no end. And when He began His earthly
ministry, when he was about 30 years old, he came to John the
Baptist to be baptized. And it says in Matthew, this
is Matthew chapter three, verse 13. Then cometh Jesus from Galilee
to Jordan unto John to be baptized of him. But John forbade him,
saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me.
Now John recognized this man to be the Messiah. And he said,
well, you know, I don't have any right to baptize you, you
need to baptize me, I'm the sinner. But in verse 15, Christ told
him, listen, Jesus answering said unto him, suffer it to be
so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. And then he suffered him, John
baptized him. And the Father testified from heaven in a voice,
this is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. And the Spirit
descended in the form of a dove. And they both put their stamp
of approval upon this man, Jesus of Nazareth, who is God, manifest
in the flesh. And why did he come? To fulfill
all righteousness. Well you see, that's what the
Savior does. That's what he's saying here.
Verse 37 of John 18. To this end, you say I'm a king? To this end was I born, he said. This is why I was born. And for
this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto
the truth. What truth? The truth of the
kingdom of God. The truth of the salvation of
sinners. The truth of righteousness. that would establish this kingdom
and that God has justified His people. The truth that would
bring life and truth to the hearts and minds of God's people in
spiritual life, the new birth. The truth that would establish
the kingdom of God. And everyone that is of the truth,
heareth my voice. Every citizen of the kingdom,
Every sinner saved by grace. Everyone whom God chose before
the world began. Everyone whom God gave to Christ
before the world began and conditioned all of their salvation on Him.
Made Him their surety. Charging the debt of their sins,
their sin debt, to Christ. And sending Him into the world
as their substitute whereby he would take into union with his
deity a perfect, sinless humanity, body and soul, walk this earth
as God manifest in the flesh, the Word made flesh, dwelling
among us, keep the law perfectly. He didn't break the Jewish law.
He didn't break God's law. He kept it. Every jot and tittle. And then ultimately as our substitute,
the substitute of God's elect, His sheep, go to the cross and
lay down His life for the sins of His people that had been charged
to Him. Shedding His blood unto death
and bringing forth a perfect righteousness. The scepter of
the King, perfect righteousness. that would answer the demands
of God's law and justice by which God would be both a just God
and a Savior. Now you remember at the beginning
of this message I told you that Jesus of Nazareth was an innocent
person. He was. He knew no sin. He committed no sin. Did no sin. He was never at any time before,
during, or after the cross, contaminated or defiled by the sins of his
people that had been charged to him? He was made sin, 2 Corinthians
5 21 tells us. But that does not mean he was
made to be a sinner. It does not mean he was transformed
in some miraculous way into sin. No, he remained within himself,
within his mind, his heart, his soul a perfect, sinless man. Yet he felt the full effects
of God's wrath for the sins of his people legally charged to
him, and that was a just transaction. How could God punish a totally
innocent person for the sins of his people? Well, that totally
innocent person is God manifest in the flesh who willingly took
upon himself this task and came into the world for this cause,
to die for the sins of his people. And he was justly condemned under
the wrath of his father, for the sins of his people imputed
to him. That's why the Apostle Paul spoke
of the blessedness of the man to whom the Lord imputeth righteousness
without works. You see, Christ was condemned
justly under the wrath of God. Now, in the eyes of men, it was
evil. You meant it for evil, but God
meant it for good. Peter spoke of that in Acts chapter
two in his message at Pentecost. He said, you with wicked hands
have crucified and slain the Lord of glory. But you did only
what God before ordained you to do. You meant it for evil. It was sinful, it was murder
in the eyes of men. But God meant it for good. It
pleased the Lord to bruise him, to crush him. for the sins of
His people. And God did it justly based upon
sin imputed to Him, charged to Him. Now, God justifies His people
based upon Christ's righteousness imputed to them. As 2 Corinthians
5.21 says, for God made Him to be sin, Christ who knew no sin,
that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. I stand before
God justified, forgiven of all my sins, based on the blood of
Christ. I stand before God justified,
declared righteous, based upon the righteousness of Christ.
And that's the righteousness of God that's declared in the
Gospel, revealed in the Gospel from faith to faith. For Christ
is the end of the law, the fulfillment, the perfection, the satisfaction,
the finishing of the law for righteousness to everyone that
believe. And we'll see over in John 19,
where he's hanging on that cross, he said, it's finished. And that's
what he's telling Pilate here. Let's read it again, verse 37.
Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered,
Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born. That's
why he was born. Christ, God the Son, eternal,
second person of the Trinity, always existed. He'd had no beginning
and no end, but he had to be born. Look over in Hebrews chapter
two. I've read this verse several
times. Why did Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
why did He have to enter into the womb of the Virgin Mary and
become a baby in her womb and be born and grow in wisdom and
stature as a young man? And come on into this. Why did
he have to go through all that? Well, it says here in Hebrews
2 and verse 17. Now listen to this. It says,
wherefore? Well, he's talking about how
Christ took on the nature of the seed of Abraham. Now that's
the spiritual seed of Abraham, his elect. They're human beings,
sinful human beings. And he had to take on himself
a human nature without sin. And so it says in verse 17 of
Hebrews 2, wherefore in all things it behooved him to be made like
unto his brethren. He had to be made like unto his
brethren. That word behooved is the Greek
word for debt. Because the debt of their sins
were laid to his charge, put to his account before the foundation
of the world, and he agreed to that. He said that, he said,
no man takes my life from me, I lay it down of myself. and
so because their sins were laid to his charge he had to be made
like unto them without sin in order to die. Look at it. Wherefore
in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren
that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest offering
the sacrifice of himself as the high priest in all things pertaining
to God to make reconciliation for the sins of his people. And
how did he make reconciliation for the sins of his people? He
died, he obeyed unto death on that cross to satisfy the justice
of God for their sins. Well, let's read on back in John
chapter 18. And verse 38, Pilate saith unto
him, what is truth? Christ said, everyone who hears
my voice, who is of the truth hears my voice. Pilate said,
what is truth? That's man. They don't know what
truth is. We don't know by nature. And
when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews and saith
unto them, I find in him no fault at all. Pilate said that three
times. I don't find any fault in this man. What statement?
And he was right, there was no fault in him. There were sins
laid upon him, although they didn't know it. And he says in
verse 39, but you have a custom that I should release unto you
one at the Passover. Will you therefore that I release
unto you the King of the Jews? And then cried they all again
saying, not this man, not Jesus of Nazareth, but Barabbas. Now
Barabbas was a robber. release unto us Barabbas. You
know the story of Barabbas. He was a thief. He was a robber. And they chose Barabbas over
Jesus of Nazareth. That's how much they hated this
man, this God-man, who claimed to be the Savior, the Messiah,
who did nothing but good. And that's us by nature. We'd
rather have a sinful, sinful cohort than a sovereign savior
who saves whom he will his way. All of this, all of this was
foreordained by the Godhead before the foundation of the world.
And that's what he meant when he said for this cause, a righteous
cause. Do you understand that in order
for you to be saved and in order for you to have communion and
fellowship with God eternally in the new heavens and the new
earth. You must be righteous. And there is absolutely no way
that any of us can be righteous in God's sight by anything we
do. It's not of our works, not by
works of righteousness, which we have done. There's none righteous,
no not one. None good, no not one. And the
only way that a sinner can be made righteous in God's sight
is by looking to Christ, showing that God has already imputed,
charged His righteousness to you. You see, that's what happens
if you believe the truth. If God brings you under the gospel
and you hear of Christ, the glory of His person, the power of His
finished work, His righteousness, His blood that puts away all
sins and guarantees the salvation and final glory of every sinner
for whom He died, that's why He came to this world. He shows
you that God has already done the deed. He's already sealed
the deal. He's already established all
the righteousness and all of the salvation you need in and
by the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the righteous cause of
Jesus Christ. And that cause will have its
effect in the entire complete salvation of all for whom he
lived and died, was buried and rose again, all for whom he now
stands as the mediator, the intercessor of his people. The righteous
cause of Jesus Christ. I hope and pray that you'll join
us again for another message from God's word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
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today and may the Lord be with you.