Thank you, Jim, and let me add
my welcome to Jim's. It's good to see y'all out today.
We'll be trying to worship the Lord under the preaching of the
gospel here in the absence of our pastor. And I miss him as
a friend, and I miss him as a preacher. I'm missing his preaching. But
anyway, we're going to try to fill in Randy and I today. So
the title of this message is Punishment and Pardon. We're
going to go back to the Old Testament here, Exodus chapter 34, if you
want to look up that reference here. Punishment and pardon,
how they go together. how they stand apart. I'm going
to make two statements in this message. The first one will be
something like this. There can be no pardon, no forgiveness
of sin, where there's been no punishment. In other words, before
sin can be pardoned, it must first have been punished. No
pardon without punishment. In the second statement, where
sin has been punished, then it must be pardoned. It can't go. It can't be punished
again. If Christ has already been punished
for your sins, you can't be punished. Now those are the two statements
we want to look at. Let's look at Exodus chapter 34 and verse
5. Exodus 34, 5. Now, let me give
you a little background here before I read this scripture.
This is Moses. He came down from the first time
up on the mountain receiving the Ten Commandments. And, you
know, the people were in idolatry. And he threw the tablets of stone
down in anger and broke them. So this is later on. And the Lord sent him back up
on the mountain. He said, make two more tablets. Come back up
on the mountain. And so this is him going back
up on that mountain now to receive the tablets for the second time,
the law for the second time. And it says here in verse 5,
and the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him, that's
Moses there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord
passed by before him and proclaimed the Lord. The Lord God, merciful
and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and
truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression
and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting
the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon the children's
children unto the third and to the fourth generation. Our concentration
right here is going to be on verse 7. God's mercy is toward
thousands, it says. These thousands are those that
God chose and eternally blessed in Christ before the world began.
Listen to Ephesians chapter 1. These are familiar verses to
you, so just listen. Ephesians 1 and verse 3 says,
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places
in Christ, according as he has chosen us in him before the foundation
of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before
him. He blessed us, he chose us, and
he did it in order that we should be holy and without blame before
him. That us and we does not include
all of humanity, all without exception. That us and we make
up a multitude no man can number out of Adam's fallen race. It's
a mixture of every kindred, every tongue, every tribe, every nation.
No nation left out here. It's some out of every tribe,
every nation. No distinctions of race or ethnic
background or heritage or geographic location. It doesn't matter if
you live in America or in China or wherever. All are included
in this covenant here. God is no respecter of persons. He didn't choose these sinners
because of anything He foresaw in them. He blessed these sinners
in eternity in Christ. That's the key. These sinners
are eternally and unchangeably accepted in the beloved. Now, He forgives their sins. The sins of these sinners, all
kinds of sins. Look back at our text here. He
says, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression
and sin, and that we'll by no means clear the guilty. Some
interpreters distinguish these three words here, iniquity and
transgression and sin, and they say iniquity signifies sins that
are done through pride and presumption, maybe religious sins. You know,
we're all self-righteous by nature. Transgression, rebellions against
God, again, religious sins. We're all rebelling by nature. And then sin is what's committed
through error and mistake. Well, I didn't know that was
wrong. It doesn't matter. Ignorance
is no excuse. Whatever the distinctions of these words are that the Holy
Spirit had in mind when he gave them to Moses, whatever it is,
it covers all kinds of sins of the thousands who are shown God's
mercy. God forgives their sins. He pardons
their iniquities. He shows them mercy for Christ's
sake. But he does not forgive, he does
not pardon any sin that he does not previously punish. Look back
again at the text. Keeping mercy for thousands,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sins, and that will by no
means clear the guilty. This phrase here, that will by
no means clear the guilty, can read this way as well. Although
it, the sin that God forgives, will by no means, no means, most
certainly not, go unpunished. God does not clear the guilty. What does He do with the guilty?
He punishes the guilty. He doesn't fail to punish the
guilty. He punishes every sin. with eternal death. Because He's
just, He can't do less. He can't do anything else. There's
no pardon of sin without the punishment of sin. Now, how has
God already punished sin? Well, He punished the sins of
His people, those that we've talked about here from Ephesians
1. He punished our sins in the death of Christ, the death of
His Son. There's no doubt that the death
of Christ was divinely appointed. It's recorded in Acts 4 that
the whole world, Jew and Gentile, was gathered together for to
do whatsoever God's hand and God's counsel determined before
to be done. Now there's no doubt Christ's
death was by God's appointment. And there's no doubt the disappointment
was to a particular end. It had a goal in mind, this appointment
of Christ unto death. The prophet Daniel stated this
end in Daniel chapter 9 and verse 24. He said, Christ will finish
the transgression. He will make an end of sins. He will make reconciliation for
iniquity. He will bring in everlasting
righteousness. Christ's entire work in coming
to this earth was to deal with the sins of his people. It was
to deal with our legal guilt. deal with our legal standing
before God. He came to deal with the sins
of His people, and He has dealt with them. He is dealing with
them right now, and He will deal with them in three specific ways
here. First of all, He's already dealt with them. As the surety
of His people, Christ has already dealt with the sins of His people.
He did it by the cross. The cross is where Christ made
an end of sin. In what way? An end of sin's
legal guilt. He took that guilt upon himself,
put it away in a just satisfaction. The cross is where Christ made
propitiation, which is the penalty bearing sacrifice that satisfied
God. The cross is where Christ bore
the full punishment that his people deserved. And I'll have
a lot more to say about that in a minute, but let's move on.
That's how He's dealt with our sins in the past, briefly. I'm
going to talk about it more. But right now, He's dealing with
sins. Right now, wherever the Gospel is preached in this world,
God is right now dealing with sin. What's He doing? Like Jim
prayed in his prayer, He's calling sinners out of darkness unto
the marvelous light of His glory in the face of Jesus Christ.
Wherever the Gospel is preached, that's what He's doing. He's
calling those that are yet in darkness to light. He's delivering
his sheep to the knowledge of God's glory in the face of Jesus
Christ. And that's the way he's doing
it now, wherever his message of true grace is preached. And
then Christ will deal with the sins of his people in eternity
in another way. He's going to deliver us from
the very presence, power, and influence of sin. There'll be
no sin in heaven. Where we're going, it'll be done
away with completely. There'll be no sin. Christ's
entire work is about dealing with the sins of his people.
It begins with Christ taking care of its legal guilt. This
is where I'm going to talk a little more about that. It begins with
Christ delivering his people from sin's punishment. Our understanding
of who God is and who Christ is must begin right here as well. How has God dealt with the punishment
of sin for his people? To honor God as a just God and
Savior, we must first see how Christ has dealt a death blow
to the sins of his people. Until sinners understand what
Christ has already done to save His people from the legal guilt
of sins, until then, we're in bondage to sin. We're in bondage
to a sin we don't even know. Just like those in John 8. Lord,
we're Abraham's children. We've never been in bondage.
He was telling them, if you continue in my word, you'll know the truth
and the truth will make you free. Well, we're the same way by nature. We don't know we're in bondage
to sin, but we're in bondage to it nonetheless. Our deliverance from this bondage
can only come from an understanding of the work Christ has done to
end the legal guilt of sins. In other words, you've got to
hear the gospel and hear what Christ has done and God poured
out his wrath on him because his people's sins were charged
to him. And he answered those charges
in full. Our deliverance can only come from a value for Christ's
work, the work he finished in order to accomplish the full
salvation of every sinner he was given. So how did Christ
deal with sin's legal guilt? He died. He became obedient unto
death. But Christ's death needs a little
explanation. I mean, just to believe the fact
of Christ's death doesn't really honor Him in His death. You've
got to have more than that. And the scriptures give us plenty
of explanation about Christ's death. First of all, Christ died
as the surety of a particular people. He was set up as such
in a covenant that's older than time, way back there in an everlasting
covenant of grace. As the appointed surety of his
people, Christ assumed the legal debt of the particular sinners
God gave him. In other words, he took it on
himself. He said to his father in this
everlasting covenant exactly what Paul said to Philemon concerning
his runaway slave, Onesimus. You remember that story? Philemon
is just a one-chapter book there, but it's about a runaway slave,
Onesimus, that belonged to Philemon. He ran away. He found grace in
the eyes of the Lord under Paul's preaching of the gospel. And
Paul is writing back to Philemon and says, I want you to receive
him back as a brother in Christ. Now listen to these words. Here's
what he said. Here's what Paul said to Philemon.
He said, if you count me, therefore, a partner, that's an equal, you
count me a brother in Christ, receive Onesimus as you would
receive me. If he has wronged thee or owes
you anything, you put it on my account. He says, I will repay
it. You receive him like you'd receive
me, not as a runaway slave, but as a brother in Christ. Christ
assured thee, now that's what Christ has told his father in
that everlasting covenant. He was given a people and he
told his father, if these have wronged you, he's looking ahead
because we weren't even there. If these have wronged you or
they owe you anything whatsoever, put it on me. Put it on my account. I'll repay it. That's the language
of assurity. Now Christ's assurity was made
sin, which means he died under the legal guilt in a certain
way, the legal guilt of imputed sin. Listen to 2 Corinthians
5, 21. For He, God the Father, has made
Him, God the Son incarnate, to be sin for us who knew no sin. He made Him to be sin. That can
only be one way, and that's by the imputation of the sins of
His people to Him. It was sin imputed that reigned
unto Christ's death. I'm talking to you now about
how Christ was made sin, how he's dealt with sin. Listen to
Romans 5, 21. It's always printed in our bulletin.
You probably know it by heart. It says that as sin has reigned
unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto
eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Where has sin already
reigned unto death? I'll tell you where, at the cross,
in the person of Christ, who bore the legal guilt, the imputed
sins of his people, and put them away in the just satisfaction.
That's the only place I know of that is reigned unto death.
And Christ said in Revelation 118, I am he that liveth and
was dead, and behold, I'm alive forevermore. Amen, and I have
the keys of hell and of death. Another place, Christ died unto
sin one time. It only took once. Sin had dominion
over Christ once. Romans 6 and verse 9 says, knowing
that Christ being raised from the dead dies no more, death
hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died
unto sin once, but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Christ
died the death his people deserved, the death his people would most
certainly be facing right now, except for his death in our place
as our substitute and surety. He died the death of the accursed.
Philippians 2 and verse 5 says, let this mind be in you. which
was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought
it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation,
took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness
of men. And being found in fashion as
a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even
the death of the cross. Christ became obedient unto death. He became obedient even to the
death of the cross, even the death of the accursed. It is
written, cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree. Christ became
obedient unto the death his people deserve. His people are the accursed. That's why he died the death
of the accursed. He was made a curse for us. He didn't deserve
the death he got. Christ had done nothing in his
person to deserve death. He was holy, harmless, undefiled,
separate from sinners. He knew no sin. The Apostle Peter
said he did no sin, neither was guile, deception, ever at any
time found in his mouth. Christ died the death his people
deserved, the death of the accursed. How has Christ dealt with the
legal guilt of his people? I'm summarizing what I've just
got through saying to you now. Well, he died. He became obedient
unto death. He died under the legal guilt
of imputed sin. He died the death of the accursed,
the death we deserve, his people. He suffered the full punishment
God's justice demands of every soul that sins. And the death
Christ died was not without results. Set aside who Christ died for
momentarily and consider three things that Christ's death actually
accomplished for those he died for. First, his death put away
sin. Put it away. Put it away so completely
it'll never be brought up again. Listen to Hebrews chapter 9 and
verse 24. It says, for Christ is not entered
into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures
of the true. He's talking about that tabernacle
on earth now. They were figures and types of
Christ. And Christ is not entered there, but into heaven itself,
now to appear in the presence of God for us, nor yet that he
should suffer himself often as the high priest entered into
the holy place every year with the blood of others. For then
must Christ have suffered Often since the foundation of the world,
but now once, in the end of the world, has he appeared to put
away sin by the sacrifice of himself. In his first advent,
that's what Christ was doing. He appeared to put away sin.
What does that mean? And did he do it? What does it
mean that he appeared to put away sin? And did he accomplish
what he set out to do? It means that his obedience unto
death satisfied the law and justice of God. It means he answered
the legal charges of God's justice for the sins that he bore. And
it means he answered those charges so completely that those charges
will never be brought up again in the court of God's justice.
If Christ died for you, friend, if he died for you, God's never
going to charge you with sin. You're not facing the punishment
of God's wrath. You can't be facing it. The scriptures teach that God
remembers those sins, the sins Christ bore, He remembers them
no more. Hebrews 8 and verse 12. Those
sins are removed from God's people as far as the east is from the
west. In other words, infinitely. If
you start out east and just keep going, you'll just keep going
east. It never ends. Psalm 103, 12. They're cast behind the back
of God, Isaiah 38, 17, and they're cast into the depths of the sea,
Micah 7, verse 19. All that language is to show
us just how fully and completely the sins Christ bore have been
dealt with, and dealt with according to God's inflexible justice.
When it came time for Christ to bear God's wrath, when it
came time for Him to suffer the punishment of the sins He bore,
God, his Father, spared him not. Send him to the cross. Moses
asked God to show him his glory, and God said, I will make all
my goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name
of the Lord before you, and will be gracious to whom I will be
gracious, and will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. God's
goodness towards sinners is in the mercy that he shows those
sinners in Christ. We have to be taught of God's
goodness in Christ. We don't see this goodness until
we see Christ bearing away the legal guilt of those sins that
he suffered for. We don't see God's goodness until
we see Christ's death putting away every sin he bore so completely
that it'll never be brought up again in the court of God's justice.
That's where God's mercy is right there. We don't see God's goodness
until we see Christ being punished so completely that the sins he
bore of those sinners he substituted himself for cannot be punished.
They cannot ever face any wrath from God because of their sins.
They can't even be charged with sin, much less be punished for
it. Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It's
God that justifies. Who is he that condemneth? It's
Christ that died, yea, rather that is risen again, who's even
at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for
us. So Christ put away sin, and not
only did he put away sin by his death, he also obtained eternal
redemption. Listen to Hebrews 9 and verse
11. Hebrews 9, you know, is a book of comparison. You know, what
was going on in the world, the tabernacle, the sacrifice, the
altar, and all that, compared to Christ, who came and actually
fulfilled all those types and put them away in a just satisfaction.
Listen to Hebrews 9 and verse 11. But Christ being come and
high priest of good things to come by a greater and more perfect
tabernacle, that's himself, he tabernacled among us. That tabernacle
not made with hands, that is to say not of this building,
it's his own body, it's his own flesh and blood. Neither by the
blood of goats and calves, by his own blood he entered in once
into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. Christ's
death didn't just make redemption a possibility. No, he paid the
ransom required by the justice of God. The Son of Man came not
to be ministered to, but to minister and to give his life a ransom
for many. His death actually redeemed the
people he died for. Their ransom price is paid. And
what did Job say? They have to go free. I found
a ransom. Let them go. Not only did Christ's
death put away sin, not only did he obtain eternal redemption
through his death, but it also established the very righteousness
of God. Listen to Romans 4.25. Now he's talking about righteousness
being imputed to us also, just like it was imputed to Abraham.
It's imputed to us also, who believe on him that raised up
Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered because of
our offenses and was raised again because of our justification.
Christ's resurrection from the dead is a testimony from God.
It's a declaration from God. that the sins, the offenses Christ
bore in his body have been put away. And that righteousness,
what's righteousness? It's what demands life. Sin demands
death. Righteousness demands life. So
it's Christ's resurrection from the dead is a testimony from
God that righteousness has been established in the earth by Christ. By his obedience unto death,
Christ has satisfied the law and justice of God. He put away
the sins of his people. He established the righteousness
by which God is just to justify the ungodly. Now, whether it's
Christ's resurrection from the dead or our spiritual resurrection
and regeneration, There's one thing that's the requirement,
and that one thing is righteousness. It takes righteousness to raise
anyone from the dead. Christ was raised because he
had established the one righteousness by which God is just, to justify
those he chose in Christ before the world began. Christ died
under the legal guilt of imputed sin. He endured the full punishment
God's justice demands of every soul that sins, and Christ's
death was not without results. He put away sin, it obtained
eternal redemption, and it established the righteousness of God. Next,
Christ's death was not in vain. His death was not without effect. It accomplished something. It put away sin, obtained redemption,
established righteousness for every sinner he died for. Christ
didn't die for a sinner just to have that sinner go on through
life and end up finally under the eternal wrath of God. That
would have been a vain death by Christ and that couldn't be.
That's not what happened. Christ was never acting as a
private person. He was always acting as a representative,
a substitute, a surety of a chosen people. He was punished for that
chosen people. He bore their sins in his body
on the tree. By his stripes they are healed.
They must and they shall be pardoned because of Christ's death alone.
Now I told you I was going to make two statements. The first,
no sin can be pardoned until it's first been punished. But
no sin has been punished The sinners that have been punished
can't remain under that wrath. They can't remain under that
possibility. They have to be pardoned. So
this is the second statement we'll consider. Where there's
punishment, there must be pardon. And there is. Each and every
sinner Christ represented has been healed by His stripes. Listen to Isaiah 53, another
familiar passage to us. Surely he hath borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten
of God, and afflicted. But 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. There's no difference
in the names or the number of those for whom Christ was wounded
and those that are healed by his stripes. The very same sinners
If he bore your sins on that cross, you've been healed by
his stripes. God must and he shall give each
of these sinners every benefit and blessing Christ's obedience
unto death has earned for them. Listen to Romans 8 and I'll verify
that statement from the scriptures. Romans 8 and verse 31 says, What
shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be
against us? He that spared not his own son
but delivered him up for us all. How shall He not with Him also
freely give us all things? If God delivered Christ to that
cross in your place, in my place, then He's going to give us every
benefit listed in this Word, every benefit you see that's
in Christ. We're going to get it if we're
in Him, because that's what that says. God spared not His own
Son for those He was given. He was delivered up for them,
and they will each freely receive No condition on them, they'll
receive it because they're in Christ, and they'll receive it
based on His work alone. Every benefit and blessing He
earned for them by His life and death. None of them can perish. Not one of them is facing the
eternal wrath of God. Christ delivered them from that
wrath and punishment, and they are blessed forevermore in Christ. These sinners just need one thing. They just need to hear about
this savior who's done this work for them. They need to hear about
him. They need to hear him lifted up in the gospel. This one who
suffered the full wrath of God for them, who endeared the punishment
of their sin, who satisfied the law and justice of God, who's
obtained the pardon of every sinner he was given. And they
will each hear of Him. They will each be brought to
Him. They will each rejoice in Christ alone because Christ's
death was not in vain. He bought them faith. He bought
them eternal life. And they're going to have it.
Every one of them. No exception. In the context of the scriptures
we're considering, Moses asked God to show him His glory. And God showed him the highest
glory he has. He showed him his redemptive
glory. He showed him the person and work of Christ and the mercy
that would be found in him alone. We sinners, we need to be shown
God's redemptive glory, and we are. Under the gospel, God shines
that light into the heart of his people to see the glory of
God in the face of Jesus Christ. That's when we see God's glory
and salvation. That's when we see a just God
and Savior. And that's when we see the sins Christ went to the
cross for, punished and put away. That's when we see the sinners
Christ died for pardoned. delivered from any possibility
of punishment in themselves. That's when we see the sinners
Christ died for, we died when He died. We died the sin's legal
guilt, and we can never be under that guilt again. That's when
we see those sins fully and finally punished in Christ's death. They
can't be punished in us. To think they can is to worship
an unjust God of your imagination. If you think a sinner Christ
died for, a sinner he shed his blood for, a sinner whose sins
he bore on that cross, if you think they can end up under the
eternal wrath of God, you got another God in your mind than
I do, because I don't worship that God. The issue in salvation
is not what sinners do to make themselves savable, as a lot
of preachers preach in this world. It's not what sinners do to earn
their acceptance with God. It's not what sinners do to avoid
God's wrath. The issue in salvation is what
Christ has done to make it right for God to show mercy to an ungodly
sinner like you or me. That's the issue in salvation.
The issue in salvation is how God can punish a sinner with
all the punishment we deserve. See, we deserve the eternal wrath
of God, every one of us. You say, well, you don't know
me. I know you deserve the eternal wrath of God, because if you're
a sinner, all sinners deserve the eternal wrath of God. So
the issue in salvation is how can God show mercy to a sinner
like you or me, who doesn't deserve anything but his eternal rest?
How can he do that? See, until you can answer that
question based on the righteousness Christ worked out at the cross
by his obedience unto death, that righteousness charged to
me, that's how he can show me mercy, and that's the only way
he can show me mercy. No other way. That's the goodness of God. It's the mercy of God. It's the
justice of God working together consistently for the glory of
God and the salvation of ungodly sinners. Punishment and pardon. No sin can be pardoned that has
not been fully punished with all the punishment that sin deserves
in God's justice demand. But the sin that's been punished
in the death of Christ cannot be punished further. That sin
can only be pardoned. God is just to punish the sins
of his people in Christ, and to pardon them based on Christ's
imputed righteousness alone. Now that's the God I worship,
and I pray to God, if you leave here, it'll be the God you worship.