Alright, turn with me this morning
if you would. Alright, well turn with me this
morning if you would. We're going to start off in Romans
chapter 5. We began last week looking at
the subject of satisfaction. Something that the Bible teaches.
We looked at Isaiah 53. We see that the Lord said that
he shall see the travail of his soul and be satisfied. What does
it mean for God to be satisfied? What does it take for God to
be satisfied in the salvation of his people? Does God just,
because we're good people, say, hey, because you're good, I'm
going to let you in? Well, we all know that that's
not true, right? Now, that's the kind of picture
that the world has of how things work. You know, you watch TV
shows or cartoons and things like that, the old jokes and
all that, where whenever somebody dies, they go to the pearly gates
and St. Peter's out there waiting to
let them in. Looking in a book and saying, oh, your good deeds
are more than your bad deeds. Oh, you can come on in, or something
like that. We think that when we get to
heaven that God's gonna look and see that our, oh, he knows
the motives of our heart. I've heard that a lot in my lifetime. Well, God knows my heart. Yeah,
God does know your heart. Apart from Christ Jesus, your
heart is deceitfully wicked above all things. The Bible says that
that is deceitfully wicked above all things, your heart. Our heart
by nature is deceitfully wicked. That means not only is it just
wicked, but it's deceitfully wicked, meaning that it's wicked
and it tries to deceive you that it's not wicked. Right? What is that called? Well, that's called self-righteousness.
Our heart tries to tell us that we're righteous, but it's completely
wicked, but it deceives us thinking that we are righteous, that we
can perform righteousness. Therefore, we think when we get
to heaven, God's gonna say, well, I knew your heart was right. Yeah, God knows our heart all
right. The Bible says that he looked
down upon the face of the earth and he saw that the intent of
man was evil continually. That's all we are in the flesh
is continually evil. So to think that God's gonna
look and be satisfied with anything that we do in this flesh is a
grave mistake for anybody to think that. And it's unbiblical. There is nowhere in the scripture
that teaches that God will be satisfied with anything in us. God is not satisfied. in what
we do. He's not satisfied in our faith
in Christ Jesus. Now does that negate faith? Is that me telling you faith
isn't important or faith isn't real or whatever? No, that's
not saying that. Now that's what people want to
say whenever we preach Christ alone for salvation. When we preach predestination
and election and when we preach Christ and Him doing everything
for us as our substitute, not only our obedience, but our death
and resurrection on the cross. Whenever we preach those things,
people say, well, then we don't just do nothing? We just sit
there on our hands? No, that's not what I'm saying.
I didn't ever say that to begin with. Faith is not important
to us or anything? I didn't say that either. But
faith to get something and faith because of something is two different
things. We have faith in Christ Jesus
and is that essential? It's essential in the fact that
that is the sign or that is showing that one has been saved. But
it is not the condition in which one gets saved. So faith, while
it is important, and while it is necessary in the fact that
for anybody that is going to go to heaven, anybody who is
considered to be the elect of God and quickened of the Holy
Spirit, born from above, and will one day go to be with Christ,
they will exhibit faith, they will have faith in Christ Jesus. faith, they will be given faith.
But that is not to get saved. That is not to be justified.
That is not to be sanctified. That is not to be accepted of
God. There is no thing that we do,
even the works of God in us, repentance and faith and growing
in grace and knowledge, those things are never conditional
to get salvation or for God to deem us just or for God to be
satisfied with us. Those are never conditions. Those
are the fruits of what God has already done on our behalf. What
Christ has already done on our behalf. So for God to be satisfied
has nothing to do with anything that we do in and of ourselves,
but God's satisfaction is solely, completely, totally consumed
only in the work of Jesus Christ. And we looked last week and we've
seen that there are three things that's part of the satisfaction
of God or how God is satisfied so that the salvation of sinners
can actually take place. So the salvation of His people
who are actual sinners, even though He does not impute that
sin to us, we are actual sinners and so there has to be There
has to be some satisfaction for sin. The law has to be satisfied
because God is not gonna bend his law for no one, he says. You know, the soul that sins
will surely die. That is what the law says. And
God is not gonna bend the law even for his own elect. He's
not gonna bend the law. He's not gonna turn a blind eye
and say, okay, well, that's my beloved people, so I'm not gonna
count that against There has to be payment. There has to be
something to satisfy the justice, the law of God. And if that does
not happen, we are just like everybody else. The elect and
the reprobate, there is no difference in us by nature. We are wicked. We are evil. We are unholy. We are unrighteous. The only thing that differs us
from the reprobate is that God, through Christ Jesus, has done
everything to satisfy the law of God on our behalf and has
credited that to us. But He's not credited it to others.
And so for God to be satisfied in the salvation of His people,
for His justice, His holiness, His righteousness, to be satisfied,
that has to come by things that God will accept. See, God won't
accept your work. We know that. For by grace are
you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is
the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. By
grace you are saved, not by works. God's never going to accept your
works. God's never going to accept your trying. God's never going
to accept your anything. He's only going to accept the
things that His justice, that His righteousness, that His holiness
deems fit or equal to what is owed. The wages of sin is death. Death is owed. So there has to
be death. That death has to be in the flesh. So the flesh of man must pay. Jesus was that death. There has to be an obedience,
there has to be an upholding of the law, there has to be righteousness
established. Who did that? Jesus did that
by his obedience. Jesus' obedience, Jesus' death,
both of those were substitutions by God for his people. And that is what God is satisfied
with. God becomes satisfied. God's
holiness, God's righteous judgment is satisfied by what Christ did
for us. Never on what we do. So I just
want to make that clear. So last week we began to see
there are three aspects to satisfaction that we find in God's Word. We
see propitiation, the word propitiation, and we talked about that all
last week. And then we see atonement and
we see reconciliation. And as I mentioned last week,
all three of these words are very closely knit together, almost
completely synonymous. And in some aspects, they are
synonymous. You know, you could probably
take these words and interchange them, and you're not gonna really
lose much meaning, okay? But we see these three words,
and these three words are all things that make up how God is
satisfied, how God's justice is satisfied, and how God can
accept sinners. How we can be with God who is
holy, although we are unholy. And this doctrine of satisfaction
is, like I said, is found in the doctrines of propitiation,
atonement, and reconciliation. We looked at propitiation and
we've seen that Christ is the propitiation for our sins. And
we've seen that that word propitiation, I know that's a big word, people
don't hear that much, and especially in modern churches today, you
don't hear doctrinal words like that, theological words. Now,
the word propitiation, that's not a theological word, that's
a biblical word, it's found in God's word. But yet, there's
a lot of churches, and I've actually heard this said, especially back
whenever I was an Arminian in a Southern Baptist church, and
I was a youth minister at youth camps and in youth evangelism
conferences and things like that, I would hear these things that,
you know, we don't have to worry about these theological words,
let's try to make these as simple as possible because, you know,
leave the theological things to the theologians out in their
seminaries and things like that. Brethren, propitiation is not
a theological seminary word. It's God's word. He put it in
His word. And so we should learn what that
means. We should see what God says about that. And the Bible
says that Jesus is the propitiation for our sins. And we've seen
last week that that word propitiation, it means a satisfaction for God's wrath. God's wrath was
satisfied in Christ's work and His blood that it's a turning
away of God's wrath. God's wrath, His law demands
condemnation. His law demands payment for sin,
which is death. The wrath of God upon us, but
yet Christ and what He did through His blood, through His life,
blood, resurrection, I hope we all understand through His work
meaning his whole work, his obedience and his death, that what Christ
did in that, that was the satisfaction for God's wrath. Therefore, God's
wrath does not fall upon us. What's the opposite of that?
Mercy. Instead of wrath, we receive
mercy. And we saw last week that the
word propitiation actually is translated, especially in the
Old Testament, as mercy. the mercy seat, specifically. And we talked about the mercy
seat. And if you remember, the mercy seat was that solid bar
of gold that covered the Ark of the Covenant and inside was
God's broken law. But on top of that is where the
glory of God met, but in between that mercy seat, on top of the
mercy seat, was where the blood of sprinkling was put, whenever
the atonement lamb was killed. The blood was sprinkled on top
of that gold bar that sat upon that thing and God's glory then
would come down and meet with the broken law but only if that
mercy seat was in between with blood on it. That's the only
time. And so we see that that type,
that foreshadow of the Ark of the Covenant showed us that the
only way that God, His wrath will not fall upon us is when
there is blood upon the mercy seat. If the blood has been sprinkled,
God's wrath is appeased. God's wrath is satisfied. God's wrath is now turned away
from us and it is placed upon Christ. And so that is a wonderful
picture. And we also noted that There
is only one way that God will work with that and that is if
that mediator is in between, right? We've seen that Christ
is our propitiation. Christ is our mercy seed. That
bar of gold represented or was the type of Jesus Christ as our
mediator, as our intercessor, as our go-between. He is the
one that lays upon the ark and he is the go-between between
that which is broken the law and that which is holy. The only
way that God can be satisfied with that which has broken His
law is for there to be a mediator in between with sprinkling of
blood. The Bible says without the shedding of blood, there
is no remission or removal of sin. The broken law, that's us,
that's the sin. But the mercy seat covers us. The mercy seat covers the broken
law ones. Those who have broken the law
of God, the mercy seat covers that. And so Christ is our propitiation. Christ is our mercy. We receive
mercy from God in Christ Jesus because He covers those who have
broken the law. And the sprinkling of that blood
is the appeasement that God requires for no wrath, for no sin, for
no bad doing. God looks at that. He says, you
know, the blood of bulls and goats, I'm not interested in,
but in Christ's blood, that's what God was interested in. So
that was a picture. That was a type. Those sacrifices
in the Old Testament, they did not take away sin. They did not
do the job. They was just a type of covering
pointing to the thing that would actually be the fulfillment of
what God and the grounds for which God justifies His people. And so we see that last week
propitiation showed us that God's satisfaction comes whenever His
wrath is turned to mercy and that is only found in the man
Jesus Christ who covered our sins, who covered our breaking
of the law by His perfect obedience and His shed blood. And so we've
seen that in the propitiation. Now today, as I mentioned just
a few minutes ago, whenever Christ says that bar of gold on the
atonement, or on the Ark of the Covenant, was a covering for
that broken law. Well, the next word that we see
is atonement. And that word atonement actually
means to cover. There's a couple of things, and
again, like I said, all these words are very synonymous. They
mean the same things, and they're interchangeable. But we see that
propitiation specifically deals with God's wrath being averted
and turned to mercy. See, we've been given mercy instead
of wrath, and that's because Christ Jesus. But we see that
the atonement, the word atonement, it means to cover. There's a
covering. Another thing that the word atonement
means is to be made at one with, at onement, we can probably say,
or at one with. Okay, we've been made at one
with, which will lead us to the third word, which is reconciliation,
and you kind of see how all these things tie together. But let's
look at the word atonement here. The word atonement is used a
lot in the Old Testament And it usually has to do with the
typical sacrifices that I was telling you about, all the types
and foreshadows. And the word means a covering. So in that Old Testament system,
whenever that land was slain, whenever those offerings were
made, whenever those sacrifices were brought and things were
brought to the priest and they were offered up for sins, and
there was a bunch of different things that had to be done, I
won't get into all the details of all that, but you know, the
priest had certain jobs that they had to do. You had certain
things that you had to bring for certain sins. I mean, it
was a whole system that you had to keep up with. But all of that
was typical, meaning typified. It signified, it was a foreshadowing
or was a symbol of what Christ was, what Christ would be doing. And so it was not a fulfillment
of, it was not a satisfaction of, it was not a actual doing, but it
was a covering. Those things were a covering
for sin, but it wasn't the removal of sin. It wasn't what actually
paid the payment for sin. Okay? So the word atonement means
to cover. So it was used a lot in the Old
Testament. We see several different typifications
of covering in the Old Testament. And I kind of wrote down a few
and everything. Remember whenever Noah built
the ark? And God gave him specific instructions on how to build
that ark. And he said, build it this way.
And Noah was faithful and built it that way. Well, one of the
things God said to do was to put on the outside of that ark
was to put pitch on the outside, kind of like this tarry substance
on the outside. That was a picture, the ark itself
was a picture, and the pitch on the outside was a picture
of the covering of Christ's blood on the mercy seat. See, if you
remember that God built the ark, and then God chose eight people
out of all the whole entire world. He found grace in the eyes of
Noah. Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. And the Lord said, take you and your wife, your
three sons and their wives, and they went in the ark. And the
Bible said that God shut the door. Noah didn't. Movies where they're pulling
ropes or pulling up the door and sealing the door, locking
the door up. The Bible said they went in and
God shut the door. We see in the movies that Noah's
out there rounding up all the animals. No, God brought all
the animals in. God called them and they all
began to come. God shut the door whenever they
all got in. See, it was all done because
the picture needs to represent what the actual fulfillment is
all about. See, that's why we talk so much
about the importance of baptism and the importance of the Lord's
Supper, that the symbol must represent fully what the actual
thing is, okay? That's why God was so specific
in how we are to baptize, who we are to baptize, who is to
take the Lord's Supper, and what elements are in the Lord's Supper,
because those things, just like in the Old Testament, God was
strict about how those types were to be done, because they
represented something. They had to be a correct representation
of the actual thing. And so we baptize the way God
has commanded us to baptize, because it represents the real
thing. We take the Lord's Supper the
way God has commanded us to take the Lord's Supper because it
represents the real thing. We can't substitute things in
and out just like in the Old Testament. The priest couldn't
walk in on the Day of Atonement in his shorts and tank top and
go to cutting up lambs with whatever he wanted to cut them up with.
No, God said there had to be a specific way to dress. You
had to cleanse yourself. You had to go in on a certain
day. You had to do it a certain way. Boom! If you don't do it
this way, guess what? You died. Whenever they carried
that ark, the ark was made a specific way and it was to be carried
with specific wood staves. Specific men were to carry those
things of a specific age group. If they didn't carry that at
the correct rate, guess what? They died. You weren't supposed
to touch the Ark of the Covenant. And one man, the thing was about
to fall over into the mud, he stuck his hand up there to keep
it from falling into the mud. Guess what? God didn't accept
it. He died. The guy was just trying to hold
it up, but God said no. Why? Because it's typified. There
is a typification there. There is something that is being
typified, and it has to coincide with the real thing. And if that
real thing, or excuse me, the type, isn't signifying what it's supposed
to signify, then we have a wrong concept of the real thing. See, if salvation is typified
in a different way in the Old Testament, then we might have
a wrong miscommunication about salvation. Same thing with our
ordinances in the Lord's Supper and Baptism. We can convey the
wrong thoughts, the wrong understanding of salvation when we substitute
and do it a different way. Not to mention the fact that
God said, do it this way. Whenever He told us to baptize,
He told us to baptize by immersing people in water and believers. If those believers had to believe
the gospel, they were to be submersed in water. We see that the Lord's
Supper is to be done within the confines of the church. And it
is to be by believers who have been baptized. If you're not a believer in the
gospel and you've not been baptized, you can't be a member of the
church. You're only a member of the local church whenever
you have been baptized upon believing the Lord Jesus Christ, upon the
belief of the gospel. So, you only can come to the
Lord's table whenever you have been baptized, which shows that
you have been united in Christ and His death, burial and resurrection
and His perfect obedience. You come to the table and you
dine, but whenever you dine, you dine on what? The gospel.
We commune in the gospel. Well, what did Jesus put down
as the symbols of the gospel? Wine, not grape juice, wine,
and unleavened bread, because it represented his perfect humanity,
his perfect body that was broken and shed for us, and his blood,
his pure blood, not tainted blood, not human, earthly blood, but
blood that God would accept. That's why we do that. Well,
brother, the same thing we see here. Whenever we see the ark,
it's typified. God said to put the pitch on
the outside. God put the people in, closed
the door himself. Why? Because that's a picture
of us being in Christ Jesus and Christ being our covering. He
covered us. We were at one with God No wrath
was brought. Whenever God poured out His wrath
upon mankind by the flood, He killed every living thing that
was out there except what was inside the ark. The ark was,
what was in the ark was the only living things that got saved.
And the only people that was in the ark were God's people
that He chose out of all the rest of the people, and He put
them into the ark, and He closed up the ark and sealed it. But
he had Noah pinch the outside of that because that typified
the blood being put upon the altar, being put upon the mercy
seat, which the mercy seat itself was Jesus Christ typified. So
it was a picture of Christ shed blood. It was a picture of being
in Christ and therefore the blood of Christ being placed upon us,
us between God. We were in Christ. Christ was
the shield from God's wrath. The ark was the shield from God's
wrath upon mankind, and the pinch was what sealed us in. It didn't
leak. It didn't sink. Because why? Because the pinch was on the
outside. We are not lost. We are not all of a sudden God
changes His mindset. You know what? You've done too
much bad now. I'm going to have to take that away. No. Why? We
are sealed because of His blood. The blood of the atonement or
the blood of the covering has covered us. And so the atonement
is a covering. We also see that in whenever
they painted the doorpost in Egypt, God said to put the blood,
take the lamb and slay the lamb and to put it on both sides of
the door and over the top. And that was a covering. And
whenever God sent the angel of death in to kill
all the firstborn of Egypt, anybody that had that blood on their
doorpost, the death angel would just go past, would go over,
would pass over. That's why they called it the
Passover. He would pass over them. Why? Because they were
covered by the blood. Wrath would not come upon them
because they were covered by the blood. God was satisfied
with the blood, therefore His wrath didn't fall upon those
who were covered by the blood. Now there are other types and
stuff that we can find in the scriptures to show that, but
we'll go ahead for time's sake and move on. But we see that
God's law exposes our sins. God's law shows that we have
broken His law, but yet in the atonement, in the shedding of
blood, there is a turning of God's wrath and a giving of mercy,
that's propitiation, but then there is a covering that we receive
by His blood. His blood covers our sins. What can wash away my sins? Nothing
but the blood of Jesus. See, we have been covered in
the blood and that covering is what God looks at. God sees that covering for sin. God sees that covering and His
wrath does not fall upon us. It's only used one time in the
New Testament, and it's right here where we're at in Romans
chapter 5. It's kind of weird that the word atonement isn't
used much in the New Testament. We use that word a lot, but yet
it's only found one time in the New Testament. Guys that may be smarter than
me may be able to give you a reason for all that stuff, but I just
know that there's only one place and it's found right here. So
read with me here at Romans chapter 5 and verse 11. It says, And not only so, but we also
joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received
the atonement. Now, first thing I want to point
out here is this phrase, we have now received the atonement. A
lot of people want to stress that now. We have now received. So the workings of Christ, there's
a lot of people, especially among the Reformed faith that says,
well, all the things that Christ did are not ever applied to us
except for in time whenever we first believe. Whenever we believe,
then all of that is applied to us by God. Until then, God holds
it in reserve, and we're not declared just, we are not sanctified, all that wrath of God is still
upon us, but as soon as we believe, then the wrath of God is removed,
then we are now justified and sanctified, or our sanctification
begins, they would say. But yet, that's not what this
is meaning. We have now received the atonement. It does not mean
that the work of the atonement is now laid to our account. It was laid to our account already
before the foundation of the world because Christ stood as
that Lamb slain and God already had declared us because known
unto God are all His works, the end, from the beginning. God
doesn't have to wait for the consummation of the thing. to
declare it to be so, because God declares those things that
are not as though they were, the Bible says. So God has already
declared us just because of the covenant of Christ, who cannot
lie, who covenanted to, I will go and take them and I will go
with them, and if I do not come back with them, then it will
be to my blame. Remember, we talked about that
type in the Old Testament. Christ has promised, therefore
God does not have to wait for what is consummated. Although,
I will say this, it is very important for us to understand that because
there are some people who believe in eternal things who says, you
know, that what Jesus did on the cross, well, I won't say
that because I've never heard anybody actually say that, but
if anybody thinks that we, here at least, or I, through what
I preach, dismiss the importance of the cross, then they've mistaken
what I've said or what I've preached. Because the importance of the
cross is important. Christ had to come and do that.
He covenanted to do that. And everything in God's eternal
salvation for us is grounded upon the work of Christ, Him
coming and dying on that cross. Him living and obeying the law,
Him dying on the cross and Him raising from the grave, that
was integral to our salvation. That was the basis, the grounds
for our salvation. So it's not, we don't ever say,
well that's not important because we believe in eternal justification.
We believe in eternal justification in the fact that we say God is
not waiting until that specific point in time to say that all
the Old Testament saints are justified, or all the New Testament
saints are justified, or whoever is justified, that God has already
justified them in Christ Jesus because of Him and what He had
covenanted to do. The Bible says that all the promises
of God are yea and amen in Christ Jesus. If Christ has covenanted
to be that for His people and to go and be the sacrifice and
the substitute for His people in the consummation of time,
in the appointed hour, at the appointed time of God, then that's
as good as it being done. God doesn't have to wait and
look to see if Christ does that or will accomplish that, to know
that it's finished. Now Christ said that for our
part, it is finished. Why? Because He has done everything
at the ground and the basis for all of the eternal justification,
all of the eternal sanctification, all the eternal work of God that
God had declared from the from the beginning, what He declared
would happen clear to the end, He declared it so even though
it was not yet. It had not yet happened, but
yet He declared it so. And if God declared it to be
so, then it is so. If God declared that there would
be no sin imparted to His elect, imputed to His elect, I mean,
not imparted, imputed to His elect, There is no sin imputed
to God's elect. Well, when did God declare that?
He didn't declare it in time. He declared it before He created
all things. If God declared no sin to be imputed to His elect,
then God viewed them as justified in Christ Jesus, but only because
Christ was their propitiation, Christ was their atonement, Christ
was their reconciliation, Christ was their substitute. It's only
based upon what Christ did on the cross, and even though it
may be in the future, as we talk about time, when God declared
it, it was still in the future, so to speak. For God, who is
eternal, it was not. It didn't matter, because God
is eternal. For us, it was, for us, today
in 2023, it was past tense. For the Old Testament saints,
it was future tense. But were they any less justified
than us? No. They were justified by the
blood of Jesus Christ. Were they imputed with sin? No, they were not imputed with
sin. They were imputed with righteousness. How were they imputed with righteousness
if Jesus had not been their covering? If Jesus had not been their propitiation? If Jesus had not yet been their
reconciliation? How could they have been justified? Well, because God had declared
them to be such, because of the promise of Jesus Christ, because
what Jesus Christ would do, even though He had not yet done it,
He declared it to be so. Now, you can disagree with me
all you want, but you can't disagree with God. He said that He has
declared the things that have not yet happened as though they
were. Known unto God are all His works, the end from the beginning,
God knows all of His works. Those things that have not yet
been done. Well, what do you mean? Well, God has a purpose. God
has declared, predestined everything. And in time they may not have
yet happened, but God has already declared them to be so, therefore
they are so. I didn't mean to get off on all
that, but I just needed to let us know that whenever it says
that we have now received the atonement, it's not talking about,
that's the point when God applies that to us, that's the point
in which we become aware of it. And not only so, but we also
joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom we have now received
the atonement. What does that mean? It means
by the Holy Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit has now given
us knowledge That we have been made at peace with God. That
God's wrath has been appeased. That we have been propitiated.
We have been given mercy. See, until God quickens us and
to give us that understanding, we don't have that knowledge.
And until we hear that gospel preached to us, if we have been
quickened of God, we become knowledgeable of our sinfulness. We become
knowledgeable of how we have transgressed God's law and how
we cannot live up to God's law and that we are not holy. And
when we're left in that state of not knowing that we have appeasement,
that we have atonement, that we have reconciliation to God,
when we think we have been enemies against God and God's mad at
us and God's wrath demands this and here we are, what happens?
We become despairing. We become upset. We become overwhelmed. We become sorrowful. We become
convicted of what we have done against God. But the Gospel comes
in and tells us that Christ has appeased that wrath. He has propitiated. He has changed God's wrath to
mercy. That He has covered your sins. And that He is no longer
mad at you. Of course, He wasn't ever mad
at us. But His holiness, that law was condemning us because
we are sinners. But now that law is satisfied. And so since that law is satisfied,
there is nothing barring us from coming to God. There's nothing barring us from
fellowship with God. There's nothing barring us from
spending eternity with God. Christ has removed that law.
Well, that's what the gospel does. The gospel is good news
that Christ has done that on your behalf. That's what it means
to now receive the atonement. We now receive the fact that
we have been covered. We now receive the message that
there is peace with God. We have peace with God. So we have the knowledge, the
blessing, the benefit of it. That comes when the Spirit of
God takes what the blood of Christ has done on our behalf and makes
it known to us that He did this for you. So now that we can,
by the Spirit's working in us, never by what we do on the outside,
never by any condition, never by any works of righteousness
that we think we are doing, but only by the internal work of
the Holy Spirit, that faith that has been given to us gives us
a full assurance of faith. that this is done for us, that
there is peace. We can boldly come to the throne
of God. We can pray to God. We can come to Him. We can thank
Him. We can praise Him. We can worship
Him. Paul said, I know, I know that He will complete everything that
He said He would do in me. He said that I know That this
is mine. I know Whom I have believed and
am persuaded that he is able to keep that which is committed
on him against that day Whenever we receive the atonement
whenever the Spirit gives us that knowledge and that peace
and that joy and that That acknowledgement that it's ours. Brethren, that is where the assurance
comes. The effect of this is joy and
peace and comfort. Now the word translated atonement
in the King James Version can be translated and is translated
reconciliation in different passages. It's translated that way actually
many times. The word for atonement Especially
like Leviticus 6.30. Go ahead and turn over there
and let's look at that. Leviticus 6.30. It says, a no-sin offering whereof
any of the blood is brought into the tabernacle of the congregation
to reconcile, there's that word reconcile, with all and the holy
place shall be eaten and shall be burned in the fire. So there's
the word reconcile. That word reconcile there means
atonement, translated reconciliation. Atonement and reconciliation
for sin is, like I said, pretty close to the same thing. Both of them imply that God has
been satisfied or that God has accepted something for our sin. Believers are, whenever we receive
the atonement in our mind, we are made knowledgeable of the
fact that we have been made one with God by his blood. So, let's talk about reconciliation
then because, like I said, it's closely knit. The Greek word
for reconciliation actually means a changing or an altering of
a judicial status. Now, what would that be? Well,
the judicial status would be condemnation Justification. When Christ dies for us, there
is a change in the judicial status of God's elect people. Christ's
blood causes a change in the judicial status. Where the law
says they are condemned because they have broken the law, Christ's
blood says they are justified because I have paid the price.
So therefore, there is a change in the judicial status of the
child of grace. While we are sinners by nature,
by judicial order, we are justified before God. We are righteous. Sinners by nature, righteous
by judicial imputation. Christ's righteousness is imputed
to our account although we in actuality should be condemned
because we are sinners. We are not righteous. There is
an imputation of righteousness given to us. The Bible said,
blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputed not sin. When was we blessed? We is blessed
with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ
Jesus, before the world began, Ephesians chapter 1. The blessing of imputation was
before the world began. The grounds on which we were
imputed that righteousness was when Christ died on the cross. That was the grounds for our
imputation that God declared before the foundation of the
world. Before the foundation of the world, we were deemed
to be righteous. However, in time, we are unrighteous. And we will not be rid of this
unrighteousness until the very end of this age, whenever we
are, in our spirit, united with the new body that God has prepared
for us. It's not yet happened, but are
we justified? Absolutely we are. Are we sanctified? Absolutely we are. We are justified
and sanctified in Christ Jesus, and that's still future. As far
as our body is concerned, we're still unrighteous, but God has
deemed us righteous. Why? Not because of anything
that we've done, not because of anything that we're going
to be, although we will be without sin at some point in the future. We're not there yet. So God can
declare something to be such before they even are such, or
when they are such. Even though we were enemies of
God, we were reconciled to Christ Jesus. We were enemies in our
mind towards God, but God was not an enemy against us. Why? Because we were imputed righteousness
before the foundation of the world. God had set his love upon
us before the foundation, of the world. We were loved with
an everlasting love. Before the foundation of the
world, God had already deemed us in Christ Jesus, therefore
His righteousness was applied to our account. God only viewed
us in Christ Jesus and He loved us with that everlasting love.
And He declared before the foundation of the world that we would not
be appointed unto wrath. Now is it Is it being two-faced? Is it being double-minded to
say that God declared that to be such, but yet it had not happened
yet? No. It's not being double-minded. It's not being double-minded
to say that. Why? Because God had declared it,
yet it has not taken place. But all of that was based upon
the foundation of Christ's promise. The promise was there. Whenever
Abraham took Isaac up onto the mountain and God said, I want
you to take your son up onto the mountain and I want you to,
I want you to slay him. I want you to offer him up as
a sacrifice. Abraham knew going up, God said
sacrifice, knew what was going to happen. Did God already know
before Abraham got up there that Abraham was going to go ahead
and go through with that? He knew that. Did God already
know that He was going to stop Abraham from stabbing Isaac and
provide a ram that was in the thicket? He already knew that. Did God know before Abraham even
went up on that mountain that that ram was going to be sent
wandering off somewhere and get caught in that bush right at
the place where Abraham could find it and use that as the sacrifice? Did he already know that he had
a substitute in place for that child? Yes, he did. But did he
tell him to go up there anyway? Yes, he did. Did Abraham go up
there? Yes, he did. Was Abraham going
to kill the son? Yes, he did. He reared back to
kill the son, was just about to plunge the knife into him
when God said, whoa, stop. There's a ram. There's a substitute. See, God knew in advance all
those things. God knows in advance all the
things that are going to happen, but yet He still lets all those
things come to be, even though He has declared it from the very
beginning. He declared that Isaac would not die, but someone would
die in his place, or something would die in his place, in that
case, a ram. God knew before the foundation
of the world that every one of us were going to be sinners,
before he even made Adam, knew that Adam would be the one to
cause sin and death to come into the world. Why? Because he made
him of the earth earthy. He made him unable to keep the
law of God. He made him that way. God knew all that to begin with.
But God still had declared before the foundation of the world that
all his people were going to be righteous and not be imputed
with Adam's sins. God knew before the foundation
of the world that Jesus Christ was going to come and be the
sacrifice for their sin. Therefore, God did not have to
wait until Jesus came and died on that cross to be able to declare
the things so that were not yet. Just like the same thing with
the ram. He didn't have to wait until that ram was there to declare
anything. He already knew. He's the one
who sent the ram. He's the one who sent the son
up there to be Offered up. He knew all those things. The word reconciliation means
an altering of judicial status. Our status has been altered from
condemned to justified. The word atonement, as I mentioned
a while ago, means at-one-ment. It's the removal of that bar
of peace between us and God. When someone is reconciled, that
means whatever it was that was dividing the peace between us
has been removed. Me and Zach, Zach gets mad at
me, or Zach's done something that's made me mad. Now there's
a broken relationship there. I'm mad at him. He's mad at me. Well, if whatever it is that
was causing us to be mad at each other is taken away, then the
door is open or reconciliation can now ensue. Why? Because that
which was causing unreconciliation, that which was causing a division,
that which was causing the separation has been removed. There is nothing
now separating that, separating us. And so now there can be reconciliation. Well, Christ dying took away
the bar of separation. Christ dying took away the broken
law and made us just as He is. See, the thing that is separating
the glory of God and the fellowship of God is that solid bar representing
the perfection of Christ. The righteousness of Christ.
The broken law is what's underneath. That's us. But whenever Christ,
through His blood, whenever His blood is sprinkled upon the mercy
seat and there is propitiation, there is a turning away of wrath.
Whenever there is atonement, there is a covering of sin. And
there is an imputation of righteousness. There is reconciliation. There
is a change in that order. Now that which is broken under
the law is now the same as that which is a solid bar of gold
and perfect. Now God can fellowship. There
is a reconciliation there. There is not something separating
us and God. The Bible said, whenever Jesus
died, that the veil of the temple was rent in two, from the top
to the bottom. This was a big, thick, like curtain,
tapestry thing that separated the Holy of Holies from the outer
courts and out at Temple Park. That's the place that only the
high priest could go. One time a year for offering
him the thing. He had to go in, cleansed, wearing
the right stuff, doing everything exactly right, or he died. I've
told you that before. You know, they'd tie a rope around
their feet, because if they went in there and did something wrong
and died, nobody could go in there or they would die, so they
would have to pull them out with a rope. Whenever Jesus died and whenever
he said, it is finished, boom. That big old heavy tapestry,
God split in two and it just ripped apart exposing the holy
of holies. Which to the Jews, that was a
big no-no. They thought, oh no, we're gonna
die. But what it was was symbolizing that there is now, because of
Christ's death, there is now no more separation between that
which is holy and that which is unholy. God's people who is
unholy, there is now nothing separating us from that which
is holy. We have been reconciled to God. We have been brought back to
God. Are we unholy? Yes, we are. That didn't change. That never
does change. Sanctification doesn't make us
holier. Sanctification means we have
been set apart to be considered holy, to be considered righteous,
to be a servant for God. That's what sanctification means. It doesn't mean becoming more
holy. We've been justified, we've been
sanctified in Christ Jesus. But whenever that veil was torn
in two, there's no separation, so now we can be reconciled to
God. There's nothing keeping us from
fellowship with God. Why? Because Christ is our propitiation,
Christ has made atonement for us. Christ has reconciled us
to God. Look with me, if you would, to
2 Corinthians 5, verse 18. I'll probably go over just a little
bit today. 2 Corinthians 5, verse 18. It says, And all things are of
God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and
hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation. Now, at one
time, whenever I was an Arminian, and I believe that our preaching
got people saved. Whenever I believe that people,
whenever they accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, or
they made a decision, to be saved, or they give their heart to Jesus,
or they made Jesus the Lord of their life, or invited Jesus
into their heart. You know, all those terms that
we used to use, or I used to use, I should say. All those
terms that we used to use, we believed that whenever we did
that, we were reconciling people to God. The ministry of reconciliation
is, Jesus has died on the cross and now He's given us the ministry
of reconciliation, meaning that we are now called to go out and
to preach to everybody the gospel and to get them to reconcile
to God. Well, that's not what this is
saying. What I was preaching was completely
opposite of what this is saying. We do have the ministry of reconciliation,
but we are not reconciling anybody. We don't reconcile people to
God. If you look closely at the passage again, all things are
of God. Who hath reconciled us? Who reconciled us to God? God reconciled us to God. How
did God reconcile us to God? By Jesus Christ. God hath reconciled us to Himself
by or through or in the person of Jesus Christ. It was God who
was in Christ reconciling His people to Himself. God did the
reconciling. How did He do it? Through the
person of Jesus Christ. Why did Christ come? Why did
God inhabit a body and come in the flesh? Because He came as our substitute.
He came to reconcile us to Himself. See, Jesus is God manifested
in the flesh. All the Godhead, the Father,
the Word, the Holy Ghost are in Christ Jesus and He reconciled
His people to Himself through the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the person of God. God
is spirit. He's invisible. He's a spirit. And Christ is
the one in whom God inhabited all the Godhead, the threefold
character of God, indwelt Christ Jesus and came and reconciled
his people to himself, but he did it through the man, Jesus
Christ, through the body of Jesus Christ, through the flesh, Jesus
Christ. Why? Because sin had to be condemned
in the flesh. It couldn't be condemned any
other way. It had to be condemned in the flesh. And so God came
in flesh himself. All the fullness of the Godhead
came in the flesh. And that flesh is the one who
did the reconciling. But it was God who was doing
the reconciling in that flesh so that His people could be reconciled
back to Him. And all things are of God who
hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ and hath given
to us the ministry of reconciliation. What does that mean? Well, let's
keep reading. To wit, that God was in Christ
There it was. God was in Christ. If you don't
believe that God was in Christ. Now some people believe part
of God was in Christ. Only a third of God was in Christ. That just the Word was in Christ. They want to split God up into
three individual beings. Three individual persons. But
the Bible says that God is one. I don't know how all that works. I'll be honest with you, I don't
know how it all works. All I know is the Bible says that God is
one, and that he has manifested himself, that whole Godhead,
Father, Word, Holy Spirit, in Christ Jesus, and all I know
is that every one of those three attributes, Father, Word, Holy
Ghost, all three of those characters are all laid to the person of
Jesus Christ. Jesus is the everlasting Father,
Jesus is the Word, and Jesus is the Spirit of God who comes
as the Comforter. So, I don't know how it all works.
I can't say that there are three individual distinct persons,
but there is a Trinity of character there. There is a Trinity of
working, of redemption there, of the Father electing the Word
coming, or the Son coming. and redeeming and the Holy Spirit,
giving life and bringing knowledge. All that's a working, but it's
the working of only one God. It's the working of one invisible
God who has manifested himself as three and has all been put
in one man, Jesus Christ, who is God. Now, don't filter that
out in your theological debates and call me whatever you want
to call me, but that's all I can see in the scripture. And I just
want to say what the Scripture says. I don't want to make it
any more than what the Scripture says, but I surely don't want
to make it any less than what the Scripture says. But it says,
God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing
their trespasses unto them. Here again, we have three passages
in Scripture, or actually there's more than that, but three, four
if you want to count the parallel passages in the Old Testament
that is quoted in the New Testament. You've got four passages that
distinctly say that God does not impute or trespass unto men. And hath committed unto us the
word of reconciliation. So, back in verse 18 it says,
He has given us the ministry of reconciliation. Does that
mean we are reconciling people? No, what does that mean? We are
spreading the Word, the message, the good news of reconciliation. What am I doing here today? I
am sharing with you that if you're a child of grace, if you're the
elect of God, if Christ has died for you, that you have been reconciled
to God. There is no separation. There
is nothing keeping you. Your sins have been forgiven.
You have been justified. There is no condemnation on you,
the law is not condemning you anymore. There is no condemnation
for those who are in Christ Jesus. There is reconciliation that
you have full access to come to God. That's the ministry of reconciliation.
The ministry of preaching the reconciliation work of Christ
Jesus on your behalf. That's why he says there now
he's committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Verse 20, now then we are ambassadors
for Christ. As though God did beseech you
by us, we pray you in Christ's name be ye reconciled to God.
Is that meaning that we're reconciling people to God? No, because we've
got to take that, be ye reconciled to God, we've got to take that
in light of what was already said. What was already said,
that we were reconciled by God in Christ Jesus. That's where
the reconciliation comes. We are just preaching the message. We now receive the atonement
by the Holy Spirit, teaching us that that was for us and that
it is applied to us by Christ's blood. It's not being applied
to us in time. It was being applied by Christ's
blood. And so whenever we say, Be ye
reconciled to God, We're saying, consider in your mind that you
have been reconciled. Reckon yourself reconciled. Look at yourself as reconciled.
Don't look at yourself as off anymore. Away. under condemnation. Believe the gospel that tells
you that Christ took your place and that reconciliation is yours,
that you've been reconciled. There is no bar between you and
God. There is no dividing of peace. There is peace now with you and
God. There is openness between you and God. You can come before
God, boldly before the throne of grace. As a matter of fact,
the Bible says that He has made us priests unto God. We, like
that high priest, can go into the Holy of Holies, where the
throne room of God is, and the holiness of God is filling the
room, as Isaiah saw in Isaiah 6, when it said that, I saw the
Lord high and lifted up, and He's trying the glory of God.
filled the whole entire temple. And whenever I saw it, I fell
down on my face and I said, woe is me for I'm a man with unclean
lips. I'm undone. But what does the gospel say?
You can boldly come because now you are not undone. You are not
a man of unclean lips. You have been reconciled to God.
Christ has taken your sins and He has forgiven your sins and
He has imputed His righteousness to you. When you come bowling
for the throne of God, you come and stand in the righteousness
of God. For He has made Him to be sin
for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. That's reconciliation. He has reconciled us to God. Look at Ephesians 2, verse 16.
Well, as a matter of fact, we've already read Romans 5, 10. Ephesians
2. Now, Paul is describing in here in
the book of Ephesians how Jews and Gentiles were separated.
The Jews were the ones who was given all the things of God.
They knew about God. They'd be given all the types,
the foreshadows, the sacrifices, all that stuff. They were the
first ones to know about this. The Gentiles, God never did go
to them and give them the gospel. Only a few parts throughout the
Old Testament, but God never went to the Gentiles with the
gospel. So the Jews was the first ones that God did this with.
But with the coming of Christ Jesus, the New Testament age
began in the fact that now the gospel is going to all the world,
not just the Jewish world, but to all the world. And so Paul
is writing that there is no separation as far as God is concerned between
Jew and Gentile. They are all one in Christ Jesus. At one time there was a separation.
There was Jews and there was Gentiles, and the Gentiles were
known as dogs. They were the dogs on the outside.
The Jews were the only ones who were the people of God, and everyone
else were dogs outside. But now Paul is saying, listen,
God has an elect in every nation, tribe, and tongue. That in every
city there is the elect of God, and that those people are now
being brought together to form one people. One Israel, not a
national Israel, but a spiritual Israel. And so in this, he says,
starting in verse 30, he says, wherefore, remember that ye began
in times past Gentiles in the flesh who are called uncircumcised
by that which is called the circumcised, so the Jews and the Gentiles,
in the flesh made by hands, that at the time you were without
Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers
from the covenant of promise, having no hope and without God
in the world. But now, In Christ Jesus, ye
who sometimes were far off are made nigh or reconciled by the
blood of Christ. You were far off, God has brought
you close in. The Jews, they were close in.
Why? Because God had been their God.
Again, we're using types and foreshadows to teach us of spiritual
things. The national, physical thing
that we saw with Israel being God's people, because not all
of the people of Israel were God's true people, His elect,
okay? Even though they were national
Israel, they were not spiritual Israel. And the Gentiles, this
showed this thing. There were the people that had
been brought nigh, there were people that were still far off.
God had brought them in, okay? He says, for He is our peace
who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle
wall of partition between us, having abolished in His flesh
the enmity." There it is, the enmity. What caused the separation? What caused the separation Jesus
destroyed through His flesh? Jesus brought down that wall
of partition. Jesus brought down whatever it
was that was separating us between God and us Jesus brought that
down in His flesh. Even the law of commandments
contained in the ordinances. See, that's what was our problem. The commandments was there and
we couldn't keep them. We were the broken commandments
in the ark. We are the ones who have transgressed
God, sinned against God. We are the ones who are unholy,
unrighteous, and God is holy. And without holiness, no man
will see God. So how can we be reconciled to
a holy God? Christ had to come in the flesh
to make in himself a twain one new man so making peace that
he might reconcile both unto God in one body on the cross
having slain the enmity thereby and came and preached peace to
you which were far off and to them that were nigh. For through
him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. Now therefore
ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens
in the saints and of the household of God." So see there, brethren,
we have access by one Spirit to God, and it is because Christ
has caused that reconciliation through his death. The blood
of Christ that was shared and made reconciliation. We see it
also in the Old Testament. Turn if you would, and I'm going
to try to hurry here. Turn to Daniel chapter 9. There will probably be some again that
will disagree with my interpretation here and think this is something
that happens in the future. Daniel chapter 9, look with me
at verse 24. Daniel chapter 9 verse 24 says,
70 weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy
city to finish the transgression and to make an end of sins and
to make reckoning, here it is, to make an end of sins. Whenever
Christ came and died, he put an end to sins. Okay. He filled up or finished the
transgression. and made an end of sins, and
to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness,
and to seal up the vision and the prophecy, and to anoint the
most holy." Jesus, by His death, made reconciliation for iniquity. Look at Hebrews chapter 2. Hebrews chapter 2. And verse 17. It says, Wherefore, in all things,
it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might
be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to
God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. for in
that He Himself has suffered, being tempted He is able to succor
them that are tempted." So Christ came and one of the reasons that
He took on flesh, why God became flesh, was so that He might reconcile
His people. We've already seen that in the
previous verses that we have looked at. In Ephesians chapter 2, if
you would, Ephesians chapter 2, starting
in verse 1. It says, And you hath he quickened
who were dead in trespasses and sin, where in times past ye walked
according to the course of this world, according to the prince
of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in children,
of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation in
times past in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires
of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children
of wrath." Now, let me just pause here, and I've mentioned this
to you guys in times past before on several occasions. A lot of
people take that phrase, especially of the Reformed faith, for some
reason they view it this way. I don't know why. The plain reading
of Scripture says different. It says that who were by nature
the children of wrath. It does not say that we were
children under wrath. We've never been under the wrath
of God. Although God's law demanded wrath
on sinners, we were not imputed with sin. Therefore, we were
not appointed under wrath because we were never imputed with sin. We have sin in actuality. That
doesn't mean we've never sinned. We have sinned, but God never
imputed that. God never counted that sin against
us because he always viewed us in Christ Jesus. Who were by
nature the children of wrath, even as others. So we were by
nature the children of wrath. That meant we were wrathful towards
God. But God, who is rich in mercy for the great love wherewith
he loved us, and that love was an everlasting love, by the way,
even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with
Christ. By grace ye are saved, and hath
raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places
in Christ Jesus. That in the ages to come he might
show the exceeding riches of his grace, and the kindness towards
us, through Christ Jesus. For grace you are saved through
faith, and that not of yourself. It is the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. Now, we see here that God hath
raised us up and made us sit together in heavenly places.
That's being reconciled. We've been reconciled to God,
and it was by Christ Jesus. Look at Colossians chapter 1. Look at verse 21. Actually, let's back up. Verse 19 said, For it pleased
the Father that in Him, that's Christ, should all fullness dwell. That's talking about the fullness
of the Godhead, okay? And have He made peace through
the blood of His cross. He made peace. atonement, atonement. He made peace. And He reconciled. Have He made peace through the
blood of His cross by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself
by Him, I say, whether they be things in earth or things in
heaven. And you that were sometime alienated
and enemies in your mind, by wicked words, Yet now hath He
reconciled." See, that's the ministry of reconciliation. Jesus
reconciled us. We didn't have to reconcile God
to us because God, before the foundation of the world, declared
us just in Christ, declared us loved of God, declared us righteous
by imputation when He put us into Christ. We were blessed
with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ
Jesus. So the reconciliation isn't to
reconcile and bring God to us. Christ did that by His blood.
That's what God counted, the grounds of that, and why God
never imputed sin to us. Why God never had wrath upon
us. Why? Because God accounted what Christ's
blood and what Christ's righteous works would accomplish. God counted
them as though they were not, or as though they were, even
when they were not. Even before it all happened,
God declared it so. But what does he say here? Look
at verse 21 again. And you that were alienated,
we were at enmity with God, we were wrathful towards God, we
were enemies of God, we didn't like that God, we didn't want
this God, we wanted the God of our own making, of our own liking,
or no God at all for that fact. You who are sometimes alienated
and enemies in your mind. We were enemies in our mind,
but we were never enemies of God in legality because God had
taken care of all the legal aspects of that in Christ Jesus who was
set up as our surety, as our substitute, as our intercessor
before the foundation of the world as the Lamb slain. But, He says in your mind, We
were alienated and enemies in our mind. But whenever we have
been reconciled to God, Jesus now has opened the door so that
we can be reconciled to God. We can come and know peace with
God. We can come and know assurance
of faith. We can have assurance of hope.
We can have hope in Christ Jesus and a rest in Him in what He
did on our behalf. That there is now no condemnation,
that the law has no condemnation against us and that sin has no
hold upon us anymore. By wicked works yet now hath
he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death to present
you holy and blamable and unreprovable in his sight. So that is in Christ
Jesus. Reconciliation, brethren, has
been made for us on behalf of us by the death of Jesus Christ. And so we now know through what
the gospel preaches, what the gospel teaches, that Christ has
by His blood satisfied God. God is satisfied in the saving
of His people because every aspect of the law has been dealt with. Christ has fulfilled the law
on our behalf. Christ has paid the penalty that
was owed to us. The condemnation of the law that
the law had upon us because we were sinners. Christ took that
and by His flesh, by His blood, He nailed that law to His tree. All the ordinances that was against
us, He nailed them to the cross. And by His flesh, He reconciled
us to God. He made a way of peace. He propitiated. He turned God's wrath away. He appeased the law of God, the
wrath of God, and he opened up the door for us to be able to
come and no longer be enemies of God, but to know that there
is no friction between us. See, when people preach the law,
for you to keep the law, or God's going to be mad at you, or God's,
you know, you're going to lose your salvation. You know, a lot
of the Pentecostals and people preach that you can lose your
salvation. And then the people that don't
believe in that, but believe in eternal salvation or eternal
security, they still preach that, oh, well, your fellowship with
God will be broken if you don't keep right standing with God,
if you don't obey all the time and all that stuff. See, you
don't rest in that. You're constantly being agitated
by the law. You're not keeping the law. You're
not keeping the law. You're not keeping the law. Reconciliation
says the law has been satisfied. God is not angry at you. There
is no wrath upon you. There is only open fellowship
between you and God. And so when we rest in that by
faith, we rest in what that gospel says. then we're not looking
at the law and trying to keep up this appearance of religiosity
so that we might be pleasing in God's sight. We are accepted,
not because of what we do, but what was already done on our
behalf. That's why it says there in Ephesians,
and I'll read this and we'll be done, in Ephesians chapter
1, It 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 that He
has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that
we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. So
before the foundation of the world, God had chosen us before
the foundation of the world to be holy and without blame. He
chose us to be that. We didn't become that in time.
He chose that for us before the foundation of the world. That's
how He viewed us. Having predestinated us under
the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself according to
the good pleasure of His will, and here it is, verse 6, to the
praise of the glory of His grace wherein, that means wherein the
grace of God, He hath made us accepted in the Beloved. We are accepted not because of
our law-keeping, not because of what we are done, we are accepted
because in the Beloved wrath has been removed, the law has
been appeased, and reconciliation is open for us between God who
is holy and we who are sinful because Christ has become our
sin-bearer And we have become His righteous bearer, so to speak. We are His righteousness. We
are made righteous in Him, not in action, but in legality. So we can legally come to God,
who is holy, even though we are unholy, we've been reconciled. And therefore God is satisfied.
He shall see the travail of His soul, Christ, and be satisfied
by my righteous servant, Jesus. Not by ours, but by Christ. He shall justify the many. He shall justify them. That was what we talked about,
remember? There was a change in legal status
from condemnation to justification. He shall justify the many. He
shall make them just in my eyes by His work on the cross. So God is satisfied, but to be
satisfied, there must be propitiation, there must be atonement, and
there must be reconciliation. God will be satisfied. And when
God is satisfied with that legally, you can bet that there will be
satisfaction applicably, meaning that everyone for whom Christ
died will receive everything for which Christ died for. They will receive forgiveness
of sins. They will receive appeasement.
They will receive reconciliation. They will receive the new body. They will receive
resurrection. They will receive everything
that has been promised because it's been promised by God in
Christ. All right. Does anyone have any questions
or any comments? I know we went way over today,
but I didn't want to break this up into another message. All right. Praise the Lord for
what Christ has done. All right, now, next week we
will not be here. I've been asked to come preach
at Coedah Baptist Church next Sunday, so we will be gone from
here on Sunday. Again, if you guys follow us
on livestream or whatever, they have their own livestream. You
can just look up on Facebook or on YouTube. I think it's on
YouTube as well. Coedah Baptist Church in Coedah,
Oklahoma. They live stream their services
there. If we're able to, Lori may go
ahead and live stream through our Facebook page as well. So we won't be here this next
week meeting here. We will continue back with our
fellowship, Lord willing, the next Sunday after that though,
okay? All right, anybody have any questions or anything? Comments? Father, we thank you once again
for all that you are and all that you have done for us through
the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you, Father, for salvation. We thank you for the blood of Jesus, who has not
only taken care of the wrath of God, but has also reconciled
us to you. And Lord, we are so grateful. that we now have knowledge of
our salvation by the Holy Spirit's work in us. And Father, we just
are so humbled by this. Lord, we know that nothing that
we do, nothing that we have done, can ever merit what you have
done. That your law is holy, that your
law is just and righteous, and that it is good, and it will
surely not be slighted in any way when judgment comes. But
that law will be used as the determining factor, Lord, upon
all those who have broken your law. But praise the Lord, we
have a substitute who has kept the law in our place. Father,
we just pray that you just might give understanding and knowledge
to all your people, that you might give them grace, and not
only being born from above and having heavenly-mindedness, spiritual-mindedness. But Father, that you might grow
them in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, that
they might rest in what Christ has done on their behalf, that
they might find peace, that they might find joy, that they might
find hope and assurance in the promises of Christ and what he
has done on our behalf, Lord. We thank you for the Holy Spirit's
work in us, to bring that to us, Lord, to, first and foremost,
to bring us conviction of sin and our need for Christ, but
Lord, to also to be able to rest in his finished work. May you
be glorified and honored in the things that we do as you work
and move within us. Lord, may you keep us as we leave
this place, give us safety, be with us as we gather. Lord, next
week, I pray for the church in Coedah, for myself, Lord, that
you might give me the words to say to them down there, Lord,
that you would have me to teach and to preach, to declare. Lord,
I pray that you just might glorify yourself in Joplin through your
people as we preach the message of Christ and Him crucified. And it's in Christ's name that
we pray, amen.