Now, the ministry in the Word
of God tonight is the third in a series of messages that I began
on New Year's Eve. We were snowed out of our Lord's
Day morning service on the 31st of January, but when we met in
the evening, I used as an introduction an illustration from the old
sailing ships, and the fact that before they set out to sea, they
would fill up oak barrels and put them in the belly of the
ship. And those oak barrels would be filled with drinkable water
and water suitable for the preparation of meals for a lengthy transatlantic
voyage. And when the barrel would be
emptied of its drinking water, they would fill it with seawater,
so that the barrels had a twofold function. They sustained life,
and they were ballast in the belly of that ship so that when
it met turbulent seas, it didn't capsize, it wasn't moved off
its course, but was enabled to sail straight on to the appointed
and desired destination. And using that analogy, I said
that there are certain truths in the Word of God which function
like ballast in the souls of God's people. If we do not fill
up our souls with them, whatever the year 2001 does or does not
hold, sooner or later we're going to feel the buffeting influence
of strange providences in our own individual lives, in our
communities, in our nation, or possibly even worldwide calamities. But the child of God who is filled
up the barrel of his soul with these truths will have the necessary
ballast to keep on course and not to find himself capsized
spiritually. And in that initial message,
I sought to address two very basic truths that act like ballast
in the soul. I will only state them. I won't
even refer to the major text of Scripture. These are on tape,
and you can get them from the Trinity Library or from the Trinity
Pulpit. And here were the two truths
that I said are like ballast in the soul of God's people.
Truth number one, God is on His throne governing all things in
His universe as an absolute sovereign. The second truth, the crucified,
risen and exalted Christ, shares that throne as the administrator
of all things, leading to a glorious consummation. Then last Lord's
Day, in the evening, we took up the third truth, and I stated
it this way. The God who is on the throne,
that God who is an absolute sovereign, that God who is governing everything
is universe, from the microcosm to the macrocosm. from every
atom of every cell in your body, to every particle of every star
in the farthest yet undiscovered galaxy, the God who governs all
of that according to the Scriptures, that God who is on His throne,
is my loving, all-knowing, kindly disposed, but principled Father
in Heaven. Now I indicated in opening up
that category of truth that this truth of God as Father is counterpart
to the truth that God is on His throne. It is a counterpart,
not the negation of the first truth, not the absorption of
the first truth, and faith must learn how to focus on that aspect
of God and God's relationship to His world and to His children,
which the circumstances most desperately need. When nothing
seems to make sense in your life, when nothing seems to make sense
in what is happening in the lives of your loved ones. Nothing seems
to make sense in what is happening in the country, in the world.
Well, then you see, your greatest comfort will not come from the
realization that as a child of God, your God is your Father,
but you need to focus on the reality that our God is in the
heavens. He has done whatsoever He has
pleased. He knows what He is doing. He
is in absolute control. But there are other times when
we can derive little comfort from the fixation of faith upon
the reality that God is on His throne, governing all things
as an absolute sovereign. We need to know the reality and
the preciousness of being able to come to Him as our loving,
our all-knowing, kindly disposed but principled Father in heaven,
who delights to give good gifts to his children, and who even
cares for the sparrow as it falls to the ground. Well, as truth
number three is the counterpart of truth number one, God upon
the throne, that God is our Father, so the second truth has a counterpart. Christ who shares the throne,
the counterpart to that truth is the one we begin to open up
tonight, and it is this. This is the fourth barrel of
ballast. God is on His throne. The crucified,
risen Christ shares the throne. The God upon the throne is our
Father. The Christ upon the throne is
our advocate and intercessor, our indwelling life and strength,
our guide, and our constant companion. And I've sought to capture in
those three couplets of biblical revelation the dominant emphases
of the New Testament regarding the relationship of the child
of God to Christ and Christ's relationship to His people. Now I remind you that this truth
is the counterpart to that second great truth. It is not the negation
of it. It is not the absorption of it.
Christ is sharing the throne of God again and again the scriptures
speak of him as being at the right hand of God. Several times
in the book of the Revelation we find this phrase, the throne
of God and of the Lamb. We are not to think of an enthroned
God without thinking of an enthroned, glorified, once immolated and
crucified Savior. And we must think of Christ administering
everything with respect to the work of redemption, leading to
that moment in time when we'll hear the voice of the archangel,
and the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall be raised,
and judgment will be meted out upon the ungodly. There are times
when faith needs fixation upon Christ, who shares the throne
with His Father. Christ, who is carrying forward
His work, fulfilling His word, I will build my church, and the
gates of hell shall not prevail against it. But there are times
when faith needs a fixation upon this counterpart. body of biblical
truth, that the enthroned Christ, without in any way drawing away
any of the glory and majesty of His place as administrator
of all things, leading to a glorious consummation, that that enthroned
Christ, if I am a Christian, is my advocate and intercessor,
my indwelling life and strength, my guide and my constant companion. I'm only going to take up one
of those couplets tonight, or we'd be here till midnight. And
as we take up this couplet of truth, that for us who are the
people of God, our Christ is our advocate and intercessor,
let me remind you of a very basic principle. In 2 Corinthians chapter
4, in verse 4, The Apostle Paul, in the midst of a marvelous section
dealing with the nature of the Christian ministry, says that
as he and his companions preach the gospel, they do so in a setting
where there is a very horrific work of the devil that goes on
in the minds of his hearers. Verse 3 of 2 Corinthians 4, And
even if our gospel is veiled, It is veiled in them that are
perishing, in whom, now notice, in all who are perishing, the
God of this world, that's a term for the devil, Satan, in whom,
among all of those who are perishing, there is a present, powerful,
insidious work of the devil, and what is it? in whom the God
of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, and
to what does the devil blind the unbeliever? If you're sitting
here tonight and you are an unbeliever, you are blind. And what are you
blind to? Well, you're not blind to the
basic laws of mathematics, You're not blind to the realities of
the physical laws that govern how you act and where you go.
No, but this is the thing to which the devil will blind you.
Look at the text. He blinds the minds of the unbelieving
that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is
the image of God, should not dawn upon them. The devil is
committed to blind you primarily to one thing and one thing only.
the glory of God that shines in the face of Christ. For the
devil knows the moment Christ becomes something more than a
name, a religious symbol, an irritant to your way of life,
the moment you behold any beams, any outshining of the very radiance
and beauty and perfection of God in Christ, the devil's lost
you. You can't behold glory in Christ
and not have your heart run out to Him in unqualified, irreversible
faith and love. And so the devil says, whatever
I'm going to do, I'm going to blind the unbeliever to the radiance
that goes out from Christ, the very radiance of the God-man
and the only Savior of sinners. And as the devil focuses his
work in the unbeliever to blind them to that glory that is reflected
in the face of Christ. So he seeks to blind the believer
to all that Christ is to him and all that he is to Christ.
For to the degree that the believer is kept from an understanding
and a believing apprehension of what Christ is to him and
what he is to Christ, to that extent he will be like the ship
without ballast. He may not sink, but he's no
pleasure to be around and I don't want to be on board with him.
Let the wind of an emotional disruption come, and he's blown
off course, and he's down in the dumps. God is dead, and the
world is sick, and he's a mess. Let some favorable providences
come, and he's swept off his feet with giddiness. Let someone
frown at him, and he is filled with righteousness, and he's
a mess, the child of God. who is to some degree partially
blinded to the glory of God in the face of Christ and therefore
is not presently acting faith in Christ in terms of the realities
of his relationship to Christ and Christ's relationship to
him. He is an unstable Christian. This is one of the reasons why
you find the Apostle Paul in his recorded prayers for believers,
praying that God would give them what? The spirit of wisdom and
revelation in the knowledge of himself, the eyes of the understanding,
being enlightened. And may we pray as I seek to
preach that God the Holy Spirit will give us, as the people of
God, a new, a clearer understanding of what Christ on the throne
is to us, not only as the sovereign administrator of all things leading
to a glorious consummation, but as our advocate and as our intercessor. Now then, As we come to consider
this together, let me get inside your head and in your heart as
a child of God. You would agree with me, would
you not, that none of us knows what this now present year, 2001,
will hold for us in the way of what some would call good things
and in the way of what others would call bad things. It's a
sobering thing to think that some of us sitting here right
now may have our names in an obituary somewhere. Some of us
may be named as those for whom we pray at prayer meeting who
have come down with a serious illness or who have some beat,
serious malady discovered throughout the coming year. But if you're
a true Christian, while you agree with me that we do not know what
a day may bring forth, let alone another three hundred and what,
sixty, no, three hundred and some odd years, we just, days,
we take fourteen from three sixty-five, you kids can do the arithmetic.
But you also know with me, child of God, what will be your deepest
problems, what will cause your deepest anxieties, and what will
be the occasion of your most vexing perplexities. If you're
a Christian, though you don't know what a day may bring forth,
let alone the remaining days of this year, you do know what
will occasion your greatest problems, your deepest anxieties, and cause
your most vexing perplexities. And you know with me that they
will not come from international geopolitics. They will not come
from national political decisions. They will not come from the state
of the economy. They will not come from personal
tragedy and sickness. If you're a true child of God,
you with me know that your greatest problems, deepest anxieties,
and most vexing perplexities will come from none of these
things. but they will come from the reality
and the outworking of your remaining sin. I can prophesy that for every
true Christian sitting in this room tonight, that will be the
occasion of your deepest grief, your most vexatious states of
heart, it will be the reality of your indwelling sin and corruption
and the out-breaking, the out-cropping, the manifestations of the same. Think of the Apostle Paul. And in preparation, I let my
mind run over. Did Paul ever express anxiety? Yes, he did. He said, I fear,
lest I have bestowed labor upon you in vain. At the end of 2
Corinthians 11, he said, besides all these things, that which
comes upon me daily, anxiety for all the churches, the very
thing he forbids in Philippians 4, be anxious for nothing. He
says, I lived with anxiety over the churches. He was a man who
showed anxiety. Did he have fears? Yes. He said,
fightings without, fears within. I was with you in weakness and
in fear. He knew anxiety. He knew fear,
but you know the closest he comes to expressing deep, vexatious
frustration is not with anything regarding his ministry. It's
not with regard to the lives of others. It's the last half
of Romans chapter 7. The last half of Romans chapter
7. where he says, I know that the law is spiritual, but I am
carnal, sold under sin, for the good that I would, I do not,
and the evil that I would not, that I do. O wretched man that
I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? That's
the closest to the effusive statement of deep frustration and vexation. It was the reality of his own
remaining sin. And as you and I have set out
on the sea of this new year, if we are true Christians, that
will be the occasion of our greatest vexation and anxiety and inward
trauma. It will not be whether or not
I wake up Monday morning and got a new zit on my cheek. Though
the new zit will cause you anxieties, it used to cause me anxieties.
I have to cover it sometimes with a little Band-Aid or a little
Clearasil. or whatever we have when I was
in the zit stage. And those anxieties are real.
And a lot of these others. But if you're a true Christian,
it matters not how old you are. This is the touchstone of real
vital Christianity. Why? Because if you're a Christian,
God has regenerated you. He has taken out your heart of
stone and given you a heart of flesh. He's placed His Holy Spirit
within you and He's given you a down payment now of what you're
going to be when you're glorified. He has given you not only an
earnest, a down payment the scripture calls it, but He's given you
internal yearnings to be what one day you shall be. That is
perfectly like Him. And that's what creates this
tension. I know that He's marked me to
be perfectly conformed to His Son, Romans 8, 29. And I have
a yearning to be what I shall be. And when I hear the command,
1 Peter 1 15, Be yourselves holy as He is holy. For He has said,
Be holy as I am holy. And your heart responds and says,
Oh God, make me as holy in this life as a redeemed sinner can
be. You don't want to compromise
with any sin of any kind in any circumstance. You want to be
holy. Your heart responds to that command. And it responds with the consciousness,
one day it will be fully true of me. But it is not true of
me now. And so your tremendous tension comes from this reality
of remaining sin. And furthermore, if you're thinking
biblically, and here I trust you'll listen carefully, You
know that though you are a pardoned sinner, and the day of judgment
has been brought forward to the point where you repented and
believed the gospel, and God, as it were, brought forward the
day of judgment and says, no condemnation to the one who is
in my Son by penitent faith. Though you know that your sin
cannot condemn you to hell if you are in Christ, listen, You
know that your sin as a Christian is no less hell-deserving. You
know that your sin is no less odious and offensive to God.
No less wrath-provoking and wrath-deserving. Do you know that? I hope you
do. If you listen to a lot of this claptrap that goes on in
the name of evangelical preaching, you wouldn't know it. Oh, I'm
forgiven. Sin, sin, shmin, sin, bap, dee, dee, doo. No, no, friends.
Your sin in mine, even as a believer, is no less odious and wrath-provoking
to God than your sin was before you were in Christ. No less wrath-provoking. No less odious. In fact, in many
ways, it is more odious. Because now it is not only sin
against the law of God and against God as lawgiver and judge, it's
a sin against God as Redeemer and loving Father. and the sin
against His Son and against the Holy Spirit. If anything, our
sin is more odious and more wrath-deserving. Now, that creates a problem.
How in the world do I sail straight on to my destination without
being buffeted by every conscious outcropping of my indwelling
corruption? It's at this point that you better
have a well-grounded understanding of and confidence in Jesus on
the throne is your advocate and your intercessor. Now, have I
made the case that whets your appetite to come to three texts
of Scripture that I trust you will bury in your heart and tamp
them down good and draw them up again and again throughout
the coming year. The first is found in 1 John
chapter 2. 1 John chapter 2. John has already in the first
chapter exposed the error of people who say, oh man, I trusted
Jesus. I have fellowship with God, and
yet they're walking around in moral darkness. Sin is no burden
to them. Sin is their delight. When you
try to get them to be concerned, they say, oh no, sin, no big
deal to me. I've got fellowship with God. I've trusted Jesus.
What does John say about those people? Verse 6 of chapter 1.
If we say we have fellowship with Him and walk about in the
darkness, we are liars and we do not the truth. Simple, straightforward,
that is religious bunk. If you are living in the realm
of darkness, framing your life by the standards of the world
and the impulses of your own unrenewed heart because you've
tipped your hat to Jesus ten, five years ago and you think
all is well, John says you're a liar and you are not walking
in truth. You don't do the truth. But if
we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship
one with another, and the blood of Jesus' Son goes on cleansing
us from all sin. And along comes someone and says,
John, that's no big deal for me. I don't have any sin. He
said, okay, you say you have no sin, then you deceive yourself
and the truth is not in you. I mean, John just turns and he
shoots him over here and he said, now we got some coming from the
left flank, we'll shoot them over here. Reality is, verse
9, if we confess our sins, he's faithful and righteous to forgive
us, cleanse us from all unrighteousness, and if we say we have not sinned,
we make him a liar and his word is not in us. In other words,
if you're a true believer, the issue of sin is a big deal to
you. You got that? In nice 20th century
common parlance, if you're a real Christian, sin is a big deal
to you. You face its reality, You don't
accept it in a light-handed, cavalier manner. It's a matter
of concern to you to deal with it. If you're a real Christian,
sin is a big deal to you. I know it's not popular in our
day, in the church growth philosophy, to talk about sin. That's a negative
thing. That's an oppressive thing. People
come to church and they want to be chucked under the chin
and feel good. Well, all the feeling good in the world isn't
going to deal with the problem of sin. You're only postponing
when you're going to have to deal with it in the day of judgment.
Better to deal with it now while you can do something about it.
So John says, if sin is not a big deal to you, you don't know the
truth, you're not walking in the truth. But now assuming that
he's writing to real Christians for whom sin is a big deal, look
at chapter 2, verses 1 and 2. My little children, these things
write I unto you that you may not sin. John says, you want
the bottom line of what I'm writing? It's that you'll take sin so
seriously that you'll set your heart not to sin again. That's what he says. These things
I write unto you that you may not sin. And if I could tell
you tonight and have biblical grounds, I have a secret. that if you purchase it, you
will never sin again in this life. I believe there are Christians
here in this place who would empty out every last stock and
bond and savings account and get rid of the title to every
bit of real estate and property and say, name the price, that's
what I want at any cost. That's the heart of a Christian.
John knows that. So he said, My little children,
these things I write unto you. You are the true children of
God. You do not walk around in the darkness. You do walk in
the light. And walking in the light, you
are conscious of fellowship with God and with His people. But
at the same time, you're conscious that sin still remains. My little
children, these things I write unto you, that you may not sin.
And now here comes the realism. If any man sins, We have an advocate
with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and He is the
propitiation for our sins. Now, here's the Christian. He
hears the opening words of this text. John says, I write these
things that you may not sin. The child of God says, oh God,
I line up with that. I don't want to sin. I'd give
anything if I could be free of every last remnant of sin, here
and now. I know I shall be when I see
Him face to face and I am made like Him." And John says, I know
you'd like to be that way, but that's not what God has purposed
in this interim period in which He gives you a principle of holiness,
breaks the dominion of sin, marks you for perfect holiness, gives
you a yearning for what you one day shall be. In the meantime,
this is what you need to know, John says, if any man sin, we
have an advocate with the Father. At the very point of the consciousness
of our sin, the true child of God is to say to himself, I've
sinned, but I have an advocate with the Father. You say, big
deal, what's an advocate? Well, I will try to answer that.
John uses the word parakletos. You remember paraclete from the
studies in the upper room discourse. And in this setting, and in the
context in which John would have used it, the rabbinical literature
that John would have been familiar with, this word refers to a friend
or relative who would offer legal aid. One who would intercede
on behalf of another. A counselor for the defense,
we would say. John says, if any man sin, we
have a counselor for the defense. The sinning Christian knows his
sin is wrath-deserving. It is wrath-provoking. It is
inexcusable. It is shameful. He's prepared
to own full responsibility. He is culpable. But he knows
that he has a counselor. for his defense. He has an advocate,
one to plead his case in heaven. And who is he? He is identified
as Jesus Christ, the righteous one. Jesus Christ, and think
of all the ways John could have designated him, but he says,
righteous one. Doesn't that seem a bit strange?
Doesn't righteousness demand that sin be punished? Doesn't
uprightness before the law demand that the wages of sin is death? How can Jesus be my counselor
in my defense and still be righteous? Is He going to tell the Father,
Father, I know that looked like sin, and I know His conscience
tells Him it's sin, because His Bible tells Him it's sin, but
Father, that's not the reality. That's just frailty. That's just
human weakness. That's just boys being boys and
puppy dogs being puppy dogs. No, that would not be righteous. Jesus doesn't try to con the
Father that the sin is not sin, that the sin is not wrath-provoking
and wrath-deserving. He is there as our advocate while
remaining fully righteous. And how in the world does righteousness,
uprightness before the law, come to our defense in the person
of Jesus Christ in the presence of the Father? John says, I knew
you'd ask the question, so I'm going to tell you. Look at the
next verse. And He, Jesus Christ the righteous one, is the propitiation
for our sins. Now notice He doesn't say, and
He made a propitiation for our sins. That's true. Hebrews 2.17
uses that language. Christ takes the likeness of
our human flesh that He might make propitiation for the people. He made a propitiation. 1 John
4.10, John speaks of God's love being manifest in that He sent
His Son to be the propitiation. You say, well, propitiation,
big word, what's it mean? It means simply this. It means
a sacrifice that turns away the wrath of God. That's what propitiation
is. It is a sacrifice that turns
away the wrath of God. The sacrifice of Jesus turns
away the wrath of God because it fully absorbed the wrath of
God. Every gram of divine wrath due
to every sin of every believer was borne by Jesus Christ. When
he cried, Tetelestai! It is finished! It stands accomplished! No little part of that accomplishment
was. Remember that cup in Gethsemane,
before which he trembled, and before which he pleaded with
God, if it be possible, take the cup from me? That was the
cup full to the brim of the wrath of God against our sins. And
that's the cup he drank, particularly in a concentrated way, in those
three hours when the heavens were shrouded in blackness. At
the end of which, Jesus cried, My God, My God, why have you
abandoned me? He abandoned him because God's
wrath against sin is real stuff. And because Christ was a real
propitiatory sacrifice, he was there in our room instead. And
God is dealing with him as the most guilty sinner that ever
was found on the face of the earth. He's holy in himself, harmless,
separate from sinners. But legally and before the court
of God, he was the greatest sinner ever found on God's earth. God
emptied the bowl, the cup of His wrath upon His Son. So He
cried, It's finished. God raised Him from the third
day, sat Him at His own right hand. And what's He doing there?
Well, we saw two Lord's Days ago. He is there, sharing the
throne of God as the administrator of all things with peculiar concern
for carrying on the work of redemption in and through His church to
its glorious consummation. But He's doing something else.
by simply being there, as the resurrected and glorified Christ,
1 John 2 says, He is Himself the sacrifice that turns away
wrath. And if we may use anthropomorphic
language, that is, language that is analogous with respect to
God, to what we do, the Father looks at His Son, and sees in
His glorified Son all of the virtue of the work He accomplished
on earth. The Father does not forget His
cry, My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me? And the Father
beholding His Son who is propitiation, not that he is continually offering
himself. No, the book of Hebrews says
he offered himself once for all, hapat, once for all, unrepeatable,
non-repeated sacrifice. But he's carried all the virtue
of that sacrifice in his person, into the very presence of God,
so that he is Jesus Christ, the righteous one who pleads our
cause. By His very presence, He is the
embodiment of the fact that God's wrath against our sins has been
fully vented, fully poured out, fully assuaged. And though our
sins in themselves are wrath-deserving, those sins that we have not yet
even committed between here and heaven, they were laid upon Christ. And He bore the wrath of God
for them. And that's why When you set out to sea and you feel
the waves of your own sin causing your deepest vexations of soul,
your greatest perplexities, you need to know that the Christ
on the throne is your advocate. There in the presence of God,
He is our advocate. Then I want you to turn to a
second passage. I said there are three passages. Here's the
second, Romans chapter 8. Romans chapter 8. In this wonderful
chapter, the apostle is setting out the marvelous privileges
and saving experience of all the people of God. And after
he's laid out this veritable litany of blessings, he stands
back and is a sense listens to what he has written, hears the
words in his own mind and heart, and he exclaims in verse 31,
What then shall we say to these things? Now, Paul wasn't proud,
but he was saying, What I've written has left me breathless.
What shall we say to these things? In the light of all God has done
and all that God is to us in Christ, what shall we say to
these things? Then he says, Well, this is what we'll say. If God
is for us, who is against us? And in this paragraph, God is
for us doesn't mean that God's got a few little wispy, passing
thoughts of good toward us. God is for us in terms of all
the specific blessings of redemption that he's been opening up, which
when he's done opening them up, he stands back and says, what
do we say to these things? If God is for us, not for us
with some occasional wispy, ephemeral thoughts of, well, I hope they
make out all right. but for us in a commitment from
eternity to eternity to take us from sin and wrath to glorification
by His grace. If God is for us committed in
the whole of His being for our complete salvation, who is against
us? He throws a challenge out into
the whole universe. Almighty God is committed to
us in saving purpose and power. Who is against us? Verse 32,
He that in the accomplishment of that for us disposition and
commitment, He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him
up for us all, how shall He not also with Him freely give us
all things? If in being for us, God overcame
the greatest obstacle to our salvation, He gave His Son, gave
Him up to what? He gave Him up to the powers
of darkness, gave Him up to the hands of cruel men, gave Him
up to His own wrath. If God has done that, how should
He not with Him also freely give us all things? That is everything
necessary to get us from where we are to where He purposes to
take us and what He purposes to make us. That's a little bit
of unplanned poetry. Now then, he says, in the light
of this, verse 33, hang in there with me, who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect? He asks another question. If
God is for us, who is against us? Now he says, who shall lay
anything to our charge? And that language, lay to our
charge, is legal language. The very verb is used in Acts
19, 38. I want you to flip back there
just for a moment so you see it with your own eyes in your
own Bibles. Acts 19 and verse 38. There's a riot going on there
at Ephesus, and one of the town's leaders comes out to quiet things
down. Verse 37, You have brought hither these men who are neither
robbers of temples nor blasphemers of our goddess. If therefore
Demetrius and the craftsmen that are with him have a matter against
any man, the courts are open and there are pro-consuls, here's
our verb, let them accuse one another. That's our verb. Let
them come into court and make a formal complaint against them. It's used in a similar way in
Acts 23, verses 28 and 29. Now come back to the Romans 8
passage. Paul says, Who shall submit a
formal charge of guilty, culpable, liable to punishment to those
upon whom God has set his love? Who shall do it? It is God that
justifies. If Almighty God, sitting on the
supreme throne of the universe, has said, Prisoner, This guilty
sinner, acquitted and accepted on the grounds of the work of
my Son, who's going to make an appeal to a higher court? There
ain't no higher court. You've gone from lower, inferior,
and district courts, and state courts, and beyond the Supreme
Court to the Court of Heaven. And if the Court of Heaven has
spoken, justified, no complaint, wrath satisfied in my Son, It's
God that justifies. And in the light of that, verse
34, who is He that condemns? And the question could mean,
who in the world does anyone think they are to condemn when
the highest court has spoken? Shut your mouth. God has spoken
about this penitent, believing sinner who is in my son. Or it
could be a typical rhetorical question, the answer of which
is already clear in everyone's mind. If God has justified, who
is He that condemns? There is none who can justly
condemn. And then it's as though someone says, now Paul, just
tell me again why. Why can you be so confident in
the court of heaven? People like yourself. Remember,
Paul described himself there in Romans 7. When I would do
good, the evil is present with me. When I find myself torn,
the good that I would, I don't do, and the evil that I would
not, I do. This is the same Paul who is writing, throwing out
the challenge. Who is going to haul me into court and condemn
me? God has justified me, and this is the ground on which I
have confidence that my sins, still active in me, still breaking
out to my vexation and frustration, it will never condemn me. Why?
Look at verse 34b. It is Christ Jesus that died. yea, rather, that was raised
from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, and notice
the capstone, who also makes intercession for us. Now what's the context of Paul
saying My confidence that I and all of my fellow believers can
never be brought into just condemnation, though our sin is real, though
our sin as believers is wrath-provoking and wrath-deserving, how can
I have such confidence? He says it rests down upon these
saving acts of Christ, His once-for-all death. His once for all resurrection. He said in chapter 4, the resurrection
was God's vindication of His satisfaction with the work of
His Son, raised again for our justification. His once for all
session at the right hand of God. All of the verbs that describe
Him being seated speak of fixed, point, accomplished, done, action. He died once for all. He was
raised once for all. He was seated. and what gives
ongoing validity to all the virtue of the death, the resurrection,
and the session. It's the one thing described
of Christ that is a present tense activity. Look at your Bible.
Christ died, definitive, once for all. Act. Was raised, definitive,
once for all. Who is at the right hand of God. He is seated, but who continually
is making intercession for us. And here the context of intercession
is not those overtones of the sympathetic identification with
our struggles that we find in Hebrews chapter 4. It is the
legal aspect of sin that otherwise would condemn us. Do you see
that in the context? The question is, who shall lay
anything to the charge of God's elect? Who is he that condemns? Not the person who tries to come
up to God and say, God, that person's your child, and they
love you, and they've been transformed, and they have a heart to be holy.
Surely, God, you won't allow their remaining sin to be an
issue with you. God says it has to be an issue.
I'm God. I'm of purer eyes than to look
upon iniquity. So the answer to the ongoing
struggle with sin and the believer is not to minimize, it's to face
it in all of its ugly reality. And then say with Paul, I know
the significance of Jesus dying, being raised and seated, and
he now makes intercession. His presence at the right hand
of the Father is the the answer to the issue of our ongoing sin. Listen to the comments of Leon
Morris in his excellent new commentary, relatively new commentary on
the Book of Romans. We should interpret the intercession
passages in the light of the frequent references to Jesus
sitting at the right hand of God. His presence at God's right
hand, in His capacity as the one who died for sinners and
rose again, is in itself an intercession. Then he has a helpful footnote.
In some modern writing, great emphasis is placed on Christ's
perpetual pleading in heaven. We should bear in mind F.B. Westcott's
note in which he says, quote, The modern conception of Christ
pleading in heaven his passion, offering his blood on behalf
of men, has no foundation in the epistle to Hebrews. His glorified
humanity is the eternal pledge of the absolute efficacy of his
accomplished work. Get that. His glorified humanity
is the eternal pledge of the absolute efficacy of His accomplished
work. He pleads, as older writers truly
express the thought, by His presence on the Father's throne. Do you
see the counterpart of truth number two? He's on the throne.
All power in heaven and earth. Head over all things to the church.
everything put under his feet. Paul says he must reign until
he has put the last enemy under his feet. He is there sharing
the throne, administering the kingdom to its consummation.
But he is there as my advocate and my intercessor. His presence
as the glorified Christ is the intercession. As long as Jesus
is seated at the right hand of God, Sharing His throne, He is,
in the language of the book of the Revelation, He will forever
be the Lamb in the midst of the throne. And even in heaven, in
that beautiful description, in Revelation chapter 22, John says,
I saw a pure river of life flowing out from what? The throne of
God and of the Lamb. May I dare to say it? Even our
fellowship with God in the glorified state in the new heavens and
the new earth will be mediated through the Lord Jesus Christ.
When we think of how can I come to God now, John 14, 6 is the
clear answer. I am the way, the truth, and
the life. No man comes to the Father but by me. How, having
come, do I live spiritually? Jesus said, He who eats my flesh
and drinks my blood hath eternal life. He who does not eat my
flesh and does not drink my blood has no life. What does that mean?
We not only come initially to God through Christ, we feed upon
the virtue of Christ's death for sinners. And in the new heavens
and the new earth, As every thirst of our soul is assuaged from
the river of life, it flows out from the throne of God and of
the Lamb. I said I'd give you three texts.
One, finally, and much more brief. Hebrews, chapter 7. You see,
folks, when you get tired of solid biblical exposition, you're
saying one of two things. Either you're not converted,
or you're not dealing realistically with this most vexatious problem
you have as a believer, your sin. You're really dealing with
your sin. Anybody that points you to how
Jesus deals with it, he's your friend, even if he makes you
think a little bit. Alright? Hebrews chapter 7. Hebrews
chapter 7. In this book, the writer to Hebrews
is showing how Christ is better than the angels, better than
Moses, And his priesthood is better than the Aaronic priesthood.
It's the priesthood after the order of that strange Old Testament
character called Melchizedek. This man who appears out of nowhere. He's king and he's priest in
Salem. And Abraham offers tithes to
this strange person. And the writer to the Hebrews
says that person was a prefiguring of Christ, who comes out of eternity,
into time, clothed in our humanity, and becomes a priest for his
people, not after the Aaronic order, but after the order of
Melchizedek. And now he's going to summarize
some of that block of teaching in verse 25 of chapter 7. Wherefore, on account of this
very reality, that is, that Jesus is a priest in the virtue and
power of an endless life, hothen, that is, for which reason, for
this cause, now note the text, He, wherefore also, he is able
to save to the uttermost, or you may have a marginal reading,
completely them that draw near unto God, now notice, through
him. Now here's a marvelous statement.
In the light of who Christ is as a priest after the order of
Melchizedek, you say, Melchizedek, Schmizedek, what's that have
to do with me? It has everything to do with you. If you want to
be saved with a salvation you can never lose, and that will
not fail to accomplish one iota of God's purpose in it. You want
to be saved to the uttermost? Then you better be concerned
about Jesus being High Priest after the order of Melchizedek.
Because this says, it's in the light of what He is as such a
priest, that He is able to save to the uttermost. And that prepositional
phrase, by the selection of the Holy Spirit, is deliberately
an ambiguous word. It can mean, on the one hand,
save, that is, for all time and in all completeness. It points
to both perpetuity and completeness, and so the translators struggle.
He is able to save completely in the margin. He is able to
save to the uttermost. He is able to save for all time. Why? He is no temporary priest
who has a birth date and a death date, who has a beginning of
his priesthood and an end. That was true of all the Aaronic
priests. But he is priest in the power
of an everlasting life. He comes out of eternity, clothes
himself with our humanity to be our priest, to be both offerer
and offering. And in the humanity he took,
he never will relinquish it. As the old preachers used to
say, there's a man in the glory. He's a glorified man, but there's
a man in the glory, and he'll be there as the God-man forever. And because he is such a priest,
he is able to save completely and for all time with perpetuity
and with completeness. Now granted, there well may be
strands of secondary truth in the intercession of Christ, Taking
our clue from John 17 that we often call his high priestly
prayer, the Lord Jesus may, in some way that we cannot base
in clear testimony from scripture, he may plead similar things for
us. There may be an element of his
intercession reflected in the words of Luke 22 when he said
to Peter, Satan has desired to sift you as wheat, but I have
prayed for you. But my friends, if we let scripture
bear its own testimony, The primary emphasis of the advocacy and
intercession of Christ is not His sympathy with us in our needs. That's another dimension of truth
that I hope to open up when I speak of Him as our indwelling life
and strength, our guide and our companion. He has carried with
Him into heaven the reservoir of all of the felt experiences
of real humanity, disappointment and grief and sorrow and joy. And when we come to Him, we know
that He is a high priest who can be touched with the feeling
of our infirmities. I'm not denying that truth, but
I want to put it in its proper category. I want to put the advocacy
and the intercession where they need to be if you're going to
make it. in the turbulent sea of living
with the reality of remaining sin. You better have a well-grounded
concept of Christ. If I sin, I have an advocate
with the Father, Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is a priest
after the order of Melchizedek, and because He is, He can save
to the uttermost for all time and with all completeness. save
with perpetuity and with absolute perfection. Now then, if this
is so, then you with me will have a little controversy with
a hymn we have often sung. And I don't want to be pedantic
and nitpicking, but I want you to turn to hymn number 223 as
we draw the message to a close. A hymn by Charles Wesley. We
have often sung And I have been troubled every time I've sung
it, but I didn't want to be silent unless some of you see me not
singing and think that would give you a license not to sing.
Now look at the language of Hymn 223. Arise, my soul, arise! Shake off thy guilty fears! The bleeding, present participle,
the bleeding sacrifice in my behalf appears. Is the sacrifice
bleeding? No. He's not bleeding in heaven. He bled on earth. He hasn't bled
a drop in heaven. It's not true. He's not bleeding
in heaven. And while we give poetic license
and an element of liberty to poetic imagery, poetry should
never negate sound theology. Stanza one should not be Arise,
my soul, arise, shake off thy guilty fears. The bleeding sacrifice
in my behalf appears. It should be, Arise, my soul,
arise, shake off thy guilty fears. The finished sacrifice on my
behalf appears. That's the truth of Scripture.
Come to stanza three. Five bleeding wounds he bears. received on Calvary. The wounds
He received are no longer bleeding. He bled out and cried, It's finished! And we are told that our bodies
shall be fashioned like unto the body of His glory. Our blood
won't be shed in heaven. His is not shed in heaven. How should it be rendered? Something
like this. Rather than five bleeding wounds
He bears, We should read it and sing it. Five precious scars
he bears, received on Calvary. Because the scripture says, when
he comes again they shall look on him whom they pierced. Apparently
the only scarred body in heaven will be the body of Jesus. Perpetual, eternal reminders
that he received those wounds on earth. And so if we sing,
five not bleeding wounds he bears, but if we sing five precious
scarves he bears, received on Calvary, they pour effectual
prayers, they strongly plead for me. May I read the words
of a hymn that I first came across a couple of months ago, and this
states it beautifully. Hear the language of this marvelous
hymn. Before the throne of God above
I have a strong, a perfect plea, a great high priest whose name
is love, who ever lives and pleads for me. My name is graven in
his hands, my name is written on his heart. I know that while
in heaven he stands, no tongue can bid me thence depart. When
Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within,
Upward I look and see Him there who made an end of all my sin. That's 1 John 2. If any man sin,
we have an advocate. When Satan tempts me to despair
and tells me of the guilt within, upward I look and see Him there
who made an end of all my sin. Because the sinless Savior died,
my sinful soul is counted free, for God the just is satisfied
to look on Him and pardon me. Behold Him there, the risen Lamb,
my perfect spotless righteousness, the great unchangeable I am,
the King of glory and of grace. One with Himself I cannot die. My soul is purchased by His blood. My life is hid with Christ on
high, with Christ my Savior and my God. A man there is, a real man with
wounds, born for us. from which rich streams of blood
once ran in hands and feet and side. It is no wild fancy of
our brains, no metaphor we speak. The same dear man in heaven now
reigns that suffered for our sakes. The wondrous man of whom
we tell is true, almighty God. He bought our souls from death
and hell, the price, his own heart's blood. That human heart
He still retains, though thrown in highest bliss, and feels each
tempted member's pains, for our afflictions His. Come then, repenting
sinner, come, approach with humble faith. Oh, what you will! The total sum is cancelled by
His death. His blood can cleanse the blackest
soul and wash our guilt away. He will present us sound and
whole. in that tremendous day. Ah, my
friend, have we made you jealous to be a Christian? Or are you
trying to minimize that problem of sin? It's losing business. A day is
coming, as sure as you draw your next breath, when the reality
of your sin will be placarded before the whole gathered humanity
at the throne of God. Will Christ in that day own you
as His? Or will He say, depart from me,
you cursed? Oh yes, you can afford the luxury of being indifferent
to Christ now. But will you count it a luxury
in that day? No angel will come forward and plead your cause.
No archangel. No mom or dad. No friends who
wept for you and prayed for you. If Christ does not own you as
His in that day, you've had it. And He won't own you then if
you don't own Him now. He gives Himself to you in the
Gospel and says, I'm yours if you'll have Me. Come, come unto
Me all you that labor and are heavy laden. I will give you
rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me. Come, take and learn. We don't tell you that you can
just tip your hat to Jesus and say, Jesus, fix me up so I don't
go to hell when I die. No, no. He says, come, take and
learn. You come. You throw at His feet
all your muck and your filth and your sin and your purposelessness
and your confusion and your pride and everything you are as a sinner.
Throw it at His feet. Come unto me, all you that labor
and are heavy laden. I will give you rest. I'll take
that burden. Then He says, take. Take my yoke. You come and I'll take your burden,
but you'll take my yoke. Jesus will be the boss. He'll
tell you what CDs you can listen to. He'll tell you what videos
you can watch. He'll tell you what you do and
don't do in the backseat of a car. He'll tell you how you relate
to mom and dad. He'll tell you what your favorite stations will
be on the radio. He'll tell you everything about
every facet of your life through His Word and by His Spirit, and
He'll exercise absolute right over you. And right now you think,
man, what could be greater in the way of torture? There are
many of us who'd say we never knew what life was all about
until we took His yoke. Because He says, My yoke is easy,
and My burden is light. And no matter what burden He
lays upon us, we can carry it in the strength of Christ, in
communion with Christ, with no fear of death and judgment and
hell. No matter how light your life
may seem to be when you carry the burden of an accusing conscience
and the thunderings of the day of judgment rattling around in
the mind and in the heart. What an awesome burden. I carried
it for seventeen and a half years. But coming, I took, and I found
his yoke easy." He says, come, take, learn. From here on in,
all your thinking is going to be regulated by Christ through
His Word. What you think about yourself, what you think about
life, how you think about others, what you think about truth and
error and good and bad, you're ready to say, Lord Jesus, I'm
ready to learn of you. You want Christ? He says, come,
take, learn. And those of us who've come and
taken and begun to learn, we say, Lord Jesus, take me closer
to Yourself. Teach me more of Yourself. Bring
me more under Your yoke. For indeed, His yoke is easy
and His burden is light. Dear child of God, Don't think
that the way to peace and usefulness as a Christian is minimizing
your sin. You can't make too much of your
sin, but you can make too little of Christ as advocate and intercessor. Never forget that. You can't
make too much of your sin. Your most acute sense of the
ugliness of sin falls eons short of what that sin looks like in
God's sight. You can never make too much of your sin, but you
can make too little of Christ as your advocate and intercessor. Make as much of your sin as God
the Holy Spirit enables you to make, but make yet more of Christ
as your advocate and your high priest, and you'll be steady
with that ballast in your soul. These things I write unto you,
that you may not sin, if any man sin. We have an Advocate
with the Father, Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. Let's pray. Our Father, we have been privileged
to look into things that Your Word says angels desire to peek
into. We marvel that You should make
such provisions for the likes of us. O Lord, help me, help
us all, that we may not regard lightly such a plethora of your
gracious provisions for us in Christ. Lord Jesus, forgive us
when we have made too little of you as our advocate and our
intercessor. O help us, Holy Spirit, that
we may constantly turn to the Scriptures to give you that ongoing
opportunity to set Christ and His glory before us, that we
may fill our souls with the ballast of a well-grounded, scripturally
informed understanding of what our Savior is to us, as well
as what He is as the sovereign ruler of the universe. Hear our
prayer. Dismiss us with your blessings.
We ask in Jesus' name, Amen.