While you're turning to our text
in 1st John chapter 4, 1st John chapter 4 verse 10, I want to
read a passage to you from Exodus chapter 25. You turn to 1st John
chapter 4 and just hold your hands there for just a minute.
I want to read just a few verses from Exodus 25 beginning at verse
17. Here Moses is receiving instruction
from God on the building of the tabernacle, and specifically
in this chapter, Moses is being told how to construct the various
pieces of furniture within the tabernacle. And in these verses,
he's being told how to construct the Ark of the Covenant and the
mercy seat over that Ark. Listen carefully. Exodus 25,
verse 17. Thou shalt make a mercy seat
of pure gold. two cubits and a half shall be
the length thereof, a cubit's about eighteen inches. And thou
shalt make two cherubims of gold, a beaten work shalt thou make
them, in the two ends of the mercy seat. And make one cherub
on the one end, and the other cherub on the other end, even
of the mercy seat shall you make the cherubims on the two ends
thereof. And the cherubim shall stretch
forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings,
and their faces shall look to one another toward the mercy
seat, and shall the faces of the cherubims be. Now try to
get the picture in your mind's eye. The mercy seat, this golden
lid, is on top of the Ark of the Covenant. And at each end
are beaten of gold cherubims facing one another, their wings
spread out over the mercy seat, touching one another, and their
faces looking downward on the mercy seat. These cherubs representing
God's messengers, God's servants, the angels of the churches. Now
read up, listen on now. Beginning verse 21 in Exodus
25. And thou shalt put the mercy seat above upon the ark, and
in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee. Now hear this promise from God.
And there will I meet with thee, and I will commune with thee
from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims which
are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give
thee in commandment unto the children of Israel. Now, let's
look at our text, 1 John chapter 4. 1 John chapter 4. This mercy
seat in the tabernacle and later in the temple typified the Lord
Jesus Christ in his glorious person and work as our perpetuatory
sacrifice. My subject this evening is Christ,
our propitiation. 1 John 4, verse 10. Herein is love, not that we loved
God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation
for our sins. God the Holy Ghost tells us here
that God sent his son into this world out of his heart of superabounding
love, mercy, and grace toward his elect so that his son might
be a propitiation for our sins, so that his son might be a sacrifice
satisfying the justice and wrath of a holy God because of our
sins. Many times words are used both
in our language and in other languages, both in modern English
and in scripture terms. Words are used that are better
defined by ideas than by strict definitions. The word perpetuation
has the idea of satisfaction. It comes from a root word that
has connection with atonement or covering. The mercy seat covered
the tables of the law inside the Ark of the Covenant, and
on that mercy seat was blood of sacrifice, blood of a Paschal
lamp, atonement blood. Atonement blood making sinners
for whom the blood was shed one with God with no sin. Atonement
is very well defined, at one with. Scriptures speak of reconciliation,
atonement, redemption, and propitiation. Jesus Christ is all that. He is the sacrifice by which
our sins are covered from God. by which our sins are atoned
for, by which we are reconciled to God and accepted of God, that
sacrifice by which God's anger, wrath, and justice are fully
satisfied, and the only sacrifice by which the conscience of a
guilty sinner can be satisfied. Christ is our propitiation. The word is only used three times
in the entire Bible. In Romans chapter 3 verse 25,
the Apostle Paul writes by divine inspiration and says that God
has set him forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to
declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that passed
through the forbearance of God. God set forth his son in his
eternal decree, in his eternal purpose of grace, in his word
by the prophets, by the types, by the ceremonies of the law,
in the gospel of his grace, he set him forth. But he set him
forth when Christ is revealed in you by his grace. When God
the Holy Spirit creates life and faith in you so that he is
a propitiation through faith in his blood. That propitiation
is with regard to you and your experience. Now, when the sinner
has the love of God shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost,
he sees that God is right to forgive his sin. Oh, what a good
thing it is to see that God is right to forgive me, that God
is right to accept me, that God is just to justify me. He set
forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare
God's righteousness, God's righteousness in the forgiveness of sins by
the forbearance of God. Then the Apostle Paul, or the
Apostle John rather, in 1 John 2, says in verse 2 that Christ
is our propitiation. It says, if any man sin, we have
an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and
he is the propitiation for our sins. And there's one other place
where the word is used, though it's translated differently.
In Hebrews chapter 9, in verse 5, you have the word mercy-seek.
Mercy-seek. There, the very same word that's
translated propitiation in Romans 3 and 1 John 2 and 1 John 4,
the very same word is translated mercy seat. Why? Because the
mercy seat represents the propitiation. The mercy seat type is fulfilled
in the propitiation. So that God gave Moses this order
to build the mercy seat. to set the mercy seat on top
of the ark, covering the broken law. And God says, there, I'll
meet you. There, I'll commune with you.
There, I'll show you myself. And so it is, God meets sinners
in Christ's perpetuatory sacrifice and communes with us and reveals
his glory in us in the sacrifice of his son. The propitiation,
then, is Christ our Lord. Let me talk to you as plainly
and as simply as I can. I want every one of you, the
youngest and oldest, to go with me here, understanding how Christ
is our propitiation, why we need Him, and what kind of propitiation
He is. Let's look at first, why do I
need Christ as my propitiation? Why? Because God is holy. and I'm guilty. God is holy and
I'm guilty. Every person knows the guilt
of his own heart. It's true, he doesn't fully know
the extent and violence of his guilt, but every man, every woman
knows he's guilty. No matter how you try to deny
it, no matter how you try to cover it up before others and
cover it up to yourself, all men know that one day they must
meet God and give an account of their guilt to the Holy Lord
God. It is just for this reason, just
for this reason, that we need Christ as our propitiation. We
need someone to stand between us and God. Something between
us and God, a daysman, a mediator, an atonement, a sacrifice. My
dear friend, Brother Charlie Payne, who was elder at 13th
Street Church in Ashton for many years, Brother Mayhem was pastor
there, was on an airplane one time and got on a plane going
down to Mexico to visit missionaries down there. And Charlie never
was terribly bashful. He got on a plane and sat beside
a fellow, a Jewish fellow, had one of those skull caps on, a
beanie of some kind. And they chatted for a little
bit and Charlie said to him, said, would you mind telling
me why you fellows wear those caps on your head all the time?
And this fellow said, oh, we have such a high view of God
in his greatness and his holiness. We recognize that we've got to
have something. between us and God. Charlie said,
me too, let me tell you about him. We've got to have something between
us and God, because God's holy, and we're guilty. And that something
is Jesus Christ the Lord. Our hearts are full of evil lust.
Our minds are defiled with wicked thoughts, abominable imaginations. Our lives, all the days of our
lives, are one continual act of sin. I need Christ because
God's holy and God's just. God's just. Now this is so very,
very, very, very important. Very important. Jonathan, you
were out working with your dad earlier today, weren't you? Did
you mess up any time? I bet you did. I bet you did
something wrong. And your dad said, that's all
right, son. And he just forgives you. Didn't get beat for it,
did you? Don't answer that. I don't even know. Why? Why? Because your dad is
just like you, prone to every kind of mistake. And he can forgive
sin without satisfaction. He can forgive failure without
satisfaction. He can forgive any evil without
satisfaction, sort of. He can forgive it and say, all
right, we'll let that go. No punishment involved. And in
forgiving that sense, God can't. He declares his name to be God,
who will by no means clear the guilty. And then he turns around
and says, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sins. How
can that be? How can that be? He says, stand
right here, Moses, and I'll show you how. And he causes his son
to pass before him. And he shows it through the sacrifice
of a mediator, through the sacrifice of a God-man substitute. God
punishes sin till justice is satisfied. And now, on the basis
of justice satisfied, forgives sin, really forgives it, really
forgives it. To forgive, you see, is to Well, I can forgive him, but
I can't forget that you haven't forgiven him because you can't
really forgive. You can't expunge. You can't
erase, you can't remove, you can't take away the offense.
All you and I can do is sort of pretend to forgive and not
deal out punishment on the basis of evil done. When God forgives,
God deals out punishment on a substitute and on us in the substitute so
that justice is satisfied. We need a substitute. We need
a propitiation because God is just and he cannot, except by
the shedding of blood, forgive sin. There is no remission of
sin without the shedding of blood. You understand that? Justice
must be satisfied. And you and I cannot possibly
satisfy God's justice. Not by anything we do. If we
suffered all the wrath of God in hell, we can't satisfy justice. We cannot atone for sin, neither
past nor present nor future. So much then for going to the
mass or going to the confessional or sacramental religion. And
with by these things, we have forgiveness. If men weren't blinded
by religious foolishness, nobody would believe that nonsense.
Who can imagine? Who can imagine that having sin
in your heart is going to be washed away by getting in a baptismal
pool? Who can imagine that being a
vile sinner before God, you're going to somehow make atonement
for that by eating bread and drinking wine at the Lord's table?
That's absurd beyond ridiculous and ridiculous beyond absurd.
Most religion is. Forgiveness comes only through
a propitiatory sacrifice that God will accept, and Christ is
that sacrifice. How is that? How is it that the
Lord Jesus became and is the propitiation for our sins? That's
the second thing. First, John tells us God sent
his Son to be the propitiation. the satisfaction of justice,
the appeasement of wrath, the atonement for our sins. He means
that Christ, our God and Savior, was sent by God the Father, the
triune Jehovah, to be the mercy seat. We've read the law in Exodus
25 of God Almighty as he speaks concerning this mercy seat in
the Old Testament. Everything connected with the
mercy seat was intended by God to be a picture vivid to the
eyes of all Israel continually in all their services of Christ
in his person and work. The mercy seat was on top of
that Ark of Covenant. Inside the ark, the broken law.
And this ark of the covenant with its mercy seat was set in
the holy of holies, in the most holy place. When the tabernacle
was taken down and folded up and wrapped up, the priest carried
that and the ark and the mercy seat from place to place covered
up. I read today, I believe it was
in First Chronicles 25, I think it was, David said the tabernacle
of God or the ark of God has come to rest. And it was placed
in the holy place where the temple was built in that tent David
had made for it. It had come to its place of rest,
not to be cared about anymore. And the Levites had all of their
orders given to them by David under the direction of God. But
that ark of the covenant and that mercy seat on that ark in
that holy of holies was hidden all the time from men. That was
the place where God dwelt. ceremonially, you understand.
His Shekinah glory on that mercy seat. He dwelt in that holy of
holies behind the curtain, beyond the holy place, and nobody could
come in there. Nobody could approach that place.
Nobody could enter except the high priest once a year with
the blood of the Paschal Lamb, and he would enter in through
the thick veil and sprinkle blood on the mercy seat. And God always accepted the sacrifice. God always accepted the sacrifice. There never was a time when a
high priest went in on the Day of Atonement and offered blood,
God didn't accept it. God always accepted the sacrifice,
always announced forgiveness to the people for whom the sacrifice
was made, pointing to Christ, the Redeemer, our substitute,
whose sacrifice God in his holiness has accepted for the forgiveness
of the people for whom that sacrifice was made. And the mercy seat
points to our Savior. Until at last, our Lord Jesus
cried, it is finished. And when he did, The veil separating
the holy place from the most holy place was split in two from
top to bottom. God Almighty took it in his hands. and ripped it in two, from top
to bottom, declaring a new and living way. Now, sinners come
to God not by a physical mediator, not by a physical high priest,
not by a physical sacrifice, but by Christ, our mediator,
and His blood, and His sacrifice. We come to God and have acceptance
with Him, through Jesus Christ, our mercy seat, our propitiation,
so that when God speaks peace to the heart, the Lord God declares
to the sinner, he's free to come to God, accepted of God on the
basis of justice satisfied. That mercy seat was made of pure
gold. The Ark of the Covenant was made
of shit and wood, overlaid with gold. That mercy seat was made
of pure gold. Speaking of the divinity and
perfection of our Savior. Because the mercy seat represents
Christ as God all-sufficient. Christ as God infinite. Christ as God immeasurable. Christ as God in all the infinite
purity of his being. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
slain as the lamb, representing him as God's sacrifice. And he comes in his blood, sprinkled
in that ceremony, on that golden mercy seat. And God accepts it.
The mercy seat was exactly, now listen carefully, it was exactly
as long and exactly as broad as the Ark of the Covenant. Exactly
the same. See this right here? We just
have a way of liking to decorate things. I like them that way.
This table here, this pulpit, wouldn't look near as attractive
if it was just a box, everything exactly the same. Gotta have
a little edge over it, a little trim on it, all kinds of stuff,
decorate it a little bit, make it look good. Not God's purpose
in the Ark of the Covenant and the mercy seat. He's showing
us something. what God required and what God
provides is exactly the same. What God demands and what God
provides in His Son is exactly the same. This mercy seat was
that which the Lord Jesus made himself as a type of himself
by his command given to Moses to show forth the glory of God. There the Shekinah glory of God
is seen. And the Lord God Almighty shows
us his glory in the face of Jesus Christ, our crucified substitute. All these shadows all these types
under the law, represented our Savior. Christ, our Passover,
who was sacrificed for us. Let me move on quickly. Here's
the third thing. What kind of propitiation is
our Lord Jesus? What kind is it? First, he is
the propitiation, the propitiatory sacrifice appointed by God. He set forth in all the types
and ceremonies of the law, set forth in the prophets, set forth
in the gospel, set forth in the purpose of God. He is that sacrifice
that God provides and the sacrifice that God accepts. He is the perpetuatory
sacrifice, the one and only perpetuatory sacrifice that actually puts
away sin. that actually satisfies the justice
of God. The proof of his acceptance is
the fact that our Lord Jesus, when he ascended up into heaven
with his own blood, obtained eternal redemption for us and
sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. Our Lord
Jesus being slain in our stead, by his own voluntary will and
eternal purpose, satisfied the justice of God, and put away
the sins of his people, and having it been accepted himself, we
are forever accepted in him." Truly, it is accurate what the
mockers said of him when he was hanging on the tree. They looked
at him and said, he saved others. Himself he cannot save. Thank
God for that. He saved others. Himself, He
cannot save. That means, Cody Henson, the
Son of God could not save you except by dying for you. And He would not not save you. Herein is love. Not that we loved God, but that
he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our
sins. His was altogether a voluntary
sacrifice. Under the Levitical law, men
were required to bring their sacrifices willingly. How can
you require men to bring a sacrifice willingly? God wouldn't accept
the worship were it not willing. Men were required to bring the
sacrifice. They were required to bring the
sacrifice willingly. And if they brought the sacrifice
and they weren't willing to bring the sacrifice, God refused their
worship. But in the law, the sacrifice
had to be bound to the horns of the altar. Not so with our
propitiation. Our Lord Jesus willingly came
as our sacrifice, our sin offering, our substitute to make atonement
for our sins by the sacrifice of himself. And this one who
is God's appointed and accepted propitiatory sacrifice is the
only sacrifice there is. There's no way to God but him. No remission, but by his blood.
No righteousness, but by his righteousness. No acceptance,
but in his person. He is that one who said, lo,
I come to do thy will, O my God. And he actually did it. And God
Almighty has said, sit here now till I make all your foes your
footstool. And he brings his people under the rule of his
son, willingly subject to his son, bowing to his obedience
and his blood, trusting him. And they are willingly, one by
one, made to bow before him. Jesus Christ is our propitiation. He is that one who voluntarily
agreed to the work before the world began. But more than that,
our Lord Jesus Christ being our voluntary propitiatory sacrifice
is an effectual propitiation. An effectual propitiation. He
doesn't try to satisfy justice. He didn't try to satisfy the
anger and wrath of God. He didn't try to make sinners
reconciled to God. He did it. He did it. In the Old Testament, sacrifices were consumed by the
fire of God's altar, burned up. Christ is the sacrifice that
consumed the fire of God's wrath. So that God totally spent his justice on
his son. He totally spent his justice
on his son. And he says to Jacob, fury is
not in me. The Lord Jesus is that propitiation
that turned God's judgment from us, reconciled us to God, justified
the ungodly, and in Christ God is pacified. Turn to Ezekiel
16. I want you to see this. Brother
Mark was asking me Sunday night or Sunday morning going out the
door about the meaning of this word propitiation. He said it
looked up and said it didn't get much satisfaction. He looked
up the word. And I said to him, the nearest
thing I can think of, it doesn't come close to illustrating it,
but it's the nearest thing I can think of to illustrate it. If
a baby is upset, if a baby is upset, our daughter Faith was
always kind of like her mother or her father was, she was a
little stubborn and she wouldn't take a pacifier. She wouldn't
until she got older and she was willing to take it, we wouldn't
give it to her. But most babies like a pacifier
pretty good. And the way you use the pacifier
is to shut the baby up. That's the purpose. The only
purpose is to shut the baby up, just to keep it from squalling.
You stick that pacifier in the baby's mouth, and he quits crying.
He's pacified. His anger, whatever it is that
upsets him, is done at least for a time. Well, Christ's perpetuatory
sacrifice pacified forever the justice of God, the anger of
God. Oh, is that the right word to
use? Let's see. Ezekiel 16, verse 63. that thou mayest remember and
be confounded and never open thy mouth any more because of
thy shame. When I am pacified toward thee
for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord God. That's another
way of God saying I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and
their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Christ is
the propitiation for sinners of every kind, everywhere, of
every need. In order to have a propitiatory
sacrifice, three things are necessary. You've got to have a sacrifice,
and you've got to have a priest, and you've got to have an altar.
Christ is the sacrifice. Christ is the priest, and Christ
is the altar. He's everything we need. Everything
God requires. As our priest, he was taken from
among men. He was ordained of God to be
a priest. He was a priest for men and made
an offering in things pertaining to God as a sacrifice for sins. And Jesus Christ, our great propitiatory
sacrifice, is a persevering, permanent, continual propitiation. What do you mean? Why did the
Holy Spirit say through his servant John, he is the propitiation
for our sins? Adam looks to me like he ought
to have said he was, but he said he is. So I reckon it was right
to say he is. Why? Does Christ continually
make a perpetuatory sacrifice? No. He made one sacrifice for
sins forever and sat down on the right hand of God. But his
one sacrifice is permanently, perpetually effectual, always
satisfying God and his justice. So that when he pleads for us,
how does this all go? The father cannot turn away the
presence of his son. When he pleads for us, he just
spreads his hands. When he pleads for us, there's
a picture of him in Zechariah chapter 3. There's Joshua with
his filthy garments, the object of God's love and mercy, God's
elect. And the Lord Jesus is standing by, the angel of the
Lord. And he doesn't say a thing. He doesn't say a thing. He doesn't
have to. He already said it all. He satisfied God in the totality
of his being. And he satisfied God in the totality
of his demands. And God's perpetually satisfied
for us. So if any man sin, we have an
advocate with the Father. Jesus Christ, the righteous,
and He is the propitiation for our sins. One more thing. Use Him. Use Him. Use Him. What do you mean, Pastor, use
Him? He's a propitiation to be received. To be received. We must believe on the Son of
God. We must receive God's propitiation. So whether Don thought we believe
salvation by grace, we do. Oh yes, we do. I understand no
man can, no man will, but you must. And you're going to hell
if you don't. You must receive him. In fact,
there are two words used in scripture for receiving Christ. Two different
Greek words used. One is receive like that glass
received water. Now, I wasn't around when the
glass received water, but I know something about glasses and know
something about water. The glass didn't do anything. Somebody
just put some water in the glass. That's how it received it. That's
how you receive life. But thirsty people receive water
a different way. Thirsty people receive it like
this. Are you thirsty? Watch this.
Have some water. That's good. Well, I don't want
any. I wasn't talking to you. I wasn't talking to you. If there's
any left when I get done here, you're welcome up here and have
some. Drink it till it's gone. Just
drink it till it's gone. If you would have Christ, so
too you must receive Him. To as many as received Him, to
them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them
that believe on His name. Power, the right, the authority,
the ability, to cry as Brother Merle did the other night when
he read scripture and led us in prayer and said, Abba Father,
Abba Father, I've got a right to call God my father because
Christ is the propitiation for our sins. God help you now to
believe on his son unto life everlasting. And you who are
gods, use the Savior as your propitiation,
by whom you have acceptance with God. When you attempt to worship
Him tonight before you go to bed, be sure you plead His blood
and His righteousness. When you arise tomorrow and you
attempt to worship Him and walk with God, Lift your heart in
prayer to God. Be sure to use his blood and
his righteousness. When you come to the house of
God and worship, be sure you use his blood and his righteousness. That's the only acceptance we
have, Mark, is him, just him. And when you fall, when you fall seven times a day,
use Christ. It's your propitiation. If any
man's saying, these are about as good words
I have heard, we have an advocate with the Father. Christ, our
propitiation. Amen.