Thank you, Todd. The feeling
is very mutual. I met Todd, I think, in 2001
at a conference in Oregon. I'd never heard of Todd, never
met Todd before, and we were together just a few minutes and
we became friends, at least on my part. I consider Todd my best friend,
and I don't mean that lightly because we both share a love
for the gospel, and by God's grace, I have learned a lot from
Todd. I've listened to any, I can't
count how many sermons that Todd has preached, so he probably
hasn't listened to very many of mine, John chapter eight,
if you want to turn there. We also love Lynn. She's one
of those people that also you feel comfortable with as soon
as you're with them. I appreciate that. John chapter
eight. We're going to look at a few
verses here together. And I hope the Lord blesses us with a view
of Christ. That's who I want to see. John
chapter eight and verse one. We're gonna read the first 12
verses. Jesus went out, I'm sorry, he went unto the Mount of Olives.
And early in the morning, he came again into the temple. And all the people came to him.
And he sat down and taught them. And the scribes and Pharisees
brought unto him a woman taken in adultery. And when they had
set her in the midst, they say unto him, Master, This woman
was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses, in the law,
commanded us that such should be stoned, but what sayest thou? This they said, tempting him,
that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down and
with his finger wrote on the ground as though he heard them
not. So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself and
said unto them, he that is without sin among you, let him first
cast a stone at her. And again, he stooped down and
wrote on the ground. And they which heard it, being
convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning
at the eldest even unto the last. And Jesus was left alone, and
the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had lifted up himself
and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are
those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee? She
said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said to her, Neither
do I condemn thee. Go, and sin no more. Then spake
Jesus again to them, saying, I am the light of the world.
He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have
the light of life. I've entitled this message, The
Light of the World. If you look at verse two, it
says that Jesus came from the Mount of Olives early in the
morning, and he came again into the temple. Notice, into the
temple, all the people came to him, and he sat down and taught
them. This is the master, this is the
son of God in our nature. He came to the temple. He came
to the temple and all the people came to him, it says, and he
sat down and he taught them. Now think about this. In Malachi
3, verse 1, it says the Lord Jehovah would come to the temple,
the messenger of the covenant. The Lord Jesus Christ is that
one. He is the messenger of the covenant.
And he is the Lord who came to his temple. What is the temple?
What is the temple? The temple is where God dwells.
God dwells in heaven. That's his temple. But he also
dwells in his son, in our nature. He is God manifest in the flesh.
The fullness of the Godhead dwells in him bodily. God dwells in
Christ. And he dwells in his people.
They are the temple. And so we see in this Christ
coming to the temple that the master, the Lord Jesus Christ,
is coming to his people. to reveal himself to them. That's
where the Lord revealed himself to the people is in the temple.
Christ, God in the flesh, revealing himself to the people in this
event, in this situation. He orchestrated it. It wasn't
an accident. The situation was his doing.
Nothing happened that he didn't ordain from the foundation of
the world and did not come to pass. where he went, who he met
with, what he said, what he did, all that happened to him, all
that was spoken to him in scripture was because he is that prophet
that was promised. Everything he said and all in
his life was meant to teach us who God is. And here we see the
light of the world in the one who comes to the temple and speaks
to us in this text of scripture. Notice here. He comes to the
temple, the people come to him. Isn't that what God does? When
he sent his son into the world, those given to him by the father,
as Drew just mentioned in that song, come to Christ. We come
to Christ. We come to the one who came to
the temple in our nature and came to his people, and all the
people came to him, and he sat down and he taught them. This
posture of sitting is a posture of authority. It's a posture
of power. It's a posture of a work accomplished. And that's what we're going to
see here in this text of scripture. The authority of God speaking
in his son in our nature, accomplishing the work of God, the will of
God. And so he says here, early in the morning, he came again
to the temple. All the people came to him and
he sat down and he taught them. Now, what is going to happen
here? Well, his enemies are going to drag this woman into the middle
of his lesson, into the middle of what he designed to teach.
They don't know that they are actually fulfilling the object
of his purpose being there, right? There's four people here, or
four, yes, four people, the Lord Jesus Christ, his enemies, the
scribes and the Pharisees, and this woman, and one more, which
we'll get to in a moment. So here he is, and he has arranged
this to be an open, an open presentation. There's no hiding here. Notice
how when the Lord saves his people, he doesn't do it in a closet.
The Pharisees did that. They whispered behind the backs
of the disciples and accused their master to them because
they wouldn't face him. But the Lord Jesus Christ openly
comes to the temple where God dwells. where the people are
gathered to teach them, and he brings this whole entourage into
it by his will, but they don't know it. They don't know they're
the ones who are being drawn into the courtroom, as it were,
in order to be an object lesson of his saving grace. And so here's
this woman. Now, what was she? Well, obviously
she has guilty of adultery, which is a sin against God. And who
is the Lord Jesus? He's the Son of God. And so these
men come to accuse her. They had a second motive, which
was really to tempt Christ, to dishonor Him, to prove that He
was false, so that they could discredit Him. Having discredited
Him, they could cast Him out and defame Him before the people. So their intent was really to
destroy Christ. But they would do it through
the woman, at least that was their plan. It was to, they were
merciless really, if you think about it. They were willing to
either stone this woman to death and shame her before all these
people gathered in the temple. They had no care for her. Can
you imagine that? Absolutely no concern, the shame
that she would experience. but publicly shamed before all.
And then they suggested that she should be stoned by the law.
And so they wouldn't have cared. They might've been the first
to gather the stones together and rock her to death. Well,
that's cruel, isn't it? That's a complete lack of mercy. And you know why they had that
attitude? Because they did not know God. They did not know God. God himself
is known by his mercy, isn't that what he told Moses? He says,
show me your glory. And he said, I will have mercy
on whom I will have mercy. And he went on to say how he
delights in mercy in Micah chapter seven, and that he's the God
who forgives iniquity and will by no means clear the guilty.
These things are clearly known from scripture and yet they had
no concern for mercy. They did not know God, that's
why. So they drag this woman in. And
the Lord Jesus Christ, he knows they're going to do this. He's
directed the whole thing, as I said. But think about it. Now here's a woman, obviously
guilty. And in the eyes of the law, a
shameful woman because of what she's done. And yet the Lord
Jesus Christ is not ashamed of her. Now think about what this
is saying here. Men, I have seen in my lifetime,
shamefully, are sometimes ashamed of their wives. And that's a
dreadful thing. We should never ever be ashamed
of our wives. Notice that love covers a multitude
of sins. The Lord Jesus Christ was not
ashamed of this woman. That's why he arranged it to
be publicly displayed. so that what he did here would
be made known as the revelation of God's will. And if it's God's
will, it's God's character and nature. This is the heart of
God that's about to be revealed here. Who God is is about to be unfolded
here. It says in John chapter one that
the law was given by Moses and grace and truth came by Jesus
Christ. No man has seen God at any time, but the only begotten
Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.
So the Lord Jesus is about to reveal God, His Father, in His
nature and character and His will and His work. And so we
have the woman, we have the Lord Jesus Christ, we have the scribes
and the Pharisees, and then we have this fourth person here.
Notice in verse three, and the scribes and Pharisees brought
to him a woman taken in adultery, and when they had set her in
the midst, they say to him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery
in the very act. Now Moses, in the law, commanded
us that such should be stoned, but what sayest thou? Moses is
the fourth person here, isn't he? Moses gave the law. Of course,
God gave it to Moses to give to them, but they bring Moses
into the equation. So what are they doing here?
Well, they're trying to get at the Lord Jesus Christ, because
they say in verse five, Moses, in the law, commanded us that
such should be stoned, but what sayest thou? This they said,
tempting him that they might have to accuse him. They bring
Moses in to judge the woman. And they brought Moses in too
because they thought that they could prove that Christ would
disagree with Moses concerning this woman. How could he claim,
how could he eat with publicans and sinners? and not bear the
shame of that. Since Moses said, you're supposed
to stone this woman, they expected him, they didn't know what, which
is a very bad thing to do. They didn't know what was gonna
happen. A very bad thing to do to not really know what's gonna
happen. But this was always the case
with the Lord Jesus Christ. Men would bring these impossible
situations to him, thinking that they were going to outwit him
or shame him with them. And those were the very things
by which he would prove them for what they were. And so they
bring the woman, they put her in the midst to shame her and
to shame Christ by her. And they bring Moses into the
equation and they said, Moses said, we have to stone her, right? What do you say? So there you
go. That's an impossible conundrum,
isn't it? That is, I think, the problem that scripture lays
out throughout from beginning to end. That's the problem. That's
the problem that has to be solved and none can solve it but God
himself in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so he says here, they said
this to him about the law. The law says to do this, to stone
her. And what do you say? They're going to be on the receiving
end of the judgment that they try to use here. Because it says
in Matthew 7 that the judgment that you judge with, that's the
way you're going to be judged. When I was an engineer, we used
measurement references. We would measure everything compared
to the reference. And these men were trying to
use the law as the reference. Let's lay it out here. Let's
put her beside it. Let's find out if she conforms
to it. And if not, what does the law say to do? Stone her.
But this is exactly, this is, they were cutting their own throats
here. Because it also says in Matthew 7 that that judgment
with which you judge is the judgment you will be judged with. So if
you want to bring out the law, let's bring it out. Bring it
out and let's, you know, we can dish it out, but we can't take
it. So here, these men are trying to dish it out with God's law.
Did they give the law? Were they appropriate judges
of the law? Jesus asked them a little later, he that is without
sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. Only one
without sin can use the law lawfully. Only the lawgiver is the judge.
And so they bring her and the law up to the lawgiver and the
judge. What are you going to do? And
here they are exposed now. They've set themselves up. They've
checkmated themselves here, because they brought the law into the
equation. And here's Moses. They trusted in Moses. And they're
going to be exposed by Moses. They wanted to shame the woman.
They're going to be put to shame. She was silent. She had nothing
to say. You know why? Because she was
utterly guilty. She had nothing to say. But there
was one who stood there. who was her advocate. And he
himself was the judge and the lawgiver. And he is going to
answer his own law for her and silence them with it. And so
we see here, after they posed this problem to him, it says
in verse six, but Jesus stooped down. He stooped down and with
his finger wrote on the ground as though he heard them not.
Those words are in italics in the King James Version, as though
he heard them not. But if you read the context,
you can see that he didn't say anything. He was silent to them.
They brought the law to accuse her. They brought the law to
judge her. They were using the law as a tool to murder this
woman. They didn't care for her. Absolutely
no mercy, no concern for her. And they certainly didn't care
for Christ. They were hoping to destroy him with that too.
So he steps down and writes on the ground with his finger as
though he heard them not. What does this say? First of
all, it says that those who bring the law to judge, who use God's
requirements for us as though they're God and judge, when we
judge one another in order to condemn and prove guilt, what
are we doing? We're standing in the seat of the lawgiver and
the judge. And that law will judge us. And
so Christ doesn't answer them. And the one thing we need more
than anything else is for the Lord Jesus Christ to speak to
us. And he did not answer them, not a word. Not yet, he's going
to, but it's not going to be a good answer for them. So he
stoops down and with his finger writes on the ground. Now there
are certain places in scripture where God has with his finger
written on the ground and you probably know what they are.
Remember in the book of Exodus, God gave Moses the two tables
of stone, two tables, and on those two tables he wrote with
his finger on those two tables. And Moses was on the mountain
and he took those two tables down to Israel. And there they
were, Aaron had made a calf, they were worshiping the calf
and he took the two tables and he threw them down and they broke. And then after that Moses interceded
for the children of Israel and he goes back up to the mount
and God wrote with his finger again. And he told Moses, now
you take those two tables and you put them in the ark, the
testimony, the ark of the testimony. So here the Lord Jesus Christ
stoops down the first time. And we can see what the meaning
of this is by the context here. It says, so when they continued
asking him, he lifted up himself and said to them, he that is
without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. What
was the effect of Christ riding on the ground? What was that
effect on them? It was to expose their sin. He
that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at
her. So the effect of what Christ
wrote on the ground was to convince them of their sin. Isn't that
the work of the law? That we know from Romans 3.19
that whoever is under the law, whatever the law saith, it says
to those who are under the law that every mouth may be stopped. and the world become guilty before
God. So they had to be stopped, their
mouths had to be stopped. They had to be proven by the
law to be guilty and that guilt carries with it condemnation
because God's judgment is you've disobeyed, you haven't done the
law, you're guilty. Now think about this for a minute.
What is the law? What is the law for us, for you
and me? The law, if you could distill
it down, for me, the easiest way to think of it is that the
law is everything God requires of you that you have to fulfill. The law has basically two parts.
What God requires of you, you have to do this, you cannot do
that, That's the first part, what God requires of you for
obedience and what he prohibits. And the second part is what God
requires for the remedy of sin, for redemption. That's the law.
And so what we see in the old covenant, that law, is that God
sets up those two things. God puts requirements on us in
his word, everything you must do in order for you to meet the
conditions that God puts on you for life, blessings, to avoid
death, and here's the remedy for sin. But you can't do those
things, can you? Is anyone capable of doing one
part of the law? Have you ever kept the law, one
part of it? Is there any law that you haven't
broken? Jesus said if you've broken, in the book of James
it says if you've broken one commandment, you've broken it
all. Because the law is part of a covenant. And a covenant
stands or falls all together. You can't just take pieces, I
can keep that piece. I've never committed adultery. Good to go. No, you have to keep
the whole law. The last part says thou shalt
not covet. So the law is a covenant, we
have to keep it all, it's basically what God requires of us to do
in order for us to fulfill what God requires and receive the
blessings of life and avoid the curse. So understand that that's
what the law is, it's what God requires of you, for us, and
we have to fulfill it. But here the Lord Jesus Christ
stoops down and as God wrote the law in the beginning on two
tables of stone and gave it to Moses, the Lord Jesus Christ
stoops down and writes with his finger on the ground. What did
he write? I don't know exactly. Did he
write the entire two tables of the law? Maybe. Did he just write
one commandment, thou shalt not covet? thy neighbor's wife? Or did he write, thou shalt not
commit adultery? It doesn't matter what he wrote
in the sense for us to be able to dogmatically say, but one
thing we know, whatever he wrote, it completely convicted these
men that they were sinners before him. They couldn't answer him.
They were silent. He said, he that is without sin
among you, let him first cast a stone. Not one of them picked
up a stone. And the stones were to put to
death the woman who was taken in adultery. So even if he had
just said, thou shalt not commit adultery, even that, they were
not able to pick up a stone and cast at her. They were guilty
of that. It also says this in Jeremiah
chapter 17. In Jeremiah 17 and verse 13,
I will read this to you. Oh Lord, the hope of Israel,
all that forsake thee shall be ashamed and they that depart
from me shall be written in the earth. Those who depart from
the Lord are written in the earth. We just heard Todd reading from
Revelation 21 that there's a Lamb's book of life. But these are written
in the earth. They're not written in the Lamb's
book of life. And here the Lord Jesus Christ, perhaps he wrote
their names. Bob and Joe and Henry. And then
he writes the word, how did he know my name? And how did he
know I committed that? Because he searches the hearts
and he tries the inward parts of us. And he, whatever he says,
we're silent before him. And so the first stoop of the
Lord Jesus Christ had the effect that the law has. And I think
that's what he was writing. He was writing what they trusted
in, what they tried to use against the woman, the law. You want
to bring the law? Let's bring it out. You want
to judge her by the law? Then you have to be judged yourself
by the law. If you want to use the law to
judge, then you have to be judged by that standard. and you will
receive it. So that was the first stoop.
So it says, he did this as though he heard them not. So when they
continued asking him, they were pretty thick and they were not
thinking clearly. They're just digging their grave
deeper. So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself
and said to them, he that is without sin among you, let him
first cast a stone at her. Now remember, these men had no
mercy. They did not know God. They did
not delight in mercy. What did they delight in? Condemnation. They delighted in justice. But
they couldn't stand before justice, could they? They couldn't be
condemned. They would wither when they were
judged. And so he asked them that, of
course, and verse eight, and he again stooped down and wrote
on the ground, and they which heard it, being convicted by
their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the
eldest, even to the last, and Jesus was left alone. So the
effect of what Jesus wrote had on them is that they left. They
couldn't stand to be in his presence. They were put to shame. Interesting.
They thought to murder the woman, to shame her, and to discredit
Christ, and what happened? They were silenced. They were
convicted by their own conscience, which is like a thousand witnesses,
isn't it? Our own conscience. We don't
need someone else to tell us that we're guilty. We know what
we are, don't we? And so when the Lord just lets
our conscience speak, it's enough to drive us to despair, isn't
it? Isn't that what happened to Judas?
His conscience afflicted him and he went out and hung himself.
And so many examples of the conscience in scripture making men, look
what happened to Peter. He denied the Lord and he saw
the Lord and he went out and he wept bitterly. Conscience
is a powerful tool in the hand. The candle of the Lord, I think
it says in scripture, the spirit of man is the candle of the Lord,
showing all the inward parts. And so this is the way, the effect
of the conscience that it had on them, it chased them out from
his presence. They were put to shame, they
were silenced before him, they were found to be guilty. And
what did they do? Did they appeal to him for mercy? They were sent out by their own
conscience. Did they ever stop to think that
the very problem that they had posed was the problem they were
in? And did they then plead to the
one who was the master, who had not yet stoned this woman, is
there a way for us to find mercy? They didn't, did they? Because
they didn't know God. Remember Cain? When he came with
his offering, he offered to the Lord the fruit of the ground.
Abel offered the lamb. God had respect to Abel and to
his offering. He did not have respect to Cain.
And Cain was, he envied his brother. He hated his brother. And God
said to him, to Cain, he says, if you do well, you'll be accepted,
but if not, sin lies at the door. And so if he had, you know, and
if you think about that, the Lord is telling him, if you do
well, you'll be accepted. It's okay now, that fit right
in with his view of things. I just gotta do the right thing.
But sadly, he couldn't come to God that way, and so then he
goes out, continues on with his hatred, he murders Abel, and
God calls to him, what have you done? Your brother's blood cries
to me from the ground. And then he was sent out from
the presence of the Lord. And he told the Lord, my punishment
is greater than I can bear. Why did he never plead for mercy?
because he did not know God. He did not know the God of mercy.
And see, this is the problem, and you see that by nature, we
are the scribes and Pharisees. I find when I read this that
I can identify with them. How many times in a day am I
critical of others and am quick to judge them? I don't have that
problem. The poor sucker that has that
problem, you know, they do, I don't. You know, or maybe I have that,
but not nearly to the extent that they do. It's so easy to
have this scale. We always build a platform and
put ourselves on top of it by our standards, but we never think
to show mercy until the Lord convinces us. You, and we could
use all sorts of descriptions. You merciless, cruel, conniving,
guilty sinner. And so Cain departed, he didn't
know mercy. And this was the problem throughout
scripture. But notice, I wanna read to you a text of scripture
in Psalm 51. Look at this with me, because
this is startling. This is amazing. This cannot
be true, you would think. How could this be, Psalm 51? In verse 14, you know Psalm 51,
you could probably tell me. What it's all about, David's
sin with Bathsheba and his prayer that followed Nathan the prophet
coming to him and telling him, you're the man. You said that
the landowner who took the little single sheep of this poor man
who held it in his bosom since his youth and you took that sheep
and you killed it for a friend who came to your house. You're
the man, David. And David pours out this psalm. But look at verse 14. Notice
what David says to the Lord. This is a man who knows God's
mercy. Verse 14, deliver me from blood
guiltiness. That's murder. I'm guilty of
murder. Deliver me from blood guiltiness,
oh God. Now that is an incredible thing
that a man would even dare to pray. How could you deliver me
from the guilt of my murder? But he says, O God, thou God
of my salvation. Does God save from sin? That's
his glory, to forgive iniquity. Notice, and my tongue, when you
do this, shall sing aloud of thy righteousness. How in the
world could David sing aloud of God's righteousness if God
just somehow didn't bring upon him the punishment his guilt
deserved. That's the problem, that's the
problem throughout scripture. This was the problem always throughout
scripture. Job raised it, how can man be
just with God? When his accusers accused him
throughout his life. But back in John chapter eight,
notice here, here's the answer, here's the answer. And we see
this problem throughout the New Testament. Men or women brought
into the presence of the Lord, made to stand before him in judgment,
and they're exposed, naked in their sin, and sent out to depart. Have you ever, has that ever,
the thought of that ever gripped you with a felt fear that what
will I say to Christ in the day of judgment? How will I answer? How can I answer when those who
answered as they did in the New Testament were sent away? Here's
the answer. Here's the solution. Here's how
Christ could have this woman come into his presence in the
open company of all onlookers, in fact, the onlooking universe,
and record it by the Spirit of God in scripture. And this is
the light of the world shining brightly here. And the Lord Jesus
Christ is going to say that. In verse eight, and again he
stooped down. He stooped the first time and
he sent away the accusers, silenced, guilty by their own conscience. The second time he stooped down
and he wrote on the ground. What was it that God did in the
Old Testament? When he first gave the law, Moses
took the law and he broke it on the ground because that's
what the children of Israel had done. Even before he had come
down the mountain, they had broken the law. And in that same law,
God had already put in the law what to be done in Leviticus
in the priesthood before they broke it. Provision had been
made for atonement. But he comes down and he breaks
it. And so he goes back up to the mountain, God gives him the
second writing of the law, puts it in his hands, and he said,
now you put this in the ark, right, in the ark. What is that
ark? Well, there's a mercy seat on top of it, and we know that
the mercy seat is the place of propitiation, right? The mercy
seat and propitiation are synonyms. And so we know that, as it says
in the New Testament, in 1 John 4, 10, that God gave his son,
his son, to be the propitiation for our sins. Christ is that
mercy seat, isn't he? And so as it says in Psalm 40,
verse eight, thy law is within my heart. I delight to do thy
will, O God, yea, thy law is within my heart. They lifted
the lid, they put the tables in there, With the manna and
with Aaron's rod that budded, put the lid down, sprinkled the
blood, Christ fulfilled all God's law. It was in his heart to do
it. and the blood was sprinkled because
without the shedding of blood there's no remission of sins.
So the second stoop here signifies the fact that God in giving the
law the second time and putting it in the ark was a testimony,
a foreshadowing, a figure of the New Testament that was to
come. The Old Testament says, here's what God requires of you.
You must fulfill it. What does the New Testament say?
This is what God requires of you, but he turned all of the
obligations on himself and his son for sinners. Now here's something
that startles, that boggles the mind, that God would be this
merciful. Look at Romans chapter three.
In Romans chapter three, the first part of the book of Romans,
as you know, builds up a huge case from verse 18 of chapter
one until the 20th verse of chapter three. Convincing men, Jews and
Gentiles, you're guilty, guilty, guilty. Don't try to squirm out
of it. Accept this, you're guilty. You
know it. But the law says it here in verse
21. Now, he says in Romans 3, 21,
but now, notice, the righteousness of God. Without the laws manifested,
being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness
of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all
them that believe, for there is no difference, for all have
sinned and come short of the glory of God. And notice here,
he says, being justified freely by his grace through what? The
redemption that is in Christ Jesus. What is redemption? It's the release, a release of
debt, a release of bondage, a release to liberty, and redemption is
by the precious blood of Christ, is it not? How are we justified
here according to this verse? Being justified freely by His
grace through the redemption. Look back up at verse 22. Even
the righteousness of God, whose righteousness? God's righteousness,
which is by faith of Jesus Christ. Notice, you had no part in this.
This is the faith of Jesus Christ. It belongs to Him. This is not
our faith in Jesus Christ. This is the faith of Jesus Christ. And you can look at it in the
original. That's exactly what it would say. And that faith
of Jesus Christ is the way that God's righteousness was revealed.
And that righteousness is our justifying righteousness, which
is through His redeeming blood. So what is this righteousness
then? Well, righteousness means, since it's the righteousness
of God, it means it's his work. It's God's own character revealed
in his will and in his work. And how is it fulfilled? How
is it set forth? How is it made known? In the
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. When he offered himself to God,
what did he give? He gave himself. What could he
have given more? There's nothing more than the
Son of God. Doesn't Paul say, the Son of God who loved me and
gave, the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me? And doesn't it say in Philippians
chapter 2, verses 5 through 8, that he who was equal with God,
did not think it robbery to be equal with God, but made himself
of no reputation. He took upon him the form of
a servant. He was made in the likeness of men. And being found
in fashion as a man, what did he do? He humbled himself and
became what? Obedient unto death, even the
death of the cross. And according to Hebrews chapter
10, this was the eternal will of God that he fulfilled when
he laid his life down for those who were his enemies. And so
His mercy is so great here. The righteousness of God is revealed
here. This is the fulfillment not only
of the law, but the fulfillment of the everlasting covenant in
Christ's blood. What doesn't His blood do? Is
there anything in scripture it says that we have from God in
Christ that His blood didn't achieve and didn't accomplish?
Our remission, our forgiveness, our propitiation, or God's propitiation
to God, our justification, our sanctification, everything is
by His blood. Look it up. Find out that this
right, we're justified by his blood, we're reconciled by the
blood of Jesus. Everything is through the blood.
Why? Because the blood of Jesus is the son of God given in sacrifice
to God with our sins and for our sins to God in satisfaction
and in the display of and the making known of God's own heart
and character to give himself for his enemies and to show love
and he prayed for them, those who despitefully used him. He
fulfilled the Sermon on the Mount. When it says, judge not that
you be not judged for whatever judgment you judge with, you
shall be judged again. What did the Lord Jesus Christ
do? He took our judgment. He took it for us, and he justified
us on the basis of what he had done in fulfilling the will of
God in order to purge our sins from us by his own blood. That's the second stoop. The
law was within his heart. He not only fulfilled the law
and jot and tittle, but he obtained for us an eternal redemption,
an everlasting life, all by his blood. all by his blood, he put
away sin by the sacrifice of himself, and he justified us
to God. Remember that, look at this verse
in Galatians 2, I wanna point this out before we go on here,
just one more verse in Galatians. Galatians 2, and right after
that one I quoted how Paul said, the Son of God who loved me and
gave himself for me, what a picture. Powerful statement that is. There was nothing left in all
of creation that could equate to the Son of God giving himself. He didn't give creation, he gave
himself. In verse 21, I do not frustrate,
Galatians 2.21, I do not frustrate the grace of God, for if righteousness
come by the law, in other words, what is the law? It's what God
requires of us to do. If righteousness comes that way,
then Christ is dead in vain. God chose us that our justification
is by Christ alone in two, both a positive and a negative way.
First, he says plainly here, we're not justified by the works
of the law, but we are justified by the faith of Jesus Christ
in verse 16. But here he says, if it were
possible, I mean, if it were possible for us to have fulfilled
the law ourselves, God would not have shed the blood of his
son. If He shed the blood of His Son, and it was possible
for us to be righteous before God in some other way, then Christ
died for nothing. And there is nothing more impossible
in all of the universe and eternity than that God would do something
needlessly, even the most impactful thing of all, which is to deliver
His Son up to death for us. It can't happen. Therefore, what? Therefore, the death of His Son
did justify us. You can't have it both ways.
It either did or it didn't. If it didn't, Christ died in
vain. If he didn't die in vain, then he did justify us by his
blood. Now look back at John 8 and we'll
finish up here. So in John 8. Christ's second
stoop, he stooped to fulfill the everlasting will of God to
save his people from their sins by the offering of himself to
God for their sins. He answered God, he answered
the law in doing so. He not only answered the law,
he magnified it. They were accusing him of not
being faithful to Moses. It's far from that. We're gonna
make the law shine. We're gonna lift it up so high
that the son of God was made under it and he fulfilled it.
And then he goes so far as to save his people by the sacrifice
of himself. Robert Hawker said, what will
God not give his son who gave himself for these sinful people
to have them? What would he not give him? Will
he ever stop giving his son those things? And he will give them
to those for whom he died? He will never stop. Eternity
will be a constant giving of the father in reward to his son. And so he lavishes upon us because
he stood for us. But back in John 8, he says,
he stooped down again and wrote on the ground, they which heard
it being convicted by their own conscience went out one by one,
beginning at the eldest, even to the last, and Jesus was left
alone and the woman standing in the midst. What a picture. The Lord Jesus Christ standing
alone, everyone in the temple captivated. Their eyes are fixed
and their ears are waiting to see what happens next. And notice
what he says, just the woman and the Lord Jesus Christ alone
with the Savior. Jesus lifted up himself and he
saw none but the woman. He said to her, woman, where
are those thine accusers? Has no man condemned thee? No
man, she said, no man, Lord. And notice what Jesus said. Go
and repent, and if you repent, then I'll forgive you." Or any
a number of things. Just put your condition in there.
There's no conditions here, is there? No, because the reason
he said what he said next was because of what he had just done.
He says, neither do I condemn thee. There were no strings attached. He had taken all of God's requirements
that we could not fulfill, that we were obligated to fulfill.
He took the obligation himself to fulfill his own law, to answer
his own justice, to make known his own mercy, grace. And so he says, neither do I
condemn thee. Completely justified in the presence of all the onlookers,
in the presence of his enemies, That's what Romans 8 says, doesn't
it? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It
is God that justifies. And who is he that condemneth?
It is Christ that died. That's it. Yea, rather, who is
risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh
intercession for us. That's it. You don't have to
go beyond that and say, yeah, but if. No, he did it. He says, neither do I condemn
thee. And this is Christ having lifted
himself up from his stoop as he did in the resurrection, declaring
to us in the time experience of our life by the gospel, neither
do I condemn thee. And what do you do as a sinner?
You hear it. And you just say, that's my only
hope. I was condemned by God's own
requirements. I had failed to do anything right.
And I've done everything wrong, and I stood guilty before God,
and my mouth was shut. I had no, I was shameful before
God and before, in my own conscience, and before men. And I had no
hope, and Christ justified me by his own blood. That's mercy,
isn't it? And so he said, go and sin no
more. And what do we do with that? How many of us have ever
done that? Who has ever done that? Go and
sin no more. How do we explain that? Well,
you see, who spoke these words to her? the one who himself stooped
and answered God's law and did all. He did the impossible. He
reconciled. Justice, I mean, mercy and truth
met together right there in the temple. When he stooped, mercy
and truth met together and righteousness and peace kissed each other.
And here, He says to her, that one, said to her, who stooped
and rose again and told her this. Then he said, go and sin no more.
What are you gonna do if you were that person? Okay, I wouldn't. I'd say, Lord, iniquities prevail
against me. As for our transgressions, thou
shalt purge them away. What am I gonna do? I'm gonna
look again to the one who said, look unto me. And I'm gonna keep
looking. What was her confidence? That
Christ had justified her, that he had power to answer God's
law and to fulfill God's will and to present her before God
spotless and without blame before him in love. Wasn't that it?
He did it himself. So she would come to him for
all grace. He who had given that word to her and given her the
faith to believe him, would he not complete his work? Would
he shed his blood for her and then not in his life save her
to the uttermost? If God reconciled us to God when
we were enemies by the death of his son, how much more now
by his life shall he save us? And our high priest sits in heaven. He's going to save his people
to the uttermost. Our sin not only kept us from
God, but our sin is the very thing that Christ came to save
us from. And we don't say, well, now that
I understand that I'm justified by faith, I got this burden now
to go and sin no more. And I've got to somehow fulfill
that burden. No, I'm going to look again to the Lord Jesus
Christ. I am the light of the world, he said. I'm the light
of the world. How does this happen? How would
I receive faith? Was it through the works of the
law? No. It was through the hearing of
the gospel of Christ and him crucified. How do I go on then?
It's the same way. I look again, 2 Corinthians 3,
18. We with open face behold as in
a glass the glory of the Lord and we're changed into the same
image from glory to glory. He who has begun a good work
in you will perfect it under the day of Christ Jesus. Oh,
wretched man that I am, who's gonna deliver me from the body
of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. It's
all on him, isn't it? And so the law requires us to
do what we ought to do. But the gospel, the new covenant,
put the requirements on Christ and he fulfilled it. And now
he gives the victory to us. He gives us the triumph. Do we
believe that He can save us from our sin? You better know we do.
And that's why we go to Him day by day, moment by moment, for
that grace to see that all that God requires and all of the iniquity
we got ourselves into, He is our Savior from it. He has the
power to save us from our sins. That's why we go to Him. The
Lord, and when we see Him, we'll be what? Like Him. We'll see
Him as He is. We're gonna see Him in all of
the bright light of His mercy and His grace in reconciling
all that God is in the resplendent glory, the perfections of His
person. That His mercy would be in God's
heart to save us. He's not gonna stop. He's gonna
do the whole thing. And we're going to look to Him
to do it. And to do anything else is to live by the law. But
to look to Christ as the one who saves us from our sins, from
first to last, the alpha and the omega, the author and the
finisher, that's grace. That's the gospel. That's the
New Testament in His blood. Amen.