Let's go back to John chapter
5 and read this remarkable verse of scripture again. The Lord Jesus Christ speaks
of his words. He says in John 6.63, it's the
spirit that gives life. The flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak unto you,
they are spirit and they are life. We've looked briefly at
what it is to hear from God, to hear the Lord Jesus Christ
speaking in a way that brings believing. And at the end of
this verse, there are these remarkable promises from our God that we
have the children of God, we have in our possession, we have
everlasting life. And we shall not come into condemnation. We shall not come into condemnation
because we cannot come into condemnation. And the Lord describes this as
a passage from death to life. The Gospel brings life, everlasting
life. is ultimately the life of God
in the soul of man. It is, as Colossians 1 says,
it's Christ in you, the hope of glory. It's being in an intimate
reunion with him. It's being in a state of perfection
before God, that God looks upon his people and sees them as perfect. How good do you have to be to
be in God's presence? How good do you have to be to
be in God's presence? There's only one answer to that
question. You have to be as good as God. You have to be as good
as God to be in the presence of God. He's absolutely and infinitely
holy, which is why we love what the Lord Jesus Christ said about
His work, isn't it? He says in Hebrews 10.14, He
has perfected forever. That's what it is to have everlasting
life, it's to be perfected, not perfected by anything you've
done, perfected by the word of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is
perfected forever them that are sanctified. The ones that are
perfected by the Lord Jesus Christ are completely and fully sanctified. They're made to be holy, is what
the root of that word is. Have everlasting life, everlasting
life. is the Lord Jesus Christ in the
hearts of people. He's called in 1 John 1 verse
2, He's called that eternal life. Christ is that eternal life. And it was with the Father and
was manifested to us. He's manifested to us in the
revelation of Himself in the preaching of the gospel as His
word comes into the hearts of His people. And it's a word that
has power. It's a word that has life. And as we saw in our text,
everlasting life, is not coming into eternal death and condemnation. Whosoever believeth in him should
not perish, but have everlasting life. One of the verses that
I love quoting so often, because it is so powerful, isn't it?
This is life eternal, says the Lord Jesus Christ, as he prayed
that last night of his earthly ministry. This is life eternal
that they might know Thee. Eternal life is about knowing
God. It's knowing the only true God. And Jesus Christ whom thou
hast sent. See how again and again and again
we have this relation between the Father and the Son in sending
the Son coming. It is, it is to be born from the
dead. It is to have the life of God
in you. He knows us. This is what it
is to know him, isn't it? I shall be their God, he says
throughout the Old Testament, and they shall be my people. And it's not presumption on the
part of God's people. These people that the Lord was
speaking to were presumptuous about their faith. But here he
goes on to show us what it is. what it is to hear from Him and
to believe in Him. They have everlasting life and
shall not come into condemnation. No condemnation. What a sweet
promise from our God. No condemnation. Just turn over
a couple of chapters in your Bible. In John chapter 8 we have
that remarkable story of the woman who was caught in adultery.
There she was, an open sinner. No doubt it was a staged activity,
but she was no doubt extraordinarily guilty and I'm sure they presented
her before the Lord looking as disheveled as you could possibly
wish to embarrass her and to cause the Lord to be put to shame. And he says, in verse 10, he
says, woman, where are those thine accusers? Hath no man condemned
thee? And she said, No man, Lord. And
Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee. Neither do
I condemn thee. How can he say to someone who
is an open, guilty sinner, Neither do I condemn thee? The law of
God effectively brought that man before the Lord Jesus Christ.
Neither do I condemn thee." How David must have felt when Nathan
brought to him his sin with Bathsheba. And Nathan said to him, who was
deserving of death under the law of God, David and Bathsheba
should have been taken outside of Jerusalem that very day and
stoned to death by the people of God. And Nathan comes to him. and says, you'll not die, David,
because God has taken away your sin. There is no condemnation. What a sweet promise of God. And these are the words of the
judge. The judge says no condemnation.
Look with me at John chapter five, verse 27. And he hath given
him authority to execute judgment because he is the son of God. I like to hear the judge saying
that to me. All judgment's in the hands of
the Lord Jesus Christ. He will raise up people in that
day. We read this verse earlier, but
it's good to read it again. The hour is coming, verse 28, in
which all that are in the grave shall hear his voice and shall
come forth. They that have done good unto
the resurrection of life. They that have done evil unto
the resurrection of damnation." Whatever is involved in getting
out of that, I don't want to be there. What a horrible thing,
what a horrible thing to hear God say to the religious people
in Matthew 7.21. Depart from me, I never knew
you. They come to Him... Just turn
there quickly with me. They come to Him with their works,
don't they? They come to Him with what they
have done. And they're remarkable, aren't they? They have many. They have many works. Not just a few works, these people.
They have many works. And they're good works, aren't
they, in the eyes of men? Many wonderful works. And they've been done in the
name of the Lord Jesus Christ. They call him Lord, Lord. It's
a heck of a lot better than a lot of people these days do. These
will be the horrifying words that echo throughout eternity,
to part. Depart from me. I never knew
you. The world knew you and esteemed
you. The church knew you and esteemed you. He says depart. I never knew
you and you that work iniquity. No condemnation. No condemnation,
and these are the words of the judge. These are the words of
the judge. How can you stand before a holy
God and Him declare that you have no condemnation? There's
just one simple way, isn't there? That you have absolutely nothing
for which you can be condemned. You have before God a record
that is perfect in His sight, and He can't condemn you. When the Son executes judgment,
He's going to execute judgment in accordance with all of the
very character of God. It's going to be a holy judgment.
It's going to be a just judgment. It'll be a judgment on the basis
of the fact that He knows absolutely everything that you've thought,
done, Even the intents of your thought, he knows. Everything
is plain and open to him. It'll be done with all of the
evidence in. And what a remarkable thing for
the judge to say when all of the evidence is in. Neither do
I condemn you. You've got everlasting life.
You've passed from death to life. You have, in the words of that
verse that I read earlier, you have done good. Done good. God says you've done good. I personally have done good before
God. Done good. Not that they've done
their best, but done good in God's sight. It means that everything
that you've ever done, every thought, every word, every intent
of your heart has been nothing but good for all of your life. In God's eyes. That's what he's
saying, isn't it? Done good. It's not about our
personal doing, obviously, and there's only one way all of these
verses can have any meaning and bring any comfort to the children
of God, and that is in union. It's speaking of union with the
Lord Jesus Christ, to do good, to have no condemnation right
now. It's all about the Lord Jesus
Christ and it's all about our union with Him. It's all about
Him being in us and us being in Him. It's all about Him and
His church being united as one, flesh of His flesh and bone of
His bones. It's all about God the Father
seeing His people in union with the Lord Jesus Christ and knowing
with all of the evidence in that every word and every thought,
all of their lives was nothing but holy perfection before God. That's what it is to have no
condemnation, brothers and sisters. Bone of his bones, he says in
Genesis, flesh of his flesh, and the bride and the bridegroom
are one. They're all given to him by the
Father, and they're accepted as one with him and united with
him. I was talking to a friend of
mine down the road, Pip, this morning, and I was talking to
Kay about it. One of the remarkable things,
when the high priest went into the Holy of Holies on the Day
of Atonement, he took in blood for himself, and then he went
back in and he took in blood for all of the people, and he
carried the names of all of his people. He carried the names
of all the children of God. He carried them on his heart,
on his breastplate, and he carried them on his shoulders, and he
carried them with the blood into the very Holy of Holies. And around the skirt of that
great robe that he wore was a pomegranate and a bell. A pomegranate and
a bell. That was the joyful sound that
we read about in Psalm 89. And as the pomegranates bumped
against the bells, the bells gave this joyful sound. God made
pomegranates to picture the Lord Jesus Christ and his church. in so many ways, and I don't
have time to talk about them all now, but the pomegranate
was a decoration all through the temple, was a decoration
on the columns outside the temple. It's a picture, if you open up
a pomegranate, inside the pomegranate are all the seeds, and on the
outside of the pomegranate, this one, you can feel this one later
on there, very dead and leathery, it looks like nothing to the
world. Looks like nothing to the world.
And where's the life in this pomegranate? Where's the life
in this pomegranate? It's full of life. Hundreds of
little bits of life are in that pomegranate aren't they? Every
little one of them and you can open up later on every little
one Every one of them and the shape
of every single one of them is adjusted to the shape of all
the others around. They're not all one shape. They're
all just married to each other and they're all wrapped up in
this. It's a picture of union with the Lord Jesus Christ. It's
a picture of the fact that there's blood on the outside and when
you open it up there's blood on the inside. picture of the
ark that Noah was in. It was pitched on the outside
and it was pitched on the inside. That word pitch is atonement.
It was the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and that ark covered
in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and with the blood on
the inside it rose above the storm of all the wrath of God
and those people were perfectly safe and secure in the ark. Just as everyone who is brought
into the presence of God in the Holy of Holies is brought in
with a bell and a pomegranate, It's a picture. It's a picture
of union with the Lord Jesus Christ. And such is the intimacy
of the union in the sight of God and such is the intimacy
of the union in the scriptures that on the cross all of my doings
became his doings. and all of his righteousness
became my righteousness. That's the gospel, brothers and
sisters. God, 2 Corinthians 5.21, God
hath made him sin for us. He literally really made him
sin for us. He knew no sin, you cannot charge
the Lord Jesus Christ with sin ever, that we might be made the
righteousness of God in him. No condemnation, no condemnation,
because there's nothing to condemn them for, because all of the
sins of all of God's people were punished in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Did an innocent man die on the cross of Calvary? Can God punish a man for something
he didn't do? Did an innocent man die on the
cross? That's what we're told all the time, isn't it? It was
a substitution of the innocent for the guilty. That means that
God is carrying out a miscarriage of justice in the fact that he
is the one who crushed his son on Calvary's tree. How really did the Lord Jesus
Christ become sin? How really did he bear all of
the sins of all of his people in his own body on the tree?
It means that he carried them, brothers and sisters. He carried
all of the sins of all of his people on Calvary's tree. He carried them. See, sin cannot
be in two places before a holy God at the same time. Sin cannot
be on the Lord Jesus Christ and on me. And also God cannot be
holy and punish sins twice. He cannot be holy, he cannot
be faithful, he cannot be righteous, he cannot be just, to punish
sins on the Lord Jesus Christ and then punish them ever again.
All that the Lord Jesus Christ bore, all of the sins of all
of those people who are in that union with him, have had their
sins punished by God until God cries out, paid in full. It is finished. The Lord Jesus Christ really
owned the sins of all of those the Father gave to him. And the
evidence of it is that he died. That's what the cross is about,
brothers and sisters. And the evidence that they've
all been paid for is that he rose gloriously from the dead. As Romans 4.25 says it so beautifully,
he was delivered for our offenses and was raised again for our
justification. To be justified before God is
to have no sin ever. before God. The Lord Jesus Christ
owned my sins from before the foundation of the world. That's
what the eternal covenant that Simon was telling us about is. Before the foundation of the
world, his people were one with him. Before the foundation of
the world, they were saved in the mind and the purpose of God. My doings really became his. and his doings really became
mine. My life before God was lived
2,000 years ago. Before God, under the law of
God, my life was lived and it was absolutely perfect in thought
and word and deed. Before God, before men. The great The great words of
union in the scriptures are substitution and satisfaction. God declares
the life of all of his children is that he has done good. He
has done good. So you hear his words, you believe
on him that sent me. You have. This is what it is
to have everlasting life. This is what it is to have no
condemnation. There is no condemnation because
there's absolutely nothing to condemn me for. Justice demands
it. The holiness of God demands it. The faithfulness of God demands
it. They will never, ever, in the
death of the Lord Jesus Christ, ever cause there to be seen a
miscarriage of the justice of God. The very character of God becomes
the greatest comfort for the children of God. That he must,
as he says in 2 Samuel 23, he must be just. He's a just God
and a saviour. He cannot save and deny his justice. That's why the Lord Jesus Christ
said to these people, this is what I'm coming to do, this is
what I'm here for. you're going to put me to death and this is
what's going to happen as a result of my death. The wrath of man
shall praise him and the remainder he will restrain. These people
who had nothing but enmity for him were actually doing the saints
of God a glorious service. People think that God looks at
his people and looks at his church as if They are really guilty,
but he's not going to punish us for Christ's sake. That's
not the way the Scriptures look, cause us to look at the work
of the Lord Jesus Christ. If God be for us, who can be
against us? Who is he that condemneth? It's
Christ that died, yea, that is risen again. He's not treating us as if we
are not guilty when we really are. He's saying to his people,
you are not guilty. You've heard him speak. You've
believed in the one that sent him. You have everlasting life. You shall not come into condemnation. You have passed from death to
life. This is the blessing of the Gospel,
brothers and sisters, which is why throughout the Scriptures
The children of God look forward to the Day of Judgment, never
with a sense of fear and trepidation. That's why John says he has boldness
on the Day of Judgment. 1 John 4, 19. He has boldness
on the Day of Judgment. Why? He says why? Because as He is, so are we in
this world. Do you believe that? That's why
the Father sent him. We have those words. Is he holy
right now, the Lord Jesus Christ? So are you in this world. Is
he righteous? Is he accepted in heaven? So,
as he is, so are we. We will never be more loved. will never be more accepted,
will never be more righteous, will never be more holy in heaven
than we are now. All heaven does is reveal a manifestation
of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's passed. We've passed
from death to life. For want of time, I just want
to read a verse out of 1 John chapter 3. 1 John chapter 3 begins
with, Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed
on us that we should be called the sons of God. The world doesn't
know us. The world looked at him and didn't
know him. These religious people didn't
know him. and it didn't know him, it doesn't know us. Beloved,
now we are the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we
shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be
like him, for we shall see him as he is. He says in verse 9, whosoever,
1 John 3 verse 9, whosoever is born of God, who has heard, has
believed, has entered everlasting life, has no condemnation, has
passed from death to life, whosoever is born of God does not commit
sin. That's what God says. Does not commit sin. Why? because of our union with the
Lord Jesus Christ. It's his seed that remains in
us. It's Christ in you, the hope
of glory, were the sins dealt with 2,000 years ago on Calvary's
cross. They were, weren't they? Did
he really die? Was he really buried? Did he
really rise again? We have a glorious gospel, that's
why he came, that's why the Father sent him. But listen to what
happens when we're passed from death to life, let's go down
to verse 14. We know, this is something that all believers
know, all the children of God know this, we know that we have
passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. We love the brethren. We love
God's gathering the brethren together. And we do love the
brethren. We don't love them as we'd love
to love them, but we do love them. There is a love that God
creates amongst his people. We're taught of God to love one
another, he says. We love the brethren. He that
loveth not his brother abideth in death. We've passed from death
to life. We've passed. We are now able to do all the
things that we could never do before. We're enabled of God
in this new life. We're enabled of God to believe
What he says, we're enabled of God to believe in the one that
he sent. We're enabled of God to believe
that this word is not a rule book for living. This word is
a hymn book. It's all about the Lord Jesus
Christ from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22. It's all a hymn book. They're
all pictures of him and his church, him and his salvation, him and
his glory. We're able with this new life to taste and to see, to believe
and to rest. That's what it is to believe,
isn't it? It's to rest, it's to rely on, it's to have all
of our eggs in one basket, Jesus Christ and Him crucified. It's
to believe all that He said and to find it life, to find it life. It's a spiritual life that he's
to give as promised to all of his children. May the Lord cause
us to be hearing people and cause us to be believing people. May
the Lord cause us to heed the warnings of these Jews. The warnings of those who heard
but never heard. May he give us hearing ears and
seeing eyes. to believe, to believe and to
have life by believing. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we thank you for the glory of the words that your son spoke
nearly 2000 years ago and which you have led us to hear yet again
this morning, Heavenly Father. And we thank you. We thank you
that the hearing ear and the seeing eye, both of these are
from the Lord. And we pray, Heavenly Father,
that we would be led by your spirit to know the words of the
Lord Jesus Christ to be spirit and life to us. That we might
be caused yet again, Heavenly Father, to simply believe God. Just to believe what you say
and to find and to know the joy and peace of believing. We thank you, Heavenly Father,
that your cut son came. and was perfectly successful.
We love to think that he declared he shall not fail nor be discouraged. We thank you that his church
is ever secure as one with him. That when he rose from the dead,
Heavenly Father, he took, as he promised, all of his church
into the Holy of Holies with him. We're so united with him
that we're seated with him right now. Father, we thank you that
you didn't ask us to understand these remarkable things, but
to simply believe them as words that come from your dear and
precious Son, the Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. Thank
you again. Bless your words to the hearts
of your people, for we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.