I'd like us to look at Calvary's
tree but before we go to Calvary's tree this morning and look at
the great act of substitution I'd like us to think about the
biggest issue of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ is ultimately
who was crucified. If you answer the question of
who was crucified and why he was crucified, you'll have the
Gospel revealed to us, the great transaction that saves your soul,
the great transaction that fulfils all the promises that Graham
read from us from the lips of the Lord Jesus Christ in John
6. All of those gospel promises are promises that flow between
the members of the Trinity. The great work of salvation is
a work between God the Father and God the Son. It's a great
transaction that was begun before the foundation of the world in
which the Lord Jesus Christ, as we saw in John chapter 6,
took responsibility, complete and utter responsibility in every
aspect for all those that the Father gave him. And those ones
that the Father gave Him will come to Him. And they will, if
I love that verse in John 6, and it's repeated elsewhere in
the Scriptures, they'll all be taught of God. The great hope
for us is that if we just simply declare what God says about God,
God will be the teacher of God's people. But everyone, everyone
that hears and has learned of the Father, what do they do?
They come to the Lord Jesus Christ, John 6, 45. But if you're going
to come to Him, in a saving way, and you're going to trust Him
in a saving way, you're going to come to Him as He is revealed
in the Scriptures, and you're going to come to Him as God the
Father declares Him to be, as God the Holy Spirit declares
Him to be, and as He declares Himself to be before men. It
was no ordinary man that 2,000 years ago was marched as a bound
man up to Calvary's tree and hung on that cross. And John
18 makes that abundantly clear. The Gospel of John highlights
the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. It begins with those great words,
isn't it? Beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and
the Word was God. But in John 18 we have this remarkable
picture. Let's read some of these words
and we'll just look at them briefly. When Jesus spoke these words,
this is the words of John chapter 17, which is the Lord's Prayer.
If you want to really know what the Lord's Prayer is, read John
17 and then you remember that the Lord Jesus Christ asks those
petitions that are in John 17 and God the Father granted every
single one of them. It is a remarkable prayer. full
of the most glorious hope. When Jesus had spoken these words,
he went forth with his disciples over the book Cedron, where there
was a garden, the Garden of Gethsemane, in which he entered. and his
disciples. And Judas also, which portrayed
him, knew the place, for Jesus oft-time resorted there with
his disciples. Judas then, having received a
band of men and officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees,
came there with lanterns and torches and weapons. Jesus therefore,
knowing all things that should come upon him, went forth and
said unto them, Whom seek thee? Seek ye. They answered, Jesus
of Nazareth. Jesus said unto them, I am. Notice the he's in italics. He
is using the very words that describe God, the God that Moses
met at the burning bush. I am that I am. It is the glorious
name of God, of Jehovah God. I am. And Judas also, which betrayed
him, stood with them. As soon then as he said unto
them, I am, they went backward and fell to the ground. Then
he asked them again, Whom seek ye? And they said, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus answered, I have told you
that I am. If therefore you seek me, let
these go their way, that the saying might be fulfilled, of
them which thou gavest me have I lost none. Then Simon Peter, having a sword,
drew it, and smote the high priest's servant, cut off his right ear.
The servant's name was Malchus. Then Jesus said unto Peter, Put
up thy sword into the sheath, the cup which my father hath
given me. Shall I not drink it? Then the band and the captain
and the officers of the Jews took Jesus and bound him and
led him away to Annas first, for he was the father-in-law
of Caiaphas, which was the high priest in that same year. Now Caiaphas was he which gave
counsel to the Jews that it was expedient that one man should
die for the people. This is, in Gethsemane's garden,
a great declaration, isn't it? It's a great revealing of all
the forces that were arrayed against the Lord Jesus Christ,
and a great revealing of Him, who is God in human flesh, meeting
them. I love how it is that Judas had
this band. Now let's not think of this band
being a little band. The captain of the guard down
there later on in verse 12 is a reference to someone who was
in charge of 600 men. After Jesus had managed to escape
their grasp and escape all their connivings for three years, This
particular night, now that they had Judas to lead them to where
he was, they were going to make sure that he didn't escape at
all. There were at least 500 men with
their lanterns and their cudgels and their torches, their weapons. And the Lord Jesus Christ goes
out in every activity of God in the saving of sinners, in
the revealing of Himself in the saving of sinners. He goes forth. He goes forth. And it's He who
asks the question of them. And then it's remarkable, isn't
it? It's so easy not to lose sight of the remarkable miracle
it is that in verse 6, and as soon as he said those words,
as soon as he said, I am, as soon as he declared himself to
be God, a little company, a huge company of 500 men with all their
lanterns and all their weapons, all of them, Judas included,
just fell to the ground. So the Lord Jesus Christ is declaring
that in all of the events that come to follow, He is God. And He reigns supreme over all
this activity. It is not as if man had got things
out of control. It's not as if all of the council
of the wicked together. Think of the council of the wicked
here. You have Pilate and all of the all of what it means for
him to be a representative of the Roman Empire, all of the
power and the wisdom of men in their rebellion against God.
You have Judas, someone who was close to him who betrayed him
there. And then you have the high priests
and all the others with them. You have all the representations
of religion so-called. The Lord Jesus said to these
men, they sit in Moses' seat. You are to do as they say. But
they're hypocrites. You're not to do as they do,
ever. They sit in Moses' seat. They're all gathered together,
but it's the Lord Jesus Christ who goes forth, and the Lord
Jesus Christ declares himself. He just declares himself plainly
and simply. He says, I am God. I am the Christ
of God. And then he makes that wonderful
declaration in verse 8, which is the glorious declaration of
substitution. I have told you that I am He. I've told you that I am God.
If therefore you seek me, let these go their way. The Lord Jesus Christ is saying
to all of that assembled enmity of humanity, religious and deceitful
and worldly and otherwise. He says, you can have me, but
you can't have my people. You can have me, but you let
these go their way. It's interesting, isn't it? You let them go free, you release
them. You can have me, but you won't have them with me. I'm
going to Calvary's tree. I set my face like a flint. I'm
going to Calvary's tree and I'm going there on my own and I'm
going to tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God
on my own. And when it comes to the matter
of salvation, all of my people are going to be entirely passive
while I do everything. The great transaction between
me and my father. Let these go their way. It's
often interesting to think what happened that night in terms
of them going their way. We would think that they've escaped
what could have been an appalling situation for them physically.
But not one single one of them escaped the emotional trauma
of what they really were. So the Lord Jesus Christ in the
salvation of people exposes himself. We magnify the character of God
in the salvation of sinners, but also What's revealed is what
sinners are. That particular night for Peter
to go his own way would see him denying his saviour before a
servant girl and then swearing and cursing to prove that he
had no association with the Saviour whatsoever. For all the other
ten, that night was a night of deep and terrible darkness and
it wasn't going to be relieved. In fact, the deep and terrible
darkness was going to be accentuated because their sins were exposed. They'd all stood there shoulder
to shoulder with Peter and said, we'll die with you, we'll die
with you. We won't betray you, we won't
run away. All of them had to suffer, suffer
emotionally. As Zechariah says, they will
look on him whom they have pierced and they will mourn for him as
one mourns mourns for his only son, and
shall be in bitterness for him, is that as one that is in bitterness
for his firstborn son." He was pierced through, but they were
pierced through that night. For them to go their own way
is not a road of bliss and happiness for the Lord's people. The road
of the Lord's people is a road of suffering and grief. It's
a tough road. The Lord Jesus goes. The other
thing I'd like us to understand is that Simon obviously was being
extraordinarily courageous. He'd seen the Lord Jesus just
reduce a little band of 500 men down to nothing, just grovelling
in the dirt beneath him, and the great miracle was that they
were enabled to stand on their feet again and ask another question.
But Peter, emboldened by that, cuts off the servant's right
ear and the Lord Jesus reminds him and reminds all of us. He
reminds him of a couple of things. One is that the work of God is
a work that's done spiritually, and it's done by the Spirit of
God. When he builds his church, the shoutings will be, grace
unto it, grace unto it. It won't be by the works of men,
and it won't be by the wrath of man. It will not bring about
the righteousness of God in this world. But the other thing I'd
like us to note, it's in verse 11. He says to Peter, put your sword
into your sheath. Then he speaks of the cup. Now
the cup is mentioned in the other gospel accounts and it's the
cup that the Lord Jesus looked into and the sight of that cup,
obviously it's a symbolic cup, but he looked into that cup and
the Son of God, God incarnate, looked into that cup. And the
sight of what was in that cup so horrified him that he nearly
died. And he was supported by angels
to stay alive. He looked into that cup. And the sight of what was in
that cup caused, as the psalmist says, his heart to be broken,
and great drops of blood fell to the ground. Great drops of
blood fell to the ground. He says, my soul was exceedingly
sorrowful unto death. It wasn't about physical things
that the Lord Jesus Christ looked into that cup and saw. The big
question, of course, is what's in the cup, because this verse
in John 18-11 tells us that the cup's still in his hand. Figuratively,
the cup is with him. People want to say all sorts
of things about what's in the cup, but there can only be one thing
that was in the cup. The only thing that could have
been in the cup that caused the Lord Jesus to recoil as it was,
was all of the accumulated sins of all of God's people throughout
all time. People want to say, well, it's
the wrath of God that's in the cup. But the wrath of God is
never, never separated from the character of God and the justice
of God. It was sin that was in the cup. Sin. The horrible sin. The sin that we are, the sin
that we commit, the sin that I am committing now, and the
sin that you are committing now. Because what's sin? Sin is falling
short of the glory of God. Have you ever done anything that
didn't fall short of the glory of God? Have you ever thought
anything that didn't fall short of the glory of God? That's the wonder of substitution.
That's the wonder of the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ symbolically
had his hands, and in his hands was that cup, and in his hands
were bound. Bound to that cup. It's a picture
of what we just sang about, wasn't it? Twixt Jesus and the chosen
race subsists a bond of sovereign grace. Those sins, To go back
to our verse in 2 Corinthians 5.21, those sins were the sins
that were made His. God has made Him to be sin. who knew no sin, be sin for us
who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of
God in him. We spoke last week about grace,
sovereign grace, eternal grace, discriminating grace, revealing
grace and saving grace and keeping grace. and personal grace, grace
that comes effectually into the hearts of God's people. But the
great grace that we speak of in the Gospel is blood-bought
grace. You receive no blessing ever
from God that wasn't purchased by His blood. You will never
receive any blessing from God that wasn't the purchase of His
blood. We're speaking about redemption
by precious blood. We talked and spoke in this last
couple of weeks about being cleansed by this blood. But as I want to keep reminding
us that in the Gospel is the declaration and the magnification
of all of the character of God. And the greatest comfort for
God's people in this world is the magnification of the of the
character of God. God's children love the fact
that God is absolutely sovereign. As revealed in those verses we
just looked at, the Lord Jesus Christ just speaks a word and
an army falls to the ground. We love the fact that he's sovereign
over all things. We love the fact that all of
what happened, according to Peter in that first sermon, is according
to the determinant counsel and foreknowledge of God. Nothing,
nothing wriggles, nothing comes to pass in all of this universe
outside of God's sovereign will. If that's not the case, then
find out who is in charge and go and worship him. But our God
reigns. That's the declaration of the
gospel. He reigns over everyone and everything. And the Lord
Jesus Christ on his way to Calvary Street was saying to that band
of people, I'm sovereign here. I am God. And it's remarkable,
isn't it? On either side of the resurrection
there is a great crowd of people. It's as if he was taking 500
witnesses up to the courts. up to the courts of Caiaphas
and up to the courts of Pilate and the others and up to the
courts of those religious people because they came there with
the law of God and said this man according to the law of God
is worthy of death. He had 500 witnesses go up to
those courts and say this is God. He's absolutely sovereign. He just says a word. He just
says a word and it's done. He speaks a word and it's done. We love the fact that he's sovereign.
We love the fact of every aspect of his life. We love the fact
that he is holy. What wonderful words from the
cross. When the Lord Jesus Christ cried out those words from the
cross, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Of all people. There's plenty of reason for
God forsaking the rest of humanity. There's no reason other than
what the scriptures tell us about him forsaking him. My God, my
God, why have you forsaken me? And the answer in verse 3 of
Psalm 22 is you are holy. We love the holiness of God. We love the fact that our salvation
is a holy salvation, that all of the holy attributes of God
are going to be revealed. We love the fact that our God's
salvation of us is a legal salvation. It's a just salvation. I love what the scriptures declare
about our God. He's a just God and a saviour,
Isaiah 45. He is not going to save anyone
apart from strict justice. There's a lovely description
of the Lord's justice in Leviticus chapter 19. I can read it for
you, but you can turn there if you wish. It's good to ponder. In Leviticus 19, verses 35 and
36, it says, You shall do no unrighteousness in judgment. You shall do no unrighteousness
in judgment, in the meatyard, in weight, or in measure, just
balances, just weights, a just ephah, a just hin, these are
all units of measurement, shall you have. I am the Lord your
God which brought you out of the land of Egypt. Therefore
shall you observe all my statutes and all my judgments and do them.
I am the Lord. See, God is not going to subvert
His justice in the salvation of sinners. That's a great question,
isn't it, that Job asked in Job chapter 9, verse 1. How shall
a man be justified? Or in chapter 25, sorry. How can a
man be just with God? How can he be clean that he's
born of a woman? How can, it's a great question
of the gospel, isn't it? How can a holy, true and just
God forgive a guilty sinner? How can a just God justify an
ungodly man? How can a just God make an unrighteous
man righteous? How can a just God, an omniscient
God who sees every thought and the imaginations of the thoughts
of your heart, how can he make an unholy man a holy man? You see, to enter heaven you
must be perfect. There's one simple requirement
for you being in heaven. You have to be as holy as God
is, because God's holiness will consume anything that's not holy. He must be perfect, says Leviticus
22. It must be perfect to be accepted. Only the clean walk on Zion's
highway. In Revelation 21, we have a description
of those who are in heaven, don't we? Those who are in heaven. And there shall no wise enter
into it, anything that defiles Neither whatsoever works abomination
or makes a lie, but they which are written in the Lamb's Book
of Life." Heaven and the presence of God is to be in the presence
of someone who is absolutely, purely, immutably holy. And only holy things get into
heaven. And God, because of his strict
justice, doesn't play let's pretend with sin and holiness. There is that great verse in
Proverbs 17 verse 15, and it's worth turning to it and just
looking at it with me, brethren, because it's a lovely verse,
and it's a verse of the greatest comfort to God's people in 1715. It's a description of God in
these activities, isn't it? He that justifies the wicked,
are you with me? He that justifies the wicked
and he that condemns the just, even they both are abomination
to the Lord. They are abomination to the Lord. So in this business of justification,
in this business of God causing his people to be made the righteousness
of God in him, all of the justice and all of the character of God
is going to be revealed. God will not justify the wicked,
and God will not condemn the wicked. the just. He will not condemn innocent
blood, Psalm 94 says. So God cannot do those things. So the God of all grace must
find a way to save sinners and be just and merciful and truthful. He must in the salvation of sinners
magnify all of the glorious attributes of His character. By mercy and truth Iniquity is
purged. And when the Lord Jesus Christ
says, you can have me, but if you have me, you let these go
free. That freedom, that release that
those disciples had was because he justly paid the ransom. I love how Elihu came and spoke
to Job. Job had been through the most
appalling trials. He'd lost everything. He'd lost
even the comfort of his wife, he'd lost his family, he'd lost
his possessions, he'd lost everything else. And Job, in the midst of
all of the trials that he was going through, had these miserable
comforters come to him. And Job, under pressure, the
most enormous pressure, starts to justify himself. And then
in chapter 33, Elihu comes along to Job. And he declares the gospel
to Job. And Job's response is, behold,
I am vile. But Elihu had already told him,
deliver him from going down to the pit. I have found a ransom. If you're going to be delivered
from going down to the pit, God the Father must find a ransom. He must be a just God, and he
must be a saviour, but never a saviour at the expense of his
justice. So that word justify, which is
such a glorious word, if the Holy Spirit would take us to
see the depths of what it means in the scriptures, we'd find
ourselves rejoicing in pondering it again and again and again.
But it actually originally, in the original, it means to have,
as we read in Leviticus 19, to have correct balances, to have
just weights, to have what's called a righteous balance. The Lord God, as Job said, does
the Lord God pervert justice? Our God does not pervert justice. I do love thinking about the
statement that Todd Nibbett made that on Calvary's tree, the most
God-like thing God ever did was put his son to death on Calvary's
tree. Think about that. The most God-like
thing God ever did is to put his son to death on Calvary's
tree. You see, if you want to find
out the character of God, you just go to the cross of Calvary.
If you want to know what holiness is, you go to the cross of Calvary
and see a holy God dealing with sin. If you want to see what
faithfulness is, you go to that son on Calvary's tree and see
him being faithful, faithful even unto death, and you see
his father being faithful to his covenant promises. You see
the justice and the holiness of God. You see the love of God. The love of God's in Christ Jesus. For those who are outside of
Christ Jesus, there's nothing in the scriptures that gives
them any warrant to think that they are loved of God. The love
of God is in Christ Jesus. It's associated with all those
who are in him. But to go back to our text in 2 Corinthians
5, It says, God made him who knew no sin. God made him
to be sin for us who knew no sin. That we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. So 2,000 years ago, after that
trial, after the events of the garden, the Lord Jesus Christ
was taken up that hill outside Jerusalem. And there, as soon
as he was raised off the ground between heaven and earth to hang
there, for those six hours on Calvary's tree, to hang there
in all the agony of his body, but all of the agony of his separation
from his God. The scriptures declare in Deuteronomy
21 that he was a cursed man. He was a cursed man. And it's extraordinary. It's extraordinary that the curse
in Deuteronomy 21 is associated with rebellious children. I can go back to verse 18. And
if a man have a stubborn and rebellious son which will not
obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and
that when they have chastened him will not hearken unto them,
then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him and bring
him out unto the elders of his city and unto the gate of his
place. And they shall say unto the elders
of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will
not obey our voice, he is a glutton and a drunkard. And all the men
of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die. So shall thou put evil away from
among you, and all Israel shall hear and fear. And if a man hath
committed a sin worthy of death, and he be put to death, thou
hang him on a tree. His body shall not remain all
night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that
day. For he that is hanged, verse
23, is accursed of God. that thy land be not defiled,
of which the Lord thy God hath given thee for an inheritance." To hang someone on a tree is
to have that person accursed of God. The Lord Jesus Christ had that
cup bound to his hands. He had that cup bound to him
from all eternity. He had that cup bound by covenant
promises. He had that cup bound to him
by the faithfulness to his father and the faithfulness and the
love to his bride. That cup was bound to him. He was a man of sorrows and familiar
with suffering. He's the only person that's ever
walked on this earth who knew what sin is. He's the only person
who knew what sin is. You have to be holy to know what
sin is. He was the only person on this
earth who ever knew the extent of sin. Every time he met another
human being, he had reason to be grieved over the sin that
was there. No wonder the Lord Jesus Christ,
by the time his ministry began or at the end of his ministry,
when he was at the prime of his life, they wondered if he was
yet 50 years old. He was a man who carried the
sins of his people in his own body in ways which are beyond
our imagining. The text says, doesn't it, he
was made sin. As a cursed man upon that tree,
he was made sin. The law of God declared him to
be a cursed man, and that's what Galatians 3 says. The just shall
live by faith. The law is not a faith. Christ
has redeemed us, verse 13, from the curse of the law, but he
made a curse for us. For it is written, Cursed is
everyone that hangs on a tree. Our God and Saviour knew no sin. He knew no sin. He did no sin. In Him was no sin, 1 John 3,
5. I love what Psalm 18, He declares
in Psalm 18, I was upright before Him. Who on earth can say that
except the Lord Jesus Christ? I was upright before God. and
I kept myself from mine iniquities." So throughout the scriptures,
throughout the Psalms, the Lord Jesus Christ declares that the
sins for which he was hanging on Calvary's tree are mine iniquities. Now mine, he took that cup and
on Calvary's tree he drank that cup. He was made sin. He bore our sins in his own body
on the tree. He became guilty as our substitute. Our sins were imputed to him
and he owned them as his own. Brothers and sisters in Christ,
this is what the Word of God declares about our Saviour. revealing and I think helpful
is that the transaction between God the Father and God the Son
was done in darkness. That the prying eyes of men can't
pry into it, that we would know that the great transaction which
saves the souls of sinners like us is a transaction between God
the Father and God the Son. But also that darkness means
that the light that we have is the light of the scriptures. And again and again in the scriptures
he declares the sins to be his. He says in Psalm 69 verse 5,
O God, thou knowest my foolishness, my sins are not hid from thee. Psalm 40 is a great psalm that
Hebrews declares to be the psalm of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
he says, For innumerable evils have compassed me about, innumerable
evils have surrounded me. Mine iniquities have taken hold
of me, so that I am not able to look up. They are more than
the hairs of mine head, therefore my heart faileth me. My heart faileth me. He says in Psalm 38, O Lord,
rebuke me not in thy wrath, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure,
for thine arrows stick fast in me, and thy hand presses me sore.
There is no soundness in my flesh because of thine anger, neither
is there any rest in my bones because of my sin. For mine iniquities
are gone over mine head, and as a heavy burden, They are too
heavy for me. If we had any doubt about it
whatsoever, Isaiah 53 is just such an amazing declaration,
isn't it? He was despised and rejected
of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. We hid,
as it were, our faces from Him. He was despised and we esteemed
Him not. Surely He has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten
of God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions,
he was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep
have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way. What a great description of sin
that is. We have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord
hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and
he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He was brought
as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearer's
dumb, so he opened not his mouth. He was taken from prison and
from judgment, and who shall declare his generation? For he
was cut off out of the land of the living, for the transgression
of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the
wicked and with the rich in his death, because he had done no
violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased
the Lord to bruise him. He hath put him to grief. When thou shalt make his soul
an offering for sin, he shall see his seed. He shall prolong
his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his
hand. He shall see the travail of his
soul, and be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous
servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities." See, when the Lord Jesus Christ
died, that death, that bloody death on Calvary's tree, he was
worthy of death. he was worthy of death. When
he drank that cup, my sins, mine iniquities, he says, and a just God, a just God found
that man with all of those sins upon him, on Calvary's tree,
he found that man cursed with all those sins upon him. And then in the words of Zechariah
13, this just God and a saviour says, Awake, O sword. Awake,
O sword. That sword that had been there
and asleep for all of those thousands of years. It says, Awake, O sword,
against my shepherd. Against the man that is my fellow,
saith the Lord of hosts. Smite the shepherd. and the sheep
shall be scattered, and I will turn my hand upon the little
ones." See, our sins weren't pasted
on Christ, and he wasn't treated as if as though he were sin. And he's not declared to be a
sin offering. The verse that we have before
us in 2 Corinthians 5.21 says, he's made sin. It was a just activity of God,
just as in Israel, you had to have just weights and just balances
and do no injustice in the things you measure. When it came to
the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, a holy God is enacting with perfect
justice. He was made sin and therefore
he was forsaken of God. It was a holy wrath that was
poured out from God the Father. It was a holy wrath and it was
an act of justice by God the Father. He bore in his own body the sins
of his people, and he bore in his own body the infinite wrath
of a holy God. He was forsaken of God. See,
it was a just activity of God. It was a just activity of God
the Father, and it was a just activity of God the Son. And
when the Lord Jesus Christ, when the justice of God says enough, when our Saviour declared from
Calvary's tree, it is finished. All of the sins and all of the
wrath of God are gone, brothers and sisters. By an act of justice
they are gone. By an act of holy justice they
are gone. It was perfectly weighted, it
was perfectly balanced. See, justice cannot punish an
innocent man. God's justice cannot punish an
innocent man. The justice of man punishes all
sorts of things, but God is holy in everything he does. The justice
of God cannot punish an innocent man. The justice of God cannot
punish a righteous man. But blessed be our God, brothers
and sisters, the justice of God cannot punish sins twice. God cannot punish sins in his
son on Calvary's tree and then ever punish them again. God will not deny his character. He won't deny his character in
the punishment of his son and he won't deny his character in
the salvation of his people. It's just weights and just balances. It's just of God to declare that
we are made the righteousness of God in him. It's a just activity
of God for him to say, as he said to Cornelius, Ted to Peter
regarding Cornelius, what God has cleansed, that call thou
not common. Don't you dare call anything
that I've cleaned common. Which is why we read those verses
and delight in those verses. in Acts 15, when the disciples,
the apostles, are called upon for once and for all to defend
the gospel of free and sovereign grace, to defend the gospel of
substitution. It says, they purified their
hearts by faith. And we believe that through the
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved as they are. We'll be saved as an act of God's
justice. So of all of God's elect, all
those for whom Christ died, all those whose names were written
in the Lamb's Book of Life, all of those whose sins were in that
cup that were bound to the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ and
taken to Calvary's tree, all of those sins are gone forever.
All of those people must be saved. By the justice of God, they must
be saved. We don't know when. But we know
how, and we know why. They are made the very righteousness
of God. This is a creative and a sustaining
activity of God, that we might be made the righteousness of
God in Him. With his spotless garments on,
I am as holy as God's Son. God made him who knew no sin. God made him to be sin for us,
who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of
God in him. I love what Joseph Hart says.
Much we talk of Jesus' blood, but how little understood. Of
his suffering so intense, angels have no perfect sense. See the
suffering Son of God, panting, groaning, sweating blood. Boundless depths of love divine,
Jesus, what a love was thine! Though the wonders thou hast
done, are as yet so little known. Here we fix and comfort take,
Jesus died for sinners' sake. It's because of that union that
we sang about, that living union. He was one with us. We were bound
to him in those surety, eternal covenant engagements from before
the foundation of the world. And God the Father never saw
us separated from him, ever. He is the head, and we are the
body. He is the husband, and we are
the wife. He is the vine, and we are the
branches. All the promises, all the blessings
of fellowship, all the blessings of protection and preservation,
all of them are in Him, in Him, in Him. May the righteousness of God
in Him. What is it to be in Him? It's
to be blessed of God. It's to be seen by God as one
with His Son. It's to be pleasing in His sight.
This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, well done,
good and faithful servant. It is, as Colossians 2.10 says,
to be complete in Him. You lack nothing, brothers and
sisters, in Christ. You have no sin before God the
Father and you have a righteousness which causes His smile upon His
people at all times. To be in Him like those disciples
in the garden is to be set free. We're free from the law of God. He was made a curse. We're free
from the yoke of the law. We're free from the condemnation
of the law. There now, right now, there is
now no condemnation for them that are in Christ Jesus. Blessed. Blessed, says David. In Romans 4, blessed is the man
to whom the Lord will not impute sin. It's a blessed state to
be in. The justice of God demands that
that sin which is imputed to the Lord Jesus Christ that became
his can never ever be in two places at once. Our God does justice. always does justice. He will
fulfill all of his promises. The question on the hearts of all of the children
of God, isn't it, is how can I know that my sin was in that
cup? How can I know that my sin was
on him and owned his sin on Calvary's tree. How can I know that my
sin suffered the infinite, eternal fire of God's wrath? How can I know? The answer is really simple,
isn't it, brothers and sisters? It's not complicated. This is
eternal life that you might know Him. As Peter said on that day
of Pentecost, and 3,000 souls were saved. They were saved from
eternity. They were saved on Calvary's
tree. It's a really simple thing, isn't it? Whosoever shall call
on the name of the Lord shall be saved. is to believe. The evidence is simply believing. Believing what God says about
his son. Believing what God says about
the salvation of his people. Believing what God says about
the character of his son. Abraham believed God. and it was accounted to him for
righteousness." It's a simple faith, brothers
and sisters. It's a simple faith in a glorious
saviour. It's a simple trust in the character
of God revealed. It is just to rely on Him and
Him alone. You'll call His name Jesus because
He will save His people from their sins. He came into the
world to save sinners. It's to believe what He says
about Himself and what His word says about Him. It's to believe
what His word says about you. What's a sinner? What's a sinner? A sinner is someone who falls
short of the glory of God. A sinner is someone who can do
nothing but sin. A sinner is someone who has no
righteousness of their own. A sinner is someone for whom
God has swept away all the refuges of lies that men hide in. A sinner is someone for whom
the Lord Jesus Christ came to save. In closing I might just
read some more of these glorious words that Graham read to us
earlier at the beginning of our service. This is the will of
him that sent me, John 640, that everyone that seeth the sun,
how do we see the sun? We see the sun in the preaching
of the gospel. Everyone that sees the sun and
believeth on him may have everlasting life and I will raise him up
at the last day. It's to be drawn by God the Father. No man can come to me, except
the Father which hath sent me draw him, and I will raise him
up at the last day. It is written in the prophets,
and they shall all be taught of God. Every man, therefore,
that hath heard, hath learned of the Father, cometh to me."
And you never stop coming. You never ever stop coming. You
never stop being in need. You never stop You never stop
looking. You never stop being dependent.
You never stop being someone who needs to be reliant on someone
else to do absolutely everything for them to take them to heaven. It's blood bought grace. What God has cleansed, what hearts
God has purified in the blood of his son. Let's pray. Our heavenly
father, We read of these things and we try to talk of them, Heavenly
Father, but we acknowledge immediately that we're way out of our depth
to understand these things. But you call on us to have the
faith of a child. Father, give us a childlike faith
in your dear and precious Son. Heavenly Father, cause us again
and again to be taken, drawn by your Spirit to Calvary's tree,
to see your Son bleeding and dying, bearing our sins in his
own body on that tree. Heavenly Father, cause us, as
the Apostle Paul did, to declare that he is crucified with Christ. Yet we still live the life we
now live in the body. We live by the faith of the Son
of God, who loved us and gave himself for us. Heavenly Father,
cause us to remember him as we take these elements that remind
us Just something, Heavenly Father, of what it costs your dear and
precious son to have his bride with him, for him to enjoy her
as his own forever. We pray in his name and for his
glory, our Father. Amen.