Romans chapter 4. We read in verse 23, Now it was
not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, but
for us also to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on
Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered
for our offenses and was raised again for our justification. Now we've seen here in Romans
4 how Abraham was blessed of God. He was blessed of God. He's called the father of all
who believe. And Abraham believed God. That's
how he received this blessing. He believed God. And God imputed
the righteousness of Christ to him without any of Abraham's
works. That means he made Abraham to
fulfill the law. He made him to totally establish
the law. If you're justified, that means
you've established the law of God. And that's what God gave
to Abraham freely. But this is not written just
for Abraham. It's not written just to tell
us about Abraham. All this is written for our benefit. It's written for us who are reading
this today. The Scripture says, Whatsoever
things were written aforetime were written for our learning.
that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might
have hope. These things were written for
us that we might have hope. Everything we studied about Abraham
is to urge you and I to believe on Christ. It's to show us that
the best thing for us is to believe on the Lord Jesus. And it says,
to whom righteousness shall be imputed if we believe on Him
that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. I was thinking
about this. We only have three paths in life
that we can take. One, you can ignore the Gospel
completely and live your life in sin and meet God and go to
hell. Or two, you can pretend and try
to establish the law of God. There's over 650 precepts. And if you break one, you've
broken them all. And you have to do it in thought,
word, and deed. In other words, you can go through
your life trying to obey the commandments of God and then
meet God and go to hell. Or three, you can believe on
Christ. And God will impute to you freely
the righteousness of Christ. The subject today is how Christ
established the law. And I want to show you that Christ
established the law for His people by being our head and our substitute
on the cross. That's how He established the
law, by being our head and our substitute on the cross. We only
have two points. Christ was delivered for our
offenses. Christ was raised again for our justification. clearly
declares how He established the law. Those two simple statements
declare how Christ established the law for His people. First
of all, Christ was delivered for our offenses. Now understand
this and get this. Christ is the holy, spotless
Lamb of God who never Himself sinned. He was not a sinner and
He never was a sinner. Christ Jesus the Lord is the
Holy One. He's the Holy One. It was a must
that He be holy. It was a must that He be without
sin if He's going to take the place of His people and represent
His people. We're sinful. We're corrupt. We've offended God. And if He's
going to take our place, He has to be sinless. He has to be spotless. Scripture says 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. The reason He went to the cross and the reason He was
able to go to the cross is because He did no sin. Neither was guile
found in His mouth. That means in His heart, in His
nature was no guile. No guile, no hypocrisy, no deceit
whatsoever. He offered Himself without spot
to God. Even on the cross, brethren,
He was without spot Himself. Christ never sinned Himself. He's the Lamb without blemish
and without spot. Well then, what was it He was
bearing on the cross? It was our offenses. Our offenses
that Christ was delivered. Now when you read our here, it's
not all sinners in the world without exception. It's only
God's elect that it's speaking of. Christ said, I'm the good
shepherd and I know my sheep and I lay down my life for the
sheep. When He prayed to the Father,
He said, as thou hast given Him power over all flesh that He
should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given Him. In Acts, they're called those
who were ordained to eternal life. And those are the only
ones Christ died for. Now, I know that's offensive
to natural man. But why? Why do we declare this? We declare it because Christ
came for a purpose. He came into this world for a
purpose. He came to make His people the
righteousness of God. And He accomplished that. And
if He had accomplished that for everybody in the world, then
everybody in the world would be saved. We preach election because we
preach a victorious Redeemer. And we want to declare that He
went to the cross for a particular people and He saved that particular
people. He is victorious in what He did.
But it wasn't for his offenses, it was for our offenses that
he suffered. He took not only our guilt, brethren,
he took our offenses. The crimes themselves that we
committed against God, our Lord Jesus Christ bore Himself. Galatians
1 verse 4 says, He gave Himself for our sins. that He might deliver us from
this present evil world according to the will of God and our Father.
Hebrews 9.28 says Christ was once offered to bear the sins
of many. And Peter tells us His own self
bear our sins in His own body on the tree that we being dead
to sin should live unto righteousness by whose stripes you were healed.
We were talking yesterday Brother Greg and I were talking. You
know, there's some things in the Scriptures the Lord just
doesn't tell us. He just does not tell us. Paul simply said,
He was made sin for us who knew no sin. Peter simply says, He
bare our sins in His own body on the tree. He doesn't tell
us how that happened. The Lord laid on Him the iniquity
of us all, but He doesn't tell us how. Sometimes I wonder if, like folks
do us in our day, if they would have stood there and heard Paul
declare that, would they have said Paul was saying Christ was
a sinner? Obviously there was a need for
Christ to be made sin, or it wouldn't say He was made sin.
There was a need for Him to be the sin bearer. And that need
was so that God would be just to pour out justice upon Him
in place of His people. If that wasn't needful, it wouldn't
say it in the Scriptures. It was absolutely needful because
the whole purpose of God was to declare His justice. Christ
died on the cross so that God could be merciful to His people
and at the same time execute justice upon His people. That's
what was taking place on the cross. The Scripture says His
glory is that He keeps mercy for thousands and forgives iniquity
and transgression and sin and that will by no means clear the
guilty. He does both of those things. He forgives us. He shows
us mercy. But He does not do it at the
expense of His justice. His justice must be executed
upon all sinners. On every sinner. And this, brethren,
is the glory. This is the very thing that separates
God from all other man-made gods. He said, have I not declared
this from the ancient time? He's been declaring this from
the foundation of the world. And what is it He declares? I'm
a just God and a Savior. Beside me there's none else.
That's what separates Him from all others. All others put something
in your hands to do. This is the God who does it all
and declares that in doing so He's just and He's a Savior. He's just and He's merciful.
And that's what separates Him from all others. So it was by
bearing the offenses of His people It was bearing our offenses.
And when He bore our offenses, justice demanded that Christ
be made a curse for us. Christ be made a curse. That
means He had to bear the eternal hell that all His people earned
for ourselves by our sins. He had to bear that. He had to
bear separation from the glory of God's presence. And that's
what hell will be. Separation from the glory of
God's presence. He had to bear that on the cross
for His people. This is how He was made a curse
for us. He bore the fierce wrath of God
which justice demands from every sinner. He bore that for His
people. This was a must, brethren, and
this is what I'm saying to you when I say Christ was made sin. For justice sake, it was a must
that He own our sin as His own, and it be viewed by God as His
own sin. And two, it was a must in order
for Christ to be touched with the feeling of our infirmities,
the feeling that all our sin causes. He felt it on the cross. and yet without sin, yet he remained
holy and remained faithful to God, looking to God. See, these
two things were a must, because if he's going to be a faithful
high priest to make reconciliation to God and to comfort us, both
those things are necessary. The justice of God, he has to
be made sin to satisfy it, so God can be just to pour out wrath
on him, and he has to know what we suffer due to sin. That's
why He was made sin. And when Christ died unto sin,
be sure to get this now, all His people really and truly died
unto sin. When He died unto sin, we died. We died. Scripture says, I am
crucified with Christ. It's not as if I am. It's not
God treated him as if he was sin and He treated me as if I'm
righteous. No, no, no, no, no. I am crucified
with Christ. Our old man is crucified with
Him that the body of sin might be destroyed. Isn't that much
better news? to you that God is declaring
it to be fact rather than God would say it's supposition, it's
as if. Isn't that better news to know
it's fact, it's done, it's finished? That's better news. That's good
news. That's good news. That's the first part of how
He established the law. Here's the second thing. He was
raised again for our justification. He was raised again for our justification. When He rose again as our head
and representative, our Lord Jesus was legally discharged,
He was acquitted, He was justified, and so was His church in Him. So was His church in Him. Christ's
resurrection testifies to us. It declares to us that when Christ
arose legally fully discharged from sin and death, all God's
elect arose in Him legally and fully discharged from sin and
death. That means the law will never
ever say anything negative to one for whom Christ died. It
never will. It never will. So as to condemn
us. It never will. And I make that
qualification because when He calls you, He's going to make
you hear what the law says about you. It says you're guilty in
yourself. But that law is never going to
condemn one for whom Christ died because Christ satisfied justice. And when He arose, that's what
it declared. When He came out of that grave,
the resurrection of Christ declared that there's no more condemnation
for any of His people anymore. You know that high priest in
the Old Covenant. He not only slew the lamb, but
then he collected the blood of the lamb. He didn't take the
lamb that had been made sin. He didn't take that into the
Holy of Holies. The high priest went into the
Holy of Holies without a spot. And he went in there with the
blood of the lamb. And that was picturing Christ
the Antitype. Scripture says of Him that by
His own blood He entered in once into the holy place having obtained
eternal redemption for us. He obtained it. Folks who say
now, you know, if you believe on Christ, you'll make His blood
effectual for you. No! No, His blood, He made His
blood effectual. I don't make it effectual. He
made it effectual. He obtained eternal redemption
for us. Christ is not entered into the
holy places made with hands. They were just figures of the
truth. They were just pictures. He's entered into heaven itself
now to appear in the presence of God for us. He's there for us. He's our advocate
with the Father. He's our righteousness before
the Father. And He's our propitiation before the Father. Christ ever
lives now to send forth the Holy Spirit to each one of those for
whom He died. He's going to send the Gospel
to them because He's sovereign to do it. and He's going to send
the Holy Spirit and He's going to regenerate them and bring
them to faith in Him because justice demands that His righteousness
must be imputed to each one for whom He died through faith. This
blessedness must come on each one for whom He died. Justice
of God demands that. And so He works that for all
His people. Him hath God exalted with His
right hand to be a Prince and a Savior for to give repentance
to Israel and forgiveness of sin. Peter said on the day of
Pentecost, He hath shed forth this which you now hear and see. He did it. And Christ is still
doing it in the hearts of His people when He sends forth the
Spirit. to regenerate us. And so all
who believe on Christ, when we're brought to faith in Christ, God
imputes the righteousness of Christ to us because Christ has
made us righteousness. He imputes what Christ has made
us to be. That's what He imputes to us.
If we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live
with Him, knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth
no more, death hath no more dominion over Him. That's a mystery. By Christ's will, by His willing
consent, He allowed death to have dominion over Him one time. He really, truly, died. He really did. He really did. That only could be if the justice
of God demanded it. And that could only be if He
bore our sin. He really died. He really died. But in that He
died, He died unto sin once. He died unto sin one time. Just one time He died unto sin. And he accomplished what he came
to accomplish. But now, in that he liveth, he
liveth under God. And so, I said to you, God imputes
to us what Christ made us, what Christ made us to be. That's what God imputes to us.
And so God tells us in Romans 6.11, impute ye also yourselves to
be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus
Christ our Lord. If I was Paul and I was writing
this, and I do it every time I preach, I would do what Paul
did right here. He stressed to the folks that
this is not a supposition. He said it in the most emphatic
language he could possibly say it. Impute yourself to be dead
indeed unto sin. Before God, before justice, before
the law, everyone Christ died for has already been executed. We've already died the death
penalty. Every one of us. You can't do that but once. You
can't do that but once. We did it in Christ. And now
in that he liveth, every one of us are risen in him and seated
at God's right hand. It is a done deal. It's finished. And that's why Paul said, if
you be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above.
Because you are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God. You are at God's right hand right
now. That's how God sees it. You and
I can't, we can't hardly get that. We just can't fathom that.
Well, I'm right here. Not before God. Before God, you're
with Him. You're accepted. You're righteous
and holy as God is righteous and holy. As Christ is right
now, so are we in this world. We are what He is right now. Now that's how Christ established
the law. That's how He established it.
He fully, completely established it for His people. If you're
justified, the law has nothing else to say to you. That means
you and I cannot sin so as to be condemned by God. We can't.
Because the law doesn't recognize us anymore. We're dead. We're dead. What does that mean? Go to Romans 7. Look at verse 4. That first husband
was the law. And so, for us to be married
to Christ, that first husband had to die. Well, look what he
says. Verse 4, Wherefore, my brethren,
you also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ. You're dead to the law. What
does that mean if somebody says, you're dead to me? That means
in their eyes, you're dead. Well, you're dead to the law.
In the eyes of the law, you're dead. And this was by the body
of Christ. And it's that you should be married
to another, even to Christ who is raised from the dead, that
we should bring forth fruit unto God. And he says there in that
next verse, when we were in our flesh, And religious or irreligious,
the only fruit we ever brought forth was dead fruit. Dead fruit. Because we were in sin and everything
God looked at us, all He saw was sin. But now, Christ makes
us bear real fruit. Real fruit. That's right. He makes us bear fruit that God
accepts. Isn't that amazing, brethren?
Everything that we do in the name of Christ and for Christ,
He accepts it. The plowing of the wicked is
sin. The plowing of the righteous is righteous. Every mundane thing
we do before God is righteous. Isn't that amazing? That's true.
That's true. Abraham believed God. Do you? Do you believe God? See, this
blessedness comes upon those who believe God and put all their
trust in Christ, cast all your care on Christ. God raised Him
from the dead and gave Him glory that your faith and hope might
be in God. That's why He did it. That's
why He did it. And all who believe have been
made the righteousness of God in Christ. And that's why Christ
said, Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. When you're righteous, righteousness
is the opposite of sin, and sin is the cause of death. When you're
righteous, there's no death. Only life. You'll never die. Christ said, Whoso eateth my
flesh and drinketh my blood, whosoever believeth on me, He
hath eternal life. We have eternal life. And He said, and I'll raise Him
up at the last day. So, you can ignore this, live
your life in sin and go to hell. You can ignore this, pretend
like you can keep the law, which you absolutely cannot do. Meet
God, have God tell you, you never did it once, and then go to hell. or you can believe on Christ
and this righteousness is yours freely. I pray God make you do
the latter. Amen. Let's stand together. Father, thank You for Your Word.
Thank You for causing Your people to believe it. Thank You for
giving us this blessedness so freely, for making us righteous,
in your Son. Lord, we do pray that you would
settle every heart, that you would cause those that are troubled
to be settled, knowing that what you've done is just, it's right,
it's just according to the Scripture. Make us be settled, Lord. Make
us find rest in Christ and love our brethren. and trust what
you've done. And Lord, we pray for those that
are lost, that you might give them an understanding, that you
might quicken them and make them alive and draw them irresistibly
to Christ. Father, we pray today that you'd
bless the services and truly meet with us and truly make us
to worship you. And Father, we pray that you
be with all your people today and that you bless them and keep
them and keep everyone looking only to Christ. It's in His precious
holy name we pray. Amen.