let us turn to the epistle of
Paul to the Romans in chapter 5 in Romans chapter 5 and reading
from verse 8 through to verse 11 but God commendeth his love
toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us
much more than being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved
from wrath through Him. For if, when we were enemies,
we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more
being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only
so, but we also join God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom
we have now received the atonement. And I want to take these last
words, the end of verse 11, for our text this evening. We read
of our Lord Jesus Christ by whom we have now received the atonement. Presently, we are going to sit
at the table of the Lord and observe that ordinance, that
holy supper where we will receive the broken bread and also receive
the cup. Think of the words of institution,
take, eat, this is my body which is broken for you. This do in
remembrance of me. Take, eat, we receive. and we receive at the hand of
the Lord Jesus Christ and so I want to take the theme tonight
from these words at the end of Romans 5.11 the theme of receiving
the atonement receiving the atonement and dividing the subjects into
some four parts first of all I want to say something with
regards to our condition as those who are the receivers, and our
condition by nature is one of alienation. To say something
first, then of alienation, and then something with regards to
the atonement or reconciliation. Thirdly, the receiving, and then
finally, the idea of remembrance, thinking in particular of the
Lord's Supper. First of all then, to say something
with regards to the condition of those who are the recipients
of the atonement and their condition by nature is one of alienation. And you see then how that provision
that the Lord God has made in Christ is such an answer to the
condition. What is it that they are receiving?
They are receiving the Atonement. And it is one of those great
words of Holy Scripture. It's one of Tyndale's words,
isn't it? It was coined by the great reformer and translator
and we simply break it down and understand the significance of
it. It means at one meant. The idea of being at one. Think of that for a moment, that
sinner in all the filth and all the guilt of his sin to be brought
to be at one. with the Holy One of Israel the
God of eyes too pure to behold iniquity. It's a great word that
Tyndale coined atonement or atonement and you will observe how in the
margin we do have an alternative reading we have the word reconciliation
reconciliation suppose the root of that word is Latin, but certainly
this word adjuvant is very much an Anglo-Saxon word. And reconciliation is in many ways
appropriate because the same word is used in the previous
tenth verse in its verbal form. Being reconciled we shall be
saved by his life, we read at the end of verse 10. being reconciled,
that's the verbal form of this noun, atonement or reconciliation. But I say again that I much prefer
the words that Tyndale has given us. But the point I make is this,
that before we can come to understand the blessings of receiving the
atonement we have to know what it is to feel something of our
alienation we have to come to terms with our natural condition
alienated that's the consequence of man's sin and here you see
at the beginning of verse 10 we are told when we were enemies
We were reconciled. Friends don't have to be reconciled.
Friends are friends. It's enemies. It's those who
are at odds, one with the other, who have to be reconciled. Again,
in verse 8, we're told God commendeth His love toward us in that while
we were yet sinners. Christ died for us. It was by that bloody death upon
the cross that Christ reconciled who? Those who were sinners. Those who were in that condition
of alienation from God. What are we by nature? We are
children of wrath. Children of wrath even as others. And how Paul reminds the Ephesians
of what their condition was, having the understanding darkened,
he said. Alienated from the life of God
through the ignorance that was in them because of the blindness
of their hearts. And the margin gives there the
hardness of their hearts. hard-hearted sinners, separated
from God. And we see it immediately in
Scripture after the entrance of sin into that paradise which
was the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve disobeyed God and
partook of what God had forbidden, and they ate that fruit of the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil, their eyes were opened,
they knew they were naked. And when the Lord God comes,
what do they do? They seek to hide themselves. or they are
no more in fellowship with God they are now alienated from God
and then God at the end drives them out of the garden or they
are sent forth out of paradise they are separated this is what
sin does it separates your iniquities have separated between you and
your God and your sin has hid his face from you but you know
sin is not just that condition of of separation, being as it
were apart and away from God. No, sin is real opposition to
God. That's the essence of what sin
is. Professor John Murray says of sin, it is that that is against
God. It is the contradiction of God.
It is the denial of God. That's what sin is. It's an awful
alienation, enemies. the carnal mind we're told is
enmity against God it is not subject to the law of God neither
indeed can be therefore those that are in the flesh cannot
please God and we have to begin here if we're going to have any
understanding of the text that we're considering tonight if
we're going to know what it means to receive the atonement we'll
have to know something of ourselves and what we are as sinners before
God whatever be our birth or our upbringing and however thankful
you might be for a godly home life as a child your condition
is still that by nature of alienation that's how we all come into this
world and that's where we have to begin but then we have this
great doctrine the doctrine of the atonement And it is very
much the work that the Lord Jesus Christ came to accomplish. Remember what I said about the
verbal form of this word in the previous 10th verse, and we have
it twice. If when we were enemies we were
reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more being reconciled,
we shall be saved by His life. How was his reconciliation, how
was his atonement accomplished? It was accomplished by the death
of the Son of God. It was the work of the Lord Jesus
Christ, it was that great work that he purposely came to accomplish. And how it's brought out again
and again by the Apostle as he writes to these these churches,
right into the church of the Colossians, there in Colossians
1.21, he says, "...and you that were sometime alienated and enemies
in your mind by wicked works, yet now has he reconciled in
the body of his flesh through death to present you holy and
unblameable and unreprovable in his sight." The same truth,
you see. is declared at Colossae as Paul would declare here to
the church at Rome. All reconciliation, atonement. Now, in the Old Testament it
has the idea of covering, covering sin. The enmity is, as it were, covered,
concealed. Look at chapter 4 and what Paul
says here as he makes reference to the language of David in Psalm
32. There at verse 6 in chapter 4. Even as David also described
that the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputed righteousness
is at works, saying, blessed are they whose iniquities are
forgiven, whose sin is covered. Or the forgiveness of sin, reconciliation
with God, being at one with God, involves sins being covered. The blessed man, Is iniquities
forgiven? Is sins covered? And it's all the mercy of God
and we see it wonderfully in type really in the Old Testament
when we think of the worship of God and that worship as it's
centered upon the Holy of Holies there in the tabernacle where
we have of course the Ark of the Covenant the ark that contains
the two tables of the law, the Ten Commandments, the words of
the covenant that God had made with Israel. And there upon the
top of the ark, the mercy seats, with the cherubims, one on each
end. And there God says He will come, and as it were, from His
throne, He'll commune with the children of Israel. They'll have
fellowship with God. And we're told in Exodus 25 of
all the measurings of the Ark and the measurings of the Mercy
Seat. And that Mercy Seat is a perfect
covering. There's the chest, the Ark, with
the Ten Commandments. And they're the transgressors
of those commandments. By the Lord is the knowledge
of sin. But there's the mercy seat. And when you read the measurements,
and you can read it there, Exodus 25, 10 and 17, exactly the same. It's two and a half cubits by
one and a half cubits. The same measurement. So, the
mercy seat is a perfect covering. Oh, that's law that condemns
a sinner as a transgressor. that law that reminds us of our
condition as enemies of God how it's covered by the mercy seat
there must be a perfect covering you see and that's what Christ
has done by his atoning death he has satisfied every aspect
of the holy law of God he has made a full atonement a full
atonement doesn't God's justice demand that? It was clear in
the Old Testament that when the judges made judgment they must
mete out a judgment that was equitable it was to be a judgment
that was befitting the crime that had been committed and we
see that there in the language of Deuteronomy 25 the opening verses of that 25th
chapter. If there be a controversy between
men and they come unto judgment, that the judges may judge them,
then they shall justify the righteous and condemn the wicked. And what
of that condemnation it shall be if the wicked man be worthy
to be beaten, that the judge shall cause him to lie down and
to be beaten before his face according to his fault by a certain
number? 40 stripes he may give him, and
not exceed, lest if he should exceed and beat him above these
with many stripes, then thy brother should seem vile unto them. He
was to be beaten by a certain number. And so it would be 40
stripes save one. Really 39 I suppose, they wanted
to make sure that they didn't miss counts. But God you see
is so specific and particular with regards to the punishment.
It must be a proper fitting punishment. Justice must be properly satisfied. That's what we see there, as
it were, in type, particularly there in the furnishings of the
tabernacle, the Ark of the Covenant, and the mercy seat as its covering. Now, I've said that sin in a
sense is separation from God, being apart from God but sin
is also alienation from God enmity against God and think of what
that meant then when it came to the sufferings of the Lord
Jesus Christ or didn't the Lord Jesus Christ know a very real
separation from God did he not experience that in his death
upon the cross how he lived that life of faith a real man a real
man the Lord Jesus lived by the faith of God he knew fellowship with God he
would spend whole nights in prayer in communion with his God as
a man And then when he comes to die, how he feels so forsaken,
my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me, is the cry of the
Lord Jesus, in all the bitterness, all the anguish of his soul.
He takes up those words, those words, prophetic words, back
in the 22nd Psalm, but having their fulfillment in the sufferings
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And yet when he comes to die,
remember, yes, it's a man who is dying, but that man is also
God. And in everything that the Lord
Jesus Christ does here upon the earth, he is never less than
man, but he is never anything less than God. He's always the
God-man. That is the mystery. That is the great mystery of
his dying. Because we know there is no separation
in that God had no separation between Father, Son and Holy
Spirit. There cannot be. They are three persons, yes,
but three persons in one Godhead. One Godhead. Oh, what a mystery
there is in that crucifixion. There's a mystery, of course,
when we consider the Incarnation, the Lord Jesus coming into this
world, Paul says, without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness.
God was manifest in the flesh, the incarnation. God contracted
to a span, incomprehensibly made man, in the words of Charles
Wesley. But as with his coming into the
world, so with his dying. There is also mystery here, as
he cries out, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And you know, it's amazing, isn't
it, how we can read something and think of it, probably many,
many times, portions of scripture, and then all of a sudden, something
is said, or some comment is made, and we suddenly realize that
there's something there we've not seen before. And just a few
days ago, I I was looking up the commentary of Luther on those
words at the beginning of Psalm 22. I was doing it for a friend,
he wanted me to check something, and I thought, well, I'll do
that now. And as I very quickly read through it, one sentence
really struck me so forcibly, and it was this. Luther says,
no one can say, my God, my God, who is wholly forsaken of God.
I thought I'd never realized it before although the Lord is
forsaken yet He's still my God it's still my God maybe sometimes
we're like that ourselves we feel that God is so far from
us all but oh when we can use that language the language of
appropriation and address Him as my God or even come and address
Him as our Father which art in heaven. Oh the wonder you see
of the dying of the Lord Jesus he really was forsaken and yet
and yet he can still address God in the language of faith
and call him my God. Oh there's such a wonder is there
not when we consider the dying of the Lord Jesus. And when we
consider something of how these things are set before us in the
Old Testament, not only in prophecy, but in type. I've referred already
to the furnishings there in the Holy of Holies, the Ark of the
Covenant, and the Mercy Seat above it. But think of the Great
Day of Atonement. Oh, the Great Day of Atonement. Read it there in the 16th chapter
of the book of Leviticus. Do you remember what was required
on that day concerning the High Priest? There were various sacrifices
to be made. It was a day wherein he was to
go beyond the second veil. He was to enter actually into
the Holy of Holies. He was to go before the Ark and
before the Mercy Seat. Just that one day, one day Every
year Yom Kippur is what the Jews called Yom Kippur. You remember
a few years ago there was war, wasn't there? The Yom Kippur
war between Israel and Palestine, many years ago now, but it was
called the Yom Kippur war. It was a strike that the Arabs
made on that particular day in the Jewish calendar, the day
of atonement. And amongst the sacrifices were
to be found two goats and one was to be a sin offering and
the other goat was to be a scapegoat. One of the goats would be sacrificed
as sins were confessed over the head of that goat, the other
goat was not to be sacrificed, it was the scapegoat, but sin
was confessed over the head of that goat also, and then it was
to be taken into the wilderness. And in those two goats we have
a remarkable type of the atoning death of the Lord Jesus. Look
at the language there in that 16th chapter. I do commend a
careful reading of the chapter if you've got Andrew Bonner's
commentary also it's worth reading what Bonner makes of the chapter
but just read through the chapter at your own leisure but look
at what we read here in verse 21 Aaron shall lay both his hands
upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the
iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions,
in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and
shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness. And the goat shall bear upon
him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited. and he shall let go the goats
in the wilderness." What does it speak of, this live goat,
this dead goat? It's separation. Here are the
sins now, you see, being taken away. All sin separates between
God and man, and the sin is now to be separated from the man.
And that's what the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished by His death
upon the cross. how he knew a separation and
by that separation that awful dereliction that he felt all
the sins of his people have been removed taken away from them
as far as the east is from the west taken away as it were into
a land of forgetfulness and again that great verse that we have
in Jeremiah chapter 50 and I think it's verse 20, here
it is, Jeremiah 50, 20, "...in those days, and in that time,
saith the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for,
and there shall be none, and the sins of Judah, and they shall
not be found, for I will pardon them whom I reserve." Oh, that's
atonement. That's atonement. All our sins, think of what it
means to receive the atonement. All our sins gone. And we've
got sins, maybe we've got sins even now. You can stand in the
pulpit and be preaching and your head full of every manner of
uncleanness. And yet all that sin's gone.
And how is it gone? Because of what the Lord Jesus
Christ has done when we were enemies. or when we were enemies
we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son? Or we receive in Him the atonement,
the reconciliation? Well let us move on and consider
in the third place what it means to receive. We read about Lord Jesus Christ
by whom? By whom we have now received
the Atonement. Now, this receiving precludes
all idea of any merit. We receive it freely. There's nothing of ourselves
that earns it. It is a sovereign act of God.
Remember what John the Baptist says, a man can receive nothing
except it be given him from heaven. John 3.27, a man can receive
nothing except it be given him, and he comes from heaven, he
comes from God. Who maketh thee to differ from
another? And what hast thou that thou
hast not received? If therefore thou hast received
it, why dost thou glory as though thou hadst not received it? all that we have we receive from
God of His fullness of all we received and grace for grace
oh it's grace for grace, grace upon grace, grace upon grace
and what is grace? Grace is the free gift of God
and see the language that we have around our text verse 17 It says there, much more they
which receive abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness
shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ. Or what do we read? Abundance of grace, the gift
of righteousness. Oh, that's justifying righteousness.
That's the other aspect of the work of the Lord Jesus. He doesn't
just die to make a great sin-atoning sacrifice. Why we spoke this
morning of what He accomplished by His life, that righteousness
that was wrought by all His obedience to every one of God's laws, all
the commandments. He's the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believeth. much more they which receive
abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign
in one or reign in life by one Jesus Christ. By whom? By whom we have now received
the atonement. Well, you see, salvation in the
Lord Jesus Christ is a false salvation. Salvation in the Lord
Jesus Christ doesn't need to have anything added to it. It's
full, it's complete, it's perfect. But that full salvation is also
free. As it is full in the Lord Jesus
Christ, so that salvation is free. It's free to sinners. Oh, if you're a sinner tonight,
there's free salvation for sinners. That's what the gospel is. That's
the free grace of God, is it not? And see what we're told here
in the previous verse, the end of verse 10. Much more it says, being reconciled
we shall be saved by his life. If when we were enemies we were
reconciled by the death of His Son, there's the results of His
atoning death, we're reconciled to God by the death of His Son,
much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. What is this life that is being
spoken of? It's the Lord's resurrection
life, He is no more dead. He is risen again from the dead
He has ascended on high, he has entered into heaven. It's his
interceding life, it's his life now in the presence of God that
he's being spoken of. He lives in heaven and he lives
to apply salvation to sinners, to give salvation to sinners. Or him hath God exalted with
his right hand to be a prince and a saviour, to give. to give repentance to Israel
and the forgiveness of sins. He lives to give, you see. And
so we receive, we receive all these gifts at His hand. Thou hast ascended on high, thou
hast led captivity. Captive thou hast received gifts
for men. Yea, for the rebellious also
that the Lord God might dwell amongst them. Remember how those
words from Psalm 68 are spoken of in terms of the Lord Jesus
in Ephesians 4.8. Oh, He has ascended and He's
received gifts and they're gifts for men, for sinful men, rebellious
men. Men who are in that state of
alienation Oh, here is that one who is able
to save to the uttermost them that come to God by him. Oh, he saves to the uttermost.
To the uttermost. And that's what he is accomplishing
in heaven by his session there at the right hand of the Father. Oh, but above all things, and
we remarked on the words this morning there in Acts 2.33, being by the right hand of God
exalted, having received of the Father the promise of the Holy
Ghost, He has shed forth this which ye now see and hear. Oh,
the gift, the gift of the Holy Ghost, the outworking of the
blessed covenant of Christ, the whole economy of Christ, All
salvation centers in the persons of the Godhead, centers in Father,
Son and Holy Ghost. So they be three persons, they
are one God and they are co-eternal and they are co-equal and yet
in the Covenant the Son willingly becomes the servant of the Father.
It must be about His Father's business and fulfills all the
goodwill and pleasure of His Father and accomplishes the work
that the Father has given Him to do. And then, risen, ascended,
he sends the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit willingly
comes as the Spirit of Christ. And you see, this receiving the
Atonement is by the Spirit. It's a spiritual work that must
be accomplished in the soul of a sinner. That's the only way
we'll receive the Atonement. You have to receive it by that
blessed ministry of the Spirit He has to come, He has to come
to us He has to apply the Word to us, He has to bring the Word
into our very souls Oh, remember what James says there in James
1.21 to receive with meekness the engrafted Word that is able
to save the soul What is that engrafted Word? or that implanted
world. In the soul is the miniature
of the spirit. It's a spiritual work in the
very depths of a man's being. And what does that person who
receives the atonement experience? Well, in order to know atonement,
in order to know reconciliation, as I've already said, we first
experience alienation. We need to be reconciled because
we're in a state of enmity, we feel it. We feel probably far
off from God. Well Jonah cries out, I am cast
out of thy sight. I am cast out of thy sight. Now,
how far was that man from God? He was running away from God. And then he was found out, cast
overboard, swallowed by the great fish. He's in the very depths
of the Mediterranean. I am cast out of thy sight, he
cries, yet. Oh, what a word is that? Yet,
I will look again toward thy holy temple. And what is the
temple? Well, the same as the tabernacle.
It's all to do with Christ. It's looking to Christ. Or when
we feel ourselves in that state, that alienation, that enmity,
separated from God, far from God, what are we to do? We're to look. There's only one
place to look and that's the Lord Jesus Christ. Again, the language that we have
here in verse 10, he says, For if, when we were enemies, we
were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more being
reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only so,
but we also join in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom
we have now received the atonement. Oh, there's joy here! There's
rejoicing and rejoicing in God. Why rejoicing? Because we're
reconciled to God. And we're even reconciled to
all God's dealings with us. Are you reconciled to God's dealings? Are we those who are brought
to that position, that submissiveness, that meekness? That meekness. To be reconciled to God, you
see, it's it's the life of faith we have to be reconciled to God's
dealings and sometimes God's dealings are so strange and so
confusing to us ah but in the midst of it all can we not come
in with the Lord Jesus if we know him and say my God my God
why? we might ask the why but can
we at the same time not see that we're so favoured and privileged
when we can call him my God oh there is a blessed receiving
then receiving the Atonement. And then finally, as we're about
to come to the table of the Lord, the remembering. The remembering. Our Lord Jesus Christ by whom
we have now received the Atonement. Isn't there a receiving in the
Supper of the Lord? Isn't it really a feast? Is this a gospel feast? It's
a wonderful provision that the Lord has made, and I've said
this before, I mean, we recognize the primacy of the hearing of
the word of God, faith cometh by hearing. He pleases God by
the foolishness of preaching. That's the content of the preaching,
but also the act of the preaching we hear. Why is it that we have
services like this, where such a central place is given to the
Word of God, the reading of it in the public place, the preaching
of it, because that's what we see to be the pattern of the
New Testament. God has appointed His Word, and
His Word is to be preached. and I mean we can read so I suppose
we also at times employ our sense of sight when we read the word
of God and sometimes God might deal with us away from the means
of grace when we're reading in our own homes when you're reading
God's word and I trust day by day you're reading the word and
praying over the word But God has appointed the preaching.
There's no disputing that. Faith comes by hearing. But here
in the Lord's Supper, what does the Lord do? He comes to us by
other senses. There is something to be seen.
This is why I say at the Lord's table is not a place for us to
be indulging in private devotions. No, it's a public thing. We should
be all sight. We should be seeing things. The
breaking of the bread. The pouring out of the wine. There's something to be seen.
Calvin said it's the gospel painted before our eyes. It's the gospel
in pictures as it were. The broken bread, the poured
out wine. And then there's a touching. We take. We take these things. We handle them. There's a sense
of taste. We eat these things. We partake. Oh, what a feast it is. It's
a glorious feast of remembrance. Twice the Lord says in remembrance
of me, Take heed, this is my body which is broken for you.
This do in remembrance of me after the same manner also he
took the cup when he had stopped saying, This cup is the new testament
in my blood. This do you in remembrance of
May. It's a feast of remembrance. But it's more than that. It is
more than that. It is truly a spiritual feast. Now, in John's Gospel there's
no account, as you know, of the institution of the Lord's Supper.
It's mentioned in the three synoptic Gospels, the actual institution. When Christ comes to His last
Passover, he establishes what we call the Lord's Supper. We
don't have that incident spoken of by John but John has given
us that remarkable sixth chapter and surely there's something
significant in the words that we have there and we read we
read the chapter verse 53 Jesus said unto them, Verily,
verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of
Man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth
my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life, and I will
raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed,
and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and
drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. as the Living
Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father. So he that eateth
myrrh, even he shall live by myrrh. Well, isn't there a real
spiritual communing with the Lord Jesus when we come to the
supper? I'm not speaking of the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation,
we're not talking about the real presence. We don't say that what
we're eating is literally the body and blood of the Lord Jesus. But there is a spiritual aspect,
there is a spiritual feeding upon him. And I believe that
that comes out in what the Apostle says there in 1 Corinthians 11.
He says, Wherefore, whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink
this cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and
blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself,
and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. Oh, there
is a place, you see, we have to examine ourselves. as we come
to the Lord's Supper, that doesn't mean that we're looking for something
worthy in ourselves, we come again to receive, it's all grace,
it's ever grace. And this is the man who receives
sinners, and eateth with them, we come as sinners. But see what
it says there, when there's that unworthy partaking guilty, it
doesn't say you're guilty of abusing the bread and the cup? No, it says guilty of the body
and blood of the Lord guilty of the body and blood of the
Lord or there is a real spiritual communing with the Lord Jesus
there receiving as it were and what do we receive? Oh, we receive
the atonement we receive all the blessings that the Lord Jesus
Christ has procured by that cruel bloody death that he endured
on the cross when we were enemies he reconciled us to God. Oh God
grant that we might come and come and come and come again
and again and again and be wanting ever always to feed upon this
Lord Jesus Christ, our Lord Jesus Christ by whom we have now received
the atonement. Amen.