In Matthew chapter 27, beginning
at verse 45, it says, Now from the sixth hour, from the sixth
hour, that would have been noon, high noon. Now from the sixth
hour, there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour, Jesus
cried with a loud voice saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani, that
is to say, my God, my God, why has thou forsaken me? And some
of them that stood there when they heard this, heard that,
they said, this man calleth for Elias. which is Elijah, and straightway
one of them ran and took a sponge and filled it with vinegar and
put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink. And so we're
going to stop there. This is what I want to consider
today, these words of the Lord Jesus Christ, which are I guess
in the original language that he spoke them, Eli, Eli, lama
sabachthani, and it's translated for us, my God, my God, why hast
thou forsaken me? I don't think there's any other,
there's no doubt this is one of those places, this is the
place in scripture where we hear the most mournful of all cries
coming from the Lord Jesus Christ. And I don't pretend to be able
to understand what really happened here. I've read the commentaries and
And they certainly understand it a lot better than I do, but
I really don't think that it's possible for us to comprehend
what really happened here. Here, the Son of God, in our
nature, hangs on the cross, willingly, in obedience to His Father. And
at this point, when the sky is darkened for three hours, It
says that he cried out about the ninth hour, which would have
been the end of that darkness, this phrase, my God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? To be forsaken is one of those
things that we just, we don't want that to happen to us, do
we? I think about little children who are forsaken by their parents.
And I know when my little kids, my kids were younger, especially
when they were younger, I couldn't think of anything worse that
could happen to them than that they would be taken from me. and left without, I mean, I would
miss them, but I know that they always cried for mom and dad
when we were away, so they would have felt that pain of being
forsaken. Being forsaken is something that
is an awful thing. It's not natural for people to
live alone. As hermits, for example, there's
That's a sad thing. Remember that man who was possessed,
Jesus said he was alone in the caves, cutting himself and crying
out. He was separated. So to be separated
like that is a mournful thing. It's a sad, sad thing. And there's
no doubt there's a lot of meaning in that here, of being forsaken
by God. So I want to consider with you
just these words, these words that Jesus spoke on the cross,
the thieves, he had just spoken to the thief, that he would be
with him in paradise. And who knows what that thief
thought when the sky went dark. And for three hours, then at
the end of those three hours, he heard Jesus cry this. What
did the soldiers think as they sat there on the ground, or stood
there on the ground, and the whole sky is black at noon? This
was not a solar eclipse. The solar eclipse only lasts
for a short time. What would make the sky go dark
at noontime over the whole land? The light was cut off, essentially.
The light of the sun was darkened. Now there's several things that
are, even though this is a mystery to us and we really can't understand
it, there's several things here that we can understand from scripture.
First of all, who was it that hung here on the cross? This
was the One. This was the Son of God. This
is the One who, by His own Word, commands worlds into existence
out of nothing. And then, by His own Word, upholds
them too. This is the One whose Word must
be obeyed. And yet, here He cries, My God,
My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? His word here wasn't answered,
was it? It wasn't answered right then.
It wasn't immediately answered. Turn to Psalm chapter 22, because
the words are really taken from Psalm 22. And Psalm 22 is both
a prophecy that is fulfilled in Matthew 27, And it's an explanation,
too, a greater detail of what Jesus did here. He says in verse
1 of Psalm 22, He jumps right into those words. And who knows
that the prophets of old searched. Remember what it says in 1 Peter
1, verses 9 and 10. He says they searched diligently
trying to understand what or what manner of time the Spirit
of Christ that was in them did signify when it testified beforehand
of the sufferings of Christ and the glory that would follow.
And here we have the sufferings of Christ, and they would have
wondered, what does this mean? My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping
me and from the words of my roaring? Sometimes when we read in Scripture
the terrible things that came upon the Lord Jesus, we wonder. It seems like language that's
colorful and flowery that goes beyond. But it couldn't go beyond. It has to fall short, doesn't
it? It's not hyperbole. He was roaring. In his heart, from his heart
and soul, and all that he was, he was roaring. And listen, he
says in verse 2, Oh my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest
not, and in the night season, and am not silent. Here the Lord
Jesus is crying continuously. Why wasn't he heard? Did God fail to keep His promise? God had promised in His Word
that He would never let His crown fall to the ground,
and yet He says that it did here. It says, let me just read to
you what it says in Psalm 89. There's several places that the
Lord, He would not fail Him. It says in Psalm chapter 89 in
verse 35 and 34, he says in verse 34 of Psalm 89, "...my covenant
will I not break..." This is the Lord God talking about our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He says, "...my covenant will
I not break, nor alter the thing that has gone out of my lips
once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David."
When he speaks of David here in the psalm, he's not only speaking
of David, the man, the king of Israel, but he's speaking about
David's son. So it's as if he's speaking to his son here. He
says, "...his seed shall endure forever, and his throne as the
sun before me." This is God's promise. "...it shall be established
forever as the moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven." And then
look at the next verse in Psalm 89 verse 38. But thou hast cast
off and abhorred. Thou hast been wroth with thine
anointed. Thou hast made void the covenant
of thy servant. Thou hast profaned his crown
by casting it to the ground. Thou hast broken down all his
hedges. Thou hast brought his strongholds to ruin. All that
pass by the way spoil him. He is a reproach to his neighbors. But thou hast set up the right
hand of his adversaries. Thou hast made all his enemies
to rejoice. Thou hast also turned the edge
of his sword, and hast not made him to stand in the battle. Thou
hast made his glory to cease, and hast cast his throne down
to the ground. The days of his youth hast thou
shortened. Thou hast covered him with shame.
How could this be? How could the Lord swear on the
one hand He would never let His throne end, and yet on this case
it says He's casting His crown down to the ground? That's the
same mystery that we have here in Psalm 22, which Jesus fulfilled
on the cross. My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? So we ask that question. With
the Lord Jesus, why? Why did He forsake Him? Did God
fail to keep that promise? That can't be. If God failed
to keep His promise, God would cease to be God. He swore by
His holiness. That means that if He failed
to do what He said in His oath, then His holiness would fail. His holiness would be marred.
So God can't fail. And the Lord Jesus here, understand
here, that the Lord Jesus Christ, while He's doing this, He's actually
obedient to His Father. He's doing the will of God. He's
submitting Himself in obedience to what God required from Him.
We know it's the will of God, don't we? Doesn't it say that
in Psalm 40? He says, I come to do thy will,
O God. Thy law is within my heart. And
Hebrews 10, he explains what that will is. It was to offer
himself as an offering in sacrifice to God for the sins of his people
to make atonement for their sins. So it was obedience in his part.
Let me read it to you also from Philippians chapter 2. This is obedience. This is our
Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He says in Philippians
chapter 2, let this mind, in verse 5, let this mind be in
you which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form
of God, All that God is, He was and is. He thought it not robbery
to be equal with God, because it wasn't for Him to be equal
with God. It wasn't robbery. But He made Himself of no reputation
the Son of God, put aside his reputation as the Son of God
and took upon him the form of a servant to his father and was
made in the likeness of men and being found that was that was
a humility we can't understand how the Son of God could be made
in the likeness of men but being found in fashion as a man he
humbled himself even further and became obedient unto death
even the death of the cross Here the Lord hangs in obedience.
And His obedience is an obedience unto death. He did not deviate
one iota from His Father's will. He came to do it because it was
what His Father wanted from eternity. And He came to fulfill His law,
to magnify His justice and His law. And so it's obedience here.
Well, why would God forsake Him then? If He's obeying, And wouldn't
he have a reason to doubt his father here if he had forsaken
him? But neither of those is the case. He didn't doubt his father. He
was obedient even in this unimaginable agony of his soul. And he trusted
in his Father. He trusted Him. It was an obedience
and trust of love, never doubting his Father. And there's a huge
lesson to be learned there, isn't there? God will not fail to keep
His Word. God is faithful. And even though
all evidence that men could see. The sky was darkened. It looked
as if God had forsaken His Son here on the cross. And yet, He
hadn't really, but He had in the Lord Jesus Christ, in His
sense of it, He was forsaken. He was forsaken by God. We can't
divide between these things. I can't tell you how He was forsaken
and yet not forsaken, but He was forsaken. So I'm just going
to take what God says, the Lord Jesus, when He said those words,
He was forsaken in His soul by God. And yet He trusted. Yet He loved His Father and maintained
His integrity, His patience in that obedience to Him. This is
an obedience unparalleled. This is an obedience that we
don't know anything about. We see it in Job. Though he slay
me, yet will I trust him. And then the Lord says, He says
this, I cry. I cry in the daytime, and you
don't hear me. And in the night season, and
I am not silent. He was faithful. He prayed. He
obeyed. He trusted. He loved his father.
What he was doing, he wasn't even doing for himself. He was
doing for his people. And yet, here, the Lord forsakes
him, and he answers the why. Why? Why? Why did God forsake
him? It's answered here in verse 3.
Psalm 22. But thou art holy, thou art holy. Men in hell will not be able
to say that from their heart. They will always be in agony,
knowing that they are sinful. And though God is just, they
will still not in their heart repent. They'll continue to hate
God. But the Lord Jesus is nothing
like that. But thou art holy. In the midst
of the worst suffering possible, that a man could suffer. As someone said, and I don't
know who it was, but I read it first in Spurgeon, he says, he
bore all that Almighty God could bear, with strength enough, but
none to spare. And that's true here. Thou art
holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel. What was
it that required the Lord Jesus to die? It was God's holiness.
Look at Hebrews chapter 2. In Hebrews chapter 2, it explains
the reason God required Jesus to die, or why He came. Hebrews
chapter 2. He says this in verse 9. After explaining that God had
put all things under man, And yet, we don't see all things
put under man. In the garden, he said that he
was, but then he fell. Not everything's put under him.
In fact, nothing seems to be under him. But then in verse
9 he says, but we see Jesus. We see him because he was made
the new Adam, the second Adam, the last Adam. But we see Jesus,
who was made a little lower than the angels. Why? for the suffering
of death? Why was he made lower than the
angels? Why did he take on the form of a man in order that he
might die and suffer? And we see him crowned with glory
and honor. Why was he suffered? Why did
he die? That he might take, by the grace of God, taste death
for every... for every... and the word man
is actually not in the original, it just says for every. And the
context proves it's every son, every one that God gave to him,
the children God gave to me, my brethren, the seed of Abraham,
those that the Lord took their nature For every man, for every
one of God's children. Why was he made lower than the
angels? Because he had to die. But why
did he have to die? In order that he might taste
death for every son, every man, every one God gave to him. It
was God's will that he suffer as a substitute. And then look
at verse 10. Now, this was God's determined will from eternity
to bring many sons to glory. Because that was His will, it
became Him, it seemed right to Him, it was what He determined
was right, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through
sufferings. Because He would taste death
for every man, and because God would bring His many sons to
glory, it was required by God that His sons suffer in order
to be made perfect through sufferings. He had to suffer in order that
He might be the captain of their salvation. And look at chapter
5, Hebrews chapter 5. He says here in Hebrews 5, In Hebrews 5, it's speaking about
the Lord Jesus, how He was made a high priest. He didn't make
Himself a high priest. He was made a high priest by
God. God anointed Him and appointed Him to that. He was taken from
among men. And then in verse 5 it says, "...so also Christ
glorified not Himself to be made high priest, but He that said
to Him, Thou art My Son, today have I begotten Thee, as He saith
also in another place, Thou art a priest forever after the order
of Melchizedek." And then in verse 7, "...who in the days
of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications
with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save
him from death, and was heard, in that he feared, though he
were a son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered."
This is a great mystery, isn't it? The Lord Jesus Christ, the
Son of God, learned obedience. He understood experientially
what was required to fulfill God's will, to be obedient to
God. Because when He experienced it as a man, then He understood
what was required. And He learned it as if coming
to it without familiarity with that suffering until he actually
suffered. That's why it says in Matthew
26, when he was in the garden of Gethsemane, he began to be
amazed. And his soul was heavy, sorrowful,
even unto death. He was feeling that for the first
time. And so he learned what obedience was required from God
in order to make propitiation for his people's sins when he
suffered it. And that's when as a man he trusted
God and looked to Him to save him. And he cried with strong
crying and tears to Him who was able to save him from death.
He learned that obedience. And we also learn obedience,
don't we? In our lives we don't know what it takes to continue
to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. In the midst of all the
trouble we go through. Especially our sin. But as we
experience it, we feel like God has forsaken us and we cry. And
then we are pointed again to Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ,
He is the one who went before us as our forerunner. He's the
one who obeyed God, trusting Him in these things. And He didn't
have a surety to look to. He Himself was that surety. And
so He bore all that His people owed. He was the substitute for
His people. It really, I just admire the Lord for so many reasons
here. The fact that He trusted God
in trouble without wavering. And he declared God was holy
in pouring out on him this wrath upon him. This wrath. He was
forsaken by God. To be forsaken by God is really
the equivalent of hell itself. Remember what the Lord said about
Adam and Eve when they were in the garden? When Adam and Eve
sinned, it said, when they heard the voice of the Lord God in
the garden, they hid themselves from the presence of the Lord.
That's what sin does. It causes men to be separated
from God. Isaiah 59, 1 and 2, it says,
My ear is not heavy, that it cannot hear. My hand is not shortened,
that it cannot save. But your iniquities have separated
between you and your God. It's our iniquities. It's our
sins that separate us. And so Adam and Eve hid themselves.
They were separated from the presence of the Lord. And then
remember what happened when Cain killed Abel. And God said that
he would be a vagabond. And then Cain said, I'm driven
out this day from the face of the whole earth. From thy presence
shall I be hid. I think I'm getting that right
in Genesis chapter 4. Let me read that to you. How
Cain lamented the separation here. He says, "...behold, thou
hast driven me out this day from the presence of the earth, and
from thy face shall I be hid." That's what Cain experienced. When he killed his brother Abel,
he was driven out from the presence of the Lord. That's separation.
Sin causes that. Remember the whole time that
Israel was in the wilderness. And they had the tabernacle with
them. And God's presence was right there in the midst of the
whole nation of Israel. Right there in the tabernacle.
In the Holy of Holies. And they couldn't go in and see.
Why? Why couldn't they go in and see
God? There was a veil that separated them. Why was that veil there?
Because of sin. They were separated from accessing,
from approaching, from coming to God because of sin. Sin separates
us from God. And that's the wage of sin. It's death. It's separation.
What happens when our bodies die? Our souls are separated
from our bodies, aren't they? Have you ever seen someone who
has died? It's a sad thing, isn't it? Their eyes are motionless. There's no longer life there.
And you look upon them and you realize that their body has lost
life. Their soul has departed. God
has taken away. He's separated the soul from
the body. And that's physical death. And
physical death is just a picture of what happens spiritually.
Remember what God said to Adam and Eve? In the day you eat,
that day you shall surely die. And spiritually they died. Their
spirits died so that they were separated in their souls from
God. in their understanding. They
couldn't understand spiritual things. The natural man cannot
understand the things of the Spirit of God. They're foolishness
to him. He can't know them. And Ephesians 2 makes it clear.
We're dead in sins. We're separated from God spiritually.
The carnal mind is enmity against God. We're separated. That's
what sin does. It separates friends. We were once, in Adam, before
the fall, we were with God and able to hear His voice. But now
we've been separated because of sin. Lepers, in the Old Testament,
were required to go outside the camp and live alone outside of
all of the blessings of God, because they were leprous. And
their leprosy reflects or represents our sinful condition. That's
what sin does. It separates us. And remember
what Jesus said He would say? Look at Matthew chapter 7. The separation is a horrible
thing. To be separated from our friends,
we feel that pain. Especially when that separation
comes because of shame that we, things that we've done. But to
be separated from God, who can know what that is really like?
only those in hell, truly. But Matthew chapter 7, it says
this in verse 23, I'll read from verse 21, "...not everyone that
says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven,
but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven."
And what is it to do the will of my Father which is in heaven?
Jesus said, John 6, 40, "...this is the will of him that sent
me, that everyone that seeth the Son, and believeth on him,
should not perish, but have everlasting life." That's the will of God.
To do the will of God is to be in the obedience of faith in
Christ. But here these men didn't do
that. Because it says in verse 22, Many will say to me in that
day, Lord, Lord, have we not, have we not prophesied in thy
name, and in thy name cast out devils, and in thy name done
many wonderful works? They were thinking about their
own works. They didn't trust Christ. Then
I will profess to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you
that work iniquity. Depart. That's the word of separation. The Lord Jesus, in the end judgment,
that's what he'll say. Look at Matthew 25. In verse 41 of Matthew 25, He
says, "...then shall He say also unto them on the left hand..."
These are the ungodly, these are the unrighteous, these are
the unbelieving, the goats. He says, "...He'll say to those
on His left hand, Depart from Me, you cursed, into everlasting
fire." prepared for the devil and his angels. What is it to
be separated from God? It's to suffer the everlasting
punishment and consequences of our sin. And look at verse 46.
These shall go away into everlasting punishment. That's the death
God promised in the garden. In the day that you eat you shall
surely die. They were spiritually dead, their
body eventually dies, and at the final judgment the full execution of that sentence is
carried out. Eternal punishment. Therefore,
if the wages of sin is death, and the death that God is speaking
of is carried out here in its ultimate end of separation, then
what happened when the Lord Jesus Christ cried these words on the
cross? What was He doing? Was He suffering
for His own sins? Not for sins He committed. Remember,
He tasted death for every son. In order to bring many sons to
glory, God had to make the captain of their salvation perfect through
sufferings. He's the second Adam. He's the one who bore their sins. The first Adam is the one who
committed sin, and by his sin they all became subject to death.
Here the Lord Jesus Christ restores what He didn't take away, and
He suffers that. It has to be the equivalent of
whatever God required for the punishment of sin. Doesn't it?
Think about that. We have a hard time sympathizing
with the Lord on this, I think. But realize, everything that
came upon the Lord Jesus Christ, when they spit in His face, when
they took their fist and they hit Him in the face, when they
slapped Him, When they whipped him on his back, when they pulled
the hair off his face, when they jammed that thorny crown onto
his head and then beat him with that reed on the top of his head.
And then they stripped him naked and they mocked him. And the
shame of that, openly before men, was only reflective of the
shame... that God was bringing on him. God is the one who ordained everything
that happened then. The spitting, the stripping,
the beating, and the thorns. It was God's will that this come
upon him. Why? Because this is what my
sins deserved, and your sins deserved. When the Lord Jesus
did this and suffered the equivalent of our eternal damnation, it's
what God required from Him because He stood as the surety for us,
His people. A substitute. A sacrifice instead
of the one for whom the sacrifice was made. Was taken. And He was
chastised that we might have peace. He bore the shame I deserved
and the pain and the forsaking. This is what my sins deserved. And He did it. He did it willingly. And in this we see the holiness
of God, don't we? That God would require this of
His own Son. This is God's holiness in the
brightest contrast here, isn't it? It's one thing to require that
Pharaoh or Judas or me pay for our sins. It's another thing
to require it of the Lord Jesus Christ, the beloved Son of God. But He required it. He required
it. It became Him for whom are all
things and by whom are all things in bringing many sons to glory
to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. A perfect substitute, a perfect
surety. A perfect surety, one who took
our sins upon himself. Look at 1 John chapter 4. What was God doing here? He was making
up for the offense that our sins caused His justice. In 1 John chapter 4, he says
in verse 9, we see first of all here that this was the greatest
display, the greatest act of love the world will ever know
or could ever have seen. In this was manifested the love
of God toward us. 1 John 4, 9. Because that God
sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live
through Him. We who deserve death might live
through Him because He was put to death. Look at verse 10. Herein
is love. Not that we loved God. Let's
get it straight. But that He loved us and sent
His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. The sacrifice that
satisfied justice. That's what propitiation means.
That removed God's wrath. The sacrifice that took away
the wrath of God. Let me read to you what it says
in Psalm chapter 85. Psalm 85. He says, Lord, verse
1, Thou hast been favorable unto thy land. Thou hast brought back
the captivity of Jacob. This is the result of Christ's
suffering and death. Verse 2, Thou hast forgiven the
iniquity of thy people. Thou hast covered all their sin.
The words covered mean atonement has been made. Sin has been removed
because God has been satisfied. God has reconciled his people
to himself by removing the offense that they caused. And verse 3,
Thou hast taken away all Thy wrath, Thou hast turned Thyself
from the fierceness of Thine anger. Turn us, O God of our salvation,
and cause Thine anger toward us to cease. What an amazing
thing. God Himself, who was offended
by what we did, took away His anger by pouring out His wrath
upon His Son. That's what these words mean,
my God. Why did, I often wonder, why
did God record this? Why didn't Jesus just say this
between Him and His Father? It was just a transaction between
Him. Why did God, why did the sky
go dark? Was it for Christ's sake? Or
for our sakes. Wasn't it for our sakes so we
could see that God has set him forth to be the propitiation
for our sins? Romans 3.25. He set him forth. He made us to know that God is
making satisfaction in his Son for the sins of his people. And
this is what it costs. This is the wages of sin. This
is separation, forsaking by God. This is what our sin, this is
what God requires from us for our sin. Only He required it
not from us, but from our surety, our substitute. He took our sins,
it says in 1 Peter 2.24, He carried our sins up to the cross in His
own body on the tree. He who Himself bear our sins
in His own body up to the tree, that we, being dead to sins,
because the penalty was poured out on Him and came upon Him,
the full penalty was expended, and satisfaction was made to
God that that penalty was made, was poured out on us. That we,
being dead to sins, now having suffered in Him, might live unto
righteousness, by whose stripes we are healed. It's substitution,
isn't it? Christ bearing what I deserved. Understand that, that cry, we
could never be forsaken by God and yet live. How could we have
both? But here the Lord Jesus was able
to be forsaken for three hours. The sky went dark, the light
of the world. I find it most amazing that our
Lord Jesus Christ could have commanded anything just by speaking
it. And yet in this cry, He only
hears nothing from His Father. This is an insight into what
the pain of hell is, isn't it? This separation, this outer darkness,
this bottomless pit. There's no support. God is not
supporting you anymore. There's no hope. There's no light. And when you know you need light,
and you can't see, that's a frustrating thing, isn't it? You know you're
in the dark, and yet you cannot see a thing. Your eyes are blinded. It's so dark, and yet you know
you're falling, unsupported by God. That's what he felt. That's
what he felt. There's many things we see here
in this cry of the Lord Jesus Christ. Here we see the greatest
evidence of the evil of sin, don't we? God did not spare His
Son. Look at that verse with me in
Romans chapter 8. I'll take you there. God did
not spare His Son, but delivered Him up for us all. Romans chapter
8. I'm going to read verse, I'll
read verse 28 first. And we know that all things work
together for good. to them that love God, to them
who are the called according to His purpose." Now, we don't
get things to work to our good by drumming up this love to God. God gives us faith, which produces
this love in us, because we see in Christ that God saved us by
His mercy and grace. And so that causes us to love
Him. But that faith is the gift of God when He calls us by His
grace. He says, for those who believe
Christ, everything In life, in death, everything is working
to their good. Even their sin. That doesn't
give us a license to sin. That doesn't mean we want to
sin more so that grace would abound. It means that God is
even using our sin for our good. For whom he did foreknow. To
know beforehand, it doesn't mean he looked down through the ages
of time to find out what we would do and then he knew us. That's
the poppycock you hear from today's religion. God knows because He
willed it. God works everything according
to His will. He knows all that He's going
to do before the beginning of the world. He loved us with an
everlasting love, but to twist that around, to make it look
like God loved because He saw in us what we're going to be,
that's ridiculous. That doesn't even make logical
sense. For whom He did foreknow, He
also did predestinate." How could He predestinate if He already
saw what we're going to do? It makes no sense. "...He predestinated
us to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be
the firstborn among many brethren, that He might have many sons
and bring them to glory, not as they are, but holy and blameless
before Him in love, conformed to the image of His Son. Moreover,
whom He did predestinate, them He also called by the Spirit
of His grace, and whom He called, them He also justified." He made
them to know that in Christ they've been justified by His blood.
"...and whom He justified, them He also glorified." There's an
unbroken chain between God's purpose and the glorification
of His saints in heaven. It cannot fail. Those God knew
before are those who are in glory. Those are the ones who are justified.
And when we believe Christ, we know we've been justified by
Him. Look at verse 31. What shall we say then to these
things? This is what we say. If God be for us, who can be
against us? What a word. He that spared not
his own son, but delivered him up for us all? That's what Jesus
did there on the cross. My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? He that spared not His own Son,
but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also
freely give us all things? If He delivered up His Son this
way, it's a small thing in comparison to give us all things. That's
what He's saying. He's equating all things in the
universe to be less than the death of His Son on the cross.
This shows you the price of our redemption. If God could have
sacrificed everything except His Son, and by our redemption,
then He would have done it. But He gave His own Son because
His justice required that. And He didn't spare Him. His
holiness would not spare Him when sin was laid on Christ. It pleased the Lord to bruise
Him. He found satisfaction in doing so. Not because God is He loves the pain, but because
He's a God of justice and judgment, He must be just. And He poured
out that justice in satisfaction to fall on Christ and received
it from Him. And then poured out abundant
grace on us, because He says, if He delivered His Son up for
us, That's the logic. If He delivered up His Son for
us and didn't spare Him, then without a doubt He's going to
give us all things in Him. There cannot be any possibility
that Christ died for someone without God giving them all things
in Christ. It can't happen. God foreknew,
predestined, called, justified, glorified because He gave His
Son for us. That's what He's saying. And
then in verse 33, because I can't help myself, I gotta go on. Who
shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? As soon as God
from eternity chose His people in Christ, no one could lay anything
to their charge. Because God saw them in Christ.
Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God
that justifieth. And who is He that condemneth?
It is Christ that died. Yea, rather, that is risen again,
who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession
for us." What a Savior. He died for us. He rose for us. We rose, we died in Him. His
forsaking was my receiving. The just for the unjust He suffered
the just for the unjust. Why? To bring us to God. That was the purpose. He suffered
to bring us to God. Do you think his suffering will
fail? Do you think God will look at
his suffering and receive full satisfaction from him and then
yet the effects of that fail? It can't happen. God's Word is
complete. He will do all His will. So that's
the first thing. The greatest evidence of the
evil of sin that God would poured out on His Son. This is the dreadful
penalty of sin we see in Christ. Here we see God's justice most
greatly displayed. When God destroyed the earth,
all the inhabitants except Noah and his family in the flood.
That was a display of God's justice, wasn't it? And when He poured
out fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, that was a display of God's justice,
wasn't it? But here is the greatest display,
no comparison. There's no contenders here. This
was satisfaction. Those things didn't satisfy,
but this satisfied. And here is the incomprehensible
price that Christ paid, and the grace that we will never be able
to understand, His unspeakable grace. Here is the greatest measure
of God's divine love to us. And here is the certainty that
salvation is not of works, isn't it? Do you find something of
yourself in the sufferings of Christ? Only your sin. We can't
contribute anything here. Here is the cost that God paid
to reconcile his enemies. Here is the obedience that fulfilled
God's law and established an everlasting righteousness with
which God could reward us with everlasting life. Here is the
will of God that had to be fulfilled in order to bring many sons to
glory. He required the death of his
son. This is the way into the holiest of all. The veil was
rent. It was Christ's flesh. The way
in was made. This is our access. Christ's death on the cross.
Here is real substitution. The Lord Jesus really suffered. He wouldn't have cried if He
wasn't suffering, if He wasn't forsaken. Therefore, there's
a real substitution here. If Christ really suffered this,
then His people are not going to suffer this. Because He did
it. And God will not demand justice
twice. He can't get justice from us.
He could only get it from Him. And that's what faith says here.
He sees faith teaches us that we have to come to God through
Christ, because this satisfies God. God required it. And to
turn away from this in unbelief is to trample underfoot the Son
of God, to consider His blood an unholy thing. This is the digging of the well
of salvation, that we might draw out water unto everlasting life. And this is our communion with
the Son of God. In John 6.56 he says, "...if
you eat my flesh and drink my blood, then I dwell in you, and
you dwell in me." This is our communion. But here is something else too.
The certainty that God will require full payment for sin from the
wicked. We have to be found in Christ,
don't we? If not, then He will speak to us what He spoke to
those in Matthew 25 and verse 7. Depart from me, you cursed.
This is the assurance of eternal inheritance. What a cry this is. What love
there is here. What justice. What mystery. And
yet it's unfolded to us. the evil of our sin, the evil
of our heart, that we would put Christ there, and then the blessing
of God's grace, that it was Him who ordained it so, that He would
require this from us. When you see the men treating
Christ so, realizing it was God who treated His Son this way,
God required it. This is what He thinks of sin.
This is what He did in order to save us. Let's pray. O Lord, we're so thankful that
when you cried these words, which we cannot really comprehend,
my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me, that we then were
saved. We were then delivered from that
awful eternal forsaking that we deserved. He received the
stroke of justice that should have fallen upon us, but which
we could not bear and live. And we thank you, Lord, that
you've told us this, you've set forth your son. We've heard his
cry, we've seen the sky go dark. We've seen the innocent suffer
as the guilty, numbered among the transgressors. And we saw
him save this wicked thief. And we know, Lord, that there's
hope for us. We heard him pray for those who
nailed him to the cross, whose sins put him there. Lord, we
need that Savior. We need that salvation. Save
us for your namesake. To the glory of your grace, in
Jesus' name we pray. Amen.