The scripture for our sermon
today is taken from Matthew chapter 16 verse 21. From that time forth
began Jesus to show to his disciples how that he must go unto Jerusalem
and must suffer many things of the elders and chief priests
and scribes and be killed and raised again the third day. I've
entitled this message, What Jesus Must Do. I want to answer three
questions in this sermon. First, why must Jesus die? Second, what did he accomplish
by his death? And third, how can I know that
what he did, he did for me? First then, let's consider this
question, why must Jesus die? In the book of 1 Samuel, God
lays down a fundamental principle. He says in 1 Samuel 2.30, them
that honor me will I honor, and they that despise me shall be
lightly esteemed. we were made for God. But we
have failed to do the one thing for which we were created. We
have failed to honor God. We have failed to glorify Him.
In Romans 3.23 it says all have sinned and come short of the
glory of God. Eli had two sons, Hophni and
Phinehas. He preferred his sons over God
Even though he failed to honor God, God gave a glorious prophecy. He said, I will raise me up a
faithful priest that shall do according to that which is in
my heart and in my mind, 1 Samuel 2.35. That faithful priest who
would do all that was in God's heart and mind is the Lord Jesus
Christ. God made His Son our High Priest. He was born of a woman. In all
things, He was made like His brethren. God made Him High Priest
to do all that was in His heart and mind, to save His people
from their sins. Where we failed, Christ did not
fail. Christ honored His Father. Therefore, God has highly honored
Him. God tells us what we have failed
to do. We have not honored him. And
he tells us that we have made ourselves utterly corrupt because
in our pride and idolatry we preferred our honor to his. But
he does not tell us this so that we will try to pick ourselves
up by the bootstraps as if we could undo the dreadful problem
that our sin and unbelief has created. nor does he tell us
of our failures and our worthlessness so that we will wallow in the
gloom and despair of our filth and shame. Rather, he tells us
all of this to lift our eyes to himself. to his dear son our
Lord Jesus Christ it is Christ alone who has honored his father
by his obedience unto death Philippians chapter 2 verses 6 through 11
says who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to
be equal with God but made himself of no reputation and took upon
him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men
and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and
became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore
God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which
is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee
should bow, of things in heaven and things in earth, and things
under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus
Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." Why must Jesus
suffer and die and rise again? Because God must be glorified. When we say that God must be
glorified, we do not mean that He must add something to Himself. In His essential glory, God never
increases or decreases. Rather, when God glorifies Himself,
He makes known the perfections of His nature, who He is. And
when He does, we become aware of His greatness. God glorifies
Himself by making His glory known, making Himself known, and He
makes known His glory in Jesus Christ, His Son, through our
salvation. In the beginning of time, the
world was without form and void and darkness. In the same way,
our minds are darkness and empty. There is nothing in us for God
to work with. He must start new. He must shine
in our hearts, in our darkness, to show us Christ. And in showing
us Christ, to show us His glory, This is what is said in 2 Corinthians
4, verse 6. For God, who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. God must be glorified, and He
is glorified in His Son. God gave His Son a people to
save. By completing the task God gave
Him to do, by saving His people from their sins, Christ made
known God's glory. And having honored His Father,
God the Father honored Him. Therefore we read, In Psalm 21.5,
His glory is great in thy salvation, honor and majesty hast thou laid
upon Him. Christ's glory is great because
He accomplished the salvation of His people. This is the most
fundamental reason why Jesus must die, to glorify His Father. On the night when Jesus went
to the cross, he gave the sop to Judas. Judas went out to betray
him. Jesus said, when he was gone
out, Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God
shall also glorify him in himself, and shall straightway glorify
him. Jesus is the Son of Man. As Son
of God, He had glory with His Father from eternity. But when
He came into the world, when He took the body God prepared
for Him, when He humbled Himself, and as a servant, as a man, fulfilled
all the will of God, then God glorified Him as the God-Man,
our Mediator. As man, he did not have glory
with his father before the world was. But it was in God's eternal
will to glorify him as man. He fulfilled the law of the Hebrew
slave in Exodus 21. In all that he came to do, and
in all that he did, our Lord Jesus said, I love my master,
I love my wife, I love my children, and I will not go out free. There was never, nor shall there
ever be, a love like this. The Lord Jesus Christ so loved
His Father, and so loved those His Father gave Him to save,
that He laid down His life for them. He offered Himself to God
for them, and in so doing, He honored His Father. And as God
and man, God then honored him. God bestowed upon Christ, the
God-man, our mediator, such glory that he now sits on the throne
of heaven, on the throne of his Father. Truly, Christ's glory
is great in God's salvation. But when God glorified His Son,
He made known His glory. God must glorify Himself. And this then is the most primary
reason why Christ's death was necessary. In Numbers chapter
14, verse 21, God said, As truly as I live, all the earth shall
be filled with the glory of the Lord. The words, as truly as
I live, mean that God would cease to be God if he fails to glorify
himself throughout the earth. And this he did in the cross
of Christ. Just before Jesus went to the
cross, He prayed to His Father. It says in John 17, 1 and 2,
Jesus lifted up His eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has
come. Glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son
also may glorify Thee, as Thou hast given Him power over all
flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast
given Him. God staked all of His glory on
His Son. It pleased God to do so. Jesus
Christ is Himself the brightness of God's glory, Hebrews 1.3. Therefore, if the Lord Jesus
did not glorify His Father by His obedience unto death, then
God's glory would not be made known. But he did not fail in
one thing. He fulfilled all of his father's
will. How did the Lord Jesus Christ
glorify him? By giving eternal life to all
those that the Father gave him to save. He said, Glorify thy
son, that thy son may glorify thee in this way, as thou hast
given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life
to as many as thou hast given him. God the Father is glorified
in His Son because Christ fulfilled His will to give eternal life
to as many as God had given Him out of all of the people of the
world. Jesus already spoke this in John
chapter 6. He said in John 6, 39, This is
the Father's will which hath sent Me, that of all which He
hath given Me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it
up again at the last day. We see, therefore, that it was
God's purpose to glorify His Son. He staked Himself on making
His glory known throughout the whole earth. He must glorify
Himself, and we see that He chose to glorify Himself in His Son
by enabling Him as our mediator, as God and man, to save His people
from their sins and bring them to glory, giving them eternal
life. and this eternal life is knowing
God in Jesus Christ. When we see who God is in Christ,
we see God's glory. It says in 2 Corinthians 4 verse
6, God commanded the light to shine out of darkness in our
hearts. to give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. The glory of
God is seen in the face of Jesus Christ. God must shine in the
darkness of our heart by the preaching of His gospel in order
to make known His glory by showing us His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ,
and what He's done. God must be glorified. We have
utterly failed to do so, yet He has raised up Christ to honor
Himself by doing all that is in His heart and mind. Christ
has not failed. He has finished God's work. He finished His will. In John
17, He continues, He says, I have glorified Thee on the earth.
I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do. And now,
O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own self, with the glory
which I had with Thee before the world was. Jesus prayed that
the manifest glory that was His as the Son of God would be given
to Him as Son of Man because He finished the work God gave
Him to do. He saved His people from their
sins. He has given them eternal life. God's will, like God Himself,
is eternal and immutable. In Psalm 33, verse 11, the Lord
says, "...the counsel of the Lord standeth forever, the thoughts
of His heart to all generations." God's thoughts, His counsel,
stand forever. His thoughts are to all generations. It was God's will to save His
people, to bring His many adopted sons to glory, by giving those
people to His Son to save. But how did Christ save His people? How did He do God's will? What did He accomplish by His
death? Scripture reveals that the Lord
Jesus Christ lived a representative life and he died a substitutionary
death. All that he did, he did in the
place and on behalf of his people, those God gave him to bring to
glory. He had to be made man so that
as man he could fulfill God's law and answer God's justice
in the place of his people. All that God required of his
people, he looked to his Son to give. There are three things
scripture says that our Lord Jesus Christ did to save his
people. First, he was made sin. Second, he was cursed by God's
law. And third, he fulfilled God's
law. In all of these, we see that
God looks to Christ for His people. All that God requires of them,
He received from His Son. And all that Christ did for His
people, He did in their place. God received all that he did
from him for them. There is no greater news to this
sinner than to know that all that Jesus did in his life and
death, he did according to the will of God in my place and for
my salvation. For this, I glorify God for his
mercy. Listen to these scriptures. God
hath made him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might
be made the righteousness of God in him. 2 Corinthians 5.21
God made Christ sin for all he gave to him to save. In doing
so, he removed their sins from them. Those sins became his. For Christ, it was obedience. It was a fulfillment of God's
will. It was the greatest act of obedience and the greatest
act of love. It was the greatest act of mercy
and grace. It was the greatest demonstration
of power. that he would take all of the
sins of all of his people and make them Christ's own sins. And then, in his sinless body
and soul, he made full atonement for those the Father gave to
him, the us. Because he substituted himself
and represented those God gave to him, his obedience was credited
to them. Just as their sins became His,
His obedience became their righteousness. God saves His people for what
He thinks of what His Son did. God saves us for what He received
from Christ. God does not even consider me
or you at all in what He requires from us. He only looks to His
Son. And listen to this scripture.
Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made
a curse for us, for it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangs
on a tree. Galatians 3.13 Jesus Christ was
cursed by God. He died a substitutionary death. 1 Corinthians 5.7 says, Christ,
our Passover, is sacrificed for us. He is the Lamb of God who
was once offered to bear the sins of many. He took the beating
my sins deserved, and by His death By God cursing him on the
cross for the sins of his people, God's justice is fully satisfied. Christ satisfied God's justice
by his death. This glorifies God's justice. How holy is God's justice? When
sin was found on his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, he spared
not his son. Romans 8.32 Christ not only put
away sin by the sacrifice of himself, not only did he endure
the curse of God by enduring that curse himself for his people,
but the third thing that he did was he fulfilled God's holy law. He lived a representative life. From His coming into the world
until He cried His last words from the cross, it is finished. All that our Lord Jesus Christ
did, He did as a representative man to honor His Father in the
place and on behalf of His people. Adam sinned and plunged the entire
human race into sin by his disobedience. But Jesus Christ the Lord is
the last Adam. By his obedience he rescued all
of his people from the condemnation of their sin and he justified
them before God by establishing his obedience as their everlasting
righteousness. In Romans 5.19 it says, As by
one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience
of one shall the many be made righteous. Adam was the one man
who by his disobedience made many sinners. Christ is the one
man who by his obedience makes all of his people righteous before
God. What did Christ accomplish in
His death? He put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. He
was cursed, and He redeemed us from the curse of God's law.
He obeyed by fulfilling the eternal will of God, establishing everlasting
righteousness for His people. By His life and suffering and
death, He justified all of His people before God. Romans 4.25
says He was delivered for our offenses and raised again for
our justification. As He prayed in John 17.4, I
have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. That work
was to save His people from their sin. But in doing that work,
He glorified His Father in all of His perfections. The most
God-like thing that God ever did is seen in the life and death
of Jesus Christ. He took upon himself the full
cost required to save those who in their nature and by their
practice were the very enemies of God. He saved them by himself
with no help. from any but God. Therefore,
God alone must get all of the glory in all of our salvation. What is the love of God? 1 John
4.10 says, Herein is love, not that we love God, but that He
loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. And in Romans 5, verse 8, God
made known his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us. And in Ephesians 5, verse 2,
it says that Christ also has loved us and given himself for
us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor. You see, all that God is, is
made known in all that Christ did. God's holiness, His justice,
His righteousness, His love, His grace, His mercy, His wisdom,
His power, His faithfulness. Indeed, all that God is, is made
known to the highest possible extent in the life and sufferings
and death of our Lord Jesus Christ. In Numbers chapter 14, verse
17 through 20, Moses prays on behalf of God's people who had
sinned. He said, I beseech thee, let
the power of my Lord be great, according as thou hast spoken,
saying, The Lord is longsuffering and of great mercy, forgiving
iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty,
visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to
the third and fourth generation. Moses said, Pardon, I beseech
thee, the iniquity of this people, according unto the greatness
of thy mercy, as thou hast forgiven this people from Egypt even until
now. Why did God forgive His people? Because of His great power. Proverbs 19.11 says, the discretion
of a man deferred his anger and it is his glory to pass over
a transgression. God exercised great power in
deferring his anger towards us and pouring out his wrath upon
his son that he might pass by the transgression of his people.
Why does God forgive His people? Because it is His very nature
to be gracious. It is His glory to forgive. But if it is God's glory to forgive,
then why doesn't He just forgive everyone without requiring Jesus
to die? Because God is also just. In
all of His nature, in all of His perfections, God is holy. His justice must be satisfied
as much as His grace must be abundantly lavished on chosen
sinners. and God is sovereign. He is gracious
to whom he will be gracious. He has mercy on whom he will. He said to Moses, I will have
mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on
whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that
willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. Romans 9, 15, and 16. How, then,
can I know that what He did, He did for me? If God must glorify
Himself, if His will must be done, if Christ must, therefore,
suffer and die and rise again to the glory of God according
to the will of God to save His people from their sins, And if
God is sovereign in His mercy, then how can I know that what
Christ did, He did for me? To answer this question, we also
answer another question, which is, how can I glorify God? God must be glorified by me. But how can I glorify Him? The
answer is, by faith. Abraham was about a hundred years
old when God fulfilled his promise to him and gave him a son. In
Romans chapter 4 it says this, Abraham staggered not at the
promise of God through unbelief, but, listen, he was strong in
faith, giving glory to God. Romans 4 20. You see, faith glorifies
God. Faith glorifies God because faith
gives all credit to God in salvation. As God laid all of the salvation
of all of his people on Christ, and as Christ fulfilled all that
was in God's heart and mind, Even so, in believing, we see
and agree that Christ is all in our salvation. We ascribe
all of our salvation to Him only. We abandon all other confidence
and we worship God because of His greatness in all that He
is that He would so save a wretched, foul, helpless, obstinate, proud,
ignorant, helpless, and hopeless sinner like me, all by himself. Faith glorifies God. We are saved in believing Christ. We're tempted to think that if
we believe Christ, we must do something and therefore receive
some honor from God. But faith, by its very definition,
brings nothing of itself. Faith is not me working or doing
to earn salvation. Faith is owning that Christ is
all and has done all to the glory of God. Faith leaves all and
comes to Christ only. Faith cries out of the depths,
and God delivers that one who so believes in looking to Christ. And in that deliverance, we glorify
God for His mercy, we rejoice in His salvation, we trust Christ,
and we enjoy peace and rest in believing. And this glorifies
the God of all grace. In Romans 15.9 the Apostle Paul
refers to Old Testament scripture and he says this, that the Gentiles
might glorify God for His mercy as it is written. And then he
refers to our Lord Jesus Christ who said this in prophecy, for
this cause I will confess to thee among the Gentiles and sing
unto thy name. And again he saith, rejoice ye
Gentiles with his people And again, Praise the Lord, all ye
Gentiles, and laud him, all ye people. And again, Isaiah said,
There shall be a root of Jesse, and he that shall rise over the
Gentiles, in him shall the Gentiles trust. We who believe Christ
glorify God for His mercy. We rejoice in Christ. We praise
God with gladness in our heart for His grace. We have joy and
enjoy peace and hope in believing. In all of this, we glorify God
by faith. So how do I know if what Christ
did, He did for me? Jesus said in John 6.37, All
that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh
to me I will in no wise cast out. Do you see that Christ is
glorious in salvation because He has done all to save His people
from their sins? Do you call on Him and believe
Him to save you to the uttermost by His work alone? When your
sins rise up, do you believe that He put away all of the sins
of all of His people and that He has dominion over your sins
by His mighty conquest in salvation? And do you come to Him and see
that God receives you for Christ's sake alone? Is all that God is
in Christ all of your trust? Do you come to God with no confidence
in yourself, but all confidence in Christ? Is it your highest
joy to know that your salvation depends on what God thinks of
Christ and has received from Him alone? Does His answer to
God give you peace in your conscience? then God the Father has given
you to Christ. And according to Jesus' own words,
He will not cast you out. Philippians 3.3 says, We are
the circumcision which worship God in the Spirit and rejoice,
that is, boast and glory in Christ Jesus and have no confidence
in the flesh. Salvation must be by grace alone,
by the work of Christ alone, because God alone will have all
of the glory in our salvation. 1 Corinthians chapter 1 says,
God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the
wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound
the things which are mighty, and base things of the world,
and things which are despised has God chosen. yea, and things
which are not, to bring to nothing things that are, that no flesh
should glory in his presence. But of him are you in Christ
Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness,
and sanctification, and redemption, that according as it is written,
he that glorieth let him glory in the Lord. The Lord Jesus Christ
must suffer. He must die. because it glorifies
God, it fulfills His eternal will to save His people by Himself
from all their sins and subdue under His feet, and their feet,
all their enemies, sin, Satan, death, and the world. May God
give you and me faith to look to Christ only and glorify God
for His mercy.