I don't know how much the use
of Chuck's finger is going to cost me, but I'm pleased he's
here tonight. Let me make a comment about Joe's
comment about our pastor out playing golf today. You all who
play golf, Joe, you've been out with me a few times. You know
that word play doesn't go with golf. It's work. Every shot is
work. So I've never used the word play.
It's an oxymoron. You know what an oxymoron is?
Like jumbo shrimp? The word play doesn't go with
golf. And Mark Twain said something about golf one time. He said,
it's a good walk gone bad. So anyway, but I hope he did
well. We'll never know the truth, though,
will we? No. Well, when Bill read there in Luke 2, 49, when
the 12-year-old Christ said, I must be about my father's business,
let me tell you this. We know this about that. He was
not talking about helping Joseph in a carpentry shop because Joseph
was not his father. Our Lord the Christ was referring
to his Father in heaven, God the Father. And somebody asked
me a few months ago, when did the Christ know who he was and
what he was sent to do? Well, the only place I could
tell them to find that answer is right here, in Luke 2.49. For he said, he's acknowledging
the fact that God is his father. And later on in scripture, you'll
know, later on in scripture, what did he say about God the
father? He said, I and my father are one. So here is evidence
that this is the first place that Christ, at least we know
of, acknowledged who he was and what he had come to do. And it
says in Galatians 4.4, but when the fullness of time was come,
that's Christ's birth, and listen here, God sent. Christ was sent. by his father to do his father's
business. And Christ called it my father's
business. And we know whatever his father's
business was, it was his business. Because he and his father are
one. So he's come not only to do his father's business, but
he's come to do his business also. So when the fullness of
time was come, God sent forth his son, made of a woman, made
under the law. Now I have that made under the
law underlined and in red letters, because you're going to see,
hopefully, before the end of this message, that was one of
the businesses that our Lord had come to do. In Matthew 1,
18 through 25, we're studying, we just finished studying that
in the Bible in Sunday school classes, we know the Virgin Mary
was engaged to Joseph. And they were individually told,
Mary and Joseph, were individually told that she was to have a child. a virgin with a child, that she
was pregnant with a male child. And this revelation was given
to both of them by an angel sent of God, a messenger sent of God
to tell them this. And this child, Virgin Mary,
engaged to Joseph, never had known a man before. This child,
she was told, was a product of the Holy Ghost. The Spirit impregnating
her. And this child was not conceived
in sin. Because David in Psalm 51.5,
if you know that, David says, in sin was I conceived. And that just means that David
was conceived by two sinful parents. And every person in this life,
since Adam fell in the garden, have been the product of sin. In sin did my mother conceive
me. And every one of us, whether we understand it or not, whether
we like it or not, whether we admit it or not, we were all
conceived in sin. Every person. Because what's
the scripture say? There's none good, no not one.
There's none righteous, no not one. Now this promised child
could not come through the seed of man. Because it was through
the seed of man, Adam, that sin was brought into this world.
And this child had to be a sinless child, so he was brought through
the seed of a woman. You can see that in Genesis 3.15.
It calls it her seed. Not a man's seed, her seed. And
Isaiah 7.14 foretold of this time. in prophecy, way before it took
place here in Matthew 1 or in Luke 2, way before this took
place, it was foretold in Isaiah, by the prophet Isaiah, as inspired
by the Spirit of God, it says, Now that's the same thing that
was told Mary and Joseph later, here in Matthew 1, And you know what that name Emmanuel
means, God with us. This is God in human form. That
was through, and here's the reason why it had to be through a virgin
that this child came into the world. Because it was through
the first earthly man, that's Adam, he's called earthy. In
first Corinthians 1547, because he was of the earth, Adam was
made from the dust of the earth by the spirit and by the power
of God. So he's an earthy, that's what we are. What's scripture
call us? We're just clay vessels. We're just a group of minerals
and things like that. I forgot what it was that Chuck
and I were talking about one time about how much we're worth.
What did I tell you? $22 and something? If you took all of our chemicals
in our body and took them and got them down to the basic concept
of what they are, we're not worth much. We think, a lot of people
think they're worth a whole lot, but we're not worth anything,
really. So he was called earthy in 1 Corinthians 15, 47 because,
and through Adam, sin contaminated humanity. Sin contaminated God's
creation. You can see that in Genesis 3,
verse 6 through 7, and you can see that in Romans 5, verses
12 through 14. Now, it was through the second
Adam, and that's Christ. He's called that, 1 Corinthians
15, 47, right there when the first Adam is called earthy.
This second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ, the one, the center of
the message here, is God in the flesh. He was heavenly, not earthy. He didn't come from the earth.
He came from heaven. Sin of God. And 1 Peter 2.22
says this about this man, this child that's coming into the
world. It says, he did no sin. That's a concept that none of
us in this room, no one can even imagine. He did no sin. And Hebrews
4.15 says he was without sin. Constantly. Now the angel, when
they were told, when Mary and Joseph were told, they were told
to call his name Jesus. And the name Jesus is an Old
Testament name, I mean the Old Testament name for Jesus is Joshua.
And Jesus means Savior. For the angel said, told this
to Mary and Joseph, for he, this is Christ, And this is part of
the business that he was in. You know, let me say this first.
Everything Christ did, everything, every word, every deed, whatever
you can think of, he was doing his father's business all the
time. He wasn't doing anything for
himself. He was doing his father's business. And you know who he
was doing it for? He was doing it for the people
that his father had given him before the foundation of the
world. Because the people could not do that business. So anyway,
it says, for he shall save his people from their sins. And they
were told to call his name Emmanuel, as it was foretold in the Old
Testament, in Isaiah 7.14. Here, they were told, quoting
the Old Testament, you call his name Emmanuel, that is, God with
us. The angel said, in Luke 1.35,
You know, the angels had to be pretty fluent with their words.
But you know, the angels had no word for this God-man in human
form. You know what they called him?
They said, that holy thing shall be called the Son of God. It's
not possible for our little, tiny, limited brains to understand
how great God is in mercy and grace. We receive it. Everyone in this room tonight
and everyone in this world, if you want to think about it, has
received God's mercy and grace in one form or another. Grace
is giving people what they don't deserve. We know we don't even
deserve a breath considering what we are in this flesh. But
God has given us breath. Even unbelievers, he gives breath
to. I know, Ronnie, you've given
up gardening. Is that true? Well, did you know that when
you did garden, that person that lived next to you who may not
believe this gospel, it rained on them as well as when it rained
on you so you could produce the vegetables in your garden? God
showers grace on everybody. And God shows mercy, not giving
us what we do deserve. So he's gracious in his mercy
and grace, but you know, and no one knows how infinite God
is. Did you know God's not limited
to time or space? For in God, there is no time.
We're creatures of time. I knew weeks ago at this time,
Lord willing, I was going to be up here and you prepare for
it. But we're creatures of time. We're always looking at our watches.
I know for 27 years, Katie, I stood over there. Katie is a former
student of mine who's here for the first time tonight, and I'm
so glad to see her and her two delightful young ones here. But
for 27 years, I stood outside my door and waited for a bell
to ring. It's a wonder I'm not deaf. But
anyway, we're creatures of time, but not God. You know what Nehemiah
9.6 says about God? And he's talking about our Lord
too, about Christ. Thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens,
with all their hosts, the earth and all things that are therein.
Did you know God in his infinite wisdom, he has permitted astronomers,
these men and women who study the sky, He's permitted some
of these astronomers to gaze at his universe, to look out
there through these powerful telescopes, and just to get a
tiny glimpse of his creation. And you know what their conclusion
is as to what they have already seen, what God has already permitted?
God hasn't permitted man to see everything out there, but what
God has permitted men and women to see And this is what we know
in the known universe. There are hundreds of billions
of galaxies that we know of. And how they know that, I don't
have any idea. I don't know if anybody's counted every one.
But there are hundreds of billions of galaxies, trillions upon trillions
of miles apart, and hundreds of billions of stars in each
galaxy, which are trillions and trillions of miles apart. You
know what God says in Psalm 147 about all of that? That's just
what we can observe. And you know, God knows all their
names. Every one of them out there,
He's created and He knows their names. And that's not even counting
the probably untold number of planets that revolve around those
stars. Listen to what 1 King 8.27 says
about God. Now remember, this is a massive,
so far as we know, an infinite universe. But in God's word it
says, behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain
thee. God's bigger than his creation.
And we can't even imagine how big the creation is, let alone
what these little minds can imagine. God reveals some of his wisdom
to us. And yet, within the smallness
of a womb, The Christ, this infinite God in human form, who in John
10.30 said, I and my father are one, began to grow. Just like each one of us in here
did. We grew from a tiny speck inside a mother's womb. We began
to grow and develop. Our Lord was growing and developing
in Mary's womb through the power of the Spirit by the same process
that all people do and was born the same way with one exception. He knew no sin. 2 Corinthians
5. In Psalm 22 verses 9-10, this
is a psalm of Christ on the cross. And he's saying this about his
heavenly father. He says, but thou, he's talking
about God, his father, but thou art he that took me out of the
womb. Thou didst make me hope when
I was up on my mother's breasts. I was cast upon thee from the
womb. Thou art my God from my mother's
belly. This child, This holy thing had
not ever existed in the flesh before. A new baby in the world,
just like every one of us. There's a lot of people in this
world that probably resemble us in one way or another. Have
you ever been told, I've seen somebody look just like you somewhere?
But anyway, this child has never been as a child in this world
before, just like each one of us. For it says in Isaiah 9,
6, For unto us a child is born. Now that us can be taken in two
ways. Us could be all of humanity, but let's apply it specifically. That us are the elect people
of God given to His Son. They were chosen before creation.
They were given to the Son, and here are the two main pieces
of business to honor God's laws for an elect people. and to satisfy
his justice, God's justice, for and elect people. This child,
this holy thing, had no beginning and has no end. He's infinite. And Isaiah 9, 6 shows you this,
where it says, unto us a son is given. He's always been there. In the ancient halls of eternity,
And before the creation of space and all that's in it, Christ
said this about his father in Proverbs 8. This is our Lord's
words. I was by him. Christ said, I
was by my father. As one brought up with him, there
wasn't a time when God the Son and God the Father and God the
Spirit were not together. And he said, I was daily his
delight. God the Father rejoiced. in God the Son. And he says,
rejoicing always before Him. In John 1, 1 through 2, listen
to what this confirms, what Proverbs 8 says. It says, in the beginning,
that's before anything ever was. That's in eternity beginning. And you know eternity has no
beginning, it always is. In the beginning was the Word.
Now, who is the Word? That's Christ. This book right
here is the Word of Christ. The Word of Christ became flesh. And the Word was with God, with
His Father, Proverbs 8 says so, and the Word was God. A lot of people don't admit that
God the Father and God the Son are one, but they are. But yet,
they're two distinct beings. That's one of the mysteries of
godliness. And the same was in the beginning with God. Christ
had always been with his father. That's how it can be said a son
was given, because he'd always been there, but a child was born
for the first time. Christ, while remaining God,
had a body prepared for him before he was born. Hebrews 10, 5. The incarnation, that's God in
human form, that's the definition of incarnation, that's God in
human form, was the uniting of the divine, the absolute holy
God, and the human, flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone,
into one person. Jesus Christ was fully God and
he was fully human. You know, Scripture says, Bill
and I were talking, and Paul Kuhn was talking back in the
study before he came out here, Scripture says very little about
Christ from his birth to his age of 12. There's a big gap
in there, and I'm not foolish enough to try to fill that gap
in with my own ideas, but we know some things about that period
of time. We know Christ was born in a
manger in Luke 2, 6 through 7. We know from Leviticus 12.3 and
Luke 2.21 and 22, he was taken to Jerusalem on the eighth day,
the day required by God's law to be circumcised. We know he
was a young child. It says in Matthew 2.9 and Matthew
2.11, when the wise men saw him, we know that about his early
life. We know Mary and Joseph took him into Egypt. at the command
of an angel telling that to Joseph in a dream, and we know he would
later return whenever the danger to him, and that's used loosely
now, that danger to Christ is used loosely, when it was safe,
that's Matthew 3, 13 through 23, that's what we're going to
study this Sunday morning. Luke 2, 40, as Bill read, said
the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit and filled with wisdom." Can you comprehend that? How
can God grew waxed strong in spirit and filled with wisdom?
One commentator says he developed physically like all of us. You parents have seen your children.
You've seen them too grow up. They grew up physically like
their mother, their father. grew up physically just like
their grandparents. He developed physically like
all of us from birth. The God-man had to be taken care
of just as you parents take care of your infant children. Now
think of all that you parents did to your infant children.
Mary and Joseph had to take care of Christ the same way. He was
dependent upon them, yet God in the flesh He whacked strong,
it says, one commentator says, he whacked strong in spirit,
means in his soul. He had a soul. Since Christ had
a body, he also had a soul. Infinite soul, which was infinitely
strong. Christ's understanding, his judgment,
his memory, and his will were all perfect. John 3.34 says Christ
was filled with the Spirit without measure. Scripture says nothing about
our Lord's education. There were schools back in those
days. There were Jewish schools, but most of the schools back
in those days were reserved for the wealthy Jews. We can speculate
We pretty well know that Joseph and Mary probably taught him
from the old, all they had was the Old Testament. Christ was,
he sat at his mother and father's feet. But you know what they
were teaching him about the Old Testament? He is the Old Testament. Everything they were teaching
him from the Old Testament, all those pictures and types and
shadows, it pictured their son. You know, Mary and Joseph, and
it says a lot of times, they didn't quite understand what
this was all about. And listen to what this says about Christ's
wisdom. Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge
of God. how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past
finding out. When you parents were teaching
your children to walk, was it instantly? I bet you when Christ
learned something, he learned it the first time. Perfect. I bet when he did something,
it was perfect. I bet the parents didn't have
to over and over and over again say something to him. I bet he
had it instantly. He was the perfect child. Gil
says this in Luke 2.40, refers to Christ's created wisdom and
his natural wisdom as a person. This wisdom increased gradually
as his body grew. He learned. The God who was all
wisdom learned as a child. And this was all a part of his
doing his father's business. His body grew. I wish my body
would stop growing. It's not growing up anymore,
it's growing out. But his body grew, just like our body grew.
And the faculties of his soul opened up under the influence
of the spirit of his deity. And the power of his spirit,
he learned. You know, he worked in his father's...
We guess, we probably know that he worked in his father's carpentry
shop. I bet you every saw cut he made was perfect because he
could do nothing wrong. James, remember that time you
fussed at somebody who had nailed too close to the edge and your
saw was cutting through nails? I admitted that was me, didn't
I? Instead of chewing me out, you just sort of bowed your head
and walked away. Christ would do everything perfect. He made
no mistakes. Even as a child, Christ was his
elect representative, his elect substitute, fulfilling what he
called in Luke 2.49, my father's business. Let me give you some
descriptions and you can add more. These are the ones I can
think of. Christ as a child and as an adult. Now you parents
out there and you grandparents, see if these apply to your children
and your grandchildren. He was humble. Never saw himself above, although
he was greater than anyone else ever born in this world. He was
loving. He not only gave love, he was
loving. He was patient. You know, even
there in John 3 when his mother said, you know, they were running
out of wine, he said, woman, it's not my time. Our Lord was
self-controlled. Can anyone in here raise their
hand and say you're self-controlled at all times? Ever lose your
temper? Our Lord never lost His temper. He had righteous judgment.
You know that time when He saw all those people in the temple
there collecting money, the money changers? You know, He went in
and drove them out of there. But that's righteous judgment.
Because they were dishonoring His Father. Our Lord was honest. Come on now. Have we ever been
totally honest? I don't know if you all who were
in my class remember when I asked, told you one time when you would
go out on a date or somewhere and your parents asked if you
had a good time and you would say yes. Are you ever glad they
didn't ask you what you did? We're not always on, even as
adults. Our Lord was gracious. Our Lord was responsible. When
his parents gave him something to do, he didn't have to be told
twice to do it. He did it every time. Perfect. Our Lord was content. You all
been content all your life? I've been discontented today,
and I'm ashamed of it. But we're not. You know what
Paul the Apostle said? He had to be taught to be content. Our
Lord didn't have to be taught to be content. That's His nature.
Our Lord was gentle. He was pleasing. He was polite. It wasn't, yeah, yes, ma'am,
no ma'am. He was obedient. Never gave his
parents any issue to punish him. I guarantee you he was never
punished because he was never disobedient. You know, he was
so obedient that he went willingly to a cross to die. knowing what
was waiting for him. He was obedient to his earthly
mother. He was obedient to Joseph. Our Lord was respectful. He never
sassed his parents back. Our Lord was thoughtful. He thought
of others more than he thought of himself. Look what he did
in the case of his elect, how much he thought of them and what
he did for them. Our Lord was selfless. He wasn't
a me person. Our Lord wasn't, how was I gonna
say that? Oh yeah, our Lord, if there were
photographs back then and there was a group picture taken, what
do we do with a group picture first? Who do you look for first? Look for yourself, don't you?
That's selfish. Our Lord was selfless. Our Lord was, he was
righteous. He was perfect in motive, thought,
word, and deed. That word perfect doesn't apply
to any person born of Adam. Listen to what 1 Peter 1, 18-19
says about Christ. He was without spot or blemish.
And all of this was He was going about, doing this for His people,
these characteristics for His people, carrying out His Father's
business. Did you know there was no way
Christ could not have obeyed all the laws required of him?
Even when he was an infant. You know, when Bill read that
at the age of 12, why were Mary and Joseph in Jerusalem to observe
the Passover? Christ, even as a young child,
honored every one of his father's laws because Mary and Joseph
made sure that they obeyed the commandments. Not perfect now.
Christ obeyed them perfectly. His law obedience was before
his father as his people's substitute and as their satisfaction. As
an infant, our Lord was taken by his parents to the required
Jewish ceremonies, the religious feasts. He was obedient to the
moral law. He was obedient to all of God's
commandments. Not for himself, but for his
people. In his earthly ministry as an
adult, Listen to what he said when someone asked him a question.
He said this in Matthew 5, 17 through 18. He said this, think
not that I am come to destroy the law. I'm not come to disobey
the law. I'm not come to disregard the
law. I'm not come to change God's law. I'm not come, he says, to
destroy the law or the prophets, those men who wrote the Old Testament.
I'm not come to dishonor anything they wrote. He says, I'm not
come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, till
heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no
wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled. He had come to
fulfill all of God's laws on behalf of his people. And that's
why I think, staying back in the study, I think you read,
we're no longer under the bondage of those laws, because Christ
fulfilled them. That doesn't mean we're going
to go out here and do what we do too much of what we shouldn't
anyway. But Christ fulfilled all of God's laws for his people,
every one of them. All people are born subject to
God's laws, whether they know it or not. We're all born subject. All people are lawbreakers. Every
one of us have broken God's laws in one of them or another. And
we have been so since Adam's disobedience, since our conception,
since our birth, and every waking or sleeping second of our life.
We've been sinners through the union of Adam and Eve. We've
never been good. I'm not even good in my sleep.
I have nightmares. Trish has to wake me up. Nightmares. Even our dreams are full. And
even our, we have secret sins. How would, let me just pick out
sweet Kylie. How would you like to have the
lights dimmed, Kylie, curtains open, and the screen rolled down,
and since you were born, every thing you have kept hidden would
be shown on that screen. Would you slither out the door
while the lights are out? Yeah. Everything. God's laws
must be obeyed and none of us, born of Adam, are capable of
obeying any of them. Therefore, we need one who is
able and who is willing to do that for us. And that one is
this child, this son that was given, the Lord Jesus Christ.
You know Christ was born subject to civil and judicial law as
a Jew and obeyed those laws perfectly. But you know, there's an example
in Luke 20, verse 25. The Jewish leaders, the Pharisees,
the religious leaders, as Jim has pointed out, remember they
caught the woman in adultery and they were trying to trap
Christ there, as Jim pointed out? Well, here's another example
where they were trying to trap the Christ, and they were always
trying to get him in a mess, you might say, a pickle, to discredit
him. And there was a question brought
up about God's laws and Caesar's law. Which one is the most important? And Christ looked at them. He
already knew what they were going to do. He knew their question
before it was asked. He says, render unto Caesar the
things which are Caesar's. Honor your duly, honestly elected
leaders, as long as they're not telling you to do something that
violates God's word. You don't compromise God's word
to get along in the world. And Christ is rendered therefore
unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, that is, the things
under the civil law in this life. And, he says, and unto God the
things which be God's. As a Jew, Christ was made under
the ceremonial laws, such as animal sacrifices, and you can
find that in Exodus 20, Exodus 12. He was under the circumcision
law, Genesis 17 through 10. He was under all the ceremonial
feasts. You can see those in Deuteronomy 16.10. And he was
in Jerusalem, as Bill read, he and his parents, at the Passover.
And that Passover pictured him. And here he was observing the
Passover, and you'll see in a minute which pictured him. And all these
laws pointed forward to Christ's atonement for sin on a cross.
He fulfilled all of them for the elect's sake. before his
father and in their place, and he delivered them from the curse
and condemnation of the law. Romans 8.1. What does scripture
say in Romans 6.23 about the wages of sin? It says it's death. And when our Lord finished obeying
his father's laws for his people, in John 19.30 on the cross, listen
to what he said. He said, it's finished. perfect
law obedience was finished. And he bowed his head and he
gave up the ghost. Now, second part of the message,
Christ's business was to pay for the sins of his people. He
honored God's law perfectly for us. What does it say in Romans
3, 23? For all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God. Not one of us in here, even at
our best state, are we worth anything. Mark Christ in Mark
7, 20 through 23, he said this, all evil things come from within
and they defile the man, the person. Did you know people talk
about their heart? Oh, they have a good heart. They
have a kind heart. And we're not talking about this.
We're talking about your being, your feelings, your emotions,
these things. What does it say in Jeremiah
17, 9? The heart is deceitful above
all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it? We don't even
know how desperately wicked we are. God knows. You know, in
studying for this message, and Pat and I, Pat, I will finish
that list one day. I found a list on the computer
that gives, it's a list of 667 sins listed in the Bible. And if you want to find out what
they are, all you have to do is just get there. I asked Pat,
why not 666? But it was 667. And if you want
to see what those are, it's amazing. Christ was innocent of all of
them in his human nature. Never broke a one. However, his
people are guilty of all of them. You say, I've never killed anyone.
You ever gotten angry with someone without a cause? You ever rebelled? Any of you children sitting here
ever rebelled against your parents or your grandparents? You know
what James 2.10 says? It says, if we break one of God's
laws, just one, we're guilty of breaking them all. So the
day we were conceived, we were guilty of violating all of God's
laws. We can hide our sins from each other, but not from the
all-seeing eyes of God and the hearing ears of God. We can't
do that. The Savior, listen to what Christ said to his people
in Luke 12, uh, 12-3. Therefore, whatsoever, and this
just reveals that he knows everything. Can you imagine? Christ knew
the thoughts of men before they even knew they were going to
thank him. He knew the words of people before they said them.
But listen to what he says about trying to hide from God. in Luke 12, 3. Therefore, whatsoever
ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light. Whatever
little murmuring or complaining you've done in the silence of
your mind, when nobody's around, God has heard that. And he says,
that which you have spoken in the ear in closets, when nobody's around, and you
say something that's desiring to God, Our Lord says it shall
be proclaimed upon the housetops. He knows it. Spiritually ignorant
people are trying to work their way to heaven and claim their
crowns by their works and deeds of law obedience. The Apostle
Paul, before his conversion, thought the same thing. Just
read Philippians 3, 3-7 sometime. And the Spirit taught him differently.
Listen to what Paul says in Romans 3.20 about trying to please God
by your deeds. Therefore by the deeds of the
law shall no flesh be justified in his sight. Does that mean
we should not do good deeds? No. We should do good deeds,
but not to be saved. For by the law is the knowledge
of sin. If they don't put up speed limit signs out there on
these highways, what in the world would we do? Bad enough, Bill,
aren't they already in Michigan? Those people up there don't know
what a speed limit sign is. And Jim's probably listening
to me and he's nodding his head. Yeah. And as far back as Genesis
3.21, God taught Adam and Eve the only way to cover one's nakedness,
and that word nakedness means sin, was a killing and bloodletting
of an innocent lamb and be covered with coats of skin. One of their
sons Abel learned this, but not the other son Cain. Cain thought
he could get God's acceptance by bringing the first fruits
of his garden. And God rejected those, but he accepted his brother
Abel's because it was a blood offering. We know there's many
examples of blood atonement in the Bible. I'll give just one
example. When Christ shedding his blood
for his people. In Exodus 12, you know that story.
God told Moses that he was going to bring one more plague upon
the Egyptians, and that was that he was going to pass through
Egypt that night, and he was going to kill the firstborn in
every family. And he told Moses to tell the Jewish people, the
Hebrews, take an innocent lamb, set it aside for three or four
days, make sure there's no spot or blemish on it, kill that innocent
lamb, take its blood, spread it on the two sides of the door
and over the door top, and when God passes through Egypt that
night, he was going to pass over those houses where the blood
was. That's the Passover that Mary and Joseph brought Christ
to when he was 12. And when he saw that blood, he passed over
those people. And it's the same thing with
Christ. The blood was not for the unbelieving Egyptians, not
one. The Savior in John 17, 9 said
this about his elect people, the ones God had given him. He
said, I pray for them. I pray not for the world, but
for them which thou hast given me, for they are thine. According,
it says, God's word is clear about the called, elect, or chosen. It says in Ephesians 1, 4, according
as He, God, hath chosen us, believers, in Him, that is in the Lord Jesus
Christ, before the world was ever made. He also says in Timothy
1-9, who the Lord, that's the Lord Jesus Christ, has saved
us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our
works. but according to his own purpose and grace which had given
us in Christ Jesus before the world began." And did you notice
believers in that verse are saved first? With a holy call, have
saved us. We're saved first, then we're
called. Why does he call some? Because they're his people, the
ones Christ died for. Why does he leave some alone
and not call them? They're the ones that God did not choose
to be saved. You know what our Lord said about
that? Father, for it so seemed good in your sight. Peter, in
his first epistle, said the elect, according to the foreknowledge
of God the Father. The saving of a chosen elect
people was told Mary and Joseph when Christ was born, you'll
call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sin.
Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission, scripture
says. And we have in Christ, his people,
we have redemption, that is the payment for sin, through his
blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his
grace, in Christ. Christ came, the other part of
his father's business, the big part, another big part, not just
one, was to save his people from their sins. And our Lord did
that. On the day He was crucified,
did you know what day that was? They were celebrating the Passover.
And who does that Passover picture? Lord Jesus Christ. The Lamb of God's blood was shed
on the cross that day. Christ pictured that. He was
finishing His Father's business. His Father turned His back on
Him, and when He saw the blood of His Son dripping down the
cross, He passed over the people that that blood was shed for.
It's his elect son. And Christ said in Luke 2.49,
I must be about my father's business. And what did he say? He said,
my meat, my business, is to do the will of him that sent me
and to finish his work. When our Lord died on the cross,
he said, it is finished. His business was over. His father's
business was taken care of.