Now turn in your Bibles with
me to the book of 1 John chapter 3. 1 John chapter 3. Now I began preaching
in this passage last weekend and I'll just catch you up to
speed here on this chapter. This is one of those chapters
that is difficult to understand. And it's one that a lot of people
disagree over, but I want to give you, in the context here,
some things that I believe that will comfort and help edify the
people of God. I've entitled this message the
same as last week, this is just part two, Children of God Manifested. That's down in verse 10, 1 John
chapter 3, he says, in this, The children of God are manifest. And that word manifest means
that they are made known. They are made evident. He says,
in this the children of God are manifest and the children of
the devil. And what he's saying here is
this is how you tell the difference between a child of God and a
child of the devil. So you can see this is a very
important issue. It's a life and death issue.
I believe that so many who see this passage as being so difficult,
I believe they just forget the context. I believe, you know,
when you read certain phrases. But I said last week this, I
said if you can read certain verses in this passage, and if
you really don't understand what it means, it ought to scare you
to death. For example, look at verse 9. This is the one you
particularly may pick out here. He's talking about whosoever
is born of God. That's the new birth. That's
regeneration and conversion. That's what Christ talked to
Nicodemus about. You must be born again. In John
chapter 3, the necessity of the power of the new birth by the
Holy Spirit. And he said, whosoever is born
of God doth not commit sin. He doesn't commit sin. A lot
of people approach that in different ways. Some say, well, that means
that if you're born of God, you don't practice sin. In fact,
a lot of translations, that's the way you'll read, they don't
practice sin. And what they mean by that is
they don't practice a life of immorality, and that has to be
defined according to the individual, the person, and the culture or
whatever. And then some say, well, that's
talking about a new sinless nature within you, a divine nature. In fact, I had a fellow tell
me about that verse. He said, when you're born again, you have
a new divine nature created in you that cannot sin and cannot
be contaminated. And I said, not only is that,
that's not only weird, it's wild. First of all, anything divine
cannot be created. Do you understand that? Do you
all know that? If it's divine, it cannot be
created. There's no creation of the divine. There's no change
in the divine. The divine is deity. That's what
divine is. Now, we have new life from the
divine. When we're born again, we have
a spiritual life, whatever that is. You know, spiritual ears,
spiritual eyes, new heart, the scripture calls it. In Ezekiel
36, we are given the gifts of faith and repentance, the spirit
of God indwells us, and he's divine. He doesn't change me
into anything divine or you into anything divine. We're not Mormons
here. We don't grow up into become
little gods or anything like that. And when you talk about
something in us that cannot be contaminated or cannot sin, what
are you talking about? Now, the Holy Spirit himself
cannot be contaminated or cannot sin, but what about you? What about me? For example, would
you be so bold as to claim that your best efforts and your best
moments to love God and to love your neighbor are totally perfect,
pure, without sin and without contamination? Well, if you would,
I'm afraid to tell you that you don't know the scriptures. You
don't know yourself, actually. That's just not the case. And
it's not what the Word of God says. But sure, a believer ought
to live a life of morality and obedience. You ought to be marked
that way. But that's not what this is talking
about. And I want to show you that. He goes on in verse 9 there. He says, "...for his seed remaineth
in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God." So if you're
born of God, you cannot sin according to what John says here. in the
way that he says it. So let me go back up and let's
just read some more here. You know, this whole message,
the reason I got on to this is because of this issue we've been
speaking of in the last few months on the last days and the emergence
of Antichrist, that spirit of Antichrist, which is false Christianity,
religion that comes in the name of Christ but denies the truth
of Christ and His grace and the reality of Christ and salvation
by grace. And I want to be identified with
Christ. And you do too. I know you do.
You wouldn't be here this morning. You want to be identified with
the true Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. You don't want
to be a false Christian. You don't want to be a counterfeit.
All false Christians and counterfeits are antichrist, the spirit of
antichrist which is of the devil. And so I looked at this verse
in verse 10, in this the children of God are manifest. That's Christ.
I want to be a child of God. How about you? And then he says,
in this are manifested the children of the devil. That's antichrist.
That's of the devil. And I don't want to be in that
number. So I looked at this. We'll look back up in chapter
2 in verse 29. Now, as I told you before, John,
the apostle John, is really the only one who used the term in
the scripture antichrist. We think about it as being Revelation,
and it is in Revelation. He's called the Beast in Revelation.
And he comes from the great dragon. The great dragon is a metaphor
for Satan. So the beast comes from the dragon.
And then we study 2 Thessalonians 2 when it talks about the man
of sin, the son of perdition. That's Antichrist. He's of the
devil. And that's what he's talking about, that spirit of Antichrist.
And John's the only one who mentions that. He says in verse 18 of
1 John 2, little children as it is the last time, that time
period between Christ's first coming and his ascension and
his second coming. And as you've heard that Antichrist
shall come, even now there are many Antichrists, the spirit
of Antichrist, many false prophets. And here now, understand now,
anybody who is against Christ or who denies Christ or ignorant
of Christ is a false prophet, false preacher. But he's not
talking about false religion here in general. He's talking
about a specific. He's talking about people who
claim to believe in Christ, who claim to be Christian, but they're
not. And one of the ways you find
that out here in 1 John, he says, whereby we know that it is the
last time, verse 19. Look at verse 19, he said, they
went out from us. They left the people of God. They left the church. They had
a profession, but then they left it. They denied what they formerly
professed to believe. That's what 2 Thessalonians calls
that great falling away, apostasy. The passage that Brother Joe
read in Hebrews chapter 10, that's exactly what that's talking about.
You know, a lot of people go to that passage and they try
to prove, well, see there, a person can be saved one day and then
lost the next. That is not what that's teaching.
That's talking about false professors who at one time professed to
believe the truth that you and I profess to believe, but in
another day, in a future day, they totally turn against it
and deny it. They didn't lose salvation. Look
what happened to them. Look at verse 19. They went out
from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us,
if they'd been true children of God, they would no doubt have
continued with us, but they went out that they might be manifest
that they were not all of us. They just, they went out and
exposed what they always had been. And that's what John's
saying over here in 1 John 3, 10. In this the children of God
are manifested, in this the children of the devil. You see, a true
child of God not only begins the state of grace, the spiritual
walk, believing in, trusting and resting in Christ for all
salvation, for all life, for all righteousness, for all forgiveness
and for all glory, But that person, by the power and grace of God,
continues on throughout by the power of God. He continues. He'll
never leave it. He may mess up royally, and he
will. He may act unchristian for a
while, but he'll never totally and finally leave Christ. That's
one thing John's talking about. But let me show you that. Look
back up in verse 29 of 1 John 2. Here's the state of grace. He describes the state of grace
first. All who are saved by the grace of God are in a state of
grace. He says, if you know that He is righteous, now the He there
is Christ. It's talking about God, God the
Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. If you know
He's righteous, if He's just, That's another way of putting
that. If he does what's right, acts what's right, and by his
very nature he is right and holy and good and just, then you know
this also, that every man that doeth righteousness is born of
him. What is it to do righteousness? It's to trust Christ and to rest
in him for all salvation. What is righteousness? Perfect
satisfaction of God's law and justice. That's what righteousness
is by definition. It means everything equals out,
balances out. And see, that's the way, by nature,
nothing balances out with us. We're sinners. We've missed the
mark. For all sin becomes sure of the glory of God. That by
deeds of law shall no flesh be justified in God's sight. So,
if you're trying to do good works in order to make yourself righteous,
well, on this side of the scale is righteousness. You see that?
On this side is your good works, and here's the way it's going
to look throughout eternity. You're never going to measure
up. You're never going to balance out with this righteousness.
That's what the Old Testament word righteousness really kind
of conveyed there. It was kind of like a merchant
term or a mercantile term. In other words, you know, just
payment for what you get. And so what he's saying here
is here's righteousness. You don't have it. You can't
produce it. And no matter what you do or
how good you try to be, you can't balance that out. You can't hit
that mark. You can't not make yourself righteous.
Now, if you know that God is really righteous now, then you
know this, that everyone that doeth righteousness, everyone
that does balance out on the scale, is born of Him. Born of Him. Well then, how does
a person who is born of God, a child of God, now a regenerate
sinner, Remember, he told Nicodemus, you must be born again. How does
such a person who's born of God... Now, if you're born of God, what
do you do? You're convicted of sin. You know yourself. You know that you're not righteous
in yourself. You know that you can't make it. You know that
you're totally... You have no other hope but the
mercy of God. Isn't that right? The grace of
God. You know this, I quoted this
in our Sunday school this morning, Psalm 130 and verse 3. And you
know what that says? It says, Lord, if thou, Lord,
shouldest mark iniquities, who would stand? If God would charge
me with sin, I would not stand. I would be condemned, damned
forever. Isn't that right? That's why
David prayed in Psalm 32, Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth
not iniquity. And that's what a born-again
person believes and knows about himself. When you look at yourself
in the mirror of God's law, what do you see? You see a sinner
who is in need of salvation by grace. A person who is born of
God has been driven to Christ for all salvation, for all forgiveness,
for all righteousness. That's what Paul did. Remember
Paul in Philippians chapter 3 how he was talking about I had all
this thing, this stuff that I thought was going for me that recommended
me unto God. Look I was a child of Abraham,
a Hebrew of Hebrews, the tribe of Benjamin. I was I was circumcised
the eighth day, did everything right, tried to be a good boy,
tried to be a good Jew, tried to be a good religionist, trying
to establish a righteousness of my own. Like the rich young
man, I spent my life trying to keep those commandments, trying
to keep that law. Went above and beyond the call
of duty. This just wasn't a sideline issue
with Saul of Tarsus. And then when God struck him
down on the Damascus road, he saw the futility. and the sinfulness of all of
that, and it took the light of the glory of God in Christ to
show him that. Why did Christ have to suffer
on the cross? Because there's no amount of
suffering that any human being can go through in this life that
would atone or remove or cleanse us from our sins. I've heard
people say this at funerals, you probably have too. I've heard
them say, I said, well I know so and so is in heaven because
they suffered greatly here on earth. Now I hate to hear about
anybody's suffering, how about you? I really do, I hate to hear
about anybody, especially children, I hate to hear about children's
suffering. But here's the reality of it
now, and if you've been born of God and doeth righteousness,
you'll know this, because you know God's righteous. You'll
know that there's no amount of suffering that a human being
can go through in this life that will atone for even one sin.
Job knew that. Somebody said, nobody suffered
like Job. Yes, there was somebody that suffered greater than Job.
His name was Jesus Christ on the cross. based on the sins
of his people charged to him. So here's the state of grace.
Look at verse 1 of chapter 3, he says, Behold, what manner
of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called
the sons of God, children of God. That's what we're called,
that's what we're appointed to, that's how we're identified.
But he says, Therefore the world knoweth us not, Brother Henry,
when he preached on this sometimes, I never forget when I first heard
him say this, he said, everybody sings that song, let others see
Jesus in you. He said, they didn't even see
Jesus in Jesus. And this is what he meant, the
world will not know us. Here's what we have to understand,
what John's saying here. Now, he says, in this are the
children of God manifest. This is how we're made known.
Well, who are we made known to? Somebody said, well, you know,
people will look at you and they say, there goes a Christian.
The world don't even know what a Christian is, folks. Really. I mean, listen now, you know,
we ought to display a godly life before everybody. You know, remember
the prophet Nathan told David that because of your bad behavior,
you've given the enemies of God occasion to blaspheme. We don't
need to do that. I don't want to be fodder for
the talk of the town. I know a preacher in a particular
town, he really was a joke because of his bad behavior. He was a
joke, and that's terrible. But here's the point, when it
comes to what a real child of God is, what a real Christian
is, the world won't know us. Now, does that surprise you?
Well, Christ said in John 15 and verse 18 to his disciples,
he said, it ought not surprise you. He said, if the world hates
you, marvel not, they hated me before they hated you. So understand
that. The world doesn't have that kind
of judgment. You see, what a Christian is
and what a Christian is not is judged by the word of God, not
by the eyes of men. And so he says, because it knew
him not, verse 1 there. It didn't know Christ. If it
didn't know Christ, how's it going to know a Christian? So
he says, Beloved, verse 2, now are we the sons of God. That's
not a future hope. That's a reality now for everyone
who rests in Christ for all salvation. That's a state of grace. And
it does not yet appear what we shall be. The glory that's to
come, we can't even imagine. What the old farmer said, we
can't even get started to commence to begin to imagine what that's
going to be like. It's something. We have some
idea when you study the resurrection of the Lord and His appearance
after the resurrection. You have a little bit of an idea
there, but there's not much detail given. And I know folks who'll
get on this stuff, boy, and they'll ride a dead horse and they'll
divide over, but don't do that. It doth not yet appear what we
shall be. But here's what we know. We know
that when He shall appear, when Christ shall appear, we shall
be like Him. We'll be perfectly conformed
to the image of Christ. That's what that means. No sin. Now then we'll be able to say
there's no contamination. sinlessly perfect in ourselves.
Then there'll be no sorrow, no pain, and the key of it is right
here, look here, he says, for we shall see him as he is. You know, people talking about,
you know, wanting to see this one or that, we'll see him as
he is. There's heaven, being with Christ. seeing Him. And so he says in
verse 3, "...and every man that hath this hope, this hope of
eternal glory by the grace of God through the blood and righteousness
of Christ, purifies himself even as he is pure." Now, what does
it mean, purify yourself? Does that mean that if you have
this hope that you're sinlessly perfect in yourself? No. It means
that your conscience is cleansed from the guilt of sin. You're
no longer condemned. You're in Christ. Now, that's
the state of grace. Romans chapter 6 and verse 17
and 18 puts it like this, you were a servant of sin, That's
an unbeliever, no matter how they are. It may be a religious
unbeliever or an irreligious one, but they're unbelievers.
But you have obeyed from the heart, and this is by the power
of the Holy Spirit. Now, in the New Birth, you've
obeyed from the heart. That form of doctrine, that word
form there is like a stamp, like a die that stamps you. That form of doctrine which was
delivered or preached unto you being then made free, liberated
from sin. That is, from the power of sin
to dominate our minds and our hearts and keep us from coming
to Christ. Then being made free from sin,
you became the servants of righteousness. Servants of Christ. Believers. Resting in Christ for all righteousness. Now that's what it is. To do
righteousness is to be a servant of righteousness. That's a state
of grace. as opposed to a state of unbelief, state of darkness. Now here's the foundation of
it. Now look at verse 4. Now what's the foundation of
all that? Well, it's founded upon that I did my part. No. Or I cooperated with God. Well,
if you're born again, you did cooperate with Him, but I'm going
to tell you something, you wouldn't have done it on your own. It wasn't of your own free will.
No, sir. He made you willing in the day
of His power, the scripture says in Psalm 110 or 111, I can't
remember, but think about this. Here's the foundation of it,
all right? He says in verse 4, whosoever commit a sin transgresses
also the law, for sin is the transgression of the law. Now,
when he's showing the foundation of it, he first shows the reality
of sin here. Because in order to understand
this foundation, we've got to understand the disease. It's
like this. To understand the cure, we've got to understand
the disease. I mean, you think about it. If
the doctor tells you that you have cancer, you're not going
to run home and grab a bottle of aspirin, are you? And take
an aspirin because that's not going to cure your cancer, is
it? And why do you know that? Because
you know something about this. You may not know everything about
it. You're seeking a cure. Well, he says here, whosoever
commiteth sin... Now, to commit sin there is a
servant of sin, a slave to sin, in bondage to sin. Now, let me
show you something here. Turn to John chapter 8. And incidentally,
the apostle John is really the only one inspired by the Spirit
to use this kind of language. Look at John chapter 8. And you
might say, well, where did he get that language from? Well,
he got it from the Spirit, obviously, but he heard the Lord speak like
this. Now, look at John chapter 8 and
verse 30. John chapter 8 and verse 30.
Now, this is the Lord. It says, "...as the Lord spoke
these words..." Now, He's talking to them about His work, His person,
and all that. It says, "...many believed on
Him." Now, what's he mean here? Well, look at verse 31. It says,
Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If you
continue in my word, then are you my disciples indeed. Now,
he's talking about people who claim to believe in him and he's
simply telling them this, that those who truly believe on him
will continue to do that. They'll never stop doing that.
They'll struggle with it now, Don't get me wrong. I mean, you'll
have struggles with unbelief. You remember the disciples? They said, Lord, I believe. Help
thou my unbelief. We've got struggles with the
flesh, inner struggles, the warfare. We've got that now. We have faith. It's the gift of God. But we're
not perfect in faith yet, are we? Christ was and is, but not
us. And so we struggle. But you'll
never totally leave Christ. You might get upset, you might
get mad, you might mess up, but you'll never totally leave Christ.
You can't do it. And you want to know why? Because
He won't let you go. He won't let us go. And he says, he says,
you'll be my disciples indeed, verse 32, and you shall know
the truth and the truth shall make you free. Now look at verse
33 of John 8. He says, they answered him and
we be Abraham's seed. Now you know what they actually
did right there? They exposed themselves for what they really
were. They said they believed on Christ. But where was their
hope? Where was their hope of salvation,
their ground of salvation? What did they really believe
made them righteous before God? Here's what they said, we're
Abraham's seed. That ought to count for something.
Now let me tell you something, if you really believed in Christ,
and knew Christ, and knew yourself, if you knew about sin being transgression
of the law, let me tell you what you also know, you know that
nothing counts for nothing. Doesn't matter who your daddy
is or what you've done or tried to do, you know that the only
thing that will recommend you unto God is Christ and Him crucified
and risen again, His blood alone, His righteousness alone. Being
Abraham's seed won't even come into your mind. And they said,
we be Abraham's seed, and we're never in bondage to any man.
How sayest thou, you shall be made free? You see, this is what
a born-again person understands, that without Christ, I'm in bondage
to sin. I may have never spent a night
in jail, may never had any handcuffs put on me, but without Christ,
I'm nothing but sin. I'm in bondage to sin. And they
said, how do you say you shall be free? Well, look at verse
34. Jesus answered them, verily, verily, I say unto you, whosoever
committeth sin is the servant of sin. Now, what's he talking
about there? He's talking about unbelievers. See, even believers
are sinners saved by grace. Paul wrote about that in Romans
chapter 7. Read this sometime when you get an opportunity.
Read Romans 6 and Romans 7. Read them together. Okay? All
of them. Romans 6-1 all the way to Romans
7-25. And when you come to Romans 6-14,
you know what that says? Let me just hold your finger
there, John 8. And I don't want to confuse you
here, but I want you to see this now. This is important. In Romans
6, 14, he's talking about believers here. He's talking about born-again
people in a state of grace, chosen of God, justified before God,
washed in the blood of Christ, clothed in His righteousness,
born again. And he says in verse 14, sin
shall not have dominion over you, for you're not under the
law but under grace. Now, what does he mean? Sin does
not rule you. Well, in what sense? All right. Now, jump over across the page
to Romans 7, 14 and listen to this. He says in Romans 7, 14,
For we know that the law is spiritual, means it reaches to the heart,
to the thoughts and the motives. But I'm carnal, sold under sin. Now, doesn't that sound like
a contradiction to you? Paul says over here in Romans
6, 14, you're not under the dominion of sin, but in Romans 7, 14,
he says, I'm carnal, sold under sin. I'm a slave to sin. Now,
you know how most people deal with that? Well, there's one
of two ways. Some people say, well, in Romans
6, he's talking about the new nature, and then Romans 7, he's
talking about the old nature. Well, that's not what he's talking
about there. And then others say, well, in
Romans 7, he's talking about before he was saved. That's not
so. In fact, at Romans 7.14, he switches
from the past tense in the original language to the present tense.
And from Romans 7.14 all the way to 7.25, where he cries out,
O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body?
He's talking present tense, not past tense. What's he talking
about? In Romans 6, 14, what he's simply
saying is, this is what I am in Christ. I'm not under the
dominion. Sin cannot condemn me. It cannot
rule me under condemnation. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them who are in Christ. In Romans 7, 14, he's talking
about what I am in myself at present in this life. I cannot
stop sinning. That's what he means. I fight sin. I have a law within
my members. Now what that word law means,
and a lot of people don't like me using this language, but it's
what it means. It's a powerful principle. That's
what it is that drives me. And he says, when I try to do
good, sin is present with me, the flesh. And it keeps me from
doing the good that I want to do. I want to be like Christ,
he says. I want to love perfectly, but
sin that dwells in me keeps me from doing that. He's not shifting
the blame there, but he's simply saying that that's not what identifies
me, my position in Christ. Now, go back to John 8. That's
what Christ is speaking of here. Whosoever commits sin is a slave
to sin. Those without Christ, those who
are in unbelief, they're under bondage. They're in a state of
bondage. But look at verse 35. He says,
"...and the servant abideth not in the house forever, but the
son abideth forever." As long as you're a slave to sin, you have no permanent abiding
position in the household and family of God without Christ.
So who does have a permanent abiding position in the household
of God? The Son. The Son abides forever. Therefore, now look at verse
36. Now listen to this one. If the
Son therefore make you free, you shall be free indeed. Really
free. If Christ sets you free, you'll
be really free. You'll be free forever. You'll
be not under the dominion of sin, for you're not under the
law. Christ kept the law. You're not under the law. Christ
satisfied the law. The law of God has nothing against
you if you're washed in His blood and clothed in His righteousness.
If you're in Christ, the law of God, the justice of God, the
holiness of God cannot, cannot condemn you. Now go back to 1
John 3 with that in mind. So here's the foundation of grace. He says, now sin is the transgression
of the law. You can't get by that. You can't
get by that. You can't get around that. If
you don't keep the law perfectly right now, you know what it is? It's sin. And you can't call
it anything else. And sin deserves death. And God
must punish sin. You say, well, I try to be a
good boy or a good girl, and that's fine. But that's not going
to make you righteous. That's not going to get you into
heaven. Why? Because sin is transgression
of the law. And so however much you try to
be good, if your goodness does not equal the law's righteousness,
it's sin. You say, well, I don't sin as
much as old so-and-so up there in that area. That doesn't matter. Sin is still transgression of
the law and deserves death. Am I telling you the truth? You
can't get around that. There's no loophole in the law.
There's no way out by your works. Sin is transgression of the law.
So what's the ground of this? Well, look at verse 5. And you
know, you remember back there in verse 29 of chapter 3, he
says, if you know that he is righteous, well, look here at
verse 5, and you know, who's he talking about? Who knows this?
Believers. Born again. That he, Christ, was manifested. He was sent to the world. He
was made evident to take away our sins. Sin's transgression
of the law, I can't get around that, so what's the way out?
What's the remedy? What's the cure? Somebody who
is appointed by the judge, who is able to do the work, and who
is willing to do the work, must come and take my place and take
my sin away. And I'm going to tell you something,
according to this book right here, there's not but one person
who fits that category. That's the Lord Jesus Christ
who said, I am the way, the life, and the truth. No man cometh
unto the Father but by me. He was manifested. He was made
flesh and dwelt among us. He identified with his children,
the scripture says. because the children were partakers
of flesh and blood. He took part of the same without
sin, the scripture says. His name is Emmanuel, God with
us. For unto us a child is born,
a son is given. He was made of the seed of David
according to the flesh. He was manifest. He came into
the world not so that you could put up a Christmas tree. He came
into the world to take away our sins. That's why he came. And he took
those sins away. How? By the shedding of his blood. Look over at Hebrews chapter
10 that Brother Joe read. By the shedding of his blood.
The Bible says that without the shedding of blood, there is no
remission, no pardon, no forgiveness of sins. Look at Hebrews chapter
10 and look Look at verse 10, talking about Christ coming to
the world to do the will of the Father. And it says in verse
10, "...by the which will we are sanctified, set apart through
the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once." That's literally
once. They added for all. All who? All who come to Him. All who
rest in Him. All who are in Him. And he says
in verse 11, And every priest standeth daily, ministering,
offering oftentimes the same sacrifices. That's the old covenant
priest who brought in the animal blood, which can never take away
sin. Animal blood can't do it. The
law cannot take away your sin. Verse 12, But this man, after
he had offered one sacrifice, That's all it took. All the rivers
of blood shed of animals during that 1,500-year period of the
Old Covenant could not take away sin. And you know, there was
more animal blood shed even before the Old Covenant. Abraham shed
blood. Abel brought the blood of the Lamb. But that couldn't
take away sin. That only typified one who would
come to take away sin. This man, after he'd offered
one sacrifice for sins forever, That's eternal. He sat down on
the right hand of God. He finished the work that He
came to do. He made an end of sin. He finished the transgression. He brought in everlasting righteousness.
Verse 14 says, "...for by one offering He hath perfected forever
them that are sanctified." So now, how do we as sinners come
to God? Well, verse 19, "...having therefore,
brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus."
We enter the very holy presence of God, how? Because we had a
good day? Or because we went to church
and did our duty? Or because we wore our jeans
out, the knees of our jeans out in prayer the night before? No,
by the blood of Jesus, by the blood of God our Savior. And
you know what I'm gonna tell you something? You could be a
child of Abraham, you can be a Baptist, you can be baptized
a thousand times, but there's nothing that will give you right
and title to enter the holiest, but the blood, the righteousness
imputed of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's it. That's why the way's
so narrow, because there's only one thing that'll let you in.
And you can't bring the baggage of your works and experiences
in with you. It's a new and living way, he says, which Christ hath
consecrated, made new for us through the veil, that is to
say, His flesh. And then when he goes over here in verse 26,
look at that. If we sin willfully, after that
we receive the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more
sacrifice for sin. I heard a lady told me one time
down in Georgia, she said, well, see there, believers sin, but
it's not willfully. In other words, every time you
sin, if you're a believer, you do it unwillingly. Well, how
many believers we have here this morning, then, if that's the
case? Be honest. That's not what that's saying,
folks. Read the context. What is it to sin willfully?
It's to reject Christ. That's what he's talking about.
Here's the one sacrifice for sins. Here's the one way that
sin is taken away. This is it. There's no other
way. Look back up here in verse 18. He says, now where remission
of these is. Now he's talking about remission
of sin. That means forgiveness and pardon, the taking away of
sin. Where that is accomplished by the blood of Christ, there
is no more offering for sin. There's nothing more to offer.
What would you offer? your tears, your repentance,
your faith, your obedience, your promises to do better, they won't
take away sin. Start sacrificing lambs, the
blood of bulls and goats will not take away sin. He was manifested
to take away our sin. Now, he says, if you sin willfully,
meaning if you reject the only way of salvation, of forgiveness,
of righteousness, After you've claimed to believe
in Him, after you've already received the knowledge of the
truth, there is no more sacrifice for sin. And here's what you're
actually doing. You're trampling underfoot the blood of the Son
of God. You've heard the truth, you've
claimed to believe it, now you reject it? You're trampling underfoot
the blood of the Son of God. Now over here in 1 John 3, look
back at it and I'll close. That's what he's saying a believer
cannot do. He cannot sin in that sense. But look at one phrase
and I'll close and we'll pick up next week with it or the week
after. He says in verse 5, and you know
that He was manifested to take away our sins and in Him is no
sin. In Christ is no sin. As I'm considered
in Christ, God does not impute sin to me. He doesn't hold my
sin against me. Now, let me just read you this.
I read this the other day, and it's real good. I didn't write
it, but it's scriptural truth, so neither did the author. God
did. But it says this. Here's what
he's talking about. In him is no sin. Now, in Christ personally,
there's no sin, but that's not what this is talking about. It's
saying this. Now, listen to this. God sees no sin in us as a matter
of divine justice. The record books of heaven record
no iniquity, no transgression, and no sin against God's children,
God's elect. We've been redeemed by the blood
of Christ, we have His righteousness imputed to us, and God will not
impute sin to His saints or require satisfaction from us because
our sins were made Christ and were justly imputed to Him when
He was made sin for us. He paid for our sins. He paid
the debt in full. Our sins have been forever expunged
or erased from the book of God's offended justice by our Savior's
precious blood. The Lord Jesus Christ has, by
the sacrifice of Himself, put away, taken away our sins. All of them! past, present, future. They were imputed to Him, laid
upon Him, punished in Him, and put away by Him. He made an end
of our sins. He removed all the iniquity of
His people in one day by one sacrifice. In Him we are fully
justified, made righteous from all things, so much so that in
the eyes of God's holy law and justice, we have no sin. By His one great sacrifice for
sin, the Son of God has made all God's elect perfect in His
sight. Amen.