Welcome to the Reign of Grace
radio broadcast. My name is Bill Parker. I'm the
pastor of the 13th Street Baptist Church in Ashland, Kentucky.
This program is sponsored by the members of Eager Avenue Grace
Church in Albany, Georgia, located at 1102 Eager Drive, Albany,
Georgia. I'll be bringing you a gospel
message of the sovereign grace and glory of God in the Lord
Jesus Christ from God's Holy Word. And now, the message. It's in from the book of John,
chapter 12, and the title of the message is Christ the King. Christ the King. Now, in this
passage, beginning in John chapter 12, Christ had just healed Lazarus,
or raised him from the dead, literally, physically, and now
he's in Bethany, and this is just less than a week before
he's arrested. He goes into Jerusalem, he gets
arrested just about a week before the crucifixion. And there are
several things that take place here. He's in Bethany with Lazarus
and Mary and Martha at the house of a man named Simon who was
a leper. And then it's here where Mary
anoints his feet with the expensive ointment and Judas challenged
her. You remember in that passage
where Judas, it says when he rose up and he said, why was
not this ointment sold for 300 pence and given to the poor?
And it's said here in John chapter 12 that Judas did that not out
of a charitable heart, not out of love, but because he was greedy. And so Judas is beginning to
be exposed for what he is, yet that didn't take place actually
until the institution of the Lord's Supper on the Passover
night. But it says in verse 10, now
this is where the Lord goes into Jerusalem. This is called his
triumphal entry into Jerusalem. And it says that in verse 12,
"...on the next day, much people that were come to the feast,
when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches
of palm trees, and went forth to meet him, and cried, Hosanna! Blessed is the King of Israel
that cometh in the name of the Lord." And verse 14 says, "...and
Jesus, when he had found a young ass, sat thereon, as it is written,
Fear not, daughter of Zion. Behold, thy king cometh sitting
on an ass's coat." And then John records, by inspiration of the
Holy Spirit, in verse 16, he says, he writes, "...these things
understood not his disciples at the first." Now John's including
himself here. And it says, "...but when Jesus
was glorified, then remembered they that these things were written
of him, and that they had done these things unto him." Now that's
speaking of his whole experience at Jerusalem concerning his arrest,
his trial, even unto his suffering unto death on the cross. Because
you know when Christ came, after he arose from the grave, he sat
down with his disciples and he taught them out of the Old Testament
the things concerning himself, who he is and what he would accomplish. And John is saying at that time
they looked back into the Scriptures and they saw how they applied
to Christ, to Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah, as the Savior
of his people. And here when it talks about
him riding into Jerusalem on a small donkey, that was prophesied
in the book of Zechariah chapter 9 and verse 9. In the Old Testament
prophet Zechariah it was said that the King, the Messiah, the
King Messiah, would come in on a young donkey, on an ass's coat,
and that he would ride in to his people. And it says in verse
17, "...the people therefore that was with him when he called
Lazarus out of his grave, and raised him from the dead, bear
record." In other words, many of those who saw Christ raise
Lazarus from the dead, they were there, too, and they bore record
of this. And it says in verse 18, "...for
this cause the people also met him, for that they had heard
that he had done this miracle. But the Pharisees therefore said
among themselves, Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? Behold, the world is gone after
him." Now that is said in reference to what Caiaphas had said earlier
in chapter 11 concerning not taking Christ at that time, not
taking Jesus of Nazareth and putting him to death. Caiaphas
said, let him alone, and things will take care of themselves.
The Pharisees were becoming very nervous, very apprehensive about
this, and they said, well, look, the whole world is going after
him. Now, I want to draw your attention back to verse 13, concerning
this issue of Christ the King, where it says, They took branches
of palm trees, and went forth to meet him, and cried, Hosanna! Blessed is the King of Israel
that cometh in the name of the Lord. Now, the kingship of Christ,
the lordship of Christ, is one of his mediatorial offices. Now, what do I mean by that?
Well, the Bible says that Christ is the one mediator between God
and men. The Bible teaches that there's
one God and there's one mediator between God and men, the man
Christ Jesus. There are no other mediators.
No man himself is a mediator. The only mediator, listen to
me now, the only mediator between God and men is Christ Jesus the
Lord. He is the only connection that
sinful men can have with God in salvation, in redemption. He is the only way that a sinner
can be accepted before God. No other, you see. No preacher
can be a mediator between you and God. No pope, no saint, no
angel, not even Mary. There's only one mediator between
God and men, the man Christ Jesus. And if you seek to go to God
and find forgiveness, or salvation or acceptance before God through
any other mediator, then my friend, you're going to be sadly, sadly
damned forever. There's one mediator. Now, this
issue of his mediatorial work has to do with everything that
it took Christ to accomplish in his person, in his offices,
and in his finished work to bring reconciliation between God and
sinners. For example, in order for God
to save us from our sins, in order for God to be reconciled
to a sinner, Law and justice must be satisfied by one who
is appointed of God, one who is able to get the job done to
meet the requirements and conditions, all the stipulations that the
law of God required for the salvation of sinners, and one who was willing
to do so. And my friend, the Lord Jesus
Christ is the only one who fits that bill. No mere man can do
it. No sinner can do it. No one can
do it but Christ. He had to be both God and man
in one person. You see, in order to redeem me
from my sins, it takes God Himself to do so. A mere man cannot do
it. And yet He must die. And God
cannot die. Therefore, He must be man also
without sin. The Bible says that Christ is
able to save to the uttermost them that come unto the Father
by Him. He's the only one who's able because of who He is. He's
God and man in one person. And in the Old Testament scriptures
it was foretold that the Messiah, the King Messiah, would be both
God and man. David, the psalmist, called Him
Lord, looked toward the future and looked to the Lord Messiah. And yet David recognized that
the Messiah would be coming through his fleshly line without sin. He's God in man. Now the second
thing about his mediatorial work is his offices. What are his
offices? What did he have to do in his
official capacity to be a mediator between God and sinners? Well,
the Bible teaches that he has to be our prophet. In other words,
he's the revelation of God. John spoke of that in John chapter
1, when he spoke of Christ as being the Word of God. In beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And then in verse 14 of John
chapter 1, he says, the Word was made flesh and dwelt among
us. So in other words, to know God
as a Redeemer, to know God in grace, in salvation, You must
have him revealed through Christ. He is the revelation of God.
The whole Word of God, the redemptive Word of God to sinners, is wrapped
up in the personal work of Christ. Secondly, in his office, he had
to be our priest. Now, a priest is one who represents
the people before God. You see, that's the biblical
doctrine of representation. The priest had to represent the
people before God just like the high priest in Israel of old
under the law of Moses. He went into the holiest of all
one time a year to make atonement. And on his clothing he had a
show on his shoulder and on his breastplate he had the names
of the twelve tribes of Israel signifying the people whom he
represented before God. And that's the picture of Christ,
our great high priest. He went into the very holiest
of all, not an earthly tabernacle or temple, but the very presence
of God, a holy God, for his people. They're called God's elect. They're
called his sheep. He said, my sheep. He said, I
lay down my life for the sheep. They're called his church. That's
who he redeemed, the church. That's who he represented. Now
that priest, when he went into the holiest of all, he could
not go without having an offering. And the offering had to be a
blood offering, the blood of a lamb. So he had to have a sacrifice. Well Christ, our great high priest,
had the sacrifice of himself. He shed his own blood as payment
for the sins of his people, those whom he represented. And he took
that off the altar, the brazen altar, and he brought it into
the holiest of all, the very presence of God. So Christ is
the mediator of his people, the one mediator between God and
sinners, is our prophet, and he's our priest. But thirdly,
as mediator, he's also our king. Now, he is Lord of lords. He
is the potentate, the scripture says. That is, he is the all-powerful
one, all powers given unto him, he said, in heaven and in earth.
The Apostle Peter spoke of that in the book of Acts, chapter
2, when he preached that great sermon at Pentecost concerning
the finished work of Christ, that he came and he finished
his work on Calvary. And based upon that, it says
in verse 36 of Acts chapter 2, he says, Therefore let all the
house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same
Jesus whom you have crucified, both Lord and Christ. Now in
himself, as he is essentially considered, he always was, always
is, and always will be Lord. But his Lordship in his mediatorial
office, was based upon his finishing the work that he came to do.
In other words, Christ is our king as God-man mediator. Now, back in John chapter 12,
Christ is our prophet, our priest, and our king. And that means
he finished the work that the Father gave him to do. Let's
read this again. It says, they took branches of
palm trees. Now those palm trees, the palm
branches, were sort of like a symbol of national Israel. And they
used those to express their patriotism, their loyalty to their nation.
So what we see here is that this is more of a patriotic gathering
than it is a religious gathering. They waved palm branches and
they cried, Hosanna! And they said, Blessed is the
King of Israel. Now, they were thinking in their
minds, King of this physical, earthly nation, Israel. And they
said, Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name
of the Lord. And then the reference goes back
to the Old Testament, as John didn't understand it at that
time, but he said later, we understood that this was speaking of the
Messiah. Here he comes. Now, he's the King of kings.
He's the Lord of glory. Israel, the nation, they were
looking for a king to come through the clouds, riding on a white
horse, ready to conquer their earthly enemies, conquer Rome
and liberate them. But they weren't expecting a
humble, a humble Savior, a man of sorrows acquainted with grief,
riding on a lowly ass. They weren't expecting that at
all. Yet that was the fulfillment of Scripture. That was the word
of God concerning him, and the scripture was quoted this way
in Zechariah 9, verse 9, "...fear not, daughter of Zion, behold
the king cometh, sitting on an ass's coat." This one who is
riding into Jerusalem on a lowly donkey, not on a conquering white
horse with weapons of destruction clothed in armor, but a lowly
carpenter from Nazareth. riding in on an ass's coat, humble. This is the man of sorrow, yet
he is king. He is king. What's the point
of all this? The point is this, is that what
Israel was looking for is not what they got. And this is the
issue. Now, they cried, Hosanna. Hosanna. What does that mean? Well, literally
it means, save us now. That's what it's talking about.
They were looking for a Savior. But they weren't looking for
a spiritual savior to save them from their sins, they were looking
for a national savior to conquer Rome and set them free. But this
means save us now. And this cry Hosanna, it really
has the same connotation as the word propitiation. Now you know
that word propitiation, that's an interesting word in the Bible.
And it shows exactly how Christ is the King, not of national
Israel, but of spiritual Israel. Let me show you what I mean by
that. Now, that word, propitiation, which is related to this term,
hosanna, save us now, propitiate for us now. They were looking
for him to step in and conquer Rome, conquer their enemies.
But you see, he's not that kind of savior. He conquered this
whole world and he's going to put this whole world down. He
is the sovereign of the universe. But to his people, to whom he
is the one mediator between God and sinners, to his spiritual
nation, spiritual Israel, my friend, he is the king who conquered
sin. He's the king who conquered Satan. He's the King who conquered our
hearts and conquers it. He is Hosanna. He is the one
who saves us now and forever. He is our propitiation. Now,
what does that word propitiation mean? Well, it's used three times
in the New Testament. It is a word in the original
language that is related back to the Old Testament term, mercy
seat. You remember back in the Old
Testament, in the holiest of all, where the high priest went.
There was the Ark of the Covenant there, which contained the Law
of Moses, the tablets, the Ten Commandments. And over that Ark
there was a lid, and that lid was called the Mercy Seat. And
the priest would come in with the blood, and he would pour
that blood over the Mercy Seat. Now that term, propitiation,
is related to that Old Testament term, mercy seat. It could be
just as well stated out, mercy seat. For example, you might
remember in the book of Luke chapter 18, the parable of the
Pharisee and the publican, where the Pharisee stood before God
and he thanked God for what God had enabled him to do to make
himself righteous, which is the profession of a lost, unbelieving
sinner, self-righteousness. But you remember the publican.
the old despised publican who beat on his breast, and he cried,
God, be merciful to me, the sinner." Well, that phrase, be merciful,
is literally be propitious. That is, that old publican was
seeking mercy at the mercy seat. Well, all of that was a type
of Christ in the Old Testament. Christ is our mercy seat. It is His blood that is poured
over the mercy seat to satisfy the law and justice of God. So
what does this term propitiation mean? Well, look with me over
in the book of Romans, chapter 3. Here it's talking about redemption. Now, this is right in line with
Hosanna, save us now, propitiation. Here's what he says. He says,
now, Verse 19, we know that what thing soever the law saith, it
saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be
stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Now
that's the state of all men and women by nature in Adam. Fallen
in Adam, ruined, dead in sins, condemned under the law of God
for sin. And then he says in verse 20,
"...therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh
be justified in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of
sin." What he's saying here is those who are guilty and condemned
in Adam, fallen man, which is all of us by nature in Adam,
we cannot satisfy God. We cannot remove sin. We cannot
atone or pay for sins by our best efforts to keep the law.
It's impossible. Salvation is not by works. Salvation
is not by our law keeping. Our law keeping, even our best
efforts to keep the law fall short. Therefore we cannot be
saved by establishing a righteousness of our own. But he says in verse
21, but now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested. That is, it has come. It has
been accomplished. Being witnessed by the law and
the prophets, this is the same righteousness of God that was
witnessed in the Old Testament. And he says in verse 22, even
the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ. In other words, this is a righteousness
that is by Christ, not by you, not by me, but it's one that
He worked out. It's one that He accomplished.
It's one that he wrought out, and he says it's unto all. That
means it's to be preached out unto everybody. Christ told his
disciples, go into all the world and preach the gospel, and it
is upon all them that believe. Now this righteousness of God,
which refers to the entire merit, the entire value of the person
and work of Christ in his obedience unto death, is applied, imputed,
and accounted to all who believe. Now, our justification took place
at the cross, but in time the Holy Spirit brings us to see
it, to know it, and embrace him. So he says there's no difference,
for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And
then he says in verse 24, being justified freely, unconditionally,
without a cause, by his grace, through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be of propitiation
through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for
the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance
of God. It says, to declare, I say at this time, his righteousness,
that God might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth
in Jesus. So Christ is our Hosanna. He is our propitiation. He is
our salvation from sin. What is this propitiation? Listen
to me. It is a bloody sacrifice that
brings satisfaction. And through Christ, through his
obedience unto death, God is satisfied completely and sinners
are saved. He brings this out on over in
the book of 1 John. In 1 John 2, verse 1, when John
writes, My little children, these things write I unto you, that
ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an
advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and He
is the propitiation for our sins. And not for ours only, but for
the sins of the whole world. Now, the whole world there refers
to His sheep out of the whole world. God's elect out of every
tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation. his church. And then over in
1 John chapter 4 and verse 10 we see the word again. When he
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. That is, he's the satisfaction. He's the sin bearer, the sin
offering, who through his bloody death on the cross made satisfaction
for our sins. Now when we go back to John 12,
And we look at this term, Hosanna. Hosanna. Blessed is the King
of Israel. Here's what I want you to understand. The Lordship of Christ, Christ
the King, His Lordship as mediator between God and sinners is all
based upon His finished work on the cross. You see, He exists
right now as God-man on the throne. ruling over all things, disposing
over all things, to the glory of his Father and the salvation
of his sheep. He is the King of Israel. Now
listen to me, but now, his kingship, his kingdom, is a spiritual kingdom. It's not his kingship over a
piece of geography on this earth. But it's spiritual Israel. And
the Bible teaches this. Look over in Romans 9, in verse
6 or verse 7. He's talking, or verse 6, he
says, "...not as though the word of God hath taken none effect,
for they are not all Israel, which are of Israel. Neither
because they are the seed of Abraham are they all children,
but in Isaac shall thy seed be called." That's the promise of
the Messiah. That is, they which are the children of the flesh,
these are not the children of God, but the children of the
promise are counted for the seed." Now, who are the children of
the promise? Every sinner who believes the promise of salvation,
finished and accomplished through Christ. That's children of the
promise. Now, those who reject the promise,
who die in their unbelief, they're not children of the promise.
He is the King of Israel, spiritual Israel. Now, sovereignly, He's
the King of this universe and He rules and disposes over all
things. But as Hosanna, as the sin-bearer,
as salvation, He's the King of a spiritual nation, spiritual
Israel. All who come to Him by faith,
all who come to God through the one mediator, the Lord Jesus
Christ, He is the King who comes and sits on the asses cold. He
humbled himself even unto the death of the cross. He was the
man of sorrows acquainted with grief. There was nothing, nothing
desirous about him towards the world, but he's the Savior of
his people. And so we cry, Hosanna, the King,
blessed is the King of Israel. King of Israel, the King of a
nation, a spiritual people called out of, redeemed by Christ, justified
in Him and called out of every tribe, kindred, tongue and nation.
My friend, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be
saved. He is Hosanna. He is the one who saves us and
now by His grace. I hope you've enjoyed this message
and that it's helped you to understand the Scriptures. If you'd like
to get a copy of this message, Listen to the announcer, he'll
give you the details. The title of this message is
Christ the King. And I hope you'll join us next
week for another message from God's Word. We're glad you could join us
for today's message. If you would like to receive
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about Eager Avenue Grace Church, remember we are located at 1102
Eager Drive in Albany, Georgia. You can call us at 229-432-6969. or visit our Reign of Grace website
at www.rofgrace.com. Thank you, and may the Lord be
with you.