Now, let's open our Bibles back
to 1 John chapter 5. As you notice, we're into the
last chapter of our study of the book of 1 John. And I know
I've enjoyed studying for it, and I hope you've enjoyed studying
with me as we go through these scriptures. But I want you to
see the importance of this last chapter as John closes out this
short epistle. I've entitled the message this
morning, The Witness of God, and this is part one. I had Brother
Joe read 12 verses there, but I'm not going to try to cover
all that this morning. I'm going to divide it up into
two messages. And I think that's appropriate
here because of the importance of this message and what it means
to those of us who profess to be believers in the Lord Jesus
Christ. The issue that John is closing
his book with is basically an issue of assurance of salvation. And I would ask you to consider
this question. Is it possible for a person to
know for sure that he's saved or she's saved? A lot of preachers don't like
to speak of assurance of salvation because they see all assurance
as what they call presumption. And certainly we do not want
to presume something that's untrue. We don't want to presume upon
the grace of God. We know God is sovereign in salvation. The Bible says he'll have mercy
on whom he will, and he'll be gracious to whom he will. But
the Bible is very clear also on this fact. It gives us a clear
description, clear definitions. The Scripture now does, not Webster's
Dictionary, but the Scriptures, gives us clear definitions and
descriptions on those people, those men and women upon whom
God does in His sovereign will show mercy and grace. And I want to direct your attention,
first of all, to verse 13 of chapter 5. Now, you must remember
now that this is the Bible. This is God's Word. This is the
record. John spoke of the record. You
hear Brother Joe read about that. This is the record. Well, we
have the record. You have the record, the recording,
of the Word of God in your hands, if you brought a Bible today.
I hope you did. But you have that record in your
hands, and what you ought to be doing is diligently searching
and praying to God to show me what this record is. Show me
the truth that's inside these pages, upon these pages. Now, John says in verse 13, look
at this, he says, these things have I written unto you that
believe on the name of the Son of God. Now, believing on the
name of the Son of God is just another way of saying trusting
in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation, who He is, what He
did, why He did it, where He is now, His person and His work.
But now look at the rest of this verse. That, or in order that,
you may know that you have eternal life. Now, I like that, don't
you? I'd like to be one of those who
knows that I have eternal life, and that you may continue to
believe on the name of the Son of God, is what he means there.
So John says that the very reason that he wrote this epistle to
the church, to the church at large, God's people, who profess
to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, is that you might have
assurance of salvation. Now, that makes sense, because
faith and assurance of salvation essentially are the same thing.
I know some preachers say you can have faith without having
assurance. Well, now, there are degrees of faith. Faith grows. Faith grows as we learn and grow
and mature in the Word of God. It grows as we go through trials
and testings in this life. And faith does grow, and therefore,
assurance grows. But essentially, they're the
same thing. Faith is not just some first-grade elementary Christian
and then assurance just the mature Christian. Essentially, they're
the same thing, and I want to show you that. You know, the
Bible, there's no doubt that the Bible teaches the importance
of faith, saving faith, that is, believing in Christ. He that
believeth not shall be damned, the Scripture says. The Scripture
tells us that with the heart confession is made, with the
mouth confession is made, with the heart man believeth unto
righteousness. Scripture tells us in Ephesians
chapter 2, for by grace are you saved through faith, that is,
by means of faith you come into a saving knowledge of Christ.
And that's not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, it's not
of works, lest any man should boast. Faith is that which lays
hold of Christ. Faith is not valuable. and worth anything just because
of the act of believing. Scriptural faith, Bible faith,
always has in mind the value and the worth of the object.
I mean, you can believe that you're in Paris, France this
morning, but that does not make it true. Now, does it? Just because
you believe it. So your faith isn't worth anything.
Because you're not. You're in Ashland, Kentucky.
You may want to be in Paris, France, but that doesn't make
it so. So it's not just having faith. Somebody says, well, you've
got to have enough faith. Well, faith in what? And in the
Bible, faith is never removed from the object who is Christ
and Him crucified. And our assurance is not in how
much we believe or in, somebody said, do you believe enough?
Our assurance is in the object of faith, Christ and Him crucified. Now, that's the issue. Faith
is believing God. What God says, I believe. Believing
His Word because His Word is reliable. His Word is trustworthy. Hebrews 11.1 defines faith this
way. Now, faith is the substance of
things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. Here in 1
John 5, look at verse 4. He says, For whatsoever is born
of God overcometh the world. He's talking about a born-again
person. Christ told Nicodemus, you must be born again. We talked
about that last week. We're born by nature, dead in
trespasses and sins. And that means everything that
dead means as far as spiritual life is concerned. We don't have
any. We don't have faith. We don't have a will to serve
God or to come to God or to submit to God. We don't want things
God's way. We want it our own way. But whosoever
is born of God, whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world,
and this is the victory that overcometh the world, our faith.
Now, why is that overcoming the world? Because it says in verse
5, look at it, who is he that overcometh the world, but he
that believeth that Jesus, that is, Jehovah who saves, is the
Son of God. That is your faith. So you say,
well, I don't believe I believe enough. Well, how much should
you believe? What is the standard there? Where's the gauge there?
If you're basing your assurance on that, you've got no standard.
You've got no gauge. You say, well, I don't believe
as much as Craig believes. Well, I don't even know how much
Craig believes. So if that's my standard, I'm just a goner.
You know, that's arbitrary. That's subjective. You may catch him at a time where
he's in doubt. And we do that, don't we? You
may catch him in a time of self-pity, or you may catch me in that time.
So these are issues that we've got to go right here to the Word
of God now. You see, it's not how much faith
you have, it's in whom is your faith. My faith is in Christ. Christ looked at His disciples
one time, and He said, O ye of little faith. He didn't say,
O ye of no faith. So even little faith has a big
Savior. Isn't that right? If you're looking
to Christ, we read that in Hebrews 12, we have a great cloud of
witnesses. Now, who's he talking about there?
He's talking about those in the Old Testament who looked forward
by promise to the coming of Christ to die for their sins and establish
righteousness before God for them. And they suffered. Some
of them suffered terribly and died in the faith. These all
died in the faith. And there are a cloud of witnesses
for us to do what? To uplift them? Like the Pharisees
uplifted Moses? We have Moses? No. Moses would
have said, don't do that. To build a statue or name a building
after him? They would have said, don't do
that. Forget us. These all died in the faith.
There are a cloud of witnesses looking unto Jesus, the author
and finisher of our faith. I can't even finish my faith.
Christ did. My salvation is based upon His
faithfulness to do all that God requires. If it's based upon
my faithfulness to do all that God requires, then I'm done for.
There's no hope, you see. This is the issue. And that's
what he's saying here. Now, he's spoken of the new birth.
He says we've overcome by faith. Faith is the gift of God. It's
the operation of the Spirit of God in the new birth. Verse 1,
remember there, he said, Whosoever believeth that Jesus, again,
Jehovah, who saves, is the Christ, is born of God. If you believe
in Christ, that's the first evidence of the new birth. Remember last
week, I gave you vital signs of the spiritual birth. Just
like in physical life, you have vital signs. They might ask,
is he breathing? Does he have a heartbeat or a
pulse? Does he respond to stimuli? You remember that? And that's
what it is in the new birth too. Are you breathing? Now, what
is the breath of the new birth? Faith in Christ. Is he looking
to Christ? Is she looking to Christ for
all wisdom, for all righteousness, for all redemption, for all holiness? Are you resting in the Savior?
That's my hope. He's my hope. He's my assurance
now. He's my foundation. He's my rock.
He's my high tower. He's my protector. He's everything
the Scripture says He is. That's the record. Whatever this
record says that He is, that's what He is to me. You say, He's
sovereign. Some people don't want to believe
in a sovereign God. Well, that's what the record
says of Him. He's sovereign. You say, well, I believe what
the record says. This is the record. He's God
and man in one person. Now, there's a denomination that
claims to believe in Jesus, but they deny His deity. Now, my
question is, what does the record say? What does this book say? Because if you don't believe
the record concerning who He is, you don't believe in Him.
You've got a faith. You've got a counterfeit. You're an idolater. I told one of them when he came
to my door one time, years and years ago, I said, do you worship
Jesus of Nazareth? And he said, yes. And I said,
you're an idolater. He said, what do you mean? And
I said, well, you don't believe He's God, do you? He said, well,
no, not really. And I said, well, if you worship
anyone who is not God, that's idolatry. That's what that is. Well, He is God. And He is man. He's God-man. And that's what
the record says. You say, well, the record doesn't
explain that to my mind. Well, first of all, you don't
have that kind of mind. And neither did Einstein. And
I don't either. And the record doesn't have to
explain that to you for you to believe it. It's just so, isn't
it? It took this kind of person to
save me from my sins. He had to be God. Only God can
create and give and sustain life. And yet he had to die, because
without the shedding of blood, without death, there is no forgiveness,
there is no salvation. Justice had to be satisfied.
And God cannot die, but He's man. And he put away sin in the
flesh, the scripture says. He suffered unto death in his
flesh, the God-man, and he died. And he satisfied justice, and
he brought forth everlasting righteousness. So I would ask
you, are you born again? Well, are you breathing? Do you
trust Christ for all of salvation? Not part now, but all, 100% salvation. To save me, to keep me, and to
bring me into glory. The second question I would ask
you is, is your heart beating? Do you have a pulse? And John
puts that this way. Look at verse 1. Everyone that
loveth him that begot, loveth him also that is begotten of
him. By this we know that we love the children of God, verse
2, when we love God and keep his commandments. Love to the
brethren is our heartbeat. That's our pulse. We love those
whom the world hates. We love those whom God loves.
Now, again, I'm not going back into all this, but that doesn't
mean we have to like everything they do. That doesn't mean we
don't have problems and relationships and trouble and all that stuff
that the flesh still inspires us wickedly and selfishness to
do. We have to work through all that
by the power of God's grace in his Word. We have to submit to
God's Word. But we take sides with God's
people against the world. We take sides with Abel, 1 John
3, against Cain. in the world, especially in this
matter of salvation. So we have the heartbeat. And
then thirdly, do we respond to stimuli? Look at verse 3. For this is the love of God,
that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not
grievous. Now, false religion will put commandments on you
that are grievous. They'll beat you down. Oh, you're
saved by grace, but if you ain't doing, you're dying. I heard
a preacher say that one time. I thought, my goodness. Do you
like to go through life like that? My friend, think about
it. They'll put rules and regulations
and commandments on you. They'll say, you can't touch,
taste, handle this, and you better touch, taste, handle that, and
you've got to wear this, and you've got to look like this,
and you've got to walk in this line. I mean, it's one thing
after another. It's grievous. And the main reason
it's grievous is not because it's so meticulous. It's grievous
because they're claiming that they are earning God's favor.
You're working your way into God's favor in some way, at some
time, to some degree. You may start it by grace, but
you've got to do this to keep it up, or you'll lose it. That's
grievous. That's a burden. But see, His
commandments are not grievous. He said, come unto Me, all you
that labor and are heavy laden, and I'll give you what? Rest. The Christian life begins with
resting in His finished work for my whole salvation. And what
is the stimuli, what is the stimulus that inspires a believer? to
follow Christ. It's not law, it's love. Paul said it in 2 Corinthians
5, the love of Christ constrains me. It's not fear of being thrown
out of his family and cast into hell. It's a greater sense of
his grace and his mercy and his love towards me who is so undeserving. I didn't deserve anything he
gives me and didn't earn any of it. And that's what draws,
that's the cords of love. And so we strive to follow Him,
not to be saved, but because we already are. Not to earn our
reward, but because He is our reward. He earned it all. You
see the difference? It's love. It's grace. It's gratitude. It's not law. It's not legalism. And the keeping of His commandments
means following what He says. And as I said last week, I said
Christ never commanded anyone to try to keep the law to be
saved. If you're doing that, you're not keeping His commandments
because He didn't command that. That's Satan. Did you know that? That's Satan. Well, motivated
by grace. Now, here's the thing. Now, if I have these evidences
that I'm born again, how can I know for sure that I'm saved. Where do I find assurance of
salvation? Well, that's based on the witness of God, John says. There's the witness of God. Faith
is not a blind leap in the dark. The faith of God's people is
faith that has basis in fact. It's not in your opinion, not
in my opinion, it's not in what some preacher says or doesn't
say. It's not in what he's maybe caught up with at a given moment.
It's faith accompanied by reason. You say, well, you can't reason
a man into the kingdom of heaven. I can't, but God can. Come now,
let us reason together. Isaiah 1 and verse 18. God's command. Come now, let
us reason together. Though your sins be as scarlet,
they shall be white as snow. Though they be red like crimson,
They shall be as woe. No, I cannot reason you or myself
into the kingdom, but God can. And his reasoning makes our reasoning
foolishness. He has reasons that are far beyond
us. His reasons is his glory. And it's based upon the exaltation
of his son. And that's a good reason. The Bible tells God's people
to sanctify the Lord God in our hearts and be ready always to
give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason for the hope
that's in you with meekness and fear. Do you believe you're saved?
Why? That's all that is. On what basis
do you say that? As the disciples went out among
the world and began to preach the gospel, the basic message
was, here is salvation. It's wrapped up in the person
and finished work of Christ. Outside of Christ, there is no
salvation. Outside of Him, you're lost.
Why? Isn't that a good question? It certainly is, isn't it? Why?
So, faith is not blind faith or a leap in the dark. It's faith
based on solid evidence and a reliable witness. Now, I know there are
false witnesses and there are true witnesses, but what are
God's witnesses? Now, that's what John's talking
about here. He gives us external witnesses of God, and then He
gives us internal witnesses of God. Down here in verse 6, now
He's talking about the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at this. Here's
the external witness. He says, He says, This is He
that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ. Not by water
only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth
witness, because the Spirit is truth. For there are three that
bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost,
and these three are one. Now, these two verses, verses
6 and 7, have infamously in religious history been controversial verses. And you look at them and you
wonder why. Well, first of all, in verse 6, what does it mean
when it says that Christ came by water and by blood? Well, there are basically four
different interpretations of that verse. And I'll tell you
what I believe about it based upon my study of it and the context
of the scripture. Let me just give you these briefly
because they are gospel oriented. You know, sometimes a person
can be wrong about an interpretation of a particular verse. But if
their interpretation doesn't deny other truth and deny the
gospel, we can tolerate that. We may not agree with it. You
know, somebody told me one time, well, believers agree on everything.
And I said, fat chance. fat chance. We agree on the gospel. We agree
on how God saves sinners. All right? We agree on who God
is and who we are. God's holy. We're sinners. We're
nothing. We agree on who Christ is. We
agree on what Christ accomplished on Calvary. The salvation of
our sins, the establishment of our righteousness. Those are
the vital issues. But when we go through the scriptures,
there will be times that we will have to learn. You know, it's
a process. We're growing in grace and knowledge. But let me give
you these just briefly. First of all, Christ came by
water and by blood. Some say that that refers to
his actual baptism. Christ was baptized by John the
Baptist, and then his death. Water meaning his baptism, and
blood meaning his death. You see, when Christ was baptized,
and I want you to turn over to Matthew chapter 3. Turn over
here. In Matthew chapter 3. Now, we
know that Christ came into the world. He was born of a virgin.
A miraculous birth. And then the scripture is pretty
much silent on his childhood. There are few things that are
given. The time when they brought him as an infant to the temple
to be circumcised and go through the ceremonial purifications.
That's when Simeon, you remember Simeon, lifted him up and said,
I'm ready to die, mine eyes have seen thy salvation. And Simeon,
that was revealed to him by the Holy Spirit. And then the time
when he was off disputing with the elders and the doctors in
the temple, And his mother and father couldn't find him, and
they came and they began to chide him. He said, I must be about
my father's business. We're told that he grew in wisdom
and stature. That's referring to his humanity.
His deity didn't grow in wisdom and stature, but that refers
to his humanity. I can't explain that to you,
but that's okay. But we don't know much about
his childhood. The first thing we see detailed of his earthly
ministry in life begins at his baptism. John the Baptist there
preaching. Jesus of Nazareth comes upon
the scene, and this marks the beginning of his work on earth.
Water would mark the beginning of his work on earth, and blood
would mark the finishing of his work on earth. Water and blood.
And, of course, we read there in Hebrews chapter 12, Christ
is the author, that means the beginner, and the finisher, that
means the completer, of our faith. Now, for this reason, this is
the view that I take of this passage because I believe it
fits the context of what John is teaching better. But his baptism,
let's look at that. Look at verse 13 of Matthew chapter
3. It says, speaking of, I said verse 13,
but let's go to, I'll tell you what I did. I'm in the book of
Mark. Now, you all didn't believe that could happen, did you? But
believe me, it could, and it did. All right, I'm there now.
Matthew chapter 3. You all beat me there. That's
unusual, but we'll try to live with it. All right. Matthew 3.13. Now John the Baptist preaching,
he said, Then cometh Jesus from Galilee. Now remember what the
name Jesus means. It means Jehovah who saves. God our Savior. That's
what the name Jesus means. I know people abuse it and I
know people name their kids that and they should, but this is
what it means. And he says, Then cometh Jesus
from Galilee to Jordan unto John to be baptized of him. But John,
now John the Baptist, he forbade him. He wouldn't baptize him,
saying, I have need to be baptized of thee. And comest thou to me? And Jesus answering said unto
him, Suffer, or allow it to be so now. Allow this. That's what
he's saying. For thus it becometh us. It is
needful. It is appropriate to fulfill
all righteousness. Now, first of all, that sets
his baptism apart from ours. We're not baptized to fulfill
all righteousness. We're baptized confessing that
all righteousness has already been fulfilled by Christ. So he says, allow this to happen,
to be done, because it's impendent upon me, it's necessary for us
to fulfill all righteousness. It becometh us. Did you notice
there how he says it becometh us? Why does he say us? You know, some of the kings of
countries or queens of countries will refer to themselves in the
plural because they represent a country. And that's what our
Lord's doing here. He's the representative of a
people. And I believe also it's indicative of his unity with
the Trinity, God, the Son, God, the Father, God, the Father,
God, the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit. And he says it's appropriate
for us to fulfill all righteousness. And then John the Baptist suffered
him, he allowed him. And it says in verse 16, Jesus,
when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water,
went up immediately out of the water. And lo, the heavens were
opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like
a dove and lighting upon him. And lo, a voice from heaven saying,
this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Isn't that
something? What an event. There's the beginning
of his public ministry, the actual beginning of his work on earth
as the author and finisher of our faith. Now, his baptism was
a symbolic identification with his people. Remember that. His baptism was a symbolic identification
with his people. What does baptized mean? The
word baptized means placed into. And it means identity and union. And so his baptism was his identity
and union, or symbolic of his identity and union with his people.
He was identified and in unity with his people before the foundation
of the world. Scripture says that, read Ephesians
chapter 1 sometimes. But the baptism was a public
display of that, a public confession of that. He identified with his
people. It declared him to be our representative, our substitute,
and our surety. That one that was spoken of so
many times in the Old Testament. Now, there were two things declared
at his baptism here. Number one, the purpose of his
coming. What did he say? To fulfill all
righteousness. Why did Christ come into the
world? To stand as the representative and substitute of His people
and fulfill all righteousness. We have no righteousness except
Christ. He fulfilled it all. And to do
that, He had to obey the law perfectly. And he had to go to
the cross and die in our place under the justice of God for
our sin. God is holy and righteous as well as merciful and gracious.
And he must be both a just God and a savior. He must be both
a righteous judge as well as a loving father. And the only
way he could do that is by Christ fulfilling all righteousness
on our behalf. So that was the purpose. That's what he declared
there. He said in chapter 5 and verse 17 of Matthew, he said,
he didn't come to break the law as he was accused of, he came
to fulfill the law, every jot and every tittle. And the reason
he said that he came to do that is because, except your righteousness
exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, you
shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. You need a
righteousness that you cannot produce. And he said to John
the Baptist, suffer it to be so to fulfill all righteousness.
That's why He came. And that's why the gospel is
the declaration and the communication by the Holy Spirit of the righteousness
of God. That's what we need. That's what
I need. Don't need my righteousness. It's not good enough. Don't need
yours. It's not good. We could put all our righteousnesses
together and it's still not good enough. We need Him. All right? We need Christ. We need His blood
to pay for our sins. All of our suffering can't do
it. The Lord could sweep through here and wipe us all out today
with a tornado, and all the blood that would be shed wouldn't be
enough to put away even one sin. But His precious blood, without
blemish and without spot, cleanses us from all sin. Isn't that something? Well, the second thing that was
declared here is His sinless humanity. What did the Lord say? What was the testimony of God?
This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Now let me
tell you something, that cannot be said of any individual unless
they're sinlessly perfect. That's right. That's why the
Bible says of us, without faith it's impossible to please God.
What that means is simply this, without being cleansed by the
blood of Christ and clothed in His righteousness, there's no
pleasing God. But the Father testified in a
voice apparently here. He said, this is my beloved Son
in whom I am well pleased. You see, there must be a cleansing.
His baptism represented that cleansing. There must be a forgiveness
of sin. But Christ did not personally
require such a cleansing, and it was this that caused John
the Baptist to hesitate. John the Baptist recognized that
this is the Messiah, and he knew the Messiah was sinlessly perfect,
and he said, I'm not going to baptize you. I'm in need that
you baptize. I'm the sinner. That's what John
was saying. You're not. I'm the one that needs to be
baptized. Now, John wasn't saying that baptism in the water washed
away sin. That's not what he was saying
at all. But he knew what baptism represented. You see, it's our union with
Christ. So he knew that Christ was not a sinner. You see, Christ
was showing in this his substitutionary representative work, not for
his own sins, but for the sins of the people. the sins of his
sheep. He said, I laid down my life
for the sheep. He had to be baptized, but the father made it very clear
in his voice that there was not one stain or one spot in his
son. This is my beloved son in whom
I am well pleased. Now, during his public ministry
again and again, he held up his stainless record before his enemies,
challenging them to find one fault in him. Remember, he said
in John 8, 46, when they were accusing him, he said, which
of you convinces me of sin? You know, one of the main works
of the Holy Spirit in our conversion is to convince us of sin. And
it doesn't take him long to do it because we're sinners. But Christ looked at the Pharisees
and he said, which of you convinced me of sin? He said one time,
he said, I always do the will of my father. Is there anybody
in this building today who can say that in themselves? I always do the revealed will
of God. No. We're sinners. But he wasn't. He's God in human flesh. And
then it talks about water and blood. Now, blood means his death
on the cross. And when you speak of His death
on the cross, you also have to speak of His resurrection from
the dead, because His death was a victory. His death was an accomplishment. His death was the finishing of
a work. His death was not the end. He arose. He was buried. He died. He was
buried. He arose again the third day. Well, turn to Matthew chapter
27. His death was a testimony of His finished work. And in his death, God testified."
Now, you see in his baptism, there's the testimony of God,
there's the witness of God. You have there the witness of
John the Baptist, that's the prophets, that's the Old Testament.
Christ said, the Old Testament speaks of me. He said, Moses
wrote of me. He said, Abraham saw my day,
rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was glad. Now here's
John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ, the voice crying in
the wilderness, prophesied in the Old Testament, and he's testifying
that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah. And then you have Christ,
the testimony, the witness of Christ himself, when he says,
suffer it to be so, to fulfill all righteousness, his sinless
life. You have the testimony of the
Father, this is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. And
then you have the testimony of the Holy Spirit there. The Holy
Spirit descended in the form of a dove and sat upon it. So you have the testimony of
God, the witness of God, and His witness is true. Now, in
His death, you have the witness of God also. Look at Matthew
27, look at verse 50 of Matthew 27. Now, this is when He's hanging
on the cross, and it says in verse 50, Jesus, when He had
cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. He died. The breath of life went out of
Him. And it says in verse 51, And behold, the veil of the temple
was rent, or torn, in twain, in two, from the top to the bottom,
not from the bottom to the top, but from the top to the bottom.
And the earth did quake, and the rocks rent, the rocks broke
apart, and the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints
which slept arose. This is the record. Now, Christ
died. on the cross. Remember what he
said in John 19 30, he said it's finished. It means it's completed. That means he did what he was
required to do. That means that everything that
God required of me for salvation, Christ accomplished and finished
in his obedience unto death. Do you realize that? What does
God require for salvation? Well, everything that God requires
was accomplished by Christ on Calvary. Everything. He didn't
leave one condition on me. He didn't leave one stipulation,
one qualification, one requirement. It was all accomplished right
there. Now, how do I know that's true? Well, Christ himself said
it's finished. He said it's finished. And then
when he gave up the ghost, the veil of the temple was torn in
two from top to bottom. Now, you know what that veil
represented in the Old Testament, that veil in the tabernacle? It separated the holy place from
the holiest of all, the holy of holies, where the mercy seat
was. And that was the Shekinah glory
of God. One time a year on the Day of Atonement, the high priest
would go in there with his garments on and not without blood. And
all of that was a type. of Christ who died and shed his
blood and went into the presence of God for his people, eternally,
one time. They had to do it over and over
again, every year. And then when one died, he was replaced with
another, because humanity can't do that. But they represented
Christ, the God-man, who had to do it one time. For by one
offering, he hath perfected them that are sanctified forever.
And when that veil was rent in two from top to bottom, that
was God who testified, publicly testifying, giving witness that
all righteousness was fulfilled for his people. It's done. You say, well, you better get
busy working out one of your own. My friend, that's false
religion. That's death. That's a burden.
That's grievous. You can't do it. And when you
think you have, what have you got? A self-righteous sinner
standing before God in filthy rags. But when you rest in Christ
and His finished work, you have free access to God, the veils
rent in two. God bore witness of that. And
secondly, many of the bodies of saints arose from the dead.
A fellow one time told me, he said, well, he didn't know what
that meant. Well, I think it means many of the bodies of the
saints which slept arose. I mean, that's the only thing
I can figure out there. You can go back into the Greek if you
want, and you're going to find this. This is what it says. It
says, many bodies of the saints which slept arose. That's what it says. Didn't our
Lord stand before the tomb of Lazarus and say, Lazarus, and
say, roll the stone away and speak three words, Lazarus, come
forth. And didn't he come forth? And
he walked this earth. And that's what happened here.
Just like Lazarus come out of the grave, God gave witness to
the glory of his son and the finishing of the work. And many
of the bodies of saints come out of the grave, just like Lazarus,
and walk the earth. Oh, they died again because this
body is dead because of sin, but they're going to be resurrected
again forever and given a new glorious body. That's the witness
of the water. and the blood. Christ is the
end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believe it. My faith is not in my faith.
My faith is in Him. Go back to 1 John 5 and let me
close this morning. This is it. This is He, verse
6, that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ, Jehovah who
saves, who is the Messiah. Some people say that the water
and the blood has to do with the water and the blood that
flowed from his side at the crucifixion. And that could be. In his death,
Christ fulfilled the whole law. Back in the old covenant, you
had the Levitical law, Leviticus, the law of the Levites, the priesthood.
And in that law, you see continually water and blood. By pure water,
all filth was washed away so that men might come before God
pure and clean. And by blood salvation, expiation
or propitiation, that sin offering was made that men might come
before God reconciled and justified. The whole perfection of salvation
is fulfilled in Christ. And Christ sighed at the crucifixion
when they thrust the spirit aside. It issued forth a fountain of
blood and water in order that believers may know that cleansing
of which all the ancient washings typified, is found in Christ. Our cleansing is in Christ, not
in the waters of baptism. In the waters of baptism, we
confess that Christ has already cleansed us. And that all of
our acceptance before God, our justification, is found in His
blood. He is our righteousness and our
redemption. Some say it refers to His incarnation. Christ was born of woman. He
was without sin. He was born of the Spirit. He
is the eternal Word. The Word was made flesh and dwelt
among us. And that may be so, water and
blood. But I just believe that it's talking about His baptism
and His death, because I think that fits John's context. Look
on. He says, not by water only, but by water and blood. And it
is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth.
The Holy Spirit himself bears witness to Christ. Now let me
give you these things in closing. Number one, the Holy Spirit himself,
the third person of the Trinity, bears witness of Christ. And
I showed you that. When Christ was baptized, the
Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove and lighted on
him. And that's when the Father spoke
in that voice, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.
Secondly, the gospel preached in the power of the Holy Spirit
bears witness of Him. If we're preaching the gospel,
what are we preaching? Paul said we're preaching Christ
and Him crucified. We're preaching the cross. We're
preaching the person and the finished work of Christ as the
only hope of salvation that any and every sinner has. Come to
Him, believe in Him, rest in Him. The gospel is the revelation
of the Spirit of God, of the righteousness of God, from faith
to faith. That is, from the truth preached
to God-given faith which receives Christ and rests in Him. Thirdly,
the works of Christ did in miracles which were performed in the power
of the Holy Spirit bear witness of Him. Our Lord said in John
chapter 10, when the Jews came round about Him and they said
unto Him, they said this, they said, Dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us
plainly." And here's how he answered them. He said, I told you, and
you believed not, the works that I do in my Father's name. They
bear witness of me, he said. What did he do? He gave sight
to the blind. He made the lame walk. He made the dumb talk.
He gave the hearing to the deaf. He raised from the dead. He walked
on water. He calmed the storm. He fed 3,000,
then 5,000. He fed more than that, actually.
He did all those great works by which were testimonies and
witnesses of who he is. And then fourthly, at Pentecost,
when the Holy Spirit descended in the power upon the disciples
by attending and empowering and confirming the gospel that Peter
preached, and he says, and we're witnesses, his witnesses of these
things, and so is also the Holy Ghost whom God hath given to
them that obey him. There were over 3,000 souls saved,
and later on, 5,000. who came to a saving knowledge
of Christ. That's what he's talking about.
Water and the blood and the spirit that beareth witness of him.
We have a sure word of prophecy. We have ample witnesses to know
that the one in whom we trust is the Redeemer, is the Savior,
is the one who's able to save to the uttermost. Now, that's
the witness of God, and we'll continue on with that. And I
hope you'll stay with us because if you want to know from scriptural
testimony how you can be assured of this, it goes on. Well, I'm
not going to say it gets better because you can't get any better
than this, looking to Christ, but it just keeps going on for
us so that we can grow and we can know this. All right. We're
going to sing hymn number 460 as our closing hymn, Leaning
on the Everlasting Arms.