Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening and now
for today's program. Welcome to our program today.
I'm glad you could join us. And if you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles with the message today, I'll be preaching from
Hebrews chapter two. I'll begin with verse nine of
Hebrews chapter two. The title of the message is in
the form of a question. And the question is this, for
whom did Jesus Christ die? For whom did Jesus Christ die? Now most people who hear that
question would readily and quickly answer, well, he died for everybody,
meaning everyone without exception. But the issue that we have to
face is what does the Bible teach? Now, listen to me very carefully
here and follow along in scripture because it's very important if
we are to understand the gospel, the good news, of salvation for
sinners, how God saves sinners, to understand what this gospel
is about and what's at the heart of it. And the gospel concerns
the person of Christ, who he is. And it's necessary, it's
vital, this is life and death now, that we understand from
the Bible exactly who Jesus Christ is. And the Bible teaches us
that he is the second person of the triune Godhead, what we
call the Trinity. Now, my friend, you and I, in
our human understandings, in our limitations, are not equipped
to understand and explain the Trinity, the triunity, the three
persons of the Godhead. We know it's true because that's
how the Bible, God's Word, reveals God to us, the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit. But we do understand this, that
Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus Christ, the Messiah, is the second
person of the Trinity, the Son of God, who is equal with the
Father and with the Holy Spirit, and every attribute of deity. In other words, He is God. Now,
when we speak of the Trinity, we're not talking about three
gods, we're talking about three persons. One God in three persons. And I can't explain it, and I've
heard preachers use earthly illustrations to try to illustrate it, but
there is, look, take my word for it, there is no, don't take
my word for it, look it up in the scripture, there is no earthly
illustration adequate for us to grasp the mind-boggling high
truth of the Trinity. Such knowledge is too wonderful
and too high for us, but it's true. And so Jesus Christ is
God, but He is also man without sin. He was conceived in His
humanity. He was conceived in the womb
of the Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit. And He was not born of
the aid of man. He wasn't born like me and you,
spiritually dead, as we fell in Adam. You see, the Bible teaches
that we are fallen creatures. We are sinners. And the reason
we sin is because we fell in Adam and were born dead in trespasses
and sins. And so we need salvation. But
Jesus Christ, the Savior, in His humanity, He was born of
woman by the aid of the Holy Spirit, conceived in her womb.
Mary was the surrogate mother. OF THE HUMANITY OF JESUS CHRIST,
SO THAT HE IS GOD-MAN. AND THE SCRIPTURE TALKS ABOUT
THAT. UNTO US A CHILD IS BORN. UNTO US A SON IS GIVEN. THE BIBLE
SAYS THAT THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH AND DWELT AMONG US. GOD MANIFEST
IN THE FLESH. SO HE IS GOD-MAN. AND THERE'S
ANOTHER MIND-BOGGLING TRUTH. YOU SEE, WE HAVE TO UNDERSTAND
THAT WHEN IT COMES TO GOD, AND A RELATIONSHIP THAT A SINNER
CAN HAVE WITH GOD. WE ARE SO LIMITED IN OUR KNOWLEDGE
AND UNDERSTANDING, BUT GOD HAS REVEALED SOME THINGS IN HIS WORD.
AND ONE OF THE THINGS HE'S REVEALED IS THAT THIS PERSON, GOD IN HUMAN
FLESH WITHOUT SIN, IS THE ONE AND ONLY SAVIOR OF SINNERS. IT
TOOK THIS KIND OF PERSON TO SAVE SINNERS. Why did he have to be
God? Because only God can give and
sustain life. Why did he have to be man without
sin? Because he had to die. We're
going to see that in our text today in Hebrews chapter 2. Christ
had to die because the wages of sin is death. And the Bible
teaches that he died for his people. So he's God-man. Now,
if you don't know him and believe him to be God in human flesh
without sin, then you don't know Christ. The second, but the gospel is
not just a person, the gospel also has to do with the work
that this particular person, Jesus Christ, God-man, actually
performed and accomplished and finished. And that work is his
obedience unto death as the surety and substitute of a people whom
God gave Him before the foundation of the world. They're called
His elect. I know a lot of people who when
they hear me speak of election or the elect, they get offended. And I understand why they get
offended because I used to be offended by it too, but I found
out that's what the Bible teaches. Who are the elect of God? Well,
they are those who are brought by God to believe in the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's who he died for. He says,
they are all that the Father gave him. All that the Father
giveth me shall come to me, he says. And him that cometh to
me, I will in no wise cast out. And I know people, they'll hear
truths like that and say, well, if that's true, does that matter
what I do if I believe or if I seek the, oh no. See, you're
not God. You didn't do the electing, God
did. And he did it before the foundation of the world. The
names of God's people were written in the Lamb's book of life before
the foundation of the world, Revelation 13. But you and I
don't know who they are. All we do, what the Bible teaches
is that they will hear and believe the gospel in the power of the
Holy Spirit. The gospel is the power of God
and salvation. So what are you to do? What am
I to do? The secret things belong to God. The revealed things belong
to me. I'm responsible for what God's
revealed. And He's revealed to me that I'm a sinner, that I
cannot be saved by my works, that if left to myself, I would
be doomed to eternal damnation, and that the only way that I
can be saved is by His grace through the Lord Jesus Christ
and based upon what Christ accomplished in His death, His blood, His
righteousness. And so, I'm responsible to seek
the Lord. And all of God's elect will and
they'll find Him. The Scripture says. Now, if we
look at Hebrews chapter 2 here, what the writer of Hebrews, by
inspiration of the Holy Spirit, has been talking about here is
that Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, has been
elevated in His person as God-man, as the mediator, as the Savior
of His people, to the highest position of preeminence than
any being can have. He's everything. In God's purpose,
in God's plan of salvation, Christ is all. And everything has been
put in subjection under Him. He's in control. He's the sovereign
of this universe. Did you know that? But as we
sojourn on this earth, as human beings, even the people of God
now. And we look around this earth
and we see all the turmoil, all the sin in ourselves and in others,
all the trouble. It looks like everything's out
of control. To our human eye, on this horizontal
plane, It looks like that things are just getting worse and worse
and out of control, chaos, anarchy. But you see, if we look at it
from God's viewpoint, In his word, we see everything is going
according to his plan. And here's how we see the purpose
and plan and pattern and sovereignty of God and the control that God
has in the best way possible in verse nine of Hebrews two.
He says, but we see Jesus. Now back up in verse eight, he
said, but now we see not yet all things put under him. We
do see Jesus. We see God the Savior. Verse
nine. And this person, he was made
a little lower than the angels. And that's speaking of his humanity.
Angelic beings are spiritual beings. And he was made a little
lower in his humanity. Why? For the suffering of death. He had to die. Now, why did he
have to die? Why did Jesus Christ have to
die? Now, many people today, they look at Christ's death as
almost like they would a Valentine card. It's just an expression
of love. Well, now listen to me. The death
of Christ for his chosen people is the greatest expression of
godly love that you'll find in redemptive history. There's no
doubt about that. But God's love is not why he
died specifically and basically. Why did he have to die? Because
of God's justice. God's justice demands it. The wages of sin is death. Back in the Garden of Eden, when
God set down the rules for Adam to follow, remember he showed
him the two trees? You had the tree of life, which Adam and Eve could eat
of freely. And then you had the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil, which represented God's sovereign
right as creator to set the standard of what's good and what's not
good, what's evil, what's right and what's wrong. God is the
standard of what's right and wrong. You know, one of the indictments
brought against sinful man in the Bible, in many cases of the
history of man, is that everybody does that which is right in their
own eyes. That's relativism. Oh, it may
be right to you, but it's sin to me and vice versa. No, God
has the right, as the sovereign creator, to say what's right
and what's wrong. And Adam disobeyed, but God told
him. He said, Adam, you can't eat
of that tree. And in the day that you eat of
that tree, you shall surely die. Dying thou shalt die. That's
what that means. The wages of sin is death. God
is holy, my friend. God is just. Listen, God cannot
ignore sin. God cannot deny sin. God cannot let sin go unpunished. And yes, God is a loving God. The Bible teaches that. But His
love can only be found in Christ. God's love is not just some blanket
pardon. You know, preachers today stand
in pulpits and they say, God loves you and Christ died for
you, now you make the difference. Do you know that is not in the
Bible? you will not find one evangelistic message preached
by a gospel preacher where he looked out over the crowd and
blanketly told everybody, well, God loves you, Christ died for
you, now you do your part. Or the rest is up to you. Now
they did say, they did preach God's love for sinners in Christ. The only way that I can experience
God's love is in Christ. Outside of Christ, there is no
love from God. It's only hatred. Now listen,
God's hatred is not like your hatred or my hatred. My hatred
is sinful. If I hate, it's sin. Because
I'm a sinner. If you hate, it's sin. But when
God hates, you know what it is? It's justice. Pure, unadulterated,
sinless justice. That's what it is. God's hatred
is his rejection of persons based upon a just and right ground. That's when he says, Jacob have
I loved, Esau have I hated. When God hated Esau, he just
given Esau what he deserved. Why didn't he give Jacob what
he deserved? Well, he decided not to. And
that's his prerogative. Now you read about that in Romans
9. But God's love for Jacob had
a just and right ground. And you know what it was? The
blood of Jesus Christ. The righteousness of Christ freely
imputed. Charged to Jacob's account. So
God is holy. But yes, He's love. God is gracious. God is merciful. But the problem
is this. How can God love a sinner like
me and still be just and right and holy? There's only one way.
How can He be both a just God and a Savior? And that's where
we come to the person and finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Listen. If God ever gave me what I deserve
or what I earn, it would be eternal damnation. So what do I need? Well, I need salvation by grace. So God chose His Son, God the
Father, the three persons of the Godhead, Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit, before the foundation of the world. Here's what the
Bible teaches, that God the Father chose His Son to be the surety
of His people, His chosen people, chosen in Christ before the world
began. Read Ephesians chapter 1 about
that and other passages. And He gave the people of His
choice to Christ. And Christ agreed because of
His love for the Father and His love for His people to do what
was necessary to save them. And that's why he came to die. He had to die to satisfy the
justice of God as the surety and substitute of his people.
Well, God cannot die. So what did he do? It says that
he was made a little lower than the angels. Now that's speaking
of his humanity. He had to be made flesh in order
to die. Look at verse 9 again, Hebrews
2. But we see Jesus, God our Savior,
who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering
of death. Now, after He suffered in His
death, it says He was crowned with glory and honor. He died
for his people, his sheep he calls them, his church, the elect. He was buried, but what happened? He arose the third day. Now why
did he arise the third day? Because he put away their sins. He paid the redemption price
with His blood. He satisfied the justice of God. He redeemed His people. They
were ruined by the fall. They've been redeemed by the
blood of Jesus Christ. And His blood equals righteousness. In the Bible, it's called the
righteousness of God. Paul wrote in Romans 1 16, For
I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, For it is the power
of God unto salvation to every one that believeth, to the Jew
first, the Greek also. For as it is written, for therein,
verse 17, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed
as it is written, the just or the justified shall live by faith,
by looking to Christ. The righteousness of God, what
is that? That's the entire merit, value,
worth of everything that the God-man, Jesus Christ, accomplished
on Calvary to save His people from their sins. That's what
it is. And that's what He did. That's
why He's crowned with glory and honor. He finished the work.
John 19, in verse 30, I believe, He said it's finished. It's accomplished. Romans 10, 4, for Christ is the
end or the fulfillment, the perfection, the finishing of the law to everyone
that believeth. And yes, they must believe. You
see, the fact that sinners must believe to be saved does not
deny the sovereignty of God or God's electing grace. Those who
God chose and those for whom Christ died will believe. But
look on in verse 9. He says he was crowned with glory
and honor that he by the grace of God should taste death for
every man. Now everybody capitalizes on
that every man. The emphasis goes there. But
now let me tell you something about that. First of all the
word man is not even in the original. It's the little Greek word that
means everyone. Okay? It's a pronoun and it has
to be qualified. Who's he talking about? Anytime
you see the words all Every, everyone, and also a word that's
not a pronoun. Anytime you see the word world
in the scripture, it always has to be qualified by the context. Who is he talking about? Who
is the every man here? Who is the everyone that he's
talking about? You say, well, you're just twisting
words. Now let me tell you something. Oh no, we do that in everything. If you're reading the newspaper,
If you're reading a book, you have to qualify those. There's
no doubt about it. If you go back to the book of
Luke, chapter two, you'll see that Augustus Caesar, who was
the Roman emperor at the time of the birth of Christ, how he
sent out a decree that the whole world should be taxed. Well,
does that mean every individual man, woman, child on the face
of the earth at that time? It means everyone in the Roman,
every citizen under the Roman rule has to be qualified. You read in passages like Romans
3.23, it says, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of
God. Does that mean everybody without exception? No. In other
words, when all have sinned, Christ is accepted. He didn't
sin. The elect angels are accepted. They didn't commit sin. Who's
that talking about? That's all men and women born
of Adam. That's who that's talking about.
Well, who is the every man, every one here? Well, now let me read
through these scriptures and I'm gonna come back next week
and I'm gonna continue this message, For Whom Did Christ Die? And
listen to what he says here. I'll read as much as I can with
the time allotted. But he says in verse 10, he says,
for it became him, it was appropriate to him, that is to God. This was fitting to God's nature,
to God's character. For whom are all things, and
by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory. That's who the everyman is, the
many sons. The children of God, the chosen
of God. And it says, to make the captain
of their salvation, that's Christ, perfect through sufferings. Now
that doesn't mean that Christ in his person was made morally
perfect by his sufferings. He was already morally perfect.
He remained morally perfect all the way through his suffering.
He's God in human flesh without sin, God-man without sin. When
He was on that cross dying for the sins of His people, it was
their sins imputed to Him, charged to Him, their sin debt. You see,
their guilt was charged, accounted, reckoned to Him. But He contracted
no contamination of sin. He had no sinful thoughts, no
sinful desires, no sinful motives. He was totally perfect within
Himself, yet He was guilty. Condemned. Yes, he suffered unto
death and justly because it pleased the Lord to bruise him. And what
was that based upon? Sin imputed. He was made sin. And so when it talks about he
was made perfect through suffering, what that simply means is that
he finished and completed and perfected the work that he came
to do through his suffering. His suffering unto death. When
Christ died, you see, He finished the work. And over in Hebrews
chapter 10 and verse 14, listen to this verse, and we'll come
back to this next week. It says, for by one offering,
that is His death, He hath perfected, Christ perfected, finished, completed,
forever, it says, them that are sanctified. Those whom God sanctified
in electing grace, those whom Christ sanctified in redeeming
grace, and we're going to see those who will be sanctified
in regenerating grace. They'll be born again by the
Spirit. They'll be brought to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Will Christ on the cross finish
the work of righteousness, of redemption, of forgiveness? and they stand before God justified
in Him based upon His righteousness imputed, charged, accounted to
them. That's their justification, you
see. That's their perfection. You
know, when God saves a sinner, He gives that sinner life. He
gives that sinner a new heart. He gives that sinner a new knowledge,
a new realm, a new way of living. But the only perfection that
that person can claim, that sinner saved by grace, is what he finds
completed and perfected in the Lord Jesus Christ as my surety
and my substitute. I stand before God in Him. Now,
if you don't believe that, don't sing my favorite hymn ever again.
My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame. but holy lean on Jesus
name on Christ the solid rock I stand all other ground is sinking
sand you see that's the issue The person and finished work
of the Lord Jesus Christ is the perfection of His people, and
that comes through His death for the many sons. They're called
every man in verse 9 there, but that should be everyone. But
who is the everyone? Who is the all for whom He died?
It's not all without exception. It's not every person. You see,
Christ didn't die to make you and me savable. He didn't die
to issue forth a blanket pardon to everybody and all we have
to do is just reach up and take a chunk with our belief. No,
He died for His people, the ones whom God gave Him, sinners saved
by grace. How do you know who they are?
They'll come to know and believe in Him and rest in Him as the
Lord, their righteousness. They won't trust anything else
or anyone else. They won't trust their works. They won't even trust their faith.
But by faith, they'll trust Christ. They won't trust in anyone or
anything. For forgiveness, for righteousness,
for eternal life, for glory, they look unto Jesus, the author
and the finisher of their faith. and their faith meaning what
they believe. They believe in Christ. You see,
faith has a foundation and faith has an object. It's Christ. Hope
you'll join us next week for another message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, Write us
at 1-1-0-2 Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia 3-1-7-0-7. Contact us
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today and may the Lord be with you.