Let's go to 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians chapter 15. 1 Corinthians 15, we'll read the
first 10 verses. Moreover, brethren, I declare
unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also you have
received, and wherein you stand, by which also you are saved,
if you keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless you have believed
in vain. For I delivered unto you, first
of all, that which I also received. How? that Christ died for our
sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that
he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he
was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve. After that he was seen
of above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater
part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After
that he was seen of James, then of all the apostles. And last
of all, he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.
For I am the least of the apostles, and am not meet to be called
an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the
grace of God I am what I am, and his grace which was bestowed
upon me was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than
they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me."
Now, Paul wrote to these Corinthians, "...for I delivered unto you
first of all that which I also received." How? That Christ died for our sins
according to the Scriptures. And he tells us, "...and he was
buried, and that he arose again the third day, according to the
Scriptures. I've titled this message exactly
that, According to the Scriptures. Now, when Paul says he delivered
unto them which he also received, he clearly declares that all
he was and all that he knew, all the knowledge he had of God
and of Christ, everything that he possessed was given unto him. earned, it was given unto him.
And it says it was received by him. In Acts chapter 20, we find
Paul at Miletus speaking to the elders from the church of Ephesus.
And in verse 24, he tells him what it is that he received.
He says this, speaking of the troubles and afflictions that
he endured when he began preaching the gospel. But none of these
things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so
that I may finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I
have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify of the gospel of the
grace of God." This is what he first delivered to the saints
at Corinth, the gospel of the grace of God, that abundant grace,
that exceedingly rich grace which is found in our Lord Jesus Christ,
in the very essence The very heart of that gospel is this,
how did Christ die for our sins? His death was not some haphazard
occurrence that happened because this mob got out of God's control. No, no, no, no. Every single minute detail of
the life and particularly of the death of Christ was done
according to the Scriptures. Now, can I back that up? I can
if you believe the Scriptures. If you don't, we really don't
have anything further to discuss. Now, we have to understand that
this God who we worship is no ordinary God of man's imagination. He sees all things in the present
tense. That's why He refers to Himself as I Am. Now, He tells
us about Himself in Isaiah 46. If you want to turn over there,
Isaiah 46. We wouldn't know anything of
this God had He not told us by revelation. In Isaiah 46, beginning
in verse 9, we read this, Remember the former things of old, for
I am God, and there is none else. I am God, and there is none like
Me. Okay, so we have to ask, what makes you so different from
the other gods that men worship? This. declaring the end from
the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not
yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all
my pleasure, calling a ravenous bird from the east, and the man
that executeth my counsel from a far country. Yea, I have spoken
it, I will also bring it to pass, I have purposed it, I will also
do it. There is no other God that can
make that declaration." And that's a pretty bold statement. How
can we be sure that this God can follow through on what He
promises? I mean, what if He meets opposition from men? Because
of what we read in Daniel 4.35, that old so familiar verse, "...and
all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing. He doeth
according to His will, in the army of heaven and among the
inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay His hand or say
unto Him, What doest Thou? Now Christ Himself made this
clear to His disciples in Matthew 28 when He told them, All power
is given unto Me in heaven and in earth. And as our pastor told
us many times, if He has all power, that means nobody else
has any. So he that has all power cannot
possibly be overruled by those who have no power. This is how
he accomplishes all things that come to pass according to the
Scriptures. All which God has purposed, He
has the power to make happen. Psalm 117 tells us this, The
works of His hand are verity and judgment. All His commandments
are sure. And the reason they're sure is
because they're built on a sure foundation, the Lord Jesus Christ
Himself. Isaiah 28.16 tells us as much. It says, Therefore, thus saith
the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion a foundation, a stone, a
tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation. And 2 Timothy tells us, nevertheless
the foundation of God standeth sure, because that foundation
of God is the Lord Jesus Christ who has all power. And David knew that this was
true when he made this statement in 2 Samuel 23. He said, although
my house be not so with God, yet he hath made with me an everlasting
covenant, ordered in all things, and what? Sure, for this is all
my salvation and all my desire, although he maketh it not to
grow, the everlasting covenant that God made with his Son in
eternity past to redeem an untold number of men and women out of
the human race to be his for eternity. Now, when Paul told
the Corinthians that Christ died according to the Scriptures,
we need to understand And many of those things that were written
of Christ were written hundreds, if not thousands, of years before.
The first of which we read in Genesis, when after the fall
God told the serpent this, And I will put enmity between thee
and the woman, and thy seed and her seed, and it shall bruise
thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. This is the first promise
we have of a Deliverer that was to come. And the manner in which
He came was unlike any other human being that was ever born.
Isaiah 7.14 describes it. He says, "...therefore the Lord
Himself shall give you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive
and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel." Everything
about the life of our Lord was supernatural. and miraculous,
starting with His very conception in the womb of a woman who had
never known a man. And we know that that is physically
impossible unless God performs it. So all that being said, I
want to look at some of the promises in God's Word about both the
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and those things concerning about
how Christ died according to the Scriptures. We'll look at
these in no particular order. In Zechariah 13.7, we read this,
in Zechariah 13.7, "...Awake, O sword, against my shepherd,
and against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts,
smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered, and I will
turn mine hand upon the little ones." Now we're going to look
at this word, smite, in depth in just a few minutes. And our
Lord Himself told the disciples that this verse spoke of Him,
because He said in Matthew 26, Then saith Jesus unto them, Ye
shall be offended because of Me this night, for it is written,
I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall
be scattered abroad. But all of His disciples were
adamant that they would not forsake Him, even if it meant facing
death. And we know how that turned out.
The shepherd was taken and smitten, and the sheep were scattered.
And all of that was done according to the Scriptures. It was written,
therefore it must come to pass. Now next we look at Christ as
a Passover Lamb. This is pictured in Exodus 12.
In this chapter is where we find God giving Moses and Aaron instructions
concerning the first Passover. In verse 5 we find the requirements
of the lamb that was to be slain. And it says that it shall be
without blemish, a lamb of the first year. And verse 6 gives
us instruction at the time of day that the lamb was to be slain.
And the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall
kill it in the evening. Now this is the time of the Jewish
evening sacrifice, which was 3 o'clock in the afternoon. We
have to remember that the Jews did not count their days as we
do. They had twelve hours in the day, twelve hours in the
night. Our Lord told us that in the Gospels. And the time
of the Jewish evening sacrifice was three in the afternoon. And
this is also the time which Matthew 27, 46 tells us was the time
at which Christ died. The ninth hour of the day. The
time of the evening sacrifice. All done according to the Scriptures.
Now, since Christ was typified as a Passover Lamb, then He must
be slain during the Passover. And so it was. Our Lord died
as the final Passover Lamb that was required. His blood was required
by God's law in order to pay for our sins, which we read of
in Hebrews 9.22 when it says this, And almost all things are
by the law purged with blood. And without shedding of blood
is no remission. Our sins could not be purged
until the blood of Christ was shed. This is why John the Baptist,
looking upon Christ as He was coming to Him to be baptized,
said, Behold, the Lamb of God. This same Lamb which Abraham
spoke of when he told Isaac, the Lord will provide Himself
a Lamb. And the manner of Christ's death
had to be according to the Scriptures. He could not die from stoning,
as the Jews attempted. He could not die from a fall,
which they attempted to throw him off a cliff at one time,
and Satan took him to the temple and set him up on a pinnacle
and bid him to cast himself down. He could not die from drowning
or any other means except that which was prophesied in Deuteronomy
21-22. It says, And if any man have
committed a sin, worthy of death, and he be put to death, and thou
hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain upon the tree,
but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day. For he that is
hanged is accursed of God. That thy land be not defiled,
which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance. And
we know definitely that this verse speaks pertaining to the
death of Christ, because Paul wrote in Galatians 3, Christ
has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse
for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone that hangeth on a
tree. But we have to ask, why was his
death necessary? He himself was completely innocent
of any infraction, of God's law or even Roman law, for that matter.
Pilate admitted this when he said that he found no fault in
Him at all. So why must He be put to death?
Because of what we read in Ezekiel 18.20, "...the soul that sinneth,
it shall die. The Son shall not bear the iniquity
of the Father, neither shall the Father bear the iniquity
of the Son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon
Him." and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him." Notice
that it said, "...the soul that sinneth, it shall die." Now,
all sins committed by mankind upon this earth are committed
in the body, and yet we're told that it's a soul that is never
dying. We have an eternal soul. The
body dies and perishes and rots away, but the soul of man and
women live forever. But this verse also tells us
that each person is responsible for the deeds done only by them
and not the deeds of others. The righteousness of the righteous
is not transferable to the wicked, and it tells us that the wickedness
of the wicked is not transferable to the righteous, not by the
will of man. We cannot transfer these attributes
to one another as we would transfer money or possessions. And we
don't have any righteousness to transfer anyway, even if we
wanted to. You can't give someone something
that you don't possess. But there was a mighty transfer
of sin and righteousness that was done by the God of this universe.
Isaiah 53 tells us as much. He said, And the Lord hath laid
on Him the iniquity of us all. And also in verse 11 of that
chapter, By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify
many, for he shall bear their iniquities. And that's not all
he bore for us, because verse 4 tells us, Surely he hath borne
our griefs, and carried our sorrows. The wickedness of the wicked
was put upon him who was altogether righteous. And when that took
place, There was only one possible outcome. He upon whom the wickedness
of the wicked was found must suffer the punishment for that
wickedness that was laid upon Him. But thankfully, this was
not a one-way transfer because we read in 2 Corinthians 5.21,
that verse that we know and love so well, because it contains
our only hope of ever having any righteousness. For He hath
made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be
made the righteousness of God in Him. That righteousness of
Christ Himself is ours because of the blessed transfer that
took place before the world began. We're found in Christ. The first chapter of Ephesians
tells us that. We won't read it for time's sake. And we've been delivered from
any chance of suffering the wrath of God because of the wrath that
was due our sins has already been exhausted upon our blessed
Savior. Proverbs 11 verse 4 speaks of
this. It says, "...riches profit not in the day of wrath, but
righteousness delivereth from death." So if we're found clothed
in the righteousness of Christ, we have been delivered from death
as described in 1 Corinthians, the same chapter that we read
the first few verses. It says in verse 54, Death is
swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting?
O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and
the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth
us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. The imputed righteousness
of Christ delivers us both from death itself and from the fear
of death. And this entire transfer of our
sin to Christ and His righteousness to us took place according to
the Scriptures. The words that our Lord cried
out to the Father from the cross are spoken by David in Psalm
22 when he begins that psalm with these words, My God, my
God, why hast Thou forsaken me? These are some of the last words
that our Lord spoke before He said it is finished. and yielded
up the ghost, as described in Matthew 27. Now, in the three
hours in which our Lord hung on the cross, He spoke several
times. He said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Now, considering the unimaginable agony that our
Lord was suffering, I find that statement astounding. As for the words of that old
hymn, praying for sinners while in such woe, no one but Jesus
ever loved so. As He suffered for His elect,
their eternal welfare was foremost in His mind, because He knew
that many of those who were witnessing His murder that day would be
saved on the day of Pentecost. You can read it when you get
home in Acts chapter 2. And as he was hanging there,
he spoke to the thief and told him, today thou shalt be with
me in paradise. And as he hung in that agony,
he was not only concerned for his elect, he was concerned for
his own dear mother. And he made sure that John knew
that he was responsible for her from that moment forward. That's
why he said this, He said to Mary, Woman, behold thy son,
referring to the apostle John. And then he said to John, Behold
thy mother. And we're told that from that
hour, that disciple took her into his home. Another thing he proclaimed from
the cross, he said, I thirst. Now in experiencing the agony
of the damned in hell, Our Lord was much like that rich
man that we read of in Luke 16, who cried out, Father Abraham,
have mercy on me and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his
finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame. Try to imagine the torment that
you're suffering when you're begging for simply a single drop
of water upon your tongue. And keep in mind that this rich
man was suffering for only his sins, whereas our Lord was suffering
the wrath due to an innumerable company of His elect. Is it any wonder that He cried
out, I thirst? And then we're told he cried
with a loud voice, it is finished, and lastly he said, Father, into
thy hands I commend my spirit. And when the scriptures give
us a description of the sufferings of the damned in hell, it talks
of weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth, the screams of agony
that would be expected from those suffering unbearable pain. Yet
our Lord endured the punishment of an untold number of chosen
ones, And we do not read anywhere in God's Word of Him so much
as crying out the least whimper of the torture that He was suffering.
Any mortal man would have screamed until his vocal cords were shredded,
and he could scream no more. But our Lord never uttered a
single cry of woe except this, when He cried out, My God, My
God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? This was the most horrendous
suffering which he experienced, being deserted by that One with
whom he had enjoyed just untold trillions of years of perfect
harmony. The Father was with him as he
was being beaten and scourged, but once he was hung on that
Roman tree, the Father's presence was gone. And there was only wrath to take
its place. Now much of Psalm 22 speaks of
the things that happened to our Lord when He was being executed.
His being rejected by the Father, being a reproach of men, being
mocked of men for His sufferings, His bones being out of joints,
His hand and feet pierced, the parting of His garments, all
were prophesied in Psalm 22, hundreds and hundreds of years
before our Lord lived. And they were fulfilled to the
letter by the Roman soldiers during His crucifixion. I did
a lot of research on how the Romans crucified their
victims and the methods that they employed. And I have to tell you, there
was a couple of times when I just stopped reading and had to come
back to it later. is unimaginably brutal. When this text speaks of the
Lord's hands and feet being pierced, it's describing the method that
the Romans used to secure their victims to the cross. Now keep
in mind, the nails that were used were not ordinary little
round nails like we have today. These were tapered iron spikes,
usually about five or six inches long, and each blow of these
spikes split the bone and split the nerves and split the blood
vessels even further, causing pain with each strike of the
hammer. And since the palms of the hands, doctors tell us, cannot
support the full weight of a body, they said the Romans usually
drove these nails in just below the thumb. And there's a nerve
called the median nerve that runs through there, and damage
to that nerve causes excruciating pain in both the arms. Similar damage was done to the
feet as our Lord was hung on the tree. Spikes were driven
through the feet. Most times the feet were nailed
to the front of the cross, and that caused the feet to be bent
in an unnatural plane, again resulting in unimaginable pain
in the legs and feet. Further, the position of the
hanging body made it extremely difficult to breathe. The victim
could not get enough air into their lungs without trying to
push up with their feet, which of course resulted in unbearable
pain. So basically, as they hung there,
they suffocated to death. Doctors tell us that this results
in an unusually high amount of carbon dioxide in the blood. and that that leads to muscle
cramps throughout the body. Have you ever had a charry horse
in one of your leg muscles or arm muscles? It's excruciating. Now imagine that through your
entire body. And the abuse that our Lord endured
at the hands of the Roman soldiers was also predicted in the Scriptures.
In Isaiah 50, we read this, I gave my back to the smiters, and my
cheeks to them that plucked off the hair. I hid not my face from
shame and spitting. And we find the fulfillment of
this in Matthew 26, 67. It says, Then did they spit in
his face and buffeted him, and others smote him with the palm
of their hands. And then they followed this with another evil
game. It says, And when they had blindfolded him, they struck
him in the face and asked him, saying, Prophesy, who is he that
smote thee? In that verse we just read in
Isaiah, it says, I gave my back to the smiters. And this was
fulfilled in Mark 15. One of the reasons I think that
our King James Version is the best version is that many times other versions,
used similar words. This word, I gave my back to
the smiters. I looked at other translations
and it said, I gave my back to those that whipped me or I gave
my back to those that beat me. But this word smite, it means
to inflict a heavy blow upon someone as with a tool or a weapon. And notice the wording here.
It says, I gave My back to the smiters. He did this of His own
free will. And too often when we're reading
Scriptures, we read right over a phrase and don't really stop
and think of the full meaning of it. It's verse in Mark 15,
verse 15. It says, Then released He Barabbas
unto them. And when He had scourged Jesus,
He delivered Him to be crucified. Now this act of scourging that
is spoken here, that we sometimes read over,
was an extremely cruel and torturous practice. The criminal was first
stripped of all garments and either tied to a pole or stretched
over a rack. And the scourge spoken of here
was not an ordinary whip, not like an ordinary bullwhip, The
scourge consisted of several braided leather bindings, leather
strips, and they were attached to a short wooden handle. But
tied into these strips were iron balls and pieces of either jagged
bone or metal, so that when the victim was whipped, each strike
would cause severe deep bruising and ripping open of the flesh
from the jagged bone or metal pieces as they were dragged across
the victim's body, like a plow would open up the soil. And the
first blows would tear open the flesh on the surface of the victim's
back and legs and buttocks. Then with each subsequent blow,
the bruising and tearing of flesh would go deeper and deeper into
the victim's body. And so severe was this process
of scourging that many times, The victims died of blood loss
and shock before they could be crucified, but this could not
happen. This could not happen to our
blessed Lord, because after He had endured the wrath of man,
as gut-wrenchingly horrible as it is, He must stay alive a few more
hours. to endure something much, much
worse. God the Father allowed these
depraved men to have their enjoyment in meting out their hatred on
the Son of God. But what they did, as unimaginably
horrible as it was, pales in comparison to what the
Holy God of this universe was about to do. He was about to administer a
punishment, the horror of which is far, far
beyond anything that a human mind can comprehend. He was about to inflict on his son
the equivalent of an eternity in hell in three
terrifying hours. The equivalent of an eternity
in hell that would have been suffered by an innumerable number
of his elect people. And the Roman soldiers who relished
every minute of this cruel abuse did so according to the Scriptures. And lastly, His burial and resurrection,
we're told, was according to the Scriptures. Isaiah 53-9 tells
us that Christ made His grave with the wicked and with the
rich in His death. We read the fulfillment of this
in Matthew 27, starting in verse 57. After the Lord's death, it
says, when even was come, There came a rich man of Arimathea,
Joseph, who was himself Jesus' disciple. He went to Pilate and
begged the body of Jesus. And Pilate commanded the body
to be delivered. And when Joseph had taken the
body, he wrapped it in clean linen cloth and laid it in his
own new tomb, which he had hewn out of the rock. And he rolled
a great stone to the door of the sepulcher and departed. And
the Gospel of John also tells us that Nicodemus, who came to
our Lord by night in John chapter 3, also came to help with this
burial and said he brought with him about a hundred pound weight
of myrrh and aloe to use in the preparation of the body of Jesus. And I want you to stop and think
for a minute about this task which these men undertook. Here's the body of a man whose
face is so beaten and marred that he's unrecognizable as a
human being. The Scriptures tell us he was
marred more than any man, and this is a horrible result of
the beating that was inflicted upon him by the Roman soldiers,
whose brutality knew no limits. We have to understand that these
soldiers are what we call battle-hardened. They had looked men in the eye
on the battlefield as they lopped off heads, and plunge her sword
into him. They were not the least bit bothered
by what they did to the Lord. They had done much worse in hand-to-hand
combat. And we have to understand that
the Lord's body was no doubt craked with dry blood and probably
stunk from the sweat that the Savior emitted during His torture. His back was an unimaginable
gory mess of torn flesh, probably his ribcage and spine were exposed. And the cleaning and preparation
of this body would have been a gut-wrenching, vomit-inducing
task. Yet, despite that, these men
completed the task that was necessary. They did it out of love. But
the true reason they did it was because in God's good providence,
the Scripture said it must be so. And His resurrection, we're
told here in 1 Corinthians 15, happened on the third day according
to the Scriptures. Now, none of the things that
happened in the life or death of our Lord was done by men who
knew the Scriptures and just wanted to make sure they fulfilled
them to the letter. No, this was all done because
God made it happen exactly as He said He would in His Holy
Word. He purposed it and He brought
it to pass. Now as I close, I want to say one final word
to those who are sitting here today who may hear this message
in the future who do not know our Lord Jesus Christ and saving
faith. I've explained everything about
His life and death. how it was done according to
the Scriptures, because what God says will happen absolutely,
surely, will come to pass. So that being the case, I want
to remind you of the fact that there are numerous Scriptures
that will also come to pass, that are spoken of by God in
His Word, warning what will happen to those found outside of Christ
in the day of judgment. Psalm 917 tells us, The wicked
shall be turned into hell. John 3.36, our Lord said, He
that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, and he that
believeth not on the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of
God abideth upon him. The wrath of God clings to you
like a deadly cancer waiting to be administered. Our Lord said this in Luke 12.
He said, I say unto you, my friends, be not afraid of them that kill
the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But
I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear. Fear him which after he
hath killed hath power to cast into hell. I say unto you, fear
him. There are many, many more verses
that warn lost men and women of what awaits them after this
life ends. But sadly, most of those warnings
go unheeded, looked upon as just silly old wives' tales. And men and women that ignore
those warnings will do so to their eternal regret. I think
often that warning that Paul gave the Galatians, be not deceived,
God is not mocked. You're not going to spit in God's
face and get away with it. Be not deceived, God is not mocked,
for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. You
will for eternity suffer the reward of your ungodly life here
on earth. But the good news is it does
not have to be that way. This God who we worship, delights
to bestow mercy. And He has provided a way for
you to escape His wrath. And it is found in His blessed
Son, who stood in the place of hopeless sinners and redeemed
them with His blood. The question is this, will He
show you mercy? Or will He leave you to perish? You need to understand that the
choice is not yours, it is His. So I would encourage you to do
this, to put yourself under the hearing of the gospel of Christ
crucified every chance you have, because that is a method that
our God has ordained, bringing lost sinners to faith. And maybe,
just maybe, He may yet show you mercy. I've asked Bill to close
our service with singing Blessed Redeemer, And as we sing this,
I want you to pay attention to the words. Bill.