Well, the text today is Romans
chapter 5 and verse 10. For if, when we were enemies,
we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more,
being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. Reconciled
by death, saved by life. In recent weeks, we've been thinking
about eternal salvation. Eternal salvation. There's the
kingdom of this world. in which Satan's delusion is
that there can be some sort of eternal peace without any satisfaction
of the justice of God. And of course that's set against
the kingdom of God. What did Jesus come preaching?
When he came preaching at the start of his ministry, what was
the start of his ministry? The kingdom of God is at hand.
Repent, get ready, prepare. The kingdom of God is at hand.
The kingdom of God. Where is the kingdom of God,
they asked him. He said, it doesn't come with observation. You can't
get a passport and go to one of the kingdoms. It's not like
that. For the kingdom of God is within His people. It comes
not with observation. And that kingdom of God is that
kingdom which is an eternal kingdom. An eternal kingdom of righteousness
and of peace. Of eternal bliss. And to be saved
is to be made fit to be a citizen of that kingdom. And to have
an eternal future. And to have a hope. a hope of
glory, a hope that this life is not the end, not the sum total
of our existence, but merely a foretaste That eternity is
the reality. The things of this world, the
temporal things, the solid things, these are the things that are
passing away. And the scripture tells us that it's the things
that we don't see with physical eyes, but that we see with spiritual
eyes. These are the things of eternal
reality. These are the things that last.
The things of eternal spiritual reality. Eternal salvation. What a glorious thing that is. You say, well, not many people
talk about it. No, they don't in these days,
but they have. There are some, and they have
in the past. Look at the hymns that we sing. Look at the experience
of those that wrote those hymns. The bliss of salvation. The hope
and the joy of salvation. We've been thinking about that,
and the assurance that it's ours. and it's our present experience.
How is it? How are we assured? How do we
have a present experience? It's by faith. by faith. What is faith? It's that sense
of spiritual things, the sight of the soul. That's how we have
assurance. The only assurance of faith is
faith itself. The fact that we have the faith
of God's elect is proof that we are among God's elect. That's
how we know that we're amongst the us and the our that the epistles
constantly talk about. It's our present experience by
faith, and the basis of it, as we saw last week, is utterly
objective. Yes, feelings have got everything
to do with it, but it's not based on our feelings. It is utterly
objective. When I see the blood, is what
God said to Moses about the Passover, and our Passover lamb, Christ,
is sacrificed for us. And God says, when I see the
blood, I will pass over you. The basis of our salvation is
blood redemption. It is such great salvation. How shall we escape if we neglect
such great salvation? When Peter read the reading to
us in Romans 5 earlier on, in verse 1 of chapter 5, therefore
being justified by faith, listen, we have peace with God. through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Peace with God. There is an enormous chasm between
God and sinful creatures that has been bridged. A chasm that
is so vast that we could never get ourselves across it. And
yet God himself has bridged that chasm. And how is it done? It's
all by the free grace of God. All of it is from God. We as
sinners are bankrupt. We have no currency with which
to move towards God. God has done all of the moving
in terms of him bridging the gap between us. and it's been
accomplished by the atonement, the at-one-ment. And that's by
the substitutionary death of the Lord Jesus Christ. All of
it based on death. It's His death that has secured
peace with God. The death of the Lord Jesus Christ
as the substitute of His people. In the decree of God, that death
has counted as the death that is due to His people. The soul
that sins, it shall die. It shall. That's certain. That's
the judgment of the law. That's the judgment of the justice
of God. And yet he's decreed that an
infinite substitute with whom a people, a multitude that no
man can number, has been put in eternal unity before the beginning
of time, that that one dying is exactly the same as each and
every one of those individuals dying the death that the law
demanded. It is accomplished by that death. Look at verses
6 and 7. For when we were yet without
strength, with no currency at all, no resources to get us to
God, in due time, at the right time, when the fullness of the
time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made
under the law, as a person with flesh and blood, the same flesh
and blood as the children, to die for the ungodly. the Eternal
Son of God, the Holy One, the Messenger of the Covenant, the
Messiah, the perfect representation of God, the manifestation of
God, in whom the fullness of the God had dwelt, yet in a body
born of a woman, made of a woman, made of Mary the Virgin. In due
time Christ died, not for good people, but for the ungodly. He died for sinners. Look at
it. Verse 7, Scarcely for a righteous
man would one... Would you die? If somebody who
you knew to be a righteous person was wrongly convicted and was
sentenced to death, and would you say, look, if it be possible,
this is such a good person, I will go and die in their place that
they might not die because they're so much better for people all
around than I will ever be. So I will give my life for that
person. Yet, peradventure, perhaps, for
a good man, some would even dare to die. Would they? I don't know. Would a man have done this for
another, to die in his place? You say, yes, in military service
people have. People have put themselves in
the line of fire that their that their comrades in arms have been
able to escape. Yes, it has happened, but it's
very, very rare. But look, God in Christ, God
commends his love. He recommends his love to us.
He shows us his love in that when we were shining examples
of goodness that were worth saving, it doesn't say that, does it?
It says, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. We use that
term loosely, that we're sinners. Oh, we're sinners. I know I'm
a sinner. Isn't everybody else a sinner?
Do you know the dreadfulness of that word? Do you know how
terrible that word really is? While we were absolutely vile
filth in the sight of God, Christ died for us. What love? He commends
his love to us. And how does he commend it? Because
he died for us when we were in the most unlovely condition. God in Christ paid redemption's
price, the price of freedom from condemnation for unjust rebels
such as we are. Now here's the key point of this
week's message. The objective fact of redemption
2,000 years ago, Christ dying on the cross of Calvary at that
point in history, there was one day out of all the days of the
history of this earth, there was one day when Christ died. That objective fact of redemption
2,000 years ago is experienced daily, today, in the lives of
all those whom he died to save. So the title is Reconciled by
Death and Saved by Life. You see, much more than being
now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through
him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by
his death, by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled,
we shall be saved by his life. Let's think then about reconciled
by his death. Reconciled. You see, by nature,
we're enemies of God. That's what we are by nature,
we're enemies of God. We're not friends of God. Verse
10, if when we were enemies, we are enemies of God by nature. We are, as Paul writes to the
Ephesians, children of wrath even as others. All of us, all
have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. There is none
righteous, no, not one. God looked down from heaven,
there is none righteous. The thoughts of the heart of
man are only evil continually in the judgment of God. That's
the way it is. The heart of man is deceitful
above all things and desperately wicked. And God is holy and pure
and righteous. And we, by nature, not just by
nature, but by performance, by act, are children of wrath. We're
rebels against God. We will not have this man to
rule over us as the Jews said of Jesus. Rebels against God
in whom we live. Do you know that our life derives
from the God against whom by nature we are rebels? As Paul
said to the Athenians, in Him, in God, He's not far from each
one of us. In Him, we, all of us, live and move and have our
being. We only exist because God exists. There's only life because God
exists. There's only life because God
upholds life. There's only breath in our bodies
because God gives us every breath. Don't think that it's yours as
of a rite. It's yours because God gives it to you. What a dreadful
state to be in, to be enemies of God. Because remember, God
is a consuming fire. Our God is a consuming fire.
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living
God. For God is holy and we are sinful. And yet this God is so
good. Our God is so wise and so good. What a dreadful state to be enemies
of God, from whom we derive our life, and yet this is the contented
state in which the majority of mankind seems to go ahead, worshipping
its idols at best, or worst, whichever way you want to think
of it. What a dreadful state to be in, to be enemies of God.
We're born enemies. We didn't become enemies, we
are born enemies. That's what we read in Psalm
51 earlier on. In sin did my mother conceive
me. He's not talking about the morals of his mother, he's saying
that that's the state that we come into this world, as human
beings, as the progeny of Adam. Descended from Adam, that's how
we come into this world. We have that innate tendency
to sin. There's only one that didn't,
and that's the Lord Jesus Christ. For Adam was not his father.
He was conceived of the Holy Ghost, not of a man. And we've
inherited Adam's nature. That's what we were reading in
Romans chapter 5 about one man's disobedience making many of us
sinners. Because of what Adam did, that
tendency is in every one of us. And then he goes on to say, so
by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. But look,
by nature, we have inherited Adam's nature. Psalm 58 and verse
3 says this, the wicked. Who are the wicked? Those that
do very wicked acts in our judgment. No, no, no, no, no, no. Don't
think of it like that. Do you know what the most wicked
thing is? It's to disbelieve God. It's to call God a liar. It's to shake your fist in the
face of God. It's to say I don't believe Him and I won't have
Him rule over me. The wicked are estranged from
God from the womb, from the moment they're born. They go astray
as soon as they be born speaking lies. It's in our nature. We
have a fleshly mind. Our mind, our thinking naturally
is a carnal mind and Romans 8 verse 7 tells us the carnal mind is
enmity against God. We're enemies against God by
nature. We're naturally opposed to God. We're opposed to his word. Oh,
I don't believe that. I'm not listening to all of this
stuff. No, no, no. We're opposed to his rule. God
says this. No, I'm going to do my own thing.
In fact, I think I'm wiser than God. I'm going to do things my
way, not the way His Word tells me to do it. No, I think we've
come to a state where we know a bit more than God and His Word
does. I'm opposed to His being, His
very being. Naturally, we're opposed to God.
It's all working enmities. As I said, it's not just a state
of mind, it's not just a state of heart, it's that which works
itself out. Colossians 1.21, you are alienated
and enemies in your mind. How do we know? By wicked works.
You do wicked works. You do the works of sinners.
You do the works of unbelievers. That's what we're all like by
nature as we go through this life. Would God be unjust if
he carried out the penalty instantly? No, of course he wouldn't. He
has done it at times in the past. In the days of Moses, in the
wilderness wanderings, there were those men who flew in the face of what God
was saying and wanted to take over power from Moses and say
that they had a right to lead the people as well. Korah and
Dathan and Abiram and they rebelled against the one that God had
said you will listen to him, Moses, his servant. And the earth
opened up and swallowed them. An earthquake came, a natural
disaster came, all in God's timing and at God's doing, and swallowed
them up. The penalty for sin, the soul
that sins it shall die, it was instantly carried out there and
then. For them and all their families
and all their possessions, the earth opened up and swallowed
them up. And so it has with many other examples. God is not unjust
if he implements the penalty immediately. But God, we read,
is a God of grace and of mercy. and he has an elect, a multitude
of people that no man can number in whom he has said that he will
be glorified for the greatest glory of God is the grace of
God. I will be compassionate on whom
I will be compassionate and I will have mercy on whom I will have
mercy. That is the great glory of God. Above all others, his great attributes
of glory are beyond our comprehension, but the greatest of all is His
grace and His mercy. And therefore, if he's a God
of grace who is determined to save and elect for his own glory,
he must reconcile these enemies. He must reconcile them. When
we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son. He must remove the enmity, the
thing that causes the division and the tension. He must remove
that which puts man at a distance from him, that creates that chasm
from his holy presence. You know you could have the situation
of two friends who get on very, very well and something happens
and they fall out over an issue and they fall out so severely
that they fail to talk and there's enmity between them. That enmity
that caused that division must be removed before there can be
reconciliation. Must be. it must be removed. For reconciliation to take place,
the enmity that caused the division must be moved. A few good deeds
can't make amends, you can't plaster over it with other things.
Just like the blood of bulls and goats can't remove sin, as
he said often in the scripture, it is only Christ as a fitting
substitute who can take away the enmity. The enmity is removed
under the decree of God at Calvary. At Calvary in the death of his
son, his holy son, his harmless undefiled son, his infinite capacity
son, in whom the fullness of the Godhead dwelt bodily, At
Calvary, the enmity is removed in the death of Christ, and God's
justice, which is offended by the sin of his people, is satisfied. And the anger of God that must
be shown towards sin, that anger which justice demands, that punishment
that justice demands, is propitiated, is turned away, because Christ
has died. When he said, it is finished,
The law said it's enough, that's it, it's enough. The law is satisfied
that for these sinners, the death of this one in whom those people
have been united in eternal union, the wrath of God is propitiated
and turned away. And the result, what we read
in verse 1, peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. This was
done, past tense, once for all. Read Hebrews chapters 9 and 10.
Once for all, once for all, once for all. This was done, past
tense, at Calvary. The veil of the temple was torn
in two from top to bottom. The veil that nobody could go
through. other than the high priest in picture once a year
on the day of atonement with an acceptable sacrifice but there
on that day On that day in Jerusalem when Christ died on Calvary,
the veil of the temple was rent in two and we read that that
was because He went, He went into the holiest of all, the
heavenly holies, not into the picture, the earthly picture
which is the temple, but into the heavenly holies for His people. How did He go? Whose blood did
He take? His own precious blood, the blood
of the Lamb of God. And it's before the beneficiaries
of that act even know about it. Those whom he has saved, the
elect whom he has saved, they didn't even know about it on
the day that it happened. Saul of Tarsus was a venomous
Pharisee, full of knowledge, full of his own self-righteousness,
full of trying to put down this sect, these followers of Jesus,
actually on the day of the crucifixion it was probably of such little
consequence to him, he didn't pay much attention, it was after
that, after the day of Pentecost that he started to get very agitated
about it, but this is the point On the day that Christ died Saul
of Tarsus didn't know, didn't experience that Christ had died
for him. Saul of Tarsus was reconciled
to God there at Calvary while Saul of Tarsus hated Jesus of
Nazareth. Think about that. He was reconciled
when he hated him. He didn't experience it until
later. Think of, again, two friends who fall out. Some issue crops
up, and there's enmity between them. And it causes years of
separation and years of bitterness. And it's bubbling away in the
background all of the time, the bitterness. And one of them contracts
a terminal illness. And in his illness, he writes
a letter of reconciliation to the other. It's before the days
of email. It's before the days of instant
communication. And the letter goes astray, and
the one who's written the letter of reconciliation, he dies, he
dies, that's it, that's it, you know? And the other one, finally
the letter arrives, and the other one opens the letter, weeks,
maybe months later, and reads what the friend who he becomes
separated from by enmity reads the reconciling words and is
reconciled to his friend even though his friend died weeks
before. He now feels the reconciliation
which should have been there at the time the other friend
wrote the letter before he died. So God's elect were reconciled
in Christ at Calvary 2,000 years ago. But they only feel the good
of it when given spiritual life by the Spirit of God. And even
then, we only feel the good of it to the extent that we know
something of the enmity, to feel something of the enmity that
exists by nature. To have a sense of our true state
before God as a condemned sinner is what we need. Some sense of
what we are as sinners before God. We're so small and so insignificant
like the ants scurrying around the garden down there. So small
and insignificant compared with God's infinite greatness and
goodness. What a dreadful state. To live
your life and die with God as your enemy. You say, God's not
my enemy, but I don't want anything to do with him. If he'll leave
me alone, I'll leave him alone. No, it doesn't work like that.
You are the enemy of God if you are not his child now. and to
live and die with God as your enemy, what a dreadful state
to be in. What a dreadful state to come to that day when you
leave this life. What good are human friends?
What good are human possessions, possessions in this world? What
good is anything if God is our enemy, if He is against us? Where are you going to go from
Him? You can't hide from Him. It's impossible to hide from
Him. Psalm 139, read it all. Where shall I go from your presence?
If I go into the depths of the sea, you're there. If I go down
into hell, you're there. If I go into heaven, you're there.
Everywhere. I cannot get away from God. How
will you value reconciliation that Christ has accomplished
fully without some measure of feeling something of the enmity
that existed. You must feel something of the
enmity that exists between you as a sinner and God who is holy.
And how are we reconciled? It tells us there in verse 10.
Reconciled to God by the death of His Son. It's the blood of
Jesus Christ that cleanses us from all sin. It's through him,
verse 11, look at the end of verse 11, through our Lord Jesus
Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement. In him the enmity
is taken away. It's not law works that take
away the enmity. The law cannot reconcile enemies. The rebellious spirit has to
be conquered by divine kindness. It's the kindness of God. The
grace of God, the loving kindness of God has to conquer the rebellious
spirit. The enmity has to be killed by
the love of God. The love of God kills off that
enmity that exists. It's only gospel that does this,
not law works, not the law. The law just shows us what we
are. The Gospel shows us the remedy. It's only the Gospel
that can do this. The reconciled soul views Christ
by the eye of faith. And viewing Christ by the eye
of faith feels the power of His death in the soul. The power
of His death which has taken away the enmity, the thing that
would condemn us, the thing that would curse us. He has removed
the curse of the law from us. How? By Him being made that curse
for us. The eye of faith looking to Christ
and feeling the power of His death grasps hold of the blood,
that currency which pays the sin debt. And reconciliation
is practically felt. We have peace with God. Justified
by faith, we have peace with God. I know that God is no longer
my enemy. I know that there is no enmity
between us for Christ has taken it away as far as the east is
from the west. He's removed our sins from us.
and being reconciled to Him. His commandments are not grievous
as 1 John 5 verse 3 says. Serving God is not a list of
tiresome duties as many religious folks make it out to be, but
serving God in the light of the knowledge of God's grace in Christ
and the enmity that has been removed and the peace that we
have with Him, it's liberty. It's liberty. As Jesus said,
if the truth shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. The
truth of God in the gospel of his grace makes his people free
from the curse of the law. You shall be free indeed. And
it's all constrained by gospel love in Christ, for the love
of Christ. You see, there's a lot of people
who teach you in these days that we need the law as our rule of
life to constrain us, otherwise we'll start killing people and
stealing things. But the law of God tells us that
we must not do those things. That's not what the Word of God
says. As I say, the law is to show us what we are and how desperate
is our need of a Saviour. But in Christ, the love of Christ
constrains us. The love of Christ is what draws
the lines for our behaviour and our attitudes. You see, it's
on the basis of the enmity being removed by Christ, and on that
basis, God's redeemed people love Him. and God's redeemed
people want to serve him and want to obey him and they're
motivated by not legal threat or the promise of a reward, but
by affection for him, by love for him. Do you profess faith? Have you experienced enmity under
the law? Have you found peace in gospel
reconciliation? These are real feelings. These
are real experiences. Psalm 89 verse 15, blessed is
the people that know the joyful sound. Do you know the joyful
sound? This is an allusion I think to
the bells that were on the robes of the high priest and when the
priest went into the Holy of Holies he could be consumed there
because God said if you come except in the proper and right
and defined way you will be killed. You know, he did this. Uzzah
was killed stone dead even though out of sincerity he tried to
stop the ark from falling off the cart. And God killed him
because it wasn't done in the way that God said. This is how
dangerous it is to be outside of the true gospel of grace.
But the priest would go in and he had bells on the hem of his
robe and the people would listen. It was the sacrifice accepted.
And if they heard the bells, that's the joyful sound. Golden
bells, that's the joyful sound. There used to be a hymn book,
didn't there? Still is if you've got a copy, called Golden Bells.
And that's the illusion, is the bells on the hem of the priest's
robe. It's the joyful sound of the
gospel. Blessed is the people that know
the joyful sound of reconciliation, of the enmity being removed by
the death of Christ. The death of Christ, that once
for all 2,000 years ago, thing, great thing, the great event
when he paid the penalty for the sins of his people. But he
didn't stay dead, did he? This is the glorious thing. Yes,
I'm so glad that the penalty was paid, that reconciliation
was made there, but you don't want to be like the criminal
that has paid the price of justice for his crime. and he's released
from prison in no better state than when he went in, because
he's still a criminal, with a criminal nature, with a criminal mind,
with a criminal intent. You see, in the gospel economy,
reconciliation at Calvary does not just release a felon, a sinner,
who has served his sentence, that's the justice dealt with,
but releases him, reformed with a new nature, with a new heart,
This is what I think he's meant by, where it says, reconciled
to God by the death of his son, much more being reconciled, we
shall be saved by his life. This is what I think he's meant
by being saved by his life. You know Galatians 2 and verse
20. Just look at it with me. where
Paul says in verse 19, he says, I through the law am dead to
the law that I might live unto God. And he says in verse 20,
I am crucified with Christ. When Christ died on Calvary,
taking away the enmity, I was in him. I am crucified with Christ. I was so united in the eternal
purpose of God with his son that when he died, I, as one of his
people, died there with him. Nevertheless, Although I'm crucified
with Christ, nevertheless, I live. I'm living now. Yes, it happened
2,000 years ago, but I'm living now. Yet, not I. Not the old me, but Christ lives
in me. And the life which I now live
in the flesh, even though the flesh is still sinful, I live
by the faith of the Son of God. I live by what He did and what
He accomplished in terms of my redemption. He loved me. He gave
Himself for me. Is that not a blessed thing? Is that not such a blessed thing?
Saved by His life. Recall the purpose of Christ's
coming. Let's think a bit more in detail
as to how does He save us by His life? Reconciled by His death,
you know, the sin penalty taken away by His death, because that
was the sin penalty, He has accomplished that, but how practically are
we saved by His life? Think about what is meant by
saved by His life. Think about the purpose of Christ's
coming. The angel came to Joseph, Matthew
1, verse 21, and said, you shall call his name. This baby, who's
being born, conceived of the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin
Mary, he said, you shall call his name Jesus. Why? Jesus means
Savior. Why are we to call him Jesus?
Or Joshua was the Old Testament name. Why do we call him Jesus? For he shall save his people
from their sins. It's salvation from sin. Salvation is from sin. What is
it that causes the chasm? It's sin. We've already seen
that. We've already seen it. Isaiah 59 verse 2. Your iniquities
have separated between you and your God. Your sins have hid
His face from you that He will not hear. It's your sin that
is the enmity. That's the cause of the enmity.
Jesus came to save his people from their sins. God cannot tolerate
sin. It is the root, it is the cause,
it is the substance of the enmity. It must be removed if enemies
are to be reconciled. We must be saved from our sins
to have peace with God. What is it about sin that needs
to be dealt with? Just quickly, five things. First
of all, sin when you know something of the person and the holiness
of God and a realization comes into your soul that you are a
sinner and a great offense to the God whom you should be loving
and adoring. It comes with a sense of guilt.
Guilt. There's the guilt of sin. A soul
awakened by God's spirit to our true state of sinfulness against
the holiness of God. This is what it is to be guilty
before God. Sensing God's justice, justly
condemning us. Not just feeling sorry for ourselves,
but feeling utter, utter repentance. Heartbrokenness for what we have
done. against the holiness and goodness of God, ashamed before
Him. You know how often he talks about
being ashamed in the judgment in Scripture. We're ashamed before
divine justice and there's a heavy burden placed on our conscience
so that Jesus says, all you who labor and are heavy laden, you've
got this heavy burden of sin, of guilt upon you. But Christ
was raised. for our justification. Romans
4.25, delivered for our offenses 2,000 years ago but raised for
our justification. Raised to newness of life that
we might have the life of God in our souls. Our sins were nailed
to the cross and paid for there but by his resurrection life
He now saves His people from the guilt of sin. His resurrection
life has removed that guilt, because we know it's taken away.
The sins of Judah and Israel will be looked for, and there
shall be none, for Christ has taken them away. He's taken away
the guilt of sins by His life, by His resurrection life. It
has removed the enmity. Secondly, sin. is filth. You know, some of these old hymns
that we sing, you occasionally read verses that talk about the
filth of our sin, the filth of our sin. And you think, oh that's
a bit hard, that's a bit uncouth, that's a bit unrefined language,
isn't it? No, sin before God is utter defilement. It's utter defilement, a defiled
imagination. Job chapter 9 talks about this,
you know, how should a man be just with God? And in verse 30
he says, if I wash myself with snow water, the cleanest of water,
and make my hands never so clean, cleaner than they've ever been
before, yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch. and mine own
clothes shall abhor me. This is what I am by nature.
However hard I might try, I'm filthy, I'm vile in the judgment
of God. If we ever see by faith God in
his holiness, and us as sinners, it will be, now listen to this
because this is true, it's a metaphor but it's true. It will be as
if we've fallen into a pit of sewage. Oh, did he say that? Yes, I did. Because I'm trying
to get across the concept of how vile and revolting it is. Can you imagine, just imagine
that you're out in the countryside, and occasionally you come across
a really, on some farmland, you come across a really revolting
pit of foul-smelling, corrupt, polluted water, and it's full
of manure, sewage, or whatever else. It's really disgusting,
and you slip, and you fall into it. Can you imagine coming up
out of that? Can you imagine your desperate need to get those
clothes off, to tear those filthy clothes off, to get washed, to
get clean? Think like that. in terms of
the way God views sin. He calls it a stench in his nostrils. But the blood of Jesus Christ,
what does it say? What does John say? It cleanses
us from all sin. And then the filth of it, but
look, Think about it. As much as what I've just said
about its filth, do we not love it? In our bodies, in our natural
bodies, do we not love it? Despite its filth, we naturally
love sin. It's always there, hidden in
the recesses of the mind. It's there, secretly amusing
us in the quiet recesses of our mind. The law forbidding it can't
kill that love of sin, but the love of another can. The love
of Jesus Christ can. The love of God in Christ kills
that love of sin. He saves us from our sins. And
then there's the power of the sin within us. The bondage of
the will was a book written by Martin Luther. The bondage of
the will. The will's not free to do what they want to do, but
they're in bondage because the will is naturally tainted towards
sin. Why does sin have such power? Because we love it. We love it,
what we said the last one, we love it, that's why. You think
about things that cause problems in society, alcohol, drugs you
would say for health, nicotine, you name it, anything else. Why
does it exercise such power over so many people? Because they
love it. They love the alcohol too much, can't give it up. They
love the nicotine, they love the drugs too much. Take away
the love of those things and the power of those things is
gone. In Romans chapter 6 and verse 14, Paul says, For sin
shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the
law, but under grace. Grace has taken away that power. Grace has freed us from the power
of sin. In Christ is where it comes.
We're married to another. Romans 7 verse 4, Wherefore,
my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of
Christ, that you should be married to another. He's broken that
marriage bond with the law that constantly condemns us. And he's
married us to himself. He's wed us to himself, even
to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth.
that we should bring forth fruit unto God, freed from its power
by grace in Christ, married to another. You see, it's the love
of sin that gives sin its power, which leads to the repeated practice
of sin, the practice of it. The life of Christ saves us from
the settled practice of sin. The Spirit washes the soul from
the defilement in Christ's redeeming blood. His love overcomes our
love of sin. His power overcomes sin's dominion. His grace keeps us from evil. So he taught his disciples to
pray, lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. It
is only Christ and the gospel of his grace that can do this.
Not Moses, not law, not anything else. Reconciled by death, but
saved by life. If you want this peace with God,
where do you go? You don't go to the tomb. The
disciples went to the tomb on the day of the resurrection.
And he was not there. The angels said, he's not here.
He is risen. We don't go to the tomb. We rejoice
in the fact that he died and removed the enmity, but he didn't
stay dead. We go to the risen Christ. We
go to him. Where is he? He says in Revelation
1, he's walking amongst the golden candlesticks. This is true gospel
religion. It isn't burdensome duty religion,
but it's the living Christ in the soul. All else, as Saul of
Tarsus later said, as Paul the Apostle, all else is done. I count it all done. This is
the foundation and the experience of a good hope of eternal glory.
Is it yours? Amen.