Matthew's Gospel presents unto
us the coming of Messiah, the King, and his preaching about
the kingdom of heaven and the citizens of the kingdom of heaven.
And in the context of the kingdom of heaven, paramount in Matthew's
Gospel is the teaching of righteousness, For none shall enter the kingdom
of heaven except the righteous. There is no entrance into the
kingdom of heaven for those who remain sinners. And though Christ came to save
sinners, as we're told in Matthew one, that his name shall be called
Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. It is
that people saved from their sins who are made righteous and
fit for heaven. Early in Christ's ministry in
Matthew's gospel, we do of course have his teaching from the mount,
commonly called the Sermon on the Mount, where he expounds
the righteousness of God. where he contrasts the righteousness
of his children, his sheep, his disciples, with the righteousness
which was taught in the law. Often throughout that discourse
he says it is written, you have heard that it was said by them
of old time, thou shalt not kill. But I say unto you that whosoever
is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of
the judgment. It is written, it is said, but
I say unto you. He shows that the righteousness
of his people in the kingdom of heaven not only accords with
that righteousness which Moses expounded in the law given on
Sinai, but it transcends it. Accept your righteousness, exceed
that of the scribes and the Pharisees. You shall not enter into the
kingdom of heaven. Exceeds that. This is not to say that we are
to work harder at being righteous than the scribes and the Pharisees. For we cannot. And the scribes
and the Pharisees, despite their outward righteousness and their
upright conduct, were described by Christ as being like whited
sepulchres. Outwardly they appeared righteous,
but inwardly in their hearts they were filthy and black. So
too with us. Whatever attempt you may make
at being righteous, whatever attempt you may make at walking
right before God, whatever good works you may render, you have
a filthy and an iniquitous heart. And there is nothing that you
can do about such a heart. You can conceal its fruit on
the outside, You can make an appearance before men that your
heart might be other than what it appears. You can make others
think that you are righteous. But God looks not upon the outside. He looks upon the heart. And
the all-seeing, all-knowing eyes of the Lord God penetrate deeper
than any man's eyes can see. And He sees you laid bare. unrighteous,
iniquitous, a sinner, guilty. Then how you may ask is any going
to have righteousness which exceeds that of the scribes and the pharisees? And how therefore can any enter
into the kingdom of heaven Well, not by their own strength,
clearly. None were so diligent and religious
as the Pharisees and the scribes, and they could not attain unto
this. Then Christ, when he speaks of our righteousness, exceeding
that of the scribes and the Pharisees, speaks of something else. He
speaks of righteousness coming from a different source than
from your hands. And he speaks of a different
quality of righteousness than that righteousness which the
scribes and Pharisees sought to produce by setting themselves
to the keeping of the law of God. He speaks of a greater righteousness. It's Matthew's gospel. has much
to say about righteousness. And here in the third chapter
of Matthew, where I draw your attention this morning, we read
a reference to righteousness. When Christ is baptized at the
beginning of his ministry by John, John the Baptist in the
wilderness. We read in chapter three in verse
one, that in those days came John the Baptist preaching in
the wilderness of Judea, and saying, Repent ye, for the kingdom
of heaven is at hand. For this is he that was spoken
of by the prophet Isaiah, saying, The voice of one crying in the
wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his path straight. And the same John had his raiment
of camel's hair, and eleven girden about his loins, and his meat
was locusts and wild honey. Then went out to him Jerusalem,
and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan, and were
baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins. But when he saw many
of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, These men,
these religious men, whom Christ says our righteousness should
exceed, these morally upright men, these who were held in high
esteem by the public at large, these of all men who people would
say are righteous. When he saw many of the Pharisees
and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, generation
of vipers who have warned you to flee from the wrath to come? A generation of vipers what a
description would you describe yourself in
such terms you who think you are fairly upright moral righteous
You who attend church, you who pray, you who read the scriptures
as the Pharisees and Sadducees did. What would you think if
John came unto you and said, O generation of vipers, unto
you? Who have warned you to flee from
the wrath to come? Would you not be filled with
rage and indignation? But what is true? What of your heart? Forget what you present before
others, be honest, be open. What is your heart like? You've held off the shame and
reproach of man. You can hold your head high in
most circles, But what are you before God? Would he say unto
you that you are a viper, a serpent, wicked as your father, the devil? Satan is wicked. Do you have
a wicked heart? Is it all but a show? Or is there something changed
about your heart? John goes on, bring forth therefore
fruits meet for repentance. And think not to say within yourselves,
we have Abraham to our father. For I say unto you that God is
able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. And
now also the axe is laid unto the roots of the trees. Therefore
every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down
and cast into the fire. forget your upbringing. It's
no good that you've been brought up in a Christian home. It's
no good that you're born of this stock or that stock. It didn't
help these Pharisees. What mattered was the fruit that
the trees brought forth. Every tree which bringeth not
forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. I indeed
baptize you with water unto repentance, but he that cometh after me is
mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear. He shall
baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire. whose fan is in
his hand and he will freely purge his floor and gather his wheat
into the garner but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable
fire. What is John speaking of here?
Well he is of course speaking of the one who would come after
him the one of whom he was the forerunner, the one who went
in the wilderness preparing the way of the Lord. He speaks of
the coming of the Lord, of Christ, of the Son of God, of the Saviour,
who is mightier than him, whose shoes John is not worthy to bear,
the one who would come to baptise with the Holy Ghost and with
fire, the one whose fan is in his hand. The one who will gather
the wheat into the garner but will burn up the chaff with unquenchable
fire. One who will come to judge and
to judge in righteousness. One who will come to divide the
wheat from the chaff. One who will come to separate
those who bring forth good fruit from those who bring forth bad
fruit. One who will come to separate
those who truly are righteous from those who think they are
righteous. One who is mightier than he.
Where will you stand at his coming? If the words of John offend you,
should he call you a viper? Where will you stand when one
comes to baptize with the Holy Ghost? And with fire, will you
be baptized with the Holy Ghost? Or will you be burnt up with
the baptism of fire? Are you wheat or are you chaff? Does your righteousness exceed
the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees? Then we read this remarkable
account of Christ himself coming unto John. Then cometh Jesus
from Galilee to Jordan unto John to be baptized of him. But John
forbade him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and thou
comest to me. And Jesus answering, said unto
him, Suffer it to be so now. For thus it becometh us to fulfil
all righteousness.' Then he suffered him. And Jesus, when he was baptised,
went up straightway out of the water. And, lo, the heavens were
opened under 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. This is my beloved Son in whom
I am well pleased. Yes Jesus comes unto John and
John knowing who he is and what he is before Christ. John having
been taught of God and knowing that he is not righteous John
not being deceived as these scribes and Pharisees were, knew what
he was by nature, he knew his heart and he knew that he needed
to be baptised, he needed to be washed, he needed to be cleansed,
he needed to be changed, renewed. He needed to repent, to have
a change of thinking, a change of mentality. He needed to be
converted, to be turned around, to walk another way. He was the
one in need of a baptism. And yet here comes Jesus unto
John and asks John to baptize him. He's turned the other way round. And this startles John. And yet
Jesus gives the answer why. For Jesus answered and said unto
him, Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfill
all righteousness. Then he suffered him. Thus it
becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. So John baptized. Why was Christ baptised? And
what is the answer to the need of righteousness which exceeds
that of the scribes and the Pharisees? Christ was baptised because,
he says, thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Now in this baptism and in this
account, We see this glorious picture of the Son of God. We see his glory revealed. We
see the heavens opened and the Spirit of God descending upon
him like a dove. We see the voice from heaven
that says, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. What an account this is. And
why is God so pleased with His Son? And what brings the Spirit
down from heaven upon Him? Because this baptism, what it
pictures, fulfills all righteousness. But what does it mean to fulfill
all righteousness? What does Christ mean by this,
to fulfill all righteousness, by being baptized with John?
Did his actual baptism here fulfill all righteousness? Does baptism
fulfill righteousness? Should you be baptized, will
that fulfill righteousness? When Christ went under the waters
and came out again, had that actual act fulfilled all righteousness? Well no it hadn't. Going underneath
the waters and coming out of the waters again is not a fulfillment
of righteousness. Either Christ's baptism or your
baptism. Baptism is the figure and the
picture. It's not the actual act here
that Christ is referring to when he says it become if us to fulfill
all righteousness. But what this was the picture
of. He came to the Baptist the one
who baptized men and women as a figure of their need to repent. And he showed unto him and those
who watched which baptism would bring in righteousness. It's
not the baptism that fulfilled righteousness, but that baptism
which Christ would undergo when he died in the place of his people. It's that baptism when he was
baptized from fire which rained down from heaven above. It's
that baptism which he would suffer when God in almighty justice
and vengeance poured out his wrath from heaven above upon
Christ as he was nailed to the cross in the place of his people. It's that baptism which he would
suffer as a substitute for his people. It's that baptism which
he would suffer as the one who was made to be sin in the place
of his people, as the one who bore the sins of his people. It's that baptism which Christ
has in mind when he says here, suffer it to be so now. for thus
it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. That baptism,
that death, his death fulfilled all righteousness. Notice the word in here when
he says suffer it to be so now. The it to be so has been inserted
by the translators. Literally in the Greek it simply
says, suffer now, for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. Then he suffered him. This baptism was a baptism of
suffering. When Christ died, he suffered
for his children. He suffered for John. He was
baptized, though John needed to be baptized. John deserved
the outpouring of wrath against his sins. Yet Christ came to
John and stood in his place, and Christ was baptized instead
of John. Suffer now. It was Christ's suffering
in his baptism, in his death, which fulfilled all righteousness. Then if so, it is through his
death, and through his death distinctly, in which righteousness
is fulfilled. It becometh us to fulfill all
righteousness. This is the central point that
Christ makes here. How will we have righteousness
that may exceed the scribes and the Pharisees? And how shall
that righteousness be fulfilled and made to be ours? Through
death. Through death. This is repeated
in many places throughout the scriptures, in many places throughout
the epistles. Whenever righteousness and justification
is spoken of, it is always connected with Christ's death. And the
fulfillment of righteousness is always connected with Christ's
death. In Romans chapter 8, Paul writes,
there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus,
who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit. For the
law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus have made me free
from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do,
in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son
in the likeness of sinful flesh and forcing condemned sin in
the flesh that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled
in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. Here Paul makes it clear that
what the law could not do through man for man was a sinner was
fulfilled in Christ And it was fulfilled in Christ when Christ
laid down His life and when God in Christ condemned sin in the
flesh. Here is its fulfillment, at the
cross in the condemnation of sin in His flesh, that the righteousness
of the Lord might be fulfilled in us. Likewise Romans 5, God commendeth
his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died
for us. Much more than being now justified,
made righteous by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath
through him. Romans 3, Therefore by the deeds
of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for
by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now in the gospel the
righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being
witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness
of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all
them that believe, for there is no difference. For all have
sinned and come short of the glory of God. being justified
freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through
faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission
of sins that are past through the forbearance of God, to declare,
I say, at this time his righteousness, that he might be just and the
justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. How is God's righteousness
declared? And where is it manifested? Where
is it revealed? Where is it made known? Through
His death. Justified freely by His grace
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God has
set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood. It's all at the cross. When Christ was baptized in the
place of his people, thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. You see the word righteousness
can be translated in more than one way. The Greek behind this
is translated here righteousness. It can equally be translated
justice. In context, in some places in
the scriptures it would be translated justice, in other places righteousness. But it's the same Greek word.
In the English we tend to think of them in two different respects.
Righteousness we tend to think of as respecting character or
conduct. Justice we tend to speak of as
respecting the outpouring of the penalty of law. against those
who have failed to meet a certain standard of character or conduct.
But the word is the same and when Christ died it fulfilled
all justice. For the justice or the righteousness
of God was indignant and raged and burnt with wrath from heaven
above against all unrighteousness of men. as it tells us in Romans
1 18. God is angry with the wicked
and his righteousness and justice demands an answer to their deeds. Their actions, your actions,
my actions bring down a righteous response from heaven upon our
heads. This is the righteousness of
God. It has an answer to our unrighteousness. Our sinfulness demands a price
be paid. And that price is death. The soul that sinneth, it must
die. That price is death. We are all
sinners. We all, like sheep, have gone
astray. We all stand guilty before a
holy God. And the strict justice of his
own character, and the strict justice of his law as given on
Mount Sinai, demands the death of the sinner. That is the penalty. and that price must be paid,
that righteousness, that justice must be answered and must be
fulfilled. Now it shall either be fulfilled
in those who are like chaff, burnt with unquenchable fire
and an eternity to come. or it will be fulfilled for those
who were like the wheat gathered into the garner, who have another
who stands in their place, who fulfilled all righteousness for
them. And that other who stood in the
place of those who were gathered in as the wheat is the Lord Jesus
here. And that fulfilling of all righteousness
on their behalf was when he swallowed up the wrath of God against them
at the cross in their place. The righteousness, the justice
of God must be fulfilled and must be answered. There is no
letting off. God does not save by turning
an eye away from the sins of his own people. He does not simply
choose to save a people and say I will ignore your iniquities. I will simply turn a blind eye
to them. He is a God that delights in
mercy. He is a God who loves with an
everlasting love. He has a people, a great multitude,
elected and chosen in his son from before the foundation of
the world unto salvation. He has a people for whom Christ
came. Thou shalt call his name Jesus
for he shall save his people from their sins. Christ came
to save that people whom he loved. Yet that love is not at the expense
of God's justice, his righteousness. And that justice and that righteousness
would be fulfilled in its entirety. Not one spot or blemish on any
of God's people, on any of those children, on any of Christ, on
any of the wheat that will be gathered in, not one spot or
one blemish, not the least of sins, not the smallest of sins. not the least of things that
you'd hardly even look at and think was sinful, not the least
would be spared, all would be answered and all would be judged
and judged with an almighty fury which if not answered in Christ
will be answered with unquenchable fire upon the soul that dieth
not, upon that soul, the sinner, the worm, that dieth not in the
fire to come. Yet in Christ, for those whom
he loved, that righteousness and that justice, that inflexible
unmoving justice of God, to which he must be true, though at the
same time He is loving and merciful to His own, that justice would
be answered and would be fulfilled. And only by answering and fulfilling
that justice could that people be saved, could He show mercy
and love unto that people, could they be delivered from death. And in Christ, in His baptism
on their behalf, in that baptism of fire, it was answered. It was answered entirely. It was answered completely. All
righteousness was fulfilled. Everything was answered. Every
debt, every penny was paid in full. There's not one penny left
to pay. There's not one sin that has
not been blotted out for his own. All has been answered. And in Christ they go free. In
Christ the sentence from above sounds on that day of judgment. God the Father looks and he looks
at them in his Son and he sees them and he sees righteousness. Righteousness, perfect righteousness. Righteousness which exceeds that
of the scribes and the Pharisees. He sees the righteousness of
God. in his son, he sees a debt paid
in full, he sees perfection, and he says of them, not guilty,
you may enter my kingdom, you are my own, you are the children
of God, you are those whom I set my love on from all eternity,
thou art righteous. Yes, when Christ died, He fulfilled
all righteousness, all righteousness. But we may ask, what then of
his life? If all righteousness is seen
as shown to be in the baptism of Christ, in his death, what
we may ask of his life? Do not many speak of his life
being a life lived under the law? A perfect life, a righteous
life. Was not that life a fulfillment
of righteousness? Did he not keep the law throughout
his lifetime? Was he not sinless? Did he not
come to do the Father's will? Well of course he did. Lo, I
come to do thy will. He came always to do the will
of His Father. And of course He is sinless from
the womb. He never sinned. He never committed
one unrighteous deed. This is the Lord Jesus, the Son
of God. He's perfect in all His ways. Did He not honour and magnify
the law? Of course He honoured and magnified
the law. The law found not one spot or
blemish in Him. If it had, then he could not
have been baptized as a substitute for his people. He could not
have been sacrificed as a sufficient sacrifice to save his people. For had he broken the law in
one jot or one tittle, had he broken the law in the slightest,
had he ever sinned, had he never kept that law in perfection,
had he never been perfect in every respect, had there been
one spot or blemish in Christ in his lifetime. then he would
not have been a perfect lamb to be sacrificed on behalf of
his people. He'd have been dying for his
own sins. He'd have been answering the
judgment of God against his own sins. Then of course he was perfect. Of course he honored and he magnified
the law. The scriptures everywhere tell
us that he was sinless. They tell us that he was made
under the law to redeem those that were under the law. They
tell us that he honoured and he magnified the law. He fulfilled
it in his keeping of it. He honoured it. He established
it. He showed it to be perfect. He
was the only one who honoured and magnified the law. The only
one. And yet, That is not what is
in view here in the baptism of Christ when Christ says that
it suffer it to be so now for thus it become of us to fulfil
all righteousness. He does not speak of his life
or his need to live under perfection under the law. He does not say
that that is the fulfilment of righteousness. Certainly righteousness
was demonstrated by his life But the context here is his death. And though Christ was made under
the law, we read that he was made under the law for this end,
to redeem those that were under the law. He was placed under
the law that he might be placed under its judgment against those
who didn't keep it. The law had no judgment and no
penalty to pronounce upon Christ himself, for he always kept it. But as Him who was made under
the law, when God laid upon Him the sins of His people, that
law then sounded out against Him in judgment. And it's when
there was no righteousness to be seen, when the Son of God,
the Holy Son of God was made sin upon the cross, when He became
the sin bearer in substitution, that is when righteousness needed
to be fulfilled for that was when there was no righteousness
to be seen that was when there was sin and that was when the
righteous judgment of God sounded out in judgment and in penalty
against sin. That was when righteousness was
fulfilled in his death, in his baptism. We may speak of the need for
a righteousness to be wrought. People tell us that Christ wrought
righteousness in his lifetime. He wrought out a human righteousness
under the law, that he could then impute that to those whose
sins he took away in his death. But is that what is meant here
by the fulfillment of righteousness? Well that is not as I have said
the context here in the baptism of Christ. The context there
is the baptism as a figure of the death. Is a vicarious law-keeping meant
as the fulfillment of righteousness? Well it's not what the baptism
of Christ points to is it? And it's clearly not what Paul
has in view in the various chapters in Romans that we looked at.
For Paul speaks nothing of the law keeping life of Christ in
those passages, but his focus is entirely upon the death of
Christ. Then whatever we may say of the
perfections of Christ in his life, for he was perfect, and
whatever we may say of his fulfilling of the law's demands upon him
as a man, for he did fulfil them. And whatever we may say of his
establishing the law in that sense, and of magnifying and
honouring it, it is not what these passages regarding righteousness
in the gospel and the fulfilment of righteousness in the gospel
are speaking of. We may say that righteousness
was fulfilled in Christ's death because in his death he was made
to be sin on behalf of his people. He bore their sins and bearing
those sins he became before God as one who was black. and that
blackness that iniquity needed to be borne away and as it was
borne away under the almighty judgment of God and the outpouring
of his wrath as that blackness was as it were burnt away by
the fires from heaven and all was judged and all was taken
away and all that was left at the end when Christ cried out
it is finished was righteousness. In that sense we can say that
righteousness was wrought. For it was wrought where at one
point it was not. We as his children, those who
are his, as they were united to Christ, as those who were
unrighteous, were those who had no righteousness. But as God
judged his people in Christ, as he judged their sins in Christ
at the cross, as he blotted out their sins in Christ at the cross,
righteousness was wrought. Sins were borne away, sins were
blotted out, sins were burnt up under the wrath of God. And
where there was at one point, at the beginning of the hours
of darkness, at that point there was no righteousness to be seen,
but the blackness of Christ's people in him. At the end of
those three hours, when all the wrath of God had poured out upon
him, and no more sin was left to be seen, righteousness was
seen, then righteousness was wrought in the death of Christ. But righteousness is wrought
where there is no righteousness. So it can be wrought in us as
we die with Christ, as we are crucified with Christ, it was
wrought through his death as he suffered on our behalf to
take away our sins and bring us in righteous before God. But
it cannot be said that it was wrought as such in his lifetime,
because he began righteous and he ended righteous. He was no
more righteous when he died than he was when he was born. What Christ's lifetime did was
to demonstrate his righteousness. He fulfilled the law in the sense
that he answered its every demand, he magnified and honored it.
For throughout his lifetime, every day, every hour, every
passing month and year, throughout his lifetime, all that could
be seen in Christ was righteousness, perfection. He always was righteous. He was the righteousness of God
in a man. He always was. He magnified the
law as the only one who was righteous. The righteousness of God was
displayed in Christ. But it could not be said that
it was wrought, for he did not begin with no righteousness. displayed that he was righteous. And it's that righteousness of
God in Christ which through his death is made to be his people's
vicariously when their sins were taken away as they were united
under him in death. Their sins were blotted out and
all that was left as they were united with Christ, all that
they became in Him was the righteousness of God in Him. And this must be so. For Paul tells us in Galatians
that righteousness could not have come through the law through
our keeping of the law, or indeed through Christ's keeping of the
law on our behalf. But it must come through his
death in order to take away our sins and to make his righteousness
as God, ours as we are united under him. Paul says in Galatians
2, if righteousness came by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.
If his life was walked, lived, in order that he might produce
a righteousness, then he had not need to die. We would have
been righteous in him before his death. But his life was that
which displayed the righteousness of God, which he already had,
which would be wrought and made to be ours through his death,
substitutionally and vicariously, in order that we might be made
righteous in him through death. through the baptism of Christ
where he fulfilled all righteousness. Righteousness is wrought where
it is not, in an atonement, in a substitutionary atonement,
in the shedding of blood by the just for the unjust. This is not simply the righteousness
of a man, but this is the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ. This is not just a human righteousness,
but a divine righteousness. This righteousness, all righteousness,
which Christ speaks of here is not only the righteousness demanded
by Moses' law, For if we had kept that righteousness perfectly
from our birth until all our lifetime, all that it would bring
us is continued life in this world. But the righteousness
which Christ brings in through his death, the life which he
brings in, is eternal life and an everlasting righteousness,
a divine righteousness, a righteousness which had no beginning and no
end for it is God's made ours in Christ. The righteousness
which we have in Christ is consistently spoken of in the scriptures as
the righteousness of God in Christ. Though many often speak of the
righteousness of Christ, that phrase as such is never used
in the New Testament. And the reason it is never used
is to make it distinct and clear that the righteousness we have
in Christ is not unique to Him as a man, but is the righteousness
of God, divine righteousness, which is made ours as we are
united to Christ as our Savior. but which is that righteousness
which he brings in from his Father, an everlasting righteousness,
a righteousness which answers to the very character of God
in himself, not a mere earthly righteousness for men and women
living upon this earth which regards their conduct in this
earth as Moses' law did. as it has its command regard
in adultery and your conduct towards your neighbor but a righteousness
which exceeds and transcends that the very righteousness of
God all righteousness Christ death his baptism fulfilled all
righteousness It brings in a greater glory than that which is seen
in the law. As 2 Corinthians 3 tells us that
the gospel, that righteousness in the gospel is more glorious. It transcends, it reaches higher
and wider and deeper. It reveals the grace of God. It reveals the love of God in
one wonderful and distinct way. And I close by showing you this
way. What sets the righteousness of
God in the gospel apart from the law? Well, where did the law ever
demand that a man die for another? Where did the law demand that
a righteous man should die in the place of another? We know
that Christ died for his people. We know he laid down his life.
And we know that it was the judgment of the law upon him that brought
down the penalty of God upon him. But that penalty did not
come upon him in himself as one who lived under the law, for
he was perfect and that law never demanded that he die. Should
he render perfect obedience unto the law which he did, then he
would live. The Lord's judgment was for those
that broke it. And Christ's death under the
law was because he was the substitute of those who broke it. And he
laid himself under the yaks of the law willingly for those who
broke it. He was not demanded to lay down
his life for another. Yet his love, his mercy, his
wonderful grace for sinners, Caused him to go to the cross
willingly. Caused him to suffer. Caused
him to be nailed to the tree. Caused him to bear the wrath
of God for his own. Caused him to die. And in this
we see the righteousness of God displayed. A righteousness which
goes so far. A righteousness which loves the
ungodly. the unlovely, the undeserving,
a righteousness which loves rebels, a righteousness which loves those
that deserve judgment, a righteousness which saves, a righteousness
which brings grace, a righteousness which is greater than any righteousness
you'll see in the law. the righteousness which is revealed
and manifested in the gospel and the gospel alone and a righteousness
which when fulfilled in entirety brings down from above the Spirit
of God, who came down, descending upon Christ like a dove, and
lightened upon him. And lo, a voice from heaven saying,
this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. This is my
beloved Son. When Christ died, he fulfilled
all righteousness. He answered, oh, every price,
every judgment, every demand. And as a result, the voice cried
out from heaven, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And the Spirit of God descended. And should you ever know this
righteousness, should you ever be given faith to see and to
behold your righteousness in Christ, the righteousness of
God made yours through Christ's death. then it will be because
the Spirit of God has descended upon you to open your eyes and
to show you the Son of God. And that Spirit will descend
because Christ was baptised in fire instead of you, to manifest
and to reveal the fulfilment of all righteousness in His death. for you. Do you know this righteousness? Do you know this gospel? Do you
know this savior? Do you know the power of his
gospel? Do you rejoice in it or are you
ashamed of it? Paul wasn't, because he could
say, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, For it is the
power of God under salvation to every one that believeth,
to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For therein is the
righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith. As it is
written, the just shall live by faith. Amen.