Catechism Question 25
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· 1 viewQuestion #25 of the Baptist Catechism
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Characteristics of the Redeemer
Characteristics of the Redeemer
Question: Who is the redeemer of God’s elect?
Answer: The only redeemer of God’s elect is the Lord Jesus Christ, who, being the eternal Son of God, became man, and so was and continues to be God and man, in two distinct natures and one person, forever.
Main Proposition:
Statement of Doctrine or Application (SILVER BULLET)
We need to (Truly) know the real Jesus
Intro:
Statement of proposition:
What a great time of the year to talk about our redeemer (Jesus Christ) as we go into this Christmas season. Each year I feel like the world pulls further away from Jesus Christ and focuses more and more on the secular view of Christmas. I really want us as a ministry to align our hearts and our minds on the true meaning of Christmas and that is the birth of the Messiah.
Illustration: It started with Starbucks Christmas drinks and now we have “Inclusive Holiday drinks”
As we know, In order for anyone to get to the father we must go through the son. We must have a saving faith in Christ. In order to have a saving faith in Christ we must know the Jesus of the Bible. If you don’t come to the realization that Jesus is 100% man and 100% God, that Jesus is 100% obedient, sinless, righteous, sacrificed his life on behalf of God’s elect. That he is the only person to ever live this kind of life. If someone doesn’t view him as their Lord and Savior than they do NOT know him at all. When it comes to salvation almost doesn’t get you to the finish line.
The only thing that could suffice for our redeemer is perfection. Perfection in attributes that nobody else could achieve. Only God is perfect.
Jesus isn’t just someone we can add to our lives like a sports team or athlete. We can just be like “oh yeah, I’m a huge Jesus fan this season. My dude is putting up huge numbers this year” It does not work like that.
We are to give up every other master to gain Christ.
“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.
Are you willing to sell everything you have in order to gain Christ as your Lord and Savior.
Illustration:
There are people and religions that genuinely think that Christ’s perfect, obedient, sinless, righteous life wasn’t good enough. We need more. What Jesus did was good and all, but.... it doesn’t quite give us what we need to make it to salvation.
I think it is hilarious when the Catholic Church says its faith in Christ + human Works = Salvation. Like what a man can do is going to make up the difference for what you think Christ didn’t do?
Because I am such a great person I can make up the difference. (Makes Sense) Sarcastic tone.
Other texts that support
For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily,
Christ possesses the fullness of the divine nature and attributes
For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,
The only mediator that can restore the severed relationship between God and us is Christ Jesus.
Why does this matter?
As true believers we need to have true faith in the true Jesus. There are a lot of religions that say that know who Jesus is, but when you listen to their theology they are off. It doesn’t matter if they are off by 1% or 95%. If it is anything, but 100% they are worshiping a Jesus that does not save. Here’s the thing: If our theology on Christ is wrong that means our eternal salvation is wrong.
There are so many attributes that Christ had that are 100% necessary for him to redeem us, but also attributes that we will never have in our tool kit.
Illustration: As humans we have limitations. Even If I were to practice 40 hours a week for 10 years at a basketball I will still never be a NBA caliber player. Why? because certain attributes that is required to reach that level God did not give to me. Likewise, God only gave certain attributes to Christ and no matter what we do or try we will never reach those specific attributes.
3 Saving Characteristics that made Jesus the one and true redeemer:
Obedience
Sinlessness
Righteousness
1 Characteristic all believers must have:
Humility
Main Point #1: The Obedience of Christ
Statement
The first characteristic we will discuss is Christ’s perfect obedience to God. Obedience meaning compliance with an order, law or submission to another authority. For us, we are never perfectly obedient to God. God requires perfect obedience to fulfill this attribute. Christ has it and unfortunately we will never possess it because of Adam’s disobedience to God. We are descendants of Adam so we inherit his sin nature which prevents us from perfectly obeying God’s law. So know we are going to get into Christ’s will to do his fathers’ work.
Prove
Christ’s obedience is broken down into two types of obedience
Active: Christ’s perfect obedience to the moral law
Passive: The death that he willingly suffered (Also known as his passion)
Because of Christ’s perfect obedience we are imputed his active and passive obedience for our justification
Double Imputation: Believer’s sins are imputed to Christ and Christ’s righteousness is imputed to them
Christ willingly gave up his righteousness, obedience and sinlessness to us and in return he took on our sin, the penalty that came with it i.e. God’s wrath.
Active Obedience:
We need to start in Romans 5:17-19
For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.
Because of Adam’s act all who are descendents of Adam are in transgression to God’s laws.
Since we are born disobedient we are automatically disqualified to be perfectly obedient which takes us out of the running to be the redeemer.
Adam’s one sin caused all in the human race to be born into corruption and death and judgment.
The evil of Adam has been more than conquered, more than neutralized. It has been completely canceled.
Disobedience corresponds to condemnation; obedience corresponds to justification.
All of Adam’s people are marked with disobedience and all of Christ’s people are marked by obedience. The whole human race falls into one of these two categories:
Adam; disobedience, death, condemned
Christ; alive, justified, righteous
One word that pops out to me in verse 17 is “much more” and we see it multiple times throughout verses 9-20.
We see it in reference to “those who receive the abundance of grace”
What Paul is getting at is that yes, Adam had a huge impact on humanity, BUT Jesus Christ’s impact will be much more than Adam’s.
The law was created to show us our awareness of sin, to increase the character of sin, reality of sin, for us to face the fact that we are so easily excited and enticed to sin. That is the purpose of the law.
It was never to give us righteousness, the law had become a tutor to lead us to Christ.
It is to show us that we can’t keep the law, we will never be perfectly obedient to the law. It points minds and our hearts to Christ.
Christ kept God’s law.
Passive Obedience:
Christ’s passive obedience is His willingness to sacrifice his life for us on the cross.
In John 5 He says that He set aside His independent authority and He acted only according to the will of the Father.
Because He willingly obeyed obeyed Himself, He set aside things that he was entitled to.
God is life and he cannot die. but the depth of his obedience, is that he comes all the way down not just to being human, not just to being a servant, but to death. This was his ultimate act of obedience.
This was not a natural death either. It is not like he dies peacefully at the age of 89 without all his disciples around his bed. This was an execution. It was murder. It was an unjust slaughter of the Son of God.
We need to start in Philippians 2:8-11
And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
God is life and he cannot die. but the depth of his obedience, is that he comes all the way down not just to being human, not just to being a servant, but to death. This was his ultimate act of obedience.
This was not a natural death either. It is not like he dies peacefully at the age of 89 without all his disciples around his bed. This was an execution. It was murder. It was an unjust slaughter of the Son of God.
This was the most painful, humiliating, cruel kind of death that we can imagine.
No dignified person would ever be put on a cross, only the most vile criminals, the lowest of the low would be put to death this way.
Christ went through this pain, this horror, embarrassment and on top of that the wrath of God for us (God’s elect).
Christ knew the will of The Father. There was no way around it. It had to be done this way. Each of us deserved that kind of death.
It was only because the obedience of Christ to the Father that this was accomplished. He was obedient because he knew that none of us could.
Flowers in texts:
Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.
Illustrations
When I was s freshman in college I had to take a religion class and the professor was trying to tell us that up until he was baptized, started his ministry that he lived a life just like everybody else. He sinned, he fell short of God’s laws. There was nothing special about Jesus until he started his ministry. Looking back at it now and clearly he has some very wrong theological teaching points. In reality we all know now that Jesus wasn’t just some guy, that did good, he was the Son of God, Perfectly obedient to God’s laws.
The sad part about that story is that some people really think that Christ was not perfectly obedient to God The Father from the time of conception to death
I think that it is important for all of us to realize that Christ was not just obedient to God during the time of his ministry. He was obedient to God from the time of conception.
Apply or Confront
As humans we cannot consider ourselves obedient to God without Christ.
Christ is obedient to God without us.
Main Point #2: The Sinlessness of Christ
Statement
The second attribute that we are looking at is Christ’s sinlessness. We are all born with sin nature because we are descendents from Adam. Jesus was not. Jesus is 100% God and 100% man. Sinless. The only person EVER to be sinless from the time of conception to death. Abraham, Moses, David, Mary born in sin. Adam was sinless until he wasn’t.
I feel like some people think that Christ was not tempted at all, that he was in the flesh, but at the same time wasn’t tempted by the world. That is not the case.
Prove
Because of our flesh, we cannot keep God’s laws
It was on Jesus Christ that the sentence of execution for sin was placed
In the body, in the human nature, in the flesh of Christ, God unloaded His fury against sin.
He became man in order that he might die in man’s place
He came in our likeness which included everything of human nature
We see it in 2 Corinthians 5:21
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
God knew that the only way that we could be redeemed people, that the relationship between the creator and his creatures could be repaired was if God took the form of flesh.
As believers and even unbelievers we need to come to the realization and fact that Christ fought the human battle under human conditions.
He was still 100% human and still lived a sinless life under the same circumstances that we face today.
As we see in Matthew 4:1-11
We know that God is not the agent of temptation, God does not tempt people, but as we can read in the book of Job, God can use Satanic temptation to serve his sovereign purpose.
In this passage we can see that Christ was tempted 3 times:
“Lust of the flesh” in verse 2-3
And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”
Christs response in Matthew 4:4
But he answered, “It is written, “ ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ”
Everything that is presented to us in this world is temporary. We can gorge ourselves and a few hours later we will be hungry again.
Giving into impure thoughts and ideas will give you a sense of temporary happiness, but that will wear away and the result is that you compromised yourself.
Here Christ knows what the ramifications are to his actions. He spent 40 days in the desert and was tempted with food. Here he is 100% human. He is hungry, but what are the ramifications if he gives into this earthly temptation. Humanity will lose their chance for salvation.
“The Pride of Life” in verse 5-6
Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, “ ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and “ ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’ ”
Here we are looking at a 400ft temple. Kind of high in my opinion.
Here we can see how smart and cunning satan is. He use scripture to try and back up what he says. Even though the context in which he used is incorrect he still shows that he knows how to manipulate people.
For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.
He completely twisted the meaning of this passage, He is trying to use this passage about trusting God to justify testing him.
“I can do all things through a verse taken out of context”- my keychain
We all know people that try to misuse scripture passages to justify their sins. In your mind you may have justified it, but in your heart where only God can see knows what is right and wrong.
We see the big 3: John 3:16, John 14:6 and Philippians 4:13 as the big examples of passages used out of context.
“The lust of the eyes in verse 8-9
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.”
Power is a very tough and enticing tool for sinful humans to give up or walk away from. Why? Because power usually leads to status, money, etc.
How many people are willing to give up their morals, their faith in Christ, their character for power in the world today. Everybody has a price?
It is one thing to say in this safe place of a room I would never compromise my morals, my relationship with God if it meant that I could get ahead, get more money, more, power, more authority, more fame. What is your price? It is completely different in the real world and when somebody offers you the “world” like Satan did to Jesus at this time.
For an unbeliever or a professing believer this could be easier to give into.
For a true believer, Satan can’t steal you away from God, but he can make your life a lot harder and tougher.
Christ’s response Matthew 4:10
Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’ ”
Flowers in texts
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
but your iniquities have made a separation
between you and your God,
and your sins have hidden his face from you
so that he does not hear.
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
Illustrations:
Growing up in the Catholic Church one thing that I saw a lot of was the worship of Mary.
Praying to Mary for the forgiveness of sins, etc.
They teach you that Jesus was not the only person that lived a sinless life. That Mary lived a sinless life
Mary lived a life free of sin as well.
They use Mary as a mediator for us to God. Instead of Jesus.
Apply or Confront
Main Point #3: The Righteousness of Christ
Statement
What do we mean when we say righteousness?
The standard that is normally understood as morally good, such that the expectations and requirements of relationship toward God and neighbor are satisfied
Righteousness is that attribute by which God’s nature is seen to be the eternally perfect standard of what is right.
Prove
Christ was able to perfectly fulfill the law. He fulfilled all righteousness and thus He needed no savior, because he kept the law perfectly. He lived a perfect and righteous life.
Christ fulfilled God’s moral law and maintained a righteous nature (Morally right or justifiable)
Christ spoke out against false righteousness that is found in those who trust in themselves as righteous or justified because of their moral accomplishments.
He taught that the truly justified are those who acknowledge their sin and trust in God for forgiveness and his righteousness.
We are only justified righteous through faith in Christ. There is always going to be a point in our lives where we did not have saving faith in Christ.
None of us here where born and already had saving knowledge in Christ.
Jesus Christ being the Son of God, the full deity of God in human form did not need anybody to have saving faith in God. Christ did not need a mediator or redeemer to mend a severed relationship.
Because for Christ there was never a severed relationship.
What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God.
Here we have Paul explaining that no one seeking to be righteous by the works of the law can be justified in God’s eyes, since everyone is a sinner and has fallen short of God’s righteous standard
Righteousness is a gift that is not earned by merit.
Righteous are the ones who put their faith in Jesus Christ.
and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.
All men without exception, bear the guilt of sin and are subject to death.
Therefore, we are condemned and we justly deserve that death. We do not deserve to be righteous or justified.
When Paul is talking about “all men” he is not saying that all men are saved, justified or considered righteous. Paul is saying that all men that have a saving faith are justified righteous
Flowers in texts
yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.
And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Christ did not come to save the righteous people, because are none who are righteous. He came to save those who are sick, depraved, helpless.
Illustrations:
As a family every night we read Enzo’s Bible, we pray that Enzo will come to know the Lord at an early age, that he can glorify and worship Christ and than we sing the doxology. We pray because:
All of us at one time or another have not always had a saving faith of Jesus Christ.
We have to have a saving faith in God’s son in order to be considered righteous.
We pray that God can use us to bring Enzo to Christ.
Apply or Confront
Main Point #4: The humility of Christ
Statement
The humility of Christ should show us how much he truly loves us. How much God truly loves us. He did not have to send his son to save us. He could have said you know what; you are all sinful, depraved people. I am done with you, but he didn’t. God in the flesh is born into a world that is fallen in order to save his elect. This is the ultimate act of humility. There is nothing that will come close to this.
What exactly is humility?
A modest or low view of one’s own importance; humbleness
Prove
Christ had to be born into this world to save us. There was no other way.
Imagine being the Son of God. The son of the first and best being, the creator of the world and yet to have the humility to be born under the law, in human flesh, in order to save God’s elect. Here in Jesus Christ we have the greatest human to ever walk the face of the earth to give up Godly privileges to save us. the one thing we must remember is that he did all of this willingly, voluntarily. It was not forced upon him to do so.
Jesus voluntarily gave up the privileges that go with being fully God by adding a full human nature to his divine nature, subjecting himself to the agony of crucifixion in obedience to the Father’s will.
As God he has the right and privilege to never be thirsty, hungry, tired, bloody, beaten, spit on and brutally executed, BUT Jesus let go of those rights and privileges through his incarnation.
The ultimate expression of Jesus’s humility and obedience was his choice not only to die, but also to die the humiliating death of a first century criminal. Jesus’s humility and obedience on the cross are the means by which sinners are reconciled to God.
Christ’s humiliation also serves as a model for the humility that should characterize the Christian life today.
As a believer do you live a life of humility or a life that is prideful?
As humans we think we are something special. Being a human compared to a sloth yeah I get it, but God becoming human.
There was no upgrade for Christ. We gave up everything in order to be with us in flesh and deliver us from evil, death, condemnation and judgment.
If Christ wanted to be prideful and show the world what was up he could have
How many miracles did Jesus do in the book of John? 7
He could have performed miracles all day long everyday, but nothing would have changed.
Flowers in texts
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law,
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor’s headquarters, and they gathered the whole battalion before him. And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and put a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” And they spit on him and took the reed and struck him on the head.
Illustrations
Most everybody knows Lebron James and his son Bronny. Lebron’s nickname is King James. His son who is ehhh mediocre at best, gets all of this attention from the public, news, other sports stars etc and how everybody treats him is completely different than how Jesus came into this world, lived in this world and died in this world.
Jesus was born in a manger, to a carpenter, low status into a sinful, dead world.
Jesus was the son of God and yet he lived
Apply or Confront
The issue that I see today is that people’s pridefulness takes over their lives. People want to show off EVERYTHING and takes humility or humbleness as a sign of weakness. One word that I like to use is meekness or power under control.
*Confront culture of False Teaching
As believers of Christ we are called to carry our cross daily and to do that we need to do a few things
Application Points:
Surrender yourself in order to serve Christ
Everybody wants to do something as long as it benefits them, but are you willing to surrender yourself to follow Christ?
Repent of your sinfulness
The only way that we can become righteous is if we have a regenerated heart. Having faith in Christ means turning away from the life that you had previously lived and walk towards Christ. We are only considered righteous when we have saving faith in Jesus Christ.
Be Humble
We are to live a life of humility
We are to honor God by being humble people.
Why? Because we didn’t earn his righteousness, justification, obedience.