The High Price Paid

Intro

I want to begin with what I will call the 3:16 arc of scripture. I need a little bit of grace, because it isn’t exactly all 3:16 verses, but if you can give me a heaping measure of grace here at the beginning, I hope that this will serve as useful.

Not Genesis 3:16, but Genesis 3:15 “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

We have the promise of the snake crusher. God promises from the moment of the fall, the one who would come and defeat the deceiver.

Exodus 3:16 “Go and gather the elders of Israel together and say to them, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has appeared to me, saying, “I have observed you and what has been done to you in Egypt,”

John 3:16 ““For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

2 Corinthians 3:16 “But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed.”

1 John 3:16 “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.”

2 Timothy 3:16 “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,”

Revelation 3:16 “So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.”

Believer, this warning is not for you, but for the nominal Christian. The same one who would say, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?” and He will respond, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.”

Matthew 7:21–23 ““Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”

This drives us to the great commission.

Matthew 28:18–20 “And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.””

God does not need us to bring Himself Glory, but He has chosen to use us, to make His name great. That’s our co-mission with God, to bring Him glory, calling back to the promise to Abraham, to bring the presence of God out into the world, blessing them, and making His name known. Making disciples is absolutely a command, but it’s more than that, it’s an invitation to be used as a tool in the hands of Almighty God.

This brings us to our passage for today. We have before us a God who shows us His love, Who justifies us, and Who unifies us to the body of Christ, all through the sacrifice of Jesus. So, those we be our three points today as we read through this passage, Romans 8:31-39.

Jesus’ Sacrifice Displays God’s Love for Us, Jesus’ Sacrifice Justifies Us, and Jesus’ Sacrifice Unifies Us in the Body of Christ.

We can have great confidence that God will finish the work that He started for many reasons, but one reason, which we’ll highlight today is the high price that was paid for our salvation, being the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross.

Let’s stand for the reading of God’s word in Romans 8:31-39

I. Jesus’ Sacrifice Displays God’s Love for Us

v. 31-32

These two verses immediately make me think of the story of Abraham’s offering of Issac. Abraham knows that he has prepared a place for a sacrifice. He has hiked to the top of this mountain, prepared to offer a sacrifice, having with him no animal, and only His son. And before he could offer His son, the God provides a ram, caught in the thicket and God said to Abraham,

Genesis 22:12–14 “He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of that place, “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.””

In 2 Chronicles 3:1, we read that Soloman began construction of the temple, in Jerusalem, on Mount Moriah, the same mountain where God provided the ram. Most scholars agree that Golgotha, or Calvary, was a part of the same mountain ridge system as this mountain. So, geographically, very close, but redemptively, God offered His only son in this exact same was as Abraham did Isaac, but rather than providing a substitute for His Son, He provided His Son as a substitute for us.

God went to such great lengths to prefigure exactly what would happen on Calvary in this exchange here with Abraham in Gen 22. God put His love for us on full display in the willing sacrifice of His only Son.

As John Stott said, “God does not love us because Christ died for us; Christ died for us because God loved us.”

This is the beauty of the gospel. God promises life to Adam and Eve in the Garden if they obey. They disobey, and God removes them from His presence as punishment for their sin. And even in the midst of the curse that Adam, Eve, and the serpent, He promises the Snake Crusher. A reminder that even in our fallenness, God never stopped loving us.

Now, we trace that through to the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, and we see how even with Abraham, He was prefiguring exactly what kind of sacrifice He would make for us.

Then, on the cross, we see this display of His love for us in the form a sacrifice that we ourselves could never have offered. God Himself, in human flesh, gave Himself for us.

Again, this should bring to our memory the Covenant that God makes with Abraham, when God gave Himself as the covenant surety, or the assurance that the covenant that He made with Abraham, and through Abraham, all those that would become children of Abraham, that He would also keep that covenant.

The high price that was paid for our sin reveals God’s love for us.

II. Jesus’ Sacrifice Justifies Us

v. 33-34

The same Jesus who is interceding for us is the one who is at the right hand of God. He is the One who died for our sins, and was raised from the dead. And it is in that willing sacrifice of Jesus that we were justified. It was in that sacrifice that all those who repent of their sins and believe in Jesus as the Son of God, that all of those would be saved.

Now, Paul asks this rhetorical question, in Pauline fashion. He asks who then, could bring a charge against God’s elect. Who could bring any charge against those who are members of the body of Christ, the believer?

Remember, the serpent didn’t convince Adam and Eve to sin by convincing them they would enjoy sinning, he convinced them by deceiving them. The deceiver wants nothing more than to distract you with all sorts of doubt, self doubt, fear, and anxiety. With these words, Paul is showing that the truth of Jesus, and the justification that we receive by His blood is more powerful than any lie of satan, the deceiver. It is God who calls you just.

Along Paul’s same rhetorical line of questioning, we can continue. If God calls me just, I can continue to live for him if I’ve been convicted by man. I think of Paul continuing his writing from prison. I think of Jesus, condemned by man, yet beloved of God. Unjust in the eyes of sinful man, yet just in the eyes of the Father. So, we ask the next logical question, who is greater, man or God? How could we fear man when the final authority is God’s?

And what about the deceiver? He convinced Adam and Eve to sin. His lies are often half truths. He twists the very words of scripture when he attacks Jesus. What if man hasn’t condemned me, but i’ve condemned myself? I don’t believe that I’m capable of living my life for the Lord. I’ve got too much sin in my past. I still sin today. Remember that verse that was so powerful for John Bunyan. Those whom the Father has given to me, I will in no way cast out. Balm for the suffering soul. Who has the final authority over your life? Those sinful thoughts and attacks from the enemy? Or the one who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all?

“You stand before God as if you were Christ, because Christ stood before God as if He were you.” — Spurgeon

The high price that was paid for our sin assures us that our debts have been paid, and we are declared just by the God.

III. Jesus’ Sacrifice Unifies Us in the Body of Christ

v. 35-39

There is nothing in heaven or on earth that is more powerful than the God who created it all. Remember, God the Father ordained this plan. He sent His only Son, of accomplished the plan. He paid the high price of redemption of all of God’s people, and He sent His Holy Spirit to add us to that one body of Christ, the Church, the Bride of Christ.

God’s plan to redeem His people has been one that we can trace from Genesis to Revelation. I’ve stared before what one of my professors, Dr. DeYoung calls the scarlet thread that ties together all of Scripture as this one unified story of redemption. The promise that God declares, “I will be your God, and you will be my people.”

While there are absolutely personal elements of our salvation, we are saved together in this one, unified redemption of God’s people. We turn from our sin, believe in Jesus, but we aren’t just left there, as this individual who has been redeemed, we are added to something.

Tim Keller says, “You are saved into a body, not just out of sin.”

So, we are saved out of sin, but we are also saved into this one body of Christ. We are being sanctified, or as our passage from last week read, we are being conformed to the image of Christ by the Holy Spirit, our Helper, who now indwells all those who turn from their sin and profess Jesus as Lord.

1 Corinthians 12:13 “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.”

Remember, these are Paul’s words in 1 Cor, but his whole point in Romans in unity. The Jews and the Greeks were equally deserving of God’s wrath, they were equally undeserving of God’s mercy. We are all equally dead in sin, and children of Adam, and for those of us who repent and believe that Jesus, the Son of God is Lord, then we are all unified in the same body, by the same blood, as the one Bride of Christ.

And as this one Bride of Christ, the Church, there is nothing, Romans 8:35 not “… tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?” that can separate us from the love of Christ.

And while we can still suffer here on earth from all of those things, they have no power over us, but we have conquered all of those things through Jesus, who is ruler over all of those things.

And no matter what trials we experience here on earth, this place is not our home. No matter what kind of persecution the believers all over the world experience, Jesus still wins. This is what Paul is saying in Romans 8:38–39 “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Jesus has conquered death, there is nothing in this life that can separate us from His love, none of the angels who fell with satan have any chance of victory over us, because Jesus has defeated them. No earthly king, or president, or dictator, or present calamity, or anything else in all creation has the ability to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The high price that was paid grafts us in to the body of believers, those in whom God has started a work, and those in whom, God will complete His work.

Conclusion

Philippians 1:6 “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”

God always finishes what He starts. Remember how we started. God promised the Snake Crusher at the fall, maintained Abraham and His seed all the way to the completion of that promise in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus.

Now we have His living word that is active and sharper than any two-edged sword. We can learn about God’s faithfulness, we can learn about His promises, we can learn more about who He is, and His love for us, and His mercy for us. We can learn about the way that He made for us to come back to Him.

“The gospel is not just the door—it’s the house. You live in the finished work.” — Michael Horton

Our hope is in the finished work of Jesus. That finished work of Jesus isn’t just the way into this new life, but that we are welcomed into the family of believers, the Church, who have surely been justified, and who will also be glorified.

Revelation 5:9 “And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation,”