Payment for the Gospel

I John 2:1-2

Welcome to Mountain View Baptist Church. We are so glad you are here today on this beautiful Lord’s Day. If you are a first time guest, please stop by our welcome center that we might connect with you. Feel free to share your prayer request need with our greeters or any way we might be able to help you.

How many of you, like me, have wondered how much more can costs rise? When you are looking at an item, it is normal to ask, what is the cost for this product. Most often, the amount or the price will reflect the value of the product. If it is too cheap, we naturally think it is no good.

Have you ever considered the price that was paid for the gospel? Its price cannot be measured. About a month ago, Eight items were stolen from the Louvre Museum in a October 2025 heist, including tiaras, necklaces, and earrings from the 19th-century French Crown Jewels. The stolen pieces include a sapphire set belonging to Queen Marie-Amélie and Queen Hortense, an emerald necklace and earrings from Empress Marie-Louise, a \"reliquary\" brooch, and two pieces belonging to Empress Eugénie: a tiara and a large corsage bow brooch. The price tag for these cannot be valued.

The gospel is the single most valuable transaction known to man. It was purchased by the One and Only Jesus Christ. While the price is enormous, sinful man can never pay that price. The price is what is called a vicarious atonement. A vicar is one who acts as a substitute or in the place of another. Atonement means to be a reparation for sin. The idea of reconciliation of man to God.

Job asks in Job 25:4 “How then can man be justified with God? Or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?” This question has been asked often and many have tried to concoct a manmade way of being right with God. In Genesis 11 we read about man trying to build a tower, a manmade structure to reach heaven so he can get there his own way.

The gospel is the only way which is God’s way. God sent His Son Jesus Christ to be the payment for sin

1 Timothy 2:5–6 “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.”

The ransom or the purchase price is not paid to Satan. It is paid to God, for it is to God that we are in debt.

R. C. Sproul

In the passage we just read, we learn about why Jesus paid for the gospel. As the Apostle John was writing to the early believers, they were being bombarded with mystical teachings trying to poison their mind about God and who God is and what He did for them. In the first chapter he was writing to those who believe they do not sin. Some of John’s readers might have thought his insistence on the sinfulness of Christian somehow would discourage holiness. The opposite was John’s intention as he wrote, that “ye sin not.”

So the writer was impressing on the hearts of these believers the price that was paid for sin. This entire transaction was not to be taken lightly but to realize the total importance of this truth.

There are three considerations for the payment for the gospel.

Consideration 1. . .

The declaration of the judgment

In this passage, John is writing about a court scene. In heaven the scene is very clear that God is the judge and all men are guilty. Since we are born with a sin nature, our sentence has already been determined. We are guilty in the court of God’s judgment.

John 3:18 “He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”

Without Christ we are without hope, without forgiveness, without a purpose or a future. Man may try to run and hide or fabricate a religious system or try to alter his behavior, but not of this will take care of our sin.

Sin has to be dealt with and there is only one way He can be dealt with. Jesus Christ is God’s atoning Sacrifice through HIs all sufficient death on the cross. He is man’s substitute (vicar) on the cross in dying for our sins.

There is not getting out of this court room. There is no jury, no witnesses, no reporters, because God is the ultimate, perfect judge. The perfect Judge will be there and the sentence has already been passed. Guilty as charged.

Ezekiel 18:4 “Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.”

Romans 3:10 “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:”

God in His Word has already declared the sentence on sinners: death which means a separation from God in the place the Bible calls hell.

If this was it, we would all be in trouble.

Consideration 2. . .

The promise of the advocate

John explains that Jesus is our defense attorney. The portrait of Jesus Christ fits perfectly with John’s legal vocabulary in which accused sinners come before God’s bar and Christ steps in as our legal advocate.

This word advocate comes from the word paraclete wich means to come alongside of. Advocate in the legal term denotes a defender or counselor who aids his client.

This word Paraclete is also used to describe the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. In God’s judgment we are declared guilty; however, Christ comes alongside us to defend us because of our sin. It is most interesting our advocate which is in modern terms lawyer, declares us guilty. It will seem strange to us that a lawyer would go into a courtroom to defend his client by declaring him guilty.

I have read of crime cases where the lawyer was asked if he believed his client was guilty during the court proceedings and many would say, they never asked their client.

John is saying here in this passage that mankind is guilty. God knows the heart of man and man’s condition. Ephesians 2:1–2 “And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:” There is no escaping this condition on our own. If you had all the money in the world, you could not pay the fine for our sin.

However, we have Jesus as our lawyer, our advocate, our defender. He is the one who comes alongside us when we stand before God as a guilty sinner. God the Father declares we are guilty and Jesus says but the price has been paid.

Consideration 3. . .

The price has been paid

Jesus says, yes he or she is guilty, but I have paid the fine for his sin. The penalty of sin has been paid for. This word propitiation is used here and in 1 John 4:10 “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” It is also used in Romans 3:25 “Whom God hath 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;”

The cross is the source of the forgiveness of sins. It is not a debt settled by due payment. It is not a substitutionary offering whereby someone is paid a price so that others might then go free.

Frank G. Jannaway

This has huge Biblical meaning for us. This transaction of Christ’s payment for our sins is central to the Christian faith. This means that God credits the sins and the righteousness of one person to another. The sin of mankind is placed on Christ when He died for us. The righteousness of Christ is placed on us when we accept Him as Savior.

The Lord Jesus has paid too high a price for our redemption to leave us in the enemy’s hand.

Charles Spurgeon

God’s wrath against sin may not be understand by the modern mind, but it is thoroughly biblical. This means that Jesus Christ suffered the wrath and punishment of sin for us. The cross propiated (satisfied) God’s wrath on sin. He met the righteous and legal demands of God for us on the cross. This means when we accept Christ, His payment for our sins has been satisfied by His death on the cross.

Jesus satisfied the payment for sin for not only us but for the all the world. This does not mean that all will be saved but that all can be saved.

This means for the believer we are to walk in the light. Walking in the light means we are honest with God and with others. When you walk in the light, there is nothing we can hide. When God shows we have sinned, we confess our sin to God and claim His forgiveness 1:9. It also means to spend time with God daily, discovering what God wants for me, and then obeying what God tells us. Have you allowed your relationship become mediocre with Christ? It is easy to be content where you are. Are you an obedient Christian? What if God spoke to you about your language? What if you God spoke to you about your thoughts? Would you obey Him? What if God spoke to you about your lack of dedication to Him? Would you obey Him?

Maybe you are here today and you are trying to pay for your sins yourself. Our sin debt can only be paid for by Jesus Christ. This is why He came to die for you on the cross and shed his blood as a payment for your sin. Will you accept Him today as your personal Savior? Will you call upon Him?