Propitiation
Notes
Transcript
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
Introduction: Over the past three weeks we have beheld the greatness of God. Being the source of all things, God is great in his uniqueness. Being holy, holy, holy, He desires for his holiness to be seen and so he has filled His earth with 7.5 billion images of Himself so that His moral attributes could be seen and admired from one end of the world to the other. Man, however, chooses to deny the infinite value of God’s glory and so man is deserving of infinite death, but thanks be to God for His indescribable gift in Jesus Christ who has made it possible for our blind eyes to see that which is truly worth seeing.
Last week we answered the question: If God has done a miracle and removed my blindness so that I could behold the glory of God, then how do I get as much of Him as I can? As Christians we don’t ask questions like, “How much of the world can I have and still be a Christian?” That would be like the blind man whom Jesus healed asking, “How much do I really have to see? I am glad I can see, but I really love being blind. So, how often do I have to see to be classified as a seeing person?” NO! That is foolishness! Instead we want to see as much of Him as we can. We found the answer of how to do this in .
For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
We also took a look at where we saw that Christ is so much more glorious than the Old Covenant that he made the Old Covenant look like a 100 watt light bulb compared to the sun. It is by beholding Him in the Word of God that we are transformed by the Spirit of God from one degree of glory to the next degree of glory.
We then finished with this question: If God is so glorious, why has He passed over my sin? Doesn’t sin rebelliously declare to God, “You are not as glorious as you say you are!”? And isn’t saying that to God an infinite offense? Wouldn’t that mean then that God passing over my sin means that He isn’t very holy?
Example: If you broke my Nintendo Switch versus if you murdered my wife.
Which brings us to propitiation.
Propitiation
Propitiation
As we have seen, the reason Jesus came was to display the glory of God the Father in its fullest and most complete form. Now we turn to see how God the Father desired for Jesus to display that glory. Jesus came to display the glory of God the Father in its fullest and most complete and perfect form by placing Himself under the wrath of God.
We might ask the question, “How does that display God’s glory?” Remember, it was God’s plan for man to bear His image, but because of sin man has scarred that image. Is God scarred? Are any of God’s plans ever foiled? So, my question to you is this: Did Adam foil God’s plan when he sinned? NO!
For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.
It was God’s plan all along to display His glory forever by redeeming man through Jesus Christ. Because of sin, all men were born under the wrath of God. We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Therefore, in order for man to have fellowship with God he must have his sins passed over, but since God is so holy and so great and so mighty and so infinite-sin against God cannot be passed over or else He isn’t very valuable at all.
“Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify Your name.”
Then a voice came from heaven, saying, “I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.”
Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You,
Because God is of infinite value sin against Him is also an infinite offense and cannot and will not be passed over. The offense is infinite and so the condemnation is infinite. If God is going to pass over my sin and yours an infinite payment must be payed. So Jesus, being the express image of God (the complete and perfect communication of God to man), is of infinite value, and in these statements (; ) Jesus makes clear that He came into the world for the purpose of displaying God’s glory by laying down His own infinitely valuable life so that the infinite wrath of God against sin could be totally satisfied. This is good news!
Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him;
He has put Him to grief.
When You make His soul an offering for sin,
He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days,
And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.
This is the gospel and the result is that “whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on Him.” Man now has two options: 1). Believe and escape the condemnation or 2). Disobey the command to believe and remain under God’s wrath. Jesus came and placed Himself under the wrath of God so that you could escape it to the glory of God the Father.
Paul explained it this way:
whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Jesus died so that God could be righteous in declaring us to be righteous. So Jesus displayed God’s glory by declaring to the world that God is gracious and He is right and that is glorious. God who is mighty is more glorious because He is gracious, and God who is gracious is more glorious because He is mighty; and our gracious and mighty God is right in everything He does.
We often get this backwards.
The bad theology of Like a Rose
Crucified
Laid behind a stone
You lived to die
Rejected and alone
Like a rose
Trampled on the ground
You took the fall
And thought of me
Above all
That kind of thinking is why some might ask, “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?”
What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?
Those who ask that question totally miss the point. Jesus didn’t die because we were holy. He died because God is holy. We weren’t saved because we were holy. We were saved to live a life that proves that God is holy.
Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
That is God’s purpose for us in salvation: that we would increase from one degree of glory to the next degree of glory for the purpose of the glory of God.
So is God glorious? Yes, indeed He is! He has passed over our sin because he has already poured out His infinite wrath by crushing His infinite Son so that we could have infinite life in order that we would infinitely praise the glory of His grace and worship Him who alone is worthy.
As we conclude, let’s finish with a couple questions we have already asked and answered. Is God scarred? Are any of God’s plans ever foiled? Who did Jesus die to glorify? Who have we been saved to glorify? Now here’s a new one: what does that now mean concerning how I should live my Christian life? Come back next week and find out!