Deeper look at the Gospel

Opening

I am going to preach tonight on the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. This may feel like a redundancy because most of us are Christians and we all know the Gospel. But I do think that there are deeper and more elaborate meanings or levels of the Gospel. Tonight we are going to look at a deeper meaning of that which is at the center of our faith. We are going to look at some of the more intimate workings of the death of Jesus on the cross and how that understanding can radically change our lives. It will change how we see God, how we see ourselves, how we see others around us, how we evangelize, how we treat ourselves and others, how we love and worship our God when understood correctly.

Romans 3:21-26

English Standard Version Chapter 3

21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

All have sinned

In order to rightly understand our salvation, we must know what it is that we are saved from. In verse 23, the apostle Paul makes the statement that, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” This is a statement that completes some of what Paul was trying to elaborate earlier in the chapter. In verses 10-18, Paul quotes some of the Psalms which say that no one is righteous and that no one fears God. This is something that we don’t want to hear. We don’t want to hear that we are bad people. We think that we are mostly good people and that we aren’t as bad as other who do worse. Jesus, when speaking to the rich young ruler in Luke 18 says, “No one is good except God alone.”

What does that mean?

What does that mean that all have sinned? Apart from the grace of God, we would be under His righteous judgement. Paul tells the church in Rome that, “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). That we have sinned against a holy God. And since we have trespassed against a holy and infinite God, we deserve an infinite justice.

What kind of God have we sinned against?

What does it mean that we have sinned against a holy God? One of the greatest pictures of God’s holiness in Scripture is in the book of Isaiah. In Isaiah 6, Isaiah was given a vision of the throne of God.

English Standard Version Chapter 6

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one called to another and said:

“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts;

the whole earth is full of his glory!”

4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. 5 And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”

In ancient Hebrew, punctuation is not used as in english. Nor is bold or italicized words found in their literature. Instead, when they want to stress something they will use repetition. And nothing presents a higher emphasis than when something is repeated three times. When the seraphim say, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts,” they say God is holy, God is holier, God is holiest.

Isaiah’s reaction to his vision is key here. When a human comes into the presence of the Holy, Holy, Holy One of Israel, his only reaction is to realize just how unclean he is before God. Isaiah says, “Woe is me!” It is as if Isaiah says, “I am destroyed! I am unclean and my people are unclean before this holy One; I am lost!”

RC Sproul, when commenting on this passage said, “For the first time in Isaiah’s life, he finally understood just who he is and who the LORD is.”

In Habbakuk, the author describes God as follows, (Hab 1:13)

English Standard Version Chapter 1

You who are of purer eyes than to see evil

and cannot look at wrong,

The God who created the universe is so much holier than we are or can ever imagine.

So God is holy and we are not… So what?

In much of the Old Testament, God instructed the Israelites in how to be clean enough for God to dwell with them in the Tabernacle and then in the Temple. God made a sacrificial system to cover the sins of His people so that His very presence in their camp wouldn’t destroy them. An animal would be slaughtered to pay the wages of sin that Paul claimed earlier, but another animal would live and be cast out into the wilderness. The first paid the wages of sin (which is death[Romans 6:23]), while with the other, the high priest would put his hand on the animal’s face and symbolically transfer the nation’s sins upon the animal and it would be cast out of the camp.

This is the crucial part of the Christian faith, we do not keep up with the sacrificial system like the Israelites did. Because a sacrifice was made to cover all the sins of those who would believe.

The next verse in Romans

Right after Paul explains that all have sinned, he begins to explain the greatest thing that has ever happened in history: Man is justified by God.

When he were hopeless in our sin and fallenness God moved. God did something that the angels in heaven could not believe, (Luke 2:8-14)

English Standard Version Chapter 2

8 And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. 10 And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

14  “Glory to God in the highest,

and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

How does that work?

How does this justification come? Paul explains that we are made right in relation to God by His grace which is a gift to us. This grace comes by the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. This is where Paul really unpack a huge part of the atonement: that God put forth His Son, Jesus, as a protitiation by His blood.

Now, what does propitiation mean?

Propitiation is the appeasement or satisfaction of God. It is a two-part act that involves the appeasement of the wrath of God upon sin and the reconciliation of man to God.

Paul explains it later in verse 26, he says that God did this so that he might be just and justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Jesus was the one who took upon himself the sin of those who would believe in him and paid the wages of sin. He took on the wrath of Almighty God toward sin upon the cross so that God’s righteous justice might be satisfied and we would not have to spend all of eternity in Hell paying for our sin.

So that God might be just in dealing with sin and He might be the One who justified the one who would believe.

The Father’s Bargain with the Son

Father: My son, here is a company of poor miserable souls, that have utterly undone themselves, and now lie open to my justice! Justice demands satisfaction for them, or will satisfy itself in the eternal ruin of them: What shall be done for these souls?

Son: O my Father, such is my love to, and pity for them, that rather than they shall perish eternally, I will be responsible for them as their Surety; bring in all thy bills, that I may see what they owe thee; Lord, bring them all in, that there may be no after-reckonings with them; at my hand shalt thou require it. I will rather choose to suffer thy wrath than they should suffer it: upon me, my Father, upon me be all their debt.

Father: But, my Son, if thou undertake for them, thou must reckon to pay the last mite, expect no abatements; if I spare them, I will not spare thee.

Son: Content, Father, let it be so; charge it all upon me, I am able to discharge it: and though it prove a kind of undoing to me, though it impoverish all my riches, empty all my treasures, yet I am content to undertake it.

John Flavel

Abatement: the act or process of reducing or otherwise decreasing something.