Posts Tagged ‘wrath’

The Most Important Word in the Universe

Saturday, September 24th, 2011

Some years ago, in a faculty devotional at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Dr. Murray Harris proposed this line of thinking:

What is the most important Book in the universe? The Bible. Which book within the Bible is the most important? Romans. Which chapter in Romans is the most important? Chapter 3. Which paragraph in Romans 3 is the most important? Verses 21-26. Which verse in that paragraph is the most important? Verse 25. Which word in verse 25 is the most important? Propitiation: “. . . whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.”

Therefore, the most important word in the most important verse in the most important paragraph in the most important chapter in the most important book within the most important Book in the universe is propitiation.

Worthy of our reverent contemplation.

Propitiation – the sacrifice that turns away the righteous anger of God against sinners. For more information on propitiation check here, here and here.

HT: Ray Ortlund

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Propitiation Explained Well

Thursday, September 8th, 2011

Some years ago, in a faculty devotional at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Dr. Murray Harris proposed this line of thinking:

What is the most important Book in the universe? The Bible. Which book within the Bible is the most important? Romans. Which chapter in Romans is the most important? Chapter 3. Which paragraph in Romans 3 is the most important? Verses 21-26. Which verse in that paragraph is the most important? Verse 25. Which word in verse 25 is the most important? Propitiation: “. . . whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.”

Therefore, the most important word in the most important verse in the most important paragraph in the most important chapter in the most important book within the most important Book in the universe is propitiation.

Worthy of our reverent contemplation.

HT: Ray Ortlund

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Why Propitiation (Part 3)

Monday, June 20th, 2011

This is the final post of a three part series on the Biblical teaching of the cross as the propitiation of God. In Part One of this series I attempted to lay down the basic groundwork of why propitiation is necessary. In Part Two I discussed what propitiation is according to the four New Testament verses that speak of it in the context of Christ’s death on the cross. In this third and final part, I hope to address a few thoughts about why it is absolutely necessary to speak about propitiation; especially in a culture that is offended by it.

So why is speaking about propitiation of God in Jesus Christ necessary to speak about? Let me give you a few reasons:

    The Bible Clearly Speaks of It: The Bible clearly says that God is angry with sin and sinners who sin. (Ex. 4:14; 15:7; Lev. 26:27-33; Num. 11:1; 12:9; 22:22; 25:3; Deut. 3:17; 29:24-29; Josh. 7:1; Judg. 2:14; 2 Sam. 24:1; 1 Kings 14:15; 15:30; 16:2; 25:53; 2 Kings 13:3; 17:11; 23:19; 1 Chron. 13:10; 2 Chron. 28:25; Ps. 7:11; ; Heb. 10:27). He does not pass over evil without care and He does not look over injustice with no concern. The Bible also clearly says that all people are guilty rebels who have nothing but evil in their hearts (Genesis 6:5; Psalms 14:1-3; 53:1-3; Eccles. 7:20; Psalm 5:9; Psalm 140:3; Psalm 10:7; Isaiah 59:7,8; Psalm 36:1; Romans 3:9-18). Since God gets very angry with sin and sinners the Bible logically concludes that Jesus death is God’s gracious propitiation that turns His righteous anger away from Man (Romans 3:25; Hebrews 2:17; 1 John 2:2; 4:10) and it is only through the propitiation of Jesus that we can be saved from the coming wrath of God (1 Thessalonians 1:10; Acts 4:12). If we desire to be faithful to God’s Word, we cannot ignore or be silent about propitiation. If we deny propitiation, we deny the Bible.

    It is the Central Idea of Atonement: Ideas of forgiveness, redemption, deliverance, reconciliation or justification cannot take place unless God’s righteous anger against Man’s wicked sin is satisfied. The Old Testament sacrificial system was put into place to teach that propitiation is necessary for forgiveness. According to the Law (which is a shadow of Jesus; Hebrews 10:1), there was no forgiveness without the shedding of blood (Hebrews 9:22); that is, a propitiation. The thought is not lost in the New Testament, but it applied to what Jesus did on the cross (Romans 3:25; Hebrews 2:17; 1 John 2:2; 4:10). We must speak about propitiation because propitiation is central to the idea of atonement. There is no forgiveness without atonement. There is no atonement that is not propitiatory is nature. We cannot understand the cross if we do not understand propitiation. The gospel is not proclaimed if the cross is not God gracious means of averting His wrath away from man so they may enjoy His endless affection for His eternal glory.

    It Proclaims God’s Amazingly Gracious Love: God is not excited about sinners. Sinners do not make Him feel ooey gooey inside. He is not attracted to Man because they aren’t attractive at all. There is nothing in Man that arouses God’s love. But the good news, the gospel, tells us that He has loved us anyway. Not because of anything in us, but because of His love, mercy and kindness (Titus 3:3-5). If we talk about God saving us because we are special, beautiful, wonderful, excellent or worthy then we demean His wonderful love; we deny the beauty of the gospel. Propitiation is necessary to talk about because it clearly proclaims the gospel: God in love sent Jesus to turn His righteous anger away from us. He did this, not because of us, but in spite of us. The gospel is that God has loved us as an action and not a response. He did not feel kindly about who we were outside of Jesus, but He acted kindly by sending Jesus to satisfy His righteous anger. We praise God because He acted contrary to our actions. The good news is I am loved though I haven’t deserved it. How did He love me? By sending His One and Only Son to endure my hell. The Son drank my wrath. “Till on that cross when Jesus died / The wrath of God was satisfied / For every sin on Him was laid / Here in the death of Christ I live.” God’s love is amazing because He paid unknowable suffering for my redemption. God does not say He loves us, He works for our good. His love has done something in His Son.

    It Reveals Most Clearly Who God Is: People often make a practice of exalting one attribute of God over another. Because of this we end up hearing a lot of “God is love” (1 John 4:8) and rarely hear “God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29). The problem of making one of God’s attributes more important than the others is that in the end we make up an image of God that is not Biblical. It may be Biblically based, that is, they may be ideas taken from the Bible, but it is not Biblically sound. God is revealed in the whole counsel of God, not part of it. Propitiation is necessary because it helps to keep us from making God into something that He is not. God gets angry at sin and sinners and He demands that something be done to account for their evil. If we deny the reality of God’s anger and the need for it to be averted then the God we speak of is not the God of the Bible, but one we have conjured up from our own sentiments.

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Why Propitiation (Part 2)

Wednesday, June 1st, 2011

In the last post, I attempted to set the stage of God being uncompromisingly holy and Man being incomprehensibly sinful. When the two come together holy wrath is the result. God will not compromise His righteousness or His holiness and Man cannot help but be hardened sinners wanting the glory that is God’s alone. So wrath occurs without question unless someone comes to step in the middle.

Enter Jesus, the propitiation of God.

Propitiation means, “the sacrifice that turns away God’s anger.” To make something propitious is to make it favorable or happy again. Since God is angry with Man, we can see that propitiation is something desperately needed if Man is to ever know God’s smile upon their soul. Unless God’s righteous anger is turned away from Man, unless His wrath against Man’s sin is satisfied, there can be no forgiveness.

The term propitiation shows up four times in the New Testament in the context of Christ’s sacrifice.

    Romans 3:25: God put forward (Jesus) 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.

    Hebrews 2:17: Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make PROPITIATION for the sins of the people.

    1 John 2:2: He is the PROPITIATION for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

    1 John 4:10: In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the PROPITIATION for our sins.

From these passages we glean much truth according to Jesus as our propitiation. I will divide the information up with four questions: Who sends the propitiation? Who is the propitiation? Who is the propitiation for? What motivates the Propitiation?

    Who Sends the Propitiation? Let’s first notice briefly who does not make propitiation; Mankind. When we think of the term propitiation as spoken of in the Bible we must be careful to not begin to think of God as one of the pagan deities who demanded that men offer them gifts in order to satisfy their anger. The God of the Bible is not angry for no reason, but He is angry only because of evil. Also, the True God cannot have His righteous anger satisfied by men’s pitiful offerings. No, Man is not the giver of the propitiation, but God is: “God put forward (Jesus) as a propitiation,” and “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation.” What does this mean? That although God is furiously angry with sinners and their sin, He worked for their salvation out of incomprehensible love. Man is not the first one to love God, but God is the first one to love Man by doing something about His evil.

    Who is the Propitiation? Notice too who the propitiation is. God did not send an angel, a perfect bull or lamb but He sent His One and Only Son Jesus Christ to bear the sin of men and take on Himself the wrath of God. We cannot think that God the Father is the angry member of the Trinity and that Jesus persuaded Him to save, we must see the Father’s great sacrifice in the cross; He sent His beloved Son to bear the sin of Man and, on the cross, become the object of His pure anger. All so we may know Him as Dad. God had done what Abraham didn’t; He gave His One and Only Son. He gifted the evil world with the greatest treasure there is so we may have a place at His table. God the Father willingly sent His willing Son to endure His righteous anger so we may in turn endure His gracious and affectionate love.

    Who is the Propitiation For? God sends Jesus as the propitiation for Man’s sin. It is Man’s sin that has incurred His righteous wrath. God, being perfectly just and holy, is incensed by Man’s heinous and unrepentant evil. But instead of letting Mankind endure what they deserve, He provides a means of averting His wrath. He doesn’t simply ignore Man’s evil in the name of love, because that sacrifice justice at the alter of love, no, He sends His Son to meet out the punishment so Man may receive His affection. He is still just and the justifier (Romans 3:26).

    What Motivates the Propitiation? Nothing less than the gracious love of God. “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 Jn. 4:10). We must understand that propitiation has not gained the love of God for men, but that propitiation took place because of the love of God for men. God’s grace is not given because of propitiation, but propitiation is given by God’s grace. God, like a loving Father, has dealt with our sin because of His desire for our good. He has loved us, not because of anything in us, but because of the Holy Love that beats in His soul. He has acted for our good.

Stay tuned for the next post where I will show why we must speak of propitiation.

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Why Propitiation (Part 1)

Monday, May 16th, 2011

I am going to begin a series of posts that will focus on the idea of propitiation of Jesus. I am doing this because (1) I recently preached on it, (2) an extraordinary amount of Christians have no concept of it, (3) I want my students to know and love the gospel of their salvation, (4) propitiation is central to atonement and the character of God, (6) people have attacked me because of their misunderstanding of this concept (or because they understand it and don’t like it). If, you have questions about any post feel free to comment below or email me for further discussion. I hope these are helpful.

As said above, just recently I preached on Jesus as our propitiation. If you weren’t there then odds are you have no idea what propitiation means. To put it simply, propitiation is the sacrifice that turns away God’s anger. When used in relation to Jesus, the teaching of propitiation means that Jesus’ death was the sacrifice that turned away, or satisfied, God’s anger against sinners (Romans 3:35; Hebrews 2:17; 1 John 2:2; 4:10).

If you think of the definition provided above about propitiation (the sacrifice that turns away God’s anger), then you’ll notice something is implied in it. What is implied? God is really angry at sinners. This is where a lot of people jump off the boat, but don’t do so before you check your Bibles. I don’t have enough time here to outlay a full defense of God’s anger against sinners, but let me point you toward a couple standard truths that will help you begin to think in the right direction.

WHO IS GOD?

    What does the Bible say about God? Well, many things, but there are a few central to this discussion. First, we must see God is holy (Is. 6:3), that is, entirely without sin and unique from creation. Since God is holy, He righteously (or rightly) hates all evil. Did you know God hates things? Yes, He does. But only evil things. God hates evil. Hebrews says Jesus, “loved righteousness and hated wickedness” and that God blessed Him for that. Why does God hate evil? Because He is Holy and Good. In a similar way how we hate evil things like rape, murder, genocide, theft, and injustice so God does, but perfectly. We love that God hates evil. What kind of God would He be if He was unmoved by the dealings of Hitler? How would you think of God if He did not get angry by the actions of Ted Bundy (who confessed to more than 30 homicides of young women he tortured and sexually assaulted before killing)? But God does get angry about these things, because God is good and holy. So when we scan the pages of the Bible, we should conclude that God is holy, without sin, and doesn’t compromise an inch of His holiness for anything. He was, is and always will be wonderfully holy and that will never change for anything.

WHO IS MAN?

    The second thing we must confess if we believe our Bibles is that we are evil. We didn’t begin this way when God first created us. In the beginning, Man was the crown of God’s creation. He made us in His image (Genesis 1:26-27), He blessed us with dominion over the rest of His creation (Genesis 1:26-27), He blessed us with partners (Genesis 2:18) and marriage (Genesis 2:24) and we were spoken of as being “very good” (Genesis 1:31). But, 2 chapters later we jacked ourselves up in a really bad way. Genesis 3 records what Christians call “The Fall.” The Fall was the point in history when man became what he was not, but now is, that is, sinful. Our father Adam, from whom all Mankind descends from, sinned with his wife Eve and broke the Law of God and personally offended God Himself (Genesis 3). From that point, Mankind has been defiled and corrupted and guilty in the eyes of God (Is. 64:6). Now we live in the reality of The Fall. Just read a newspaper and ask yourself, “How is Mankind fairing today?” I trust your answer will not be positive.

    Sin has distorted God image in us and has corrupted everything us. Genesis 6:5 says, “The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.” Romans 3 explains all of mankind in these terms, “”None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one” (Romans 3:11-13). Paul continues on for a bit after that description, but the point is easily seen; all men are evil to their core. This is an especially powerful section when you understand Paul is pulling from numerous texts from the rest of the Bible and not just having a particularly nasty rant (Psalms 14:1-3; 53:1-3; Eccles. 7:20; Psalm 5:9; Psalm 140:3; Psalm 10:7; Isaiah 59:7,8; Psalm 36:1). After looking into the pages of Sacred Text soberly, one is confident that, though we once walked in God’s perfection, we now live in our defilement and failures.

    I must emphasize this one point, when the Bible says all men are evil, it means all men. From the worst of men/women (such as Hitler, Stalin, etc.) to the not seemingly bad men/women (Ghandi, your nice next door neighbor) to even the religious folk (Billy Graham, Mother Teresa, etc.); all have the same and equally grave problem of sinfulness. Some may not act out as badly as others but we all share the same evil nature as the worst of criminals. Watson wisely says, “What is in another’s practice is in my nature.” All must say, “the same sickness of the most evil men lays in my soul.”

    In addition to a shared corrupted nature, we are all guilty of the most grievous evil. When asked what the worst thing man can do, many may respond with wicked things like murder, theft, adultery, etc. But what is the worst crime according to the Bible? The most important commandment is; to love God with everything you have (Matthew 22:34-37). If this is the greatest commandment then to break it is the greatest sin. This means that the worst sin we can do, the vilest, most grotesque and wicked thing that can be done is to not love God with all we have. How is this so? Because He is that worthy. To not love God above all things is to participate in the most foolish, vain, worthless and evil act one can do because nothing else deserves that place because all has come from Him and is for Him. The worst thing we can do is to not exalt God as the greatest there is; the most heinous crime in heaven’s eyes is to love something more than God. So we must understand that evil is not based on the standard of the fallen world, but evil is based on that one commandment that sums up the meaning of Man’s existence; to love God with everything and more than anything. So, although people differ from one another in degrees of evil, all men are equally responsible for committing daily the most evil thing, that is, to deny God what is rightfully His; which is our unshared and absolute love.

HOLY GOD + EVIL MAN = HOLY WRATH

    Now we must do some theological math. What happens when we take a Holy God who hates evil and add unrepentant, hard-hearted, evil and sinful men? We get wrath, that is, intense anger toward evil. God gets angry at sin (Ex. 4:14; 15:7; Lev. 26:27-33; Num. 11:1; 12:9; 22:22; 25:3; Deut. 3:17; 29:24-29; Josh. 7:1; Judg. 2:14; 2 Sam. 24:1; 1 Kings 14:15; 15:30; 16:2; 25:53; 2 Kings 13:3; 17:11; 23:19; 1 Chron. 13:10; 2 Chron. 28:25; Ps. 7:11; ; Heb. 10:27) and sinners themselves. God gets angry at men, so angry the Bible describes it as a type of hatred. Psalm 5 says, “the LORD abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.” Psalm 11 says, “the wicked and those who love violence his soul hates.” Leon Morris records that God’s anger against sin and sinners is spoken of in the Old Testament more than 580 times. God is very angry (and rightly so) with sinners because the sinning they do comes from the heart they have. Jesus says that Man does evil because He is evil (Matt 15:19). There would be no sinning if we were not sinners. What we do is because of who we are. So now we see from the Scriptures that God is Holy and Man is evil. Our predicament then is obvious: God’s anger must be dealt with if men are ever going to have hope of life. God’s righteous anger must be satisfied justly if we are ever going to smile in eternity. He will not compromise His holiness and we cannot dissuade His anger. Something needs to be done and Man is completely unable to do it.

But God’s anger toward sinners is not the last word Scripture gives us.

Enter Jesus, God’s gracious gift and our wonderful propitiation….

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God’s Wrath, Honesty and Love

Monday, May 2nd, 2011

This last week at Core I preached a sermon on Jesus being our propitiation. To say Jesus is our propitiation is to say that Jesus is the sacrifice that has turned God’s righteous anger away from sinful men who believe in Jesus as Savior and Lord. The scriptures plainly teach that God, who is light and has no darkness at all (1 John 1:5), gets angry at sin ((Ex. 4:14; 15:7; Lev. 26:27-33; Num. 11:1; 12:9; 22:22; 25:3; Deut. 3:17; 29:24-29; Josh. 7:1; Judg. 2:14; 2 Sam. 24:1; 1 Kings 14:15; 15:30; 16:2; 25:53; 2 Kings 13:3; 17:11; 23:19; 1 Chron. 13:10; 2 Chron. 28:25; Ps. 7:11; ; Heb. 10:27) and sinners who sin, which is all Mankind (Psalm 5:4-7; 11:4-7), and the only way to have God’s righteous anger against us and our sin satisfied is to obtain Jesus as our propitiation. The gospel is, God has given us a means to have His anger averted from us. He has given us the propitiation of His Son Jesus. Jesus took our Hell to it’s end on the cross.

    God put forward (Jesus) as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. Romans 5:25
    (Jesus) had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. Hebrews 2:17 

    (Jesus) is the propitiation for our sins… 1 John 2:2

    In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 1 John 4:10

Two things this doctrine of propitiation shows us is that God is a thoroughly honest God and that His love is far greater than we ever can know. Let me let two men far smarter than I could ever hope to be weigh in on the two matters.

    B.B Warfield – Since God is Thoroughly Honest the Cross of Jesus is Necessary:
    A somewhat and flippant critic, contemplating the religion of Israel, has told us, as expressive of his admiration for what he found there, that “an honest God is the noblest work of man.” There is a profound truth lurking in the remark. Only it appears that the work were too noble for man; and probably an has never compassed it. A benevolent God, yes: men have framed a benevolent God for themselves. But a thoroughly honest God, perhaps never. That has been left for the revelation of God HImself to give us. And this is the really distinguishing characteristic of the God of revelation: He is a thoroughly honest a thoroughly conscientious God – a God who deals honestly with Himself and us. And a thoroughly conscientious God, we may be sure, is not a God who can deal with sinners as if they were not sinners. In this fact lies, perhaps the deepest ground of the necessity of an expiatory atonement.

    Leon Morris – God’s Love for Sinners is Marvelous Because of His Anger Against Sinners:
    Divine love and Divine wrath (hatred against sin) are compatible aspects of the Divine nature. There is a divine wrath, but if we may put it this way, it is always exercised with a certain tenderness. Even when God is angry with man’s sin God loves man and is concerned for his well-being in the fullest sense. There is a divine love, but it is not a careless sentimentality indifferent to the moral integrity of the loved ones. Rather it is a love which is a purifying fire, blazing against everything that hinder the loved ones from being te very best that they can be.

God’s wrath is an honest response to Man’s sin. He cannot feel good about us because there is nothing in us to feel good about. There is nothing in Man to bring about God’s affection. When God looks at man without grace, He sees one wanting and deserving of Hell’s flames.

This is the very thing that makes God’s love amazing. His love is an action stirred within God alone, not because of man, but in spite of Him. God’s love is not one of responsive feeling, but one of action. God’s love does something for those He gives it to. John has told us, “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). Do you see that? We did not love Him, but He loved us. How do we know He loved us? HE SENT HIS SON TO BE THE PROPITIATION FOR OUR SINS. He did something for us in spite of us. God does not feel love for sinful man, but He feels righteous anger. However, God’s love is of such a caliber that He works in love for sinful man in spite of sinful man. He pours His grace on the un-wanting and undeserving. He gives sinful men Jesus on the cross. The Lamb of God, not the Lamb of Man. When His work is done through Christ, He then is able to pour His affection out on us as a Father on His newly adopted son because our sin has been punished, our defilement cleansed and our hearts changed.

Hallelujah, what a savior.

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The Agony of the Cross

Monday, April 25th, 2011

Pastor Dave tackles the subject of Jesus’ agony in the garden of Gethsemane (Mark 1-42). Why was Jesus terrified in the garden? Why was His soul troubled to the point of death? What on earth could ever scare the Son of God?

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Diagnosis: Corrupted by Sin

Friday, March 4th, 2011

These are the notes from the sermon preached last night at Core. I hope you are sobered and humbled by your sin so you may in return be amazed by God’s grace demonstrated in the sin bearing death of His Son Jesus Christ.

 

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT FOR US TO KNOW ABOUT OUR SIN?

1. The Bible speaks plainly of it.

2. To have truth that meets our experience.

3. To realize and acknowledge that sin in me is the source of my problems and pain. A true diagnosis.

4. To truly understand and appreciate the cross of Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:21; 1 Peter 2:24; Is. 53:5)

 

 

WHAT IS SIN?

J. G. Machen wisely observes, “What is Sin? It is a question that we cannot ignore. False answers to this question have brought about untold disaster to mankind and the church. On the other hand, the right answer to this question paves for us the beginning of the pathway of salvation.”

Definition: Sin is any failure to conform to God’s moral law in action, attitude or nature.

 


WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF SIN?

Satan – John 8:44

Angels – Jude 6

Man – Genesis 3

SideNote: How was it Possible to Sin?

Adam and Eve were God’s very good creation, how then did they come to sin?

- No reason in God’s very good creation

- No reason in God (James 1;14)

- A mystery and riddle that we cannot fully know, but we most definitely know what the answer is not.

 

 

WHY DID GOD LET SIN HAPPEN?

Bad Answers:
It is necessary for good to exist – No! “I do not think we ought to adopt any answer which will involve making evil a necessary means to the production of good. That would be a very deadly error indeed; for if evil is necessary that there should be good, then evil would in some sort cease to be evil and would become itself a kind of good. Indeed, in that case – if evil is necessary to good – evil must be thought of as having a place in the life of God Himself before the creation of the world; and that is the abyss of blasphemy.” J.G. Machen

God was tricked

God was overpowered

God lost control

God created sin (James 1:14)

The Bible’s Answer: And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

God permitted sin to enter the world for His ultimate glory and the ultimate and eternal good of His
people.

Sin Was Against His Will, Yet Not Without His Will
“The works of the Lord are great, well-considered in all His acts of will – that in a strange and
inexpressible fashion even that which is done against His will is not done without His will.” Augustine

 

 

WHAT ARE THE RESULTS OF SIN?

Immediate Results (Genesis 3:1-24)

All God’s creation began as very good (Gen. 1:31); Sin is not true humanity (Gen. 2:25)

Shame (Genesis 3:7)

Fear (Gen. 3:10)

Evasion of Responsibilities (3:10)

Death (Genesis 3:19b; Eph. 2:1; Matthew 25:41; Physical, Spiritual, Eternal)

Sin’s Major Affect on Man (Romans 3:9-18)

1. Corruption (Original Sin)
2. Guilt (Imputed Sin; Dave will handle this next week)

The Corruption of Sin Affects…

All People (Universal) – Romans 3:9
All Aspects of All People – Romans 3:10-18; Genesis 6:5; Jeremiah 17:9
All of Our Will and Desire; Enslaves Us (cf. Romans 6)

 

 

WHAT DOES GOD DO WITH SIN?

God responds to sin in wrath (intense hatred), “We were by nature objects of wrath.”
Ephesians 2:3

Though God righteously responds to sin in anger because He is holy, He casts love onto His corrupted people and send Jesus to atone for their sin. God sends Jesus as the sacrifice that pays the penalty for sin (Romans 8:1-4; 1 John 4:10)

But, O unutterable grace!
The Son of God takes Adam’s place;
Down to our world the Savior flies,
Stretches His arms, and bleeds, and dies.

Jesus….

Covers our shame for good by taking it on Himself (1 Peter 2:24).

Replaces our fear with of God with the love of the Father (Colossians 1:21-23; Galatians 3:26) by enduring His wrath against our sin.

Takes our responsibility for our sin on the cross (Isaiah 53:5).

Reconciles us to the Father and to each other (Colossians 1:22).

Changes our hearts by the Spirit from their corrupt, hardened evil to become hearts that love Him (Ezekiel 36:26-27; John 3:3; Titus 3:3-8))

 

Who will save this wretched man that I am? Jesus Christ the Lord of Glory, crucified for sinners to redeem for God…

 

Other Gospel verse that speak of our problem and His solution in Jesus (Romans 3:19-22; Psalm 130:3-4; Romans 7:24-25; Galatians 3:22; Ephesians 2:1-10; Colossians 1:21-23; Romans 5:6-8)

Amen

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Bell and Hell

Friday, March 4th, 2011

Rob Bell is a big name. The dude can speak very well. He pastors a church with over 10,000 weekly attenders and has a podcast audiences of 50,000+. He can say, along with Ron Burgundy, that he is kind of a big deal. And that is why this video promo for his new book is disturbing.

Rob Bell is soon putting out a book called “LOVE WINS: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived.” In the video below he gives an introduction into the thoughts he will be addressing in the upcoming book. It seems clear in the video that Bell desires to do away with hell. There is no reason for me to say anything additional because men much more apt have already said much more than I could give you now.

So, watch the video below and then read this, and then make your way to this, and finally come to end on this.

I hope this edifies, equips and sharpens you for Him.

I thought this word from Pastor Tim Keller would end nicely:

The doctrine of hell is important because it is the only way to know how much Jesus loved us and how much he did for us. In Matthew 10:28 Jesus says that no physical destruction can be compared with the spiritual destruction of hell, of losing the presence of God. But this is exactly what happened to Jesus on the cross-he was forsaken by the Father (Matthew 27:46.) In Luke 16:24 the rich man in hell is desperately thirsty (v.24) and on the cross Jesus said “I thirst” (John 19:28.) The water of life, the presence of God, was taken from him. The point is this. Unless we come to grips with this “terrible” doctrine, we will never even begin to understand the depths of what Jesus did for us on the cross. His body was being destroyed in the worst possible way, but that was a flea bite compared to what was happening to his soul. When he cried out that his God had forsaken him he was experiencing hell itself. But consider–if our debt for sin is so great that it is never paid off there, but our hell stretches on for eternity, then what are we to conclude from the fact that Jesus said the payment was “finished” (John 19:30) after only three hours? We learn that what he felt on the cross was far worse and deeper than all of our deserved hells put together. You can read the full article here.

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Terrified for Me

Thursday, February 17th, 2011

Donald Macleod:

“When Moses saw the glory of God on Mount Sinai so terrifying was the sight that he trembled with fear (Heb. 12:21). But that was God in covenant; God in grace. What Jesus saw in Gethsemane was God with the sword raised (Zc. 13:7; Mt. 26:31). The sight was unbearable. In a few short hours, he, the Last Adam, would stand before that God answering for the sin of the world: indeed, identified with the sin of the world (2 Cor. 5:21). He became, as Luther said, ‘the greatest sinner that ever was.’ Consequently, to quote Luther again, ‘No one ever feared death so much as this man.’ He feared it because for him it was no sleep (1 Thess. 4:13), but the wages of sin: death with the sting; death unmodified and unmitigated; death as involving all that sin deserved. He alone, would face it without a covering, providing by his very dying the only covering for the world, but doing so as a whole offering, totally exposed to God’s abhorrence of sin. And he would face death without God, deprived of the one solace and the one resource which had always been there.

“The wonder of the love of Christ for his people is not that for their sake he faced death without fear, but that for their sake he faced it, terrified. Terrified by what he knew, and terrified by what he did not know, he took damnation lovingly” (Macleod, The Person of Christ, pp. 174-175).

For all those who believe.


Amen and amen.

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