Here is a powerful, faith-strengthening excerpt from C.H. Spurgeon’s sermon on 1 Peter 3:18 called “Our Suffering Substitute”:
Archive for the ‘Gospel’ Category
Our Suffering Substitute
Thursday, September 16th, 2010What is Penal Substitution?
Monday, September 6th, 2010In light of our upcoming sermon series on the cross, it will be helpful to define penal substitution, the particular doctrine that is intimated by the name of our series, “In My Place Condemned He Stood”. Here is a good Trinitarian definition from the book Pierced For Our Transgressions: Recovering the Glory of Penal Substitution. It should be read slowly and meditatively — weighing the deep gospel truths in each sentence.
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“The doctrine of penal substitution states that God gave himself in the person of his Son to suffer instead of us the death, punishment and curse due to fallen humanity as the penalty for sin. This summary can be expanded to give some sense of how the doctrine connects with other important biblical themes.
God the Father gave his Son to save rebellious, God-hating people, knowing that he would be despised and rejected by those he had made, that he would be a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. He spared sinful people from condemnation, death and punishment, but he did not spare his own beloved Son, with whom he was well pleased.
God the Son gave himself, willingly undertaking the task appointed for him by his Father. He veiled his glory in a human body, experienced every temptation we face without succumbing to any, and lived a perfect human life. Yet he took our sin and guilt upon himself and died a cursed death, suffering in his human nature the infinite torment of the wrath and fury of his Father. After three days he was vindicated in his resurrection before being exalted to his heavenly throne. From there he rules his kingdom, awaiting the day of his glorious appearing when every eye shall see him, every knee bow before him, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
God the Holy Spirit, having been sent by the Father and the Son, now works in our hearts through the proclamation of the gospel to convict us of sin, righteousness and judgment, to draw us to Christ in repentance and faith, and so to unite us to Christ that we may share in every blessing he has won for us.
God the Holy Trinity thus turned aside his own righteous wrath against sinful humanity; endured and exhausted the curse of the law that stood against us; cleansed us from our sin and clothed us in Christ’s righteousness; ransomed us from our slavery to sin, the world and the devil by paying our debt, canceling the devil’s power of accusation against us, and liberating us to live new lives empowered by the Spirit; triumphed over all evil powers by punishing evil in the person of the Son; and reconciled us with himself by removing the barrier of sin and enmity between us; in order that we may stand blameless and forgiven in his glorious presence, credited with the perfect righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, as adopted children of God, gazing upon his face for all eternity.
God vindicated his truthfulness by remaining faithful to his promise that sin will be punished; he manifested his justice by punishing sin and acquitting the righteous; he glorified his name by exalting his Son and placing all things under his feet; and he demonstrated his love by dying for sinners and reconciling to himself those who were once his enemies.”
Promises of God to His People
Monday, July 19th, 2010In today’s sermon out of Ephesians 4:14-16 on Growing Together in Unity, I made mention of a list of promises of God that was printed in the bulletin. They are listed here for your convenience.
Promises to Forgive Us
- Proverbs 28:13
- 1 John 1:9
Promises to Save Us
- John 14:3
- Hebrews 9:28
Promises to Help Us Change
- Philippians 1:6; 2:12-13
- 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24
Promises to Guide Us
- James 1:5
- Romans 8:26-27
Promises to Provide For Us
- Psalm 37:4
- Romans 8:28, 32
Promises to Comfort Us
- Matthew 11:28-30
- 2 Corinthians 1:3-5
Promises to Be With Us
- Matthew 28:20
- John 14:16, 23
Promises to Keep Us
- John 10:27-30
- Romans 8:38-39
Promises to Show Us His Glory
- John 17:24
- 1 John 3:2
I also recommended the book Believing God: Twelve Biblical Promises Christians Struggle to Accept by R.C. Sproul Jr.
A Test of Logic about the Resurrection
Sunday, April 4th, 2010Logic can be considered thinking the way God thinks, as God is a being who reasons (Isaiah 1:18) and we are made in His image, so can reason (but not have the same knowledge as He does). Logic only applies to the progression of thought, and cannot deal with the truth of premises or conclusions being argued. One thing to keep in mind is to distinguish “validity” and “truth”. Logic only deals with the validity of an argument (if statements validly follow from premise to conclusion).
See how well you reason given the following argument:
If Jesus rose from the dead (statement p),
Then His bones cannot be found (statement q).
Are the following four arguments logically valid? (Not asking if the premises are true.)
- Jesus rose from the dead (p is true),
Therefore, His bones cannot be found (q is true). - Jesus’ bones cannot be found (q is true),
Therefore, He rose from the dead (p is true). - Jesus did not rise from the dead (p is false),
Therefore, His bones can be found (q is false). - Jesus’ bones can be found (q is false),
Therefore, He did not rise from the dead (p is false).
Answers:
- VALID argument. Since Jesus rose from the dead His bones cannot be found.
- INVALID argument. Remember, validity is independent of the truth or falsity of the premises or conclusion. Jesus rose, yes, but not every dead person whose bones are missing also rose (since could have been cremated).
- INVALID argument. The conclusion does not follow, since many people who did not rise have been cremated.
- VALID argument, despite that both premises are false.
The easiest way for the Jews to have killed the resurrection right from the start would have been to produce Jesus’ body, with the nail marks in His heels and wrists/hands, and the spear mark in His side and no crushed bones (which would distinguish Him from any other criminal who had been crucified). Furthermore, they knew where He was buried as they would have wanted to make sure and they asked His tomb to be sealed to be tamper-proof and guarded with highly-trained Roman soldiers with their lives on the line if they should fail. Likewise the Romans would be able to produce the body of Jesus to stop this growing “pernicious sect” (to them). (See fact #1 of previous post.)
The founders of all other religions have died and their bodies rotted in graves. But the same cannot be said of Christianity, since no body could be produced. To produce it would be the end of Christianity. And there would be no followers going to death in torture for what they knew to be a lie, not just a belief (as is common even today).
The Resurrection Facts
Sunday, April 4th, 2010Six important facts regarding the historical claim of Jesus’ resurrection:
1) THE TOMB WAS CERTAINLY EMPTY.
Could the disciples have stolen Jesus’ body? This was a rumor spread by the Jewish leaders who sought Jesus’ execution (cf. Matt 27:62-66; 28:11-15). But if the disciples tried to steal the body, remember who they were up against. Guarding the tomb were highly trained and disciplined Roman soldiers (cf. Matt 27:66). The disciples, on the other hand, were consistently portrayed as scared and intimidated, especially after Jesus’ arrest (cf. John 20:19). So the likelihood of common fishermen and tax collectors overtaking a guard of Roman soldiers and stealing the body seems highly improbable.
Another reason we can be confident that the tomb was empty is the fact that the Roman authorities could have easily produced the body to stop the rumors and the growing Christian movement, which was becoming more of a threat to the Empire. But of course they didn’t — they couldn’t. We also know that Jesus’ tomb was not immediately venerated by his followers, which was a common practice then and now. The behavior of his followers did not correspond with ancient customs for mourning the dead. Clearly there was no body in the tomb to mourn.
2) THE RESURRECTION COULD NOT HAVE BEEN A HOAX.
Could the disciples have concocted the story of a resurrection? There are a number of good reasons to believe their story was credible, but one in particular is very convincing. Note that all four gospel accounts state that women were the first eyewitnesses of the Risen Jesus. If the disciples were trying to concoct a credible story, it would make no sense to choose a group of women to be the first eyewitnesses because, in their culture, a woman’s testimony was not trusted or even admissible in a court of law. So the only plausible reason women are mentioned as the first eyewitnesses of Jesus’ resurrection is because women were the first eyewitnesses of Jesus’ resurrection.
3) THE DISCIPLES PERSISTED TO FOLLOW A CRUCIFIED LEADER.
How else can we explain the behavior of his early followers? In those days, when religious leaders died or were killed, their followers would either disband or appoint a new leader. They would not persist to follow a publicly condemned and executed figure unless, of course, something significant occurred convincing them to maintain their allegiance.
Consider the observations of N.T. Wright: “The historian is bound to face the question: once Jesus had been crucified, why would anyone say that he was Israel’s Messiah? Nobody said that about Judas the Galilean after his revolt ended in failure in AD 6. Nobody said it of Simon bar-Giora after his death at the end of Titus’s triumph in AD 70. Nobody said it about bar-Kochbar after his defeat and death in 135. On the contrary. Where messianic movements tried to carry on after the death of their would-be Messiah, their most important task was to find another Messiah. The fact that the early Christians did not do that, but continued, against all precedent, to regard Jesus himself as Messiah, despite outstanding alternative candidates such as the righteous, devout and well-respected James, Jesus’ own brother, is evidence that demands an explanation.”
4) THE RESURRECTION WAS INCONCEIVABLE TO FIRST-CENTURY JEWS.
Would his first disciples — all devout Jews — have considered the Resurrection even plausible? Within a first-century Jewish worldview, the idea of bodily resurrection was understood to be a future, corporate reality tied to the eschatological renewal of the entire world. So an individual resurrection occurring in the middle of history would have been unthinkable. Consider another quote from Wright, “The point to note about Jewish belief in resurrection is that, where it did occur, it was never a detached belief. It was always part of a larger picture of what God was going to do for the nation and indeed the world. . . . Resurrection is one point on a larger spectrum; it will happen all at once as part of God’s future for Israel and the world.”
The belief in the singular resurrection of Jesus was worldview shattering for the first disciples. The only explanation for such a monumental shift in their thinking is if they encountered living proof to the contrary.
5) THE RESURRECTION WAS UNDESIRABLE TO FIRST-CENTURY GREEKS.
Would resurrection talk have attracted scores of Gentile believers? Within a first-century Greco-Roman worldview the idea of a bodily resurrection was not only inconceivable but undesirable. Wright points out, “Indeed, whenever the question of bodily resurrection is raised in the ancient world the answer is negative. Homer does not imagine that there is a way back; Plato does not suppose anyone in their right mind would want one.”
Greco-Roman thought considered the body to be a prison for the soul. So no one in their right mind would evangelize Gentiles by teaching a bodily resurrection (of Christ and of of those in Christ at the end of the age) unless, of course, the Resurrection was a factual and central truth of the Christian message.
6) THE DISCIPLES SAW SOMETHING THAT DRAMATICALLY CHANGED THEM.
Why would the early Christians (Jew & Gentile) insist upon Jesus’ bodily resurrection when it went completely against not only their reigning notion of common sense but against their fundamental religious beliefs? The only plausible explanation is that they witnessed something with their own eyes and touched something with their own hands – something (better yet, someone) that completely shattered their worldview concerning what is possible/impossible and what is desirable/undesirable.
John 20:29 — Then Jesus told [Thomas], “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
Why do Christians Focus so Much Attention on the Death of Their Founder?
Saturday, April 3rd, 2010Most religions focus on the extraordinary life of their founder, whose death is more or less a footnote in his/her story. But Christians treat the death of their founder as the very pinnacle of his story. In fact, they celebrate his death every time they gather. They decorate their buildings and their necks with crosses, which would be the modern-day equivalent of putting an electric chair on top of your church steeple or wearing a hangman’s noose around your neck.
Why do Christians celebrate such a gruesome form of criminal execution for their beloved founder? Christians are truly strange in this way! But the reason we focus so much attention on the death of Jesus is because it was the reason for his life. He came to earth that he may die a brutal death on a cross. So if you want to understand Jesus, then you need to understand his death and know its significance for you.
So let’s consider three significant facts concerning his death:
The Darkness (Mark 15:33)
Mark notes that at the hour of Jesus’ crucifixion, a supernatural darkness came over the whole land. We know it was supernatural because his crucifixion took place at “the sixth hour” which is equivalent to noon, when the sun is at its highest. Now skeptics have argued that it must have been a solar eclipse that the people witnessed. But that is astronomically impossible. Jesus was crucified during the Jewish celebration of the Passover, which was celebrated according to a lunar calendar on a full moon. During a full moon, the earth is between the sun and the moon, but for a solar eclipse to occur, the moon has to be between the sun and the earth. Knowing this, the Gospel writers believed the darkness to be supernatural. So what did it signify?
In biblical imagery, it was common to use light to represent God’s favor and darkness to represent his anger or judgement. So the supernatural darkness that covered the land at the very moment of Jesus’ death symbolically suggests that God was angry with someone and was carrying out his judgement on someone. Of course this begs the question, “With who?? On who??”
The Cry (Mark 15:34-37)
God’s anger and judgement was unleashed on Jesus as he hung on the cross, leading to his “cry of dereliction”. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? His cry testified to the pain he was experiencing. Not just a physical pain but a deep spiritual pain in the form of forsakenness. God’s ultimate punishment for sin is to forsake the sinner. That means to completely cut off the individual from the joys of his presence, his favor, his grace. Every person alive presently experiences those joys, to one degree or another, even if they dont realize it. But if they die, having never turned to Christ in faith, then they will be cut off — they will be forsaken by God. That is essentially what hell is.
Now consider the magnitude of what Jesus must have felt on the cross. Jesus the Son of God has lived in perfect love and communion with God the Father for all eternity, so to be forsaken by his Father was far more painful than the nails in his hands and feet. Think about a good relationship you’ve lost (either because of death, distance, or a misunderstanding). Your relationship may have been good and may have lasted many years, thus the pain you feel is real. But in order to grasp Jesus’ pain, you must multiply your pain by infinity. The relationship between Father and Son was infinitely perfect and stretches infinitely into the past.
The point is that Jesus truly was agonizing in pain on the cross. Physical pain, yes. But even more so, he was experiencing a spiritual forsakenness as a punishment for sin. He was receiving the full measure of God’s anger and judgement against sin.
But why? Jesus lived a life of perfect submission to God his Father. He never sinned. He did nothing to provoke God’s anger or deserve his punishment. So whose sin was he being punished for? Answer: The sin of sinners like us. We deserve to be forsaken by God but Jesus willingly took the place of sinners by dying on the cross. The Father forsook his Son, so that he would not have to forsake those for whom Jesus died as a substitute (1 Pt 2:24; 2 Cor 5:21)
On the cross, Jesus, in a real sense, became the most sinful man the world has ever seen because the sins of millions and billions of believers in every age and place were poured into his body. And on the cross, God the Father punished those sins completely by pouring on his Son all the anger and judgement that should have fallen on sinners. Because Jesus’ took their punishment, sinners can be pardoned and reconciled to God.
The Curtain (Mark 15:38-39)
At the moment of Jesus’ death, Mark records that the curtain in the temple (estimated to be 60 feet high) was torn from top to bottom. The curtain was used to separate the people from the room in the temple where God’s glory resided. It was a constant reminder that God and people were separated because of their sin. But when Jesus died, God tore the curtain, thereby demonstrating that sinners can now be reconciled to him through the death of his Son. Through relying on Jesus, we have free access into the throne room of God. We can now have a relationship with him.
But to receive the benefits of Jesus’ death (ie. the forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God) you must turn to Christ in faith. Those who reject Christ are basically telling God, “I don’t want Jesus to bear my sins on the cross. I want to bear it myself when I stand before you.” And God, with a grieved heart, will respect that decision on the Day of Judgement. May we all, by faith, embrace Christ and his substitutionary death this Easter weekend.
Why Did Jesus Come?
Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010In 1 Timothy 1:15, Paul explains why Jesus came: “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” Note the following observations:
1) Jesus came into the world
To say Jesus came into the world is to imply that Jesus pre-existed before his coming. That corresponds with the Bible’s teaching that Jesus is the Son of God who “in the beginning was with God and was God.” (John 1:1) Jesus was a man — but more than a man. He was God made man.
2) Jesus came… [for] sinners
What is a sinner? The simple answer is that a sinner is a person who sins. But what is sin? According to the Bible, sin is doing whatever is contrary to God’s law, which is a perfect reflection of his own character. But sin is not just doing the bad we ought not do (ie. sins of commission). Sin is also not doing good that we ought to do (ie. sins of omission). And the greatest good, according to Jesus, is “to love him [God] with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself.” (Mark 12:33)
But all of us have fallen short of fulfilling this greatest good; therefore, all of us are sinners. We may not have committed any crimes. We may be generally nice, kind, generous people. But we are all still sinners in one sense or the other.
Who should we blame for this deficiency in our character? Can we blame our culture for how it’s influenced us? Can we blame our parents for how they raised us? Can we blame others for bringing the worse out in us? No, Jesus teaches that we must point the finger at ourselves — at our own hearts. Mark 7:20-23, “What comes out of a man is what makes him ‘unclean.’ For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man ‘unclean.’ “
So every one of us is a sinner and our sin problem runs deep, to the very core of our character and personality. Until we recognize this problem in our own human condition, until we see ourselves as sinners (as the Bible defines it), then we have no part in Jesus or his salvation.
3) Jesus came…to save sinners
If he came to save us, then the obvious question is, “Save us from what?” According to Mark 9:43-49, the consequence of sin is judgment that ends in hell. That is why Jesus says we must do whatever it takes to address our sinful human condition. Now we need to say a few words about hell because the concept is often stereotyped and misunderstood.
Your first reaction might be to wonder why a loving God would create a hell in the first place. But think of it this way: If there were no hell, then what would God do with the evil in this world? If there were no hell, then evil could carry on indefinitely without any justice. Would God be loving, if he never dealt justly with evil? So it is because God loves good and hates evil, that he will make sure to deal with evil – finally and completely. Because he is just, meaning he always exalts good and punishes evil, God created Hell to be the place where evil will be locked up and punished once and for all.
But our problem is that all of us humans are guilty of evil to one degree or another. So when it comes to the Final Judgment we are all guilty of evil and deserving of being sent to hell on the basis of our own works. BUT because God is a loving God, he sent his Son to experience the punishment of evil (by dying on the cross) and thereby offering pardon to those who trust in him. So for the one who trusts in Jesus, God judges them, not on the basis of their works (b/c otherwise they’d be guilty) but on the basis of His Son’s works (which was a life of perfect obedience and righteousness).
This is the salvation that Jesus procured for sinners on the cross. This is ultimately why he came: “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3).
Why Satan Still Roams the Earth
Friday, December 4th, 2009Last Sunday Barton began our Advent series with a message from Genesis 3:15 called “Christmas: Cosmic Battle or Cozy Bedtime Story?“. The premise was that the events of Christmas were the beginnings of the fulfillment of an ancient promise given to our first parents, namely that an offspring of the Woman would crush the head of that ancient serpent, the devil.
But this raises a big question: Why did God wait so long? Why did he give the devil thousands of years to terrorize his people before sending Jesus to crush his head? And since the devil was crushed at the cross, why is he allowed to still roam the earth?
In Piper’s Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ, he devotes a chapter to this question. Why didn’t God eliminate the devil for good in Genesis 3? According to Piper, a victory on Calvary is far more glorious than a victory in Eden. Defeating the devil on the cross is far more excellent than defeating him in the garden. He writes, “If God has simply terminated Satan, then it would not have been so clear that God is both stronger and infinitely more to be desired than Satan.”
So it was totally within God’s power and right to extinguish the devil in Genesis 3, but he allowed the devil to live in order to magnify the worth of his Son through a victory on the cross. Piper writes,
“The glory of Christ is seen in his absolute right and power to annihilate or incapacitate Satan and all demons. But the reason he refrains from destroying and disabling them altogether is to manifest more clearly his superior beauty and worth. If Christ obliterated all devils and demons now (which he could do), his sheer power would be seen as glorious, but his superior beauty and worth would not shine as brightly as when humans renounce the promises of Satan and take pleasure in the greater glory of Christ.”
And even after his decisive defeat at the cross, Satan is permitted to roam the earth…but only as a defeated, bitter loser.
“Christ has triumphed over [Satan], not by putting him out of existence, but by letting him live and watch while millions of saints find forgiveness for their sins and turn their backs on Satan because of the greater glory of the grace of Christ.”
Tim Keller: Counterfeit Gods
Friday, December 4th, 2009Keller’s newest book is called Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope That Matters. If you’d like a summary from the man himself, watch Keller deliver a message on the gospel and idolatry at the 2009 Gospel Coalition Conference back in April. (click here for audio format)
The focus of the book is on idolatry. The point is that we are all idol worshippers even if we’ve never bowed to a literal statue of wood or stone. Yes, we’ve come a long way from the days of temples, altars, shrines, and pantheons. But we are still worshipping the same gods of money, sex, and power. We just don’t call them Aphrodite, Artemis, and Ares anymore. And our bowing is not so much with our knees but with our hearts. In his introduction, Keller writes,
“When most people think of ‘idols’ they have in mind literal statues . . . . Yet while traditional idol worship still occurs in many places of the world, internal idol worship, within the heart, is universal. In Ezekiel 14:3, God says about elders in Israel, “These men have set up their idols in their hearts.” Like us, the elders must have responded to this charge, “Idols? What idols? I don’t see any idols.” God was saying that the human heart takes good things like a successful career, love, material possession, even family, and turns them into ultimate things. Our hearts deify them as the center of our lives, because, we think, they can give us significance and security, safety and fulfillment, if we attain them.”
We Need More Than Forgiveness
Tuesday, July 21st, 2009This past Sunday I preached on the doctrine of justification by an imputed righteousness of Christ from Psalm 24. The main point was that God requires specific qualifications before anyone can approach him in worship and relationship. Qualifications that boil down to this: a holiness that perfectly reflects his own. This is bad news for sinners like us.
But the good news of the Gospel (and Psalm 24) is that God, in his grace, will bless those who seek his face with a righteousness that fulfills the qualifications, making us fit to stand in his holy presence. This righteousness given as a free gift of faith is called by theologians “the imputed righteousness of Christ”. Leon Morris, in his book The Cross in the New Testament, explains its necessity in a sinner’s salvation:
“The righteousness we have is not our own, it comes as God’s good gift in Christ. But we will be righteous. Notice that this means more than being pardoned. The pardoned criminal bears no penalty, but he bears a stigma. He is a criminal and he is known as a criminal, albeit an unpunished one. The justified sinner not only bears no penalty; he is righteous. He is not a man with his sins still about him.”
Christians are not simply pardoned. We are declared righteous…qualified. Not because we no longer sin (we certainly do) but because we’ve been given Jesus’ righteousness, which qualifies us in the eyes of God.