Grace be with you and peace from the God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I’m thankful to be here: many things to be thankful for. Let's pray. Oh God in heaven, we thank you for this day, this opportunity to be here. We thank you Lord for this rain. We just ask, Lord, that you would continue to be with us as you've been so far. Help us to keep our minds on you, Lord, and give us understanding. We pray for those who can't be here today, be with them. Pray for Steve, keep him safe as he travels, and be with Lloyd and Patience and their family- bless their day. We pray that your will be done, Lord. In Jesus' name. Amen
I just want to say that I'm thankful for a lot of things that we heard this morning. I learned some things about the cities of refuge that I don't think I really knew ever, or if I did, I forgot them. Jesus is our refuge. He's our rock and our refuge. I was blessed with how those names of those cities all have a type or a name given to Jesus. It's a blessing.
Two weeks ago I'd given a message about how the Almighty God suffered to death, and though it wasn't my plan when I was inspired to talk about that, I afterwards thought that that would be the first message of a series of messages that I'd like to preach about salvation. And so I'd like to continue from where I let off. For those of you who were here, remember, the Creator of this universe, the one who holds all the water in the hollow of His hand and measures out the sky, the heavens, in one span. The one who speaks and the earth shakes and the hills smoke. He suffered unto death for us.
We talked about how it was needful for Him to drink this cup that the Father wanted Him to drink. He had to enter the regions of death in order for death to be swallowed up in victory. In order for Him to take the keys of death and hell from satan, He had to do this. And we, as people who were in bondage, who were under the chains of the devil, in order for us to be freed, He had to do this.
Death entered into the world when Adam sinned, when he was tricked and enticed into sin, and through sin he was taken into bondage and he was held in bondage by death, through his sin of disobedience to God. Which actually is one of the definitions of death, because disobedience to God puts a separation between us and God, who is the giver of life, and it brings us into the bondage of death, the devil and Hades. I appreciated what one of the brothers brought out last time in the comments about how God saw us in this and He considered us this pearl of great price in which He forsook everything: all His glory, His heavenly realm, He forsook it all to purchase us.
So I'd like to expound just a little bit more on this in this message in these series of salvation. I don't know for sure yet, maybe there will be three or four message. There's an atonement that happened, and I'd like to talk just a little bit more about this atonement today.
In Romans 5:11 it says, We also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom now we have received the atonement. About the simplest definition of atonement, it's a way in which God makes us at one with Him: "at-one-ment" Now the question might be: How does this work? How did Christ suffering, dying and rising make us at one with Him? Also, I'll point out the Greek word for atonement. The Greek word that gets used for atonement here in Romans gets used four times in the New Testament and the other times it's translated as reconciliation, which in some translations is even here in Romans. It means nearly the same thing, like, to make at one with or to reconcile. So this is what Jesus was and did for us, He made it possible for us to back at one with God because we had been at odds.
There are many, many different views of this atonement that have developed in the 2000 years of Christianity. But what is known as the ransom model of the atonement and some variations is what was mostly held to till about the 12th century. It's basically the view in which man was held in bondage by a tyrant, the devil, and Jesus freed us from that. Through His death He entered the regions of death and He broke the chains, took the keys of death and hell, freed us and rescued us to where we could be at
one with God. Around the 12th century someone came up with the satisfaction model of atonement which is more of a view that we were at odds with God because of sin. And that God the Father seeing the Son suffer was satisfied in His sufferings. He was satisfied that He had suffered sufficiently for sin. Around the 1500's with the coming of reformation, some reformers tweaked that theory just a little bit and come up with what's now called the Penal substitution model of the atonement. Which is close to that, but even that model views that God punished Christ instead of punishing us. That He was the substitution for our penalty. That is still one of the most widely held views of it through reformed/protestant believers today. There are others. There's the governmental theory. There's the scapegoat theory. Those are some of the basic ones, but I've heard there's many, many more, and some of them have their variations. One thing that can happen in every one, which ever one you hold to as the dearest, people pull out the proof text for it, well here...this...this and this. There's probably some elements of truth to each one as well. I wouldn't deny that.
And how important is it that we believe the right one? If there is one right one. What I'm talking about today is a complex message. I read a lot, and thought a lot. There were so many times and so many things I read that I felt like I could grasp, that it makes sense, and there were some others that were just "I can almost grasp it and yeah it almost sits perfectly with everything else" and some of it, though, I could almost grasp it, I'd have a real hard time explaining it if I'd even try. I'm thinking this message in the series of salvation is like the complex one which is by large a theological view.
I will say this, however, that these views produce and create other views about God and man, which ultimately at the end produces fruits or works, and that is what we will be judged by. I do not think that someone will be judged by holding a certain view that may be slightly incorrect or not perfectly right. Every account that I come across in the new testament says it over and over: we will be judged by our works. But the truth of the matter is that our theology and what we believe, does produce something. For instance, and this is an interesting point, the penal substitution model of the atonement which was mostly formed in the reformation by people like John Calvin and Luther, assumes proof of the notion of imputed righteousness. That tells you quite a bit. Like how a theology that is foundational or fundamental, as what makes us at one with God, that it ends up producing something.
So in other words, where the ransom model of the atonement produces a thinking that we are freed from a tyrant, the devil and have an opportunity, yea, an obligation, to serve Him (God). The penal substitution model of the atonement has more of a view that we have been freed from the wrath of God, IF we believe that Jesus has done this, and I feel like the outworking of this ultimately what's going to produce works, which in the end is what we'll be judged by. One thing I'd just like to drive home in this whole series on salvation, is the fact that we were in bondage and we have been freed through Jesus Christ, and there is no other way, no other name given among men whereby we could be saved. Scripture shows repeatedly through the old testament through the four gospels, through the epistles and Revelations, this thing of bondage that man is in and the deliverance that will, or has, come, depending on which side of Jesus Christ we're reading.
And I'll add this. Here's one of the main problems people have with the ransomed idea of the atonement and I think it's probably what created some of the other ones. Maybe people took some things in the ransomed idea too far. One of the questions that'll get asked "Who was the ransom paid to?" "If Christ purchased us back, who did He pay to?" If your answer is the devil, it creates a little bit of struggle because people wonder, does that mean that God and the devil are on equal bargaining terms here, and God needs to pay off the devil? I'd just like to say I don't know that I can answer that question for sure, but what we do know that the bible does say He gave Himself as a ransom for many, and that the price was death. We know that the price was death. Maybe there's elements of this that fit a ransom idea but maybe not every aspect. Maybe there was not someone WHO received payment, though Christ paid the price that was needed to purchase us back. And I also think that it should not be a completely foreign thought to us that Christ and the devil had a duel with each other. This was promised already in the beginning when man sinned, when He said that the seed of woman would be at enmity with the seed of
the serpent and the serpent will bruise his heel but He will crush his head. And I'm going to talk about that a little later a little more.
I want to read a list of scriptures that talk about this bondage and the freeing of it. This is a whole list of passages throughout the old and new testament
Psalms 102: 19-20 says He looked down from the height of His sanctuary from heaven. The Lord viewed the earth to hear the groaning of the prisoner, to release those appointed to death.
Psalms 107: 13-14 Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble and He saved them out of their distresses. He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death and broke their chains in pieces.
Isaiah is full of these. I'm just going to read a few of them. To open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the prison, those who sit in darkness from the prison house.
In Isaiah 49, thus says the Lord, that even the captivity of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible delivered, for I will contend with him who contends with you and I will save your children. I will seethe those who oppress you with their own flesh and they shall be drunk with their own blood as with sweet wine. All the flesh shall know that I the Lord am your Savior and your redeemer, the mighty one of Jacob.
Isaiah 61 says, the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach the good tidings to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of prison to those who are bound.
Jeremiah 30 says, now these are the words that the Lord spoke concerning Israel and Judah, for thus says the Lord, we have heard a voice of trembling, of fear and not of peace. Ask now and see, whether a man is ever in labor with a child. So why do I see every man with his hands on his loins like a woman in labor, and all faces turned pale? Alas! For that day is great so that none is like it, and it is the time of Jacob's trouble, but he shall be saved out of it, for it shall come pass in that day says the Lord of hosts, that I will break his yoke from your neck and will burst your bonds. Foreigners shall no longer enslave them, but they shall serve the Lord their God and David their King whom I shall raise up for them.
Ezekiel 13 says, therefore thus says the Lord God, behold I am against your magic charms by which you hunt souls. They're like birds. I will tear them from your arms and let the souls go. The souls you hunt like birds. I will also tear off your veils and deliver my people out of your hand and they shall no longer be as prey in your hand. Then you shall know that I am the Lord, because with lies you have made the heart of the righteous sad, whom I have not made sad, and you have strengthened the hands of the wicked so that he does not turn from his wicked way and save his life. therefore you shall no longer envision futility nor practice divination, for I will deliver my people out of your hand and you shall know that I am the Lord.
Ezekiel 34 says, then the trees of the field shall yield their fruit and the earth shall yield her increase. They shall be safe in their land and they shall know I am the Lord when I have broken the bands of their yokes and delivered them from the hands of those who enslaved them. Zechariah 9, As for you also, because of the blood of your covenant I will set your prisoners free from the water-less pit.
Going into the new testament in Acts 2, Peter says, Men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, signs, which God did through Him in your midst as you yourselves also know, Him being delivered at the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands and have crucified and put to death, whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death because it was not possible that He should be held by it.
Ephesians 4:7-10 (Robert read some of this already) But to each one of us, grace was given according to the measure of Christ, if therefore he says, when he ascended on high he led captivity captive and gave gifts to men. Now this, He ascended, what does it mean, but that he
also first descended into the lower parts of the earth. He who descended is also the one who ascended far above all the heavens that he might fulfill all things.
Those are just some of the passages that talk about this.
There are types, also. The children of Israel being captives in bondage as slaves in Egypt is one of them, under a merciless tyrant, Pharaoh, and God delivers them with a mighty hand. Nebuchadnezzar is an evil tyrant who bound the three Hebrew children/ men and cast them into the fire, but with the coming of the Son into the fire, they walked around loose, no longer bound.
There's this story...(this is not in the bible) This man was walking down the sidewalk and he met a little boy who had a little birdcage, and in this birdcage he had a couple birds, and the man asked him where he got those birds and he said he trapped them, and he asked him what he's going to do with them and he said, "I'm going to play with them. I'm going to have fun with them, I'm going to tease them, I'm going to play with them" and the man says "you're going to get tired of them eventually, what are you going to do then?" "oh" he said, "I've got some cats, I'll feed them to my cats". And the man said "What do you want for those birds?" "And the boy said, "You don't want these birds. They're just ordinary birds, they can't even sing!" And the man said "give me a price" and the boy gave him a price "two dollars" and the man gives him two dollars, much to the boy's surprise. The boy left and the man opens the cage and sets these birds free. Something like that is a type of how we were imprisoned and Christ purchased us back to set us free.
The Israelites knew that the Messiah that is promised would do this and they were looking for that. So there's this account in Luke 2 when Jesus was born and they took Him to the temple and Simeon said what he said about "Now my eyes have seen your salvation: I can die in peace". There was also an old woman there, Anna, who had been married for seven years but now lived as a widow till she was 84 and she never left the temple. She served there by fasting and praying continually, and it says she spoke to everybody about Him who was waiting for the freeing of Israel when she realized that this was the coming of the Messiah. The children of Israel, when Jesus was born, found themselves under the rule of the Romans. It was somewhat a time of peace, yet they did not have their own nation in which they were ruling. They were under the rule of the Romans, and they would've liked to be free from that. Here comes Jesus, and many of the people were expecting to be freed from this, because they knew that the promised Messiah would free them. He would rule and He would be a king forever! He would establish the kingdom forever.
But Jesus was the creator of the universe, and He was the creator of all mankind, not just the Jews. His kingdom was universal and therefore it would not have been a sufficient freedom if He would've just dealt with Herod and took the kingdom back to Israel. No, he went beyond that because He wanted the Romans and all gentiles to be in His kingdom. He went beyond to the tyrant who held all mankind under his rule, under his thumb and He dealt with him and He defeated him.
I'll read in 1st Timothy. Here's one of the places where it talks about how He was the redeemer of all.
1 Timothy chapter 2:3-6 he says, This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, for there is one God and one mediator also, between God and man, Christ Jesus who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony given at the proper time.
Jesus said ‘how can anyone enter the strong man's house and carry off his property, unless he first binds the strong man and then he will plunder his house and take his property.’ This I believe he was talking about what He was going to do. He was going to bind the strong man, the devil, that had strength over us.
I'm going to read in Romans 5 starting in verse 6. I might expound some more on this in a later message but what I want us to see here is the comparison as well as the difference between the first Adam and the last Adam. Between Adam in the garden of Eden and Jesus Christ in the garden of Gethsemane. It says, for while we were still helpless at the right time Christ died for the ungodly, for one will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps for a good man one would dare to
even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more than, having been now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only this, we also exalt in God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have now received the reconciliation. Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned, for until the law, sin was in the world. But sin is not imputed where there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam til Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who was a type of Him who was to come. But the free gift is not like the transgression, for if by the transgression of the one man, many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of one man, Jesus Christ abound to many. The gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned, for on the one hand the judgment arose from one transgression, resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the free gift arose from many transgressions, resulting in justification. For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who received the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ. So when as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness, there resulted justification of life to all men. For as through one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of one, the many were made righteous.
I'll just stop there and like I said, I might try to expound some more on some of these verses later. But I see how Jesus as the last/second Adam through obedience and through minding the things of the spirit and not the things of the flesh, undid the binding that Adam brought mankind into, by disobedience and minding the things of the flesh and not the things of the Spirit. The devil enticed Adam into sin and disobedience and brought him into bondage. Now it was necessary that the one who would break the bonds would also become the seed of Adam. So God had to become the son of man. He had to be born of woman. He had to take on himself the form of a servant. He had to become flesh and dwell among us and be tempted in all areas like we were. Now I say, He had to. God has all power and all might and this is one of the most important points I'd like to make in this: God has all power and all might and I think He would've been capable to defeat the devil without becoming man. Sure! He's got power over the devil! He could've, as God, went into Hades or into the regions of death and He could've ransacked Hades, He could've set the captives free and He could've done it as God. He could've had an attitude towards the devil as if, “Look! You tricked my favorite creation. You tricked him into being yours and I ain't having it. I'm taking them back! Away with you!" But what God basically would've shown then, is that He has power over the devil. (And He does! He has power over the devil.)
But He showed something else. By becoming flesh He shows us and the devil, that man, when he minds the things of the Spirit and denies the flesh, which Jesus had done all His life, and met the climax of it in the garden of Gethsemane where His spirit was willing but His flesh was weak, and yet He surrendered that flesh to the Spirit and He overcame and had victory over death, sin, Hades and the devil himself.
If we don't see that Jesus was fully man (He was fully God and He was fully man), that He was tempted like we are and yet without sin, and we think that He only did that because He was fully God, we have an element of what John calls the spirit of anti-Christ, which denies that Christ came in the flesh, and we make this salvation out as something that God does everything and man has nothing to do. If you can wrap your minds around that, I hope that's clear enough.
God has, from the very beginning, been wanting to set before man life and death, therefore choose life. He has wanted his favorite creation, out of their free will to choose Him. It's the way that He would know that we would love Him. What if He did just go in as God, by-step the process of becoming man, and He would've defeated the devil. He would've just done away with him and He would've had man
back, but now how would He actually know if man would've chosen Him? If He would not set before them life and death, therefore choose life.
Irenaeus says in 180 AD It was necessary that through man himself he should, when conquered be bound with the same chains with which had bound man, in order that man, being set free, might return to his Lord, leaving to him, satan, those bonds which he himself had fettered, that is, sin. For when satan is bound, man is set free. Since none enter a strong man's house and spoil his goods unless he first bind the strong man himself.
Another writer in 304 says, for this cause, therefore a mediator came, that is, God in the flesh, that the flesh might be able to follow Him, and that He might rescue man from death which has dominion over the flesh. Therefore He clothed himself with flesh, that the desires of the flesh being subdued, He might teach that to sin is not the result of necessity but of man's purpose and will.
As I was reading and thinking much about this, it was in light of the ransomed idea of the atonement that I felt like all the verses that talk about the depravity of man make sense. There's this doctrine called Total depravity of which most of it I disagree with because it has turned this into everything that man does is sin, anything good that man does is only outward, and it only appears to be good to man, that man is not even able to turn to God, it would be God that would have to turn man to Him, it takes the free will and choice out of salvation. I had this conversation some years ago with a guy that I was working for, who was trying to convince me of it and he told me, " we can't go one second without sinning, that is how utterly depraved and sinful we are!" Now I disagree with those things. However, there is for sure a truth in the fact that if God had not interceded, we are hopelessly and helplessly lost. Here's some of the verses that would mostly by used by people have a wrong understanding of total depravity, but think of them in the light of the bondage we were in and the freedom that was made available to us.
Psalms 51 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin my mother conceived me
Psalms 58. Know, in heart you work wickedness. You weigh out the violence of your hands in the earth. The wicked are enstranged from the womb, they go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies.
Isaiah 40:6-8 the voice called out, "cry out!" and he said, "What shall I cry?" "All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. The grass withers and the flower fades because the breath of the Lord blows upon it. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of the Lord stands forever.”
Isaiah 64 But we are like an unclean thing, and all our righteousness is like filthy rags. We all fade like a leaf and our iniquity as the wind have taken us away.
Romans 3:10-12 As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. There is none who understands, there is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside, they have together become unprofitable, there is none who does good, no not one.
This is the condition of mankind down through the ages before Christ breaks the bonds
There's an account in Ezekiel, you can go home and read it sometime, in Ezekiel 16 where God is talking about Jerusalem but I think He's talking about mankind as well, individuals or the whole mankind. He says, your father is an Amorite, your mother is a Hittite, and as far as the day you were born, your naval wasn't cut, you weren't washed, you weren't salted, you weren't wrapped in swaddling clothes. You were cast out and you lay out there in an open field, a tiny little infant. And he said, I passed by and I saw you laying there in your blood. Just think about this. This tiny little infant, as soon as it was born, it was laying there, nobody cared, it wasn't even washed, wasn't wrapped in a blanket, its naval wasn't cut, it lay there in its blood, and he took compassion on it, and he raised it up, and he cleaned it and he said “Have life!” and he did what it took to give this child life. And then he goes on to talk about how beautiful this woman became, then how she started playing the harlot with other people. But like that, like how helpless and hopeless the fate of this infant was, as helpless and hopeless as the condition Israel was in Egypt, that is our condition, had Christ not come in the flesh and dwelt
among us, been tempted like we are, entered the regions of death, rescued man and swallowed up death in victory.
That is why it is good for us if we never forget that if He had not loved us, we would not love Him. If He had not called us, we could not hear His voice. If He had not given us a desire for Him, we would not have sought after Him. If He had not revealed Himself, we would not have found Him. If He had not delivered us, we would still be bound in fetters. This is the grace that I believe Titus is talking about, chapter 2. For the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires, and to live sensible and righteously and godly in this present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our God and Savior, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed and purify a people for His own possession, zealous for good works. These things speak and exhort and prove with all authority. Let no one disregard you.
How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?
Let's close in prayer. Oh God in heaven, we owe you everything and we thank you for being our deliverer, Savior. We thank you Lord, for defeating the evil tyrant who had bound us. We thank you Lord and we pray that you would help us to never forget this and walk worthy of such a salvation. In Jesus' name, amen.
So what I talked about today was how mankind was saved, and Lord willing sometime in the near future, I want to talk about how mankind is being saved, and maybe a final message on how he will be saved, because there's all three of those elements throughout scripture. May the Lord add His blessings!
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