https://albertmohler.com en 301653 Audio recordings of Dr. Mohler's Sunday school class, wherein he normally follows a verse-by-verse style of exposition through books of the Bible. en https://cf.albertmohler.com/uploads/2025/06/line-by-line-updated.jpg https://albertmohler.com/category/powerline/feed/ no episodic R. Albert Mohler, Jr. For more resources, including articles, The Briefing, Thinking in Public, and archived editions of his nationally-syndicated radio show, The Albert Mohler Program, be sure to visit albertmohler.com. The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary podcasts@sbts.edu 301653 For more resources, including articles, The Briefing, Thinking in Public, and archived editions of his nationally-syndicated radio show, The Albert Mohler Program, be sure to visit albertmohler.com. https://albertmohler.com/2026/03/29/malachi-316-46/ Sun, 29 Mar 2026 12:00:53 +0000 Louisville, KY
Malachi 3:16-4:6
March 29, 2026

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Malachi 3:6-15
March 22, 2026

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Malachi 2:17-3:6
March 15, 2026

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Malachi 2:10–16
March 1, 2026

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Malachi 2:1–9
February 22, 2026

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Malachi 1:6–14
February 8, 2026

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Malachi 1:1-5
February 1, 2026

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1 Corinthians 16:1–24
December 14, 2025

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1 Corinthians 15:12–58
December 7, 2025

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1 Corinthians 15:1–11
November 30, 2025

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1 Corinthians 14:1–40
November 23, 2025

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1 Corinthians 13:1–13
October 12, 2025

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1 Corinthians 11:17-34
September 28, 2025

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1 Corinthians 11:1–22
September 21, 2025

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1 Corinthians 11:1–16
September 14, 2025

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1 Corinthians 10:1–33
August 31, 2025

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1 Corinthians 9:1–27
August 17, 2025

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1 Corinthians 8:1–13
May 11, 2025

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1 Corinthians 7:17–40
May 4, 2025

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1 Corinthians 7:1–16
April 27, 2025

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1 Thessalonians 4:13–18
April 20, 2025

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1 Corinthians 6:1–20
April 13, 2025

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1 Corinthians 5:1–13
April 6, 2025

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1 Corinthians 4:1–21
March 23, 2025

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1 Corinthians 3:1–23
March 16, 2025

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1 Corinthians 2:1-16
March 9, 2025

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1 Corinthians 1:18-31
February 9, 2025

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1 Corinthians 1:1-17
February 2, 2025

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Numbers 28-36
December 15, 2024

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Numbers 26-27
December 1, 2024

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Numbers 25
November 24, 2024

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Numbers 21:10-24:25
November 3, 2024

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Numbers 20-21:9
October 10, 2024

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Numbers 18-19
October 13, 2024

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Numbers 16-17
September 22, 2024

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Numbers 15
September, 15, 2024

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Numbers 13-14
August, 18, 2024

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Numbers 11
June, 16, 2024

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Numbers 9-10
May, 12, 2024

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Numbers 7-8
May, 5, 2024

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Numbers 6
April, 28, 2024

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Numbers 5
April, 7, 2024

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1 Corinthians 15:1-11
March, 31, 2024

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Numbers 4
March, 10, 2024

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Numbers 2-3
February, 11, 2023

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Numbers 1
February, 4, 2023

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Luke 16
November, 26, 2023

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Colossians 4:2-18 — Colossians Series
November, 12, 2023

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Colossians 3:18–4:1 — Colossians Series
October, 15, 2023

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Colossians 3:1–17 — Colossians Series
September, 10, 2023

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Colossians 2:16–23 — Colossians Series
August, 20, 2023

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Colossians 2:1–15 — Colossians Series
June, 25, 2023

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Colossians 1:15–29 — Colossians Series
June, 18, 2023

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Colossians 1:1–14 — Colossians Series
May, 14, 2023

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Titus 3:1–15 — Titus Series
May, 7, 2023

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Titus 2:15–3:7 — Titus Series
April, 30, 2023

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1 Corinthians 15:1–11
April, 9, 2023

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Titus 2:11–14 — Titus Series
March, 26, 2023

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Titus 2:3–10 — Titus Series
March, 19, 2023

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Titus 2:1–2 — Titus Series
March, 12, 2023

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Titus 1:7–14 — Titus Series
February, 19, 2023

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Titus 1:5–6 — Titus Series
February, 5, 2023

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Titus 1:1–4 — Titus Series
January, 29, 2023

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John 1:1–18
December, 18, 2022

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Luke 16
December, 11, 2022

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Luke 18:9–14
November, 27, 2022

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Luke 15
November, 6, 2022

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Leviticus 1:1–27:34 — Leviticus Series
October, 16, 2022

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Leviticus 25:35–27:34 — Leviticus Series
October, 09, 2022

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Leviticus 24:17–25:34 — Leviticus Series
September, 25, 2022

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Leviticus 24:1–16 — Leviticus Series
August, 21, 2022

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Leviticus 23:1–44 — Leviticus Series
August, 14, 2022

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Leviticus 21–22 — Leviticus Series
June 26, 2022

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Leviticus 20:1–27 — Leviticus Series
May 22, 2022

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Leviticus 19:1–37 — Leviticus Series
May 8, 2022

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Leviticus 18:1–30 — Leviticus Series
April 24, 2022

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Leviticus 17:1–16 — Leviticus Series
April 17, 2022

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Leviticus 16:1–34 — Leviticus Series
April 10, 2022

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Leviticus 15:1–33 — Leviticus Series
March 27, 2022

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Leviticus 13–14 — Leviticus Series
March 20, 2022

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Leviticus 11–12 — Leviticus Series
February 20, 2022

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Leviticus 11:1–12 — Leviticus Series
February 13, 2022

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Leviticus Q & A — Leviticus Series
February 06, 2022

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Leviticus 10:1–20 — Leviticus Series
January 30, 2022

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Leviticus 8:1–9:8 — Leviticus Series
December 12, 2021

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Leviticus 7:1–38 — Leviticus Series
November 14, 2021
Let's open with prayer. Our Father, we’re just so thankful You give us the opportunity, once again, on this morning, brisk air, beautiful foliage, reminder, not only of the changing of the seasons, but of our own temporality. Father, recognizing that we, too, are like these leaves Father, we pray to receive as much of your Word as we may until that day when we see You face to face. And we pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. 
So, as we're studying Leviticus and we are studying the law as it was given to Israel in preparation for Israel's arrival in the land of promise, as we are looking word by word and line by line through this amazing book in which we see a yearning for Christ that we immediately recognize. We have seen it in so many different aspects. First of all, just in the sense of sin and guilt, it brings about the necessity of the entire sacrificial system, and then of the holiness of God and the sinfulness of humanity that cries out for some remedy. There has to be some rescue and that rescue cannot come from the human center. The rescue has to come from God Himself. Is there anything I can do, guys? Is there anything here? Okay. 
The yearning for atonement actually becomes very clear, as we saw as we got to chapters five and six, where the priest makes atonement. And there's the promise of an atonement, a peace with God, the problem of our sin and our guilt being removed. That raises the issue of the guilt, and, as it turns out, the guilt is not just a subjective experience of feeling and perceiving one's sinfulness. It is the actual objective reality that our sin creates this affront to God that He cannot accept. But we see it over and over again because it happens over and over again, the sacrifices. 
By the time you get to chapter seven in Leviticus, we have the recognition that this is the daily life of Israel. This is the center of the daily life of Israel. The daily life of Israel is largely consumed in the process of these sacrifices. And you say, well, this is where the Levitical priesthood. Yes. But notice who's bringing all these animals to the Levitical priests and notice how the preparation, the actual conducting of these sacrifices is going to require the attention of the people. And there are certain sacrifices in which all the people are called to draw near. We're going to see one of those this morning in chapter seven.
We've also seen, and this is perhaps the greatest theological insight thus far as we're going through Leviticus. We've also recognized that for all of the atonement that is promised, for all of the effect of the sacrifices, for all of the sin that is dealt with here, nothing is dealt with permanently, and the priest needs a priest. And that's also going to become more clear. 
Now, we have chapter seven before us, and after that, of course, chapter eight. Chapter eight's a decisive break in the book of Leviticus. So, after chapter eight, that is starting with chapter eight, we will be looking at instructions directly to the priesthood, which means that even as God called to Moses and spoke to Moses, this is instruction for all of Israel. And that includes chapter eight and what follows. This is not just given for the priests. It's not a secret knowledge. 
Something else is really important. There is no secret priest book in Judaism. There is no secret preacher book in Christianity. Now that needs to be understood because over against the various priesthoods of paganism, there is almost universally—and I don't think I actually need the ‘almost’—there is practically universally, a secret meaning, a secret code, a secret cultus known to the priesthood and not known to the people. That's a part of the priesthood’s powers, a part of the priesthood’s stewardship is that they know things. They have access to truths. They know ancient books, ancient writings, ancient authorities. They know how to read ancient stones. Whatever it is, they have knowledge that the people don't have. 
Have you noticed that that's not true of Israel? I mean, have you noticed that in Genesis and in Exodus, and we'll see it everywhere in Scripture. But in other words, it doesn't just come to us in Leviticus, but it comes to us in a big way in Leviticus, because we recognize how different this is than a traditional priesthood. A traditional priesthood is not only set apart, it is a cult unto itself. And what it does is the cultus, and the priesthood is usually entered by some form of initiation in which you enter as a novice and as a novice, you are taken into the mysteries in an ever deeper way.  
You see this in Buddhism, for example, in most of its classic forms. But even in ancient paganism, such as the Canaanite religions, there's every reason to believe that the priests knew things that the people were never to know. That is just not the case in Israel. The law is given to Israel. The law is not given to the priest. There are instructions to the priest in the law given to Israel, but every single member of the covenant people has equal access to God's Word, equal access to these instructions. Now, as you fast forward in biblical history, then you go to a couple of things that become very clear in the New Testament, and especially in the writings of the apostle Paul, because he will say, “At various times there is a mystery, but it's the mystery we proclaim to you.” So, in other words, it's only a mystery to the unbelieving world. 
The gnosis, the epistemological tribal reality, is the entire people. The gnosis is given to the entire people, not just to the priesthood. This sets Israel apart. And not only that, it's a public book, which means even though the knowledge is given to Israel as a part of God's covenant gift, it's shared with others. The Torah was not something secreted away. It eventually became known. And of course, we have a relationship to it in which we speak of it in terms of Old and New Covenant, Old and New Testament. This gets back to the fact that, as the reformers had to make very clear, based upon the clear verdict of the Holy Spirit led earliest church, based upon the teaching of the apostles, based upon what they had received from Christ, all of Scripture belongs to the church. The church is accountable to all of Scripture.
But as we are in Leviticus, coming to chapter seven, this is the continuation, and indeed the conclusion, of the opening section of Leviticus, about the nature of the sacrifices, the nature of the offerings. In chapter seven, verse one, we read, “This is the law of the guilt offering. It is most holy.” Now wait just a minute! In the previous chapter, we had details about the guilt offering. Yes. And so, one of the things that we will find is that there's, it's not just the repetition. A lot of this language by now is quite familiar to us. It is also the fact that there are different questions answered in different portions of Leviticus. Who—that is, who is to do this? The priest, in one case the high priest. Who is to do this? When is it to be done? Well, when the sin happens, when the sin happens, when someone's expressing thanksgiving, et cetera. The how is very important. 
Chapter seven says in verse two, “In the place where they kill the burnt offering, they shall kill the guilt offering, and its blood shall be thrown against the sides of the altar. And all its fat shall be offered, the fat tail, the fat that covers the entrails, the two kidneys with the fat that is on them at the loins, and the long lobe of the liver that he shall remove with the kidneys. The priest shall burn them on the altar as a food offering to the Lord; it is a guilt offering. Every male among the priests may eat of it. It shall be eaten in a holy place. It is most holy.”
Now, remember that we have this, this kind of concentric set of circles, and the innermost circle is the Most Holy Place. So, as you think about even the geography or the topography of the temple. But this is also related to Israel's own identity and experience—there's a ‘holy’. Then there's a ‘most holy’, in the New Testament often referred to as the Holy of Holies. Well, when you see the phrase ‘most holy thing’, that means particularly set apart. Now, that also means that Israel is issued a particular warning, lest Israel handle most holy things in a way that is unworthy. 
In verse six, “Every male among the priests may eat of it. It shall be eaten in a holy place. It is most holy. The guilt offering is just like the sin offering; there is one law for them [both]. The priest who makes atonement with it shall have it. And the priest who offers any man's burnt offering shall have for himself the skin of the burnt offering that he has offered. And every grain offering baked in the oven and all that is prepared on a pan or [in] a griddle shall belong to the priest who offers it. And every grain offering, mixed with oil or dry, shall be shared equally among all the sons of Aaron.” 
So again, a lot going on here. But in the sin offering and the guilt offering, which we are told follows one law, so it is one pattern. The priest who performs a sacrifice, eats the meat of the sacrifice—that is allowed to him. And remember, that's a restricted amount of the animals, we shall see. What's also important here is that the skin of the animal sacrificed is given to that priest. 
These skins are very, very important. You'll remember in the book of Genesis when Adam Eve in their embarrassment, after they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they made—you got to love the Geneva Bible in its modesty—they made ‘aprons for themselves’. And they did make aprons for themselves, but they were made out of leaves. They were not going to be very substantial. And remember, after the Lord confronted them in their sin, a part of the Lord's care for them after their rebellion and sin was to make coverings for them out of skins of animals. And so, this use of skin shows the fact that that nothing in the animal was left without a purpose, nothing, and that the skin had value in it tangibly. It went to the priest who made the atonement. 
The grain offerings would last longer. It's the other thing that comes up about the meat offerings. And you'll notice that it appears that right then the priest who deserves to eat of the meat, eats of it. And it's because meat spoils, it's because meat is perishable. You do it right here. You do it right in the view of the people.
The grain offerings are a bit different because the grain offerings will last longer, and they are shared with the other priests. The one who officiates at the offering has the first fruit of the offering, but shares it then equally among all the sons of Aaron.
Verse 11, “And this is the law of the sacrifice of peace offerings that one may offer to the Lord. If he offers it for a thanksgiving…” So that's reason number one, thanksgiving. “…then he shall offer with the thanksgiving sacrifice unleavened loaves mixed with oil, unleavened wafers smeared with oil, and loaves of fine flour well mixed with oil. With the sacrifice of his peace offerings for thanksgiving he shall bring his offering with [the] loaves of leavened bread. And from it he shall offer one loaf from each offering, as a gift to the Lord. It shall belong to the priest who throws the blood of the peace offerings. And the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offerings for thanksgiving shall be eaten on the day of his offering.” There again, the meat to be eaten immediately. “He shall not leave any of it until the morning. But if the sacrifice of his offering is a vow offering or a freewill offering…” That's the second. “…it shall be eaten on the day that he offers his sacrifice, and on the next day, what remains of it may be eaten.” So that would be what remains of the animal that wasn't eaten, still allowable to eat on the second day, but as you shall see, not on the third. 
Verse 17, “But what remains of the flesh of the sacrifice on the third day shall be burned up with fire.” So, first day you may eat it. Second day, if any is left over, you may still eat it. Third day, no! Now notice what comes next. In verse 18, “If any of the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offering is eaten on the third day, he who offers it shall not be accepted, neither shall it be credited to him. It is tainted, and he who eats of it shall bear his iniquity.” So again, there's a there's judgment here. These laws are not merely suggestions. This is not the etiquette of sacrifice. This is the law of sacrifice. These are instructions. If these instructions are taken lightly, then basically the entire sacrifice is invalidated. 
Now, again, we just can't help fast forwarding, fast forwarding to the fact that, on the cross, Jesus was both priest and offering. He's our Great High Priest who offers Himself. And He offers himself in such a way that it was a perfect sacrifice. It was received as a perfect sacrifice. So, it was actually the first perfect sacrifice, which means to say, when you look at the danger here of even making an error in the offering and the sacrifice being basically invalidated, you recognize that this is a clumsy, clumsy thing. It's a hit or miss thing, not because of God's character, but because of the human character, those carrying it out. Not only their character, but their competence. You get a slippery priest, you're going to have guilt. First of all, upon the priest himself. 
Now, the holiness code becomes more clear as we look at verse 19. “Flesh that touches any unclean thing shall not be eaten.” And remember, there are a lot of unclean things. If a clean thing to be sacrificed touches an unclean thing, it becomes unclean. “It shall be burned up with fire. All who are clean may eat flesh, but the person who eats of the flesh of the sacrifice of the Lord's peace offerings while an uncleanness is on him, that person shall be cut off from his people. And if anyone touches an unclean thing, whether human uncleanness or an unclean beast or any unclean detestable creature, and then eats some flesh from the sacrifice of the Lord's peace offerings, that person shall be cut off from his people.” 
Now ‘cut off from his people’. What does that mean? That is an incredibly strong word of judgment. This doesn't sound like something for which there can be a remedy. Let me tell you, it may be worse than you think. Look at Exodus, chapter 31. Look at verse 14. “You shall keep the Sabbath, because it is holy for you. Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death. Whoever does any work on it, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day shall be put to death.”
So, there it appears that there is at least a connection between the death penalty and being cut off from your people. But we need to be careful. It is a parallelism here. In other words, we're not told that being cut off from the people is being put to death. We're told that someone is to be put to death, who is a Sabbath breaker, but then it's explained that such a person is to be cut off from his people. Now, capital punishment would certainly do that, but so would exile. And what we can only describe in the Old Testament as a, an exile from the covenant, being cut off from the covenant, it appears, just put it in context, that that is what is contemplated in Leviticus. And this will show up elsewhere when someone is cut off from his people. And if there is a death penalty, that's invoked, it applies. 
But there are cases in which we have the language, ‘He shall be cut off from his people,’ where it does not appear that there is any death penalty, but rather one is basically excommunicated, is the best way to put it. That would be our closest at hand term for this. It would be someone who is now exiled, cut off from the covenant and from the covenant people. 
The point of course we see here in Leviticus, is that getting the sacrifice wrong endangers, not only the sacrifice, but it slanders God and it mal priests. It is an injury for the entire people. And as we have seen, sin and guilt are real objective categories. They are real obstacles between us and a holy God. They are an affront to God's majesty and His holiness. They are an objective barrier between God's covenant people and Himself. The sacrifice is the way that that barrier is removed. As we see in these sacrifices, for a time God's wrath will be held back, for a time. But that ‘for a time’ is very important because that's how the covenant people existed. 
And that's also how we exist. We are not under the mediation of a priest who performs repeated sacrifices. That sacrifice is once for all. For us, before a time is not awaiting the great sacrifice, because that's already taken place. For us, the ‘for a time’ is in this time awaiting the glorification that is to come. It's one of the things we have to remember is that Christ’s atoning work purchased our glorification. We are not yet glorified, but no more sacrifice will take place. 
In the horizon of Israel's just endless sacrifices until, until again, logically, logically, and we see it in the text going all the way back to Moses—in fact, going all the way back to the promise to Abraham—it's there that something's going to have to bring a conclusion to this. Someone's going to have to finish this. He is, we speak of Christ as the ‘author and finisher of our faith,’ but for the temporal horizon of Israel for so long as their generation shall come, it's daily what we are seeing here. 
In verse 22, “The Lord speaks to Moses, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel, saying, You shall eat no fat, of ox or sheep or goat. The fat of an animal that dies of itself and the fat of one that is torn by [the] beasts may be put to any other use, but on no account shall you eat it. For every person who eats of the fat of an animal of which a food offering may be made to the Lord shall be cut off from his people.” There it is again. “Moreover, you shall eat no blood whatever, whether of fowl or of animal, in any of your dwelling, places. Whoever eats any blood, that person shall be cut off from his people.”” 
Now again, I think I told someone that, you know, there have been people who have heard this or read this text and been afraid to order their steak in a restaurant anything but well done. That is not what's being referenced here. And as a matter of fact, in the slaughter of beef or of meat, the bleeding of the animal, the blood is removed. There's still some in the flesh, but the actual circulatory blood is removed. So, what’s the background here, what's the problem? Well, let's just say we have foreground, and then we have long foreground. In the immediate foreground, and in the background to this, are the pagan sacrifices, pagan priests, because blood has been recognized, even in the most animistic cultures, as being of importance to the cultus. Now, this is explained, of course, in the Scripture where we are told that in the blood is the life. Just think of a text like Genesis 9:4, the life is in the blood. 
If you're trying to find the mystery of life, which let's just say you're an ancient people, you're cut off from any form of direct, special revelation. You have the general revelation, you're made in God's image, you’re in a place where you do not know Torah, you do not hear the revelation of God, and you're trying to figure out what life is all about. It doesn't take you long to figure out that life is in the blood. Life is in the blood to the extent that if someone loses blood, they die. Life is blood to the extent that all the creatures that we would consider as animal creatures, even like unto us, there is blood. The life is in the blood to the extent that, if you have someone who's cut and the blood is spurting out, when the blood stops pulsing, the person is dead. 
Now, if you take the life is in the blood in a pagan way, you literally mean the life is in the blood, which is one of the reasons why you will find, you know, in ancient cultures in Central and South America, especially with human sacrifice. And you look at the reason for the human sacrifice. There's an impulse. We've got to have some kind of blood sacrifice, it needs to be as innocent as possible, which is why so many of these are children. Found also in Canaan. Remember, the purpose here is to prepare the Children of Israel for entering Canaan, while not becoming Canaanites. And a part of what the Canaanites are doing, particularly in sacrifices to Molech, is they're sacrificing their children. 
Some years ago, an archeologist came to Southern Seminary for a conference and was speaking about modern archeological finds, and mentioned that so many of them actually, in the ancient near east, have been completely accidental. In other words, there's certain tells or mounds where people know we ought to dig there and see what's there. There are certain civilizational spots, you could just say Jericho or other places, not to mention Jerusalem, or we know we know what this place is. And we know, as you dig down stratum by stratum, you're going to find all kinds of interesting materials. 
But other things have been found elsewhere, especially in the ancient Near East, nearly entirely by accident. One of them came in Syria, very close to the Golan Heights, which means very close to Mount Carmel, you know, headed in that direction, very close to Israel. And what was found was a dumping place of dead bodies. And the dead bodies had been sacrificed and burned. And the dead bodies were all of children, about ages four and under. All of them had been clearly sacrificed in some kind of sacrificial system. They'd been killed and their bodies burned. But what was noted about this, this horrible find was that what was shocking is that the main leg bones in all of these skeletons had been broken, and it was so that the children could not crawl out of the fire. 
And you look at that and you go, “Oh!” This blood sacrifice, in a pagan sense, makes the sacrifice and the priesthood the focus, and this blood, the idea that life is in the blood. You know, the priest would smear themselves with blood and there would be orgies of blood. That's not what you see here. In fact, the detailed instructions given to the priests in Leviticus are such that there is no confusion between the sacrifice that God has ordered and the pagan sacrifices, and the eating of blood is a part of this. 
Notice that Israel's not just all, “No, it's not a good idea to eat blood.” No, it's not that. They are told, “You shall not eat blood. If you eat blood, you are cut off again.” We think the best meaning of that would be an exile cut off from the covenant. That's how threatening such a confusion would be. 
And by the way, it's also fat. You're not supposed to eat the fat. And the fat is not the blood. You know, we don't have a sacrifice of fat. But it just shows you again, that God's holiness code is very detailed and every part of it is useful. And what God says about the fat is, “You can use it for a lot of things. You can’t eat it.” And so, the fat could be reduced to oil, it could be reduced to grease, it could be used for polish, it could be used to light a lamp. It could be used for all kinds of purposes. Can't be used for just outright human consumption.
Verse 28, “The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel, saying Whoever offers the sacrifice of his peace offerings to the Lord shall bring his offering to the Lord from the sacrifice of his peace offerings. His own hands shall bring the Lord's food offerings. He shall bring the fat with the breast, that the breast may be waved as a wave offering before the Lord.”” Now remember a wave offering is symbolically a way of demonstrating the purpose of the sacrifice. And remember, one of the central purposes of the wave offering is thanksgiving. It could be also to vow a vow. 
I was a telling group about having Eta Linnemann speak at Southern Seminary. It’s a long story—I won't tell you how I introduced her, and she didn't come. But she was one of, she was Rudolph Bultmann, the great liberal New Testament scholar in Germany, fountain head of theological liberalism. Eta Linnemann was his first female doctoral student and became very, very famous as a liberal biblical scholar. She didn't believe the Bible was the Word of God. She was a Bultmannian. She never married.  
And Professor Linnemann, toward the end of her life, went on a retreat with and ended up and being in a hostel in Germany, run by German pietist ladies. And she became a Christian toward the end of her life. She was a professor of New Testament. She didn't believe anything. And then she became a believer. And then she had a problem because she's got all these books, she's been publishing all these years. And now she's a Christian and she actually believes the Bible's the Word of God. And so, she actually wrote a very interesting letter to the German academy saying, “Please disregard everything I've ever written.” And she wrote two books defending the inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture.
And so, she was still alive. I wanted to bring her to Southern to speak. And, you know, sure was a wonderful thing to have Professor Linnemann come. It was wonderful, but it was very German. And I will just tell you that I introduced her to banquet only to discover that German professors do not speak while people are eating. And you'll hear me tell this again, sometime when it's appropriate to the event, but she just said, “I dos not speak to chewing peoples.” And she was a teutonic lady professor. Yes, okay. 
But the students, and of course had all these students, all these wonderful seminary students who had come to hear Professor Linnemann, and they're also polite and so kind, and they don't want to do anything improper, and they don't want to laugh at this professor, but she was as German as German could be. And it comes down to this, this particular passage, because she would just say at full voice, she was so excited about this. You believe this is the Word of God. Now it wasn't just, and she said, “And Abraham wowed a wow before the Lord.” And she just repeated it over and over again. And I'm sitting up there on the platform, looking at these students who are going, “Abraham wowed a wow before the Lord.” And sure enough, so I'll never, I just promise you once you've heard that, you can never unhear it. “Abraham wowed a wow!”
If you do vow, a vow, a wave offering is an appropriate way. And again, it's shown before the Lord. It is a wave in the sense that it's held up. And yet we have more about the wave offering that comes up here. If you do, then you'll notice that the central thing here is the breast. “He shall bring the fat with the breast, that the breast may be waved as a wave before the Lord.”
Now, what is it about the breast? Well, here's an interesting thing and I have no great explanation for this. It's just, it just is. And that is that the prime parts of the meat in ancient Israel were identified as the breast and the right thigh. Now, if you go into your butcher shop and talk in terms of the right thigh, I don't think you're going to get a whole lot of comprehension. But that was how it was defined. Now, other parts of the meat may be eaten. other parts of the animal may be consumed, but the prime pieces were the breast and the right thigh. 
The point here is that the wave offering, if you're doing this because you vowed a vow, you’re doing this because you are expressing thanks to the Lord. Or you're doing it as the church would call it later, ‘unbidden’. In other words, there's no requirement to do it. You just feel an urge to do this, this wave offering it under the Lord. Then you bring the prime parts, no inferior parts. If you really are moved to do this, you're moved to do it rightly. 
“The priest shall burn the fat on the altar, but the breast shall be for Aaron and his sons. And the right thigh you shall give to the priest as a contribution from the sacrifice of your peace offerings.” So, not the left thigh. And again, I don't know if it's just the historic distinction between left and right that is reflected in Scripture, but it's the right thigh. 
“For the breast that is waved and the thigh that is contributed I have taken from the people of Israel, out of the sacrifices of their peace offerings, and have given them to Aaron the priest and to his sons, as a perpetual due from the people of Israel.” So, in other words, this is just ongoing. So, for long as Israel under this covenant shall exist, God has given to Aaron, to the Levitical priesthood, to the Aaronic priesthood with Aaron at the very top, and to the priests, they're given these prime pieces of meat as a ‘perpetual due’. 
“This is the portion of Aaron and of his sons from the Lord's food offerings, from the day they were presented to serve as priests of the Lord. The Lord commanded this to be given them by the people of Israel, from the day that he anointed them. It is a perpetual due throughout their generations. This is the law of the burnt offering, of the grain offering, of the sin offering, of the guilt offering, of the ordination offering, and of the peace offering, which the Lord commanded Moses on Mount Sinai, on the day that he commanded the people of Israel to bring their offerings to the Lord, in the wilderness of Sinai.” 
So, so much has transpired here. We are seven chapters through Leviticus, and we have seen now most of the rules concerning the sacrifices. Notice how they're listed here, just for helpful summary at the end, set out for us—burnt offering, grain offering, sin offering, guilt offering, ordination offering, peace offering. 
Now back on Mount Sinai, when the Children of Israel were told to bring their offerings, they were just offerings. But now there are all these different kinds of offerings. The fulfillment of every single one of them, all of them and all of them together and more, is Christ. So, once again, we are struck by the fact that in Israel, there was a singularity of priesthood, but there was an endless multiplicity of sacrifices. And in Israel, it was a priesthood that was through Aaron, to Aaron's sons and descendants, and then beyond them to the tribe of Levi and the Levitical priesthood. So, it was an exclusive priesthood. If you were in other tribes, you were not a priest. If you were not of Aaron’s seed, then you're not Aaronic. Still, multiple priests, one priesthood, multiple priests. We have a singular Priest, and the sacrifice is a singular sacrifice. 
So, there is more to come in Leviticus, but at this point, we have the great satisfaction of knowing that even as Israel is saved here for a time by these sacrifices, even as God's wrath is held back for Israel for a time by these sacrifices, the reality is, look at the language like ‘perpetual do’. Look at the repetition. 
You know, you look at this and you recognize that when we speak of our, say week, we think of our week, we as Christians. There are Christians who think of their weekly schedule differently than we do. There are those who might be in a very highly liturgical church, say Anglican, high church Anglican, and they may begin every single day with the morning offices or matins. And they may go all the way through even song in the evening, if they are in an order, they may actually do the hours following in prayer, day by day by day. 
But nonetheless, what we are looking at, if indeed this is a Christian church, if it is a Christian practice, then we are looking at the fact that if something of that is missed, let's say that the building suffers a problem and people can't meet together for the meeting, or it can't happen by some kind of obstacle. Norice no guilt remains, no guilt remains, cause these are not sacrifices. These are services of prayer. These are times of Bible reading. It's just extremely different.  
For Israel, an interruption in the sacrificial system meant that guilt remained. Now, this just leads to all kinds of things that we will see as we fast forward in biblical history, including what it meant for Israel to be carried off into captivity. Or what it meant for Israel, and remember, this is now in the background, for Israel to have been captive to Pharaoh in Egypt. So, Israel is in the unusual and frightening position of recognizing that, if its infidelity leads it to be separated from this tabernacle, separated from its priesthood, its priesthood unable to function, then the sin just builds up and the guilt just increases, which by the way, shows again, God's mercy. Helps you to read the prophets, helps you to read Jeremiah, for example, helps you to understand Nehemiah because how is it that God's going to allow this people back because their sin and their guilt is ever more immense. 
By the way, one other thing, and I just want to mention this very clearly. The early church recognized, and the book of Hebrews is the quintessential representation of this, the early church recognized, based upon the teachings of Christ himself and then the teaching of the apostles, that the ‘once for all’ nature of the sacrifice of Christ meant that whatever the church does, whatever the church does in worship, whatever the church does in preaching, whatever the church does just in talk, we must be extremely careful about sacrifice language. 
If we are going to use sacrifice language, it has to be for ourselves. It has to be only in the sense of Romans chapter 12 in which Christ’s people are called to be ‘a living sacrifice’. But there can be no other kind of sacrificial language. We've got to reserve that now all for Christ. Is that really clear? We have to reserve that all for Christ. Well, you know, what sacrifice must be made for the forgiveness of our sins? That sacrifice was made. That sacrifice was accepted. Not only did Christ die on the cross as a Great High Priest, He was resurrected as the very Son of God by the Father. That sacrifice received and blessed in full. Any confusion of that, thus, is a deadly confusion.  
Now I want to fast forward to the 16th century. In the 16th century, let's just look at Martin Luther, just to take one example. So, let's just take the seminal reformer in the 16th century. Martin Luther, when in 1517 he posted those 95 theses. And again, we don't know exactly how they were posted, but, by tradition, on the Wittenburg door. But we do know they existed to the extent, and they were published to the extent, that the Archbishop of Mainz has them and has to decide what to do with them within days of Luther having posted them. And that's a matter of the church's record. 
But you'll notice that Luther didn't go after the Mass. Luther doesn't go after the very center of the Catholic Church’s cultus. He just assumed that, as a monk, or better described a friar, as an ordained priest of the church, he just, he just received that. 
But as he begins to come to terms with Scripture, we see Luther forced into what can only be considered boxed alleyways from which there's no escape. And that's how Luther gets to so many of the doctoral insights of the Reformation. When he's involved in a disputation and he's accused of trusting the Scripture rather than the Magisterium, rather than the Pope, Luther says, “Yeah, that's actually what I'm doing.” And then when he's pressed further and further, it's the Scripture, and the Scripture, and the Scripture, and Luther gets the hard way to the fact that it's Scripture alone, by the fact that in his argument, he's got nowhere else to go. 
The same thing with justification. Luther doesn't begin, what we would call the Reformation, by understanding the faulty doctrine of justification in the Roman Catholic Church. But the more he is taken into the world of Scripture, and the more his argument has to be based just in Scripture, and the more Scripture has to become his soul doctrinal authority, the more he recognizes that it's not faith and anything. And again, it's just then the process of, with his life on the line, you just have to, all of a sudden, realize it's this or nothing. By the time he gets to Worms with Scripture, “Here I stand, I can do to other, God help me.” 
But he got to the Mass, and he got to the Mass. And you think of his writing on what he called The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, speaking of the Catholic Church. And he gets to it, and he gets to it with the recognition that the Catholic Mass is a sacrifice. He was taught this. He was taught the central theology of the Mass is that it is a sacrifice. So much so that Christ is crucified again. So much so that by transubstantiation, what is there on the altar, called the tabernacle, is a vessel for holding what is claimed to be the transubstantiated body of Christ crucified again. 
And that's why Luther responds with this complete abhorrence of the Mass, where he says, “You can have the Mass, or you can have Christ, but you cannot have both, for Christ died once.” And He doesn't sit on an altar. He certainly doesn't sit on thousands and thousands of altars in bits and pieces. Christ, and Christ whole, and Christ alone, reigns with the Father. And the sacrifice is done. And it is a slander to say, any sacrifice is needed, or any sacrifice can add a thing to what Jesus accomplished and which Jesus concluded with the words, “It is finished.” 
So, I just want to leave you with that as, when we're next together, we'll look at chapter eight and the actual instigation, installation of the priesthood. It's just so encouraging to me to think of not just what we do when we're together here at Third Avenue Baptist Church, but what we don't do. 
Do you notice something? There’s no mess for us to clean up after the service. There's no blood spattered all over this place, and it's not because it's not necessary. It's because it's been done. So that should get us ready for worship.  
It's been a privilege to be with you looking at these first seven chapters of Leviticus. We'll be turning a chapter, as in a whole section of Leviticus, when we're together next. 
Let's pray. Father, we're just so thankful for all You've given us in every single word, every syllable, every sentence of Scripture. Father, we ask to read all of Scripture in order that we may know Christ, in order that we may know Him more fully, follow Him more faithfully, and see your Gospel displayed in Him more gloriously. Father, we pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 46:35 https://albertmohler.com/?p=56335 Audio, Biblical References, Exposition, Leviticus, Leviticus Series, Speaking and Teaching, Video noThird Avenue Baptist Church Louisville, KY Leviticus 7:1–38 — Leviticus Series November 14, 2021 Let's open with prayer. Our Father, we’re just so thankful You give us the opportunity, once again, on this morning, brisk air, beautiful foliage, reminder, not only of the changing of the seasons, but of our own temporality. Father, recognizing that we, too, are like these leaves Father, we pray to receive as much of your Word as we may until that day when we see You face to face. And we pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.  So, as we're studying Leviticus and we are studying the law as it was given to Israel in preparation for Israel's arrival in the land of promise, as we are looking word by word and line by line through this amazing book in which we see a yearning for Christ that we immediately recognize. We have seen it in so many different aspects. First of all, just in the sense of sin and guilt, it brings about the necessity of the entire sacrificial system, and then of the holiness of God and the sinfulness of humanity that cries out for some remedy. There has to be some rescue and that rescue cannot come from the human center. The rescue has to come from God Himself. Is there anything I can do, guys? Is there anything here? Okay.  The yearning for atonement actually becomes very clear, as we saw as we got to chapters five and six, where the priest makes atonement. And there's the promise of an atonement, a peace with God, the problem of our sin and our guilt being removed. That raises the issue of the guilt, and, as it turns out, the guilt is not just a subjective experience of feeling and perceiving one's sinfulness. It is the actual objective reality that our sin creates this affront to God that He cannot accept. But we see it over and over again because it happens over and over again, the sacrifices.  By the time you get to chapter seven in Leviticus, we have the recognition that this is the daily life of Israel. This is the center of the daily life of Israel. The daily life of Israel is largely consumed in the process of these sacrifices. And you say, well, this is where the Levitical priesthood. Yes. But notice who's bringing all these animals to the Levitical priests and notice how the preparation, the actual conducting of these sacrifices is going to require the attention of the people. And there are certain sacrifices in which all the people are called to draw near. We're going to see one of those this morning in chapter seven. We've also seen, and this is perhaps the greatest theological insight thus far as we're going through Leviticus. We've also recognized that for all of the atonement that is promised, for all of the effect of the sacrifices, for all of the sin that is dealt with here, nothing is dealt with permanently, and the priest needs a priest. And that's also going to become more clear.  Now, we have chapter seven before us, and after that, of course, chapter eight. Chapter eight's a decisive break in the book of Leviticus. So, after chapter eight, that is starting with chapter eight, we will be looking at instructions directly to the priesthood, which means that even as God called to Moses and spoke to Moses, this is instruction for all of Israel. And that includes chapter eight and what follows. This is not just given for the priests. It's not a secret knowledge.  Something else is really important. There is no secret priest book in Judaism. There is no secret preacher book in Christianity. Now that needs to be understood because over against the various priesthoods of paganism, there is almost universally—and I don't think I actually need the ‘almost’—there is practically universally, a secret meaning, a secret code, a secret cultus known to the priesthood and not known to the people. That's a part of the priesthood’s powers, a part of the priesthood’s stewardship is that they know things. They have access to truths. They know ancient books, ancient writings, ancient authorities. They know how to read ancient stones. Whatever it is, they have knowledge that the people don't have.  Have you noticed that that's not true of Israel? I mean, have you noticed that in Genesis and in Exodus, and we'll see it everywhere in Scripture. But in other words, it doesn't just come to us in Leviticus, but it comes to us in a big way in Leviticus, because we recognize how different this is than a traditional priesthood. A traditional priesthood is not only set apart, it is a cult unto itself. And what it does is the cultus, and the priesthood is usually entered by some form of initiation in which you enter as a novice and as a novice, you are taken into the mysteries in an ever deeper way.   You see this in Buddhism, for example, in most of its classic forms. But even in ancient paganism, such as the Canaanite religions, there's every reason to believe that the priests knew things that the people were never to know. That is just not the case in Israel. The law is given to Israel. The law is not given to the priest. There are instructions to the priest in the law given to Israel, but every single member of the covenant people has equal access to God's Word, equal access to these instructions. Now, as you fast forward in biblical history, then you go to a couple of things that become very clear in the New Testament, and especially in the writings of the apostle Paul, because he will say, “At various times there is a mystery, but it's the mystery we proclaim to you.” So, in other words, it's only a mystery to the unbelieving world.  The gnosis, the epistemological tribal reality, is the entire people. The gnosis is given to the entire people, not just to the priesthood. This sets Israel apart. And not only that, it's a public book, which means even though the knowledge is given to Israel as a part of God's covenant gift, it's shared with others. The Torah was not something secreted away. It eventually became known. And of course, we have a relationship to it in which we speak of it in terms of Old and New Covenant, Old and New Testament. This gets back to the fact that, as the reformers had to make very clear, based upon the clear verdict of the Holy Spirit led earliest church, based upon the teaching of the apostles, based upon what they had received from Christ, all of Scripture belongs to the church. The church is accountable to all of Scripture. But as we are in Leviticus, coming to chapter seven, this is the continuation, and indeed the conclusion, of the opening section of Leviticus, about the nature of the sacrifices, the nature of the offerings. In chapter seven, verse one, we read, “This is the law of the guilt offering. It is most holy.” Now wait just a minute! In the previous chapter, we had details about the guilt offering. Yes. And so, one of the things that we will find is that there's, it's not just the repetition. A lot of this language by now is quite familiar to us. It is also the fact that there are different questions answered in different portions of Leviticus. Who—that is, who is to do this? The priest, in one case the high priest. Who is to do this? When is it to be done? Well, when the sin happens, when the sin happens, when someone's expressing thanksgiving, et cetera. The how is very important.  Chapter seven says in verse two, “In the place where they kill the burnt offering, they shall kill the guilt offering, and its blood shall be thrown against the sides of the altar. And all its fat shall be offered, the fat tail, the fat that covers the entrails, the two kidneys with the fat that is on them at the loins, and the long lobe of the liver that he shall remove with the kidneys. The priest shall burn them on the altar as a food offering to the Lord; it is a guilt offering. Every male among the priests may eat of it. It shall be eaten in a holy place. It is most holy.” Now, remember that we have this, this kind of concentric set of circles, and the innermost circle is the Most Holy Place. So, as you think about even the geography or the topography of the temple. But this is also related to Israel's own identity and experience—there's a ‘holy’. Then there's a ‘most holy’, in the New Testament often referred to as the Holy of Holies. Well, when you see the phrase ‘most holy thing’, that means particularly set apart. Now, that also means that Israel is issued a particular warning, lest Israel handle most holy things in a way that is unworthy.  In verse six, “Every male among the priests may eat of it. It shall be eaten in a holy place. It is most holy. The guilt offering is just like the sin offering; there is one law for them [both]. The priest who makes atonement with it shall have it. And the priest who offers any man's burnt offering shall have for himself the skin of the burnt offering that he has offered. And every grain offering baked in the oven and all that is prepared on a pan or [in] a griddle shall belong to the priest who offers it. And every grain offering, mixed with oil or dry, shall be shared equally among all the sons of Aaron.”  So again, a lot going on here. But in the sin offering and the guilt offering, which we are told follows one law, so it is one pattern. The priest who performs a sacrifice, eats the meat of the sacrifice—that is allowed to him. And remember, that's a restricted amount of the animals, we shall see. What's also important here is that the skin of the animal sacrificed is given to that priest.  These skins are very, very important. You'll remember in the book of Genesis when Adam Eve in their embarrassment, after they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they made—you got to love the Geneva Bible in its modesty—they made ‘aprons for themselves’. And they did make aprons for themselves, but they were made out of leaves. They were not going to be very substantial. And remember, after the Lord confronted them in their sin, a part of the Lord's care for them after their rebellion and sin was to make coverings for them out of skins of animals. And so, this use of skin shows the fact that that nothing in the animal was left without a purpose, nothing, and that the skin had value in it tangibly. It went to the priest who made the atonement.  The grain offerings would last longer. It's the other thing that comes up about the meat offerings. And you'll notice that it appears that right then the priest who deserves to eat of the meat, eats of it. And it's because meat spoils, it's because meat is perishable. You do it right here. You do it right in the view of the people. The grain offerings are a bit different because the grain offerings will last longer, and they are shared with the other priests. The one who officiates at the offering has the first fruit of the offering, but shares it then equally among all the sons of Aaron. Verse 11, “And this is the law of the sacrifice of peace offerings that one may offer to the Lord. If he offers it for a thanksgiving…” So that's reason number one, thanksgiving. “…then he shall offer with the thanksgiving sacrifice unleavened loaves mixed with oil, unleavened wafers smeared with oil, and loaves of fine flour well mixed with oil. With the sacrifice of his peace offerings for thanksgiving he shall bring his offering with [the] loaves of leavened bread. And from it he shall offer one loaf from each offering, as a gift to the Lord. It shall belong to the priest who throws the blood of the peace offerings. And the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offerings for thanksgiving shall be eaten on the day of his offering.” There again, the meat to be eaten immediately. “He shall not leave any of it until the morning. But if the sacrifice of his offering is a vow offering or a freewill offering…” That's the second. “…it shall be eaten on the day that he offers his sacrifice, and on the next day, what remains of it may be eaten.” So that would be what remains of the animal that wasn't eaten, still allowable to eat on the second day, but as you shall see, not on the third.  Verse 17, “But what remains of the flesh of the sacrifice on the third day shall be burned up with fire.” So, first day you may eat it. Second day, if any is left over, you may still eat it. Third day, no! Now notice what comes next. In verse 18, “If any of the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offering is eaten on the third day, he who offers it shall not be accepted, neither shall it be credited to him. It is tainted, and he who eats of it shall bear his iniquity.” So again, there's a there's judgment here. These laws are not merely suggestions. This is not the etiquette of sacrifice. This is the law of sacrifice. These are instructions. If these instructions are taken lightly, then basically the entire sacrifice is invalidated.  Now, again, we just can't help fast forwarding, fast forwarding to the fact that, on the cross, Jesus was both priest and offering. He's our Great High Priest who offers Himself. And He offers himself in such a way that it was a perfect sacrifice. It was received as a perfect sacrifice. So, it was actually the first perfect sacrifice, which means to say, when you look at the danger here of even making an error in the offering and the sacrifice being basically invalidated, you recognize that this is a clumsy, clumsy thing. It's a hit or miss thing, not because of God's character, but because of the human character, those carrying it out. Not only their character, but their competence. You get a slippery priest, you're going to have guilt. First of all, upon the priest himself.  Now, the holiness code becomes more clear as we look at verse 19. “Flesh that touches any unclean thing shall not be eaten.” And remember, there are a lot of unclean things. If a clean thing to be sacrificed touches an unclean thing, it becomes unclean. “It shall be burned up with fire. All who are clean may eat flesh, but the person who eats of the flesh of the sacrifice of the Lord's peace offerings while an uncleanness is on him, that person shall be cut off from his people. And if anyone touches an unclean thing, whether human uncleanness or an unclean beast or any unclean detestable creature, and then eats some flesh from the sacrifice of the Lord's peace offerings, that person shall be cut off from his people.”  Now ‘cut off from his people’. What does that mean? That is an incredibly strong word of judgment. This doesn't sound like something for which there can be a remedy. Let me tell you, it may be worse than you think. Look at Exodus, chapter 31. Look at verse 14. “You shall keep the Sabbath, because it is holy for you. Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death. Whoever does any work on it, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day shall be put to death.” So, there it appears that there is at least a connection between the death penalty and being cut off from your people. But we need to be careful. It is a parallelism here. In other words, we're not told that being cut off from the people is being put to death. We're told that someone is to be put to death, who is a Sabbath breaker, but then it's explained that such a person is to be cut off from his people. Now, capital punishment would certainly do that, but so would exile. And what we can only describe in the Old Testament as a, an exile from the covenant, being cut off from the covenant, it appears, just put it in context, that that is what is contemplated in Leviticus. And this will show up elsewhere when someone is cut off from his people. And if there is a death penalty, that's invoked, it applies.  But there are cases in which we have the language, ‘He shall be cut off from his people,’ where it does not appear that there is any death penalty, but rather one is basically excommunicated, is the best way to put it. That would be our closest at hand term for this. It would be someone who is now exiled, cut off from the covenant and from the covenant people.  The point of course we see here in Leviticus, is that getting the sacrifice wrong endangers, not only the sacrifice, but it slanders God and it mal priests. It is an injury for the entire people. And as we have seen, sin and guilt are real objective categories. They are real obstacles between us and a holy God. They are an affront to God's majesty and His holiness. They are an objective barrier between God's covenant people and Himself. The sacrifice is the way that that barrier is removed. As we see in these sacrifices, for a time God's wrath will be held back, for a time. But that ‘for a time’ is very important because that's how the covenant people existed.  And that's also how we exist. We are not under the mediation of a priest who performs repeated sacrifices. That sacrifice is once for all. For us, before a time is not awaiting the great sacrifice, because that's already taken place. For us, the ‘for a time’ is in this time awaiting the glorification that is to come. It's one of the things we have to remember is that Christ’s atoning work purchased our glorification. We are not yet glorified, but no more sacrifice will take place.  In the horizon of Israel's just endless sacrifices until, until again, logically, logically, and we see it in the text going all the way back to Moses—in fact, going all the way back to the promise to Abraham—it's there that something's going to have to bring a conclusion to this. Someone's going to have to finish this. He is, we speak of Christ as the ‘author and finisher of our faith,’ but for the temporal horizon of Israel for so long as their generation shall come, it's daily what we are seeing here.  In verse 22, “The Lord speaks to Moses, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel, saying, You shall eat no fat, of ox or sheep or goat. The fat of an animal that dies of itself and the fat of one that is torn by [the] beasts may be put to any other use, but on no account shall you eat it. For every person who eats of the fat of an animal of which a food offering may be made to the Lord shall be cut off from his people.” There it is again. “Moreover, you shall eat no blood whatever, whether of fowl or of animal, in any of your dwelling, places. Whoever eats any blood, that person shall be cut off from his people.””  Now again, I think I told someone that, you know, there have been people who have heard this or read this text and been afraid to order their steak in a restaurant anything but well done. That is not what's being referenced here. And as a matter of fact, in the slaughter of beef or of meat, the bleeding of the animal, the blood is removed. There's still some in the flesh, but the actual circulatory blood is removed. So, what’s the background here, what's the problem? Well, let's just say we have foreground, and then we have long foreground. In the immediate foreground, and in the background to this, are the pagan sacrifices, pagan priests, because blood has been recognized, even in the most animistic cultures, as being of importance to the cultus. Now, this is explained, of course, in the Scripture where we are told that in the blood is the life. Just think of a text like Genesis 9:4, the life is in the blood.  If you're trying to find the mystery of life, which let's just say you're an ancient people, you're cut off from any form of direct, special revelation. You have the general revelation, you're made in God's image, you’re in a place where you do not know Torah, you do not hear the revelation of God, and you're trying to figure out what life is all about. It doesn't take you long to figure out that life is in the blood. Life is in the blood to the extent that if someone loses blood, they die. Life is blood to the extent that all the creatures that we would consider as animal creatures, even like unto us, there is blood. The life is in the blood to the extent that, if you have someone who's cut and the blood is spurting out, when the blood stops pulsing, the person is dead.  Now, if you take the life is in the blood in a pagan way, you literally mean the life is in the blood, which is one of the reasons why you will find, you know, in ancient cultures in Central and South America, especially with human sacrifice. And you look at the reason for the human sacrifice. There's an impulse. We've got to have some kind of blood sacrifice, it needs to be as innocent as possible, which is why so many of these are children. Found also in Canaan. Remember, the purpose here is to prepare the Children of Israel for entering Canaan, while not becoming Canaanites. And a part of what the Canaanites are doing, particularly in sacrifices to Molech, is they're sacrificing their children.  Some years ago, an archeologist came to Southern Seminary for a conference and was speaking about modern archeological finds, and mentioned that so many of them actually, in the ancient near east, have been completely accidental. In other words, there's certain tells or mounds where people know we ought to dig there and see what's there. There are certain civilizational spots, you could just say Jericho or other places, not to mention Jerusalem, or we know we know what this place is. And we know, as you dig down stratum by stratum, you're going to find all kinds of interesting materials.  But other things have been found elsewhere, especially in the ancient Near East, nearly entirely by accident. One of them came in Syria, very close to the Golan Heights, which means very close to Mount Carmel, you know, headed in that direction, very close to Israel. And what was found was a dumping place of dead bodies. And the dead bodies had been sacrificed and burned. And the dead bodies were all of children, about ages four and under. All of them had been clearly sacrificed in some kind of sacrificial system. They'd been killed and their bodies burned. But what was noted about this, this horrible find was that what was shocking is that the main leg bones in all of these skeletons had been broken, and it was so that the children could not crawl out of the fire.  And you look at that and you go, “Oh!” This blood sacrifice, in a pagan sense, makes the sacrifice and the priesthood the focus, and this blood, the idea that life is in the blood. You know, the priest would smear themselves with blood and there would be orgies of blood. That's not what you see here. In fact, the detailed instructions given to the priests in Leviticus are such that there is no confusion between the sacrifice that God has ordered and the pagan sacrifices, and the eating of blood is a part of this.  Notice that Israel's not just all, “No, it's not a good idea to eat blood.” No, it's not that. They are told, “You shall not eat blood. If you eat blood, you are cut off again.” We think the best meaning of that would be an exile cut off from the covenant. That's how threatening such a confusion would be.  And by the way, it's also fat. You're not supposed to eat the fat. And the fat is not the blood. You know, we don't have a sacrifice of fat. But it just shows you again, that God's holiness code is very detailed and every part of it is useful. And what God says about the fat is, “You can use it for a lot of things. You can’t eat it.” And so, the fat could be reduced to oil, it could be reduced to grease, it could be used for polish, it could be used to light a lamp. It could be used for all kinds of purposes. Can't be used for just outright human consumption. Verse 28, “The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel, saying Whoever offers the sacrifice of his peace offerings to the Lord shall bring his offering to the Lord from the sacrifice of his peace offerings. His own hands shall bring the Lord's food offerings. He shall bring the fat with the breast, that the breast may be waved as a wave offering before the Lord.”” Now remember a wave offering is symbolically a way of demonstrating the purpose of the sacrifice. And remember, one of the central purposes of the wave offering is thanksgiving. It could be also to vow a vow.  I was a telling group about having Eta Linnemann speak at Southern Seminary. It’s a long story—I won't tell you how I introduced her, and she didn't come. But she was one of, she was Rudolph Bultmann, the great liberal New Testament scholar in Germany, fountain head of theological liberalism. Eta Linnemann was his first female doctoral student and became very, very famous as a liberal biblical scholar. She didn't believe the Bible was the Word of God. She was a Bultmannian. She never married.   And Professor Linnemann, toward the end of her life, went on a retreat with and ended up and being in a hostel in Germany, run by German pietist ladies. And she became a Christian toward the end of her life. She was a professor of New Testament. She didn't believe anything. And then she became a believer. And then she had a problem because she's got all these books, she's been publishing all these years. And now she's a Christian and she actually believes the Bible's the Word of God. And so, she actually wrote a very interesting letter to the German academy saying, “Please disregard everything I've ever written.” And she wrote two books defending the inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture. And so, she was still alive. I wanted to bring her to Southern to speak. And, you know, sure was a wonderful thing to have Professor Linnemann come. It was wonderful, but it was very German. And I will just tell you that I introduced her to banquet only to discover that German professors do not speak while people are eating. And you'll hear me tell this again, sometime when it's appropriate to the event, but she just said, “I dos not speak to chewing peoples.” And she was a teutonic lady professor. Yes, okay.  But the students, and of course had all these students, all these wonderful seminary students who had come to hear Professor Linnemann, and they're also polite and so kind, and they don't want to do anything improper, and they don't want to laugh at this professor, but she was as German as German could be. And it comes down to this, this particular passage, because she would just say at full voice, she was so excited about this. You believe this is the Word of God. Now it wasn't just, and she said, “And Abraham wowed a wow before the Lord.” And she just repeated it over and over again. And I'm sitting up there on the platform, looking at these students who are going, “Abraham wowed a wow before the Lord.” And sure enough, so I'll never, I just promise you once you've heard that, you can never unhear it. “Abraham wowed a wow!” If you do vow, a vow, a wave offering is an appropriate way. And again, it's shown before the Lord. It is a wave in the sense that it's held up. And yet we have more about the wave offering that comes up here. If you do, then you'll notice that the central thing here is the breast. “He shall bring the fat with the breast, that the breast may be waved as a wave before the Lord.” Now, what is it about the breast? Well, here's an interesting thing and I have no great explanation for this. It's just, it just is. And that is that the prime parts of the meat in ancient Israel were identified as the breast and the right thigh. Now, if you go into your butcher shop and talk in terms of the right thigh, I don't think you're going to get a whole lot of comprehension. But that was how it was defined. Now, other parts of the meat may be eaten. other parts of the animal may be consumed, but the prime pieces were the breast and the right thigh.  The point here is that the wave offering, if you're doing this because you vowed a vow, you’re doing this because you are expressing thanks to the Lord. Or you're doing it as the church would call it later, ‘unbidden’. In other words, there's no requirement to do it. You just feel an urge to do this, this wave offering it under the Lord. Then you bring the prime parts, no inferior parts. If you really are moved to do this, you're moved to do it rightly.  “The priest shall burn the fat on the altar, but the breast shall be for Aaron and his sons. And the right thigh you shall give to the priest as a contribution from the sacrifice of your peace offerings.” So, not the left thigh. And again, I don't know if it's just the historic distinction between left and right that is reflected in Scripture, but it's the right thigh.  “For the breast that is waved and the thigh that is contributed I have taken from the people of Israel, out of the sacrifices of their peace offerings, and have given them to Aaron the priest and to his sons, as a perpetual due from the people of Israel.” So, in other words, this is just ongoing. So, for long as Israel under this covenant shall exist, God has given to Aaron, to the Levitical priesthood, to the Aaronic priesthood with Aaron at the very top, and to the priests, they're given these prime pieces of meat as a ‘perpetual due’.  “This is the portion of Aaron and of his sons from the Lord's food offerings, from the day they were presented to serve as priests of the Lord. The Lord commanded this to be given them by the people of Israel, from the day that he anointed them. It is a perpetual due throughout their generations. This is the law of the burnt offering, of the grain offering, of the sin offering, of the guilt offering, of the ordination offering, and of the peace offering, which the Lord commanded Moses on Mount Sinai, on the day that he commanded the people of Israel to bring their offerings to the Lord, in the wilderness of Sinai.”  So, so much has transpired here. We are seven chapters through Leviticus, and we have seen now most of the rules concerning the sacrifices. Notice how they're listed here, just for helpful summary at the end, set out for us—burnt offering, grain offering, sin offering, guilt offering, ordination offering, peace offering.  Now back on Mount Sinai, when the Children of Israel were told to bring their offerings, they were just offerings. But now there are all these different kinds of offerings. The fulfillment of every single one of them, all of them and all of them together and more, is Christ. So, once again, we are struck by the fact that in Israel, there was a singularity of priesthood, but there was an endless multiplicity of sacrifices. And in Israel, it was a priesthood that was through Aaron, to Aaron's sons and descendants, and then beyond them to the tribe of Levi and the Levitical priesthood. So, it was an exclusive priesthood. If you were in other tribes, you were not a priest. If you were not of Aaron’s seed, then you're not Aaronic. Still, multiple priests, one priesthood, multiple priests. We have a singular Priest, and the sacrifice is a singular sacrifice.  So, there is more to come in Leviticus, but at this point, we have the great satisfaction of knowing that even as Israel is saved here for a time by these sacrifices, even as God's wrath is held back for Israel for a time by these sacrifices, the reality is, look at the language like ‘perpetual do’. Look at the repetition.  You know, you look at this and you recognize that when we speak of our, say week, we think of our week, we as Christians. There are Christians who think of their weekly schedule differently than we do. There are those who might be in a very highly liturgical church, say Anglican, high church Anglican, and they may begin every single day with the morning offices or matins. And they may go all the way through even song in the evening, if they are in an order, they may actually do the hours following in prayer, day by day by day.  But nonetheless, what we are looking at, if indeed this is a Christian church, if it is a Christian practice, then we are looking at the fact that if something of that is missed, let's say that the building suffers a problem and people can't meet together for the meeting, or it can't happen by some kind of obstacle. Norice no guilt remains, no guilt remains, cause these are not sacrifices. These are services of prayer. These are times of Bible reading. It's just extremely different.   For Israel, an interruption in the sacrificial system meant that guilt remained. Now, this just leads to all kinds of things that we will see as we fast forward in biblical history, including what it meant for Israel to be carried off into captivity. Or what it meant for Israel, and remember, this is now in the background, for Israel to have been captive to Pharaoh in Egypt. So, Israel is in the unusual and frightening position of recognizing that, if its infidelity leads it to be separated from this tabernacle, separated from its priesthood, its priesthood unable to function, then the sin just builds up and the guilt just increases, which by the way, shows again, God's mercy. Helps you to read the prophets, helps you to read Jeremiah, for example, helps you to understand Nehemiah because how is it that God's going to allow this people back because their sin and their guilt is ever more immense.  By the way, one other thing, and I just want to mention this very clearly. The early church recognized, and the book of Hebrews is the quintessential representation of this, the early church recognized, based upon the teachings of Christ himself and then the teaching of the apostles, that the ‘once for all’ nature of the sacrifice of Christ meant that whatever the church does, whatever the church does in worship, whatever the church does in preaching, whatever the church does just in talk, we must be extremely careful about sacrifice language.  If we are going to use sacrifice language, it has to be for ourselves. It has to be only in the sense of Romans chapter 12 in which Christ’s people are called to be ‘a living sacrifice’. But there can be no other kind of sacrificial language. We've got to reserve that now all for Christ. Is that really clear? We have to reserve that all for Christ. Well, you know, what sacrifice must be made for the forgiveness of our sins? That sacrifice was made. That sacrifice was accepted. Not only did Christ die on the cross as a Great High Priest, He was resurrected as the very Son of God by the Father. That sacrifice received and blessed in full. Any confusion of that, thus, is a deadly confusion.   Now I want to fast forward to the 16th century. In the 16th century, let's just look at Martin Luther, just to take one example. So, let's just take the seminal reformer in the 16th century. Martin Luther, when in 1517 he posted those 95 theses. And again, we don't know exactly how they were posted, but, by tradition, on the Wittenburg door. But we do know they existed to the extent, and they were published to the extent, that the Archbishop of Mainz has them and has to decide what to do with them within days of Luther having posted them. And that's a matter of the church's record.  But you'll notice that Luther didn't go after the Mass. Luther doesn't go after the very center of the Catholic Church’s cultus. He just assumed that, as a monk, or better described a friar, as an ordained priest of the church, he just, he just received that.  But as he begins to come to terms with Scripture, we see Luther forced into what can only be considered boxed alleyways from which there's no escape. And that's how Luther gets to so many of the doctoral insights of the Reformation. When he's involved in a disputation and he's accused of trusting the Scripture rather than the Magisterium, rather than the Pope, Luther says, “Yeah, that's actually what I'm doing.” And then when he's pressed further and further, it's the Scripture, and the Scripture, and the Scripture, and Luther gets the hard way to the fact that it's Scripture alone, by the fact that in his argument, he's got nowhere else to go.  The same thing with justification. Luther doesn't begin, what we would call the Reformation, by understanding the faulty doctrine of justification in the Roman Catholic Church. But the more he is taken into the world of Scripture, and the more his argument has to be based just in Scripture, and the more Scripture has to become his soul doctrinal authority, the more he recognizes that it's not faith and anything. And again, it's just then the process of, with his life on the line, you just have to, all of a sudden, realize it's this or nothing. By the time he gets to Worms with Scripture, “Here I stand, I can do to other, God help me.”  But he got to the Mass, and he got to the Mass. And you think of his writing on what he called The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, speaking of the Catholic Church. And he gets to it, and he gets to it with the recognition that the Catholic Mass is a sacrifice. He was taught this. He was taught the central theology of the Mass is that it is a sacrifice. So much so that Christ is crucified again. So much so that by transubstantiation, what is there on the altar, called the tabernacle, is a vessel for holding what is claimed to be the transubstantiated body of Christ crucified again.  And that's why Luther responds with this complete abhorrence of the Mass, where he says, “You can have the Mass, or you can have Christ, but you cannot have both, for Christ died once.” And He doesn't sit on an altar. He certainly doesn't sit on thousands and thousands of altars in bits and pieces. Christ, and Christ whole, and Christ alone, reigns with the Father. And the sacrifice is done. And it is a slander to say, any sacrifice is needed, or any sacrifice can add a thing to what Jesus accomplished and which Jesus concluded with the words, “It is finished.”  So, I just want to leave you with that as, when we're next together, we'll look at chapter eight and the actual instigation, installation of the priesthood. It's just so encouraging to me to think of not just what we do when we're together here at Third Avenue Baptist Church, but what we don't do.  Do you notice something? There’s no mess for us to clean up after the service. There's no blood spattered all over this place, and it's not because it's not necessary. It's because it's been done. So that should get us ready for worship.   It's been a privilege to be with you looking at these first seven chapters of Leviticus. We'll be turning a chapter, as in a whole section of Leviticus, when we're together next.  Let's pray. Father, we're just so thankful for all You've given us in every single word, every syllable, every sentence of Scripture. Father, we ask to read all of Scripture in order that we may know Christ, in order that we may know Him more fully, follow Him more faithfully, and see your Gospel displayed in Him more gloriously. Father, we pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.Third Avenue Baptist Church Louisville, KY Leviticus 7:1–38 — Leviticus Series November 14, 2021 Let's open with prayer. Our Father, we’re just so thankful You give us the opportunity, once again, on this morning, brisk air, beautiful foliage, reminder, not only of the changing of the seasons, but of our own temporality. Father, recognizing that we, too, are like these leaves Father, we pray to receive as much of your Word as we may until that day when we see You face to face. And we pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.  So, as we're studying Leviticus and we are studying the law as it was given to Israel in preparation for Israel's arrival in the land of promise, as we are looking word by word and line by line through this amazing book in which we see a yearning for Christ that we immediately recognize. We have seen it in so many different aspects. First of all, just in the sense of sin and guilt, it brings about the necessity of the entire sacrificial system, and then of the holiness of God and the sinfulness of humanity that cries out for some remedy. There has to be some rescue and that rescue cannot come from the human center. The rescue has to come from God Himself. Is there anything I can do, guys? Is there anything here? Okay.  The yearning for atonement actually becomes very clear, as we saw as we got to chapters five and six, where the priest makes atonement. And there's the promise of an atonement, a peace with God, the problem of our sin and our guilt being removed. That raises the issue of the guilt, and, as it turns out, the guilt is not just a subjective experience of feeling and perceiving one's sinfulness. It is the actual objective reality that our sin creates this affront to God that He cannot accept. But we see it over and over again because it happens over and over again, the sacrifices.  By the time you get to chapter seven in Leviticus, we have the recognition that this is the daily life of Israel. This is the center of the daily life of Israel. The daily life of Israel is largely consumed in the process of these sacrifices. And you say, well, this is where the Levitical priesthood. Yes. But notice who's bringing all these animals to the Levitical priests and notice how the preparation, the actual conducting of these sacrifices is going to require the attention of the people. And there are certain sacrifices in which all the people are called to draw near. We're going to see one of those this morning in chapter seven. We've also seen, and this is perhaps the greatest theological insight thus far as we're going through Leviticus. We've also recognized that for all of the atonement that is promised, for all of the effect of the sacrifices, for all of the sin that is dealt with here, nothing is dealt with permanently, and the priest needs a priest. And that's also going to become more clear.  Now, we have chapter seven before us, and after that, of course, chapter eight. Chapter eight's a decisive break in the book of Leviticus. So, after chapter eight, that is starting with chapter eight, we will be looking at instructions directly to the priesthood, which means that even as God called to Moses and spoke to Moses, this is instruction for all of Israel. And that includes chapter eight and what follows. This is not just given for the priests. It's not a secret knowledge.  Something else is really important. There is no secret priest book in Judaism. There is no secret preacher book in Christianity. Now that needs to be understood because over against the various priesthoods of paganism, there is almost universally—and I don't think I actually need the ‘almost’—there is practically universally, a secret meaning, a secret code, a secret cultus known to the priesthood and not known to the people. That's a part of the priesthood’s powers, a part of the priesthood’s stewardship is that they know things. They have access to truths. They know ancient books, ancient writings, ancient authorities. They know how to read ancient stones. Whatever it is, they have knowledge that the people don't have.  Have you noticed that that's not true of Israel? I mean, have you noticed that in Genesis and in Exodus, and we'll see it everywhere in Scripture. But in other words, it doesn't just come to us in Leviticus, but it comes to us in a big way in Leviticus, because we recognize how different this is than a traditional priesthood. A traditional priesthood is not only set apart, it is a cult unto itself. And what it does is the cultus, and the priesthood is usually entered by some form of initiation in which you enter as a novice and as a novice, you are taken into the mysteries in an ever deeper way.   You see this in Buddhism, for example, in most of its classic forms. But even in ancient paganism, such as the Canaanite religions, there's every reason to believe that the priests knew things that the people were never to know. That is just not the case in Israel. The law is given to Israel. The law is not given to the priest. There are instructions to the priest in the law given to Israel, but every single member of the covenant people has equal access to God's Word, equal access to these instructions. Now, as you fast forward in biblical history, then you go to a couple of things that become very clear in the New Testament, and especially in the writings of the apostle Paul, because he will say, “At various times there is a mystery, but it's the mystery we proclaim to you.” So, in other words, it's only a mystery to the unbelieving world.  The gnosis, the epistemological tribal reality, is the entire people. The gnosis is given to the entire people, not just to the priesthood. This sets Israel apart. And not only that, it's a public book, which means even though the knowledge is given to Israel as a part of God's covenant gift, it's shared with others. The Torah was not something secreted away. It eventually became known. And of course, we have a relationship to it in which we speak of it in terms of Old and New Covenant, Old and New Testament. This gets back to the fact that, as the reformers had to make very clear, based upon the clear verdict of the Holy Spirit led earliest church, based upon the teaching of the apostles, based upon what they had received from Christ, all of Scripture belongs to the church. The church is accountable to all of Scripture. But as we are in Leviticus, coming to chapter seven, this is the continuation, and indeed the conclusion, of the opening section of Leviticus, about the nature of the sacrifices, the nature of the offerings. In chapter seven, verse one, we read, “This is the law of the guilt offering. It is most holy.” Now wait just a minute! In the previous chapter, we had details about the guilt offering. Yes. And so, one of the things that we will find is that there's, it's not just the repetition. A lot of this language by now is quite familiar to us. It is also the fact that there are different questions answered in different portions of Leviticus. Who—that is, who is to do this? The priest, in one case the high priest. Who is to do this? When is it to be done? Well, when the sin happens, when the sin happens, when someone's expressing thanksgiving, et cetera. The how is very important.  Chapter seven says in verse two, “In the place where they kill the burnt offering, they shall kill the guilt offering, and its blood shall be thrown against the sides of the altar. And all its fat shall be offered, the fat tail, the fat that covers the entrails, the two kidneys with the fat that is on them at the loins, and the long lobe of the liver that he shall remove with the kidneys. The priest shall burn them on the altar as a food offering to the Lord; it is a guilt offering. Every male among the priests may eat of it. It shall be eaten in a holy place. It is most holy.” Now, remember that we have this, this kind of concentric set of circles, and the innermost circle is the Most Holy Place. So, as you think about even the geography or the topography of the temple. But this is also related to Israel's own identity and experience—there's a ‘holy’. Then there's a ‘most holy’, in the New Testament often referred to as the Holy of Holies. Well, when you see the phrase ‘most holy thing’, that means particularly set apart. Now, that also means that Israel is issued a particular warning, lest Israel handle most holy things in a way that is unworthy.  In verse six, “Every male among the priests may eat of it. It shall be eaten in a holy place. It is most holy. The guilt offering is just like the sin offering; there is one law for them [both]. The priest who makes atonement with it shall have it. And the priest who offers any man's burnt offering shall have for himself the skin of the burnt offering that he has offered. And every grain offering baked in the oven and all that is prepared on a pan or [in] a griddle shall belong to the priest who offers it. And every grain offering, mixed with oil or dry, shall be shared equally among all the sons of Aaron.”  So again, a lot going on here. But in the sin offering and the guilt offering, which we are told follows one law, so it is one pattern. The priest who performs a sacrifice, eats the meat of the sacrifice—that is allowed to him. And remember, that's a restricted amount of the animals, we shall see. What's also important here is that the skin of the animal sacrificed is given to that priest.  These skins are very, very important. You'll remember in the book of Genesis when Adam Eve in their embarrassment, after they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they made—you got to love the Geneva Bible in its modesty—they made ‘aprons for themselves’. And they did make aprons for themselves, but they were made out of leaves. They were not going to be very substantial. And remember, after the Lord confronted them in their sin, a part of the Lord's care for them after their rebellion and sin was to make coverings for them out of skins of animals. And so, this use of skin shows the fact that that nothing in the animal was left without a purpose, nothing, and that the skin had value in it tangibly. It went to the priest who made the atonement.  The grain offerings would last longer. It's the other thing that comes up about the meat offerings. And you'll notice that it appears that right then the priest who deserves to eat of the meat, eats of it. And it's because meat spoils, it's because meat is perishable. You do it right here. You do it right in the view of the people. The grain offerings are a bit different because the grain offerings will last longer, and they are shared with the other priests. The one who officiates at the offering has the first fruit of the offering, but shares it then equally among all the sons of Aaron. Verse 11, “And this is the law of the sacrifice of peace offerings that one may offer to the Lord. If he offers it for a thanksgiving…” So that's reason number one, thanksgiving. “…then he shall offer with the thanksgiving sacrifice unleavened loaves mixed with oil, unleavened wafers smeared with oil, and loaves of fine flour well mixed with oil. With the sacrifice of his peace offerings for thanksgiving he shall bring his offering with [the] loaves of leavened bread. And from it he shall offer one loaf from each offering, as a gift to the Lord. It shall belong to the priest who throws the blood of the peace offerings. And the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offerings for thanksgiving shall be eaten on the day of his offering.” There again, the meat to be eaten immediately. “He shall not leave any of it until the morning. But if the sacrifice of his offering is a vow offering or a freewill offering…” That's the second. “…it shall be eaten on the day that he offers his sacrifice, and on the next day, what remains of it may be eaten.” So that would be what remains of the animal that wasn't eaten, still allowable to eat on the second day, but as you shall see, not on the third.  Verse 17, “But what remains of the flesh of the sacrifice on the third day shall be burned up with fire.” So, first day you may eat it. Second day, if any is left over, you may still eat it. Third day, no! Now notice what comes next. In verse 18, “If any of the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offering is eaten on the third day, he who offers it shall not be accepted, neither shall it be credited to him. It is tainted, and he who eats of it shall bear his iniquity.” So again, there's a there's judgment here. These laws are not merely suggestions. This is not the etiquette of sacrifice. This is the law of sacrifice. These are instructions. If these instructions are taken lightly, then basically the entire sacrifice is invalidated.  Now, again, we just can't help fast forwarding, fast forwarding to the fact that, on the cross, Jesus was both priest and offering. He's our Great High Priest who offers Himself. And He offers himself in such a way that it was a perfect sacrifice. It was received as a perfect sacrifice. So, it was actually the first perfect sacrifice, which means to say, when you look at the danger here of even making an error in the offering and the sacrifice being basically invalidated, you recognize that this is a clumsy, clumsy thing. It's a hit or miss thing, not because of God's character, but because of the human character, those carrying it out. Not only their character, but their competence. You get a slippery priest, you're going to have guilt. First of all, upon the priest himself.  Now, the holiness code becomes more clear as we look at verse 19. “Flesh that touches any unclean thing shall not be eaten.” And remember, there are a lot of unclean things. If a clean thing to be sacrificed touches an unclean thing, it becomes unclean. “It shall be burned up with fire. All who are clean may eat flesh, but the person who eats of the flesh of the sacrifice of the Lord's peace offerings while an uncleanness is on him, that person shall be cut off from his people. And if anyone touches an unclean thing, whether human uncleanness or an unclean beast or any unclean detestable creature, and then eats some flesh from the sacrifice of the Lord's peace offerings, that person shall be cut off from his people.”  Now ‘cut off from his people’. What does that mean? That is an incredibly strong word of judgment. This doesn't sound like something for which there can be a remedy. Let me tell you, it may be worse than you think. Look at Exodus, chapter 31. Look at verse 14. “You shall keep the Sabbath, because it is holy for you. Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death. Whoever does any work on it, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day shall be put to death.” So, there it appears that there is at least a connection between the death penalty and being cut off from your people. But we need to be careful. It is a parallelism here. In other words, we're not told that being cut off from the people is being put to death. We're told that someone is to be put to death, who is a Sabbath breaker, but then it's explained that such a person is to be cut off from his people. Now, capital punishment would certainly do that, but so would exile. And what we can only describe in the Old Testament as a, an exile from the covenant, being cut off from the covenant, it appears, just put it in context, that that is what is contemplated in Leviticus. And this will show up elsewhere when someone is cut off from his people. And if there is a death penalty, that's invoked, it applies.  But there are cases in which we have the language, ‘He shall be cut off from his people,’ where it does not appear that there is any death penalty, but rather one is basically excommunicated, is the best way to put it. That would be our closest at hand term for this. It would be someone who is now exiled, cut off from the covenant and from the covenant people.  The point of course we see here in Leviticus, is that getting the sacrifice wrong endangers, not only the sacrifice, but it slanders God and it mal priests. It is an injury for the entire people. And as we have seen, sin and guilt are real objective categories. They are real obstacles between us and a holy God. They are an affront to God's majesty and His holiness. They are an objective barrier between God's covenant people and Himself. The sacrifice is the way that that barrier is removed. As we see in these sacrifices, for a time God's wrath will be held back, for a time. But that ‘for a time’ is very important because that's how the covenant people existed.  And that's also how we exist. We are not under the mediation of a priest who performs repeated sacrifices. That sacrifice is once for all. For us, before a time is not awaiting the great sacrifice, because that's already taken place. For us, the ‘for a time’ is in this time awaiting the glorification that is to come. It's one of the things we have to remember is that Christ’s atoning work purchased our glorification. We are not yet glorified, but no more sacrifice will take place.  In the horizon of Israel's just endless sacrifices until, until again, logically, logically, and we see it in the text going all the way back to Moses—in fact, going all the way back to the promise to Abraham—it's there that something's going to have to bring a conclusion to this. Someone's going to have to finish this. He is, we speak of Christ as the ‘author and finisher of our faith,’ but for the temporal horizon of Israel for so long as their generation shall come, it's daily what we are seeing here.  In verse 22, “The Lord speaks to Moses, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel, saying, You shall eat no fat, of ox or sheep or goat. The fat of an animal that dies of itself and the fat of one that is torn by [the] beasts may be put to any other use, but on no account shall you eat it. For every person who eats of the fat of an animal of which a food offering may be made to the Lord shall be cut off from his people.” There it is again. “Moreover, you shall eat no blood whatever, whether of fowl or of animal, in any of your dwelling, places. Whoever eats any blood, that person shall be cut off from his people.””  Now again, I think I told someone that, you know, there have been people who have heard this or read this text and been afraid to order their steak in a restaurant anything but well done. That is not what's being referenced here. And as a matter of fact, in the slaughter of beef or of meat, the bleeding of the animal, the blood is removed. There's still some in the flesh, but the actual circulatory blood is removed. So, what’s the background here, what's the problem? Well, let's just say we have foreground, and then we have long foreground. In the immediate foreground, and in the background to this, are the pagan sacrifices, pagan priests, because blood has been recognized, even in the most animistic cultures, as being of importance to the cultus. Now, this is explained, of course, in the Scripture where we are told that in the blood is the life. Just think of a text like Genesis 9:4, the life is in the blood.  If you're trying to find the mystery of life, which let's just say you're an ancient people, you're cut off from any form of direct, special revelation. You have the general revelation, you're made in God's image, you’re in a place where you do not know Torah, you do not hear the revelation of God, and you're trying to figure out what life is all about. It doesn't take you long to figure out that life is in the blood. Life is in the blood to the extent that if someone loses blood, they die. Life is blood to the extent that all the creatures that we would consider as animal creatures, even like unto us, there is blood. The life is in the blood to the extent that, if you have someone who's cut and the blood is spurting out, when the blood stops pulsing, the person is dead.  Now, if you take the life is in the blood in a pagan way, you literally mean the life is in the blood, which is one of the reasons why you will find, you know, in ancient cultures in Central and South America, especially with human sacrifice. And you look at the reason for the human sacrifice. There's an impulse. We've got to have some kind of blood sacrifice, it needs to be as innocent as possible, which is why so many of these are children. Found also in Canaan. Remember, the purpose here is to prepare the Children of Israel for entering Canaan, while not becoming Canaanites. And a part of what the Canaanites are doing, particularly in sacrifices to Molech, is they're sacrificing their children.  Some years ago, an archeologist came to Southern Seminary for a conference and was speaking about modern archeological finds, and mentioned that so many of them actually, in the ancient near east, have been completely accidental. In other words, there's certain tells or mounds where people know we ought to dig there and see what's there. There are certain civilizational spots, you could just say Jericho or other places, not to mention Jerusalem, or we know we know what this place is. And we know, as you dig down stratum by stratum, you're going to find all kinds of interesting materials.  But other things have been found elsewhere, especially in the ancient Near East, nearly entirely by accident. One of them came in Syria, very close to the Golan Heights, which means very close to Mount Carmel, you know, headed in that direction, very close to Israel. And what was found was a dumping place of dead bodies. And the dead bodies had been sacrificed and burned. And the dead bodies were all of children, about ages four and under. All of them had been clearly sacrificed in some kind of sacrificial system. They'd been killed and their bodies burned. But what was noted about this, this horrible find was that what was shocking is that the main leg bones in all of these skeletons had been broken, and it was so that the children could not crawl out of the fire.  And you look at that and you go, “Oh!” This blood sacrifice, in a pagan sense, makes the sacrifice and the priesthood the focus, and this blood, the idea that life is in the blood. You know, the priest would smear themselves with blood and there would be orgies of blood. That's not what you see here. In fact, the detailed instructions given to the priests in Leviticus are such that there is no confusion between the sacrifice that God has ordered and the pagan sacrifices, and the eating of blood is a part of this.  Notice that Israel's not just all, “No, it's not a good idea to eat blood.” No, it's not that. They are told, “You shall not eat blood. If you eat blood, you are cut off again.” We think the best meaning of that would be an exile cut off from the covenant. That's how threatening such a confusion would be.  And by the way, it's also fat. You're not supposed to eat the fat. And the fat is not the blood. You know, we don't have a sacrifice of fat. But it just shows you again, that God's holiness code is very detailed and every part of it is useful. And what God says about the fat is, “You can use it for a lot of things. You can’t eat it.” And so, the fat could be reduced to oil, it could be reduced to grease, it could be used for polish, it could be used to light a lamp. It could be used for all kinds of purposes. Can't be used for just outright human consumption. Verse 28, “The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel, saying Whoever offers the sacrifice of his peace offerings to the Lord shall bring his offering to the Lord from the sacrifice of his peace offerings. His own hands shall bring the Lord's food offerings. He shall bring the fat with the breast, that the breast may be waved as a wave offering before the Lord.”” Now remember a wave offering is symbolically a way of demonstrating the purpose of the sacrifice. And remember, one of the central purposes of the wave offering is thanksgiving. It could be also to vow a vow.  I was a telling group about having Eta Linnemann speak at Southern Seminary. It’s a long story—I won't tell you how I introduced her, and she didn't come. But she was one of, she was Rudolph Bultmann, the great liberal New Testament scholar in Germany, fountain head of theological liberalism. Eta Linnemann was his first female doctoral student and became very, very famous as a liberal biblical scholar. She didn't believe the Bible was the Word of God. She was a Bultmannian. She never married.   And Professor Linnemann, toward the end of her life, went on a retreat with and ended up and being in a hostel in Germany, run by German pietist ladies. And she became a Christian toward the end of her life. She was a professor of New Testament. She didn't believe anything. And then she became a believer. And then she had a problem because she's got all these books, she's been publishing all these years. And now she's a Christian and she actually believes the Bible's the Word of God. And so, she actually wrote a very interesting letter to the German academy saying, “Please disregard everything I've ever written.” And she wrote two books defending the inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture. And so, she was still alive. I wanted to bring her to Southern to speak. And, you know, sure was a wonderful thing to have Professor Linnemann come. It was wonderful, but it was very German. And I will just tell you that I introduced her to banquet only to discover that German professors do not speak while people are eating. And you'll hear me tell this again, sometime when it's appropriate to the event, but she just said, “I dos not speak to chewing peoples.” And she was a teutonic lady professor. Yes, okay.  But the students, and of course had all these students, all these wonderful seminary students who had come to hear Professor Linnemann, and they're also polite and so kind, and they don't want to do anything improper, and they don't want to laugh at this professor, but she was as German as German could be. And it comes down to this, this particular passage, because she would just say at full voice, she was so excited about this. You believe this is the Word of God. Now it wasn't just, and she said, “And Abraham wowed a wow before the Lord.” And she just repeated it over and over again. And I'm sitting up there on the platform, looking at these students who are going, “Abraham wowed a wow before the Lord.” And sure enough, so I'll never, I just promise you once you've heard that, you can never unhear it. “Abraham wowed a wow!” If you do vow, a vow, a wave offering is an appropriate way. And again, it's shown before the Lord. It is a wave in the sense that it's held up. And yet we have more about the wave offering that comes up here. If you do, then you'll notice that the central thing here is the breast. “He shall bring the fat with the breast, that the breast may be waved as a wave before the Lord.” Now, what is it about the breast? Well, here's an interesting thing and I have no great explanation for this. It's just, it just is. And that is that the prime parts of the meat in ancient Israel were identified as the breast and the right thigh. Now, if you go into your butcher shop and talk in terms of the right thigh, I don't think you're going to get a whole lot of comprehension. But that was how it was defined. Now, other parts of the meat may be eaten. other parts of the animal may be consumed, but the prime pieces were the breast and the right thigh.  The point here is that the wave offering, if you're doing this because you vowed a vow, you’re doing this because you are expressing thanks to the Lord. Or you're doing it as the church would call it later, ‘unbidden’. In other words, there's no requirement to do it. You just feel an urge to do this, this wave offering it under the Lord. Then you bring the prime parts, no inferior parts. If you really are moved to do this, you're moved to do it rightly.  “The priest shall burn the fat on the altar, but the breast shall be for Aaron and his sons. And the right thigh you shall give to the priest as a contribution from the sacrifice of your peace offerings.” So, not the left thigh. And again, I don't know if it's just the historic distinction between left and right that is reflected in Scripture, but it's the right thigh.  “For the breast that is waved and the thigh that is contributed I have taken from the people of Israel, out of the sacrifices of their peace offerings, and have given them to Aaron the priest and to his sons, as a perpetual due from the people of Israel.” So, in other words, this is just ongoing. So, for long as Israel under this covenant shall exist, God has given to Aaron, to the Levitical priesthood, to the Aaronic priesthood with Aaron at the very top, and to the priests, they're given these prime pieces of meat as a ‘perpetual due’.  “This is the portion of Aaron and of his sons from the Lord's food offerings, from the day they were presented to serve as priests of the Lord. The Lord commanded this to be given them by the people of Israel, from the day that he anointed them. It is a perpetual due throughout their generations. This is the law of the burnt offering, of the grain offering, of the sin offering, of the guilt offering, of the ordination offering, and of the peace offering, which the Lord commanded Moses on Mount Sinai, on the day that he commanded the people of Israel to bring their offerings to the Lord, in the wilderness of Sinai.”  So, so much has transpired here. We are seven chapters through Leviticus, and we have seen now most of the rules concerning the sacrifices. Notice how they're listed here, just for helpful summary at the end, set out for us—burnt offering, grain offering, sin offering, guilt offering, ordination offering, peace offering.  Now back on Mount Sinai, when the Children of Israel were told to bring their offerings, they were just offerings. But now there are all these different kinds of offerings. The fulfillment of every single one of them, all of them and all of them together and more, is Christ. So, once again, we are struck by the fact that in Israel, there was a singularity of priesthood, but there was an endless multiplicity of sacrifices. And in Israel, it was a priesthood that was through Aaron, to Aaron's sons and descendants, and then beyond them to the tribe of Levi and the Levitical priesthood. So, it was an exclusive priesthood. If you were in other tribes, you were not a priest. If you were not of Aaron’s seed, then you're not Aaronic. Still, multiple priests, one priesthood, multiple priests. We have a singular Priest, and the sacrifice is a singular sacrifice.  So, there is more to come in Leviticus, but at this point, we have the great satisfaction of knowing that even as Israel is saved here for a time by these sacrifices, even as God's wrath is held back for Israel for a time by these sacrifices, the reality is, look at the language like ‘perpetual do’. Look at the repetition.  You know, you look at this and you recognize that when we speak of our, say week, we think of our week, we as Christians. There are Christians who think of their weekly schedule differently than we do. There are those who might be in a very highly liturgical church, say Anglican, high church Anglican, and they may begin every single day with the morning offices or matins. And they may go all the way through even song in the evening, if they are in an order, they may actually do the hours following in prayer, day by day by day.  But nonetheless, what we are looking at, if indeed this is a Christian church, if it is a Christian practice, then we are looking at the fact that if something of that is missed, let's say that the building suffers a problem and people can't meet together for the meeting, or it can't happen by some kind of obstacle. Norice no guilt remains, no guilt remains, cause these are not sacrifices. These are services of prayer. These are times of Bible reading. It's just extremely different.   For Israel, an interruption in the sacrificial system meant that guilt remained. Now, this just leads to all kinds of things that we will see as we fast forward in biblical history, including what it meant for Israel to be carried off into captivity. Or what it meant for Israel, and remember, this is now in the background, for Israel to have been captive to Pharaoh in Egypt. So, Israel is in the unusual and frightening position of recognizing that, if its infidelity leads it to be separated from this tabernacle, separated from its priesthood, its priesthood unable to function, then the sin just builds up and the guilt just increases, which by the way, shows again, God's mercy. Helps you to read the prophets, helps you to read Jeremiah, for example, helps you to understand Nehemiah because how is it that God's going to allow this people back because their sin and their guilt is ever more immense.  By the way, one other thing, and I just want to mention this very clearly. The early church recognized, and the book of Hebrews is the quintessential representation of this, the early church recognized, based upon the teachings of Christ himself and then the teaching of the apostles, that the ‘once for all’ nature of the sacrifice of Christ meant that whatever the church does, whatever the church does in worship, whatever the church does in preaching, whatever the church does just in talk, we must be extremely careful about sacrifice language.  If we are going to use sacrifice language, it has to be for ourselves. It has to be only in the sense of Romans chapter 12 in which Christ’s people are called to be ‘a living sacrifice’. But there can be no other kind of sacrificial language. We've got to reserve that now all for Christ. Is that really clear? We have to reserve that all for Christ. Well, you know, what sacrifice must be made for the forgiveness of our sins? That sacrifice was made. That sacrifice was accepted. Not only did Christ die on the cross as a Great High Priest, He was resurrected as the very Son of God by the Father. That sacrifice received and blessed in full. Any confusion of that, thus, is a deadly confusion.   Now I want to fast forward to the 16th century. In the 16th century, let's just look at Martin Luther, just to take one example. So, let's just take the seminal reformer in the 16th century. Martin Luther, when in 1517 he posted those 95 theses. And again, we don't know exactly how they were posted, but, by tradition, on the Wittenburg door. But we do know they existed to the extent, and they were published to the extent, that the Archbishop of Mainz has them and has to decide what to do with them within days of Luther having posted them. And that's a matter of the church's record.  But you'll notice that Luther didn't go after the Mass. Luther doesn't go after the very center of the Catholic Church’s cultus. He just assumed that, as a monk, or better described a friar, as an ordained priest of the church, he just, he just received that.  But as he begins to come to terms with Scripture, we see Luther forced into what can only be considered boxed alleyways from which there's no escape. And that's how Luther gets to so many of the doctoral insights of the Reformation. When he's involved in a disputation and he's accused of trusting the Scripture rather than the Magisterium, rather than the Pope, Luther says, “Yeah, that's actually what I'm doing.” And then when he's pressed further and further, it's the Scripture, and the Scripture, and the Scripture, and Luther gets the hard way to the fact that it's Scripture alone, by the fact that in his argument, he's got nowhere else to go.  The same thing with justification. Luther doesn't begin, what we would call the Reformation, by understanding the faulty doctrine of justification in the Roman Catholic Church. But the more he is taken into the world of Scripture, and the more his argument has to be based just in Scripture, and the more Scripture has to become his soul doctrinal authority, the more he recognizes that it's not faith and anything. And again, it's just then the process of, with his life on the line, you just have to, all of a sudden, realize it's this or nothing. By the time he gets to Worms with Scripture, “Here I stand, I can do to other, God help me.”  But he got to the Mass, and he got to the Mass. And you think of his writing on what he called The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, speaking of the Catholic Church. And he gets to it, and he gets to it with the recognition that the Catholic Mass is a sacrifice. He was taught this. He was taught the central theology of the Mass is that it is a sacrifice. So much so that Christ is crucified again. So much so that by transubstantiation, what is there on the altar, called the tabernacle, is a vessel for holding what is claimed to be the transubstantiated body of Christ crucified again.  And that's why Luther responds with this complete abhorrence of the Mass, where he says, “You can have the Mass, or you can have Christ, but you cannot have both, for Christ died once.” And He doesn't sit on an altar. He certainly doesn't sit on thousands and thousands of altars in bits and pieces. Christ, and Christ whole, and Christ alone, reigns with the Father. And the sacrifice is done. And it is a slander to say, any sacrifice is needed, or any sacrifice can add a thing to what Jesus accomplished and which Jesus concluded with the words, “It is finished.”  So, I just want to leave you with that as, when we're next together, we'll look at chapter eight and the actual instigation, installation of the priesthood. It's just so encouraging to me to think of not just what we do when we're together here at Third Avenue Baptist Church, but what we don't do.  Do you notice something? There’s no mess for us to clean up after the service. There's no blood spattered all over this place, and it's not because it's not necessary. It's because it's been done. So that should get us ready for worship.   It's been a privilege to be with you looking at these first seven chapters of Leviticus. We'll be turning a chapter, as in a whole section of Leviticus, when we're together next.  Let's pray. Father, we're just so thankful for all You've given us in every single word, every syllable, every sentence of Scripture. Father, we ask to read all of Scripture in order that we may know Christ, in order that we may know Him more fully, follow Him more faithfully, and see your Gospel displayed in Him more gloriously. Father, we pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2021/10/24/leviticus-51-630/ Sun, 24 Oct 2021 12:00:19 +0000 Louisville, KY
Leviticus 5:1–6:30 — Leviticus Series
October 24, 2021
Good morning. Good to see you all. Just as we drove in, the sun peaked through the sky, it was a good thing to see this morning, but it's a wonderful thing to be together as we continue in our verse by verse study of Leviticus. To that we will turn in just a moment–but first, let's pray.
Our Father, with grateful hearts we thank you once again that we have the privilege of being together in this place, at this time, for this hour, dedicated to the study of your word. And Father, we pray that this hour will be for the increase of our knowledge, and for the increase of our godliness, and the increase of your glory. We pray this in Christ's name, amen.
I had the privilege of preaching at a college church in Wheaton three times this past Sunday. I was talking to folks, and then they would say, “I want to thank you for your studying Leviticus.” And I'm thinking, “well, you're there, I'm here, but because of the internet, there are folks who are following the study of Leviticus.” And they said, “well, what's the biggest surprise?” I said, “well, I think, I think the biggest surprise has been for those in the class. The fact that we spent so many weeks, and we're only in Leviticus four,  I think that's probably a surprise, because it's just much richer material than a lot of Christians would anticipate.” But we are looking towards one of the hinge chapters in the book of Leviticus. We're going to find references back and forth, even as we're going to find references back to Leviticus in the book of Deuteronomy, you're going to find Leviticus cited as we go forward. Even throughout the Old Testament, and in the New Testament, amazingly enough, Jesus is going to quote Leviticus when he is asked, “what is the greatest commandment?” So we're not there yet. But we are going to pick up the pace a bit this morning, because we are headed towards something in the text ahead. That is just vital for us to know. 
I think one of the insights of studying Leviticus is that in almost every chapter, there is something that just stands out at us, and we say, “okay, that's just incredibly clarifying.” The last time we were together, as we were looking at Leviticus chapter four, we saw the objectivity of sin so very clearly demonstrated in the fact that even unintentional sin by a priest means that the guilt has fallen upon Israel. So guilt is not just a subjective experience. Guilt is an objective reality, because sin is an objective reality , and then make atonement–as we saw later in the chapter, the only answer to sin is atonement–but now we start chapter five. 
“If anyone sins in that he hears a public adjuration to testify, and though he is a witness, whether he is seen or come to know the matter yet does not speak, he shall bear his iniquity; or if anyone touches an unclean thing, whether a carcas of an unclean wild animal, or a carcas of unclean livestock, or a carcas of unclean swarming things, and it is hidden from him and he has become unclean and he realizes his guilt; or if he touches human uncleanness of whatever sort of uncleanness this may be with which one becomes unclean, and it is hidden from him when he comes to know it and realizes his guilt; if anyone utters with his lips a rash oath to do evil or to do good, any sort of rash oath that people swear, and it is hidden from him when he comes to know it, and he realizes his guilt in any of these; when he realizes his guilt in any of these and confesses the sin he has committed, he shall bring to the Lord as his compensation for the sin that he has committed, a female from the flock, a lamb, or a goat for a sin offering. And the priest shall make atonement for him for his sin. 
But if he cannot afford a lamb, then he shall bring to the Lord as his compensation for the sin that he has committed two turtle doves or two pigeons, one for his sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. He shall bring him to the priest, who shall first offer the one for the sin offering. He shall ring its head from its neck but shall not sever it completely, and he shall sprinkle some of the blood of the sin offering on the side of the altar, while the rest of the blood shall be drained out at the base of the altar; It is a sin offering. Then he shall offer the second for a burn offering according to the rule. And the priest shall make atonement for him for the sin that he is committed, and he shall be forgiven.
But if he cannot afford two turtle doves or two pigeons, then he shall bring as his offering for the sin he has committed a 10th of an ephah of fine flour for a sin offering. He shall put no oil on it and shall put no frankincense on it, for it is a sin offering, and he shall bring it to the priest. And the priest shall take a handful of it as its memorial portion and burn this on the altar, on the Lord's food offerings; it is a sin offering. Then the priest shall make atonement for him for the sin which he is committed in any one of these things, and he should be forgiven. And the remainder shall be for the priest, as in the grain offering.”
Well, that was 13 verses. Interesting territory here. Notice the very first sin that's mentioned: “if anyone sends that he hears a public adjuration testify, and though he was a witness, whether he's seen or come to know the matter yet does not speak, he shall bear his iniquity. What kind of society was Israel? Just as as God's covenant people, what kind of society was it? Well, it was a society of law. Now you say we are a society of law, and indeed we are. The difference is Israel was a covenant theocracy. So when Israel was ever asked, “where did you get your law?” Israel would respond, “It was God's gift to us.”
Now this gift was given, of course, through Moses, and as we see repeatedly in Leviticus, we are told that the Lord spoke to Moses, telling him to tell the people he called Moses out from the tent and spoke to him. He will speak to Moses, and we'll see this again and again–the Lord spoke to Moses. He gives the law through Moses, which gives us that privileged place, most honored place of Moses in the entire history of Israel. Now was the giving of the law, in the eyes of Israel, a good thing or a bad thing?
And this is where, being Protestant Christians we have to unthink a bit in order to rethink a bit. If we unthink something, it would necessarily be the fact that we have this instinct in us that the law is bad, and grace is good. Now it's more complex than that, but it just comes down to that. The letter kills, the spirit gives life. The old covenant can bring no salvation–it just holds back the wrath of God, as we see in Romans chapter three. The new covenant brings salvation, the old covenant is just getting us to the new covenant by promise and by contrast. 
But if we go back to the experience of Israel, Israel receives these laws as a most unspeakably precious gift. Now this is true for two reasons. One horizontal, the vertical of course is most important. And the vertical means that the great thankfulness for this law is that they are rightly afraid of God destroying them, as he destroyed the Egyptians, as he destroyed by flood. How do you make certain you don't do whatever brought on those punishments? You need the law, and you need the law not only in the thou shouts and the thou shout nots, which we certainly need–all of us need that–but you need the law in order to know what to do when there is a transgresion of the law, because there surely there will be transgressions of the law. And then the question will be “now what?” what if a 10 year old shoplifts– I realize that's a bit anachronistic, but nonetheless let's assume it's a shop–if a 10 year old shoplifts, do you execute him? Do you put him outside of the people forever? Do you cut him off from his people? What about if someone lies? In this case, You'll notice that the law that God gave Israel is in essence a constitutional law. And in this sense, this is one of the great jumps forward of humanity. Now, if you're looking at this from an anthropological perspective, you're going to say “here's something absolutely amazing.  And in this area of the world, kind of the cradle of civilization in the basin of Mesopotamia, and then coming over to the Levant and towards the Mediterranean, and even in north Africa, in Egypt, there is an explosion of law. 
Now, if you're a liberal Old Testament professor, you say, “See, this is just a human development. All this, necessity of law, society's now reached the point where the law has to be codified, whether it's the code of Hammurabi, or it's the law of Egypt, the  Pharaonic law,  or if it's the Mesopotamian codes–there are these laws that all of a sudden appear sometimes on clay tablets. You can say, “here are laws,” because eventually if you're going to have any society that becomes systematized and rationalized as the sociological language, you’re going to have to have “law,” because in order to have any kind of stable society, it needs not just to be a matter of tribal fiat. Tribal fiat means, if you do this on Tuesday, and you come before the elders, and they say, “you're out,” and you come on Wednesday, and to someone with the same law transgression, they say, “20 lashes,” it's by fiat. That doesn't work very well. You can't really have a society that way. You need advertised laws, and so it's a part of what you see.
Now, in Deuteronomy, one of the sweetest of passages in Deuteronomy chapter four finds Moses reminding the children of Israel when they received the law, and just reminding them, “has any other people received laws so sweet?” And he puts it this way–”Has any other people heard the voice of God speaking from the fire and survived?” So Israel's law from the beginning is God's gift. Israel is a covenant theocracy. The laws are God's laws mediated through Moses, to the people–their sweet laws. So Israel has received the law as a gift. Now, just think of another context, think of your own home with young children. Your home had better be a theocracy there. It had better be a house of law–a house of grace, too, but a house of law mediated through parents. There are “thou shalts” and “thou shalt nots.” If the child does not learn to live within the “thou shalts” and “the thou shalt nots,” then we shalt not have a society worth living in. But the point is that you've got to teach the law–even just putting the law out there is not enough. You've got to teach it, which is exactly what's commanded to the children of Israel in Deuteronomy chapter four, as well as Deuteronomy chapter six with the shema. 
But you also have to have a way of dealing with transgressions of the law. You have to have it in your home. What do you do? The child disobeys you–do you put them out the front door, and slam the door, and that's it? No, you’ve got to have some way of dealing with it. But the other thing is you need some way of dealing with it to be also as a part of the law. The consequences and penalties should be a part of the law, which it is in terms of American penal code. 
This starts out with something as formal as the law process of determining guilt, requiring testifying and testimony. And in this case, someone has failed to testify. We're not going to dwell on this for very long, but this is a very sophisticated at the law code. It's very sophisticated. This implies a court process. It implies in evidentiary process. It implies the, the weighing of evidence, and it requires testimony. Testimony is important. You'll see it repeated in the structure over and over again. Thus, it is a sin not to testify when you should testify, but then very quickly it turns to the purity code in verse two: “if anyone touches an unclean thing,” and notice the comprehensiveness here, “whether a carcas of an unclean world animal, or the carcas of an unclean livestock, or a carcas of an unclean swarming thing,” death  is something that simply is to be avoided. Death is uncleanness.
Mary and I were at a visitation at a funeral home just recently, and, having grown up in our teenage years in south Florida, this was something we were not shocked by, although it was still kind of shocking. There was a Christian family, which is the reason that we were there in this funeral home, and there was a Jewish visitation next door, and it's shockingly different. If you walked in the wrong room, you will see the body just on a board with a sheet over the body. Of course it's following the Jewish burial ritual, which means the body has to be buried basically within 24 hours, and so it's a very quick process. And it is because the body is itself now unclean, because it is dead. 
Death is to be avoided. The death of an animal, and all the rest. This is not so much in the process of the slaughter of an animal for the ritual purposes or for food. This is when you come across the carcas of a dead body. That’s why you go around it. Now this will show up even in the New Testament and something like the parable of the Good Samaritan. There's a lot of moralizing in the parable, but we tend to over-moralize it and miss deeper theological significance when the people cross to the other side of the road, because they think he's dead. They're doing nothing but following the instinct that has been driven into Judaism for centuries–you avoid dead things even if they look dead, because you become ritually unclean, but it's not just the dead. You notice what follows: “If he touches human uncleanness of whatever sort, the uncleanness may be with which one becomes unclean.” 
Okay, this is great. 10 year old boy comes in. Can you just imagine mother looking at him and saying, “son, of whatever sort the uncleanness may be with which you have become unclean…” There are all kind of ways to become unclean. This refers basically, however, to things that come out of the body that will make one unclean–contact with any number of things. Then you come to know that sacrifice is necessary. Verse four– “a rash oath, whether for good or for evil.”So this implies there’s an oath that's rash, right? If it's a rash oath, that's the bad oath. That implies there's a good oath. And on this, the Bible is complex. 
And we can just say in summary, there are contexts in which an oath is necessary. Even God takes one in his own name, but oaths are theologically, morally risky, and it is just dangerous to make them unless uniquely necessary. But you'll notice that if there is to be the sacrifice for what is discovered to be sin, or realized to be sin, or remembered to be sin, then it begins with a female from the flock, a lamb or a goat for a sin offering. Now again, a female is a less expensive animal. So we are not dealing with the kind of transgression that would require a male from the herd, unblemished. So in this case, it can be a female, and it can be a lamb or a goat. The goat, the more expensive, the lamb, the less expensive in this case and the more numerous.  So there would've been more sacrifices of lambs than of sheep. And that also points to our Christology. But as verse seven tells us if the sinner cannot afford a lamb, then two turtle doves will do, or two pigeons. And one will be for the sin offering, one for the burnt offering. But then in verse 11, we're told if you cannot afford two turtle doves, or two pigeons, he shall bring is his offering that he has committed, a 10th of an  ova of fine flour. So that again is the grain offering. So basically this covers everyone. So all of Israel is covered within the provision for this sin offering. It will be repeated. It will be made necessary often. Thus there will be lots of pigeons, lots of turtle, doves, lots of goats, lots of lambs, lots of flour, but this covers everyone in the social and economic system of Israel. No one is outside of this provision is made for everyone. And here's the thing, God knows the heart, right? So God knows what you can bring. If you can afford to bring a goat and you bring the flower, God knows. 
Now in verse 14, we shift from the sin offering to the guilt offering. Basically, the very best Old Testament scholars and theologians are hard pressed to explain exactly what the difference is. That's because when we think of sin, we think of guilt. We think of sin. The one goes with the other. The context appears to make the distinction. This is again a new section, because in verse 14, the passage begins “The Lord spoke to Moses, saying ‘if anyone commits to breach of faith and sins unintentionally in any of the holy things of the Lord, he shall bring to the Lord as his compensation, a Ram without blemish out of the flock, valued in silver shackles, according to the shekel, the sanctuary for a guilt offering,’” continuing in chapter five, ‘“if anyone commits a breach of faith and sins unintentionally in any of the holy things of the Lord,’” And this refers then to the sacrificial system, the priestly system, “he shall bring to the Lord as his compensation, a ram without blemish of, of the rock valued in silver shackles. According to the shekel, the sanctuary for a guilt offering, he shall also make restitution for what he has done a miss in the holy thing, and shall add a fifth to it and give it to the priest. And the priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of the guilt offering. And he shall be forgiven if anyone sins doing any of the things that by the Lord's commandments ought not to be done, though, he did not know it, then realizes his guilt. He shall bear his iniquity. He shall bring to the priest to ram without blemish out of the flock or it's equivalent for a guilt offering. And the priest shall make atonement for him for the mistake that he made unintentionally, he shall be forgiven. It is a guilt offering. He has indeed incurred guilt before the Lord.” 
Just work backwards from that last sentence–”he has indeed incurred guilt before the Lord.” So here's the thing, brothers and sisters, it is vitally important that we know if we have incurred guilt before the Lord, it is just incredibly important. It's between us and our creator. Something has come between us and our relationship, and because of the holiness of God, our relationship is not only imperiled, it is directly and eternally threatened by this guilt. We need to know the guilt. The law is a gift in telling us both what the guilt is and how the transgresion may be forgiven in this case, looking at the guilt offering, which continues by the way into chapter six. You'll notice again, that a lot of this has to do with things that are even unintentiona, in this case, bringing to the ram to the priest. That is a ram. So now you're talking about a more expensive animal. The ram–like the bull–is a sign of power, and it may well mean that the power there is pointing to the powerful nature of sin. The more powerful the sin, the more powerful the substitute that is required in the sacrifice. A ram is understood to be very powerful. 
Another statement to Moses in chapter six, verse one: “the Lord spoke to Moses, saying ‘if anyone sins and commits a breach of faith against the Lord by deceiving his neighbor in a manner of deposit, or security, or through robbery, or if he is oppressed his neighbor or found something lost and lied about it, swearing falsely, in any of all the things that people do and sin, thereby…’” You’ve got to love that verse, that little phrase in verse three. There's one of those comprehensive verses. Like, “we're gonna be absolutely specific. We're gonna be exhausted, but we can't actually be totally exhaustive.” There are sins that are not listed here, and they simply come under this clause in verse three: “in any and all the things that people do and sin thereby, if he has sinned and realized his guilt and will restore what he took by robbery or what he got by oppression or the deposit that was committed to him, or the lost thing that he found or anything about, which he has sworn falsely, he shall restore it in full and add a fifth to it and give it to him to whom it belongs on the day he realizes his guilt.”
A  couple of interesting things there. By the way, “finders keepers” is not a part of the Old Testament law. That was a part of the playground law. But finders keepers is actually not a part of the law. If you find something that belongs to someone else in the covenant community, you have the responsibility to return it to her, to return it to him. This comes down to ways people have financially–or in items of value– cheated their fellow members of the covenant  community. They've either held a deposit and not given it back. They have stolen robbery that could be extortion. It could be just theft. It could be just about anything, even squaring falsely at someone's loss. If he ascend to realize his guilt, you have to make restoration and you have to make a restoration with a half tithe, did you notice that? Only it's not a half tie. It is a double tithe. I've heard people say it's a half tie, but a fifth i twice as much as a 10th, not half as much as a 10th. And that's real compensation. That's paying back a restitution and recognition of loss. Verse six–”And he shall bring to the priest as his compensation to the Lord a ram without blemish out of the flock or it's equivalent for a guilt offering. And the priest shall make atonement for him before the Lord. And he should be forgiven for any of the things that one may do and thereby become guilty.” Again, the comprehensiveness, “any of the things that one may do.” And we do–not only may we, we do–and thereby become guilty. 
Now, all of that through chapter six verse seven, over the last several chapters has been just extremely interesting, because it's given us a catalog of the different kinds of offerings: the burnt offering, the sin offering, the wave offering, the guilt offering, and all of these offerings.They're brought with regularity, and we understand the system. Again, there’s a part of it where we  just don't fully understand the total distinction between a sin offering and a guilt offering, but it appears, as I said, even there's a horizontal, and there's a vertical element to this. It appears that the guilt offering in this case might well have to do with something that is more often sending against a neighbor or another, another member of the covenant community, but in any event, even that's a sin against God. 
We understand that sin at the horizontal level is always sin at the vertical level. There's never a sin against another that is not ultimately a sin against God. All sin requires atonement, catalog of all of these matters of sacrifice and atonement, but there's a shift. I said we were headed towards something this morning, and we see this shift in verse eight of chapter six. Now we're talking about the priests and the offerings. “The Lord spoke to Moses, saying ‘command Aaron and his sons…’” okay, here, we have something else. So you have the priest and you have the prophet. Moses is the prophet. Aaron and his sons are the priests. Who commands whom? The Lord doesn't speak to Aaron what he should say to Moses. The Lord says to Moses–reveals to Moses–what he is to say to Aaron.
Heres something else about the old Testament priesthood. The old Testament priesthood is bound by law. There is no creativity to it whatsoever, the task of the priesthood. This means the entire priesthood. But in this case, you can think perhaps especially of the Levitical priesthood, but the entire priesthood is to do the same thing every time, exactly the same way. According to the law, to innovate in no direction to turn neither to the left, nor to the right now, the same thing was emphatically true of the prophet. The prophet was not to say something like what God had told him to say, but rather was to say exactly what God had told him to say. Exactitude on the part of the prophet, exactitude on the part of priest. But the priest is absolutely dependent upon the prophet who mediates the word of God. Now they're being told what they are to do. 
“The Lord spoke to Moses, saying ‘command Aaron and his son saying, this is the law of the burnt offering.’” So this is giving us the priestly side here. “The burnt offering shall be on the hearth of the altar all night until the morning. And the fire of the altar shall be kept burning on it. And the priest shall put his linen undergarment on his body.” We read about all that in Exodus. When we went verse by verse through Exodus, we saw all of the clothing that was dictated concerning the priesthood, including the undergarments. “And he shall take up the ashes to which the fire has reduced the burnt offering on the altar and put them beside the altar. Then he shall take off his garments and put on other garments and carry the ashes outside the camp to a clean place. The fire on the altar shall be kept burning on it. It shall not go out. The priest shall burn wood on it every morning, and he shall arrange the burnt offering on it and shall burn it on the fat of the peace offerings. Fire shall be kept burning on the altar continually. It shall not go out.” That's just another important thing. The fire is just to be kept burning. This is a sacrificial system. The fire's going to keep burning, because the people are going to keep sinning. The fire's going to keep burning because this is a continual process, which also helps us to look forward to the cross. And, and when in the holy of holys, the veil was cut in two, in theory, a fire was to be kept burning from Sinai unto Calvary. That fire is not to go out the fire of what will be required as perpetual sacrifices. 
You'll know what is the attention to the garments worn by the priest. And again, we saw this in anticipation in Exodus, when we were told exactly what they are to be, how they are to look, what is to be the length of the hem, exactly what color is to be where, and that was when we saw the attentiveness to under garments. And you say, “well, why all the attention under garments? no one sees them. That's the purpose of under is not to be seen, but why the undergarments of the priests, why are they so important?” Because the priest is human and human things happen, and whatever happens must not get near the altar.  Does that make sense? 
And so the undergarments are to protect the outer garments, lest the outer garments become themselves unclean, and the priest administration would be nullified. It’s interesting, this comes up right here because this is instruction to Aaron and his sons in verse 14. “This is the law of the grain offering the sons of Aaron shall offer it before the Lord in front of the altar. And one shall take from it a handful of the fine flower of the grain offering and it toil and all the frankincense  that is on the grain offering and burn this as a memorial portion on the altar, a pleasing aroma to the Lord.” So that means he receives the sacrifice, a pleasing aroma. As we see in the New Testament, we're to offer under God a sacrifice, a pleasing sacrifice of praise.
verse 16: “and the rest of it, Aaron and his sons shall eat. It shall be eaten unleavened in the holy place, in the court of the tent of meeting. They shall eat it. It shall not be baked with leaven. I have given it as their portion of my food offerings. It is a thing most holy like the sin offering and the guilt offering every meal among the children of Aaron may eat of it as decreed forever throughout your generations from the Lord's food offerings. Whoever touches them shall become holy.” Okay, a lot here, but just consider this. No leaven,  even after the offering has been offered. So, you know, it was to be brought unleavened and it is to be according to this command, given by God, to Moses, for Aaron and his sons, it is to be kept unleavened.  Why? Unleavened bread is a reminder of the Exodus. It is a reminder of the haste with which the children of Israel left Exodus. It is a sign of haste. The absence of yeast is  a sign of haste. They are to maintain that.
Now I, I like bread. I know we cannot live by bread alone, but we can try. There are a few things more pleasant than bread, warm bread with butter. Mary makes it, I eat it. That's the deal. And there are just few things more pleasant. We sometimes go to places just because of the bread, but I like leavened bread. I like bread that rises. I like bread with lots of stuff in it. There are people who like plain bread. I like bread with all kinds of stuff in it. I like this bread that I get every once in a while when I'm running around and I'm traveling, and I just need something when I'm traveling. I like this bread called good seed. It's made by–maybe you've seen this–It's made by a bakery of a man who had been a convict, a prisoner. And he got out of prison and started a bakery. He bakes good bread, and good seed is really, really good bread. It's got lots of stuff in it. It makes me feel righteous when I eat it. Unlike the wonder bread I ate as a boy, because I wanted to build my body strong 12 ways. Like the big strong kid whose picture was on the package. But basically,  I was eating air, that white bread, so I I'll eat good seed. 
Now, every once in a while we have unleaven bread. We'll go to a restaurant and they'll serve pita or something like that. Or, you know, just mildly leavened bread. t's just not bread. You know, this will be a lot better with yeast, but the point is uneven means haste, and they're not post sacrifice to allow yest inside the holy place ever, for to bring it is to desecrate it. In verse 19, “the Lord spoke to Moses saying…” and, and what's interesting here is how these new statements, these new revelations by God, through Moses come more repeatedly here. Verse 20, “This is the offering the Aaron and his sons shall offer to the Lord. On the day when he is anointed, a tenth of an efa of fine flour as a regular grain offering, half of it in the morning, half in the evening, it shall be made with oil on a griddle. You shall bring it well mixed in baked pieces, like a grain offering and offer it for a pleasing aroma to the Lord. The priest from among Aaron sons, who is anointed to succeed him, shall offer it to the Lord as decree forever. The whole, all of it, shall be burned. Every grain offering of a priest shall be wholly burned. It shall not be eaten.” Now, why would that be the case? Why would they be able to eat the burn offering that is brought by someone other than a priest, but not this offering? It is because they are to receive nothing from the sacrifice for their own sins. If this sacrifice is with reference to a priestly sin, then the priests have no access to the food. It is all to be burned.
Verse 24, “the Lord spoke to Moses saying, ‘speak to Aaron his sons, saying, this is the law of the sin offering. And the place where the burn offering is killed shall the sin offering be killed before the Lord. It is most holy. “Now, You'll notice what why and most holy is the holy of holys, which in the Hebrew is the most holy place. So this is the closest you get to the presence of God. The closest you get to the judgment of God, most holy and items can become temporarily most holy because of their proximity to God's presence and his wrath and his justice. 
Verse 26, “The priest who offers it for sin shall eat it in a holy place. It shall be eaten in the court of the tent of meeting, whatever touches its flesh shall be holy. And when any of its blood is splashed on a garment, you shall wash that on which it was splashed in a holy place.” Notice the repetition of holy set apart under God and the earth and where vessel in which it is boiled shall be broken. “But if it is boiled in a bronze vessel, it shall be scoured and rinsed in water. Every male among the priests may eat of it. It is most holy, but no sin offering shall be eaten from which any blood is brought to the tent of meeting to make atonement for the holy place. It shall be burned up in the fire.”
Well, as we're looking at this, something shall jump out at us. People need a priest. People need a sacrifice. The habitual sin of the people requires this habitual cycle of all kinds of sacrifices and all kinds of offerings to be made to the Lord. This circumstance requires this offering. This circumstance requires this sacrifice. It is to be done exactly this way. The priests are not to be creative in any way. They are to follow the law scrupulously. The priests themselves fulfill not only a priestly function, but they are a part of the sacrifice. They are not apart from it such that if they become unclean, the sacrifice is nullified. Furthermore, if they become unclean or they act, and as we know, even unintentionally, if a priest should sin in the midst of this process, not only does the priest sin and bring guilt upon himself, he brings guilt upon the people by his sin. This is a representational ministry, which again helps us to understand Christ, but there's something else here we just have to notice. And that is the fact that we do not have a priestly class that is separated in its sinlessness and thus in its lack of need for sacrifice, that would be something indicative to us. That would be very important. That might be the way we might think it would happen. 
I mean, it's hard to imagine having a judge who's a criminal, right? We wouldn't want to nominate to the Supreme court someone who had done time for extortion or embezzlement, that just wouldn't happen. Because we're Christians, we know that our judges are sinners, but they better not be criminals.  If we we're inventing a priesthood, we're going to invent a priesthood immune from sin. Right? I mean, I would, because how am I gonna trust a priest who keeps sinning? 
I delivered the Paige lectures at Southeastern seminary this week on the Christian witness in  a post-Christian age and had to take time defining what a post-Christian age means, and what it doesn't mean. Just trying to present to young seminarians the challenge of what it's going to mean to live in a rapidly changing culture in which history is split into three, in the Western mind now, before Christianity, then Christianity now after Christianity, it’s a totally different  field, and a big change. I used as my main illustration of where you can see this most graphically, the nation of Ireland, because it's Ireland that demonstrates this probably better than any other place on planet earth, because Ireland had a clearly pagan pre-Christian past. There there's evidence of it all over Ireland. Yet Ireland also represented at least institutionalized Christianity, this absolute dominance of Christianity in what is now the Republic of Ireland, overwhelmingly the Roman Catholic church up in the Northern provinces and what is now often referred to as Olster or, Northern Ireland, very Protestant, with a significant Catholic minority.  But in any sense, it was so overwhelmingly Christian that. You should hear the lecturers. Trust me, you'll find, you'll find them fascinating. I'd give little advertisement for it. Why? Because I found it fascinating. I really enjoyed giving the lectures, but one of the things I pointed out is that the very height of the troubles in, in Ireland as they were called, it was said that Irish people were so Christian, that if they met a Jew Jewish Citizen of Ireland, that citizen will be pressed to say, “well, are you Catholic Jewish? Are you Protestant Jewish?” That's how dominant Christianity was. Those were the limited options, but now Ireland is post-Christian in a way that is just very difficult it to explain lots of reasons. But the post Christianity of Ireland is seen in the fact that a generation ago, church attendance was above the nineties. And now it is below the twenties and plummeting, and morally, there has been a complete revolution in social mores and even in the law of Ireland in the 1980s, Ireland by referendum overwhelmingly outlawed abortion. Then by referendum, just in more recent times, it has is passed a far more liberal law. Ireland's the only country on earth that by referendum has adopted same sex marriage and had an openly gay prime minister, et cetera. 
This is unthinkable. You used to see priests everywhere. Now, priests don’t appear in public in any priestly garb, priesthood just disappeared. That's a big thing, but a part of what in the Republic of Ireland in the Catholic tradition is now at least partly an explanation for the disappearance of Christianity on the ground for this post-Christian status is the failure of the priesthood time is leaving us here. But the failure of the Catholic priesthood in Ireland has been catastrophic. This is because of the Magdalene Laundries. If you're familiar with the homes for unwed mothers, where it turns out horrible, horrible things were happening, and they still find burial grounds for both the mothers and their babies. It's just devastating to know what was going on there, the pedophilia crisis  in the priesthood, just a general imorality in the priesthood. The point is the entire credibility of the church. And of course, that's a priestly church. If you're going have a sacred little ministry in your priestly church, those priests better priests, but it's the collapse of the reputation and the credibility and the integrity of the priesthood that meant that everything just fell apart. 
That was a danger for Israel. If the priest did not have integrity, if the priesthood did not fulfill its responsibility, then the entire people would be severed from the God who had made covenant with them by their sin. But there's more to it than that. And this is just what I want us to see. And we'll pick this up next time we're together because is time is running out, but here's the most important thing we need to understand. This is the whole point of following through this and stopping here. It is because we need the recognition that the priests need a priest. It's astounding. The priests need a priest. And by the way as we shall see, a priest sins, there are sins for which atonement can only be made by the high priest, by Aaron or his appointed son as high priests. So priests need a priest. In Hebrews, we will see the need of a priest for a priest is made very clear by the fact that the high priest, when he inter solely representing Israel into the holy of holies, because there's no human priest to whom he can now turn for priest. He has to go into the holy of holies and offer sacrifice not only for the sins of the people, but with reference to his own sin, the priests need a priest. So this is crying out. This entire system is crying out for a priest who needs no priest. The book of Hebrew, says that when Jesus entered that tabernacle not made with human hands, and when he shed the blood, his own blood, not taking the blood of an animal, he made full atonement for sin, because it is only when we come to Christ and the new covenant that we find a priest who needs no priest until then God's people were dependent upon these priests. The priests were dependent upon the priests and nothing was finished because the human priesthood could finish nothing. 
Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for even the detail of what we read for the shocking nature of this kind of text, from how we would compare the Old Testament to the New. Father, help us to find joy in reading the book of Leviticus word by word, help us to find joy and knowledge, even in knowing the details of the law, but above all, help us to yearn for Christ and find satisfaction in Christ alone, our prophet, our priest, our king, we pray in his name, amen.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 49:12 https://albertmohler.com/?p=56096 Audio, Biblical References, Exposition, Leviticus, Leviticus Series, Speaking and Teaching, Video noThird Avenue Baptist Church Louisville, KY Leviticus 5:1–6:30 — Leviticus Series October 24, 2021 Good morning. Good to see you all. Just as we drove in, the sun peaked through the sky, it was a good thing to see this morning, but it's a wonderful thing to be together as we continue in our verse by verse study of Leviticus. To that we will turn in just a moment–but first, let's pray. Our Father, with grateful hearts we thank you once again that we have the privilege of being together in this place, at this time, for this hour, dedicated to the study of your word. And Father, we pray that this hour will be for the increase of our knowledge, and for the increase of our godliness, and the increase of your glory. We pray this in Christ's name, amen. I had the privilege of preaching at a college church in Wheaton three times this past Sunday. I was talking to folks, and then they would say, “I want to thank you for your studying Leviticus.” And I'm thinking, “well, you're there, I'm here, but because of the internet, there are folks who are following the study of Leviticus.” And they said, “well, what's the biggest surprise?” I said, “well, I think, I think the biggest surprise has been for those in the class. The fact that we spent so many weeks, and we're only in Leviticus four,  I think that's probably a surprise, because it's just much richer material than a lot of Christians would anticipate.” But we are looking towards one of the hinge chapters in the book of Leviticus. We're going to find references back and forth, even as we're going to find references back to Leviticus in the book of Deuteronomy, you're going to find Leviticus cited as we go forward. Even throughout the Old Testament, and in the New Testament, amazingly enough, Jesus is going to quote Leviticus when he is asked, “what is the greatest commandment?” So we're not there yet. But we are going to pick up the pace a bit this morning, because we are headed towards something in the text ahead. That is just vital for us to know.  I think one of the insights of studying Leviticus is that in almost every chapter, there is something that just stands out at us, and we say, “okay, that's just incredibly clarifying.” The last time we were together, as we were looking at Leviticus chapter four, we saw the objectivity of sin so very clearly demonstrated in the fact that even unintentional sin by a priest means that the guilt has fallen upon Israel. So guilt is not just a subjective experience. Guilt is an objective reality, because sin is an objective reality , and then make atonement–as we saw later in the chapter, the only answer to sin is atonement–but now we start chapter five.  “If anyone sins in that he hears a public adjuration to testify, and though he is a witness, whether he is seen or come to know the matter yet does not speak, he shall bear his iniquity; or if anyone touches an unclean thing, whether a carcas of an unclean wild animal, or a carcas of unclean livestock, or a carcas of unclean swarming things, and it is hidden from him and he has become unclean and he realizes his guilt; or if he touches human uncleanness of whatever sort of uncleanness this may be with which one becomes unclean, and it is hidden from him when he comes to know it and realizes his guilt; if anyone utters with his lips a rash oath to do evil or to do good, any sort of rash oath that people swear, and it is hidden from him when he comes to know it, and he realizes his guilt in any of these; when he realizes his guilt in any of these and confesses the sin he has committed, he shall bring to the Lord as his compensation for the sin that he has committed, a female from the flock, a lamb, or a goat for a sin offering. And the priest shall make atonement for him for his sin.  But if he cannot afford a lamb, then he shall bring to the Lord as his compensation for the sin that he has committed two turtle doves or two pigeons, one for his sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. He shall bring him to the priest, who shall first offer the one for the sin offering. He shall ring its head from its neck but shall not sever it completely, and he shall sprinkle some of the blood of the sin offering on the side of the altar, while the rest of the blood shall be drained out at the base of the altar; It is a sin offering. Then he shall offer the second for a burn offering according to the rule. And the priest shall make atonement for him for the sin that he is committed, and he shall be forgiven. But if he cannot afford two turtle doves or two pigeons, then he shall bring as his offering for the sin he has committed a 10th of an ephah of fine flour for a sin offering. He shall put no oil on it and shall put no frankincense on it, for it is a sin offering, and he shall bring it to the priest. And the priest shall take a handful of it as its memorial portion and burn this on the altar, on the Lord's food offerings; it is a sin offering. Then the priest shall make atonement for him for the sin which he is committed in any one of these things, and he should be forgiven. And the remainder shall be for the priest, as in the grain offering.” Well, that was 13 verses. Interesting territory here. Notice the very first sin that's mentioned: “if anyone sends that he hears a public adjuration testify, and though he was a witness, whether he's seen or come to know the matter yet does not speak, he shall bear his iniquity. What kind of society was Israel? Just as as God's covenant people, what kind of society was it? Well, it was a society of law. Now you say we are a society of law, and indeed we are. The difference is Israel was a covenant theocracy. So when Israel was ever asked, “where did you get your law?” Israel would respond, “It was God's gift to us.” Now this gift was given, of course, through Moses, and as we see repeatedly in Leviticus, we are told that the Lord spoke to Moses, telling him to tell the people he called Moses out from the tent and spoke to him. He will speak to Moses, and we'll see this again and again–the Lord spoke to Moses. He gives the law through Moses, which gives us that privileged place, most honored place of Moses in the entire history of Israel. Now was the giving of the law, in the eyes of Israel, a good thing or a bad thing? And this is where, being Protestant Christians we have to unthink a bit in order to rethink a bit. If we unthink something, it would necessarily be the fact that we have this instinct in us that the law is bad, and grace is good. Now it's more complex than that, but it just comes down to that. The letter kills, the spirit gives life. The old covenant can bring no salvation–it just holds back the wrath of God, as we see in Romans chapter three. The new covenant brings salvation, the old covenant is just getting us to the new covenant by promise and by contrast.  But if we go back to the experience of Israel, Israel receives these laws as a most unspeakably precious gift. Now this is true for two reasons. One horizontal, the vertical of course is most important. And the vertical means that the great thankfulness for this law is that they are rightly afraid of God destroying them, as he destroyed the Egyptians, as he destroyed by flood. How do you make certain you don't do whatever brought on those punishments? You need the law, and you need the law not only in the thou shouts and the thou shout nots, which we certainly need–all of us need that–but you need the law in order to know what to do when there is a transgresion of the law, because there surely there will be transgressions of the law. And then the question will be “now what?” what if a 10 year old shoplifts– I realize that's a bit anachronistic, but nonetheless let's assume it's a shop–if a 10 year old shoplifts, do you execute him? Do you put him outside of the people forever? Do you cut him off from his people? What about if someone lies? In this case, You'll notice that the law that God gave Israel is in essence a constitutional law. And in this sense, this is one of the great jumps forward of humanity. Now, if you're looking at this from an anthropological perspective, you're going to say “here's something absolutely amazing.  And in this area of the world, kind of the cradle of civilization in the basin of Mesopotamia, and then coming over to the Levant and towards the Mediterranean, and even in north Africa, in Egypt, there is an explosion of law.  Now, if you're a liberal Old Testament professor, you say, “See, this is just a human development. All this, necessity of law, society's now reached the point where the law has to be codified, whether it's the code of Hammurabi, or it's the law of Egypt, the  Pharaonic law,  or if it's the Mesopotamian codes–there are these laws that all of a sudden appear sometimes on clay tablets. You can say, “here are laws,” because eventually if you're going to have any society that becomes systematized and rationalized as the sociological language, you’re going to have to have “law,” because in order to have any kind of stable society, it needs not just to be a matter of tribal fiat. Tribal fiat means, if you do this on Tuesday, and you come before the elders, and they say, “you're out,” and you come on Wednesday, and to someone with the same law transgression, they say, “20 lashes,” it's by fiat. That doesn't work very well. You can't really have a society that way. You need advertised laws, and so it's a part of what you see. Now, in Deuteronomy, one of the sweetest of passages in Deuteronomy chapter four finds Moses reminding the children of Israel when they received the law, and just reminding them, “has any other people received laws so sweet?” And he puts it this way–”Has any other people heard the voice of God speaking from the fire and survived?” So Israel's law from the beginning is God's gift. Israel is a covenant theocracy. The laws are God's laws mediated through Moses, to the people–their sweet laws. So Israel has received the law as a gift. Now, just think of another context, think of your own home with young children. Your home had better be a theocracy there. It had better be a house of law–a house of grace, too, but a house of law mediated through parents. There are “thou shalts” and “thou shalt nots.” If the child does not learn to live within the “thou shalts” and “the thou shalt nots,” then we shalt not have a society worth living in. But the point is that you've got to teach the law–even just putting the law out there is not enough. You've got to teach it, which is exactly what's commanded to the children of Israel in Deuteronomy chapter four, as well as Deuteronomy chapter six with the shema.  But you also have to have a way of dealing with transgressions of the law. You have to have it in your home. What do you do? The child disobeys you–do you put them out the front door, and slam the door, and that's it? No, you’ve got to have some way of dealing with it. But the other thing is you need some way of dealing with it to be also as a part of the law. The consequences and penalties should be a part of the law, which it is in terms of American penal code.  This starts out with something as formal as the law process of determining guilt, requiring testifying and testimony. And in this case, someone has failed to testify. We're not going to dwell on this for very long, but this is a very sophisticated at the law code. It's very sophisticated. This implies a court process. It implies in evidentiary process. It implies the, the weighing of evidence, and it requires testimony. Testimony is important. You'll see it repeated in the structure over and over again. Thus, it is a sin not to testify when you should testify, but then very quickly it turns to the purity code in verse two: “if anyone touches an unclean thing,” and notice the comprehensiveness here, “whether a carcas of an unclean world animal, or the carcas of an unclean livestock, or a carcas of an unclean swarming thing,” death  is something that simply is to be avoided. Death is uncleanness. Mary and I were at a visitation at a funeral home just recently, and, having grown up in our teenage years in south Florida, this was something we were not shocked by, although it was still kind of shocking. There was a Christian family, which is the reason that we were there in this funeral home, and there was a Jewish visitation next door, and it's shockingly different. If you walked in the wrong room, you will see the body just on a board with a sheet over the body. Of course it's following the Jewish burial ritual, which means the body has to be buried basically within 24 hours, and so it's a very quick process. And it is because the body is itself now unclean, because it is dead.  Death is to be avoided. The death of an animal, and all the rest. This is not so much in the process of the slaughter of an animal for the ritual purposes or for food. This is when you come across the carcas of a dead body. That’s why you go around it. Now this will show up even in the New Testament and something like the parable of the Good Samaritan. There's a lot of moralizing in the parable, but we tend to over-moralize it and miss deeper theological significance when the people cross to the other side of the road, because they think he's dead. They're doing nothing but following the instinct that has been driven into Judaism for centuries–you avoid dead things even if they look dead, because you become ritually unclean, but it's not just the dead. You notice what follows: “If he touches human uncleanness of whatever sort, the uncleanness may be with which one becomes unclean.”  Okay, this is great. 10 year old boy comes in. Can you just imagine mother looking at him and saying, “son, of whatever sort the uncleanness may be with which you have become unclean…” There are all kind of ways to become unclean. This refers basically, however, to things that come out of the body that will make one unclean–contact with any number of things. Then you come to know that sacrifice is necessary. Verse four– “a rash oath, whether for good or for evil.”So this implies there’s an oath that's rash, right? If it's a rash oath, that's the bad oath. That implies there's a good oath. And on this, the Bible is complex.  And we can just say in summary, there are contexts in which an oath is necessary. Even God takes one in his own name, but oaths are theologically, morally risky, and it is just dangerous to make them unless uniquely necessary. But you'll notice that if there is to be the sacrifice for what is discovered to be sin, or realized to be sin, or remembered to be sin, then it begins with a female from the flock, a lamb or a goat for a sin offering. Now again, a female is a less expensive animal. So we are not dealing with the kind of transgression that would require a male from the herd, unblemished. So in this case, it can be a female, and it can be a lamb or a goat. The goat, the more expensive, the lamb, the less expensive in this case and the more numerous.  So there would've been more sacrifices of lambs than of sheep. And that also points to our Christology. But as verse seven tells us if the sinner cannot afford a lamb, then two turtle doves will do, or two pigeons. And one will be for the sin offering, one for the burnt offering. But then in verse 11, we're told if you cannot afford two turtle doves, or two pigeons, he shall bring is his offering that he has committed, a 10th of an  ova of fine flour. So that again is the grain offering. So basically this covers everyone. So all of Israel is covered within the provision for this sin offering. It will be repeated. It will be made necessary often. Thus there will be lots of pigeons, lots of turtle, doves, lots of goats, lots of lambs, lots of flour, but this covers everyone in the social and economic system of Israel. No one is outside of this provision is made for everyone. And here's the thing, God knows the heart, right? So God knows what you can bring. If you can afford to bring a goat and you bring the flower, God knows.  Now in verse 14, we shift from the sin offering to the guilt offering. Basically, the very best Old Testament scholars and theologians are hard pressed to explain exactly what the difference is. That's because when we think of sin, we think of guilt. We think of sin. The one goes with the other. The context appears to make the distinction. This is again a new section, because in verse 14, the passage begins “The Lord spoke to Moses, saying ‘if anyone commits to breach of faith and sins unintentionally in any of the holy things of the Lord, he shall bring to the Lord as his compensation, a Ram without blemish out of the flock, valued in silver shackles, according to the shekel, the sanctuary for a guilt offering,’” continuing in chapter five, ‘“if anyone commits a breach of faith and sins unintentionally in any of the holy things of the Lord,’” And this refers then to the sacrificial system, the priestly system, “he shall bring to the Lord as his compensation, a ram without blemish of, of the rock valued in silver shackles. According to the shekel, the sanctuary for a guilt offering, he shall also make restitution for what he has done a miss in the holy thing, and shall add a fifth to it and give it to the priest. And the priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of the guilt offering. And he shall be forgiven if anyone sins doing any of the things that by the Lord's commandments ought not to be done, though, he did not know it, then realizes his guilt. He shall bear his iniquity. He shall bring to the priest to ram without blemish out of the flock or it's equivalent for a guilt offering. And the priest shall make atonement for him for the mistake that he made unintentionally, he shall be forgiven. It is a guilt offering. He has indeed incurred guilt before the Lord.”  Just work backwards from that last sentence–”he has indeed incurred guilt before the Lord.” So here's the thing, brothers and sisters, it is vitally important that we know if we have incurred guilt before the Lord, it is just incredibly important. It's between us and our creator. Something has come between us and our relationship, and because of the holiness of God, our relationship is not only imperiled, it is directly and eternally threatened by this guilt. We need to know the guilt. The law is a gift in telling us both what the guilt is and how the transgresion may be forgiven in this case, looking at the guilt offering, which continues by the way into chapter six. You'll notice again, that a lot of this has to do with things that are even unintentiona, in this case, bringing to the ram to the priest. That is a ram. So now you're talking about a more expensive animal. The ram–like the bull–is a sign of power, and it may well mean that the power there is pointing to the powerful nature of sin. The more powerful the sin, the more powerful the substitute that is required in the sacrifice. A ram is understood to be very powerful.  Another statement to Moses in chapter six, verse one: “the Lord spoke to Moses, saying ‘if anyone sins and commits a breach of faith against the Lord by deceiving his neighbor in a manner of deposit, or security, or through robbery, or if he is oppressed his neighbor or found something lost and lied about it, swearing falsely, in any of all the things that people do and sin, thereby…’” You’ve got to love that verse, that little phrase in verse three. There's one of those comprehensive verses. Like, “we're gonna be absolutely specific. We're gonna be exhausted, but we can't actually be totally exhaustive.” There are sins that are not listed here, and they simply come under this clause in verse three: “in any and all the things that people do and sin thereby, if he has sinned and realized his guilt and will restore what he took by robbery or what he got by oppression or the deposit that was committed to him, or the lost thing that he found or anything about, which he has sworn falsely, he shall restore it in full and add a fifth to it and give it to him to whom it belongs on the day he realizes his guilt.” A  couple of interesting things there. By the way, “finders keepers” is not a part of the Old Testament law. That was a part of the playground law. But finders keepers is actually not a part of the law. If you find something that belongs to someone else in the covenant community, you have the responsibility to return it to her, to return it to him. This comes down to ways people have financially–or in items of value– cheated their fellow members of the covenant  community. They've either held a deposit and not given it back. They have stolen robbery that could be extortion. It could be just theft. It could be just about anything, even squaring falsely at someone's loss. If he ascend to realize his guilt, you have to make restoration and you have to make a restoration with a half tithe, did you notice that? Only it's not a half tie. It is a double tithe. I've heard people say it's a half tie, but a fifth i twice as much as a 10th, not half as much as a 10th. And that's real compensation. That's paying back a restitution and recognition of loss. Verse six–”And he shall bring to the priest as his compensation to the Lord a ram without blemish out of the flock or it's equivalent for a guilt offering. And the priest shall make atonement for him before the Lord. And he should be forgiven for any of the things that one may do and thereby become guilty.” Again, the comprehensiveness, “any of the things that one may do.” And we do–not only may we, we do–and thereby become guilty.  Now, all of that through chapter six verse seven, over the last several chapters has been just extremely interesting, because it's given us a catalog of the different kinds of offerings: the burnt offering, the sin offering, the wave offering, the guilt offering, and all of these offerings.They're brought with regularity, and we understand the system. Again, there’s a part of it where we  just don't fully understand the total distinction between a sin offering and a guilt offering, but it appears, as I said, even there's a horizontal, and there's a vertical element to this. It appears that the guilt offering in this case might well have to do with something that is more often sending against a neighbor or another, another member of the covenant community, but in any event, even that's a sin against God.  We understand that sin at the horizontal level is always sin at the vertical level. There's never a sin against another that is not ultimately a sin against God. All sin requires atonement, catalog of all of these matters of sacrifice and atonement, but there's a shift. I said we were headed towards something this morning, and we see this shift in verse eight of chapter six. Now we're talking about the priests and the offerings. “The Lord spoke to Moses, saying ‘command Aaron and his sons…’” okay, here, we have something else. So you have the priest and you have the prophet. Moses is the prophet. Aaron and his sons are the priests. Who commands whom? The Lord doesn't speak to Aaron what he should say to Moses. The Lord says to Moses–reveals to Moses–what he is to say to Aaron. Heres something else about the old Testament priesthood. The old Testament priesthood is bound by law. There is no creativity to it whatsoever, the task of the priesthood. This means the entire priesthood. But in this case, you can think perhaps especially of the Levitical priesthood, but the entire priesthood is to do the same thing every time, exactly the same way. According to the law, to innovate in no direction to turn neither to the left, nor to the right now, the same thing was emphatically true of the prophet. The prophet was not to say something like what God had told him to say, but rather was to say exactly what God had told him to say. Exactitude on the part of the prophet, exactitude on the part of priest. But the priest is absolutely dependent upon the prophet who mediates the word of God. Now they're being told what they are to do.  “The Lord spoke to Moses, saying ‘command Aaron and his son saying, this is the law of the burnt offering.’” So this is giving us the priestly side here. “The burnt offering shall be on the hearth of the altar all night until the morning. And the fire of the altar shall be kept burning on it. And the priest shall put his linen undergarment on his body.” We read about all that in Exodus. When we went verse by verse through Exodus, we saw all of the clothing that was dictated concerning the priesthood, including the undergarments. “And he shall take up the ashes to which the fire has reduced the burnt offering on the altar and put them beside the altar. Then he shall take off his garments and put on other garments and carry the ashes outside the camp to a clean place. The fire on the altar shall be kept burning on it. It shall not go out. The priest shall burn wood on it every morning, and he shall arrange the burnt offering on it and shall burn it on the fat of the peace offerings. Fire shall be kept burning on the altar continually. It shall not go out.” That's just another important thing. The fire is just to be kept burning. This is a sacrificial system. The fire's going to keep burning, because the people are going to keep sinning. The fire's going to keep burning because this is a continual process, which also helps us to look forward to the cross. And, and when in the holy of holys, the veil was cut in two, in theory, a fire was to be kept burning from Sinai unto Calvary. That fire is not to go out the fire of what will be required as perpetual sacrifices.  You'll know what is the attention to the garments worn by the priest. And again, we saw this in anticipation in Exodus, when we were told exactly what they are to be, how they are to look, what is to be the length of the hem, exactly what color is to be where, and that was when we saw the attentiveness to under garments. And you say, “well, why all the attention under garments? no one sees them. That's the purpose of under is not to be seen, but why the undergarments of the priests, why are they so important?” Because the priest is human and human things happen, and whatever happens must not get near the altar.  Does that make sense?  And so the undergarments are to protect the outer garments, lest the outer garments become themselves unclean, and the priest administration would be nullified. It’s interesting, this comes up right here because this is instruction to Aaron and his sons in verse 14. “This is the law of the grain offering the sons of Aaron shall offer it before the Lord in front of the altar. And one shall take from it a handful of the fine flower of the grain offering and it toil and all the frankincense  that is on the grain offering and burn this as a memorial portion on the altar, a pleasing aroma to the Lord.” So that means he receives the sacrifice, a pleasing aroma. As we see in the New Testament, we're to offer under God a sacrifice, a pleasing sacrifice of praise. verse 16: “and the rest of it, Aaron and his sons shall eat. It shall be eaten unleavened in the holy place, in the court of the tent of meeting. They shall eat it. It shall not be baked with leaven. I have given it as their portion of my food offerings. It is a thing most holy like the sin offering and the guilt offering every meal among the children of Aaron may eat of it as decreed forever throughout your generations from the Lord's food offerings. Whoever touches them shall become holy.” Okay, a lot here, but just consider this. No leaven,  even after the offering has been offered. So, you know, it was to be brought unleavened and it is to be according to this command, given by God, to Moses, for Aaron and his sons, it is to be kept unleavened.  Why? Unleavened bread is a reminder of the Exodus. It is a reminder of the haste with which the children of Israel left Exodus. It is a sign of haste. The absence of yeast is  a sign of haste. They are to maintain that. Now I, I like bread. I know we cannot live by bread alone, but we can try. There are a few things more pleasant than bread, warm bread with butter. Mary makes it, I eat it. That's the deal. And there are just few things more pleasant. We sometimes go to places just because of the bread, but I like leavened bread. I like bread that rises. I like bread with lots of stuff in it. There are people who like plain bread. I like bread with all kinds of stuff in it. I like this bread that I get every once in a while when I'm running around and I'm traveling, and I just need something when I'm traveling. I like this bread called good seed. It's made by–maybe you've seen this–It's made by a bakery of a man who had been a convict, a prisoner. And he got out of prison and started a bakery. He bakes good bread, and good seed is really, really good bread. It's got lots of stuff in it. It makes me feel righteous when I eat it. Unlike the wonder bread I ate as a boy, because I wanted to build my body strong 12 ways. Like the big strong kid whose picture was on the package. But basically,  I was eating air, that white bread, so I I'll eat good seed.  Now, every once in a while we have unleaven bread. We'll go to a restaurant and they'll serve pita or something like that. Or, you know, just mildly leavened bread. t's just not bread. You know, this will be a lot better with yeast, but the point is uneven means haste, and they're not post sacrifice to allow yest inside the holy place ever, for to bring it is to desecrate it. In verse 19, “the Lord spoke to Moses saying…” and, and what's interesting here is how these new statements, these new revelations by God, through Moses come more repeatedly here. Verse 20, “This is the offering the Aaron and his sons shall offer to the Lord. On the day when he is anointed, a tenth of an efa of fine flour as a regular grain offering, half of it in the morning, half in the evening, it shall be made with oil on a griddle. You shall bring it well mixed in baked pieces, like a grain offering and offer it for a pleasing aroma to the Lord. The priest from among Aaron sons, who is anointed to succeed him, shall offer it to the Lord as decree forever. The whole, all of it, shall be burned. Every grain offering of a priest shall be wholly burned. It shall not be eaten.” Now, why would that be the case? Why would they be able to eat the burn offering that is brought by someone other than a priest, but not this offering? It is because they are to receive nothing from the sacrifice for their own sins. If this sacrifice is with reference to a priestly sin, then the priests have no access to the food. It is all to be burned. Verse 24, “the Lord spoke to Moses saying, ‘speak to Aaron his sons, saying, this is the law of the sin offering. And the place where the burn offering is killed shall the sin offering be killed before the Lord. It is most holy. “Now, You'll notice what why and most holy is the holy of holys, which in the Hebrew is the most holy place. So this is the closest you get to the presence of God. The closest you get to the judgment of God, most holy and items can become temporarily most holy because of their proximity to God's presence and his wrath and his justice.  Verse 26, “The priest who offers it for sin shall eat it in a holy place. It shall be eaten in the court of the tent of meeting, whatever touches its flesh shall be holy. And when any of its blood is splashed on a garment, you shall wash that on which it was splashed in a holy place.” Notice the repetition of holy set apart under God and the earth and where vessel in which it is boiled shall be broken. “But if it is boiled in a bronze vessel, it shall be scoured and rinsed in water. Every male among the priests may eat of it. It is most holy, but no sin offering shall be eaten from which any blood is brought to the tent of meeting to make atonement for the holy place. It shall be burned up in the fire.” Well, as we're looking at this, something shall jump out at us. People need a priest. People need a sacrifice. The habitual sin of the people requires this habitual cycle of all kinds of sacrifices and all kinds of offerings to be made to the Lord. This circumstance requires this offering. This circumstance requires this sacrifice. It is to be done exactly this way. The priests are not to be creative in any way. They are to follow the law scrupulously. The priests themselves fulfill not only a priestly function, but they are a part of the sacrifice. They are not apart from it such that if they become unclean, the sacrifice is nullified. Furthermore, if they become unclean or they act, and as we know, even unintentionally, if a priest should sin in the midst of this process, not only does the priest sin and bring guilt upon himself, he brings guilt upon the people by his sin. This is a representational ministry, which again helps us to understand Christ, but there's something else here we just have to notice. And that is the fact that we do not have a priestly class that is separated in its sinlessness and thus in its lack of need for sacrifice, that would be something indicative to us. That would be very important. That might be the way we might think it would happen.  I mean, it's hard to imagine having a judge who's a criminal, right? We wouldn't want to nominate to the Supreme court someone who had done time for extortion or embezzlement, that just wouldn't happen. Because we're Christians, we know that our judges are sinners, but they better not be criminals.  If we we're inventing a priesthood, we're going to invent a priesthood immune from sin. Right? I mean, I would, because how am I gonna trust a priest who keeps sinning?  I delivered the Paige lectures at Southeastern seminary this week on the Christian witness in  a post-Christian age and had to take time defining what a post-Christian age means, and what it doesn't mean. Just trying to present to young seminarians the challenge of what it's going to mean to live in a rapidly changing culture in which history is split into three, in the Western mind now, before Christianity, then Christianity now after Christianity, it’s a totally different  field, and a big change. I used as my main illustration of where you can see this most graphically, the nation of Ireland, because it's Ireland that demonstrates this probably better than any other place on planet earth, because Ireland had a clearly pagan pre-Christian past. There there's evidence of it all over Ireland. Yet Ireland also represented at least institutionalized Christianity, this absolute dominance of Christianity in what is now the Republic of Ireland, overwhelmingly the Roman Catholic church up in the Northern provinces and what is now often referred to as Olster or, Northern Ireland, very Protestant, with a significant Catholic minority.  But in any sense, it was so overwhelmingly Christian that. You should hear the lecturers. Trust me, you'll find, you'll find them fascinating. I'd give little advertisement for it. Why? Because I found it fascinating. I really enjoyed giving the lectures, but one of the things I pointed out is that the very height of the troubles in, in Ireland as they were called, it was said that Irish people were so Christian, that if they met a Jew Jewish Citizen of Ireland, that citizen will be pressed to say, “well, are you Catholic Jewish? Are you Protestant Jewish?” That's how dominant Christianity was. Those were the limited options, but now Ireland is post-Christian in a way that is just very difficult it to explain lots of reasons. But the post Christianity of Ireland is seen in the fact that a generation ago, church attendance was above the nineties. And now it is below the twenties and plummeting, and morally, there has been a complete revolution in social mores and even in the law of Ireland in the 1980s, Ireland by referendum overwhelmingly outlawed abortion. Then by referendum, just in more recent times, it has is passed a far more liberal law. Ireland's the only country on earth that by referendum has adopted same sex marriage and had an openly gay prime minister, et cetera.  This is unthinkable. You used to see priests everywhere. Now, priests don’t appear in public in any priestly garb, priesthood just disappeared. That's a big thing, but a part of what in the Republic of Ireland in the Catholic tradition is now at least partly an explanation for the disappearance of Christianity on the ground for this post-Christian status is the failure of the priesthood time is leaving us here. But the failure of the Catholic priesthood in Ireland has been catastrophic. This is because of the Magdalene Laundries. If you're familiar with the homes for unwed mothers, where it turns out horrible, horrible things were happening, and they still find burial grounds for both the mothers and their babies. It's just devastating to know what was going on there, the pedophilia crisis  in the priesthood, just a general imorality in the priesthood. The point is the entire credibility of the church. And of course, that's a priestly church. If you're going have a sacred little ministry in your priestly church, those priests better priests, but it's the collapse of the reputation and the credibility and the integrity of the priesthood that meant that everything just fell apart.  That was a danger for Israel. If the priest did not have integrity, if the priesthood did not fulfill its responsibility, then the entire people would be severed from the God who had made covenant with them by their sin. But there's more to it than that. And this is just what I want us to see. And we'll pick this up next time we're together because is time is running out, but here's the most important thing we need to understand. This is the whole point of following through this and stopping here. It is because we need the recognition that the priests need a priest. It's astounding. The priests need a priest. And by the way as we shall see, a priest sins, there are sins for which atonement can only be made by the high priest, by Aaron or his appointed son as high priests. So priests need a priest. In Hebrews, we will see the need of a priest for a priest is made very clear by the fact that the high priest, when he inter solely representing Israel into the holy of holies, because there's no human priest to whom he can now turn for priest. He has to go into the holy of holies and offer sacrifice not only for the sins of the people, but with reference to his own sin, the priests need a priest. So this is crying out. This entire system is crying out for a priest who needs no priest. The book of Hebrew, says that when Jesus entered that tabernacle not made with human hands, and when he shed the blood, his own blood, not taking the blood of an animal, he made full atonement for sin, because it is only when we come to Christ and the new covenant that we find a priest who needs no priest until then God's people were dependent upon these priests. The priests were dependent upon the priests and nothing was finished because the human priesthood could finish nothing.  Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for even the detail of what we read for the shocking nature of this kind of text, from how we would compare the Old Testament to the New. Father, help us to find joy in reading the book of Leviticus word by word, help us to find joy and knowledge, even in knowing the details of the law, but above all, help us to yearn for Christ and find satisfaction in Christ alone, our prophet, our priest, our king, we pray in his name, amen. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.Third Avenue Baptist Church Louisville, KY Leviticus 5:1–6:30 — Leviticus Series October 24, 2021 Good morning. Good to see you all. Just as we drove in, the sun peaked through the sky, it was a good thing to see this morning, but it's a wonderful thing to be together as we continue in our verse by verse study of Leviticus. To that we will turn in just a moment–but first, let's pray. Our Father, with grateful hearts we thank you once again that we have the privilege of being together in this place, at this time, for this hour, dedicated to the study of your word. And Father, we pray that this hour will be for the increase of our knowledge, and for the increase of our godliness, and the increase of your glory. We pray this in Christ's name, amen. I had the privilege of preaching at a college church in Wheaton three times this past Sunday. I was talking to folks, and then they would say, “I want to thank you for your studying Leviticus.” And I'm thinking, “well, you're there, I'm here, but because of the internet, there are folks who are following the study of Leviticus.” And they said, “well, what's the biggest surprise?” I said, “well, I think, I think the biggest surprise has been for those in the class. The fact that we spent so many weeks, and we're only in Leviticus four,  I think that's probably a surprise, because it's just much richer material than a lot of Christians would anticipate.” But we are looking towards one of the hinge chapters in the book of Leviticus. We're going to find references back and forth, even as we're going to find references back to Leviticus in the book of Deuteronomy, you're going to find Leviticus cited as we go forward. Even throughout the Old Testament, and in the New Testament, amazingly enough, Jesus is going to quote Leviticus when he is asked, “what is the greatest commandment?” So we're not there yet. But we are going to pick up the pace a bit this morning, because we are headed towards something in the text ahead. That is just vital for us to know.  I think one of the insights of studying Leviticus is that in almost every chapter, there is something that just stands out at us, and we say, “okay, that's just incredibly clarifying.” The last time we were together, as we were looking at Leviticus chapter four, we saw the objectivity of sin so very clearly demonstrated in the fact that even unintentional sin by a priest means that the guilt has fallen upon Israel. So guilt is not just a subjective experience. Guilt is an objective reality, because sin is an objective reality , and then make atonement–as we saw later in the chapter, the only answer to sin is atonement–but now we start chapter five.  “If anyone sins in that he hears a public adjuration to testify, and though he is a witness, whether he is seen or come to know the matter yet does not speak, he shall bear his iniquity; or if anyone touches an unclean thing, whether a carcas of an unclean wild animal, or a carcas of unclean livestock, or a carcas of unclean swarming things, and it is hidden from him and he has become unclean and he realizes his guilt; or if he touches human uncleanness of whatever sort of uncleanness this may be with which one becomes unclean, and it is hidden from him when he comes to know it and realizes his guilt; if anyone utters with his lips a rash oath to do evil or to do good, any sort of rash oath that people swear, and it is hidden from him when he comes to know it, and he realizes his guilt in any of these; when he realizes his guilt in any of these and confesses the sin he has committed, he shall bring to the Lord as his compensation for the sin that he has committed, a female from the flock, a lamb, or a goat for a sin offering. And the priest shall make atonement for him for his sin.  But if he cannot afford a lamb, then he shall bring to the Lord as his compensation for the sin that he has committed two turtle doves or two pigeons, one for his sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. He shall bring him to the priest, who shall first offer the one for the sin offering. He shall ring its head from its neck but shall not sever it completely, and he shall sprinkle some of the blood of the sin offering on the side of the altar, while the rest of the blood shall be drained out at the base of the altar; It is a sin offering. Then he shall offer the second for a burn offering according to the rule. And the priest shall make atonement for him for the sin that he is committed, and he shall be forgiven. But if he cannot afford two turtle doves or two pigeons, then he shall bring as his offering for the sin he has committed a 10th of an ephah of fine flour for a sin offering. He shall put no oil on it and shall put no frankincense on it, for it is a sin offering, and he shall bring it to the priest. And the priest shall take a handful of it as its memorial portion and burn this on the altar, on the Lord's food offerings; it is a sin offering. Then the priest shall make atonement for him for the sin which he is committed in any one of these things, and he should be forgiven. And the remainder shall be for the priest, as in the grain offering.” Well, that was 13 verses. Interesting territory here. Notice the very first sin that's mentioned: “if anyone sends that he hears a public adjuration testify, and though he was a witness, whether he's seen or come to know the matter yet does not speak, he shall bear his iniquity. What kind of society was Israel? Just as as God's covenant people, what kind of society was it? Well, it was a society of law. Now you say we are a society of law, and indeed we are. The difference is Israel was a covenant theocracy. So when Israel was ever asked, “where did you get your law?” Israel would respond, “It was God's gift to us.” Now this gift was given, of course, through Moses, and as we see repeatedly in Leviticus, we are told that the Lord spoke to Moses, telling him to tell the people he called Moses out from the tent and spoke to him. He will speak to Moses, and we'll see this again and again–the Lord spoke to Moses. He gives the law through Moses, which gives us that privileged place, most honored place of Moses in the entire history of Israel. Now was the giving of the law, in the eyes of Israel, a good thing or a bad thing? And this is where, being Protestant Christians we have to unthink a bit in order to rethink a bit. If we unthink something, it would necessarily be the fact that we have this instinct in us that the law is bad, and grace is good. Now it's more complex than that, but it just comes down to that. The letter kills, the spirit gives life. The old covenant can bring no salvation–it just holds back the wrath of God, as we see in Romans chapter three. The new covenant brings salvation, the old covenant is just getting us to the new covenant by promise and by contrast.  But if we go back to the experience of Israel, Israel receives these laws as a most unspeakably precious gift. Now this is true for two reasons. One horizontal, the vertical of course is most important. And the vertical means that the great thankfulness for this law is that they are rightly afraid of God destroying them, as he destroyed the Egyptians, as he destroyed by flood. How do you make certain you don't do whatever brought on those punishments? You need the law, and you need the law not only in the thou shouts and the thou shout nots, which we certainly need–all of us need that–but you need the law in order to know what to do when there is a transgresion of the law, because there surely there will be transgressions of the law. And then the question will be “now what?” what if a 10 year old shoplifts– I realize that's a bit anachronistic, but nonetheless let's assume it's a shop–if a 10 year old shoplifts, do you execute him? Do you put him outside of the people forever? Do you cut him off from his people? What about if someone lies? In this case, You'll notice that the law that God gave Israel is in essence a constitutional law. And in this sense, this is one of the great jumps forward of humanity. Now, if you're looking at this from an anthropological perspective, you're going to say “here's something absolutely amazing.  And in this area of the world, kind of the cradle of civilization in the basin of Mesopotamia, and then coming over to the Levant and towards the Mediterranean, and even in north Africa, in Egypt, there is an explosion of law.  Now, if you're a liberal Old Testament professor, you say, “See, this is just a human development. All this, necessity of law, society's now reached the point where the law has to be codified, whether it's the code of Hammurabi, or it's the law of Egypt, the  Pharaonic law,  or if it's the Mesopotamian codes–there are these laws that all of a sudden appear sometimes on clay tablets. You can say, “here are laws,” because eventually if you're going to have any society that becomes systematized and rationalized as the sociological language, you’re going to have to have “law,” because in order to have any kind of stable society, it needs not just to be a matter of tribal fiat. Tribal fiat means, if you do this on Tuesday, and you come before the elders, and they say, “you're out,” and you come on Wednesday, and to someone with the same law transgression, they say, “20 lashes,” it's by fiat. That doesn't work very well. You can't really have a society that way. You need advertised laws, and so it's a part of what you see. Now, in Deuteronomy, one of the sweetest of passages in Deuteronomy chapter four finds Moses reminding the children of Israel when they received the law, and just reminding them, “has any other people received laws so sweet?” And he puts it this way–”Has any other people heard the voice of God speaking from the fire and survived?” So Israel's law from the beginning is God's gift. Israel is a covenant theocracy. The laws are God's laws mediated through Moses, to the people–their sweet laws. So Israel has received the law as a gift. Now, just think of another context, think of your own home with young children. Your home had better be a theocracy there. It had better be a house of law–a house of grace, too, but a house of law mediated through parents. There are “thou shalts” and “thou shalt nots.” If the child does not learn to live within the “thou shalts” and “the thou shalt nots,” then we shalt not have a society worth living in. But the point is that you've got to teach the law–even just putting the law out there is not enough. You've got to teach it, which is exactly what's commanded to the children of Israel in Deuteronomy chapter four, as well as Deuteronomy chapter six with the shema.  But you also have to have a way of dealing with transgressions of the law. You have to have it in your home. What do you do? The child disobeys you–do you put them out the front door, and slam the door, and that's it? No, you’ve got to have some way of dealing with it. But the other thing is you need some way of dealing with it to be also as a part of the law. The consequences and penalties should be a part of the law, which it is in terms of American penal code.  This starts out with something as formal as the law process of determining guilt, requiring testifying and testimony. And in this case, someone has failed to testify. We're not going to dwell on this for very long, but this is a very sophisticated at the law code. It's very sophisticated. This implies a court process. It implies in evidentiary process. It implies the, the weighing of evidence, and it requires testimony. Testimony is important. You'll see it repeated in the structure over and over again. Thus, it is a sin not to testify when you should testify, but then very quickly it turns to the purity code in verse two: “if anyone touches an unclean thing,” and notice the comprehensiveness here, “whether a carcas of an unclean world animal, or the carcas of an unclean livestock, or a carcas of an unclean swarming thing,” death  is something that simply is to be avoided. Death is uncleanness. Mary and I were at a visitation at a funeral home just recently, and, having grown up in our teenage years in south Florida, this was something we were not shocked by, although it was still kind of shocking. There was a Christian family, which is the reason that we were there in this funeral home, and there was a Jewish visitation next door, and it's shockingly different. If you walked in the wrong room, you will see the body just on a board with a sheet over the body. Of course it's following the Jewish burial ritual, which means the body has to be buried basically within 24 hours, and so it's a very quick process. And it is because the body is itself now unclean, because it is dead.  Death is to be avoided. The death of an animal, and all the rest. This is not so much in the process of the slaughter of an animal for the ritual purposes or for food. This is when you come across the carcas of a dead body. That’s why you go around it. Now this will show up even in the New Testament and something like the parable of the Good Samaritan. There's a lot of moralizing in the parable, but we tend to over-moralize it and miss deeper theological significance when the people cross to the other side of the road, because they think he's dead. They're doing nothing but following the instinct that has been driven into Judaism for centuries–you avoid dead things even if they look dead, because you become ritually unclean, but it's not just the dead. You notice what follows: “If he touches human uncleanness of whatever sort, the uncleanness may be with which one becomes unclean.”  Okay, this is great. 10 year old boy comes in. Can you just imagine mother looking at him and saying, “son, of whatever sort the uncleanness may be with which you have become unclean…” There are all kind of ways to become unclean. This refers basically, however, to things that come out of the body that will make one unclean–contact with any number of things. Then you come to know that sacrifice is necessary. Verse four– “a rash oath, whether for good or for evil.”So this implies there’s an oath that's rash, right? If it's a rash oath, that's the bad oath. That implies there's a good oath. And on this, the Bible is complex.  And we can just say in summary, there are contexts in which an oath is necessary. Even God takes one in his own name, but oaths are theologically, morally risky, and it is just dangerous to make them unless uniquely necessary. But you'll notice that if there is to be the sacrifice for what is discovered to be sin, or realized to be sin, or remembered to be sin, then it begins with a female from the flock, a lamb or a goat for a sin offering. Now again, a female is a less expensive animal. So we are not dealing with the kind of transgression that would require a male from the herd, unblemished. So in this case, it can be a female, and it can be a lamb or a goat. The goat, the more expensive, the lamb, the less expensive in this case and the more numerous.  So there would've been more sacrifices of lambs than of sheep. And that also points to our Christology. But as verse seven tells us if the sinner cannot afford a lamb, then two turtle doves will do, or two pigeons. And one will be for the sin offering, one for the burnt offering. But then in verse 11, we're told if you cannot afford two turtle doves, or two pigeons, he shall bring is his offering that he has committed, a 10th of an  ova of fine flour. So that again is the grain offering. So basically this covers everyone. So all of Israel is covered within the provision for this sin offering. It will be repeated. It will be made necessary often. Thus there will be lots of pigeons, lots of turtle, doves, lots of goats, lots of lambs, lots of flour, but this covers everyone in the social and economic system of Israel. No one is outside of this provision is made for everyone. And here's the thing, God knows the heart, right? So God knows what you can bring. If you can afford to bring a goat and you bring the flower, God knows.  Now in verse 14, we shift from the sin offering to the guilt offering. Basically, the very best Old Testament scholars and theologians are hard pressed to explain exactly what the difference is. That's because when we think of sin, we think of guilt. We think of sin. The one goes with the other. The context appears to make the distinction. This is again a new section, because in verse 14, the passage begins “The Lord spoke to Moses, saying ‘if anyone commits to breach of faith and sins unintentionally in any of the holy things of the Lord, he shall bring to the Lord as his compensation, a Ram without blemish out of the flock, valued in silver shackles, according to the shekel, the sanctuary for a guilt offering,’” continuing in chapter five, ‘“if anyone commits a breach of faith and sins unintentionally in any of the holy things of the Lord,’” And this refers then to the sacrificial system, the priestly system, “he shall bring to the Lord as his compensation, a ram without blemish of, of the rock valued in silver shackles. According to the shekel, the sanctuary for a guilt offering, he shall also make restitution for what he has done a miss in the holy thing, and shall add a fifth to it and give it to the priest. And the priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of the guilt offering. And he shall be forgiven if anyone sins doing any of the things that by the Lord's commandments ought not to be done, though, he did not know it, then realizes his guilt. He shall bear his iniquity. He shall bring to the priest to ram without blemish out of the flock or it's equivalent for a guilt offering. And the priest shall make atonement for him for the mistake that he made unintentionally, he shall be forgiven. It is a guilt offering. He has indeed incurred guilt before the Lord.”  Just work backwards from that last sentence–”he has indeed incurred guilt before the Lord.” So here's the thing, brothers and sisters, it is vitally important that we know if we have incurred guilt before the Lord, it is just incredibly important. It's between us and our creator. Something has come between us and our relationship, and because of the holiness of God, our relationship is not only imperiled, it is directly and eternally threatened by this guilt. We need to know the guilt. The law is a gift in telling us both what the guilt is and how the transgresion may be forgiven in this case, looking at the guilt offering, which continues by the way into chapter six. You'll notice again, that a lot of this has to do with things that are even unintentiona, in this case, bringing to the ram to the priest. That is a ram. So now you're talking about a more expensive animal. The ram–like the bull–is a sign of power, and it may well mean that the power there is pointing to the powerful nature of sin. The more powerful the sin, the more powerful the substitute that is required in the sacrifice. A ram is understood to be very powerful.  Another statement to Moses in chapter six, verse one: “the Lord spoke to Moses, saying ‘if anyone sins and commits a breach of faith against the Lord by deceiving his neighbor in a manner of deposit, or security, or through robbery, or if he is oppressed his neighbor or found something lost and lied about it, swearing falsely, in any of all the things that people do and sin, thereby…’” You’ve got to love that verse, that little phrase in verse three. There's one of those comprehensive verses. Like, “we're gonna be absolutely specific. We're gonna be exhausted, but we can't actually be totally exhaustive.” There are sins that are not listed here, and they simply come under this clause in verse three: “in any and all the things that people do and sin thereby, if he has sinned and realized his guilt and will restore what he took by robbery or what he got by oppression or the deposit that was committed to him, or the lost thing that he found or anything about, which he has sworn falsely, he shall restore it in full and add a fifth to it and give it to him to whom it belongs on the day he realizes his guilt.” A  couple of interesting things there. By the way, “finders keepers” is not a part of the Old Testament law. That was a part of the playground law. But finders keepers is actually not a part of the law. If you find something that belongs to someone else in the covenant community, you have the responsibility to return it to her, to return it to him. This comes down to ways people have financially–or in items of value– cheated their fellow members of the covenant  community. They've either held a deposit and not given it back. They have stolen robbery that could be extortion. It could be just theft. It could be just about anything, even squaring falsely at someone's loss. If he ascend to realize his guilt, you have to make restoration and you have to make a restoration with a half tithe, did you notice that? Only it's not a half tie. It is a double tithe. I've heard people say it's a half tie, but a fifth i twice as much as a 10th, not half as much as a 10th. And that's real compensation. That's paying back a restitution and recognition of loss. Verse six–”And he shall bring to the priest as his compensation to the Lord a ram without blemish out of the flock or it's equivalent for a guilt offering. And the priest shall make atonement for him before the Lord. And he should be forgiven for any of the things that one may do and thereby become guilty.” Again, the comprehensiveness, “any of the things that one may do.” And we do–not only may we, we do–and thereby become guilty.  Now, all of that through chapter six verse seven, over the last several chapters has been just extremely interesting, because it's given us a catalog of the different kinds of offerings: the burnt offering, the sin offering, the wave offering, the guilt offering, and all of these offerings.They're brought with regularity, and we understand the system. Again, there’s a part of it where we  just don't fully understand the total distinction between a sin offering and a guilt offering, but it appears, as I said, even there's a horizontal, and there's a vertical element to this. It appears that the guilt offering in this case might well have to do with something that is more often sending against a neighbor or another, another member of the covenant community, but in any event, even that's a sin against God.  We understand that sin at the horizontal level is always sin at the vertical level. There's never a sin against another that is not ultimately a sin against God. All sin requires atonement, catalog of all of these matters of sacrifice and atonement, but there's a shift. I said we were headed towards something this morning, and we see this shift in verse eight of chapter six. Now we're talking about the priests and the offerings. “The Lord spoke to Moses, saying ‘command Aaron and his sons…’” okay, here, we have something else. So you have the priest and you have the prophet. Moses is the prophet. Aaron and his sons are the priests. Who commands whom? The Lord doesn't speak to Aaron what he should say to Moses. The Lord says to Moses–reveals to Moses–what he is to say to Aaron. Heres something else about the old Testament priesthood. The old Testament priesthood is bound by law. There is no creativity to it whatsoever, the task of the priesthood. This means the entire priesthood. But in this case, you can think perhaps especially of the Levitical priesthood, but the entire priesthood is to do the same thing every time, exactly the same way. According to the law, to innovate in no direction to turn neither to the left, nor to the right now, the same thing was emphatically true of the prophet. The prophet was not to say something like what God had told him to say, but rather was to say exactly what God had told him to say. Exactitude on the part of the prophet, exactitude on the part of priest. But the priest is absolutely dependent upon the prophet who mediates the word of God. Now they're being told what they are to do.  “The Lord spoke to Moses, saying ‘command Aaron and his son saying, this is the law of the burnt offering.’” So this is giving us the priestly side here. “The burnt offering shall be on the hearth of the altar all night until the morning. And the fire of the altar shall be kept burning on it. And the priest shall put his linen undergarment on his body.” We read about all that in Exodus. When we went verse by verse through Exodus, we saw all of the clothing that was dictated concerning the priesthood, including the undergarments. “And he shall take up the ashes to which the fire has reduced the burnt offering on the altar and put them beside the altar. Then he shall take off his garments and put on other garments and carry the ashes outside the camp to a clean place. The fire on the altar shall be kept burning on it. It shall not go out. The priest shall burn wood on it every morning, and he shall arrange the burnt offering on it and shall burn it on the fat of the peace offerings. Fire shall be kept burning on the altar continually. It shall not go out.” That's just another important thing. The fire is just to be kept burning. This is a sacrificial system. The fire's going to keep burning, because the people are going to keep sinning. The fire's going to keep burning because this is a continual process, which also helps us to look forward to the cross. And, and when in the holy of holys, the veil was cut in two, in theory, a fire was to be kept burning from Sinai unto Calvary. That fire is not to go out the fire of what will be required as perpetual sacrifices.  You'll know what is the attention to the garments worn by the priest. And again, we saw this in anticipation in Exodus, when we were told exactly what they are to be, how they are to look, what is to be the length of the hem, exactly what color is to be where, and that was when we saw the attentiveness to under garments. And you say, “well, why all the attention under garments? no one sees them. That's the purpose of under is not to be seen, but why the undergarments of the priests, why are they so important?” Because the priest is human and human things happen, and whatever happens must not get near the altar.  Does that make sense?  And so the undergarments are to protect the outer garments, lest the outer garments become themselves unclean, and the priest administration would be nullified. It’s interesting, this comes up right here because this is instruction to Aaron and his sons in verse 14. “This is the law of the grain offering the sons of Aaron shall offer it before the Lord in front of the altar. And one shall take from it a handful of the fine flower of the grain offering and it toil and all the frankincense  that is on the grain offering and burn this as a memorial portion on the altar, a pleasing aroma to the Lord.” So that means he receives the sacrifice, a pleasing aroma. As we see in the New Testament, we're to offer under God a sacrifice, a pleasing sacrifice of praise. verse 16: “and the rest of it, Aaron and his sons shall eat. It shall be eaten unleavened in the holy place, in the court of the tent of meeting. They shall eat it. It shall not be baked with leaven. I have given it as their portion of my food offerings. It is a thing most holy like the sin offering and the guilt offering every meal among the children of Aaron may eat of it as decreed forever throughout your generations from the Lord's food offerings. Whoever touches them shall become holy.” Okay, a lot here, but just consider this. No leaven,  even after the offering has been offered. So, you know, it was to be brought unleavened and it is to be according to this command, given by God, to Moses, for Aaron and his sons, it is to be kept unleavened.  Why? Unleavened bread is a reminder of the Exodus. It is a reminder of the haste with which the children of Israel left Exodus. It is a sign of haste. The absence of yeast is  a sign of haste. They are to maintain that. Now I, I like bread. I know we cannot live by bread alone, but we can try. There are a few things more pleasant than bread, warm bread with butter. Mary makes it, I eat it. That's the deal. And there are just few things more pleasant. We sometimes go to places just because of the bread, but I like leavened bread. I like bread that rises. I like bread with lots of stuff in it. There are people who like plain bread. I like bread with all kinds of stuff in it. I like this bread that I get every once in a while when I'm running around and I'm traveling, and I just need something when I'm traveling. I like this bread called good seed. It's made by–maybe you've seen this–It's made by a bakery of a man who had been a convict, a prisoner. And he got out of prison and started a bakery. He bakes good bread, and good seed is really, really good bread. It's got lots of stuff in it. It makes me feel righteous when I eat it. Unlike the wonder bread I ate as a boy, because I wanted to build my body strong 12 ways. Like the big strong kid whose picture was on the package. But basically,  I was eating air, that white bread, so I I'll eat good seed.  Now, every once in a while we have unleaven bread. We'll go to a restaurant and they'll serve pita or something like that. Or, you know, just mildly leavened bread. t's just not bread. You know, this will be a lot better with yeast, but the point is uneven means haste, and they're not post sacrifice to allow yest inside the holy place ever, for to bring it is to desecrate it. In verse 19, “the Lord spoke to Moses saying…” and, and what's interesting here is how these new statements, these new revelations by God, through Moses come more repeatedly here. Verse 20, “This is the offering the Aaron and his sons shall offer to the Lord. On the day when he is anointed, a tenth of an efa of fine flour as a regular grain offering, half of it in the morning, half in the evening, it shall be made with oil on a griddle. You shall bring it well mixed in baked pieces, like a grain offering and offer it for a pleasing aroma to the Lord. The priest from among Aaron sons, who is anointed to succeed him, shall offer it to the Lord as decree forever. The whole, all of it, shall be burned. Every grain offering of a priest shall be wholly burned. It shall not be eaten.” Now, why would that be the case? Why would they be able to eat the burn offering that is brought by someone other than a priest, but not this offering? It is because they are to receive nothing from the sacrifice for their own sins. If this sacrifice is with reference to a priestly sin, then the priests have no access to the food. It is all to be burned. Verse 24, “the Lord spoke to Moses saying, ‘speak to Aaron his sons, saying, this is the law of the sin offering. And the place where the burn offering is killed shall the sin offering be killed before the Lord. It is most holy. “Now, You'll notice what why and most holy is the holy of holys, which in the Hebrew is the most holy place. So this is the closest you get to the presence of God. The closest you get to the judgment of God, most holy and items can become temporarily most holy because of their proximity to God's presence and his wrath and his justice.  Verse 26, “The priest who offers it for sin shall eat it in a holy place. It shall be eaten in the court of the tent of meeting, whatever touches its flesh shall be holy. And when any of its blood is splashed on a garment, you shall wash that on which it was splashed in a holy place.” Notice the repetition of holy set apart under God and the earth and where vessel in which it is boiled shall be broken. “But if it is boiled in a bronze vessel, it shall be scoured and rinsed in water. Every male among the priests may eat of it. It is most holy, but no sin offering shall be eaten from which any blood is brought to the tent of meeting to make atonement for the holy place. It shall be burned up in the fire.” Well, as we're looking at this, something shall jump out at us. People need a priest. People need a sacrifice. The habitual sin of the people requires this habitual cycle of all kinds of sacrifices and all kinds of offerings to be made to the Lord. This circumstance requires this offering. This circumstance requires this sacrifice. It is to be done exactly this way. The priests are not to be creative in any way. They are to follow the law scrupulously. The priests themselves fulfill not only a priestly function, but they are a part of the sacrifice. They are not apart from it such that if they become unclean, the sacrifice is nullified. Furthermore, if they become unclean or they act, and as we know, even unintentionally, if a priest should sin in the midst of this process, not only does the priest sin and bring guilt upon himself, he brings guilt upon the people by his sin. This is a representational ministry, which again helps us to understand Christ, but there's something else here we just have to notice. And that is the fact that we do not have a priestly class that is separated in its sinlessness and thus in its lack of need for sacrifice, that would be something indicative to us. That would be very important. That might be the way we might think it would happen.  I mean, it's hard to imagine having a judge who's a criminal, right? We wouldn't want to nominate to the Supreme court someone who had done time for extortion or embezzlement, that just wouldn't happen. Because we're Christians, we know that our judges are sinners, but they better not be criminals.  If we we're inventing a priesthood, we're going to invent a priesthood immune from sin. Right? I mean, I would, because how am I gonna trust a priest who keeps sinning?  I delivered the Paige lectures at Southeastern seminary this week on the Christian witness in  a post-Christian age and had to take time defining what a post-Christian age means, and what it doesn't mean. Just trying to present to young seminarians the challenge of what it's going to mean to live in a rapidly changing culture in which history is split into three, in the Western mind now, before Christianity, then Christianity now after Christianity, it’s a totally different  field, and a big change. I used as my main illustration of where you can see this most graphically, the nation of Ireland, because it's Ireland that demonstrates this probably better than any other place on planet earth, because Ireland had a clearly pagan pre-Christian past. There there's evidence of it all over Ireland. Yet Ireland also represented at least institutionalized Christianity, this absolute dominance of Christianity in what is now the Republic of Ireland, overwhelmingly the Roman Catholic church up in the Northern provinces and what is now often referred to as Olster or, Northern Ireland, very Protestant, with a significant Catholic minority.  But in any sense, it was so overwhelmingly Christian that. You should hear the lecturers. Trust me, you'll find, you'll find them fascinating. I'd give little advertisement for it. Why? Because I found it fascinating. I really enjoyed giving the lectures, but one of the things I pointed out is that the very height of the troubles in, in Ireland as they were called, it was said that Irish people were so Christian, that if they met a Jew Jewish Citizen of Ireland, that citizen will be pressed to say, “well, are you Catholic Jewish? Are you Protestant Jewish?” That's how dominant Christianity was. Those were the limited options, but now Ireland is post-Christian in a way that is just very difficult it to explain lots of reasons. But the post Christianity of Ireland is seen in the fact that a generation ago, church attendance was above the nineties. And now it is below the twenties and plummeting, and morally, there has been a complete revolution in social mores and even in the law of Ireland in the 1980s, Ireland by referendum overwhelmingly outlawed abortion. Then by referendum, just in more recent times, it has is passed a far more liberal law. Ireland's the only country on earth that by referendum has adopted same sex marriage and had an openly gay prime minister, et cetera.  This is unthinkable. You used to see priests everywhere. Now, priests don’t appear in public in any priestly garb, priesthood just disappeared. That's a big thing, but a part of what in the Republic of Ireland in the Catholic tradition is now at least partly an explanation for the disappearance of Christianity on the ground for this post-Christian status is the failure of the priesthood time is leaving us here. But the failure of the Catholic priesthood in Ireland has been catastrophic. This is because of the Magdalene Laundries. If you're familiar with the homes for unwed mothers, where it turns out horrible, horrible things were happening, and they still find burial grounds for both the mothers and their babies. It's just devastating to know what was going on there, the pedophilia crisis  in the priesthood, just a general imorality in the priesthood. The point is the entire credibility of the church. And of course, that's a priestly church. If you're going have a sacred little ministry in your priestly church, those priests better priests, but it's the collapse of the reputation and the credibility and the integrity of the priesthood that meant that everything just fell apart.  That was a danger for Israel. If the priest did not have integrity, if the priesthood did not fulfill its responsibility, then the entire people would be severed from the God who had made covenant with them by their sin. But there's more to it than that. And this is just what I want us to see. And we'll pick this up next time we're together because is time is running out, but here's the most important thing we need to understand. This is the whole point of following through this and stopping here. It is because we need the recognition that the priests need a priest. It's astounding. The priests need a priest. And by the way as we shall see, a priest sins, there are sins for which atonement can only be made by the high priest, by Aaron or his appointed son as high priests. So priests need a priest. In Hebrews, we will see the need of a priest for a priest is made very clear by the fact that the high priest, when he inter solely representing Israel into the holy of holies, because there's no human priest to whom he can now turn for priest. He has to go into the holy of holies and offer sacrifice not only for the sins of the people, but with reference to his own sin, the priests need a priest. So this is crying out. This entire system is crying out for a priest who needs no priest. The book of Hebrew, says that when Jesus entered that tabernacle not made with human hands, and when he shed the blood, his own blood, not taking the blood of an animal, he made full atonement for sin, because it is only when we come to Christ and the new covenant that we find a priest who needs no priest until then God's people were dependent upon these priests. The priests were dependent upon the priests and nothing was finished because the human priesthood could finish nothing.  Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for even the detail of what we read for the shocking nature of this kind of text, from how we would compare the Old Testament to the New. Father, help us to find joy in reading the book of Leviticus word by word, help us to find joy and knowledge, even in knowing the details of the law, but above all, help us to yearn for Christ and find satisfaction in Christ alone, our prophet, our priest, our king, we pray in his name, amen. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2021/10/10/leviticus-41-35/ Sun, 10 Oct 2021 12:00:53 +0000 Louisville, KY
Leviticus 4:1-35 — Leviticus Series
October 10, 2021
Well, good morning. It's good to see you all spectacular October morning and wonderful to be here together for the study of God's word. And we are in Leviticus looking at chapter four in our adventure in, this central book of the Pentateuch, the third book of the Bible, and the book of the law. In this case, the specific instructions were given to the people of Israel known as Leviticus with specific reference to the Levitical priesthood. The performance of sacrifices. As we see here at the beginning of our study together. We're going to be looking at chapter four, continuing this morning, but let's open with a word of prayer.
Our Father, we pray that you will open your word and open our hearts simultaneously and open our minds to understand. And Father, we seek the deep things in your word. Things hidden from before the foundation of the earth that you have revealed to us. Father, we pray this for Your glory and for the health of your church in the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen.
This morning, no doubt you gave some thought to coming here and for the study of God's word and for worship. You gave some thought to what would happen here. We've often described the distinction and the book of Leviticus in terms of the Cultus. Well, all that's required in terms of preparation and specificity, even all that's required in terms of the physical objects from the tent of meeting and the tabernacle to what will eventually be the temple and the most holy place. The spectacular cloth that arrayed within the site of the room. The specific grandeur and priestly nature of the vestments, the robes worn by the priests and by others.
We compare that to the fact that we don't have a uniform. There, there are no priestly garments. There's no priest here, but as we look at the passage of our consideration today, beginning in Leviticus, chapter four. It's just yet another stark reminder of how much attention this required of Israel for Israel to be faithful to this law, it had to give constant— virtually hour by hour attention—to itself and to the preparation for what would be necessary sacrifices.
Today, we come to the sin offerings. This is what most Christians think of as the very heart of the sacrificial system. Now we've seen there are other offerings— guilt offerings, peace offerings, burned offerings— but, now we come to the sin offering and I think most Christians, even as they think, "We know what this, this kind of offering's going to be about. We know what this sacrifice is going to be about," would be shocked to find out actually how chapter four begins.
Now, for one thing, this is a new passage in Leviticus. You know that because of the phrase, "Now the Lord spoke to Moses." So, when this comes, this is like a separate Oracle experience. Moses is receiving this separate from what has come before.
"And the Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to the people of Israel." Another thing we need to note. So this is not a secret priest code. Which again tells us something about how central this was not just to the priesthood, but Israel. This is not secret information that is supposed to be released only to the priests who have this gnostic, that secret knowledge. No, this is the knowledge of Israel. The Lord spoke to Moses. Moses is to speak to the people. He is to tell them exactly what he has received from the Lord, not just the priests, all of Israel. "Speak to the people of Israel saying if anyone sins unintentionally in any of the Lord's commandment about things not to be done and does any one of them if it is the anointed priest who sins, thus bringing guilt on the people, then he shall offer for the sin, that he is committed a bull from the herd, without blemish to the Lord for a sin offering." That's pretty straightforward. It's big.
There's something here that Christians might just rush past without recognizing what's taking place here. Not just in times past, but particularly in our times. In our times there is a lot of effort to minimize sin. Now that's probably been a human project ever since Genesis three. So, we get that, but there's a sense in which, in our time we have rather sophisticated mechanisms to try to deny the sinfulness of sin.
For one thing, we've had the modern redefinition of human beings, from being sinners who are agents to being victims, who are acted upon. So, there is a sense in which there's a lot behind this; you have the entire revolution in terms of Freudianism and the psychotherapeutic revolution that creates the self. What is wrong is from outside the self, it represses the self. Freudianism is a lot more complicated than that. But the point is that the average American thinks of sin as something far less than a falling short of the glory of God in a violation of God's law, that brings on God's wrath, and that brings on guilt.
The big thing in this shift of sin is the idea that whatever sin is, it should not bring about a sense of guilt. When most people today talk about guilt, they talk about something subjective. "I feel guilty." You know, if you go to the psychotherapist, you're likely to hear that guilt is something you need to overcome. It is something that has been imposed upon you. Now, in terms of the Christian vocabulary, our understanding of guilt is first and foremost, that it's an objective reality. It's an objective reality that is not necessarily our sense of it because it exists, whether we sense it or not. It's an objective reality because it is indeed the guilt of having transgressed God's law. And with sin comes guilt. We understand that the parallel word is shame. Shame is the experience, individually or collectively, of having sinned.
By the way, National Public Radio this morning as I was shaving. I turn on the top news segment from National Public Radio. When I begin to shave just to provide some kind of thrill to see if I can listen to that news and still not cut my throat, as I'm shaving. This morning it was a particular challenge because they were talking about the women's marches all over. Especially in response to the Texas abortion bill. A woman was coming on the program and one of the NPR reporters said a central purpose of the march is to help women to understand there should be no stigma attached to abortion. One of the women speaking just said, "I had an abortion simply because I didn't want to be pregnant and there's nothing wrong with that!"
You just listen to that. You go, "Okay, there's the battle cry. There's the battle cry of rebellious humanity. 'I had an abortion simply because I didn't want to be pregnant', you know, deal with it. There's no stigma here. There's no shame here." But you need to notice something that we just read at the beginning versus chapter four in Leviticus. It's the refutation of modern, liberal Protestant theology that minimizes sin. It's the refutation of modern evangelical stupid—there's a lot of that—that minimizes sin. It's the refutation of the idea that we can sin without guilt.
Look at what we read. "And the Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to the people of Israel saying, 'If anyone sins unintentionally in any of the Lord's commandments about these things not to be done and does any one of them if it is the anointed priest who sins thus bringing guilt on the people.'"
So here's how inextricably linked sin and guilt are. The link is so powerful that if unintentionally— this is how the whole text begins—if one of the priests sins unintentionally, he brings guilt upon the people. So you'll notice it's almost as if that verse was given to us to refute this modern argument of the minimization of sin. This is natural for Israel. Israel was hearing this as if it knew what sin is and now it's just being told how the Lord will have them deal with sin. But in this case, it's an unintentional sin by a priest that brings guilt upon the entire nation. It turns our theology on its head, and it's right there and it's natural. You'll notice this is just the natural argument of Leviticus. This is why all the sacrifices, why all the offerings, this is why all the requirements. It's just mind-blowing to recognize what we're being told here.
God takes sin so seriously that if a priest unintentionally sins it brings guilt upon the entire nation. What then is to be done? Again specificity. "Then he, then he shall offer for the sin that he has committed a bull from the herd without blemish to the Lord for a sin offering. He shall bring the bull to the entrance of the tent of meeting before the Lord and lay his hand on the head of the bull and kill the bull before the Lord. And the anointed priest shall take some of the blood of the bull and bring it into the tent of meeting. And the priest shall dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle part of the blood seven times before the Lord in front of the veil of the sanctuary. And the priest shall put some of the blood on the horns of the altar of fragrant incense before the Lord, that is in the tent of meeting and all the rest of the blood of the bull he shall pour out at the base of the altar of burnt offering that is at the entrance of the tent of meeting. And all the fat of the bull of the sin offering, he shall remove from it, the fat that covers the entrails and all the fat that is on the entrails and the two kidneys with the fat that is on them at the loins and the long lobe of the liver that he shall remove with the kidneys, just as these are taken from the ox of the sacrifice of the peace offering. And the priest shall burn them on the altar of burnt offering, but the skin of bull and all its flesh with its head, its legs, its entrails, and its dung, all the rest of the bull he shall carry outside the camp to a clean place to the ash heap and shall burn it up on a fire of wood on the ash heap It shall be burned up."
It's a lot there. One of the things we are going to see is that Israel is given a certain scale of sin offerings. In this case, it begins with the most significant and that is a sin of a priest that brings guilt on all the people. What kind of sacrifice would be required? Well, it is a sacrifice of a bull without blemish. Now in the pecking order, in the economy of the animals in this agrarian context, a bull is the most expensive animal of all. So you're talking about a very expensive sacrifice and it has to be provided.
One of the things we note just as a matter of economy here is because of the nature of sin—how often we sin, how often Israel sinned, how often the priests would sin even unintentionally— then there would be the need for a lot of bulls to be brought. So one of the things you have to see in the background of Leviticus is the economy of the sacrificial system. This is a massive economy. And in the case of this particular sacrifice, there's nothing left. So the priests are not eating this. Otherwise, the priests would benefit from his own sin. And that's one of the reasons why at the very end of what we read the animal is taken to the place outside the camp where it's burned utterly, as a sacrifice to the Lord.
But you'll notice that he's to bring the bull to the entrance to the tent of meeting. So this is before the Lord. So the sacrifice itself was taking place out front, but looking into the tent of meeting. So it's outside. Nothing's brought in until it is intentionally by instruction brought in. Notice again, the substitutionary transference here. He shall bring the bull to the entrance of the tent and before the Lord and lay his hand on the head of the bull and kill the bull before the Lord. Laying on a hand again, this is a priestly way of indicating representation, substitution, sacrifice.
We're told what happens here and it's similar to the burnt offering, but it's not exactly the same. And the anointed priest shall take some of the blood of the bull and bring it into the tent of meeting. So as you picture it, you have the tabernacle and outside the tent, you have the actual sacrifice of the animal and laying on of hands. And then the animal is butchered, it's slaughtered. And then what is taken into the tent and towards the most holy place is some of the blood from the animal. This blood is going to be sprinkled. You'll notice in verse six, "And the priest shall dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle part of the blood seven times before the Lord in the front of the veil of the sanctuary."
Mary and I have had the delight of having our daughter, Katie, and our grandkids with us just for a few days this week, it was a precious, precious time. This is just being afflicted upon you, sorry. Benjamin's five and Henry's three and Mary Margaret's about six months. It's the two boys that are the center of storm and fury.
We love watching them play, and playing with them, these two little boys. Energy from each other and their constant reference to each other. In my library, I have a couple of bookstands, with the antique and aquarium Bibles of significance on them. They look like pulpits to these two little boys. So, they decided that they would take it upon themselves to go down to my study and preach. Benjamin is learning so much at five. He can preach, he can really preach. I mean, he can get up and tell you about the entire sequence of the Old Testament events. He can tell you about the invasion of the Hyksos into Egypt. It's just incredible what this five-year-old already knows.
There are other things that he hears that he doesn't really know. At one point he was talking about God giving Noah a rainbow sign. And he talked about the rainbow. Then he said, he gave him a sign. You know, he put up a sign like God, putting up a yard sign, "Look at the rainbow, you idiot." God put up a sign. As he was preaching, and by the way, that meant that his little brother went to the other pulpit. He kind of mimicked words coming from Benjamin. But the preaching is pretty much centered on sin. A five-year-old gets there pretty fast. The fact that the Lord, God told Adam and Eve not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But they did God put them out of the garden. And then Noah and the flood God's judgment on sin is big. Because if you're five that you get. You don't get it in its fullness, but you get that is the point. It takes an adult to miss the point. It takes an adult's defense mechanisms. It takes psychotherapy and liberal theology and all the rest to avoid just how grotesque sin is.
But for Israel, just think about the fact that most days, in the cycle of Israel's life, this is just being constantly done. And this sprinkling of blood, when you think about it being brought into, to the tent of meeting. Some of it is sprinkled here and some of it is sprinkled there. By the way, the number seven is big, because we also got a sermon on Jericho and Joshua. And how many times, seven times. “Why”, you asked,”Was it seven times?” Because God told them seven times. That is the right answer. But the number seven just comes up again and again and again. This number of, of perfection pointing to divine glory and the divine command, the divine command is that this is to be done seven times. It's interesting. This is different.
Part of it is sprinkled in front of the ail of the sanctuary. So that veil is what separates the holy place from the most holy place. What is the new testimony we referred to as the holy of holies? At least that's what we think of it more often as the most holy place.
"And the priest shall put some of the blood on the horns of the altar of fragrant incense before the Lord that is in the tent of meeting." So this is the incense piece. The horns, remember, are where on the corners there would've been raised like the horns of an animal. Some of it is to be sprinkled there as well. Now you must remember that also what has to follow this is the cleansing, the ritual cleansing of all. But then you have a dead animal. You just took the blood into the tent of the meeting.
So verse eight, "And all the fat of the bull of the sin offerings should be removed from it." At this point, you think, "Well this is going to be all removed because parts of it are going to be burned, you know, in the offering and parts of it be dealt with this way and that way, part of it, the priest will eat." No, this is different because this is a sin offering. We are given all the details about what is to be removed, but you have the prize pieces burnt at the altar of the burnt offering. Then the rest of it—here's the other just blockbuster part of this passage— "all the rest of the bull, he shall carry outside the camp to a clean place to the ash heap and shall it up on a fire of wood. On the ash heap, it shall be burned up." Amazing. Outside the tent, outside the camp.
So now we have spatially, as we're thinking about this, we have the camp and then we have the tent in the camp. You approach it within the camp. It's all within the little society, the little civilization where Israel—Israel's not a little people at this point, this let's call it the metropolis of Israel. Some things have to go outside.
Aristotle said that every city civitas begins with families who first of all, identify with each other. Then secondly, identify against the world. The world is a violent place, Aristotle understood. So if you see a city, two things have happened. People gather together and this will be family structures. They gathered together and, out of their commonality, they said, "Let us live together." But in order to survive, they had to say, "Not only are we committed to each other inside this civitas, but we are against the rest." In other words, defensive. Others will try to come and take us, or what is our own.
Aristotle's point was that as you have a city like that—what we would just call the camp of Israel—there has to be a definition, a clear definition of what is inside and outside. So that’s why during this time of human history, you often have city walls and you have city gates. Aristotle is right. That's how a city starts. People saying, "Let us live together." But then, in order to live together in peace, they have to be ready to define themselves and defend themselves against the world. The wall, thus the gate, is a camp. Remember Israel isn't yet a city. This is a moving metropolis. This is a nomadic people being led by the Lord until they can go into the Land of Promise where they will inhabit the land. You notice the verbs in the Old Testament. They're passing through this territory, they will inhabit. They're going to possess, that's another important, Old Testament word. They're going to possess this Land of Promise, but they're just passing through here. But even when they are a camp, rather than a city, there has to be an inside and outside. There are things that take place outside. And by the way, that's true for us.
There was a controversy, just a matter of, about two years ago, because— here's an obvious fact a lot of people don't think about. Evidently, it's an obvious fact, a lot of people in New York City in Manhattan didn't think about it. Guess where the garbage goes produced by all those millions of people in Manhattan. Well, here's the answer. It doesn't stay in Manhattan. Manhattan can't do anything with all this garbage. It produces a lot of garbage. It has to go somewhere. Basically, there are only two ways out of Manhattan for that trash. One is by ship and the other is by train. A couple of years ago came the scandal of the fact that a lot of the garbage in Manhattan was being taken by night on these stinky garbage trains that were going to places like Southern states and some other places where landfills were created so that what New York produces and can't handle being taken elsewhere. Well, there was outrage at the fact that these Manhattanites were exporting their garbage. Someone else has to take their garbage. And after all, these are the people who want the green new deal. Meanwhile, in order to flush their own commodes and do everything else. They have to just put it on a ship and put it on a train and ship it somewhere else.
But the point is you can't live in Manhattan if your garbage stays in Manhattan. Here's a little clue. It's bad enough when it's there long enough to be picked up and put on a train or on a ship. One of the first things I notice about being in a place like Manhattan is not just the tall buildings. It is the tall smells. You have a real clear idea that human beings are living in Manhattan, doing all the human being stuff that produces all the human being stuff.
One of the other things I learned as a boy scout, there are certain things inside the camp, certain things outside the camp. You don't build your latrine inside the camp. That is not good form. That doesn't work very well. That adds up too. If you're, you know, a bunch of boy Scouts adds up perhaps to some temporary inconvenience. If it's long-term, it's called typhus. It's deadly. This doesn't work.
Israel had to have an inside and outside the camp and understand outside the camp means two things. It means outside the civilization, it's outside the civitas. It's in the territory that the city's not claiming as its own. It's not defending this territory. It's not the civilized territory. It's not the inhabited territory, but more than that, it's a distinction between where we live and we keep clean and what's outside with a different set of rules. The camp becomes very important. Outside the camp will be important to our salvation where Christ dies outside the camp. Outside the city walls of Jerusalem. He has taken out where the garbage is burned, where he dies for our sins.
But right now, this is outside the camp for what is left of the bull. The bull was taken outside the camp to a clean place, to an ash heap. "And on the ash heap, it shall be burned up." The Lord doesn't want this part of the bull. Like the burnt offering, the prize parts are to be burned on the fire. But in this case, what's left, pretty graphically described, is to be burned outside the camp.
In verse 13, "If the whole congregation of Israel sins unintentionally, and the thing is hidden from the eyes of the assembly, and they do any one of the things that by the Lord's commandments ought not to be done, and they realize their guilt when the sin, which they have committed becomes known, the assembly shall offer a bull from the herd for a sin offering and bring it to the front of the tent of meeting. And the elders of the congregation shall lay their hands on the head of the bull before the Lord. And the bull should be killed before the Lord. Then the anointed priest shall bring some of the blood of the bull into the tent of meeting. And the priest shall dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle it seven times before the Lord in front of the veil. And he shall put some of the blood on the horns of the altar that is in the tent of meeting before the Lord and the rest of the blood he shall pour out at the base of the altar of burnt offering. That is at the entrance of the tent of meeting. And all of its fat he shall take from it and burn on the altar. Thus he shall do with the bull as he did with the bull, with the sin offering. So shall he do this. And the priest shall make atonement for them and they shall be forgiven, and he shall carry the bull outside the camp and burn it up. As he burned the first bull. It is the sin offering for the assembly."
So much here that you understand is that the heart of the gospel. The word atonement shows up here. The priest, by this sacrifice, is making atonement, "at-one-meant," for sin. This is not just illustrative. The sacrifice is not just demonstrative. Something objective is taking place, an atonement is made. There again is the prefiguring of our salvation. Our salvation is not merely on the fact that Jesus died as a demonstration, as an illustration, but rather that he died objectively to gain our salvation. Something objective happened. An atonement is accomplished.
This is the people sinning. You'll notice the unintentional is made clear. And you'll notice that unintentional doesn't mean "unsinful." This all begins with unintentional sin. An unintentional sin, which is seen in retrospect. Once it becomes known, then the guilt is known. The guilt was already there. Because the guilt is objective the atonement is objective. What subjective is our understanding of our sin?
So when the people sin, unintentionally, and when it's known to them, then the sacrifice has to be made. You'll notice it follows pretty much the same symmetry. It has to be a bull.
It is sacrificed as instructed. The blood is taken inside the tent, as instructed. And then the rest of the bull, after the prize parts are burned, as in the burned offering, it is taken outside the camp and burned up. In verse 22, "When a leader sins doing unintentionally, any one of all the things that by the commandments of the Lord his God ought not to be done and realizes his guilt or the sin, which he has committed is made known to him. He shall bring as his offering a goat, a male without blemish, and shall lay his hand on the head of the goat and kill it in the place where they kill the burnt offering. Before the Lord, it is a sin offering. Then the priest will take some of the blood of the sin offering with his finger and put it on the horns of the altar of burnt offering and pour out the rest of the blood at the base of the altar of burnt offering and all its fat he shall burn on the altar, like the fat of the sacrifice of the peace offerings. So the priest shall make atonement for him for his sin. And he shall be forgiven." Back up in verse 15, something happened. We ought to note.
It says in verse 15, "And the elders of the congregation shall lay their hands on the head of the bull before the Lord." Now, the elders repeatedly in the Old Testament, we were told about the elders of Israel. Particularly, in this period. We, we hear about the elders of Israel. Here's what we don't know about them. Almost everything we don't know about them. We don't know much about them at all. We don't know how many of them there were. They're probably the heads of the houses. That's probably it, but we really don't know. Clearly, this is a group of men identified as elders who have a spiritual responsibility— probably more than spiritual. It's probably all so political and economic and in every other way. But they are the leaders of Israel. These are the men who are the leadership of Israel. This is an eldership. Again, you see pointing towards the church. It's pointing to the church, but we don't know a lot about these elders, but the very fact that they are cited is important to us. In other words, they have the responsibility, the stewardship, the agency, the leadership assigned to them. But one of them may sin. And that's what we're looking at here. You see the elders of Israel.
Now, we're told if a leader sins, it's the same pattern of unintentionality of a sin that becomes known. You'll notice that in this case, it is not a bull, it is a goat. Now, what does that tell us? It tells us that sin is in every case, an infinite transgression against holy God, but there's a scale of sacrifice. It began with the priest. Remember the sin of the priest brought guilt. Not just, sinfulness, but guilt, objectively, upon all the people. Therefore, it had to be a bull. Bulls are the most expensive, most precious of all the animals, making the sacrifice very clear. If the assembly of Israel itself sins, that corporate sin, also a bull is to be offered. But here, after we had a reference to the elders in verse 15, now we're told about a leader, if he sins it's a goat. That doesn't mean his sin is less significant. It does mean that the sacrifice for it need not be, as it was in the first two cases, a bull. It also tells you about the pecking order. As we will see a little further in the text, it's a bull, then a goat, and then a lamb.
Now you say, well, why would a goat be more precious than a lamb? Actually, I know too little about, either goats or sheep, to be able to define that. Except for the fact that evidently in Israel and likely elsewhere sheep reproduce faster.
You notice the goat is to be treated pretty much like the bull. So much so that it is said to be like the burnt offering, as the fat of the sacrifice of the peace offerings. Verse 27, "If any of the common people, sins unintentionally in doing any one of the things that by the Lord's commandments ought not to be done and realizes his guilt or the sin which he has committed is made known to him, he shall bring for his offering a goat, a female without blemish."
This is a less expensive sacrifice than the leader, which was a male goat. Now it's a female goat. "For his sin, which he committed. And he shall lay his hand on the head of the sin offering and kill the sin offering in the place of the burnt offering. And the priest shall take some of his blood with his finger and put it on the horns of the altar of the burnt offering and pour out all the rest of his blood at the base of the altar and all its fat he shall remove. As the fat is removed from the peace offerings and the peace shall burn it on the altar for a pleasing aroma to the Lord. And the priest shall make atonement for him and he will be forgiven."
So this is an individual sin. And in this case, it is a female goat. Notice the provision of verse 32, "If he brings a lamb as his offering for a sin offering, he should bring a female without blemish." So in other words, the preference is for a goat, but you have an allowance for a lamb.
"Then the priest shall take some of the blood from the sin offering with his finger and put it on the horns of the altar of the burnt offering and pour out the rest of its blood at the base of the altar and all its fat he shall remove as the fat of the lamb is removed from the sacrifice of peace offerings and the priest shall burn it on the altar on the top of the Lord's food offerings and the priest shall make atonement for him for the sin, which he is committed and he shall be forgiven."
So what we have here in chapter four, is the fourth part. If a priest sins, or if the people sins, if a leader sins, or if any of the common people sins. So that's another breakdown. In the breakdown of animals, it is a bull, he-goat, she-goat, lamb. Then a breakdown of the hierarchy of the consequences of sin starts with the priest. Isn't that interesting? It starts with the priest. It doesn't start with the assembly. It starts with the priest because the priest is the mediator, his sin becomes paramount in consideration.
You'll notice that once again, you have the Lord speaking to Moses. You have to look back and wonder when Moses brings this—you think of the Lord, God almighty giving Moses the law. You think about the tablets of stone. Not that many words on the stone. In fact, in the Hebrew, "These 10 words." It's like my dad used to say, "I'd like to have a word with you." I noticed when I was very young, it was never just one word. My dad says, "I want to have a word with you.". And it's like, you know, "weather." No, he never had just one word with me. It was a word.
It's the same thing. When you say these 10 words, it's the 10 commandments. There are more words than 10. Can you imagine what it was like for Moses, even to communicate this? As I've been working my way, word by word through Leviticus, and then putting it in the context of the Pentateuch, the Pentateuch in the context of unfolding theology of the Old Testament. That within a canonical theology, the two testaments together. You look back and go, "You know, there are a lot of amazing things to think about," because you can think about, for example, what it would've been like for a church in Philippi to receive this letter from the apostle Paul and for the letter to be read aloud. Got that, got that.
But just think about Leviticus. Just think about the fact that it's been a fairly hard process for us to just hear the same words over and over again in the complexity of all of this. Some of you are because you love God's word, taking notes. Just imagine that this had to be an inscripturated revelation because who can keep all this straight? Part of the gift of God's words. Part of the gift of Torah, of law. Even as Israel was told to commit all this to its heart. I mean, there's incredible specificity here. We're just four chapters into Leviticus folks. And already you could not keep this straight. If there was an exam on this material, how would you do? Well, what about if someone's life is depending upon this? What about if the life of an entire people is depending on this? We need inscripturated revelation. We need as much as Israel needs it. We need the Word. We need the Scriptures. We need the Bible.
Imagine Israel hearing this for the first time. You'll recall that the pattern is the Lord God spoke to Moses. Remember he called to Moses, from the tent as Leviticus begins. But he says this to Moses, it's not just, "Hey, Moses, I'm letting you in on exactly what we're doing here." It's Moses receiving this in order to teach it to the people. In my own imagination, I have to think about what that would've meant. But then you think about all the generations of Israel, even in just the process of children coming along and young men becoming older men and elders passing and elders coming. This has just got to be taught all the time. It's being taught by the fact that it's happening, but Israel has to be continuously told "We didn't come up with this." This is what the Lord said to Moses. Right now, Moses is with them. These are the books of Moses. The Lord speaking to Moses. Moses also has a mediatorial role here.
As you look at chapter five going forward, and that's where we will turn next, you'll notice specific kinds of sins. Verse one, "If anyone sins in that he hears a public adjuration testify and though he's a witness, whether he is seen or come to know the matter yet does not speak, he shall bear his iniquity." We shall see that touching unclean things, you know, et cetera. So there can be specific sins that are going to follow specific sacrificial responses.
But in chapter four, we just need to note the magnificent weight of this chapter. Even beginning with the Lord, speaking to Moses about the sin of a priest that isn't just a liturgical mistake. Even if done unintentionally, it brings sin and guilt upon the entire people. And the people cannot remove their own guilt. That's the point. And that's the point of the gospel. We cannot remove our own guilt. Guilt is an irresolvable problem for us because the offense is not something that we can make compensation for. We can't pay for it. This animal cannot pay for it.
As we see in Hebrews chapter nine, we thought about this so many times, but we have to think about it again. "It is impossible for the blood of bulls or goats to take away sin." I remember that song that I have known virtually all my life, "What can take away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus." This is all pointing to Christ. Yet, I hope looking backward helps us to understand that this is all on the mind of Jesus in his earthly ministry. This was all the purpose of God.
God did not have this as plan A, which failed, and Jesus was plan B. From the beginning, this was to point to a sacrifice for sin. "Once, and for all", as the apostle Paul would say, to take away our sins. By the time you read Leviticus, chapter four, you recognize this is about unintentional sins. One priest can sin, and the entire people be guilty. Then guess what? Here's the reality guess where Israel was right after every one of these sacrifices. Right back where it started.
This was the terror to me when I was about 12 or 13 years old. Hearing preaching about sin. When I recognized there was no safe place. I can confess all my sins knowing he's faithful and just to forgive me my sins, and to cleanse me from all unrighteousness. Yet, I will probably sin as I'm asleep before I awake. I'll awaken, think of sinful thoughts and I'm right back where I was.
So, here's where Israel is always needing more bulls. But for Christ, we would be behind an infinite line of bulls that would only buy us time. Let's pray. Father, we're just so thankful for all You've given us in Your Word. We thank You for this incredible chapter in Leviticus, chapter four. Father, thank you for bringing us face to face with guilt, face to face with atonement, and by Your grace face to face with Christ. Our great high priest who made full atonement for our sins. Father, it is in His name that we pray. Amen.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 46:42 https://albertmohler.com/?p=55930 Audio, Biblical References, Exposition, Leviticus, Leviticus Series, Speaking and Teaching, Video noThird Avenue Baptist Church Louisville, KY Leviticus 4:1-35 — Leviticus Series October 10, 2021 Well, good morning. It's good to see you all spectacular October morning and wonderful to be here together for the study of God's word. And we are in Leviticus looking at chapter four in our adventure in, this central book of the Pentateuch, the third book of the Bible, and the book of the law. In this case, the specific instructions were given to the people of Israel known as Leviticus with specific reference to the Levitical priesthood. The performance of sacrifices. As we see here at the beginning of our study together. We're going to be looking at chapter four, continuing this morning, but let's open with a word of prayer. Our Father, we pray that you will open your word and open our hearts simultaneously and open our minds to understand. And Father, we seek the deep things in your word. Things hidden from before the foundation of the earth that you have revealed to us. Father, we pray this for Your glory and for the health of your church in the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen. This morning, no doubt you gave some thought to coming here and for the study of God's word and for worship. You gave some thought to what would happen here. We've often described the distinction and the book of Leviticus in terms of the Cultus. Well, all that's required in terms of preparation and specificity, even all that's required in terms of the physical objects from the tent of meeting and the tabernacle to what will eventually be the temple and the most holy place. The spectacular cloth that arrayed within the site of the room. The specific grandeur and priestly nature of the vestments, the robes worn by the priests and by others. We compare that to the fact that we don't have a uniform. There, there are no priestly garments. There's no priest here, but as we look at the passage of our consideration today, beginning in Leviticus, chapter four. It's just yet another stark reminder of how much attention this required of Israel for Israel to be faithful to this law, it had to give constant— virtually hour by hour attention—to itself and to the preparation for what would be necessary sacrifices. Today, we come to the sin offerings. This is what most Christians think of as the very heart of the sacrificial system. Now we've seen there are other offerings— guilt offerings, peace offerings, burned offerings— but, now we come to the sin offering and I think most Christians, even as they think, "We know what this, this kind of offering's going to be about. We know what this sacrifice is going to be about," would be shocked to find out actually how chapter four begins. Now, for one thing, this is a new passage in Leviticus. You know that because of the phrase, "Now the Lord spoke to Moses." So, when this comes, this is like a separate Oracle experience. Moses is receiving this separate from what has come before. "And the Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to the people of Israel." Another thing we need to note. So this is not a secret priest code. Which again tells us something about how central this was not just to the priesthood, but Israel. This is not secret information that is supposed to be released only to the priests who have this gnostic, that secret knowledge. No, this is the knowledge of Israel. The Lord spoke to Moses. Moses is to speak to the people. He is to tell them exactly what he has received from the Lord, not just the priests, all of Israel. "Speak to the people of Israel saying if anyone sins unintentionally in any of the Lord's commandment about things not to be done and does any one of them if it is the anointed priest who sins, thus bringing guilt on the people, then he shall offer for the sin, that he is committed a bull from the herd, without blemish to the Lord for a sin offering." That's pretty straightforward. It's big. There's something here that Christians might just rush past without recognizing what's taking place here. Not just in times past, but particularly in our times. In our times there is a lot of effort to minimize sin. Now that's probably been a human project ever since Genesis three. So, we get that, but there's a sense in which, in our time we have rather sophisticated mechanisms to try to deny the sinfulness of sin. For one thing, we've had the modern redefinition of human beings, from being sinners who are agents to being victims, who are acted upon. So, there is a sense in which there's a lot behind this; you have the entire revolution in terms of Freudianism and the psychotherapeutic revolution that creates the self. What is wrong is from outside the self, it represses the self. Freudianism is a lot more complicated than that. But the point is that the average American thinks of sin as something far less than a falling short of the glory of God in a violation of God's law, that brings on God's wrath, and that brings on guilt. The big thing in this shift of sin is the idea that whatever sin is, it should not bring about a sense of guilt. When most people today talk about guilt, they talk about something subjective. "I feel guilty." You know, if you go to the psychotherapist, you're likely to hear that guilt is something you need to overcome. It is something that has been imposed upon you. Now, in terms of the Christian vocabulary, our understanding of guilt is first and foremost, that it's an objective reality. It's an objective reality that is not necessarily our sense of it because it exists, whether we sense it or not. It's an objective reality because it is indeed the guilt of having transgressed God's law. And with sin comes guilt. We understand that the parallel word is shame. Shame is the experience, individually or collectively, of having sinned. By the way, National Public Radio this morning as I was shaving. I turn on the top news segment from National Public Radio. When I begin to shave just to provide some kind of thrill to see if I can listen to that news and still not cut my throat, as I'm shaving. This morning it was a particular challenge because they were talking about the women's marches all over. Especially in response to the Texas abortion bill. A woman was coming on the program and one of the NPR reporters said a central purpose of the march is to help women to understand there should be no stigma attached to abortion. One of the women speaking just said, "I had an abortion simply because I didn't want to be pregnant and there's nothing wrong with that!" You just listen to that. You go, "Okay, there's the battle cry. There's the battle cry of rebellious humanity. 'I had an abortion simply because I didn't want to be pregnant', you know, deal with it. There's no stigma here. There's no shame here." But you need to notice something that we just read at the beginning versus chapter four in Leviticus. It's the refutation of modern, liberal Protestant theology that minimizes sin. It's the refutation of modern evangelical stupid—there's a lot of that—that minimizes sin. It's the refutation of the idea that we can sin without guilt. Look at what we read. "And the Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to the people of Israel saying, 'If anyone sins unintentionally in any of the Lord's commandments about these things not to be done and does any one of them if it is the anointed priest who sins thus bringing guilt on the people.'" So here's how inextricably linked sin and guilt are. The link is so powerful that if unintentionally— this is how the whole text begins—if one of the priests sins unintentionally, he brings guilt upon the people. So you'll notice it's almost as if that verse was given to us to refute this modern argument of the minimization of sin. This is natural for Israel. Israel was hearing this as if it knew what sin is and now it's just being told how the Lord will have them deal with sin. But in this case, it's an unintentional sin by a priest that brings guilt upon the entire nation. It turns our theology on its head, and it's right there and it's natural. You'll notice this is just the natural argument of Leviticus. This is why all the sacrifices, why all the offerings, this is why all the requirements. It's just mind-blowing to recognize what we're being told here. God takes sin so seriously that if a priest unintentionally sins it brings guilt upon the entire nation. What then is to be done? Again specificity. "Then he, then he shall offer for the sin that he has committed a bull from the herd without blemish to the Lord for a sin offering. He shall bring the bull to the entrance of the tent of meeting before the Lord and lay his hand on the head of the bull and kill the bull before the Lord. And the anointed priest shall take some of the blood of the bull and bring it into the tent of meeting. And the priest shall dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle part of the blood seven times before the Lord in front of the veil of the sanctuary. And the priest shall put some of the blood on the horns of the altar of fragrant incense before the Lord, that is in the tent of meeting and all the rest of the blood of the bull he shall pour out at the base of the altar of burnt offering that is at the entrance of the tent of meeting. And all the fat of the bull of the sin offering, he shall remove from it, the fat that covers the entrails and all the fat that is on the entrails and the two kidneys with the fat that is on them at the loins and the long lobe of the liver that he shall remove with the kidneys, just as these are taken from the ox of the sacrifice of the peace offering. And the priest shall burn them on the altar of burnt offering, but the skin of bull and all its flesh with its head, its legs, its entrails, and its dung, all the rest of the bull he shall carry outside the camp to a clean place to the ash heap and shall burn it up on a fire of wood on the ash heap It shall be burned up." It's a lot there. One of the things we are going to see is that Israel is given a certain scale of sin offerings. In this case, it begins with the most significant and that is a sin of a priest that brings guilt on all the people. What kind of sacrifice would be required? Well, it is a sacrifice of a bull without blemish. Now in the pecking order, in the economy of the animals in this agrarian context, a bull is the most expensive animal of all. So you're talking about a very expensive sacrifice and it has to be provided. One of the things we note just as a matter of economy here is because of the nature of sin—how often we sin, how often Israel sinned, how often the priests would sin even unintentionally— then there would be the need for a lot of bulls to be brought. So one of the things you have to see in the background of Leviticus is the economy of the sacrificial system. This is a massive economy. And in the case of this particular sacrifice, there's nothing left. So the priests are not eating this. Otherwise, the priests would benefit from his own sin. And that's one of the reasons why at the very end of what we read the animal is taken to the place outside the camp where it's burned utterly, as a sacrifice to the Lord. But you'll notice that he's to bring the bull to the entrance to the tent of meeting. So this is before the Lord. So the sacrifice itself was taking place out front, but looking into the tent of meeting. So it's outside. Nothing's brought in until it is intentionally by instruction brought in. Notice again, the substitutionary transference here. He shall bring the bull to the entrance of the tent and before the Lord and lay his hand on the head of the bull and kill the bull before the Lord. Laying on a hand again, this is a priestly way of indicating representation, substitution, sacrifice. We're told what happens here and it's similar to the burnt offering, but it's not exactly the same. And the anointed priest shall take some of the blood of the bull and bring it into the tent of meeting. So as you picture it, you have the tabernacle and outside the tent, you have the actual sacrifice of the animal and laying on of hands. And then the animal is butchered, it's slaughtered. And then what is taken into the tent and towards the most holy place is some of the blood from the animal. This blood is going to be sprinkled. You'll notice in verse six, "And the priest shall dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle part of the blood seven times before the Lord in the front of the veil of the sanctuary." Mary and I have had the delight of having our daughter, Katie, and our grandkids with us just for a few days this week, it was a precious, precious time. This is just being afflicted upon you, sorry. Benjamin's five and Henry's three and Mary Margaret's about six months. It's the two boys that are the center of storm and fury. We love watching them play, and playing with them, these two little boys. Energy from each other and their constant reference to each other. In my library, I have a couple of bookstands, with the antique and aquarium Bibles of significance on them. They look like pulpits to these two little boys. So, they decided that they would take it upon themselves to go down to my study and preach. Benjamin is learning so much at five. He can preach, he can really preach. I mean, he can get up and tell you about the entire sequence of the Old Testament events. He can tell you about the invasion of the Hyksos into Egypt. It's just incredible what this five-year-old already knows. There are other things that he hears that he doesn't really know. At one point he was talking about God giving Noah a rainbow sign. And he talked about the rainbow. Then he said, he gave him a sign. You know, he put up a sign like God, putting up a yard sign, "Look at the rainbow, you idiot." God put up a sign. As he was preaching, and by the way, that meant that his little brother went to the other pulpit. He kind of mimicked words coming from Benjamin. But the preaching is pretty much centered on sin. A five-year-old gets there pretty fast. The fact that the Lord, God told Adam and Eve not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But they did God put them out of the garden. And then Noah and the flood God's judgment on sin is big. Because if you're five that you get. You don't get it in its fullness, but you get that is the point. It takes an adult to miss the point. It takes an adult's defense mechanisms. It takes psychotherapy and liberal theology and all the rest to avoid just how grotesque sin is. But for Israel, just think about the fact that most days, in the cycle of Israel's life, this is just being constantly done. And this sprinkling of blood, when you think about it being brought into, to the tent of meeting. Some of it is sprinkled here and some of it is sprinkled there. By the way, the number seven is big, because we also got a sermon on Jericho and Joshua. And how many times, seven times. “Why”, you asked,”Was it seven times?” Because God told them seven times. That is the right answer. But the number seven just comes up again and again and again. This number of, of perfection pointing to divine glory and the divine command, the divine command is that this is to be done seven times. It's interesting. This is different. Part of it is sprinkled in front of the ail of the sanctuary. So that veil is what separates the holy place from the most holy place. What is the new testimony we referred to as the holy of holies? At least that's what we think of it more often as the most holy place. "And the priest shall put some of the blood on the horns of the altar of fragrant incense before the Lord that is in the tent of meeting." So this is the incense piece. The horns, remember, are where on the corners there would've been raised like the horns of an animal. Some of it is to be sprinkled there as well. Now you must remember that also what has to follow this is the cleansing, the ritual cleansing of all. But then you have a dead animal. You just took the blood into the tent of the meeting. So verse eight, "And all the fat of the bull of the sin offerings should be removed from it." At this point, you think, "Well this is going to be all removed because parts of it are going to be burned, you know, in the offering and parts of it be dealt with this way and that way, part of it, the priest will eat." No, this is different because this is a sin offering. We are given all the details about what is to be removed, but you have the prize pieces burnt at the altar of the burnt offering. Then the rest of it—here's the other just blockbuster part of this passage— "all the rest of the bull, he shall carry outside the camp to a clean place to the ash heap and shall it up on a fire of wood. On the ash heap, it shall be burned up." Amazing. Outside the tent, outside the camp. So now we have spatially, as we're thinking about this, we have the camp and then we have the tent in the camp. You approach it within the camp. It's all within the little society, the little civilization where Israel—Israel's not a little people at this point, this let's call it the metropolis of Israel. Some things have to go outside. Aristotle said that every city civitas begins with families who first of all, identify with each other. Then secondly, identify against the world. The world is a violent place, Aristotle understood. So if you see a city, two things have happened. People gather together and this will be family structures. They gathered together and, out of their commonality, they said, "Let us live together." But in order to survive, they had to say, "Not only are we committed to each other inside this civitas, but we are against the rest." In other words, defensive. Others will try to come and take us, or what is our own. Aristotle's point was that as you have a city like that—what we would just call the camp of Israel—there has to be a definition, a clear definition of what is inside and outside. So that’s why during this time of human history, you often have city walls and you have city gates. Aristotle is right. That's how a city starts. People saying, "Let us live together." But then, in order to live together in peace, they have to be ready to define themselves and defend themselves against the world. The wall, thus the gate, is a camp. Remember Israel isn't yet a city. This is a moving metropolis. This is a nomadic people being led by the Lord until they can go into the Land of Promise where they will inhabit the land. You notice the verbs in the Old Testament. They're passing through this territory, they will inhabit. They're going to possess, that's another important, Old Testament word. They're going to possess this Land of Promise, but they're just passing through here. But even when they are a camp, rather than a city, there has to be an inside and outside. There are things that take place outside. And by the way, that's true for us. There was a controversy, just a matter of, about two years ago, because— here's an obvious fact a lot of people don't think about. Evidently, it's an obvious fact, a lot of people in New York City in Manhattan didn't think about it. Guess where the garbage goes produced by all those millions of people in Manhattan. Well, here's the answer. It doesn't stay in Manhattan. Manhattan can't do anything with all this garbage. It produces a lot of garbage. It has to go somewhere. Basically, there are only two ways out of Manhattan for that trash. One is by ship and the other is by train. A couple of years ago came the scandal of the fact that a lot of the garbage in Manhattan was being taken by night on these stinky garbage trains that were going to places like Southern states and some other places where landfills were created so that what New York produces and can't handle being taken elsewhere. Well, there was outrage at the fact that these Manhattanites were exporting their garbage. Someone else has to take their garbage. And after all, these are the people who want the green new deal. Meanwhile, in order to flush their own commodes and do everything else. They have to just put it on a ship and put it on a train and ship it somewhere else. But the point is you can't live in Manhattan if your garbage stays in Manhattan. Here's a little clue. It's bad enough when it's there long enough to be picked up and put on a train or on a ship. One of the first things I notice about being in a place like Manhattan is not just the tall buildings. It is the tall smells. You have a real clear idea that human beings are living in Manhattan, doing all the human being stuff that produces all the human being stuff. One of the other things I learned as a boy scout, there are certain things inside the camp, certain things outside the camp. You don't build your latrine inside the camp. That is not good form. That doesn't work very well. That adds up too. If you're, you know, a bunch of boy Scouts adds up perhaps to some temporary inconvenience. If it's long-term, it's called typhus. It's deadly. This doesn't work. Israel had to have an inside and outside the camp and understand outside the camp means two things. It means outside the civilization, it's outside the civitas. It's in the territory that the city's not claiming as its own. It's not defending this territory. It's not the civilized territory. It's not the inhabited territory, but more than that, it's a distinction between where we live and we keep clean and what's outside with a different set of rules. The camp becomes very important. Outside the camp will be important to our salvation where Christ dies outside the camp. Outside the city walls of Jerusalem. He has taken out where the garbage is burned, where he dies for our sins. But right now, this is outside the camp for what is left of the bull. The bull was taken outside the camp to a clean place, to an ash heap. "And on the ash heap, it shall be burned up." The Lord doesn't want this part of the bull. Like the burnt offering, the prize parts are to be burned on the fire. But in this case, what's left, pretty graphically described, is to be burned outside the camp. In verse 13, "If the whole congregation of Israel sins unintentionally, and the thing is hidden from the eyes of the assembly, and they do any one of the things that by the Lord's commandments ought not to be done, and they realize their guilt when the sin, which they have committed becomes known, the assembly shall offer a bull from the herd for a sin offering and bring it to the front of the tent of meeting. And the elders of the congregation shall lay their hands on the head of the bull before the Lord. And the bull should be killed before the Lord. Then the anointed priest shall bring some of the blood of the bull into the tent of meeting. And the priest shall dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle it seven times before the Lord in front of the veil. And he shall put some of the blood on the horns of the altar that is in the tent of meeting before the Lord and the rest of the blood he shall pour out at the base of the altar of burnt offering. That is at the entrance of the tent of meeting. And all of its fat he shall take from it and burn on the altar. Thus he shall do with the bull as he did with the bull, with the sin offering. So shall he do this. And the priest shall make atonement for them and they shall be forgiven, and he shall carry the bull outside the camp and burn it up. As he burned the first bull. It is the sin offering for the assembly." So much here that you understand is that the heart of the gospel. The word atonement shows up here. The priest, by this sacrifice, is making atonement, "at-one-meant," for sin. This is not just illustrative. The sacrifice is not just demonstrative. Something objective is taking place, an atonement is made. There again is the prefiguring of our salvation. Our salvation is not merely on the fact that Jesus died as a demonstration, as an illustration, but rather that he died objectively to gain our salvation. Something objective happened. An atonement is accomplished. This is the people sinning. You'll notice the unintentional is made clear. And you'll notice that unintentional doesn't mean "unsinful." This all begins with unintentional sin. An unintentional sin, which is seen in retrospect. Once it becomes known, then the guilt is known. The guilt was already there. Because the guilt is objective the atonement is objective. What subjective is our understanding of our sin? So when the people sin, unintentionally, and when it's known to them, then the sacrifice has to be made. You'll notice it follows pretty much the same symmetry. It has to be a bull. It is sacrificed as instructed. The blood is taken inside the tent, as instructed. And then the rest of the bull, after the prize parts are burned, as in the burned offering, it is taken outside the camp and burned up. In verse 22, "When a leader sins doing unintentionally, any one of all the things that by the commandments of the Lord his God ought not to be done and realizes his guilt or the sin, which he has committed is made known to him. He shall bring as his offering a goat, a male without blemish, and shall lay his hand on the head of the goat and kill it in the place where they kill the burnt offering. Before the Lord, it is a sin offering. Then the priest will take some of the blood of the sin offering with his finger and put it on the horns of the altar of burnt offering and pour out the rest of the blood at the base of the altar of burnt offering and all its fat he shall burn on the altar, like the fat of the sacrifice of the peace offerings. So the priest shall make atonement for him for his sin. And he shall be forgiven." Back up in verse 15, something happened. We ought to note. It says in verse 15, "And the elders of the congregation shall lay their hands on the head of the bull before the Lord." Now, the elders repeatedly in the Old Testament, we were told about the elders of Israel. Particularly, in this period. We, we hear about the elders of Israel. Here's what we don't know about them. Almost everything we don't know about them. We don't know much about them at all. We don't know how many of them there were. They're probably the heads of the houses. That's probably it, but we really don't know. Clearly, this is a group of men identified as elders who have a spiritual responsibility— probably more than spiritual. It's probably all so political and economic and in every other way. But they are the leaders of Israel. These are the men who are the leadership of Israel. This is an eldership. Again, you see pointing towards the church. It's pointing to the church, but we don't know a lot about these elders, but the very fact that they are cited is important to us. In other words, they have the responsibility, the stewardship, the agency, the leadership assigned to them. But one of them may sin. And that's what we're looking at here. You see the elders of Israel. Now, we're told if a leader sins, it's the same pattern of unintentionality of a sin that becomes known. You'll notice that in this case, it is not a bull, it is a goat. Now, what does that tell us? It tells us that sin is in every case, an infinite transgression against holy God, but there's a scale of sacrifice. It began with the priest. Remember the sin of the priest brought guilt. Not just, sinfulness, but guilt, objectively, upon all the people. Therefore, it had to be a bull. Bulls are the most expensive, most precious of all the animals, making the sacrifice very clear. If the assembly of Israel itself sins, that corporate sin, also a bull is to be offered. But here, after we had a reference to the elders in verse 15, now we're told about a leader, if he sins it's a goat. That doesn't mean his sin is less significant. It does mean that the sacrifice for it need not be, as it was in the first two cases, a bull. It also tells you about the pecking order. As we will see a little further in the text, it's a bull, then a goat, and then a lamb. Now you say, well, why would a goat be more precious than a lamb? Actually, I know too little about, either goats or sheep, to be able to define that. Except for the fact that evidently in Israel and likely elsewhere sheep reproduce faster. You notice the goat is to be treated pretty much like the bull. So much so that it is said to be like the burnt offering, as the fat of the sacrifice of the peace offerings. Verse 27, "If any of the common people, sins unintentionally in doing any one of the things that by the Lord's commandments ought not to be done and realizes his guilt or the sin which he has committed is made known to him, he shall bring for his offering a goat, a female without blemish." This is a less expensive sacrifice than the leader, which was a male goat. Now it's a female goat. "For his sin, which he committed. And he shall lay his hand on the head of the sin offering and kill the sin offering in the place of the burnt offering. And the priest shall take some of his blood with his finger and put it on the horns of the altar of the burnt offering and pour out all the rest of his blood at the base of the altar and all its fat he shall remove. As the fat is removed from the peace offerings and the peace shall burn it on the altar for a pleasing aroma to the Lord. And the priest shall make atonement for him and he will be forgiven." So this is an individual sin. And in this case, it is a female goat. Notice the provision of verse 32, "If he brings a lamb as his offering for a sin offering, he should bring a female without blemish." So in other words, the preference is for a goat, but you have an allowance for a lamb. "Then the priest shall take some of the blood from the sin offering with his finger and put it on the horns of the altar of the burnt offering and pour out the rest of its blood at the base of the altar and all its fat he shall remove as the fat of the lamb is removed from the sacrifice of peace offerings and the priest shall burn it on the altar on the top of the Lord's food offerings and the priest shall make atonement for him for the sin, which he is committed and he shall be forgiven." So what we have here in chapter four, is the fourth part. If a priest sins, or if the people sins, if a leader sins, or if any of the common people sins. So that's another breakdown. In the breakdown of animals, it is a bull, he-goat, she-goat, lamb. Then a breakdown of the hierarchy of the consequences of sin starts with the priest. Isn't that interesting? It starts with the priest. It doesn't start with the assembly. It starts with the priest because the priest is the mediator, his sin becomes paramount in consideration. You'll notice that once again, you have the Lord speaking to Moses. You have to look back and wonder when Moses brings this—you think of the Lord, God almighty giving Moses the law. You think about the tablets of stone. Not that many words on the stone. In fact, in the Hebrew, "These 10 words." It's like my dad used to say, "I'd like to have a word with you." I noticed when I was very young, it was never just one word. My dad says, "I want to have a word with you.". And it's like, you know, "weather." No, he never had just one word with me. It was a word. It's the same thing. When you say these 10 words, it's the 10 commandments. There are more words than 10. Can you imagine what it was like for Moses, even to communicate this? As I've been working my way, word by word through Leviticus, and then putting it in the context of the Pentateuch, the Pentateuch in the context of unfolding theology of the Old Testament. That within a canonical theology, the two testaments together. You look back and go, "You know, there are a lot of amazing things to think about," because you can think about, for example, what it would've been like for a church in Philippi to receive this letter from the apostle Paul and for the letter to be read aloud. Got that, got that. But just think about Leviticus. Just think about the fact that it's been a fairly hard process for us to just hear the same words over and over again in the complexity of all of this. Some of you are because you love God's word, taking notes. Just imagine that this had to be an inscripturated revelation because who can keep all this straight? Part of the gift of God's words. Part of the gift of Torah, of law. Even as Israel was told to commit all this to its heart. I mean, there's incredible specificity here. We're just four chapters into Leviticus folks. And already you could not keep this straight. If there was an exam on this material, how would you do? Well, what about if someone's life is depending upon this? What about if the life of an entire people is depending on this? We need inscripturated revelation. We need as much as Israel needs it. We need the Word. We need the Scriptures. We need the Bible. Imagine Israel hearing this for the first time. You'll recall that the pattern is the Lord God spoke to Moses. Remember he called to Moses, from the tent as Leviticus begins. But he says this to Moses, it's not just, "Hey, Moses, I'm letting you in on exactly what we're doing here." It's Moses receiving this in order to teach it to the people. In my own imagination, I have to think about what that would've meant. But then you think about all the generations of Israel, even in just the process of children coming along and young men becoming older men and elders passing and elders coming. This has just got to be taught all the time. It's being taught by the fact that it's happening, but Israel has to be continuously told "We didn't come up with this." This is what the Lord said to Moses. Right now, Moses is with them. These are the books of Moses. The Lord speaking to Moses. Moses also has a mediatorial role here. As you look at chapter five going forward, and that's where we will turn next, you'll notice specific kinds of sins. Verse one, "If anyone sins in that he hears a public adjuration testify and though he's a witness, whether he is seen or come to know the matter yet does not speak, he shall bear his iniquity." We shall see that touching unclean things, you know, et cetera. So there can be specific sins that are going to follow specific sacrificial responses. But in chapter four, we just need to note the magnificent weight of this chapter. Even beginning with the Lord, speaking to Moses about the sin of a priest that isn't just a liturgical mistake. Even if done unintentionally, it brings sin and guilt upon the entire people. And the people cannot remove their own guilt. That's the point. And that's the point of the gospel. We cannot remove our own guilt. Guilt is an irresolvable problem for us because the offense is not something that we can make compensation for. We can't pay for it. This animal cannot pay for it. As we see in Hebrews chapter nine, we thought about this so many times, but we have to think about it again. "It is impossible for the blood of bulls or goats to take away sin." I remember that song that I have known virtually all my life, "What can take away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus." This is all pointing to Christ. Yet, I hope looking backward helps us to understand that this is all on the mind of Jesus in his earthly ministry. This was all the purpose of God. God did not have this as plan A, which failed, and Jesus was plan B. From the beginning, this was to point to a sacrifice for sin. "Once, and for all", as the apostle Paul would say, to take away our sins. By the time you read Leviticus, chapter four, you recognize this is about unintentional sins. One priest can sin, and the entire people be guilty. Then guess what? Here's the reality guess where Israel was right after every one of these sacrifices. Right back where it started. This was the terror to me when I was about 12 or 13 years old. Hearing preaching about sin. When I recognized there was no safe place. I can confess all my sins knowing he's faithful and just to forgive me my sins, and to cleanse me from all unrighteousness. Yet, I will probably sin as I'm asleep before I awake. I'll awaken, think of sinful thoughts and I'm right back where I was. So, here's where Israel is always needing more bulls. But for Christ, we would be behind an infinite line of bulls that would only buy us time. Let's pray. Father, we're just so thankful for all You've given us in Your Word. We thank You for this incredible chapter in Leviticus, chapter four. Father, thank you for bringing us face to face with guilt, face to face with atonement, and by Your grace face to face with Christ. Our great high priest who made full atonement for our sins. Father, it is in His name that we pray. Amen. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.Third Avenue Baptist Church Louisville, KY Leviticus 4:1-35 — Leviticus Series October 10, 2021 Well, good morning. It's good to see you all spectacular October morning and wonderful to be here together for the study of God's word. And we are in Leviticus looking at chapter four in our adventure in, this central book of the Pentateuch, the third book of the Bible, and the book of the law. In this case, the specific instructions were given to the people of Israel known as Leviticus with specific reference to the Levitical priesthood. The performance of sacrifices. As we see here at the beginning of our study together. We're going to be looking at chapter four, continuing this morning, but let's open with a word of prayer. Our Father, we pray that you will open your word and open our hearts simultaneously and open our minds to understand. And Father, we seek the deep things in your word. Things hidden from before the foundation of the earth that you have revealed to us. Father, we pray this for Your glory and for the health of your church in the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen. This morning, no doubt you gave some thought to coming here and for the study of God's word and for worship. You gave some thought to what would happen here. We've often described the distinction and the book of Leviticus in terms of the Cultus. Well, all that's required in terms of preparation and specificity, even all that's required in terms of the physical objects from the tent of meeting and the tabernacle to what will eventually be the temple and the most holy place. The spectacular cloth that arrayed within the site of the room. The specific grandeur and priestly nature of the vestments, the robes worn by the priests and by others. We compare that to the fact that we don't have a uniform. There, there are no priestly garments. There's no priest here, but as we look at the passage of our consideration today, beginning in Leviticus, chapter four. It's just yet another stark reminder of how much attention this required of Israel for Israel to be faithful to this law, it had to give constant— virtually hour by hour attention—to itself and to the preparation for what would be necessary sacrifices. Today, we come to the sin offerings. This is what most Christians think of as the very heart of the sacrificial system. Now we've seen there are other offerings— guilt offerings, peace offerings, burned offerings— but, now we come to the sin offering and I think most Christians, even as they think, "We know what this, this kind of offering's going to be about. We know what this sacrifice is going to be about," would be shocked to find out actually how chapter four begins. Now, for one thing, this is a new passage in Leviticus. You know that because of the phrase, "Now the Lord spoke to Moses." So, when this comes, this is like a separate Oracle experience. Moses is receiving this separate from what has come before. "And the Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to the people of Israel." Another thing we need to note. So this is not a secret priest code. Which again tells us something about how central this was not just to the priesthood, but Israel. This is not secret information that is supposed to be released only to the priests who have this gnostic, that secret knowledge. No, this is the knowledge of Israel. The Lord spoke to Moses. Moses is to speak to the people. He is to tell them exactly what he has received from the Lord, not just the priests, all of Israel. "Speak to the people of Israel saying if anyone sins unintentionally in any of the Lord's commandment about things not to be done and does any one of them if it is the anointed priest who sins, thus bringing guilt on the people, then he shall offer for the sin, that he is committed a bull from the herd, without blemish to the Lord for a sin offering." That's pretty straightforward. It's big. There's something here that Christians might just rush past without recognizing what's taking place here. Not just in times past, but particularly in our times. In our times there is a lot of effort to minimize sin. Now that's probably been a human project ever since Genesis three. So, we get that, but there's a sense in which, in our time we have rather sophisticated mechanisms to try to deny the sinfulness of sin. For one thing, we've had the modern redefinition of human beings, from being sinners who are agents to being victims, who are acted upon. So, there is a sense in which there's a lot behind this; you have the entire revolution in terms of Freudianism and the psychotherapeutic revolution that creates the self. What is wrong is from outside the self, it represses the self. Freudianism is a lot more complicated than that. But the point is that the average American thinks of sin as something far less than a falling short of the glory of God in a violation of God's law, that brings on God's wrath, and that brings on guilt. The big thing in this shift of sin is the idea that whatever sin is, it should not bring about a sense of guilt. When most people today talk about guilt, they talk about something subjective. "I feel guilty." You know, if you go to the psychotherapist, you're likely to hear that guilt is something you need to overcome. It is something that has been imposed upon you. Now, in terms of the Christian vocabulary, our understanding of guilt is first and foremost, that it's an objective reality. It's an objective reality that is not necessarily our sense of it because it exists, whether we sense it or not. It's an objective reality because it is indeed the guilt of having transgressed God's law. And with sin comes guilt. We understand that the parallel word is shame. Shame is the experience, individually or collectively, of having sinned. By the way, National Public Radio this morning as I was shaving. I turn on the top news segment from National Public Radio. When I begin to shave just to provide some kind of thrill to see if I can listen to that news and still not cut my throat, as I'm shaving. This morning it was a particular challenge because they were talking about the women's marches all over. Especially in response to the Texas abortion bill. A woman was coming on the program and one of the NPR reporters said a central purpose of the march is to help women to understand there should be no stigma attached to abortion. One of the women speaking just said, "I had an abortion simply because I didn't want to be pregnant and there's nothing wrong with that!" You just listen to that. You go, "Okay, there's the battle cry. There's the battle cry of rebellious humanity. 'I had an abortion simply because I didn't want to be pregnant', you know, deal with it. There's no stigma here. There's no shame here." But you need to notice something that we just read at the beginning versus chapter four in Leviticus. It's the refutation of modern, liberal Protestant theology that minimizes sin. It's the refutation of modern evangelical stupid—there's a lot of that—that minimizes sin. It's the refutation of the idea that we can sin without guilt. Look at what we read. "And the Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to the people of Israel saying, 'If anyone sins unintentionally in any of the Lord's commandments about these things not to be done and does any one of them if it is the anointed priest who sins thus bringing guilt on the people.'" So here's how inextricably linked sin and guilt are. The link is so powerful that if unintentionally— this is how the whole text begins—if one of the priests sins unintentionally, he brings guilt upon the people. So you'll notice it's almost as if that verse was given to us to refute this modern argument of the minimization of sin. This is natural for Israel. Israel was hearing this as if it knew what sin is and now it's just being told how the Lord will have them deal with sin. But in this case, it's an unintentional sin by a priest that brings guilt upon the entire nation. It turns our theology on its head, and it's right there and it's natural. You'll notice this is just the natural argument of Leviticus. This is why all the sacrifices, why all the offerings, this is why all the requirements. It's just mind-blowing to recognize what we're being told here. God takes sin so seriously that if a priest unintentionally sins it brings guilt upon the entire nation. What then is to be done? Again specificity. "Then he, then he shall offer for the sin that he has committed a bull from the herd without blemish to the Lord for a sin offering. He shall bring the bull to the entrance of the tent of meeting before the Lord and lay his hand on the head of the bull and kill the bull before the Lord. And the anointed priest shall take some of the blood of the bull and bring it into the tent of meeting. And the priest shall dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle part of the blood seven times before the Lord in front of the veil of the sanctuary. And the priest shall put some of the blood on the horns of the altar of fragrant incense before the Lord, that is in the tent of meeting and all the rest of the blood of the bull he shall pour out at the base of the altar of burnt offering that is at the entrance of the tent of meeting. And all the fat of the bull of the sin offering, he shall remove from it, the fat that covers the entrails and all the fat that is on the entrails and the two kidneys with the fat that is on them at the loins and the long lobe of the liver that he shall remove with the kidneys, just as these are taken from the ox of the sacrifice of the peace offering. And the priest shall burn them on the altar of burnt offering, but the skin of bull and all its flesh with its head, its legs, its entrails, and its dung, all the rest of the bull he shall carry outside the camp to a clean place to the ash heap and shall burn it up on a fire of wood on the ash heap It shall be burned up." It's a lot there. One of the things we are going to see is that Israel is given a certain scale of sin offerings. In this case, it begins with the most significant and that is a sin of a priest that brings guilt on all the people. What kind of sacrifice would be required? Well, it is a sacrifice of a bull without blemish. Now in the pecking order, in the economy of the animals in this agrarian context, a bull is the most expensive animal of all. So you're talking about a very expensive sacrifice and it has to be provided. One of the things we note just as a matter of economy here is because of the nature of sin—how often we sin, how often Israel sinned, how often the priests would sin even unintentionally— then there would be the need for a lot of bulls to be brought. So one of the things you have to see in the background of Leviticus is the economy of the sacrificial system. This is a massive economy. And in the case of this particular sacrifice, there's nothing left. So the priests are not eating this. Otherwise, the priests would benefit from his own sin. And that's one of the reasons why at the very end of what we read the animal is taken to the place outside the camp where it's burned utterly, as a sacrifice to the Lord. But you'll notice that he's to bring the bull to the entrance to the tent of meeting. So this is before the Lord. So the sacrifice itself was taking place out front, but looking into the tent of meeting. So it's outside. Nothing's brought in until it is intentionally by instruction brought in. Notice again, the substitutionary transference here. He shall bring the bull to the entrance of the tent and before the Lord and lay his hand on the head of the bull and kill the bull before the Lord. Laying on a hand again, this is a priestly way of indicating representation, substitution, sacrifice. We're told what happens here and it's similar to the burnt offering, but it's not exactly the same. And the anointed priest shall take some of the blood of the bull and bring it into the tent of meeting. So as you picture it, you have the tabernacle and outside the tent, you have the actual sacrifice of the animal and laying on of hands. And then the animal is butchered, it's slaughtered. And then what is taken into the tent and towards the most holy place is some of the blood from the animal. This blood is going to be sprinkled. You'll notice in verse six, "And the priest shall dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle part of the blood seven times before the Lord in the front of the veil of the sanctuary." Mary and I have had the delight of having our daughter, Katie, and our grandkids with us just for a few days this week, it was a precious, precious time. This is just being afflicted upon you, sorry. Benjamin's five and Henry's three and Mary Margaret's about six months. It's the two boys that are the center of storm and fury. We love watching them play, and playing with them, these two little boys. Energy from each other and their constant reference to each other. In my library, I have a couple of bookstands, with the antique and aquarium Bibles of significance on them. They look like pulpits to these two little boys. So, they decided that they would take it upon themselves to go down to my study and preach. Benjamin is learning so much at five. He can preach, he can really preach. I mean, he can get up and tell you about the entire sequence of the Old Testament events. He can tell you about the invasion of the Hyksos into Egypt. It's just incredible what this five-year-old already knows. There are other things that he hears that he doesn't really know. At one point he was talking about God giving Noah a rainbow sign. And he talked about the rainbow. Then he said, he gave him a sign. You know, he put up a sign like God, putting up a yard sign, "Look at the rainbow, you idiot." God put up a sign. As he was preaching, and by the way, that meant that his little brother went to the other pulpit. He kind of mimicked words coming from Benjamin. But the preaching is pretty much centered on sin. A five-year-old gets there pretty fast. The fact that the Lord, God told Adam and Eve not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But they did God put them out of the garden. And then Noah and the flood God's judgment on sin is big. Because if you're five that you get. You don't get it in its fullness, but you get that is the point. It takes an adult to miss the point. It takes an adult's defense mechanisms. It takes psychotherapy and liberal theology and all the rest to avoid just how grotesque sin is. But for Israel, just think about the fact that most days, in the cycle of Israel's life, this is just being constantly done. And this sprinkling of blood, when you think about it being brought into, to the tent of meeting. Some of it is sprinkled here and some of it is sprinkled there. By the way, the number seven is big, because we also got a sermon on Jericho and Joshua. And how many times, seven times. “Why”, you asked,”Was it seven times?” Because God told them seven times. That is the right answer. But the number seven just comes up again and again and again. This number of, of perfection pointing to divine glory and the divine command, the divine command is that this is to be done seven times. It's interesting. This is different. Part of it is sprinkled in front of the ail of the sanctuary. So that veil is what separates the holy place from the most holy place. What is the new testimony we referred to as the holy of holies? At least that's what we think of it more often as the most holy place. "And the priest shall put some of the blood on the horns of the altar of fragrant incense before the Lord that is in the tent of meeting." So this is the incense piece. The horns, remember, are where on the corners there would've been raised like the horns of an animal. Some of it is to be sprinkled there as well. Now you must remember that also what has to follow this is the cleansing, the ritual cleansing of all. But then you have a dead animal. You just took the blood into the tent of the meeting. So verse eight, "And all the fat of the bull of the sin offerings should be removed from it." At this point, you think, "Well this is going to be all removed because parts of it are going to be burned, you know, in the offering and parts of it be dealt with this way and that way, part of it, the priest will eat." No, this is different because this is a sin offering. We are given all the details about what is to be removed, but you have the prize pieces burnt at the altar of the burnt offering. Then the rest of it—here's the other just blockbuster part of this passage— "all the rest of the bull, he shall carry outside the camp to a clean place to the ash heap and shall it up on a fire of wood. On the ash heap, it shall be burned up." Amazing. Outside the tent, outside the camp. So now we have spatially, as we're thinking about this, we have the camp and then we have the tent in the camp. You approach it within the camp. It's all within the little society, the little civilization where Israel—Israel's not a little people at this point, this let's call it the metropolis of Israel. Some things have to go outside. Aristotle said that every city civitas begins with families who first of all, identify with each other. Then secondly, identify against the world. The world is a violent place, Aristotle understood. So if you see a city, two things have happened. People gather together and this will be family structures. They gathered together and, out of their commonality, they said, "Let us live together." But in order to survive, they had to say, "Not only are we committed to each other inside this civitas, but we are against the rest." In other words, defensive. Others will try to come and take us, or what is our own. Aristotle's point was that as you have a city like that—what we would just call the camp of Israel—there has to be a definition, a clear definition of what is inside and outside. So that’s why during this time of human history, you often have city walls and you have city gates. Aristotle is right. That's how a city starts. People saying, "Let us live together." But then, in order to live together in peace, they have to be ready to define themselves and defend themselves against the world. The wall, thus the gate, is a camp. Remember Israel isn't yet a city. This is a moving metropolis. This is a nomadic people being led by the Lord until they can go into the Land of Promise where they will inhabit the land. You notice the verbs in the Old Testament. They're passing through this territory, they will inhabit. They're going to possess, that's another important, Old Testament word. They're going to possess this Land of Promise, but they're just passing through here. But even when they are a camp, rather than a city, there has to be an inside and outside. There are things that take place outside. And by the way, that's true for us. There was a controversy, just a matter of, about two years ago, because— here's an obvious fact a lot of people don't think about. Evidently, it's an obvious fact, a lot of people in New York City in Manhattan didn't think about it. Guess where the garbage goes produced by all those millions of people in Manhattan. Well, here's the answer. It doesn't stay in Manhattan. Manhattan can't do anything with all this garbage. It produces a lot of garbage. It has to go somewhere. Basically, there are only two ways out of Manhattan for that trash. One is by ship and the other is by train. A couple of years ago came the scandal of the fact that a lot of the garbage in Manhattan was being taken by night on these stinky garbage trains that were going to places like Southern states and some other places where landfills were created so that what New York produces and can't handle being taken elsewhere. Well, there was outrage at the fact that these Manhattanites were exporting their garbage. Someone else has to take their garbage. And after all, these are the people who want the green new deal. Meanwhile, in order to flush their own commodes and do everything else. They have to just put it on a ship and put it on a train and ship it somewhere else. But the point is you can't live in Manhattan if your garbage stays in Manhattan. Here's a little clue. It's bad enough when it's there long enough to be picked up and put on a train or on a ship. One of the first things I notice about being in a place like Manhattan is not just the tall buildings. It is the tall smells. You have a real clear idea that human beings are living in Manhattan, doing all the human being stuff that produces all the human being stuff. One of the other things I learned as a boy scout, there are certain things inside the camp, certain things outside the camp. You don't build your latrine inside the camp. That is not good form. That doesn't work very well. That adds up too. If you're, you know, a bunch of boy Scouts adds up perhaps to some temporary inconvenience. If it's long-term, it's called typhus. It's deadly. This doesn't work. Israel had to have an inside and outside the camp and understand outside the camp means two things. It means outside the civilization, it's outside the civitas. It's in the territory that the city's not claiming as its own. It's not defending this territory. It's not the civilized territory. It's not the inhabited territory, but more than that, it's a distinction between where we live and we keep clean and what's outside with a different set of rules. The camp becomes very important. Outside the camp will be important to our salvation where Christ dies outside the camp. Outside the city walls of Jerusalem. He has taken out where the garbage is burned, where he dies for our sins. But right now, this is outside the camp for what is left of the bull. The bull was taken outside the camp to a clean place, to an ash heap. "And on the ash heap, it shall be burned up." The Lord doesn't want this part of the bull. Like the burnt offering, the prize parts are to be burned on the fire. But in this case, what's left, pretty graphically described, is to be burned outside the camp. In verse 13, "If the whole congregation of Israel sins unintentionally, and the thing is hidden from the eyes of the assembly, and they do any one of the things that by the Lord's commandments ought not to be done, and they realize their guilt when the sin, which they have committed becomes known, the assembly shall offer a bull from the herd for a sin offering and bring it to the front of the tent of meeting. And the elders of the congregation shall lay their hands on the head of the bull before the Lord. And the bull should be killed before the Lord. Then the anointed priest shall bring some of the blood of the bull into the tent of meeting. And the priest shall dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle it seven times before the Lord in front of the veil. And he shall put some of the blood on the horns of the altar that is in the tent of meeting before the Lord and the rest of the blood he shall pour out at the base of the altar of burnt offering. That is at the entrance of the tent of meeting. And all of its fat he shall take from it and burn on the altar. Thus he shall do with the bull as he did with the bull, with the sin offering. So shall he do this. And the priest shall make atonement for them and they shall be forgiven, and he shall carry the bull outside the camp and burn it up. As he burned the first bull. It is the sin offering for the assembly." So much here that you understand is that the heart of the gospel. The word atonement shows up here. The priest, by this sacrifice, is making atonement, "at-one-meant," for sin. This is not just illustrative. The sacrifice is not just demonstrative. Something objective is taking place, an atonement is made. There again is the prefiguring of our salvation. Our salvation is not merely on the fact that Jesus died as a demonstration, as an illustration, but rather that he died objectively to gain our salvation. Something objective happened. An atonement is accomplished. This is the people sinning. You'll notice the unintentional is made clear. And you'll notice that unintentional doesn't mean "unsinful." This all begins with unintentional sin. An unintentional sin, which is seen in retrospect. Once it becomes known, then the guilt is known. The guilt was already there. Because the guilt is objective the atonement is objective. What subjective is our understanding of our sin? So when the people sin, unintentionally, and when it's known to them, then the sacrifice has to be made. You'll notice it follows pretty much the same symmetry. It has to be a bull. It is sacrificed as instructed. The blood is taken inside the tent, as instructed. And then the rest of the bull, after the prize parts are burned, as in the burned offering, it is taken outside the camp and burned up. In verse 22, "When a leader sins doing unintentionally, any one of all the things that by the commandments of the Lord his God ought not to be done and realizes his guilt or the sin, which he has committed is made known to him. He shall bring as his offering a goat, a male without blemish, and shall lay his hand on the head of the goat and kill it in the place where they kill the burnt offering. Before the Lord, it is a sin offering. Then the priest will take some of the blood of the sin offering with his finger and put it on the horns of the altar of burnt offering and pour out the rest of the blood at the base of the altar of burnt offering and all its fat he shall burn on the altar, like the fat of the sacrifice of the peace offerings. So the priest shall make atonement for him for his sin. And he shall be forgiven." Back up in verse 15, something happened. We ought to note. It says in verse 15, "And the elders of the congregation shall lay their hands on the head of the bull before the Lord." Now, the elders repeatedly in the Old Testament, we were told about the elders of Israel. Particularly, in this period. We, we hear about the elders of Israel. Here's what we don't know about them. Almost everything we don't know about them. We don't know much about them at all. We don't know how many of them there were. They're probably the heads of the houses. That's probably it, but we really don't know. Clearly, this is a group of men identified as elders who have a spiritual responsibility— probably more than spiritual. It's probably all so political and economic and in every other way. But they are the leaders of Israel. These are the men who are the leadership of Israel. This is an eldership. Again, you see pointing towards the church. It's pointing to the church, but we don't know a lot about these elders, but the very fact that they are cited is important to us. In other words, they have the responsibility, the stewardship, the agency, the leadership assigned to them. But one of them may sin. And that's what we're looking at here. You see the elders of Israel. Now, we're told if a leader sins, it's the same pattern of unintentionality of a sin that becomes known. You'll notice that in this case, it is not a bull, it is a goat. Now, what does that tell us? It tells us that sin is in every case, an infinite transgression against holy God, but there's a scale of sacrifice. It began with the priest. Remember the sin of the priest brought guilt. Not just, sinfulness, but guilt, objectively, upon all the people. Therefore, it had to be a bull. Bulls are the most expensive, most precious of all the animals, making the sacrifice very clear. If the assembly of Israel itself sins, that corporate sin, also a bull is to be offered. But here, after we had a reference to the elders in verse 15, now we're told about a leader, if he sins it's a goat. That doesn't mean his sin is less significant. It does mean that the sacrifice for it need not be, as it was in the first two cases, a bull. It also tells you about the pecking order. As we will see a little further in the text, it's a bull, then a goat, and then a lamb. Now you say, well, why would a goat be more precious than a lamb? Actually, I know too little about, either goats or sheep, to be able to define that. Except for the fact that evidently in Israel and likely elsewhere sheep reproduce faster. You notice the goat is to be treated pretty much like the bull. So much so that it is said to be like the burnt offering, as the fat of the sacrifice of the peace offerings. Verse 27, "If any of the common people, sins unintentionally in doing any one of the things that by the Lord's commandments ought not to be done and realizes his guilt or the sin which he has committed is made known to him, he shall bring for his offering a goat, a female without blemish." This is a less expensive sacrifice than the leader, which was a male goat. Now it's a female goat. "For his sin, which he committed. And he shall lay his hand on the head of the sin offering and kill the sin offering in the place of the burnt offering. And the priest shall take some of his blood with his finger and put it on the horns of the altar of the burnt offering and pour out all the rest of his blood at the base of the altar and all its fat he shall remove. As the fat is removed from the peace offerings and the peace shall burn it on the altar for a pleasing aroma to the Lord. And the priest shall make atonement for him and he will be forgiven." So this is an individual sin. And in this case, it is a female goat. Notice the provision of verse 32, "If he brings a lamb as his offering for a sin offering, he should bring a female without blemish." So in other words, the preference is for a goat, but you have an allowance for a lamb. "Then the priest shall take some of the blood from the sin offering with his finger and put it on the horns of the altar of the burnt offering and pour out the rest of its blood at the base of the altar and all its fat he shall remove as the fat of the lamb is removed from the sacrifice of peace offerings and the priest shall burn it on the altar on the top of the Lord's food offerings and the priest shall make atonement for him for the sin, which he is committed and he shall be forgiven." So what we have here in chapter four, is the fourth part. If a priest sins, or if the people sins, if a leader sins, or if any of the common people sins. So that's another breakdown. In the breakdown of animals, it is a bull, he-goat, she-goat, lamb. Then a breakdown of the hierarchy of the consequences of sin starts with the priest. Isn't that interesting? It starts with the priest. It doesn't start with the assembly. It starts with the priest because the priest is the mediator, his sin becomes paramount in consideration. You'll notice that once again, you have the Lord speaking to Moses. You have to look back and wonder when Moses brings this—you think of the Lord, God almighty giving Moses the law. You think about the tablets of stone. Not that many words on the stone. In fact, in the Hebrew, "These 10 words." It's like my dad used to say, "I'd like to have a word with you." I noticed when I was very young, it was never just one word. My dad says, "I want to have a word with you.". And it's like, you know, "weather." No, he never had just one word with me. It was a word. It's the same thing. When you say these 10 words, it's the 10 commandments. There are more words than 10. Can you imagine what it was like for Moses, even to communicate this? As I've been working my way, word by word through Leviticus, and then putting it in the context of the Pentateuch, the Pentateuch in the context of unfolding theology of the Old Testament. That within a canonical theology, the two testaments together. You look back and go, "You know, there are a lot of amazing things to think about," because you can think about, for example, what it would've been like for a church in Philippi to receive this letter from the apostle Paul and for the letter to be read aloud. Got that, got that. But just think about Leviticus. Just think about the fact that it's been a fairly hard process for us to just hear the same words over and over again in the complexity of all of this. Some of you are because you love God's word, taking notes. Just imagine that this had to be an inscripturated revelation because who can keep all this straight? Part of the gift of God's words. Part of the gift of Torah, of law. Even as Israel was told to commit all this to its heart. I mean, there's incredible specificity here. We're just four chapters into Leviticus folks. And already you could not keep this straight. If there was an exam on this material, how would you do? Well, what about if someone's life is depending upon this? What about if the life of an entire people is depending on this? We need inscripturated revelation. We need as much as Israel needs it. We need the Word. We need the Scriptures. We need the Bible. Imagine Israel hearing this for the first time. You'll recall that the pattern is the Lord God spoke to Moses. Remember he called to Moses, from the tent as Leviticus begins. But he says this to Moses, it's not just, "Hey, Moses, I'm letting you in on exactly what we're doing here." It's Moses receiving this in order to teach it to the people. In my own imagination, I have to think about what that would've meant. But then you think about all the generations of Israel, even in just the process of children coming along and young men becoming older men and elders passing and elders coming. This has just got to be taught all the time. It's being taught by the fact that it's happening, but Israel has to be continuously told "We didn't come up with this." This is what the Lord said to Moses. Right now, Moses is with them. These are the books of Moses. The Lord speaking to Moses. Moses also has a mediatorial role here. As you look at chapter five going forward, and that's where we will turn next, you'll notice specific kinds of sins. Verse one, "If anyone sins in that he hears a public adjuration testify and though he's a witness, whether he is seen or come to know the matter yet does not speak, he shall bear his iniquity." We shall see that touching unclean things, you know, et cetera. So there can be specific sins that are going to follow specific sacrificial responses. But in chapter four, we just need to note the magnificent weight of this chapter. Even beginning with the Lord, speaking to Moses about the sin of a priest that isn't just a liturgical mistake. Even if done unintentionally, it brings sin and guilt upon the entire people. And the people cannot remove their own guilt. That's the point. And that's the point of the gospel. We cannot remove our own guilt. Guilt is an irresolvable problem for us because the offense is not something that we can make compensation for. We can't pay for it. This animal cannot pay for it. As we see in Hebrews chapter nine, we thought about this so many times, but we have to think about it again. "It is impossible for the blood of bulls or goats to take away sin." I remember that song that I have known virtually all my life, "What can take away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus." This is all pointing to Christ. Yet, I hope looking backward helps us to understand that this is all on the mind of Jesus in his earthly ministry. This was all the purpose of God. God did not have this as plan A, which failed, and Jesus was plan B. From the beginning, this was to point to a sacrifice for sin. "Once, and for all", as the apostle Paul would say, to take away our sins. By the time you read Leviticus, chapter four, you recognize this is about unintentional sins. One priest can sin, and the entire people be guilty. Then guess what? Here's the reality guess where Israel was right after every one of these sacrifices. Right back where it started. This was the terror to me when I was about 12 or 13 years old. Hearing preaching about sin. When I recognized there was no safe place. I can confess all my sins knowing he's faithful and just to forgive me my sins, and to cleanse me from all unrighteousness. Yet, I will probably sin as I'm asleep before I awake. I'll awaken, think of sinful thoughts and I'm right back where I was. So, here's where Israel is always needing more bulls. But for Christ, we would be behind an infinite line of bulls that would only buy us time. Let's pray. Father, we're just so thankful for all You've given us in Your Word. We thank You for this incredible chapter in Leviticus, chapter four. Father, thank you for bringing us face to face with guilt, face to face with atonement, and by Your grace face to face with Christ. Our great high priest who made full atonement for our sins. Father, it is in His name that we pray. Amen. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2021/09/26/leviticus-31-17/ Sun, 26 Sep 2021 12:00:19 +0000 Louisville, KY
Leviticus 3:1-17 — Leviticus Series
September 26, 2021

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 52:58 https://albertmohler.com/?p=55924 Audio, Biblical References, Exposition, Leviticus, Leviticus Series, Speaking and Teaching, Video noThird Avenue Baptist Church Louisville, KY Leviticus 3:1-17 — Leviticus Series September 26, 2021 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.Third Avenue Baptist Church Louisville, KY Leviticus 3:1-17 — Leviticus Series September 26, 2021 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2021/09/19/55761/ Sun, 19 Sep 2021 12:00:39 +0000 Louisville, KY
Leviticus 2:1-16 — Leviticus Series
September 19, 2021

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 50:31 https://albertmohler.com/?p=55761 Audio, Biblical References, Exposition, Leviticus, Leviticus Series, Speaking and Teaching, Video noThird Avenue Baptist Church Louisville, KY Leviticus 2:1-16 — Leviticus Series September 19, 2021 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.Third Avenue Baptist Church Louisville, KY Leviticus 2:1-16 — Leviticus Series September 19, 2021 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2021/09/12/leviticus-11-17/ Sun, 12 Sep 2021 12:00:00 +0000 Louisville, KY
Leviticus 1:1-17 — Leviticus Series
September 12, 2021
Good morning. It’s good to see you all and a privilege to be together for the study of God’s Word. Let’s pray together.
Father, with great joy we come before you, we come before your Word. We pray that your Spirit will open our eyes to see, our hearts to receive the Word, but also that you will, during this time, use our study of Leviticus to draw us to Christ. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, amen. 
Someone came up to me during the week this past week and said, “I understand you’re now teaching verse by verse through Leviticus.” I said, “That’s exactly what I’m doing.” And they said, “How’s it going?” And I said, “Three weeks, two verses.” 
That’s how it’s going so far. It will pick up in the sense that there are natural breaks in the text, but Leviticus takes some time to enter and to consider. For one thing, we are entering a world that even for Christians is more alien than we might like to think. When you look at even the first two verses of Leviticus, you see something that to Evangelical Protestants is recognizably Biblical, but not recognizably liturgical. 
I am so thankful for the way that we order Christian worship here at Third Avenue Baptist Church. It is ordered here basically as it would have been ordered during any of the major churches of the Reformation. It is ordered here by the Scriptures, that is the regulative principle at work. At least in theological theory, you ought to be able to go to any church of like practice and basically you’re going to see worship follow a very similar kind of pattern. But there is not a specificity about our worship in a way like we have already seen in just a couple verses in Leviticus, which marks the liturgical responsibility of Israel regarding scrupulousness in attention to the sacrifices. 
There is no similar text in the New Testament that says God orders the church, “When you come together, you must do exactly this, this person is to do exactly that.” Now, of course, we have: the preacher of the Word, we have the office of the elder that is set apart for teaching, we have liturgical orders in the New Testament, not only for the centrality of the preaching of the Word, but for the singing together and “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs”, we have prayer, all very clearly indicated in terms of what we are taught to do and what we see modeled in the early church in the book of Acts and in the Epistles. But it’s just not the same, it doesn’t feel the same. There’s no situation in which God called together all the Church and said, “Now sit down and I’m going to tell you exactly how you are going to do this. You do not deviate from this pattern, you do it exactly this way.”
That just calls us to the huge question, did God get looser in the New Testament? Is this a God who just grew exhausted with this “hyper-scrupulosity”? That’s what the liberal, Biblical scholars of the 20th century called it. “God’s hyper scrupulous and in the church he is less hyper-scrupulous.” Well of course not. Number one, God doesn’t change. Number two, the New Testament is not the correction of the Old. That’s a fundamental issue. The New Testament is not a correction of the Old. The New Covenant is the fulfillment of the Old. Anything here that seems alien to us is fulfilled in the New Covenant. That’s helpful for us to understand and that will continue as we consider much of the Mosaic law. Nothing is nullified, not one word of Scripture, not one jot, not one tittle falls away unfulfilled. There is no New Testament correction of the Old, in any sense. Anything that seems alien to us or odd to us is that which is explained by fulfillment in Christ. And if there’s any part of the Old Testament that may seem alien to us that is fulfilled in Christ, it certainly is first and foremost the sacrificial system. 
We began by looking at the first two verses of Leviticus. We’re just going to read them and then enter into this longer passage about the first kind of offering that is detailed in Leviticus: the burnt offering. 
“The LORD called Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting” (Leviticus 1:1), now wait just a minute. One of the things we could have spent time doing, even in looking at those first few words, is just to remember how the Lord calls persons and speaks to them. Who is the first person? It’s in the opening of Genesis. The Lord called to Adam and spoke to him. This is something about the imago dei. The Lord made all the creatures, but he doesn’t speak to your dog. Your dog is under no impression that he does. If you think God is speaking to your dog, the problem is you. We were talking just this week about the fact that the only creature that thinks that COVID is a great thing is the dog. First of all, you have people staying home which is exactly what they want. If you’re quarantined, you’re stuck in and the only person you can see is the dog. As a friend of mine said, “If you have COVID, you can’t smell the dog.” The dog thinks it’s a very good deal. God made all the creatures for his glory, but he speaks only to us. 
At numerous times, the Lord will call to someone and speak to them. In this case, the Lord called Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘When any one of you brings an offering to the Lord, you shall bring your offering of livestock from the herd or from the flock. If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he shall offer a male without blemish. He shall bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting that he may be accepted before the Lord. He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him. Then he shall kill the bull before the Lord, and Aaron’s sons the priests shall bring the blood and throw the blood against the sides of the altar that is at the entrance of the tent of meeting. And he shall flay the burnt offering and cut it into pieces, and the sons of Aaron the priest shall put fire on the altar and arrange wood on the fire. And Aaron’s sons the priests shall arrange the pieces, the head, and the fat, on the wood that is on the fire on the altar; but its entrails and its legs he shall wash with water. And the priest shall burn all of it on the altar, as a burnt offering, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord.’” (Leviticus 1:2-9)
Five major kinds of offerings or sacrifices that we will find in Leviticus. First, the burnt offering and that's where we are right now. And then the grain offering, the peace offering, the sin offering, and the guilt offering. If that sounds complicated, it is! We will take every one of them in turn, but the first is the burnt offering. And this burnt offering is not explicitly a sacrifice for sin. It is a sacrifice for worship. So that's where Leviticus begins. The first of the sacrifices is a sacrifice for offering. It is to offer under the Lord a pleasing aroma by this burnt sacrifice. But the burnt sacrifice is so fundamental. And furthermore, in the New Testament, when there are references to Christ as sacrifice, it is often the reference to this particular sacrifice. 
Now it is also the case that, for example, as you look through the Old Testament, there are situations in which we are told that a sacrifice is not accepted, that the sacrifice is considered unacceptable to the Lord. You can see it in a passage like Jeremiah chapter 14:12, where the Lord says, “Though they fast, I will not hear their cry, and though they offer burnt offering and grain offering, I will not accept them.” So the false prophets, for example, or the prophets who were misleading Israel, or Israel when it is into idolatry and disobedience, the Lord simply will not receive it. Even in the language that is used in the Old Testament, he will not allow his nostrils to receive their sacrifice or their sacrifice is a stench in his nostrils rather than the pleasing aroma that is mentioned here. 
Now, what's also interesting is that this pleasing aroma is liturgical. A part of Israel's worship is to make certain that the Lord in observing their worship and even in this particular sacrifice, which has the smoke coming up from the altar and coming right up towards the heavens, that God in essence receives this as a pleasing aroma. It is a form of worship. And that's what liturgy is. It’s liturgia, it's what we are called to do in worship. And you say, well there's Israel. Israel is to do the sacrifice of the burnt offering, a male without blemish and there are several things here we need to note, but I want us to think about the last word in the paragraph, that last phrase, “a food offering with a pleasant aroma to the Lord.” This burnt offering produces an aroma. And again, that's Israel, the Old Testament, that's the old covenant. It is literally a pleasing aroma. So there it is, a pleasing aroma for Israel. But what about for the church? 
Well, consider a text like Hebrews chapter 13. If you turn to Hebrews chapter 13 and we look at verse 15 through 16, we read this, “Through him,” that means through Christ, “let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.” So this is the continual offering up of a sacrifice of praise, even a pleasing aroma will come back again in the New Testament. What is the liturgy to which we are called? Is there a sacrifice? No. And as I say, one of the worst things that ever happened to Protestant churches is that someone began calling this piece of furniture an altar. And we've talked about this. It is not an altar, that is a misrepresentation. 
There is no sacrifice here that calls for an altar. The church itself is an altar in that sense, that we are offering up our hearts and our lives. This is where the sacramental churches and the more sacramental they are, the more confused they make this entire issue for Christians. And of course, this is one of the major issues in the Reformation where the rejection of the mass was not just a rejection of its priestly character. It was a rejection of the fact that the mass is a continual re-crucifixion, a continual sacrifice of the Lord. In a Catholic mass, there is an altar which refutes the words of Jesus, “It is finished.” You see similar kinds of passages in the New Testament, in Philippians 4 verse 18, in 1st Peter 2:5. Jesus is once for all this sacrifice and aroma pleasing to God. 
Notice something else that we see here in Leviticus about this burnt offering. There's something here we might miss if we go too fast. Notice what is to be done as the animal is brought, look at verse 4, he, that is the one bringing the offering, shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him. So what's happening there? The physical picture, the picture reminds of what's actually happening here which is extremely important. So the animal is brought, in this case from the herd. And so you have a goat or you have a cow, in this case, a male cow, it's a bull. Maybe younger, maybe older, but it has to be without blemish and it is brought from the herd. In both cases, it is an acceptable sacrifice. It is brought, and as the animal is being prepared for the sacrifice, what does the bringer of the sacrifice do? He lays his hands upon the animal. Why? Well, number one, it certainly would indicate he's taking responsibility for this sacrifice. “This is my sacrifice. I'm bringing this sacrifice.” But there's something else there and you feel it. There is an implied transference of sin and guilt from the one bringing the sacrifice to this animal. This is a substitutionary sacrifice. It is not the substitutionary sacrifice, for as we know the blood of bulls and goats cannot atone for sin, but they are a sacrifice that will hold back God's wrath against sin, as Paul makes clear in Romans chapter 3. This laying on of the hands it's something that is of critical importance, because this is a substitutionary sign. 
Now, Psalm 88:7. The Psalmist says to God, in his confession of sin, “Your wrath lays heavy upon me.” Psalm 88:7, “Your wrath lays heavy upon me.” That was the Psalmist’ understanding of the nature of his guilt and his sin. It was laying upon him heavily. The same kind of language is used here about the hands being laid on the animal. It is a heavy laying on of hands. Here's the thing we need to recognize as Christians. Right now our sin is heavily upon someone. Our salvation is brought about by the Father, through the Son in such a way that our sin no longer lays heavily upon us, but our sin was imputed to Christ. Our sin lays heavily upon someone. In Israel, the sin of the nation will lay heavy upon someone. Upon whom will it lie? That's a huge question.
It gives us really incredible encouragement as we come to worship. We're coming to worship and to celebrate the fact that our sin lays heavily on Christ. Jesus paid it all. All to him we owe. Sin had left its crimson spot, he washed it white as snow. Our sin was not made a light thing in the atonement of Christ. It was imputed to Christ in full. On the cross, the Father, as it were, lay his hands upon his son. This language is rich with Christological meaning that Israel could only anticipate but that we have to see in retrospect. 
You'll notice that the animal here is to be completely consumed. No part of this sacrifice is to remain, even for the priests. They are to burn it all. We talked about the fact that the undignified parts are to be washed. And that means the entrails and the back legs, simply because you know what happens to the back legs of animals in the pasture. They are to be washed and again, this is just a part of “Wash me, wash me clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.” The washing language is not just about illustrations or bathing. It is right out of Levitical imagery. That washing is washing for atonement. It's washing, even for sacrifice as we see here. 
Now one thing you just need to understand is that this means that the sons of Aaron had a very bloody job to do. This is something that you don't get from Sunday school pictures you're shown as an elementary school child in Sunday school. You don't get the image of what these priests were doing. Remember something else. Those of you who were with me going verse by verse and word by word through Exodus, remember all the scrupulous detail to the beauty of the priestly garments. Understand that every time they performed a sacrifice, those priestly garments ended up covered in blood, which is another picture that we just miss because we don't have the experience of Israel. Even as they will start out with these clean garments, the first sacrifice that comes is a sacrifice in which there will be blood everywhere. 
I did grow up, basically, in a grocery store. My dad was in the grocery business my entire life. He was manager of a Publix store, which is by the way coming to Louisville, the fourth quarter of 2022, I think. It was a different world when I grew up. I went in real early in the morning. I started working for my dad the day I turned 14. I went in real early in the morning and the butcher's uniforms were white. They didn't stay white for long. I determined, I was 14 years old, that was not the job I wanted. They had to do things that I did not particularly enjoy seeing done, although there was a wonder about it, I really did not want to do that. All you have to do is look at a butcher's apron in the course of the day and then multiply that many times out because those animals have been bled. The animals brought for sacrifice have not been bled. It would make what you would see in a butcher shop look absolutely, and quite accurately, pale by comparison. 
The whole point of this is that the animal is to be brought, it is to be rightly handled. Every part of it is to be used in the sacrifice. The priest shall burn all of it on the altar, a burnt offering, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord. That is the burnt offering. But very quickly we are told of his gift for a burnt offering is from the flock, that is a sheep or a goat, he shall bring it, “a male without blemish, and he shall kill it on the north side of the altar before the LORD, and Aaron’s sons the priests shall throw its blood against the sides of the altar. And he shall cut it into pieces, with its head and its fat and the priest shall arrange them on the wood that is on the fire on the altar, but the entrails and the legs he shall wash with water. And the priest shall offer all of it and burn it on the altar; it is a burnt offering, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord.” (Leviticus 1:10-13) 
You have first from the herd and then from the flock. This is from the most superior sacrifice, the greatest sacrifice, which was a bull or a male from the herd. Then the second is a male from the flock. The third is a bird. Do you notice the structure is almost exactly the same? When it was a sheep or a goat or an animal from the herd. The bull, the sheep, the goat, they’re to be treated basically the same. The picture would be the same. The picture's a little bit different for the bird. Verse 14, “If his offering to the LORD is a burnt offering of birds, then he shall bring his offering of turtledoves or pigeons. And the priest shall bring it to the altar and wring off its head and burn it on the altar. Its blood shall be drained out on the side of the altar. He shall remove its crop with its contents and cast it beside the altar on the east side, in the place for ashes. He shall tear it open by its wings, but shall not sever it completely. And the priest shall burn it on the altar, on the wood that is on the fire. It is a burnt offering, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the LORD.” (Leviticus 1:14-17)
I really can't remember the first time I read the Scripture from Genesis to Revelation. I was about 13 years old. And I just admit, I had no theological imagination for why this would be necessary. I mean, here it is. It's in the Bible. We're supposed to know this. The details are graphic. It's a turtledove or a pigeon, and those are related. I'm not sure exactly how to tell the difference, but nonetheless, a turtledove or a pigeon. It's a big bird with a big chest. Turns out that's important. You bring the big chested bird to the altar and with hands, you basically rip it wide open. The inside of the bird is dumped to be put in the ashes. The bird’s flesh and its head are to be flayed out. Most commentators looking at this will say that the effect of not tearing the bird in pieces means that it remains intact and recognizably a bird, rather than just being torn apart in pieces. That's why the Lord here tells Israel not to tear the bird apart in pieces, but rather to rip it open and lay it flat for the sacrifice. The priest shall offer all of it and burn it on the altar as a burnt offering, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord. 
That's chapter one. From the herd, from the flock or a bird, scrupulous detail as to how exactly the bird offering is to take place, but parallelism between all three. Who would bring the one and who would bring the others? This has to do at least in part to two things. Number one, the relative wealth of the one who is bringing the sacrifice. Some accommodation is made in this three tier structure for those who may not be wealthy enough. They may not have a herd. They may not be able to bring an animal from the herd. They may not be able to bring even an animal from the flock, but they can buy birds. 
Remember that by the time you get to first century Judaism, what's called second temple Judaism, you have the sale of such things for sacrifice. The sale of all kinds of wares, such that Jesus will cleanse the temple, the money changers. Involved in this entire enterprise are those who have the animals for sale so that by the time you get to second temple Judaism, you don't necessarily bring your animal from Galilee down. Instead, you purchase an animal there. You have various various pictures here. Repeatedly in the Old and the New Testament, but particularly the Old Testament, you will see where there's a sacrifice, the burnt offering, and it's birds. That indicates someone who's of lowly estate. This is someone who can't bring a bull and can't bring a male goat or a sheep but can bring a bird, or arrange for a bird. That's the first issue here. The second issue is an issue of the heart. Let's say that someone, in bringing a bird offering, may at some point bring any one of these three animals, even of a certain degree of wealth, because there would not be an infinite number of bulls available. Even for someone who might be very, very wealthy. That's another reason why, at least in part, this is to be a male animal. The male animal is considered superior to the female animal. 
That continues today in such things as bloodlines of even thoroughbred horses. A part of it is because one male is in reproductive value, more valuable than one female because of the fact that the male can impregnate many females. The male was more precious and more costly in this respect. Israel's thinking constantly in these terms. But as you think of these offerings, these burnt offerings, the offering of a bull would be a major offering. But you'll notice that in God's eyes, the one who can bring only a turtledove is also offering a sacrifice pleasing under the Lord with an aroma pleasing to the Lord. There’s another aspect of these burnt offerings that certainly comes to our mind. This is the fact that this is in a culture in which the sacrifice of any animal could be very costly. This is a culture made up of people who must live off of their animals and off of their crops. They must live off of these animals. Many of these people may very seldom have had, for instance, beef to eat. Notice that the priority here is the sacrificial system. And so even as we think of worship, this is very costly for Israel. And it's very costly in another way. 
Mary and I were out on the boat on the lake over Labor Day weekend. We were coming in the evening and I smelled a campfire. I turned to her and said, “That's just always a good smell.” Somebody was cooking something on that campfire, and it smelled mighty fine. Things smell better as I get hungrier. But imagine what it would've been like to be in the camp of Israel, with the sacrificial system going on and to be hungry. Imagine what it would be like to smell these smells, and maybe you do not even have access to such an animal. What you would be told over and over again by olfactory senses and all the rest is that the centrality of everything is God. That God is the superior one whose demand is first and foremost, and must be recognized as such. What Israel may not enjoy except on festival days, and perhaps even then scaled by wealth, is what is to be brought to the Lord as the first function, the first responsibility of Israel. 
You see this echo also throughout Scripture in which we are to bring our best to the Lord. That means even the disposition of our hearts. It means even the use of our voices. It means that we are to bring our best because of the solitary, singular priority of worship, worship of the one, true, living God. The burnt sacrifice is a sacrifice that would be so obvious to the entire community. Everyone would know that the liturgical life of Israel is central. It would be such that the smell of the entire community, in the sense of Israel as an encampment, or Israel later, as Jerusalem will become the home to the temple. It will be that to approach Jerusalem will be to approach, not just sights and sounds but smells. 
Here comes another thought for us as Christians. What about how un-smelly our worship is? Israel's worship was loud, almost chaotic. When you look at and approach the temple it would have been absolutely chaotic, which is a part of the judgment that Jesus brings upon them. But even if it had been entirely orderly, according to the dictates of the Lord, it still would've been a pretty confusing thing to see. I've never really had to worry about bringing a goat to church. I do have a hint that it would be even more difficult than bringing a toddler. it's one thing to walk up and to worry about where to put our car and how to get inside. But just imagine trying to get through birds and livestock. Birds and livestock do things, even as you bring them to the tent of meeting, they're still doing stuff and all this is just going on. 
And then all the noise. Animals aren't quiet, especially when they tend to be scared and confused about where they are. Birds, just don't even get me started, and pigeons, seriously. You look at this and then you think, well, here we are. There's not a bird in sight. No goats, no sheep, no bulls, not even grain or cereal, as we shall see in chapter two in the grain offering. 
Do we have less? Is this less? This has been a part of the liturgical envy that has marked Christians from the beginning and has led many into error. For one thing, the olfactory. We just don't have any. Well, we kinda hope not to have olfactory worship, let's just put it that way. The fact is that there isn't any, or there isn’t supposed to be any distinctive smell of Christian worship. But there are churches where the first thing that you will confront is the smell of the place. 
I've seen this more in the east, more than in the west. The further east you go in Europe, into the lands of orthodoxy, the more the smells grow in intensity. Some of you may have been in St. Mark's there in Venice. You walk in and the first thing that hits you is just, boom, smell. For centuries, oils and fragrances and incense have marked this place. There isn't a molecule of the stone that doesn't cry out all these smells. You walk in here and it's dried paint, that's it! We have less. But liturgical envy leads a lot of people to want what have sometimes been called the smells and bells of liturgical worship. “So we're gonna try to bring that in because we need some noise, that's what we need. We need some noise and some cacophony and if it's not gonna be bulls and sheep and goats and birds, then let it be bells. By that I don't mean bells in a tower, I mean the bells that you walk in some of these Eastern churches and there's just lots of noise that's going on, because we need some noise. And we need candles. We need smells. We need lots of smells.”
I am an Anglican in music. I used to, as this very strange teenager, I would have records and I would be able to listen to some of this music. I was in choirs and actually sang some of this music. Then the CD and before that the cassette and now we can stream just about anything. I think one of the most beautiful arrangements of “O Come All Ye Faithful” is at Westminster Abbey. You can YouTube this - that's a verb, by the way, YouTube - and you can Google, you didn't know you could but you can, it's a verb. You can YouTube the Christmas Eve service at Westminster Abbey in London and the best one is from about five years ago. Here's the thing you're going to notice. Westminster Abbey is such a moving place, simply because of the history that kind of overwhelms me there. Nothing liturgical but theological and historical. This particular service is very typical of what goes on there at Westminster Abbey on Christmas Eve. Everybody processes in to, “O Come All Ye Faithful”. How appropriate is that? “O Come All Ye Faithful”, let's come. So they come, except between the third and the fourth verse there's this long interregnum. The organ is doing magnificent things. All the anti trumpets are blowing. It was better when I couldn't see it. It was better when I heard it but I didn't see it because now I see it and what do I see? I see the Dean of Westminster take a censer filled with incense and swing it around. I have done things in my life that I just felt would make me extremely self-conscious, but I’ve got to tell you, whatever it takes, I would not have it to stand in front of you with a burning incense thing on a chain and swing it around. I just lack whatever gene evidently that is. And I not only have to see him fling this thing around, but he's taking the incense so that it gets on the people. 
“You just come here and blow a little on you, and blow a little on you.” There's a nativity scene and I'm thinking, “No, don't do this.” First of all, don't have the nativity scene, but okay. If you’ve got to have one, don't do what you're about to do. Sure enough, he goes over and puts some incense on the nativity scene. At this point, I just close my eyes, “Please give me the music.” He stops that and then the final resounding verse of “O Come All Ye Faithful”. I look at that and the smells and the bells, is that what you're here for? And we don't have any of that. 
Here we are in nonconformity, nonconformity in part to that. We just keep looking at this building but we don't really look at it a whole lot, because it's not made to look at. It's just a reminder of the fact that there is this liturgical envy that falls upon Protestants and evangelicals and especially those of us of the Puritan stripe, and we say that proudly. It’s a reminder of the fact that there are things we don't have in worship that others have in worship. It's because we don't think we're supposed to have them. You look at Israel and you say, “Israel had all this cacophony. Israel had all this noise. Israel had all this blood. Israel had all these smells. Israel had all this liturgical detail.” That's just not what we're given. 
Why are we robbed of all this? Where are our birds? Why are we robbed of all of this? Israel had this picture all the time, over and over again every day. Remember this is not just the Lord's day. It's not just the Sabbath. It's very different, this is daily. There isn't any Lord's day here, it's daily! If Israel needed that picture, don't we need that picture? If Israel needed these sights and these sounds, how do we get around with a God-centered world if we don't have the God-centering olfactory and auditory input that Israel had. If Israel needed the daily ritual, then how is it that we don't need this? 
Evidently, it's because it's all fulfilled in Christ. But that still raises that question and it's the final question we'll consider this morning. If we don't do this, then what do we do? In other words, what is it that we do? What is it that we do that gets us through the week in a God centered way? What is it we do in worship that makes the one, true and living God so evident, so infinitely prominent that it orders everything we think and everything we do and everything we are? We are left with what are rightly called the ordinary means of grace. The ordinary means of grace. They're not extraordinary. They're ordinary. That doesn't mean they're ordinary in the sense of something to be taken for granted. They're ordinary in that these are the plain, simple, ordered means of grace. First of all, the preaching of the word of God, which you'll notice is absolutely absent here. It's absolutely absent. It's in the background, not in the foreground. They're living Leviticus, they're not reading Leviticus. For us it is the preaching of the word of God, which is why, rightly ordered, the building we would use for worship would have a pulpit in the middle for the centrality of the word of God.
The fellowship of the saints, an ordinary means of grace. We're together and we encourage one another with Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. We pray for one another. We draw strength from one another. There's something very different in singing one of these hymns alone than singing them together. We sing them together, that's the ordinary means of grace. The ordinances, baptism and the Lord’s supper, they center us. Even on the Lord's days when we do not have the activity before our eyes, they're always embedded in the worship. And there is the expectation that they're embedded in our very understanding of who we are as a church. 
If you are frustrated with the ordinary means of grace, you're frustrated with the once for all completeness of the atonement accomplished by Christ. With the horrible sounds, with the horrible noise, with the horrible sights, with the horrible auditory, olfactory and in every other sense imaginable, the horrible events of that Friday that we dare to call good - all of this came to an absolute end. That is why the veil in the temple was broken. That is why Jesus said, “It is finished.” This is why the apostle Paul will say it is infinitely superior. The writer of the book of Hebrews will say the very same thing. It is infinitely superior, this new covenant, in every way to the old. If we are envious for the smells and bells, it's like Israel looking backward to Egypt. What we have is infinitely better.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 48:02 https://albertmohler.com/?p=55625 Audio, Biblical References, Exposition, Leviticus, Leviticus Series, Speaking and Teaching, Video noThird Avenue Baptist Church Louisville, KY Leviticus 1:1-17 — Leviticus Series September 12, 2021 Good morning. It’s good to see you all and a privilege to be together for the study of God’s Word. Let’s pray together. Father, with great joy we come before you, we come before your Word. We pray that your Spirit will open our eyes to see, our hearts to receive the Word, but also that you will, during this time, use our study of Leviticus to draw us to Christ. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, amen.  Someone came up to me during the week this past week and said, “I understand you’re now teaching verse by verse through Leviticus.” I said, “That’s exactly what I’m doing.” And they said, “How’s it going?” And I said, “Three weeks, two verses.”  That’s how it’s going so far. It will pick up in the sense that there are natural breaks in the text, but Leviticus takes some time to enter and to consider. For one thing, we are entering a world that even for Christians is more alien than we might like to think. When you look at even the first two verses of Leviticus, you see something that to Evangelical Protestants is recognizably Biblical, but not recognizably liturgical.  I am so thankful for the way that we order Christian worship here at Third Avenue Baptist Church. It is ordered here basically as it would have been ordered during any of the major churches of the Reformation. It is ordered here by the Scriptures, that is the regulative principle at work. At least in theological theory, you ought to be able to go to any church of like practice and basically you’re going to see worship follow a very similar kind of pattern. But there is not a specificity about our worship in a way like we have already seen in just a couple verses in Leviticus, which marks the liturgical responsibility of Israel regarding scrupulousness in attention to the sacrifices.  There is no similar text in the New Testament that says God orders the church, “When you come together, you must do exactly this, this person is to do exactly that.” Now, of course, we have: the preacher of the Word, we have the office of the elder that is set apart for teaching, we have liturgical orders in the New Testament, not only for the centrality of the preaching of the Word, but for the singing together and “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs”, we have prayer, all very clearly indicated in terms of what we are taught to do and what we see modeled in the early church in the book of Acts and in the Epistles. But it’s just not the same, it doesn’t feel the same. There’s no situation in which God called together all the Church and said, “Now sit down and I’m going to tell you exactly how you are going to do this. You do not deviate from this pattern, you do it exactly this way.” That just calls us to the huge question, did God get looser in the New Testament? Is this a God who just grew exhausted with this “hyper-scrupulosity”? That’s what the liberal, Biblical scholars of the 20th century called it. “God’s hyper scrupulous and in the church he is less hyper-scrupulous.” Well of course not. Number one, God doesn’t change. Number two, the New Testament is not the correction of the Old. That’s a fundamental issue. The New Testament is not a correction of the Old. The New Covenant is the fulfillment of the Old. Anything here that seems alien to us is fulfilled in the New Covenant. That’s helpful for us to understand and that will continue as we consider much of the Mosaic law. Nothing is nullified, not one word of Scripture, not one jot, not one tittle falls away unfulfilled. There is no New Testament correction of the Old, in any sense. Anything that seems alien to us or odd to us is that which is explained by fulfillment in Christ. And if there’s any part of the Old Testament that may seem alien to us that is fulfilled in Christ, it certainly is first and foremost the sacrificial system.  We began by looking at the first two verses of Leviticus. We’re just going to read them and then enter into this longer passage about the first kind of offering that is detailed in Leviticus: the burnt offering.  “The LORD called Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting” (Leviticus 1:1), now wait just a minute. One of the things we could have spent time doing, even in looking at those first few words, is just to remember how the Lord calls persons and speaks to them. Who is the first person? It’s in the opening of Genesis. The Lord called to Adam and spoke to him. This is something about the imago dei. The Lord made all the creatures, but he doesn’t speak to your dog. Your dog is under no impression that he does. If you think God is speaking to your dog, the problem is you. We were talking just this week about the fact that the only creature that thinks that COVID is a great thing is the dog. First of all, you have people staying home which is exactly what they want. If you’re quarantined, you’re stuck in and the only person you can see is the dog. As a friend of mine said, “If you have COVID, you can’t smell the dog.” The dog thinks it’s a very good deal. God made all the creatures for his glory, but he speaks only to us.  At numerous times, the Lord will call to someone and speak to them. In this case, the Lord called Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘When any one of you brings an offering to the Lord, you shall bring your offering of livestock from the herd or from the flock. If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he shall offer a male without blemish. He shall bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting that he may be accepted before the Lord. He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him. Then he shall kill the bull before the Lord, and Aaron’s sons the priests shall bring the blood and throw the blood against the sides of the altar that is at the entrance of the tent of meeting. And he shall flay the burnt offering and cut it into pieces, and the sons of Aaron the priest shall put fire on the altar and arrange wood on the fire. And Aaron’s sons the priests shall arrange the pieces, the head, and the fat, on the wood that is on the fire on the altar; but its entrails and its legs he shall wash with water. And the priest shall burn all of it on the altar, as a burnt offering, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord.’” (Leviticus 1:2-9) Five major kinds of offerings or sacrifices that we will find in Leviticus. First, the burnt offering and that's where we are right now. And then the grain offering, the peace offering, the sin offering, and the guilt offering. If that sounds complicated, it is! We will take every one of them in turn, but the first is the burnt offering. And this burnt offering is not explicitly a sacrifice for sin. It is a sacrifice for worship. So that's where Leviticus begins. The first of the sacrifices is a sacrifice for offering. It is to offer under the Lord a pleasing aroma by this burnt sacrifice. But the burnt sacrifice is so fundamental. And furthermore, in the New Testament, when there are references to Christ as sacrifice, it is often the reference to this particular sacrifice.  Now it is also the case that, for example, as you look through the Old Testament, there are situations in which we are told that a sacrifice is not accepted, that the sacrifice is considered unacceptable to the Lord. You can see it in a passage like Jeremiah chapter 14:12, where the Lord says, “Though they fast, I will not hear their cry, and though they offer burnt offering and grain offering, I will not accept them.” So the false prophets, for example, or the prophets who were misleading Israel, or Israel when it is into idolatry and disobedience, the Lord simply will not receive it. Even in the language that is used in the Old Testament, he will not allow his nostrils to receive their sacrifice or their sacrifice is a stench in his nostrils rather than the pleasing aroma that is mentioned here.  Now, what's also interesting is that this pleasing aroma is liturgical. A part of Israel's worship is to make certain that the Lord in observing their worship and even in this particular sacrifice, which has the smoke coming up from the altar and coming right up towards the heavens, that God in essence receives this as a pleasing aroma. It is a form of worship. And that's what liturgy is. It’s liturgia, it's what we are called to do in worship. And you say, well there's Israel. Israel is to do the sacrifice of the burnt offering, a male without blemish and there are several things here we need to note, but I want us to think about the last word in the paragraph, that last phrase, “a food offering with a pleasant aroma to the Lord.” This burnt offering produces an aroma. And again, that's Israel, the Old Testament, that's the old covenant. It is literally a pleasing aroma. So there it is, a pleasing aroma for Israel. But what about for the church?  Well, consider a text like Hebrews chapter 13. If you turn to Hebrews chapter 13 and we look at verse 15 through 16, we read this, “Through him,” that means through Christ, “let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.” So this is the continual offering up of a sacrifice of praise, even a pleasing aroma will come back again in the New Testament. What is the liturgy to which we are called? Is there a sacrifice? No. And as I say, one of the worst things that ever happened to Protestant churches is that someone began calling this piece of furniture an altar. And we've talked about this. It is not an altar, that is a misrepresentation.  There is no sacrifice here that calls for an altar. The church itself is an altar in that sense, that we are offering up our hearts and our lives. This is where the sacramental churches and the more sacramental they are, the more confused they make this entire issue for Christians. And of course, this is one of the major issues in the Reformation where the rejection of the mass was not just a rejection of its priestly character. It was a rejection of the fact that the mass is a continual re-crucifixion, a continual sacrifice of the Lord. In a Catholic mass, there is an altar which refutes the words of Jesus, “It is finished.” You see similar kinds of passages in the New Testament, in Philippians 4 verse 18, in 1st Peter 2:5. Jesus is once for all this sacrifice and aroma pleasing to God.  Notice something else that we see here in Leviticus about this burnt offering. There's something here we might miss if we go too fast. Notice what is to be done as the animal is brought, look at verse 4, he, that is the one bringing the offering, shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him. So what's happening there? The physical picture, the picture reminds of what's actually happening here which is extremely important. So the animal is brought, in this case from the herd. And so you have a goat or you have a cow, in this case, a male cow, it's a bull. Maybe younger, maybe older, but it has to be without blemish and it is brought from the herd. In both cases, it is an acceptable sacrifice. It is brought, and as the animal is being prepared for the sacrifice, what does the bringer of the sacrifice do? He lays his hands upon the animal. Why? Well, number one, it certainly would indicate he's taking responsibility for this sacrifice. “This is my sacrifice. I'm bringing this sacrifice.” But there's something else there and you feel it. There is an implied transference of sin and guilt from the one bringing the sacrifice to this animal. This is a substitutionary sacrifice. It is not the substitutionary sacrifice, for as we know the blood of bulls and goats cannot atone for sin, but they are a sacrifice that will hold back God's wrath against sin, as Paul makes clear in Romans chapter 3. This laying on of the hands it's something that is of critical importance, because this is a substitutionary sign.  Now, Psalm 88:7. The Psalmist says to God, in his confession of sin, “Your wrath lays heavy upon me.” Psalm 88:7, “Your wrath lays heavy upon me.” That was the Psalmist’ understanding of the nature of his guilt and his sin. It was laying upon him heavily. The same kind of language is used here about the hands being laid on the animal. It is a heavy laying on of hands. Here's the thing we need to recognize as Christians. Right now our sin is heavily upon someone. Our salvation is brought about by the Father, through the Son in such a way that our sin no longer lays heavily upon us, but our sin was imputed to Christ. Our sin lays heavily upon someone. In Israel, the sin of the nation will lay heavy upon someone. Upon whom will it lie? That's a huge question. It gives us really incredible encouragement as we come to worship. We're coming to worship and to celebrate the fact that our sin lays heavily on Christ. Jesus paid it all. All to him we owe. Sin had left its crimson spot, he washed it white as snow. Our sin was not made a light thing in the atonement of Christ. It was imputed to Christ in full. On the cross, the Father, as it were, lay his hands upon his son. This language is rich with Christological meaning that Israel could only anticipate but that we have to see in retrospect.  You'll notice that the animal here is to be completely consumed. No part of this sacrifice is to remain, even for the priests. They are to burn it all. We talked about the fact that the undignified parts are to be washed. And that means the entrails and the back legs, simply because you know what happens to the back legs of animals in the pasture. They are to be washed and again, this is just a part of “Wash me, wash me clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.” The washing language is not just about illustrations or bathing. It is right out of Levitical imagery. That washing is washing for atonement. It's washing, even for sacrifice as we see here.  Now one thing you just need to understand is that this means that the sons of Aaron had a very bloody job to do. This is something that you don't get from Sunday school pictures you're shown as an elementary school child in Sunday school. You don't get the image of what these priests were doing. Remember something else. Those of you who were with me going verse by verse and word by word through Exodus, remember all the scrupulous detail to the beauty of the priestly garments. Understand that every time they performed a sacrifice, those priestly garments ended up covered in blood, which is another picture that we just miss because we don't have the experience of Israel. Even as they will start out with these clean garments, the first sacrifice that comes is a sacrifice in which there will be blood everywhere.  I did grow up, basically, in a grocery store. My dad was in the grocery business my entire life. He was manager of a Publix store, which is by the way coming to Louisville, the fourth quarter of 2022, I think. It was a different world when I grew up. I went in real early in the morning. I started working for my dad the day I turned 14. I went in real early in the morning and the butcher's uniforms were white. They didn't stay white for long. I determined, I was 14 years old, that was not the job I wanted. They had to do things that I did not particularly enjoy seeing done, although there was a wonder about it, I really did not want to do that. All you have to do is look at a butcher's apron in the course of the day and then multiply that many times out because those animals have been bled. The animals brought for sacrifice have not been bled. It would make what you would see in a butcher shop look absolutely, and quite accurately, pale by comparison.  The whole point of this is that the animal is to be brought, it is to be rightly handled. Every part of it is to be used in the sacrifice. The priest shall burn all of it on the altar, a burnt offering, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord. That is the burnt offering. But very quickly we are told of his gift for a burnt offering is from the flock, that is a sheep or a goat, he shall bring it, “a male without blemish, and he shall kill it on the north side of the altar before the LORD, and Aaron’s sons the priests shall throw its blood against the sides of the altar. And he shall cut it into pieces, with its head and its fat and the priest shall arrange them on the wood that is on the fire on the altar, but the entrails and the legs he shall wash with water. And the priest shall offer all of it and burn it on the altar; it is a burnt offering, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord.” (Leviticus 1:10-13)  You have first from the herd and then from the flock. This is from the most superior sacrifice, the greatest sacrifice, which was a bull or a male from the herd. Then the second is a male from the flock. The third is a bird. Do you notice the structure is almost exactly the same? When it was a sheep or a goat or an animal from the herd. The bull, the sheep, the goat, they’re to be treated basically the same. The picture would be the same. The picture's a little bit different for the bird. Verse 14, “If his offering to the LORD is a burnt offering of birds, then he shall bring his offering of turtledoves or pigeons. And the priest shall bring it to the altar and wring off its head and burn it on the altar. Its blood shall be drained out on the side of the altar. He shall remove its crop with its contents and cast it beside the altar on the east side, in the place for ashes. He shall tear it open by its wings, but shall not sever it completely. And the priest shall burn it on the altar, on the wood that is on the fire. It is a burnt offering, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the LORD.” (Leviticus 1:14-17) I really can't remember the first time I read the Scripture from Genesis to Revelation. I was about 13 years old. And I just admit, I had no theological imagination for why this would be necessary. I mean, here it is. It's in the Bible. We're supposed to know this. The details are graphic. It's a turtledove or a pigeon, and those are related. I'm not sure exactly how to tell the difference, but nonetheless, a turtledove or a pigeon. It's a big bird with a big chest. Turns out that's important. You bring the big chested bird to the altar and with hands, you basically rip it wide open. The inside of the bird is dumped to be put in the ashes. The bird’s flesh and its head are to be flayed out. Most commentators looking at this will say that the effect of not tearing the bird in pieces means that it remains intact and recognizably a bird, rather than just being torn apart in pieces. That's why the Lord here tells Israel not to tear the bird apart in pieces, but rather to rip it open and lay it flat for the sacrifice. The priest shall offer all of it and burn it on the altar as a burnt offering, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord.  That's chapter one. From the herd, from the flock or a bird, scrupulous detail as to how exactly the bird offering is to take place, but parallelism between all three. Who would bring the one and who would bring the others? This has to do at least in part to two things. Number one, the relative wealth of the one who is bringing the sacrifice. Some accommodation is made in this three tier structure for those who may not be wealthy enough. They may not have a herd. They may not be able to bring an animal from the herd. They may not be able to bring even an animal from the flock, but they can buy birds.  Remember that by the time you get to first century Judaism, what's called second temple Judaism, you have the sale of such things for sacrifice. The sale of all kinds of wares, such that Jesus will cleanse the temple, the money changers. Involved in this entire enterprise are those who have the animals for sale so that by the time you get to second temple Judaism, you don't necessarily bring your animal from Galilee down. Instead, you purchase an animal there. You have various various pictures here. Repeatedly in the Old and the New Testament, but particularly the Old Testament, you will see where there's a sacrifice, the burnt offering, and it's birds. That indicates someone who's of lowly estate. This is someone who can't bring a bull and can't bring a male goat or a sheep but can bring a bird, or arrange for a bird. That's the first issue here. The second issue is an issue of the heart. Let's say that someone, in bringing a bird offering, may at some point bring any one of these three animals, even of a certain degree of wealth, because there would not be an infinite number of bulls available. Even for someone who might be very, very wealthy. That's another reason why, at least in part, this is to be a male animal. The male animal is considered superior to the female animal.  That continues today in such things as bloodlines of even thoroughbred horses. A part of it is because one male is in reproductive value, more valuable than one female because of the fact that the male can impregnate many females. The male was more precious and more costly in this respect. Israel's thinking constantly in these terms. But as you think of these offerings, these burnt offerings, the offering of a bull would be a major offering. But you'll notice that in God's eyes, the one who can bring only a turtledove is also offering a sacrifice pleasing under the Lord with an aroma pleasing to the Lord. There’s another aspect of these burnt offerings that certainly comes to our mind. This is the fact that this is in a culture in which the sacrifice of any animal could be very costly. This is a culture made up of people who must live off of their animals and off of their crops. They must live off of these animals. Many of these people may very seldom have had, for instance, beef to eat. Notice that the priority here is the sacrificial system. And so even as we think of worship, this is very costly for Israel. And it's very costly in another way.  Mary and I were out on the boat on the lake over Labor Day weekend. We were coming in the evening and I smelled a campfire. I turned to her and said, “That's just always a good smell.” Somebody was cooking something on that campfire, and it smelled mighty fine. Things smell better as I get hungrier. But imagine what it would've been like to be in the camp of Israel, with the sacrificial system going on and to be hungry. Imagine what it would be like to smell these smells, and maybe you do not even have access to such an animal. What you would be told over and over again by olfactory senses and all the rest is that the centrality of everything is God. That God is the superior one whose demand is first and foremost, and must be recognized as such. What Israel may not enjoy except on festival days, and perhaps even then scaled by wealth, is what is to be brought to the Lord as the first function, the first responsibility of Israel.  You see this echo also throughout Scripture in which we are to bring our best to the Lord. That means even the disposition of our hearts. It means even the use of our voices. It means that we are to bring our best because of the solitary, singular priority of worship, worship of the one, true, living God. The burnt sacrifice is a sacrifice that would be so obvious to the entire community. Everyone would know that the liturgical life of Israel is central. It would be such that the smell of the entire community, in the sense of Israel as an encampment, or Israel later, as Jerusalem will become the home to the temple. It will be that to approach Jerusalem will be to approach, not just sights and sounds but smells.  Here comes another thought for us as Christians. What about how un-smelly our worship is? Israel's worship was loud, almost chaotic. When you look at and approach the temple it would have been absolutely chaotic, which is a part of the judgment that Jesus brings upon them. But even if it had been entirely orderly, according to the dictates of the Lord, it still would've been a pretty confusing thing to see. I've never really had to worry about bringing a goat to church. I do have a hint that it would be even more difficult than bringing a toddler. it's one thing to walk up and to worry about where to put our car and how to get inside. But just imagine trying to get through birds and livestock. Birds and livestock do things, even as you bring them to the tent of meeting, they're still doing stuff and all this is just going on.  And then all the noise. Animals aren't quiet, especially when they tend to be scared and confused about where they are. Birds, just don't even get me started, and pigeons, seriously. You look at this and then you think, well, here we are. There's not a bird in sight. No goats, no sheep, no bulls, not even grain or cereal, as we shall see in chapter two in the grain offering.  Do we have less? Is this less? This has been a part of the liturgical envy that has marked Christians from the beginning and has led many into error. For one thing, the olfactory. We just don't have any. Well, we kinda hope not to have olfactory worship, let's just put it that way. The fact is that there isn't any, or there isn’t supposed to be any distinctive smell of Christian worship. But there are churches where the first thing that you will confront is the smell of the place.  I've seen this more in the east, more than in the west. The further east you go in Europe, into the lands of orthodoxy, the more the smells grow in intensity. Some of you may have been in St. Mark's there in Venice. You walk in and the first thing that hits you is just, boom, smell. For centuries, oils and fragrances and incense have marked this place. There isn't a molecule of the stone that doesn't cry out all these smells. You walk in here and it's dried paint, that's it! We have less. But liturgical envy leads a lot of people to want what have sometimes been called the smells and bells of liturgical worship. “So we're gonna try to bring that in because we need some noise, that's what we need. We need some noise and some cacophony and if it's not gonna be bulls and sheep and goats and birds, then let it be bells. By that I don't mean bells in a tower, I mean the bells that you walk in some of these Eastern churches and there's just lots of noise that's going on, because we need some noise. And we need candles. We need smells. We need lots of smells.” I am an Anglican in music. I used to, as this very strange teenager, I would have records and I would be able to listen to some of this music. I was in choirs and actually sang some of this music. Then the CD and before that the cassette and now we can stream just about anything. I think one of the most beautiful arrangements of “O Come All Ye Faithful” is at Westminster Abbey. You can YouTube this - that's a verb, by the way, YouTube - and you can Google, you didn't know you could but you can, it's a verb. You can YouTube the Christmas Eve service at Westminster Abbey in London and the best one is from about five years ago. Here's the thing you're going to notice. Westminster Abbey is such a moving place, simply because of the history that kind of overwhelms me there. Nothing liturgical but theological and historical. This particular service is very typical of what goes on there at Westminster Abbey on Christmas Eve. Everybody processes in to, “O Come All Ye Faithful”. How appropriate is that? “O Come All Ye Faithful”, let's come. So they come, except between the third and the fourth verse there's this long interregnum. The organ is doing magnificent things. All the anti trumpets are blowing. It was better when I couldn't see it. It was better when I heard it but I didn't see it because now I see it and what do I see? I see the Dean of Westminster take a censer filled with incense and swing it around. I have done things in my life that I just felt would make me extremely self-conscious, but I’ve got to tell you, whatever it takes, I would not have it to stand in front of you with a burning incense thing on a chain and swing it around. I just lack whatever gene evidently that is. And I not only have to see him fling this thing around, but he's taking the incense so that it gets on the people.  “You just come here and blow a little on you, and blow a little on you.” There's a nativity scene and I'm thinking, “No, don't do this.” First of all, don't have the nativity scene, but okay. If you’ve got to have one, don't do what you're about to do. Sure enough, he goes over and puts some incense on the nativity scene. At this point, I just close my eyes, “Please give me the music.” He stops that and then the final resounding verse of “O Come All Ye Faithful”. I look at that and the smells and the bells, is that what you're here for? And we don't have any of that.  Here we are in nonconformity, nonconformity in part to that. We just keep looking at this building but we don't really look at it a whole lot, because it's not made to look at. It's just a reminder of the fact that there is this liturgical envy that falls upon Protestants and evangelicals and especially those of us of the Puritan stripe, and we say that proudly. It’s a reminder of the fact that there are things we don't have in worship that others have in worship. It's because we don't think we're supposed to have them. You look at Israel and you say, “Israel had all this cacophony. Israel had all this noise. Israel had all this blood. Israel had all these smells. Israel had all this liturgical detail.” That's just not what we're given.  Why are we robbed of all this? Where are our birds? Why are we robbed of all of this? Israel had this picture all the time, over and over again every day. Remember this is not just the Lord's day. It's not just the Sabbath. It's very different, this is daily. There isn't any Lord's day here, it's daily! If Israel needed that picture, don't we need that picture? If Israel needed these sights and these sounds, how do we get around with a God-centered world if we don't have the God-centering olfactory and auditory input that Israel had. If Israel needed the daily ritual, then how is it that we don't need this?  Evidently, it's because it's all fulfilled in Christ. But that still raises that question and it's the final question we'll consider this morning. If we don't do this, then what do we do? In other words, what is it that we do? What is it that we do that gets us through the week in a God centered way? What is it we do in worship that makes the one, true and living God so evident, so infinitely prominent that it orders everything we think and everything we do and everything we are? We are left with what are rightly called the ordinary means of grace. The ordinary means of grace. They're not extraordinary. They're ordinary. That doesn't mean they're ordinary in the sense of something to be taken for granted. They're ordinary in that these are the plain, simple, ordered means of grace. First of all, the preaching of the word of God, which you'll notice is absolutely absent here. It's absolutely absent. It's in the background, not in the foreground. They're living Leviticus, they're not reading Leviticus. For us it is the preaching of the word of God, which is why, rightly ordered, the building we would use for worship would have a pulpit in the middle for the centrality of the word of God. The fellowship of the saints, an ordinary means of grace. We're together and we encourage one another with Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. We pray for one another. We draw strength from one another. There's something very different in singing one of these hymns alone than singing them together. We sing them together, that's the ordinary means of grace. The ordinances, baptism and the Lord’s supper, they center us. Even on the Lord's days when we do not have the activity before our eyes, they're always embedded in the worship. And there is the expectation that they're embedded in our very understanding of who we are as a church.  If you are frustrated with the ordinary means of grace, you're frustrated with the once for all completeness of the atonement accomplished by Christ. With the horrible sounds, with the horrible noise, with the horrible sights, with the horrible auditory, olfactory and in every other sense imaginable, the horrible events of that Friday that we dare to call good - all of this came to an absolute end. That is why the veil in the temple was broken. That is why Jesus said, “It is finished.” This is why the apostle Paul will say it is infinitely superior. The writer of the book of Hebrews will say the very same thing. It is infinitely superior, this new covenant, in every way to the old. If we are envious for the smells and bells, it's like Israel looking backward to Egypt. What we have is infinitely better. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.Third Avenue Baptist Church Louisville, KY Leviticus 1:1-17 — Leviticus Series September 12, 2021 Good morning. It’s good to see you all and a privilege to be together for the study of God’s Word. Let’s pray together. Father, with great joy we come before you, we come before your Word. We pray that your Spirit will open our eyes to see, our hearts to receive the Word, but also that you will, during this time, use our study of Leviticus to draw us to Christ. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, amen.  Someone came up to me during the week this past week and said, “I understand you’re now teaching verse by verse through Leviticus.” I said, “That’s exactly what I’m doing.” And they said, “How’s it going?” And I said, “Three weeks, two verses.”  That’s how it’s going so far. It will pick up in the sense that there are natural breaks in the text, but Leviticus takes some time to enter and to consider. For one thing, we are entering a world that even for Christians is more alien than we might like to think. When you look at even the first two verses of Leviticus, you see something that to Evangelical Protestants is recognizably Biblical, but not recognizably liturgical.  I am so thankful for the way that we order Christian worship here at Third Avenue Baptist Church. It is ordered here basically as it would have been ordered during any of the major churches of the Reformation. It is ordered here by the Scriptures, that is the regulative principle at work. At least in theological theory, you ought to be able to go to any church of like practice and basically you’re going to see worship follow a very similar kind of pattern. But there is not a specificity about our worship in a way like we have already seen in just a couple verses in Leviticus, which marks the liturgical responsibility of Israel regarding scrupulousness in attention to the sacrifices.  There is no similar text in the New Testament that says God orders the church, “When you come together, you must do exactly this, this person is to do exactly that.” Now, of course, we have: the preacher of the Word, we have the office of the elder that is set apart for teaching, we have liturgical orders in the New Testament, not only for the centrality of the preaching of the Word, but for the singing together and “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs”, we have prayer, all very clearly indicated in terms of what we are taught to do and what we see modeled in the early church in the book of Acts and in the Epistles. But it’s just not the same, it doesn’t feel the same. There’s no situation in which God called together all the Church and said, “Now sit down and I’m going to tell you exactly how you are going to do this. You do not deviate from this pattern, you do it exactly this way.” That just calls us to the huge question, did God get looser in the New Testament? Is this a God who just grew exhausted with this “hyper-scrupulosity”? That’s what the liberal, Biblical scholars of the 20th century called it. “God’s hyper scrupulous and in the church he is less hyper-scrupulous.” Well of course not. Number one, God doesn’t change. Number two, the New Testament is not the correction of the Old. That’s a fundamental issue. The New Testament is not a correction of the Old. The New Covenant is the fulfillment of the Old. Anything here that seems alien to us is fulfilled in the New Covenant. That’s helpful for us to understand and that will continue as we consider much of the Mosaic law. Nothing is nullified, not one word of Scripture, not one jot, not one tittle falls away unfulfilled. There is no New Testament correction of the Old, in any sense. Anything that seems alien to us or odd to us is that which is explained by fulfillment in Christ. And if there’s any part of the Old Testament that may seem alien to us that is fulfilled in Christ, it certainly is first and foremost the sacrificial system.  We began by looking at the first two verses of Leviticus. We’re just going to read them and then enter into this longer passage about the first kind of offering that is detailed in Leviticus: the burnt offering.  “The LORD called Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting” (Leviticus 1:1), now wait just a minute. One of the things we could have spent time doing, even in looking at those first few words, is just to remember how the Lord calls persons and speaks to them. Who is the first person? It’s in the opening of Genesis. The Lord called to Adam and spoke to him. This is something about the imago dei. The Lord made all the creatures, but he doesn’t speak to your dog. Your dog is under no impression that he does. If you think God is speaking to your dog, the problem is you. We were talking just this week about the fact that the only creature that thinks that COVID is a great thing is the dog. First of all, you have people staying home which is exactly what they want. If you’re quarantined, you’re stuck in and the only person you can see is the dog. As a friend of mine said, “If you have COVID, you can’t smell the dog.” The dog thinks it’s a very good deal. God made all the creatures for his glory, but he speaks only to us.  At numerous times, the Lord will call to someone and speak to them. In this case, the Lord called Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘When any one of you brings an offering to the Lord, you shall bring your offering of livestock from the herd or from the flock. If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he shall offer a male without blemish. He shall bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting that he may be accepted before the Lord. He shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him. Then he shall kill the bull before the Lord, and Aaron’s sons the priests shall bring the blood and throw the blood against the sides of the altar that is at the entrance of the tent of meeting. And he shall flay the burnt offering and cut it into pieces, and the sons of Aaron the priest shall put fire on the altar and arrange wood on the fire. And Aaron’s sons the priests shall arrange the pieces, the head, and the fat, on the wood that is on the fire on the altar; but its entrails and its legs he shall wash with water. And the priest shall burn all of it on the altar, as a burnt offering, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord.’” (Leviticus 1:2-9) Five major kinds of offerings or sacrifices that we will find in Leviticus. First, the burnt offering and that's where we are right now. And then the grain offering, the peace offering, the sin offering, and the guilt offering. If that sounds complicated, it is! We will take every one of them in turn, but the first is the burnt offering. And this burnt offering is not explicitly a sacrifice for sin. It is a sacrifice for worship. So that's where Leviticus begins. The first of the sacrifices is a sacrifice for offering. It is to offer under the Lord a pleasing aroma by this burnt sacrifice. But the burnt sacrifice is so fundamental. And furthermore, in the New Testament, when there are references to Christ as sacrifice, it is often the reference to this particular sacrifice.  Now it is also the case that, for example, as you look through the Old Testament, there are situations in which we are told that a sacrifice is not accepted, that the sacrifice is considered unacceptable to the Lord. You can see it in a passage like Jeremiah chapter 14:12, where the Lord says, “Though they fast, I will not hear their cry, and though they offer burnt offering and grain offering, I will not accept them.” So the false prophets, for example, or the prophets who were misleading Israel, or Israel when it is into idolatry and disobedience, the Lord simply will not receive it. Even in the language that is used in the Old Testament, he will not allow his nostrils to receive their sacrifice or their sacrifice is a stench in his nostrils rather than the pleasing aroma that is mentioned here.  Now, what's also interesting is that this pleasing aroma is liturgical. A part of Israel's worship is to make certain that the Lord in observing their worship and even in this particular sacrifice, which has the smoke coming up from the altar and coming right up towards the heavens, that God in essence receives this as a pleasing aroma. It is a form of worship. And that's what liturgy is. It’s liturgia, it's what we are called to do in worship. And you say, well there's Israel. Israel is to do the sacrifice of the burnt offering, a male without blemish and there are several things here we need to note, but I want us to think about the last word in the paragraph, that last phrase, “a food offering with a pleasant aroma to the Lord.” This burnt offering produces an aroma. And again, that's Israel, the Old Testament, that's the old covenant. It is literally a pleasing aroma. So there it is, a pleasing aroma for Israel. But what about for the church?  Well, consider a text like Hebrews chapter 13. If you turn to Hebrews chapter 13 and we look at verse 15 through 16, we read this, “Through him,” that means through Christ, “let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.” So this is the continual offering up of a sacrifice of praise, even a pleasing aroma will come back again in the New Testament. What is the liturgy to which we are called? Is there a sacrifice? No. And as I say, one of the worst things that ever happened to Protestant churches is that someone began calling this piece of furniture an altar. And we've talked about this. It is not an altar, that is a misrepresentation.  There is no sacrifice here that calls for an altar. The church itself is an altar in that sense, that we are offering up our hearts and our lives. This is where the sacramental churches and the more sacramental they are, the more confused they make this entire issue for Christians. And of course, this is one of the major issues in the Reformation where the rejection of the mass was not just a rejection of its priestly character. It was a rejection of the fact that the mass is a continual re-crucifixion, a continual sacrifice of the Lord. In a Catholic mass, there is an altar which refutes the words of Jesus, “It is finished.” You see similar kinds of passages in the New Testament, in Philippians 4 verse 18, in 1st Peter 2:5. Jesus is once for all this sacrifice and aroma pleasing to God.  Notice something else that we see here in Leviticus about this burnt offering. There's something here we might miss if we go too fast. Notice what is to be done as the animal is brought, look at verse 4, he, that is the one bringing the offering, shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him. So what's happening there? The physical picture, the picture reminds of what's actually happening here which is extremely important. So the animal is brought, in this case from the herd. And so you have a goat or you have a cow, in this case, a male cow, it's a bull. Maybe younger, maybe older, but it has to be without blemish and it is brought from the herd. In both cases, it is an acceptable sacrifice. It is brought, and as the animal is being prepared for the sacrifice, what does the bringer of the sacrifice do? He lays his hands upon the animal. Why? Well, number one, it certainly would indicate he's taking responsibility for this sacrifice. “This is my sacrifice. I'm bringing this sacrifice.” But there's something else there and you feel it. There is an implied transference of sin and guilt from the one bringing the sacrifice to this animal. This is a substitutionary sacrifice. It is not the substitutionary sacrifice, for as we know the blood of bulls and goats cannot atone for sin, but they are a sacrifice that will hold back God's wrath against sin, as Paul makes clear in Romans chapter 3. This laying on of the hands it's something that is of critical importance, because this is a substitutionary sign.  Now, Psalm 88:7. The Psalmist says to God, in his confession of sin, “Your wrath lays heavy upon me.” Psalm 88:7, “Your wrath lays heavy upon me.” That was the Psalmist’ understanding of the nature of his guilt and his sin. It was laying upon him heavily. The same kind of language is used here about the hands being laid on the animal. It is a heavy laying on of hands. Here's the thing we need to recognize as Christians. Right now our sin is heavily upon someone. Our salvation is brought about by the Father, through the Son in such a way that our sin no longer lays heavily upon us, but our sin was imputed to Christ. Our sin lays heavily upon someone. In Israel, the sin of the nation will lay heavy upon someone. Upon whom will it lie? That's a huge question. It gives us really incredible encouragement as we come to worship. We're coming to worship and to celebrate the fact that our sin lays heavily on Christ. Jesus paid it all. All to him we owe. Sin had left its crimson spot, he washed it white as snow. Our sin was not made a light thing in the atonement of Christ. It was imputed to Christ in full. On the cross, the Father, as it were, lay his hands upon his son. This language is rich with Christological meaning that Israel could only anticipate but that we have to see in retrospect.  You'll notice that the animal here is to be completely consumed. No part of this sacrifice is to remain, even for the priests. They are to burn it all. We talked about the fact that the undignified parts are to be washed. And that means the entrails and the back legs, simply because you know what happens to the back legs of animals in the pasture. They are to be washed and again, this is just a part of “Wash me, wash me clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.” The washing language is not just about illustrations or bathing. It is right out of Levitical imagery. That washing is washing for atonement. It's washing, even for sacrifice as we see here.  Now one thing you just need to understand is that this means that the sons of Aaron had a very bloody job to do. This is something that you don't get from Sunday school pictures you're shown as an elementary school child in Sunday school. You don't get the image of what these priests were doing. Remember something else. Those of you who were with me going verse by verse and word by word through Exodus, remember all the scrupulous detail to the beauty of the priestly garments. Understand that every time they performed a sacrifice, those priestly garments ended up covered in blood, which is another picture that we just miss because we don't have the experience of Israel. Even as they will start out with these clean garments, the first sacrifice that comes is a sacrifice in which there will be blood everywhere.  I did grow up, basically, in a grocery store. My dad was in the grocery business my entire life. He was manager of a Publix store, which is by the way coming to Louisville, the fourth quarter of 2022, I think. It was a different world when I grew up. I went in real early in the morning. I started working for my dad the day I turned 14. I went in real early in the morning and the butcher's uniforms were white. They didn't stay white for long. I determined, I was 14 years old, that was not the job I wanted. They had to do things that I did not particularly enjoy seeing done, although there was a wonder about it, I really did not want to do that. All you have to do is look at a butcher's apron in the course of the day and then multiply that many times out because those animals have been bled. The animals brought for sacrifice have not been bled. It would make what you would see in a butcher shop look absolutely, and quite accurately, pale by comparison.  The whole point of this is that the animal is to be brought, it is to be rightly handled. Every part of it is to be used in the sacrifice. The priest shall burn all of it on the altar, a burnt offering, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord. That is the burnt offering. But very quickly we are told of his gift for a burnt offering is from the flock, that is a sheep or a goat, he shall bring it, “a male without blemish, and he shall kill it on the north side of the altar before the LORD, and Aaron’s sons the priests shall throw its blood against the sides of the altar. And he shall cut it into pieces, with its head and its fat and the priest shall arrange them on the wood that is on the fire on the altar, but the entrails and the legs he shall wash with water. And the priest shall offer all of it and burn it on the altar; it is a burnt offering, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord.” (Leviticus 1:10-13)  You have first from the herd and then from the flock. This is from the most superior sacrifice, the greatest sacrifice, which was a bull or a male from the herd. Then the second is a male from the flock. The third is a bird. Do you notice the structure is almost exactly the same? When it was a sheep or a goat or an animal from the herd. The bull, the sheep, the goat, they’re to be treated basically the same. The picture would be the same. The picture's a little bit different for the bird. Verse 14, “If his offering to the LORD is a burnt offering of birds, then he shall bring his offering of turtledoves or pigeons. And the priest shall bring it to the altar and wring off its head and burn it on the altar. Its blood shall be drained out on the side of the altar. He shall remove its crop with its contents and cast it beside the altar on the east side, in the place for ashes. He shall tear it open by its wings, but shall not sever it completely. And the priest shall burn it on the altar, on the wood that is on the fire. It is a burnt offering, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the LORD.” (Leviticus 1:14-17) I really can't remember the first time I read the Scripture from Genesis to Revelation. I was about 13 years old. And I just admit, I had no theological imagination for why this would be necessary. I mean, here it is. It's in the Bible. We're supposed to know this. The details are graphic. It's a turtledove or a pigeon, and those are related. I'm not sure exactly how to tell the difference, but nonetheless, a turtledove or a pigeon. It's a big bird with a big chest. Turns out that's important. You bring the big chested bird to the altar and with hands, you basically rip it wide open. The inside of the bird is dumped to be put in the ashes. The bird’s flesh and its head are to be flayed out. Most commentators looking at this will say that the effect of not tearing the bird in pieces means that it remains intact and recognizably a bird, rather than just being torn apart in pieces. That's why the Lord here tells Israel not to tear the bird apart in pieces, but rather to rip it open and lay it flat for the sacrifice. The priest shall offer all of it and burn it on the altar as a burnt offering, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord.  That's chapter one. From the herd, from the flock or a bird, scrupulous detail as to how exactly the bird offering is to take place, but parallelism between all three. Who would bring the one and who would bring the others? This has to do at least in part to two things. Number one, the relative wealth of the one who is bringing the sacrifice. Some accommodation is made in this three tier structure for those who may not be wealthy enough. They may not have a herd. They may not be able to bring an animal from the herd. They may not be able to bring even an animal from the flock, but they can buy birds.  Remember that by the time you get to first century Judaism, what's called second temple Judaism, you have the sale of such things for sacrifice. The sale of all kinds of wares, such that Jesus will cleanse the temple, the money changers. Involved in this entire enterprise are those who have the animals for sale so that by the time you get to second temple Judaism, you don't necessarily bring your animal from Galilee down. Instead, you purchase an animal there. You have various various pictures here. Repeatedly in the Old and the New Testament, but particularly the Old Testament, you will see where there's a sacrifice, the burnt offering, and it's birds. That indicates someone who's of lowly estate. This is someone who can't bring a bull and can't bring a male goat or a sheep but can bring a bird, or arrange for a bird. That's the first issue here. The second issue is an issue of the heart. Let's say that someone, in bringing a bird offering, may at some point bring any one of these three animals, even of a certain degree of wealth, because there would not be an infinite number of bulls available. Even for someone who might be very, very wealthy. That's another reason why, at least in part, this is to be a male animal. The male animal is considered superior to the female animal.  That continues today in such things as bloodlines of even thoroughbred horses. A part of it is because one male is in reproductive value, more valuable than one female because of the fact that the male can impregnate many females. The male was more precious and more costly in this respect. Israel's thinking constantly in these terms. But as you think of these offerings, these burnt offerings, the offering of a bull would be a major offering. But you'll notice that in God's eyes, the one who can bring only a turtledove is also offering a sacrifice pleasing under the Lord with an aroma pleasing to the Lord. There’s another aspect of these burnt offerings that certainly comes to our mind. This is the fact that this is in a culture in which the sacrifice of any animal could be very costly. This is a culture made up of people who must live off of their animals and off of their crops. They must live off of these animals. Many of these people may very seldom have had, for instance, beef to eat. Notice that the priority here is the sacrificial system. And so even as we think of worship, this is very costly for Israel. And it's very costly in another way.  Mary and I were out on the boat on the lake over Labor Day weekend. We were coming in the evening and I smelled a campfire. I turned to her and said, “That's just always a good smell.” Somebody was cooking something on that campfire, and it smelled mighty fine. Things smell better as I get hungrier. But imagine what it would've been like to be in the camp of Israel, with the sacrificial system going on and to be hungry. Imagine what it would be like to smell these smells, and maybe you do not even have access to such an animal. What you would be told over and over again by olfactory senses and all the rest is that the centrality of everything is God. That God is the superior one whose demand is first and foremost, and must be recognized as such. What Israel may not enjoy except on festival days, and perhaps even then scaled by wealth, is what is to be brought to the Lord as the first function, the first responsibility of Israel.  You see this echo also throughout Scripture in which we are to bring our best to the Lord. That means even the disposition of our hearts. It means even the use of our voices. It means that we are to bring our best because of the solitary, singular priority of worship, worship of the one, true, living God. The burnt sacrifice is a sacrifice that would be so obvious to the entire community. Everyone would know that the liturgical life of Israel is central. It would be such that the smell of the entire community, in the sense of Israel as an encampment, or Israel later, as Jerusalem will become the home to the temple. It will be that to approach Jerusalem will be to approach, not just sights and sounds but smells.  Here comes another thought for us as Christians. What about how un-smelly our worship is? Israel's worship was loud, almost chaotic. When you look at and approach the temple it would have been absolutely chaotic, which is a part of the judgment that Jesus brings upon them. But even if it had been entirely orderly, according to the dictates of the Lord, it still would've been a pretty confusing thing to see. I've never really had to worry about bringing a goat to church. I do have a hint that it would be even more difficult than bringing a toddler. it's one thing to walk up and to worry about where to put our car and how to get inside. But just imagine trying to get through birds and livestock. Birds and livestock do things, even as you bring them to the tent of meeting, they're still doing stuff and all this is just going on.  And then all the noise. Animals aren't quiet, especially when they tend to be scared and confused about where they are. Birds, just don't even get me started, and pigeons, seriously. You look at this and then you think, well, here we are. There's not a bird in sight. No goats, no sheep, no bulls, not even grain or cereal, as we shall see in chapter two in the grain offering.  Do we have less? Is this less? This has been a part of the liturgical envy that has marked Christians from the beginning and has led many into error. For one thing, the olfactory. We just don't have any. Well, we kinda hope not to have olfactory worship, let's just put it that way. The fact is that there isn't any, or there isn’t supposed to be any distinctive smell of Christian worship. But there are churches where the first thing that you will confront is the smell of the place.  I've seen this more in the east, more than in the west. The further east you go in Europe, into the lands of orthodoxy, the more the smells grow in intensity. Some of you may have been in St. Mark's there in Venice. You walk in and the first thing that hits you is just, boom, smell. For centuries, oils and fragrances and incense have marked this place. There isn't a molecule of the stone that doesn't cry out all these smells. You walk in here and it's dried paint, that's it! We have less. But liturgical envy leads a lot of people to want what have sometimes been called the smells and bells of liturgical worship. “So we're gonna try to bring that in because we need some noise, that's what we need. We need some noise and some cacophony and if it's not gonna be bulls and sheep and goats and birds, then let it be bells. By that I don't mean bells in a tower, I mean the bells that you walk in some of these Eastern churches and there's just lots of noise that's going on, because we need some noise. And we need candles. We need smells. We need lots of smells.” I am an Anglican in music. I used to, as this very strange teenager, I would have records and I would be able to listen to some of this music. I was in choirs and actually sang some of this music. Then the CD and before that the cassette and now we can stream just about anything. I think one of the most beautiful arrangements of “O Come All Ye Faithful” is at Westminster Abbey. You can YouTube this - that's a verb, by the way, YouTube - and you can Google, you didn't know you could but you can, it's a verb. You can YouTube the Christmas Eve service at Westminster Abbey in London and the best one is from about five years ago. Here's the thing you're going to notice. Westminster Abbey is such a moving place, simply because of the history that kind of overwhelms me there. Nothing liturgical but theological and historical. This particular service is very typical of what goes on there at Westminster Abbey on Christmas Eve. Everybody processes in to, “O Come All Ye Faithful”. How appropriate is that? “O Come All Ye Faithful”, let's come. So they come, except between the third and the fourth verse there's this long interregnum. The organ is doing magnificent things. All the anti trumpets are blowing. It was better when I couldn't see it. It was better when I heard it but I didn't see it because now I see it and what do I see? I see the Dean of Westminster take a censer filled with incense and swing it around. I have done things in my life that I just felt would make me extremely self-conscious, but I’ve got to tell you, whatever it takes, I would not have it to stand in front of you with a burning incense thing on a chain and swing it around. I just lack whatever gene evidently that is. And I not only have to see him fling this thing around, but he's taking the incense so that it gets on the people.  “You just come here and blow a little on you, and blow a little on you.” There's a nativity scene and I'm thinking, “No, don't do this.” First of all, don't have the nativity scene, but okay. If you’ve got to have one, don't do what you're about to do. Sure enough, he goes over and puts some incense on the nativity scene. At this point, I just close my eyes, “Please give me the music.” He stops that and then the final resounding verse of “O Come All Ye Faithful”. I look at that and the smells and the bells, is that what you're here for? And we don't have any of that.  Here we are in nonconformity, nonconformity in part to that. We just keep looking at this building but we don't really look at it a whole lot, because it's not made to look at. It's just a reminder of the fact that there is this liturgical envy that falls upon Protestants and evangelicals and especially those of us of the Puritan stripe, and we say that proudly. It’s a reminder of the fact that there are things we don't have in worship that others have in worship. It's because we don't think we're supposed to have them. You look at Israel and you say, “Israel had all this cacophony. Israel had all this noise. Israel had all this blood. Israel had all these smells. Israel had all this liturgical detail.” That's just not what we're given.  Why are we robbed of all this? Where are our birds? Why are we robbed of all of this? Israel had this picture all the time, over and over again every day. Remember this is not just the Lord's day. It's not just the Sabbath. It's very different, this is daily. There isn't any Lord's day here, it's daily! If Israel needed that picture, don't we need that picture? If Israel needed these sights and these sounds, how do we get around with a God-centered world if we don't have the God-centering olfactory and auditory input that Israel had. If Israel needed the daily ritual, then how is it that we don't need this?  Evidently, it's because it's all fulfilled in Christ. But that still raises that question and it's the final question we'll consider this morning. If we don't do this, then what do we do? In other words, what is it that we do? What is it that we do that gets us through the week in a God centered way? What is it we do in worship that makes the one, true and living God so evident, so infinitely prominent that it orders everything we think and everything we do and everything we are? We are left with what are rightly called the ordinary means of grace. The ordinary means of grace. They're not extraordinary. They're ordinary. That doesn't mean they're ordinary in the sense of something to be taken for granted. They're ordinary in that these are the plain, simple, ordered means of grace. First of all, the preaching of the word of God, which you'll notice is absolutely absent here. It's absolutely absent. It's in the background, not in the foreground. They're living Leviticus, they're not reading Leviticus. For us it is the preaching of the word of God, which is why, rightly ordered, the building we would use for worship would have a pulpit in the middle for the centrality of the word of God. The fellowship of the saints, an ordinary means of grace. We're together and we encourage one another with Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. We pray for one another. We draw strength from one another. There's something very different in singing one of these hymns alone than singing them together. We sing them together, that's the ordinary means of grace. The ordinances, baptism and the Lord’s supper, they center us. Even on the Lord's days when we do not have the activity before our eyes, they're always embedded in the worship. And there is the expectation that they're embedded in our very understanding of who we are as a church.  If you are frustrated with the ordinary means of grace, you're frustrated with the once for all completeness of the atonement accomplished by Christ. With the horrible sounds, with the horrible noise, with the horrible sights, with the horrible auditory, olfactory and in every other sense imaginable, the horrible events of that Friday that we dare to call good - all of this came to an absolute end. That is why the veil in the temple was broken. That is why Jesus said, “It is finished.” This is why the apostle Paul will say it is infinitely superior. The writer of the book of Hebrews will say the very same thing. It is infinitely superior, this new covenant, in every way to the old. If we are envious for the smells and bells, it's like Israel looking backward to Egypt. What we have is infinitely better. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2021/08/29/leviticus-13-17/ Sun, 29 Aug 2021 12:00:19 +0000 Louisville, KY
Leviticus 1:3-17 — Leviticus Series
August 29, 2021

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 44:40 https://albertmohler.com/?p=55520 Audio, Exposition, Leviticus, Leviticus Series, Speaking and Teaching, Video noThird Avenue Baptist Church Louisville, KY Leviticus 1:3-17 — Leviticus Series August 29, 2021 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.Third Avenue Baptist Church Louisville, KY Leviticus 1:3-17 — Leviticus Series August 29, 2021 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2021/08/15/leviticus-11-2/ Sun, 15 Aug 2021 12:00:26 +0000 Louisville, KY
Leviticus 1:1-2 — Leviticus Series
August 15, 2021
Well, what an honor to study God's Word together for the time we have this morning. We are going to begin in the book of Leviticus and a study that will take us some weeks, many weeks, and with so much for God to teach us, let's begin with prayer. Our Father, we come before you, just in all the fact, you allow us to study your word. The word that you by your grace spoke to us. Spoke first to Moses for Israel, and by your word, through Moses, to Israel, to us ever living, ever fresh. Father, we pray that we will be faithful students of your perfect word. May you bring yourself glory and faithfulness to your church by this study, we pray in Christ's name, Amen. 
The reality is that most Christians never hear any kind of study of the book of Leviticus. Most have not heard certainly any sermon series or expository series in the book of Leviticus. Most preachers, at least in Christian history, would've been quite scared of Leviticus. Evidently they are because they stay away from it. And it is because Leviticus will take a lot from us in terms of study. It will require a lot of us.  This is foreign territory, in sense, for us as Christians, we are entering into the very heart of the cult. That is the worship, the sacrificial system of the Jewish people. A world because of Christ so different than our own. But the book of Leviticus is one of the most cited books from the Old Testament in the New Testament, because the very purpose of the mission of Christ was to fulfill what was in part in Leviticus and in full in himself. 
By the time you get to the book of Hebrews, you'll be looking backwards again and again to the book of Leviticus because it will be this, that Christ is now fulfilling. For even as in the book of Hebrews tells us it is impossible for the blood of goats and bulls to take away sin. That is exactly what Christ has done for us forever in his atonement. The book of Leviticus is of course, in the Torah, the Pentateuch in the first five books of the Bible, these are the books of Moses. And by that we mean they are the books of Moses, because one of the things we shall see is that the role of Moses is in the book. And we're going to see that in the text of the book, we're going to see it affirmed not only by other writers of the Old Testament, but we're going to see affirmed by Jesus himself as well as by the apostles. 
In other words, when you have Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, they're not just the books of Moses. You will have others in the Old Testament, you will have Jesus and the apostles in the New Testament. And you have the faithful church say, as God said to Moses, as Moses said, the book of Leviticus is the third in the Pentateuch, the five books, the Torah, and that puts it right at the center. And there's a reason for that. You really cannot proceed to Numbers and Deuteronomy without Leviticus. The theme of Leviticus is actually found in Leviticus chapter 19, verse two, “you shall be holy, even as the Lord, your God is holy.” How may a holy God have a holy people? What would that holy people look like? What would they do? What would make them holy? What would keep them holy? It's a huge question. 
It's a question that we have to follow in its context with only two books before Leviticus. The first of course is Genesis. Genesis tells us of the perfection of God's creation. Genesis tells us of the fall of humanity into sin. Genesis tells us of the covenant that God made with Abraham. The book of Genesis tells us of the promise that God gave that through Abraham and his seed, all the nations of the world would be blessed. In the Old Testament, there are sacrifices that we're not sure exactly how they were to work. In the Old Testament, there was a priest, Melchizedek and there were other priestly figures who appear in the text. In the book of Exodus, the children of Israel, having grown numerous but having fled to Egypt in a time of famine are now growing too numerous in Egypt for Pharaoh. Pharaoh believes that they will then be soon as an internal threat, able to threaten his own rule, the rule of the Egyptians. 
And so you have Pharaoh's oppression of the children of Israel. And then at one point, even Pharaoh attempting to put an end to the future generations of the children of Israel, but they're God's covenant people and you know that they will not find the end of their story in some kind of extinguishment in Exodus, but rather God will do this miraculous work of rescuing his people. And he rescues the people, not just because he had chosen them, but he rescues them because they are his covenant people. He made covenant with them. And because of his faithfulness to the covenant, Israel will survive. 
It is an Exodus that Israel having been rescued by God's outstretched arm and mighty hand, rescued from Pharaoh in Egypt, in the wilderness, receives the law, but receives the law through Moses. God does not merely give Israel the law. There are not two stones that are as tablets given to Israel. They're given to Moses for Israel. Israel is the one who receives only after Moses goes up into the mountain. It is Moses who is then a model intercessor. And of course the very existence of Israel after the great disobedience is possible because Moses pled with God to allow him to intercede for them and elsewhere and Exodus, the people will plead with God from their side to accept Moses, to intercede for them. Moses plays a mediatorial role. In some sense it is he who receives God's judgment for them. 
It is two Moses that God will speak and will reveal himself. It is not a mediatorship like with the AFLCIO and management. It is a mediator between a sovereign and his people, not two equal parties with a mediatorship. And thus you see pictures of course, of the mediatorship of Christ that will come as not only a mediator, but the mediator. Intercessor. Priest. Prophet. In some sense, Moses has to be all of this. He's not a part of the Levitical priesthood, but he is himself priesting on behalf of the entire nation. 
When you look at Leviticus and you look at verse one in verse one, we read, “the Lord called Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting, saying, speak to the people of Israel and say to them when any one of you brings an offering to the Lord, you shall bring your offering of the livestock from the herd or from the flock.” Now, the first thing you might notice is just how quickly we are immediately into the details of the law that will be given for offerings. This where it begins, but of course, this is the beginning of a conversation between God and Israel through Moses. This is the continuation of that revelation but notice the first words. “The Lord called Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting.” A couple of interesting things there that we ought to notice. The Lord summons Moses and Moses having been summoned goes. Where? To the mountain? No, to the tent of meeting, but between then and now God has by his own sovereign plan devised this tent of meeting, which is where in the tabernacle he will meet with his people. 
And that's where mediation intercession will be done. It's kind of a prototype in some sense. It’s a pre-figuration of the temple that will come. There is no temple, but there is this tent of meeting and the Lord called Moses into the tent of meeting. And in an interesting expression, spoke to him out of the tent of meeting. 
Now, how do we think of the speech here? That is what do we refer to? Well, numerous points in the book of Leviticus, including the very first verse as we see, and the very last verse, as we shall see, we're told that God spoke to Moses, God commanded Moses, God instructed Moses. And so, this is going to come up again and again and again. So, there's direct speech from God here, basically all of it. We don't have Moses speaking back to God. It's God's direct speech to Moses, but it is through Moses and perhaps to an extent that we're really not accustomed to thinking about. So, if we're reading from say, Romans chapter eight, well, who wrote Romans chapter eight? Well, Paul, but the Holy Spirit. And so, it's the Holy Spirit says through Paul. But it's not wrong to say, as Paul says if we're preaching or doing Bible study, and we're comparing what James says in his epistle to what Paul says. It's not wrong to say James and Paul. We speak of Paul the Apostle with great reverence and appreciation, not to mention authority. 
So, when we say Paul, that’s saying something. It's a greater sense of authority in the church. Interestingly enough, given our Catholic neighbors than if one was to say, Peter said, now the Lord spoke through Peter in two epistles, Peter appears in the book of Acts etcetera, the Holy Spirit used Peter. Peter also comes as apostolic authority, but it's Paul that has so much in the New Testament. God has spoken so much in the New Testament, through Paul, that liberals who blame Paul for so much in the New Testament, rightly so, say that it was a mistake of the early church to stake so much on Paul. As if it was your church's plan. 
But in the Old Testament, everything's really staked on Moses. Everything's staked on Moses. It begins even here in this third book with Moses being summoned to the tent of meeting. Second Chronicles, chapter 23, verse four, you find the expression “as written in the law of Moses” reference here to Leviticus. So it’s the law of Moses. Now, Israel didn't believe it was the law of Moses as if it belonged to Moses, but rather Moses is so much the mediator of this law. He’s the one to whom God gave it for Israel that is referred to as the law of Moses. Jesus himself will tell the leper once he has been healed to go and present himself to the priest in order, those things may be done. Those things, which Moses commanded that's in Mark nine. Pretty amazing. 
Here's Jesus, this is very significant, you’re talking about covenant history, here's Jesus telling the man he has just healed. Now he healed. So, this is God and incarnate. He's healed the man. And he tells him to go to the priest to fulfill the law of Moses. Of course, it's a tiny picture of the fact that Christ himself perfectly fulfills the law of Moses, but it's just a reaffirmation of the fact that the law and in specific the law as revealed in Leviticus, but the totality of the law is referred to as the law of Moses, not just in Old Testament habit. The prophet is Ezekiel will refer back to the law of Moses repeatedly. Ezekiel 10. Ezekiel 22. Ezekiel 18. Ezekiel 20. It's going back and back continuously, even as the prophet centuries later saying, this is the law of Moses, the law of Moses. In Romans chapter 10, Paul will write, “for Moses writes about the righteousness, which is of the laws,” contrasting that with the righteousness of Christ, that is a greater righteousness than the righteousness of the law. 
But again, the righteousness of the law, the old covenant is here, basically summarized as Moses wrote. It's called the book of Leviticus in our English translations because of its content. That is the instructions for the Levitical priesthood. And so thus Leviticus is coming from the Latinized reference to the Levitical priesthood. And there it is. In the Hebrew Torah, it's just like every other book in that pattern. The name of the book is the Hebrew word that begins the book. And so in the Hebrew mind, this book is not called Leviticus, the book is called “and God called Moses” because that's exactly how it begins. “And God called Moses.” So in the Jewish tradition, this third book of the Torah is not called Leviticus. They of course know the Levitical Priesthood is what's in it, but they just begin as the book of Genesis does with the “in the beginning.” And this is just “and God called Moses. “
When we speak of Moses, in this sense, we've talked about his mediatorial role. Israel's disobedience repeatedly puts Moses in the position of interceding before God that he not destroy the very people he has brought out of Israel. Brought out of Egypt, established as Israel, his chosen people. In Exodus chapter 20 verse 19 it’s made very clear that Moses is functioning as a prophet. And of course, in Deuteronomy 34:10, we are told that a greater than Moses, a prophet like Moses, but greater than Moses is coming. In Hebrews chapter three, we hold that Jesus as prophet has more glory than Moses. Is worthy of a greater glory than Moses. You know, we read that, and we go, well, of course, but understand what that means in light of well, the first audience of the book of Hebrews. Hellenized Jews who come to Christ. This biblical theology that is the book of Hebrews, they are told “Do you wanna understand Christ, just understand this. In times past God spoken many in various ways, but in these days he has spoken in his son. And his son is not only the radiance of his glory and the exact representation of his nature, but he's a glory greater than Moses.” 
I brought Moses to church one day. Put him up on the pulpit. Pope Julian's grave, Moses, the famous Michelangelo Moses. Moses with horns. If you've seen him as one of the most famous statues in Christian history, and Moses is sitting on a throne and he is got horns. And it is because the artist misunderstood the rays of light and put horns on Moses, supposed to be the radiance of his glory. Some horns don't exactly communicate that to me. But the point is glory. Moses had glory as represented in the scripture is having a glory and not the Shekinah glory of God, but he came down, bearing it. Remember he and his body bore the Shekinah glory of God for a time after he had been with God on the mountain. Jesus is the ever infinitely eternally glorious one. 
As we look at the book of Leviticus and again, we recognize it in the heart of the Pentateuch. We recognize it as the necessary link between Genesis and Exodus and what will come is Numbers and Deuteronomy. We recognize that we're going to be confronting a lot of laws. And when I say a lot of laws, I mean a lot of laws and it is going to sound just like a law book. It's going to be just like a lawyer in one sense, taking a law book off the shelf, because you look up and say, under this circumstance, what sacrifices needed and how exactly must it be done. The next time we're together, we will be right into sacrifices for sin. And we will look right the fact that for this, it has to be that, for the other sin, it has to be something else, for the people it is this, for an individual it is something else. 
The sacrificial system was so precise. The Levitical priesthood was called to a precision priesthood because their priesting was necessary for the survival of Israel. And this is one of the great themes of biblical theology we are going to be looking at, because even as we're together this first day, looking Leviticus, we say, where is the gospel in this? What's it pointing to? How do we, as Christians read this? We understand how the Jewish people read Leviticus, the Levitical priesthood. We understand how they would read, how do we read it? 
As it has already been said, the scripture is clear that the blood of goats and of bulls cannot be taken away, they cannot take away sin. Sin cannot be fully atoned for by the blood of an animal, but the blood of an animal is what is constant in Leviticus, the blood of this animal or another animal? What does that mean? One of the things we're going to see is that the atonement that comes up again and again, through the sacrificial system in the Old Testament made so complete and clear in the details of Leviticus is a covering for sin. It's important to think it's a covering for sin. There's something very different about a total erasure of sin and a covering for sin. In Romans chapter three, that pivotal text, that really is in many ways, the fulcrum of Protestantism that we, we would say, it's the fulcrum of the gospel. Roman chapter 3:21 and following about justification by faith alone. But you'll recall Paul speaks of the previous times as God passing over sin. Just to look specifically at the text, Romans chapter three, the passage says it only makes sense because of Leviticus. 
Let's just read the whole text because it's just so important to have it as a whole thought. Verse 21. “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law through the law and the prophets, that is although the law and the prophet bear witness to it, the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, for all who believe. For there is no distinction for all of sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ, Jesus, whom God put forward as a perpetuation by his blood.” You'll notice as we go through Leviticus, this is kind of Levitical language. This is familiar language. Paul knows exactly what he's doing here. 
Verse 25. “Whom God put forward as a perpetuation 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. 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.” God is demonstrating that Christ is both just, and the justifier because it is the Father who is just, and the justifier. And putting Christ forward as the perpetuation sacrifice for sin, God, the Father is showing himself to be both just in requiring the sacrifice because of sin and then the justifier by forgiving sinners because of this sacrifice of his Son. But what about all those sacrifices that had taken place before? The writer of the book of Hebrews will come back to this. What did that mean? And it's actually impossible to imagine the quantity, the number of animals who were sacrificed through centuries, as we shall see, many of these were daily sacrifices. Daily. There are a lot of days. 
Some of these were massive sacrifices where just about every household had to make a sacrifice. There were a lot of sheep, there were a lot of bulls. There were a lot of goats. There were a lot of animals that were sacrificed, a lot of birds. What did that amount to? Well, Paul says in his forbearance, God passed over. Notice the specific language here, “he had passed over former sins.” Well, he didn't pass over by saying, I'm not goanna worry about that. No, all those sacrifices in the Levitical system, all those Old Testament sacrifices held back God's wrath that was eventually poured out on Christ. 
They did not fully atone for sin. And we don't have to make that by inference. That is the book of Hebrew's very emphatic statement. Only the blood of Christ can wash away sin, but the blood of all these animals held back the wrath of God. It was a blood sacrifice. And we'll be seeing this the next time we're together. What's the nature of a blood sacrifice? It was a graphic demonstration of the horrible nature of sin and of the children of Israel's inability to remove that stain themselves. It would have to be done by another, that's a key point. It would just have to be done by another. And that other would be an animal, but only as something of a down payment only to hold back, God's wrath a time 
We're in the center of the Pentateuch. Christ is very much at the center of Leviticus. When we speak of Christology and relate it to the Old Testament, I think of Genesis where in the prologue to the gospel of John, John tells us that Jesus was the Word through whom the world was made. So, “in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” it's parallel by “in the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was God.” Christ is right there in the very first sentence of the Bible. Christ is there in theophanies in the Old Testament. Christ is there in the covenant that God made with Abraham that threw Abraham and his seed, all the nations of the earth would be blessed. That can only happen through Christ. And it's Abraham is pointing to Christ, not Christ who's pointing to Abraham. In Exodus, of course, the great picture of our salvation, where there is a rescue, and even as it becomes the great Old Testament picture of the New Testament of our salvation, Exodus becomes the great historical sign that God will accomplish his covenant. He will save his people. He will not leave Israel in captivity to Pharaoh. He will not leave us in captivity to sin. 
And it's right after Exodus. It's just right after Exodus that we're at Leviticus and it's detail. It's kind of like that for the Christian Church, right? Study the scriptures. You got to get this right. We are a biblical people. We are a scriptural people. We're a people of the book. Israel was a people of the book because it had to be a people of the book. You can't pass down Leviticus by oral tradition. You can't trust that. What if you get that little sacrificial point wrong? What if it's supposed to be a, this rather than a, that, what if you're supposed to do it this often, rather than that often, how do you do this? As we shall see, all kinds of technical, personal issues, when someone does this and what do you do when this violation of the covenant takes place, what do you do? We're also going to see that the holiness of God has made very, very clear in every single word, because the background to the holiness that is Israel's call is the fact that they have been created by called by made covenant with redeemed by preserved by a holy God. Therefore they must be holy. This is where we must end for this morning. As Leviticus begins, God summons Moses to the tent of meeting 
And in a very real sense, we're now summoned through the book of Leviticus. I promise you, it is going to be an adventure. We are together going to learn things we would never know if we did not study this book. What most Christians have been raw robbed of for two millennia. we will not allow ourselves to be robbed of, by God's grace, now. So I look forward week by week to going through Leviticus with you. It will be as if we are going into the tent of meeting with Moses by God's grace. What an adventure that will be. Let's pray. Father, we're just so thankful for all you've given us in your word. Thank you. Thank you for every word of scripture. Thank you for the Pentateuch. Thank you for the Torah. We too are those who look and must look continuously to the books of Moses to understand the book of Christ. Father, open our eyes that we may see. Open our hearts to find joy in this and deepen our understanding of Christ. It will be to your glory. We pray in the name of Christ. Amen.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 30:56 https://albertmohler.com/?p=55400 Audio, Exposition, Leviticus, Leviticus Series, Speaking and Teaching, Video noThird Avenue Baptist Church Louisville, KY Leviticus 1:1-2 — Leviticus Series August 15, 2021 Well, what an honor to study God's Word together for the time we have this morning. We are going to begin in the book of Leviticus and a study that will take us some weeks, many weeks, and with so much for God to teach us, let's begin with prayer. Our Father, we come before you, just in all the fact, you allow us to study your word. The word that you by your grace spoke to us. Spoke first to Moses for Israel, and by your word, through Moses, to Israel, to us ever living, ever fresh. Father, we pray that we will be faithful students of your perfect word. May you bring yourself glory and faithfulness to your church by this study, we pray in Christ's name, Amen.  The reality is that most Christians never hear any kind of study of the book of Leviticus. Most have not heard certainly any sermon series or expository series in the book of Leviticus. Most preachers, at least in Christian history, would've been quite scared of Leviticus. Evidently they are because they stay away from it. And it is because Leviticus will take a lot from us in terms of study. It will require a lot of us.  This is foreign territory, in sense, for us as Christians, we are entering into the very heart of the cult. That is the worship, the sacrificial system of the Jewish people. A world because of Christ so different than our own. But the book of Leviticus is one of the most cited books from the Old Testament in the New Testament, because the very purpose of the mission of Christ was to fulfill what was in part in Leviticus and in full in himself.  By the time you get to the book of Hebrews, you'll be looking backwards again and again to the book of Leviticus because it will be this, that Christ is now fulfilling. For even as in the book of Hebrews tells us it is impossible for the blood of goats and bulls to take away sin. That is exactly what Christ has done for us forever in his atonement. The book of Leviticus is of course, in the Torah, the Pentateuch in the first five books of the Bible, these are the books of Moses. And by that we mean they are the books of Moses, because one of the things we shall see is that the role of Moses is in the book. And we're going to see that in the text of the book, we're going to see it affirmed not only by other writers of the Old Testament, but we're going to see affirmed by Jesus himself as well as by the apostles.  In other words, when you have Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, they're not just the books of Moses. You will have others in the Old Testament, you will have Jesus and the apostles in the New Testament. And you have the faithful church say, as God said to Moses, as Moses said, the book of Leviticus is the third in the Pentateuch, the five books, the Torah, and that puts it right at the center. And there's a reason for that. You really cannot proceed to Numbers and Deuteronomy without Leviticus. The theme of Leviticus is actually found in Leviticus chapter 19, verse two, “you shall be holy, even as the Lord, your God is holy.” How may a holy God have a holy people? What would that holy people look like? What would they do? What would make them holy? What would keep them holy? It's a huge question.  It's a question that we have to follow in its context with only two books before Leviticus. The first of course is Genesis. Genesis tells us of the perfection of God's creation. Genesis tells us of the fall of humanity into sin. Genesis tells us of the covenant that God made with Abraham. The book of Genesis tells us of the promise that God gave that through Abraham and his seed, all the nations of the world would be blessed. In the Old Testament, there are sacrifices that we're not sure exactly how they were to work. In the Old Testament, there was a priest, Melchizedek and there were other priestly figures who appear in the text. In the book of Exodus, the children of Israel, having grown numerous but having fled to Egypt in a time of famine are now growing too numerous in Egypt for Pharaoh. Pharaoh believes that they will then be soon as an internal threat, able to threaten his own rule, the rule of the Egyptians.  And so you have Pharaoh's oppression of the children of Israel. And then at one point, even Pharaoh attempting to put an end to the future generations of the children of Israel, but they're God's covenant people and you know that they will not find the end of their story in some kind of extinguishment in Exodus, but rather God will do this miraculous work of rescuing his people. And he rescues the people, not just because he had chosen them, but he rescues them because they are his covenant people. He made covenant with them. And because of his faithfulness to the covenant, Israel will survive.  It is an Exodus that Israel having been rescued by God's outstretched arm and mighty hand, rescued from Pharaoh in Egypt, in the wilderness, receives the law, but receives the law through Moses. God does not merely give Israel the law. There are not two stones that are as tablets given to Israel. They're given to Moses for Israel. Israel is the one who receives only after Moses goes up into the mountain. It is Moses who is then a model intercessor. And of course the very existence of Israel after the great disobedience is possible because Moses pled with God to allow him to intercede for them and elsewhere and Exodus, the people will plead with God from their side to accept Moses, to intercede for them. Moses plays a mediatorial role. In some sense it is he who receives God's judgment for them.  It is two Moses that God will speak and will reveal himself. It is not a mediatorship like with the AFLCIO and management. It is a mediator between a sovereign and his people, not two equal parties with a mediatorship. And thus you see pictures of course, of the mediatorship of Christ that will come as not only a mediator, but the mediator. Intercessor. Priest. Prophet. In some sense, Moses has to be all of this. He's not a part of the Levitical priesthood, but he is himself priesting on behalf of the entire nation.  When you look at Leviticus and you look at verse one in verse one, we read, “the Lord called Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting, saying, speak to the people of Israel and say to them when any one of you brings an offering to the Lord, you shall bring your offering of the livestock from the herd or from the flock.” Now, the first thing you might notice is just how quickly we are immediately into the details of the law that will be given for offerings. This where it begins, but of course, this is the beginning of a conversation between God and Israel through Moses. This is the continuation of that revelation but notice the first words. “The Lord called Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting.” A couple of interesting things there that we ought to notice. The Lord summons Moses and Moses having been summoned goes. Where? To the mountain? No, to the tent of meeting, but between then and now God has by his own sovereign plan devised this tent of meeting, which is where in the tabernacle he will meet with his people.  And that's where mediation intercession will be done. It's kind of a prototype in some sense. It’s a pre-figuration of the temple that will come. There is no temple, but there is this tent of meeting and the Lord called Moses into the tent of meeting. And in an interesting expression, spoke to him out of the tent of meeting.  Now, how do we think of the speech here? That is what do we refer to? Well, numerous points in the book of Leviticus, including the very first verse as we see, and the very last verse, as we shall see, we're told that God spoke to Moses, God commanded Moses, God instructed Moses. And so, this is going to come up again and again and again. So, there's direct speech from God here, basically all of it. We don't have Moses speaking back to God. It's God's direct speech to Moses, but it is through Moses and perhaps to an extent that we're really not accustomed to thinking about. So, if we're reading from say, Romans chapter eight, well, who wrote Romans chapter eight? Well, Paul, but the Holy Spirit. And so, it's the Holy Spirit says through Paul. But it's not wrong to say, as Paul says if we're preaching or doing Bible study, and we're comparing what James says in his epistle to what Paul says. It's not wrong to say James and Paul. We speak of Paul the Apostle with great reverence and appreciation, not to mention authority.  So, when we say Paul, that’s saying something. It's a greater sense of authority in the church. Interestingly enough, given our Catholic neighbors than if one was to say, Peter said, now the Lord spoke through Peter in two epistles, Peter appears in the book of Acts etcetera, the Holy Spirit used Peter. Peter also comes as apostolic authority, but it's Paul that has so much in the New Testament. God has spoken so much in the New Testament, through Paul, that liberals who blame Paul for so much in the New Testament, rightly so, say that it was a mistake of the early church to stake so much on Paul. As if it was your church's plan.  But in the Old Testament, everything's really staked on Moses. Everything's staked on Moses. It begins even here in this third book with Moses being summoned to the tent of meeting. Second Chronicles, chapter 23, verse four, you find the expression “as written in the law of Moses” reference here to Leviticus. So it’s the law of Moses. Now, Israel didn't believe it was the law of Moses as if it belonged to Moses, but rather Moses is so much the mediator of this law. He’s the one to whom God gave it for Israel that is referred to as the law of Moses. Jesus himself will tell the leper once he has been healed to go and present himself to the priest in order, those things may be done. Those things, which Moses commanded that's in Mark nine. Pretty amazing.  Here's Jesus, this is very significant, you’re talking about covenant history, here's Jesus telling the man he has just healed. Now he healed. So, this is God and incarnate. He's healed the man. And he tells him to go to the priest to fulfill the law of Moses. Of course, it's a tiny picture of the fact that Christ himself perfectly fulfills the law of Moses, but it's just a reaffirmation of the fact that the law and in specific the law as revealed in Leviticus, but the totality of the law is referred to as the law of Moses, not just in Old Testament habit. The prophet is Ezekiel will refer back to the law of Moses repeatedly. Ezekiel 10. Ezekiel 22. Ezekiel 18. Ezekiel 20. It's going back and back continuously, even as the prophet centuries later saying, this is the law of Moses, the law of Moses. In Romans chapter 10, Paul will write, “for Moses writes about the righteousness, which is of the laws,” contrasting that with the righteousness of Christ, that is a greater righteousness than the righteousness of the law.  But again, the righteousness of the law, the old covenant is here, basically summarized as Moses wrote. It's called the book of Leviticus in our English translations because of its content. That is the instructions for the Levitical priesthood. And so thus Leviticus is coming from the Latinized reference to the Levitical priesthood. And there it is. In the Hebrew Torah, it's just like every other book in that pattern. The name of the book is the Hebrew word that begins the book. And so in the Hebrew mind, this book is not called Leviticus, the book is called “and God called Moses” because that's exactly how it begins. “And God called Moses.” So in the Jewish tradition, this third book of the Torah is not called Leviticus. They of course know the Levitical Priesthood is what's in it, but they just begin as the book of Genesis does with the “in the beginning.” And this is just “and God called Moses. “ When we speak of Moses, in this sense, we've talked about his mediatorial role. Israel's disobedience repeatedly puts Moses in the position of interceding before God that he not destroy the very people he has brought out of Israel. Brought out of Egypt, established as Israel, his chosen people. In Exodus chapter 20 verse 19 it’s made very clear that Moses is functioning as a prophet. And of course, in Deuteronomy 34:10, we are told that a greater than Moses, a prophet like Moses, but greater than Moses is coming. In Hebrews chapter three, we hold that Jesus as prophet has more glory than Moses. Is worthy of a greater glory than Moses. You know, we read that, and we go, well, of course, but understand what that means in light of well, the first audience of the book of Hebrews. Hellenized Jews who come to Christ. This biblical theology that is the book of Hebrews, they are told “Do you wanna understand Christ, just understand this. In times past God spoken many in various ways, but in these days he has spoken in his son. And his son is not only the radiance of his glory and the exact representation of his nature, but he's a glory greater than Moses.”  I brought Moses to church one day. Put him up on the pulpit. Pope Julian's grave, Moses, the famous Michelangelo Moses. Moses with horns. If you've seen him as one of the most famous statues in Christian history, and Moses is sitting on a throne and he is got horns. And it is because the artist misunderstood the rays of light and put horns on Moses, supposed to be the radiance of his glory. Some horns don't exactly communicate that to me. But the point is glory. Moses had glory as represented in the scripture is having a glory and not the Shekinah glory of God, but he came down, bearing it. Remember he and his body bore the Shekinah glory of God for a time after he had been with God on the mountain. Jesus is the ever infinitely eternally glorious one.  As we look at the book of Leviticus and again, we recognize it in the heart of the Pentateuch. We recognize it as the necessary link between Genesis and Exodus and what will come is Numbers and Deuteronomy. We recognize that we're going to be confronting a lot of laws. And when I say a lot of laws, I mean a lot of laws and it is going to sound just like a law book. It's going to be just like a lawyer in one sense, taking a law book off the shelf, because you look up and say, under this circumstance, what sacrifices needed and how exactly must it be done. The next time we're together, we will be right into sacrifices for sin. And we will look right the fact that for this, it has to be that, for the other sin, it has to be something else, for the people it is this, for an individual it is something else.  The sacrificial system was so precise. The Levitical priesthood was called to a precision priesthood because their priesting was necessary for the survival of Israel. And this is one of the great themes of biblical theology we are going to be looking at, because even as we're together this first day, looking Leviticus, we say, where is the gospel in this? What's it pointing to? How do we, as Christians read this? We understand how the Jewish people read Leviticus, the Levitical priesthood. We understand how they would read, how do we read it?  As it has already been said, the scripture is clear that the blood of goats and of bulls cannot be taken away, they cannot take away sin. Sin cannot be fully atoned for by the blood of an animal, but the blood of an animal is what is constant in Leviticus, the blood of this animal or another animal? What does that mean? One of the things we're going to see is that the atonement that comes up again and again, through the sacrificial system in the Old Testament made so complete and clear in the details of Leviticus is a covering for sin. It's important to think it's a covering for sin. There's something very different about a total erasure of sin and a covering for sin. In Romans chapter three, that pivotal text, that really is in many ways, the fulcrum of Protestantism that we, we would say, it's the fulcrum of the gospel. Roman chapter 3:21 and following about justification by faith alone. But you'll recall Paul speaks of the previous times as God passing over sin. Just to look specifically at the text, Romans chapter three, the passage says it only makes sense because of Leviticus.  Let's just read the whole text because it's just so important to have it as a whole thought. Verse 21. “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law through the law and the prophets, that is although the law and the prophet bear witness to it, the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, for all who believe. For there is no distinction for all of sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ, Jesus, whom God put forward as a perpetuation by his blood.” You'll notice as we go through Leviticus, this is kind of Levitical language. This is familiar language. Paul knows exactly what he's doing here.  Verse 25. “Whom God put forward as a perpetuation 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. 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.” God is demonstrating that Christ is both just, and the justifier because it is the Father who is just, and the justifier. And putting Christ forward as the perpetuation sacrifice for sin, God, the Father is showing himself to be both just in requiring the sacrifice because of sin and then the justifier by forgiving sinners because of this sacrifice of his Son. But what about all those sacrifices that had taken place before? The writer of the book of Hebrews will come back to this. What did that mean? And it's actually impossible to imagine the quantity, the number of animals who were sacrificed through centuries, as we shall see, many of these were daily sacrifices. Daily. There are a lot of days.  Some of these were massive sacrifices where just about every household had to make a sacrifice. There were a lot of sheep, there were a lot of bulls. There were a lot of goats. There were a lot of animals that were sacrificed, a lot of birds. What did that amount to? Well, Paul says in his forbearance, God passed over. Notice the specific language here, “he had passed over former sins.” Well, he didn't pass over by saying, I'm not goanna worry about that. No, all those sacrifices in the Levitical system, all those Old Testament sacrifices held back God's wrath that was eventually poured out on Christ.  They did not fully atone for sin. And we don't have to make that by inference. That is the book of Hebrew's very emphatic statement. Only the blood of Christ can wash away sin, but the blood of all these animals held back the wrath of God. It was a blood sacrifice. And we'll be seeing this the next time we're together. What's the nature of a blood sacrifice? It was a graphic demonstration of the horrible nature of sin and of the children of Israel's inability to remove that stain themselves. It would have to be done by another, that's a key point. It would just have to be done by another. And that other would be an animal, but only as something of a down payment only to hold back, God's wrath a time  We're in the center of the Pentateuch. Christ is very much at the center of Leviticus. When we speak of Christology and relate it to the Old Testament, I think of Genesis where in the prologue to the gospel of John, John tells us that Jesus was the Word through whom the world was made. So, “in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” it's parallel by “in the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was God.” Christ is right there in the very first sentence of the Bible. Christ is there in theophanies in the Old Testament. Christ is there in the covenant that God made with Abraham that threw Abraham and his seed, all the nations of the earth would be blessed. That can only happen through Christ. And it's Abraham is pointing to Christ, not Christ who's pointing to Abraham. In Exodus, of course, the great picture of our salvation, where there is a rescue, and even as it becomes the great Old Testament picture of the New Testament of our salvation, Exodus becomes the great historical sign that God will accomplish his covenant. He will save his people. He will not leave Israel in captivity to Pharaoh. He will not leave us in captivity to sin.  And it's right after Exodus. It's just right after Exodus that we're at Leviticus and it's detail. It's kind of like that for the Christian Church, right? Study the scriptures. You got to get this right. We are a biblical people. We are a scriptural people. We're a people of the book. Israel was a people of the book because it had to be a people of the book. You can't pass down Leviticus by oral tradition. You can't trust that. What if you get that little sacrificial point wrong? What if it's supposed to be a, this rather than a, that, what if you're supposed to do it this often, rather than that often, how do you do this? As we shall see, all kinds of technical, personal issues, when someone does this and what do you do when this violation of the covenant takes place, what do you do? We're also going to see that the holiness of God has made very, very clear in every single word, because the background to the holiness that is Israel's call is the fact that they have been created by called by made covenant with redeemed by preserved by a holy God. Therefore they must be holy. This is where we must end for this morning. As Leviticus begins, God summons Moses to the tent of meeting  And in a very real sense, we're now summoned through the book of Leviticus. I promise you, it is going to be an adventure. We are together going to learn things we would never know if we did not study this book. What most Christians have been raw robbed of for two millennia. we will not allow ourselves to be robbed of, by God's grace, now. So I look forward week by week to going through Leviticus with you. It will be as if we are going into the tent of meeting with Moses by God's grace. What an adventure that will be. Let's pray. Father, we're just so thankful for all you've given us in your word. Thank you. Thank you for every word of scripture. Thank you for the Pentateuch. Thank you for the Torah. We too are those who look and must look continuously to the books of Moses to understand the book of Christ. Father, open our eyes that we may see. Open our hearts to find joy in this and deepen our understanding of Christ. It will be to your glory. We pray in the name of Christ. Amen. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.Third Avenue Baptist Church Louisville, KY Leviticus 1:1-2 — Leviticus Series August 15, 2021 Well, what an honor to study God's Word together for the time we have this morning. We are going to begin in the book of Leviticus and a study that will take us some weeks, many weeks, and with so much for God to teach us, let's begin with prayer. Our Father, we come before you, just in all the fact, you allow us to study your word. The word that you by your grace spoke to us. Spoke first to Moses for Israel, and by your word, through Moses, to Israel, to us ever living, ever fresh. Father, we pray that we will be faithful students of your perfect word. May you bring yourself glory and faithfulness to your church by this study, we pray in Christ's name, Amen.  The reality is that most Christians never hear any kind of study of the book of Leviticus. Most have not heard certainly any sermon series or expository series in the book of Leviticus. Most preachers, at least in Christian history, would've been quite scared of Leviticus. Evidently they are because they stay away from it. And it is because Leviticus will take a lot from us in terms of study. It will require a lot of us.  This is foreign territory, in sense, for us as Christians, we are entering into the very heart of the cult. That is the worship, the sacrificial system of the Jewish people. A world because of Christ so different than our own. But the book of Leviticus is one of the most cited books from the Old Testament in the New Testament, because the very purpose of the mission of Christ was to fulfill what was in part in Leviticus and in full in himself.  By the time you get to the book of Hebrews, you'll be looking backwards again and again to the book of Leviticus because it will be this, that Christ is now fulfilling. For even as in the book of Hebrews tells us it is impossible for the blood of goats and bulls to take away sin. That is exactly what Christ has done for us forever in his atonement. The book of Leviticus is of course, in the Torah, the Pentateuch in the first five books of the Bible, these are the books of Moses. And by that we mean they are the books of Moses, because one of the things we shall see is that the role of Moses is in the book. And we're going to see that in the text of the book, we're going to see it affirmed not only by other writers of the Old Testament, but we're going to see affirmed by Jesus himself as well as by the apostles.  In other words, when you have Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, they're not just the books of Moses. You will have others in the Old Testament, you will have Jesus and the apostles in the New Testament. And you have the faithful church say, as God said to Moses, as Moses said, the book of Leviticus is the third in the Pentateuch, the five books, the Torah, and that puts it right at the center. And there's a reason for that. You really cannot proceed to Numbers and Deuteronomy without Leviticus. The theme of Leviticus is actually found in Leviticus chapter 19, verse two, “you shall be holy, even as the Lord, your God is holy.” How may a holy God have a holy people? What would that holy people look like? What would they do? What would make them holy? What would keep them holy? It's a huge question.  It's a question that we have to follow in its context with only two books before Leviticus. The first of course is Genesis. Genesis tells us of the perfection of God's creation. Genesis tells us of the fall of humanity into sin. Genesis tells us of the covenant that God made with Abraham. The book of Genesis tells us of the promise that God gave that through Abraham and his seed, all the nations of the world would be blessed. In the Old Testament, there are sacrifices that we're not sure exactly how they were to work. In the Old Testament, there was a priest, Melchizedek and there were other priestly figures who appear in the text. In the book of Exodus, the children of Israel, having grown numerous but having fled to Egypt in a time of famine are now growing too numerous in Egypt for Pharaoh. Pharaoh believes that they will then be soon as an internal threat, able to threaten his own rule, the rule of the Egyptians.  And so you have Pharaoh's oppression of the children of Israel. And then at one point, even Pharaoh attempting to put an end to the future generations of the children of Israel, but they're God's covenant people and you know that they will not find the end of their story in some kind of extinguishment in Exodus, but rather God will do this miraculous work of rescuing his people. And he rescues the people, not just because he had chosen them, but he rescues them because they are his covenant people. He made covenant with them. And because of his faithfulness to the covenant, Israel will survive.  It is an Exodus that Israel having been rescued by God's outstretched arm and mighty hand, rescued from Pharaoh in Egypt, in the wilderness, receives the law, but receives the law through Moses. God does not merely give Israel the law. There are not two stones that are as tablets given to Israel. They're given to Moses for Israel. Israel is the one who receives only after Moses goes up into the mountain. It is Moses who is then a model intercessor. And of course the very existence of Israel after the great disobedience is possible because Moses pled with God to allow him to intercede for them and elsewhere and Exodus, the people will plead with God from their side to accept Moses, to intercede for them. Moses plays a mediatorial role. In some sense it is he who receives God's judgment for them.  It is two Moses that God will speak and will reveal himself. It is not a mediatorship like with the AFLCIO and management. It is a mediator between a sovereign and his people, not two equal parties with a mediatorship. And thus you see pictures of course, of the mediatorship of Christ that will come as not only a mediator, but the mediator. Intercessor. Priest. Prophet. In some sense, Moses has to be all of this. He's not a part of the Levitical priesthood, but he is himself priesting on behalf of the entire nation.  When you look at Leviticus and you look at verse one in verse one, we read, “the Lord called Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting, saying, speak to the people of Israel and say to them when any one of you brings an offering to the Lord, you shall bring your offering of the livestock from the herd or from the flock.” Now, the first thing you might notice is just how quickly we are immediately into the details of the law that will be given for offerings. This where it begins, but of course, this is the beginning of a conversation between God and Israel through Moses. This is the continuation of that revelation but notice the first words. “The Lord called Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting.” A couple of interesting things there that we ought to notice. The Lord summons Moses and Moses having been summoned goes. Where? To the mountain? No, to the tent of meeting, but between then and now God has by his own sovereign plan devised this tent of meeting, which is where in the tabernacle he will meet with his people.  And that's where mediation intercession will be done. It's kind of a prototype in some sense. It’s a pre-figuration of the temple that will come. There is no temple, but there is this tent of meeting and the Lord called Moses into the tent of meeting. And in an interesting expression, spoke to him out of the tent of meeting.  Now, how do we think of the speech here? That is what do we refer to? Well, numerous points in the book of Leviticus, including the very first verse as we see, and the very last verse, as we shall see, we're told that God spoke to Moses, God commanded Moses, God instructed Moses. And so, this is going to come up again and again and again. So, there's direct speech from God here, basically all of it. We don't have Moses speaking back to God. It's God's direct speech to Moses, but it is through Moses and perhaps to an extent that we're really not accustomed to thinking about. So, if we're reading from say, Romans chapter eight, well, who wrote Romans chapter eight? Well, Paul, but the Holy Spirit. And so, it's the Holy Spirit says through Paul. But it's not wrong to say, as Paul says if we're preaching or doing Bible study, and we're comparing what James says in his epistle to what Paul says. It's not wrong to say James and Paul. We speak of Paul the Apostle with great reverence and appreciation, not to mention authority.  So, when we say Paul, that’s saying something. It's a greater sense of authority in the church. Interestingly enough, given our Catholic neighbors than if one was to say, Peter said, now the Lord spoke through Peter in two epistles, Peter appears in the book of Acts etcetera, the Holy Spirit used Peter. Peter also comes as apostolic authority, but it's Paul that has so much in the New Testament. God has spoken so much in the New Testament, through Paul, that liberals who blame Paul for so much in the New Testament, rightly so, say that it was a mistake of the early church to stake so much on Paul. As if it was your church's plan.  But in the Old Testament, everything's really staked on Moses. Everything's staked on Moses. It begins even here in this third book with Moses being summoned to the tent of meeting. Second Chronicles, chapter 23, verse four, you find the expression “as written in the law of Moses” reference here to Leviticus. So it’s the law of Moses. Now, Israel didn't believe it was the law of Moses as if it belonged to Moses, but rather Moses is so much the mediator of this law. He’s the one to whom God gave it for Israel that is referred to as the law of Moses. Jesus himself will tell the leper once he has been healed to go and present himself to the priest in order, those things may be done. Those things, which Moses commanded that's in Mark nine. Pretty amazing.  Here's Jesus, this is very significant, you’re talking about covenant history, here's Jesus telling the man he has just healed. Now he healed. So, this is God and incarnate. He's healed the man. And he tells him to go to the priest to fulfill the law of Moses. Of course, it's a tiny picture of the fact that Christ himself perfectly fulfills the law of Moses, but it's just a reaffirmation of the fact that the law and in specific the law as revealed in Leviticus, but the totality of the law is referred to as the law of Moses, not just in Old Testament habit. The prophet is Ezekiel will refer back to the law of Moses repeatedly. Ezekiel 10. Ezekiel 22. Ezekiel 18. Ezekiel 20. It's going back and back continuously, even as the prophet centuries later saying, this is the law of Moses, the law of Moses. In Romans chapter 10, Paul will write, “for Moses writes about the righteousness, which is of the laws,” contrasting that with the righteousness of Christ, that is a greater righteousness than the righteousness of the law.  But again, the righteousness of the law, the old covenant is here, basically summarized as Moses wrote. It's called the book of Leviticus in our English translations because of its content. That is the instructions for the Levitical priesthood. And so thus Leviticus is coming from the Latinized reference to the Levitical priesthood. And there it is. In the Hebrew Torah, it's just like every other book in that pattern. The name of the book is the Hebrew word that begins the book. And so in the Hebrew mind, this book is not called Leviticus, the book is called “and God called Moses” because that's exactly how it begins. “And God called Moses.” So in the Jewish tradition, this third book of the Torah is not called Leviticus. They of course know the Levitical Priesthood is what's in it, but they just begin as the book of Genesis does with the “in the beginning.” And this is just “and God called Moses. “ When we speak of Moses, in this sense, we've talked about his mediatorial role. Israel's disobedience repeatedly puts Moses in the position of interceding before God that he not destroy the very people he has brought out of Israel. Brought out of Egypt, established as Israel, his chosen people. In Exodus chapter 20 verse 19 it’s made very clear that Moses is functioning as a prophet. And of course, in Deuteronomy 34:10, we are told that a greater than Moses, a prophet like Moses, but greater than Moses is coming. In Hebrews chapter three, we hold that Jesus as prophet has more glory than Moses. Is worthy of a greater glory than Moses. You know, we read that, and we go, well, of course, but understand what that means in light of well, the first audience of the book of Hebrews. Hellenized Jews who come to Christ. This biblical theology that is the book of Hebrews, they are told “Do you wanna understand Christ, just understand this. In times past God spoken many in various ways, but in these days he has spoken in his son. And his son is not only the radiance of his glory and the exact representation of his nature, but he's a glory greater than Moses.”  I brought Moses to church one day. Put him up on the pulpit. Pope Julian's grave, Moses, the famous Michelangelo Moses. Moses with horns. If you've seen him as one of the most famous statues in Christian history, and Moses is sitting on a throne and he is got horns. And it is because the artist misunderstood the rays of light and put horns on Moses, supposed to be the radiance of his glory. Some horns don't exactly communicate that to me. But the point is glory. Moses had glory as represented in the scripture is having a glory and not the Shekinah glory of God, but he came down, bearing it. Remember he and his body bore the Shekinah glory of God for a time after he had been with God on the mountain. Jesus is the ever infinitely eternally glorious one.  As we look at the book of Leviticus and again, we recognize it in the heart of the Pentateuch. We recognize it as the necessary link between Genesis and Exodus and what will come is Numbers and Deuteronomy. We recognize that we're going to be confronting a lot of laws. And when I say a lot of laws, I mean a lot of laws and it is going to sound just like a law book. It's going to be just like a lawyer in one sense, taking a law book off the shelf, because you look up and say, under this circumstance, what sacrifices needed and how exactly must it be done. The next time we're together, we will be right into sacrifices for sin. And we will look right the fact that for this, it has to be that, for the other sin, it has to be something else, for the people it is this, for an individual it is something else.  The sacrificial system was so precise. The Levitical priesthood was called to a precision priesthood because their priesting was necessary for the survival of Israel. And this is one of the great themes of biblical theology we are going to be looking at, because even as we're together this first day, looking Leviticus, we say, where is the gospel in this? What's it pointing to? How do we, as Christians read this? We understand how the Jewish people read Leviticus, the Levitical priesthood. We understand how they would read, how do we read it?  As it has already been said, the scripture is clear that the blood of goats and of bulls cannot be taken away, they cannot take away sin. Sin cannot be fully atoned for by the blood of an animal, but the blood of an animal is what is constant in Leviticus, the blood of this animal or another animal? What does that mean? One of the things we're going to see is that the atonement that comes up again and again, through the sacrificial system in the Old Testament made so complete and clear in the details of Leviticus is a covering for sin. It's important to think it's a covering for sin. There's something very different about a total erasure of sin and a covering for sin. In Romans chapter three, that pivotal text, that really is in many ways, the fulcrum of Protestantism that we, we would say, it's the fulcrum of the gospel. Roman chapter 3:21 and following about justification by faith alone. But you'll recall Paul speaks of the previous times as God passing over sin. Just to look specifically at the text, Romans chapter three, the passage says it only makes sense because of Leviticus.  Let's just read the whole text because it's just so important to have it as a whole thought. Verse 21. “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law through the law and the prophets, that is although the law and the prophet bear witness to it, the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, for all who believe. For there is no distinction for all of sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ, Jesus, whom God put forward as a perpetuation by his blood.” You'll notice as we go through Leviticus, this is kind of Levitical language. This is familiar language. Paul knows exactly what he's doing here.  Verse 25. “Whom God put forward as a perpetuation 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. 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.” God is demonstrating that Christ is both just, and the justifier because it is the Father who is just, and the justifier. And putting Christ forward as the perpetuation sacrifice for sin, God, the Father is showing himself to be both just in requiring the sacrifice because of sin and then the justifier by forgiving sinners because of this sacrifice of his Son. But what about all those sacrifices that had taken place before? The writer of the book of Hebrews will come back to this. What did that mean? And it's actually impossible to imagine the quantity, the number of animals who were sacrificed through centuries, as we shall see, many of these were daily sacrifices. Daily. There are a lot of days.  Some of these were massive sacrifices where just about every household had to make a sacrifice. There were a lot of sheep, there were a lot of bulls. There were a lot of goats. There were a lot of animals that were sacrificed, a lot of birds. What did that amount to? Well, Paul says in his forbearance, God passed over. Notice the specific language here, “he had passed over former sins.” Well, he didn't pass over by saying, I'm not goanna worry about that. No, all those sacrifices in the Levitical system, all those Old Testament sacrifices held back God's wrath that was eventually poured out on Christ.  They did not fully atone for sin. And we don't have to make that by inference. That is the book of Hebrew's very emphatic statement. Only the blood of Christ can wash away sin, but the blood of all these animals held back the wrath of God. It was a blood sacrifice. And we'll be seeing this the next time we're together. What's the nature of a blood sacrifice? It was a graphic demonstration of the horrible nature of sin and of the children of Israel's inability to remove that stain themselves. It would have to be done by another, that's a key point. It would just have to be done by another. And that other would be an animal, but only as something of a down payment only to hold back, God's wrath a time  We're in the center of the Pentateuch. Christ is very much at the center of Leviticus. When we speak of Christology and relate it to the Old Testament, I think of Genesis where in the prologue to the gospel of John, John tells us that Jesus was the Word through whom the world was made. So, “in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” it's parallel by “in the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was God.” Christ is right there in the very first sentence of the Bible. Christ is there in theophanies in the Old Testament. Christ is there in the covenant that God made with Abraham that threw Abraham and his seed, all the nations of the earth would be blessed. That can only happen through Christ. And it's Abraham is pointing to Christ, not Christ who's pointing to Abraham. In Exodus, of course, the great picture of our salvation, where there is a rescue, and even as it becomes the great Old Testament picture of the New Testament of our salvation, Exodus becomes the great historical sign that God will accomplish his covenant. He will save his people. He will not leave Israel in captivity to Pharaoh. He will not leave us in captivity to sin.  And it's right after Exodus. It's just right after Exodus that we're at Leviticus and it's detail. It's kind of like that for the Christian Church, right? Study the scriptures. You got to get this right. We are a biblical people. We are a scriptural people. We're a people of the book. Israel was a people of the book because it had to be a people of the book. You can't pass down Leviticus by oral tradition. You can't trust that. What if you get that little sacrificial point wrong? What if it's supposed to be a, this rather than a, that, what if you're supposed to do it this often, rather than that often, how do you do this? As we shall see, all kinds of technical, personal issues, when someone does this and what do you do when this violation of the covenant takes place, what do you do? We're also going to see that the holiness of God has made very, very clear in every single word, because the background to the holiness that is Israel's call is the fact that they have been created by called by made covenant with redeemed by preserved by a holy God. Therefore they must be holy. This is where we must end for this morning. As Leviticus begins, God summons Moses to the tent of meeting  And in a very real sense, we're now summoned through the book of Leviticus. I promise you, it is going to be an adventure. We are together going to learn things we would never know if we did not study this book. What most Christians have been raw robbed of for two millennia. we will not allow ourselves to be robbed of, by God's grace, now. So I look forward week by week to going through Leviticus with you. It will be as if we are going into the tent of meeting with Moses by God's grace. What an adventure that will be. Let's pray. Father, we're just so thankful for all you've given us in your word. Thank you. Thank you for every word of scripture. Thank you for the Pentateuch. Thank you for the Torah. We too are those who look and must look continuously to the books of Moses to understand the book of Christ. Father, open our eyes that we may see. Open our hearts to find joy in this and deepen our understanding of Christ. It will be to your glory. We pray in the name of Christ. Amen. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2021/06/06/john-201-2125/ Sun, 06 Jun 2021 12:00:52 +0000 Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series
June 6, 2021

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 51:43 https://albertmohler.com/?p=54930 Audio, Exposition, John, John Series, Video noThird Avenue Baptist Church Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series June 6, 2021 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.Third Avenue Baptist Church Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series June 6, 2021 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2021/05/16/john-1838-1942/ Sun, 16 May 2021 12:00:26 +0000 Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series
May 16, 2021

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 48:14 https://albertmohler.com/?p=54929 Audio, Exposition, John, John Series, Video noThird Avenue Baptist Church Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series May 16, 2021 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.Third Avenue Baptist Church Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series May 16, 2021 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2021/05/09/john-1812-38/ Sun, 09 May 2021 12:00:59 +0000 Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series
May 9, 2021

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 50:42 https://albertmohler.com/?p=54755 Audio, Exposition, John, John Series, Message, Video noThird Avenue Baptist Church Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series May 9, 2021 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.Third Avenue Baptist Church Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series May 9, 2021 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2021/05/02/john-181-11/ Sun, 02 May 2021 12:00:34 +0000 Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series
May 2, 2021

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 47:12 https://albertmohler.com/?p=54649 Audio, Exposition, John, John Series, Video noThird Avenue Baptist Church Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series May 2, 2021 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.Third Avenue Baptist Church Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series May 2, 2021 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2021/04/18/john-1720-26/ Sun, 18 Apr 2021 12:00:30 +0000 Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series
April 18, 2021
 
 
Now we have seen that this is the high priestly prayer of Jesus. The word priest is a perplexity to some people because this is the most intimate prayer of Jesus. It's this long prayer. Jesus is praying to his father, of course the word priest doesn't appear in it. Why do we call this the high priestly prayer of Jesus? As we shall see, in its quintessence this morning in this text, this is a reminder of one of the three offices of Christ. Thinking about the doctrine of the person and work of Christ, we think historically of how the Bible has identified Christ to hold three offices. He is prophet and priest and king. Now, of course, if you look to the Old Testament, you see all three of those roles, those roles are not held by one person. The king cannot be a priest, the priest cannot be a king, and neither the king nor the priest is a prophet. But Jesus, as God in human flesh, and as the fulfillment of all the scriptures, and as the agent of our redemption, is infinitely prophet and priest and king, every single moment of our lives, not just at different aspects of our own experience of salvation—at every moment of our lives, we live only because he is prophet and priest and king as king. As king, he rules overall, and his kingdom shall know no end. It is as citizens of his kingdom that we have our ultimate identity, as we are United to him. His role as prophet is underlined by the fact that he is the teacher, and thus he came not only to die on the cross and to be raised on the third day; he came in order to teach. He came and ordered to instruct he left his, his church with his words. And as we saw in the gospel of John in our earlier study, he said, if you believe me, if you follow me, if you love me, keep my commandments.
He is the continuing prophet of the church through the preaching of the word of God. Christ continues to instruct his church. The priestly role is Christ’s mediatorial role. That is the role of priest. And again, a lot of people, even who have been Christians for a long time, they think of a priest as someone who fulfills ministrations and has a sacred role when sacred right. Yet people fail to understand that the priest--in essence--is a mediator. The priest is a representative. The priest goes before God on behalf of the people. Now let's back up a minute. That's why we do not have I have one. That’s why we do not employ one. This church has no priest, we refer to no one as father, and we understand no priestly or sacred total ministry. We believe that such a ministry is unnecessary, and, if unnecessary, then Fundamentally wrong—misleading—because Christ is our priest. He's the only priest that we need. We need no other intercessor. Christ’s mediatorial role is now fulfilled in his session. That's a Latin word for seeding. You say a session of the legislature, that’s when they sit down and get to work. Christ is seated at the right hand of God, the father almighty right now, and he ever intercedes for us, says scripture.
So we have a priest, and that is Jesus. But Jesus was priest even when he was with the disciples on earth. Jesus was to use a term that is archaic, but it was a real term. Jesus was “priest-ing” in the entirety of his earthly ministry. He was representing us before the father and representing the father to us in the entirety of his ministry, and he now does that. He does so from heaven, and he does so infinitely. If he did not do so, we would be destroyed, because he, even now, intercedes for us.
So today, we arrive in the last few verses of John 17 in the high priestly prayer. In particular, we're looking at verses 20 and following. Jesus prays this: “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one just as you, father are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may see that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me, I have given to them that they may be one, even as we are one. I in them and you in me, that they may be perfectly one so the world may know that you sent me and loved them, even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me may be with me—to see my glory that you have given me, because you love me before the foundation of the world. Oh, righteous father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I've made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved may be in them, and I in them.”
Now, remember that the last verses that we considered found their greatest thrust in verses 17-19, when Christ prayed, “sanctify them in truth—your word is truth. As you sent me into the world. So I have sent them into the world, and for their sake I consecrate myself, that they may also be sanctified in truth.” The hinge that comes in verse 20 is after Jesus has prayed that his church would be united and it would be consecrated in truth, that we will be bound together in truth—sanctify them in the truth, your word is truth. Again, it is a reminder of the fact that our unity is in Christ, and that unity operates through a scriptural unity. We are United in the truth. This is not a false unity. It's not an institutional unity. It's not an ecumenical unity. It's not some kind of lowest common denominator, theological unity. We are unified in the fullness of the faith once for all delivered to the saints. We are sanctified in the truth.
But Jesus, at this point is very clearly just as we think about the proximate picture. He's praying. He's about to be arrested. The sequence of the events that lead to his crucifixion are about to happen. So when Jesus prays for his own, who have they been? They were his own. They were his disciples, and the larger band of those who believed in him. He described them as his flock. He is the good shepherd. But the great change that comes—and this is something so important to us, brothers and sisters. This is where we find ourselves in this passage. We look at verse 20, and Jesus then makes clear to the father: “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word.” So Jesus is praying this high priestly prayer for all of those who will be his. We're right here in this prayer in this agonizing prayer, and the intimacy of this prayer of the father, Jesus is not just praying for his disciples and followers as he knew them then. He is praying for us, and that's just astoundingly good news. Have you thought about the fact that Jesus, as he is here betrayed and about to be handed over to the authorities, as Jesus is soon to be crucified, that as he prayed for his own, he was praying for us. And just as much as he knew those disciples, then he knew us. He knew we were coming.
Now, it's important that you recognize that he has told this before. He's spoken this way before. Look at John chapter 10. In chapter 10, Jesus described himself as the good shepherd. And you remember he said that my sheep hear my voice. They know me and they follow me. They obey me. But look at verse 16. “And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” So now we can look in retrospect and understand what John what Jesus was talking about here in John chapter 10:16. Even as Jesus was describing himself as the good shepherd, it was describing his own as his flock. He said, there are others in my flock who aren’t here yet, and I will gather them all together. They're not going to be able to different flock. They're going to get the same flock. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. Now, as we have been thinking about John chapter 17, the issue of the unity of the church comes, up and it will come up again even before we conclude this passage this morning. The unity of the church here is affirmed once again, as a spiritual unity in Christ. It's a true unity in Christ, and there's one shepherd—that's it. There's just one shepherd, and there's just one flock. Now, no matter how many different labels may be put on, no matter how many different languages, how many different countries, no matter how many different centuries and generations, it doesn't matter. Christ’s church is one. If it's true—if we’re really brought into Christ—we belonged to his church, and there is only one flock.
Well, this is a great reassurance, because we understand that the ultimate fulfillment of that one flock is eschatological. We’re all going to be before the thrown together. Just to speak of the current picture that people wonder about, all who are truly United in Christ will be there in that one flock. There won't be Methodists, and Presbyterians, and Baptists; there will just be Christ, but it's also through time.
When I wrote a book on the Apostle’s Creed, there are some who will get thrown off when first confronted with be this historic creed, the, the most universal of all Christian creeds. And they get to that, that phrase, “I believe in the holy catholic church.” And I do believe in the holy catholic church, this is one Southern Baptist who emphatically believes in the holy Catholic church. And I'm not going to give the church that calls itself Catholic, the use of the word catholic. it's a “little c”, but it's a very important word. The word catholic means universal. And, and people say that that's affirming the fact that there's one church, and wherever it's found, any true church, all true Christians are a part of that true church. It’s everywhere. But the word catholic is very important in this sense, and the word Catholic—capital C—church. It understands this claim. It is not only across space, but it's across time. So it's one church made up of all those who've ever become one with Christ from the beginning of his ministry until now and will be the ultimate eschatological fulfillment. But I love the language of John chapter 10, Jesus describing himself as the good shepherd, and the fact that there are sheep that belong to him, but he doesn't have them yet in the fold. Some of them haven't been born yet. Some of them haven't heard the gospel yet. And just as a shepherd goes and gathers a sheep, as we see in the famous cycle of parables in Luke chapter 15—the shepherd has 100, but he's lost one of them. What does he do? He goes and searches until he finds it. When he finds it, he celebrates. In that same sense, Jesus is not going to rest until all of his sheep are his and are a part of one flock and one shepherd.
Look at chapter 11, verse 52, just one chapter over. In verse 51, we're told “he did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation. And not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. So from that day on, they made plans to put him to death.” Notice what's going on here. This is when the plot to kill Jesus is just beginning. And, and as you understand, the Jewish authorities were deciding that Jesus was going to have to go. But the problem was that even as they were in the cycle of the old Testament text, the old Testament text was speaking of the fact that there will be an in-gathering from the nations. And Jesus was clearly speaking of himself as the one who was going to do that, The agent of bringing all of God's people—the elect—together, not only for the nation, but also for the world.
Well, you'll notice that language. And you'll notice in this case that it's actually coming from those who are the enemies of Jesus. And that's the context of John chapter 11. It's desperation on the part of the Jewish leaders. Why was Jesus being adored by so many? Why was Jesus being followed by the disciples, this, this Jesus who could even raise people from the dead? But now we're in John chapter 17, and now in these final verses of the high priestly prayer, Jesus, having already spoken of this mission that would unite all of us, people in one sheep with one shepherd, he now is praying. In his mediatorial priestly work, he makes very clear that all who will ever be his are included in this prayer. That is just phenomenally helpful. It's it should be of enormous unspeakable assurance. When we think about Christ for us, we're thinking about Christ for us as prophet, priest, and king, and here is Christ for us as priest. Years ago, I was a doing an installation of a service of a church in Georgia. This is when I was editor of the Christian index, and the actual preacher of the session with Dr. W.A. Criswell who was pastor of the first Baptist church of Dallas and Titanic figure in Baptist life. And I had another role in the service, and there was a giant choir. By giant choir, I mean the way Southern Baptist used to do giant choirs; it was about 300 people, full orchestra. It was big, it was glorious, it was loud, and they sang a song I had not heard before.
I'm just curious, how many of you know, the name Stamps Baxter? … Well, this is fewer than I thought. Mary knows the name Stamps Baxter. Obviously, we're going to have to work at this convection. In the history of evangelical music with the rise of the Bible conference movement in the late 19th and early 20th century, you'd have these mass gatherings. And of course you think of Billy Graham coming much later, but think about the rise of these mass gatherings and evangelist efforts, some of them came out of the second great awakening, and some of them just came out of the evangelical revivals of the 19th and early 20th centuries. And out of that came what was known as gospel music and the original gospel music. In church, they were called Sunday school songs. Now, it's very interesting that in our morning worship here at Third Avenue Baptist church, we sing songs that we call hymns, yet some of them actually aren't hymns. I don't let you know, it's a dirty secret. I know it's horrible. Uh, but some of those are not. I say that because the musicologists among us would point out that a hymn has a particular metric structure. Most of the songs we sing and call hymns are actually hymns. You see them in stanzas, and there's a certain metrical structure. Okay, that's a hymn. Now your conscience is settled, but there are some other songs we sing that are wonderful Christian songs. But back in older evangelical eras, there was a distinction between hymns and then Sunday school songs, and Sunday school songs with Sunday school being largely and evangelistic assembly in the early years, Sunday school songs didn't have to have the metric structure of the hymns. And so some of the songs we sing aren’t that good.
As a matter of fact, a song like “in the garden, I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses” is not a great hymn. It's not actually even a hymn. It doesn't have the metric structure. It's just a Sunday school song. There, there are a lot of books in the hymnal. We don't use that either, but there are a lot of books in the hymnal that are those old Sunday school songs. Well, Stamps Baxter wrote a lot of those old Sunday school songs. And it would they would be sometimes a little more upbeat than hymns. They sometimes be a little more maudlin than hymns, or they tended to be testimony songs about Jesus as our friend, about how I came to know Jesus, like the song, “oh, how I love Jesus.” That's the Sunday school song. Not a hymn. “There is a name I love to hear.” … Okay, if you don't know that song, I excommunicate you.
But nonetheless, that was a Sunday school song, just to give an example. So Stamps Baxter wrote lots on Sundays school songs, and he taught people how to sing them with the stamps Baxter quartet. A lot of our gospel music as we know it came out of that, but the choir sang at this the service at Anthem that was made out of a stamps Baxter song, and that stamps Baxter song was both entitled and took as it’s major theme these words: “when he was on the cross, I was on his mind.”
Now I have to tell you that, as young man, when I heard that song the first time, I thought, “I don't think we should sing it that way.” It’s a long debate in worship language. I was wrong in thinking that. That’s actually one of the most precious truths. I know that when he was on the cross, I was on his mind. The “I” is not so much important. We were on his mind. That's a better way to put it. When he was on the cross, we were on his mind. He knew us. And matter of fact, one line in that song is “he knew me, yet he loved me.” And expanding that from just the singular—he knew us, yet he loved us when he was on the cross. Let's just say we were on his mind. That's exactly what we have here in Christ’s Priestley mediatorial role. He already was thinking of us. We were included in this.
Even without this text, maybe we would have been assured we're included in this because of the totality of the New Testament revelation, but how precious is it to be told right here that we were on his mind? “I do not ask for these visible only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word.” Through whose word? The disciples will preach, and people will hear, and in a succession of preaching and hearing, there'll be many who believe, and, believing, they will be saved. They will be united to Christ. They will be his. This is how the sheep hear his voice. This is beautiful, isn't it? So how do the sheep hear Jesus’s voice? It's through the preaching of the word of God, the taking of the gospel. Every time the word of God is preached, the sheep, hear his voice. And hearing his voice, we are drawn into this one flock of the one shepherd. So it’s not just, “I'm thinking now of all those who will believe in me, but believe in me through the disciples’ word, that they may all be one just as you father are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” Now, this is unity language that only makes sense because of the opening of the high priestly prayer. Just to remember going back to how Jesus opened the prayer, When he said in verse four, “I glorified you on earth. Having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.” And again, before the world existed comes up again in this last climactic section of the high priestly prayer.
This is a prayer for unity. This is the true unity. And you'll notice it's not institutional. It's not the modern ecumenical movement, a lowest common denominator. It's not non-theological. It's inherently theological. It's essentially theological, and it's in the truth that we may be one, but notice the intimacy here: “just as you, father, are in me, and I in you.” “that day,” meaning, all those past present and future who are Christ. “That they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” So our identity is now as believers in Christ, and Christ’s identity is in the father. And so you understand what it means for Christ to be the door, for Christ to be our priest and intercessor, for Christ to be the first born of many brethren, for us to be joint heirs with Christ as Paul will tell us. It means that the unity, the Trinitarian, the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit is extended to include us. “As we are united to Christ” does not mean we're in the Godhead. It doesn’t mean we're in the Trinity. It means that by the miracle of the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ, we share in the Trinitarian unity and in the Trinitarian love of the one, true God. And if that doesn't blow your intellectual fuses, what would? How dare we think that it might be possible that we would be partakers of the Trinitarian love of God? but that's exactly what Jesus is declaring here and is praying for us.
He continues in verse 22, “the glory that you have given me, I have given to them, that they may be one, even as we are one. The glory that you gave me, I've given to them.” Well, where is it? What is that glory? Well, this is a transformation of values. It's a redefinition of terms. Martin Luther would speak of this. When he warned of a theology of visible glory, visible glory is what we want. We're glory-mongers. We want to see visible glory. We love spectacle. We love for our eyes to see glory, and sometimes we see glimpses of glory. You think of the realities of heaven, and a new Jerusalem, and a new earth. And then you see a spectacular sunrise or sunset. Do you see a vision of just how glorious such a thing may be? Trying to recreate that glory, or trying to imagine and speculate that glory, and trying to make that the context of Christian worship turns out to go badly.
And again, I'm turning back to the reformation, and it has everything to do with what we're looking at here. Jesus said that the glory of the father had given him, he's given to his church… and I was looking at you guys this morning. You don't look too glorious. No insult intended, but I look at you, I just don't see a lot of glory. We don't look a whole lot more glorious, and this building, you know, I’m thankful for it, but it’s not exactly glorious. What am I contrasting it to? There are buildings that declared glory, and I love to go in them, by the way. In church history, I love to step into those spaces and know also other things they represent, but in so far as they try to impress you with glory, that's the problem. Luther reminds us that the church is a Mouth-house, not an eye-house. “Moot house,” as Luther said. In other words, the church is a building, but it is a building where the word can be preached, and Christ’s people can worship and sing together. It's all about mouths. It's not mostly about eyes. For 500th anniversary of the reformation, I had the honor of preaching from the high pulpit in Wittenberg where he preached, and that building is pretty glorious to a Southern Baptist. It looks stunningly glorious. The parish church where Luther preached thousands of times is pretty glorious in contrast with third avenue Baptist church. But in contrast with the Roman Catholic church, it was very clearly a preaching place. The center was the pulpit, and the acoustics of the building were either built for or changed for the hearing of the spoken word. And by the way, that was a big thing, because a lot of these churches were made for the mass, and the acoustics were not made for people to hear the preaching of the words. And a lot of these churches’ acoustics had to be changed so that the preaching of the word could, could happen.
When I take people to a city like London, and we're just trying to see the history of the Christian Church, I'll take them to, a church like a fairly small Christopher Wren church off Piccadilly circus. It's been there for centuries, and when you walk in, the sanctuary is very stunning. It’s beautiful, but the most amazing thing about it is that it has these very tall, clear windows, and it's filled with light. And this is one of the churches that Wren built on the ruins of a former church burned in the great fire of London. So it's after the reformation. And I said, “you'll notice they built the church back pretty much like it would have been except for one thing, these giant windows, why these giant windows? well it's because the church has become a mouth-house. It's become a place for the study and declaration of the preaching of the word. And people come with a Bible now. And so they need to be able to read it. And the, the old dark churches of times past where the priests were up there doing the mass people didn't need to see anything only the priest needed to see, but now people have the word and with the word you need windows and you need light. It's a sign. The reformation has come.”
All that to say, there’s an infinite glory in this building, because Christ’s people are in it. There is an infinite glory in the preaching of the word. This is what we're doing right now and studying God's word. There's will be an infinite glory when we gather for formal worship in just a short amount of time. That's Jesus's point—the glory was there with the disciples because they were his, he glory is there because they have the gospel. And this gets back to what you see in the opening to the gospel of John. I think it will be the most famous verse in John chapter one as John, 1:14, “we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the father, full of grace and truth.” But remember, you're talking about the glory that was of an infant. That was a hidden glory. Those who knew who he was saw the glory. If he didn't know who he was, you didn't see the glory. Unlike Renaissance art, he didn't glow in the dark. He was a baby. So here's another just wonderful reminder to us that we're surrounded by glory. CS Lewis famously said, you'll never meet a mere mortal. That's true, because every single human being is made in the image of God. You'll never go to an ordinary worship service. Now I know even the reformers called it ordinary worship, which meant not a festival day. Again, background of need for reformation, not a festival day, not a feast day. It's an ordinary worship. I remember when I was a kid, seeing the top of it, it said “the service of ordinary worship.” I was thinking, “well, Hey, let's set our let's set our standards low,” but the surface of ordinary worship meant this is Christian worship. And, uh, there are some prayer books that were called the ordinary. In other words, it's not that it's just, it's just non festival. This is just the way the Christian Church praise. But the glory that Christ has given us is the glory that the father gave
him. And that means it's the glory of the gospel. It’s the glory of the truth. It's the glory of salvation. It's a hidden glory. Let's look at it. It makes you look better this morning. It makes me feel better about myself this morning. I don't have to look glorious to be glorious in light of the gospel of Jesus Christ for God's people. -- than the plural. We're experiencing glory together. There's glory given to us, the father gave Christ this glory, and he has given his church this glory. Now, hold on, just to remember that in the Ordo Salutis, the order of salvation, we shall be glorified. There is something yet to come. Christ’s church will be glorified. An infinite, visible glory is coming, but it's in the fullness of the kingdom, which is not yet. So after verse 22, you'll see, again, as that verse ends, it comes back to unity “that they may be one, even as we are one.” And then in verse 23, that unity is further explained in the Trinitarian reality. “I am them and you and me, that they may become perfectly one so that the world may know you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.” This is, this is a further exploration exposition. Now the unity has made very clear, the trinitarian reality, I in them and you and me, but that's the unity that they may become perfectly one. So, you know what, here's the other good thing about the unity of the church? Number one, it isn't institutional. It isn't thus ecumenical. It isn't a human invention. The lowest common denominator of theology we can put together to call people. A unity of the church is already accomplished in the truest sense because it is, we are unity in Christ and Christ is in the father. And so in that sense, the disunity of the church becomes impossible. That is to say, there will never be eschatologically churches, but only Christ’s church. In this, in this age, we need to do lean into the visibility of the unity of the church that Christ talks about, but there's going to be a limited visibility. I mean, we know we're in communion with so many other congregations are preaching the gospel and loving God's word. We helped to plant some of those churches. We encourage those churches. We were in fellowship with thousands of churches through the Southern Baptist convention that is a further sign of our unity together. And we believe that all those who are true evangelicals, even if they're in wrongly ordered belief nonetheless, if they believe the gospel and preach the gospel, they are a part of Christ’s church. And even though we're not the same congregation with them over that issue, we still believe we're in the same church with them. And again, it's historical past, present and future. That means we're in the same church with Charles and John Wesley. I means we're in the, we're in the same church with Jonathan Edwards and we're in the same church with people. My great grandfathers were in the same church with, I pray, my great, great grandchildren. I pray they come to know Christ, and that that's a great reassurance, but the unity is not even just the unity of those who believe in Christ.
Once we've been united to Christ, it is Christ in the Father, the Father in the son, the demonstration of this is before the world is something we need not just to skip over that. The world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. So, in so far as we show our unity in Christ, we're showing the world the unity of Christ with the father, and the fact that the father sent the son. Verse 24. “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me may be with me, where I am to see my glory that you have given me, because you love me before the foundation of the world.” Now, just to remember again, go back to verse five. “and now, father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world started.” So when Jesus says where I am, he is speaking of himself with the father, he is speaking of his completed work on earth. He's speaking of himself, present with the father. And as we shall know, seated at the right hand of God, the father almighty, and he's already prayed for the restoration of the glory that he had with the father before the world was created. So before the first spec of cosmic dust, when he was with the father in their shared glory, he's returning to that. Then this is a part of his condescension and coming here as a part of the incarnation.
This is a part of what the apostle Paul is talking about in Philippians chapter two—he thought it not robbery. He humbled himself well, even as he's humbling himself now in extreme as even to the cross, he is looking to the other side of his obedience when he is now with the father again. And he is praying for his, for the day when we in him with him will see the glory that he had with the father before the foundation of the world. How was that is what Christ desires for us. What Christ will make certain for us is that we will know him. But when we see him, we will see him not as the disciples saw him in the incarnation. We will not see him as he was visible in the incarnation would be the same body and a resurrection body. It's a continuity. The point is that when we see him, we will see him in the glory that he had with the father before the creation of the world.
Now, when people talk about yearning for heaven, I think often we have people yearning for heaven that they I'd want to be free of these pains and cares. I want to be in a place of God's perfect reign. I want to be in that place where every eye is dry and every tear is wiped away. I want to be in that place that reflects God's perfect righteousness, justice, holiness, peace, but actually we should long to be in that place where we behold the glory of the son of God and the glory that he had with the father before the creation of the world. And Christ is longing for that for his own people. You’ll notice the love. It's not just the glory that he had is the glory that you have given me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world, the inner Trinitarian love, which is perhaps the sweetest reality, human ears can never hear.
Verse 25, “Oh righteous Father, even though the world does not know you. I know you and these that you have sent me, these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known that the love with which you have loved me may be in them. And I am them.” So it's interesting in verse 25, when he prays to the father, in this case, he says, oh, righteous father. Now think of the background to that. Oh, righteous father. Why would righteous become so crucial? His prayer is coming to an end. What's happening right after this? It is betrayal and the arrest of Jesus. Now, in some sense, the betrayal is already underway because Jesus told Judas to go away. And what he must do, do quickly, but the manifestation of that betrayal is coming right away. And then, then the arrest and all the events will lead up to his crucifixion and the horror of his substitutionary atonement. Why now at this point, does Jesus say, oh, righteous father? It is because what is about to take place is going to be the demonstration of the righteousness of God. Paul makes that clear in a passage, such as Romans three, verses 21. And following what is all this about? It is about demonstrating the righteousness of the father. And so as Jesus prays to him, even right now, he praised him, oh, righteous father. I'm just going to turn to that text.
Romans chapter 3:21, “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law though the law, and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, for all who believe. For there's no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forth 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. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just, and the justified of the one who has faith in Jesus.”
And this gets back to the evangelicals, Sunday school songs, and stamps Baxter, whom you did not know. If you think about so much evangelicalism, sentimentality, it's not wrong when we say that the cross reveals the love of God. And again, that's a part of the apostolic preaching, but it's a minor key in the apistolic preaching. In the apostolic preaching, we are told more than anything else that what the cross of Christ shows us is the righteousness of God. Now, you don't say one at the expense of the other, because the new Testament it's rich with descriptions of the cross is love. “Greater love has no man than he laid down his life for his friends.” “And this is love.” “For God So loved the world.” And that's in the apostolic preaching as well. But just notice that when the cross is raised in this context such as Romans chapter three, what we are told is that, and in that passage five times that the cross reveals the righteousness of God. And as the prayer comes to a conclusion, Jesus refers to his own father as the righteous father, even though the world does not know you. And again, that is very similar to refrain of
John chapter one in the very opening about Christ himself. He came into his own, and his own believed him not. There are those who just deny all the evidence of the existence, even of a creator God.
“But even though the world doesn't know you, I know you, and I know you have sent me. I made known to them your name.” And again, there's more here than just a name. This is the truth about the father. “And I’ll continue to make it known that the love with which you love me may be in them.
And I in them.” And the prayer concludes. But notice how the prayer concludes that those who are his, will be known by the love with which the father loved the son, that that love may be in them. And I in them. I'm not a big country music fan. I recognize the historical importance of country music and supposedly operatic qualities of country music. I also understand the honesty of country music. Johnny Cash, years ago sang a song, “your own personal Jesus.” I've never known exactly what to do with it. When it appeared that at least implicit in the song is the understanding that something's wrong with the spirituality in which we have our own personal Jesus. We have a personal relationship with Christ, but you'll notice that what we see here is that it is true. If anything of the gospel is true, it is that Christ is in us. It's not that we have our own personal Jesus. It’s that Jesus has his own personal disciples and that's who we are.
And what more powerful demonstration of the love of God could there be? It's been a privilege to look through this prayer together with you. Ever since we began our study, I've been looking forward to John chapter 17, and here we are. I just want to leave us with one thought. And that is the thought that verse 24 is itself just a perfect illustration, not only of the gospel, but of the entirety of God's redemptive purpose. “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me may be with me where I am to see my glory that you have given me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world.” This explains all of biblical theology, everything from Genesis one until the end of the book of Revelation. It is about God redeeming a people through the blood of his son who will know his glory and who will exalt in that glory everlastingly. And so that there will be no explanation for why any creature knows that glory, but for Christ and what he did in obedience to the father. And that's just about the perfect summary, not only of the gospel, but of the Bible
Father, We're thankful for this time together. We pray that you will use this time and you will use this word to conform us to the image of Christ. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 48:34 https://albertmohler.com/?p=54505 Audio, Exposition, John, John Series, Video noThird Avenue Baptist Church Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series April 18, 2021     Now we have seen that this is the high priestly prayer of Jesus. The word priest is a perplexity to some people because this is the most intimate prayer of Jesus. It's this long prayer. Jesus is praying to his father, of course the word priest doesn't appear in it. Why do we call this the high priestly prayer of Jesus? As we shall see, in its quintessence this morning in this text, this is a reminder of one of the three offices of Christ. Thinking about the doctrine of the person and work of Christ, we think historically of how the Bible has identified Christ to hold three offices. He is prophet and priest and king. Now, of course, if you look to the Old Testament, you see all three of those roles, those roles are not held by one person. The king cannot be a priest, the priest cannot be a king, and neither the king nor the priest is a prophet. But Jesus, as God in human flesh, and as the fulfillment of all the scriptures, and as the agent of our redemption, is infinitely prophet and priest and king, every single moment of our lives, not just at different aspects of our own experience of salvation—at every moment of our lives, we live only because he is prophet and priest and king as king. As king, he rules overall, and his kingdom shall know no end. It is as citizens of his kingdom that we have our ultimate identity, as we are United to him. His role as prophet is underlined by the fact that he is the teacher, and thus he came not only to die on the cross and to be raised on the third day; he came in order to teach. He came and ordered to instruct he left his, his church with his words. And as we saw in the gospel of John in our earlier study, he said, if you believe me, if you follow me, if you love me, keep my commandments. He is the continuing prophet of the church through the preaching of the word of God. Christ continues to instruct his church. The priestly role is Christ’s mediatorial role. That is the role of priest. And again, a lot of people, even who have been Christians for a long time, they think of a priest as someone who fulfills ministrations and has a sacred role when sacred right. Yet people fail to understand that the priest--in essence--is a mediator. The priest is a representative. The priest goes before God on behalf of the people. Now let's back up a minute. That's why we do not have I have one. That’s why we do not employ one. This church has no priest, we refer to no one as father, and we understand no priestly or sacred total ministry. We believe that such a ministry is unnecessary, and, if unnecessary, then Fundamentally wrong—misleading—because Christ is our priest. He's the only priest that we need. We need no other intercessor. Christ’s mediatorial role is now fulfilled in his session. That's a Latin word for seeding. You say a session of the legislature, that’s when they sit down and get to work. Christ is seated at the right hand of God, the father almighty right now, and he ever intercedes for us, says scripture. So we have a priest, and that is Jesus. But Jesus was priest even when he was with the disciples on earth. Jesus was to use a term that is archaic, but it was a real term. Jesus was “priest-ing” in the entirety of his earthly ministry. He was representing us before the father and representing the father to us in the entirety of his ministry, and he now does that. He does so from heaven, and he does so infinitely. If he did not do so, we would be destroyed, because he, even now, intercedes for us. So today, we arrive in the last few verses of John 17 in the high priestly prayer. In particular, we're looking at verses 20 and following. Jesus prays this: “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one just as you, father are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may see that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me, I have given to them that they may be one, even as we are one. I in them and you in me, that they may be perfectly one so the world may know that you sent me and loved them, even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me may be with me—to see my glory that you have given me, because you love me before the foundation of the world. Oh, righteous father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I've made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved may be in them, and I in them.” Now, remember that the last verses that we considered found their greatest thrust in verses 17-19, when Christ prayed, “sanctify them in truth—your word is truth. As you sent me into the world. So I have sent them into the world, and for their sake I consecrate myself, that they may also be sanctified in truth.” The hinge that comes in verse 20 is after Jesus has prayed that his church would be united and it would be consecrated in truth, that we will be bound together in truth—sanctify them in the truth, your word is truth. Again, it is a reminder of the fact that our unity is in Christ, and that unity operates through a scriptural unity. We are United in the truth. This is not a false unity. It's not an institutional unity. It's not an ecumenical unity. It's not some kind of lowest common denominator, theological unity. We are unified in the fullness of the faith once for all delivered to the saints. We are sanctified in the truth. But Jesus, at this point is very clearly just as we think about the proximate picture. He's praying. He's about to be arrested. The sequence of the events that lead to his crucifixion are about to happen. So when Jesus prays for his own, who have they been? They were his own. They were his disciples, and the larger band of those who believed in him. He described them as his flock. He is the good shepherd. But the great change that comes—and this is something so important to us, brothers and sisters. This is where we find ourselves in this passage. We look at verse 20, and Jesus then makes clear to the father: “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word.” So Jesus is praying this high priestly prayer for all of those who will be his. We're right here in this prayer in this agonizing prayer, and the intimacy of this prayer of the father, Jesus is not just praying for his disciples and followers as he knew them then. He is praying for us, and that's just astoundingly good news. Have you thought about the fact that Jesus, as he is here betrayed and about to be handed over to the authorities, as Jesus is soon to be crucified, that as he prayed for his own, he was praying for us. And just as much as he knew those disciples, then he knew us. He knew we were coming. Now, it's important that you recognize that he has told this before. He's spoken this way before. Look at John chapter 10. In chapter 10, Jesus described himself as the good shepherd. And you remember he said that my sheep hear my voice. They know me and they follow me. They obey me. But look at verse 16. “And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” So now we can look in retrospect and understand what John what Jesus was talking about here in John chapter 10:16. Even as Jesus was describing himself as the good shepherd, it was describing his own as his flock. He said, there are others in my flock who aren’t here yet, and I will gather them all together. They're not going to be able to different flock. They're going to get the same flock. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. Now, as we have been thinking about John chapter 17, the issue of the unity of the church comes, up and it will come up again even before we conclude this passage this morning. The unity of the church here is affirmed once again, as a spiritual unity in Christ. It's a true unity in Christ, and there's one shepherd—that's it. There's just one shepherd, and there's just one flock. Now, no matter how many different labels may be put on, no matter how many different languages, how many different countries, no matter how many different centuries and generations, it doesn't matter. Christ’s church is one. If it's true—if we’re really brought into Christ—we belonged to his church, and there is only one flock. Well, this is a great reassurance, because we understand that the ultimate fulfillment of that one flock is eschatological. We’re all going to be before the thrown together. Just to speak of the current picture that people wonder about, all who are truly United in Christ will be there in that one flock. There won't be Methodists, and Presbyterians, and Baptists; there will just be Christ, but it's also through time. When I wrote a book on the Apostle’s Creed, there are some who will get thrown off when first confronted with be this historic creed, the, the most universal of all Christian creeds. And they get to that, that phrase, “I believe in the holy catholic church.” And I do believe in the holy catholic church, this is one Southern Baptist who emphatically believes in the holy Catholic church. And I'm not going to give the church that calls itself Catholic, the use of the word catholic. it's a “little c”, but it's a very important word. The word catholic means universal. And, and people say that that's affirming the fact that there's one church, and wherever it's found, any true church, all true Christians are a part of that true church. It’s everywhere. But the word catholic is very important in this sense, and the word Catholic—capital C—church. It understands this claim. It is not only across space, but it's across time. So it's one church made up of all those who've ever become one with Christ from the beginning of his ministry until now and will be the ultimate eschatological fulfillment. But I love the language of John chapter 10, Jesus describing himself as the good shepherd, and the fact that there are sheep that belong to him, but he doesn't have them yet in the fold. Some of them haven't been born yet. Some of them haven't heard the gospel yet. And just as a shepherd goes and gathers a sheep, as we see in the famous cycle of parables in Luke chapter 15—the shepherd has 100, but he's lost one of them. What does he do? He goes and searches until he finds it. When he finds it, he celebrates. In that same sense, Jesus is not going to rest until all of his sheep are his and are a part of one flock and one shepherd. Look at chapter 11, verse 52, just one chapter over. In verse 51, we're told “he did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation. And not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. So from that day on, they made plans to put him to death.” Notice what's going on here. This is when the plot to kill Jesus is just beginning. And, and as you understand, the Jewish authorities were deciding that Jesus was going to have to go. But the problem was that even as they were in the cycle of the old Testament text, the old Testament text was speaking of the fact that there will be an in-gathering from the nations. And Jesus was clearly speaking of himself as the one who was going to do that, The agent of bringing all of God's people—the elect—together, not only for the nation, but also for the world. Well, you'll notice that language. And you'll notice in this case that it's actually coming from those who are the enemies of Jesus. And that's the context of John chapter 11. It's desperation on the part of the Jewish leaders. Why was Jesus being adored by so many? Why was Jesus being followed by the disciples, this, this Jesus who could even raise people from the dead? But now we're in John chapter 17, and now in these final verses of the high priestly prayer, Jesus, having already spoken of this mission that would unite all of us, people in one sheep with one shepherd, he now is praying. In his mediatorial priestly work, he makes very clear that all who will ever be his are included in this prayer. That is just phenomenally helpful. It's it should be of enormous unspeakable assurance. When we think about Christ for us, we're thinking about Christ for us as prophet, priest, and king, and here is Christ for us as priest. Years ago, I was a doing an installation of a service of a church in Georgia. This is when I was editor of the Christian index, and the actual preacher of the session with Dr. W.A. Criswell who was pastor of the first Baptist church of Dallas and Titanic figure in Baptist life. And I had another role in the service, and there was a giant choir. By giant choir, I mean the way Southern Baptist used to do giant choirs; it was about 300 people, full orchestra. It was big, it was glorious, it was loud, and they sang a song I had not heard before. I'm just curious, how many of you know, the name Stamps Baxter? … Well, this is fewer than I thought. Mary knows the name Stamps Baxter. Obviously, we're going to have to work at this convection. In the history of evangelical music with the rise of the Bible conference movement in the late 19th and early 20th century, you'd have these mass gatherings. And of course you think of Billy Graham coming much later, but think about the rise of these mass gatherings and evangelist efforts, some of them came out of the second great awakening, and some of them just came out of the evangelical revivals of the 19th and early 20th centuries. And out of that came what was known as gospel music and the original gospel music. In church, they were called Sunday school songs. Now, it's very interesting that in our morning worship here at Third Avenue Baptist church, we sing songs that we call hymns, yet some of them actually aren't hymns. I don't let you know, it's a dirty secret. I know it's horrible. Uh, but some of those are not. I say that because the musicologists among us would point out that a hymn has a particular metric structure. Most of the songs we sing and call hymns are actually hymns. You see them in stanzas, and there's a certain metrical structure. Okay, that's a hymn. Now your conscience is settled, but there are some other songs we sing that are wonderful Christian songs. But back in older evangelical eras, there was a distinction between hymns and then Sunday school songs, and Sunday school songs with Sunday school being largely and evangelistic assembly in the early years, Sunday school songs didn't have to have the metric structure of the hymns. And so some of the songs we sing aren’t that good. As a matter of fact, a song like “in the garden, I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses” is not a great hymn. It's not actually even a hymn. It doesn't have the metric structure. It's just a Sunday school song. There, there are a lot of books in the hymnal. We don't use that either, but there are a lot of books in the hymnal that are those old Sunday school songs. Well, Stamps Baxter wrote a lot of those old Sunday school songs. And it would they would be sometimes a little more upbeat than hymns. They sometimes be a little more maudlin than hymns, or they tended to be testimony songs about Jesus as our friend, about how I came to know Jesus, like the song, “oh, how I love Jesus.” That's the Sunday school song. Not a hymn. “There is a name I love to hear.” … Okay, if you don't know that song, I excommunicate you. But nonetheless, that was a Sunday school song, just to give an example. So Stamps Baxter wrote lots on Sundays school songs, and he taught people how to sing them with the stamps Baxter quartet. A lot of our gospel music as we know it came out of that, but the choir sang at this the service at Anthem that was made out of a stamps Baxter song, and that stamps Baxter song was both entitled and took as it’s major theme these words: “when he was on the cross, I was on his mind.” Now I have to tell you that, as young man, when I heard that song the first time, I thought, “I don't think we should sing it that way.” It’s a long debate in worship language. I was wrong in thinking that. That’s actually one of the most precious truths. I know that when he was on the cross, I was on his mind. The “I” is not so much important. We were on his mind. That's a better way to put it. When he was on the cross, we were on his mind. He knew us. And matter of fact, one line in that song is “he knew me, yet he loved me.” And expanding that from just the singular—he knew us, yet he loved us when he was on the cross. Let's just say we were on his mind. That's exactly what we have here in Christ’s Priestley mediatorial role. He already was thinking of us. We were included in this. Even without this text, maybe we would have been assured we're included in this because of the totality of the New Testament revelation, but how precious is it to be told right here that we were on his mind? “I do not ask for these visible only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word.” Through whose word? The disciples will preach, and people will hear, and in a succession of preaching and hearing, there'll be many who believe, and, believing, they will be saved. They will be united to Christ. They will be his. This is how the sheep hear his voice. This is beautiful, isn't it? So how do the sheep hear Jesus’s voice? It's through the preaching of the word of God, the taking of the gospel. Every time the word of God is preached, the sheep, hear his voice. And hearing his voice, we are drawn into this one flock of the one shepherd. So it’s not just, “I'm thinking now of all those who will believe in me, but believe in me through the disciples’ word, that they may all be one just as you father are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” Now, this is unity language that only makes sense because of the opening of the high priestly prayer. Just to remember going back to how Jesus opened the prayer, When he said in verse four, “I glorified you on earth. Having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.” And again, before the world existed comes up again in this last climactic section of the high priestly prayer. This is a prayer for unity. This is the true unity. And you'll notice it's not institutional. It's not the modern ecumenical movement, a lowest common denominator. It's not non-theological. It's inherently theological. It's essentially theological, and it's in the truth that we may be one, but notice the intimacy here: “just as you, father, are in me, and I in you.” “that day,” meaning, all those past present and future who are Christ. “That they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” So our identity is now as believers in Christ, and Christ’s identity is in the father. And so you understand what it means for Christ to be the door, for Christ to be our priest and intercessor, for Christ to be the first born of many brethren, for us to be joint heirs with Christ as Paul will tell us. It means that the unity, the Trinitarian, the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit is extended to include us. “As we are united to Christ” does not mean we're in the Godhead. It doesn’t mean we're in the Trinity. It means that by the miracle of the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ, we share in the Trinitarian unity and in the Trinitarian love of the one, true God. And if that doesn't blow your intellectual fuses, what would? How dare we think that it might be possible that we would be partakers of the Trinitarian love of God? but that's exactly what Jesus is declaring here and is praying for us. He continues in verse 22, “the glory that you have given me, I have given to them, that they may be one, even as we are one. The glory that you gave me, I've given to them.” Well, where is it? What is that glory? Well, this is a transformation of values. It's a redefinition of terms. Martin Luther would speak of this. When he warned of a theology of visible glory, visible glory is what we want. We're glory-mongers. We want to see visible glory. We love spectacle. We love for our eyes to see glory, and sometimes we see glimpses of glory. You think of the realities of heaven, and a new Jerusalem, and a new earth. And then you see a spectacular sunrise or sunset. Do you see a vision of just how glorious such a thing may be? Trying to recreate that glory, or trying to imagine and speculate that glory, and trying to make that the context of Christian worship turns out to go badly. And again, I'm turning back to the reformation, and it has everything to do with what we're looking at here. Jesus said that the glory of the father had given him, he's given to his church… and I was looking at you guys this morning. You don't look too glorious. No insult intended, but I look at you, I just don't see a lot of glory. We don't look a whole lot more glorious, and this building, you know, I’m thankful for it, but it’s not exactly glorious. What am I contrasting it to? There are buildings that declared glory, and I love to go in them, by the way. In church history, I love to step into those spaces and know also other things they represent, but in so far as they try to impress you with glory, that's the problem. Luther reminds us that the church is a Mouth-house, not an eye-house. “Moot house,” as Luther said. In other words, the church is a building, but it is a building where the word can be preached, and Christ’s people can worship and sing together. It's all about mouths. It's not mostly about eyes. For 500th anniversary of the reformation, I had the honor of preaching from the high pulpit in Wittenberg where he preached, and that building is pretty glorious to a Southern Baptist. It looks stunningly glorious. The parish church where Luther preached thousands of times is pretty glorious in contrast with third avenue Baptist church. But in contrast with the Roman Catholic church, it was very clearly a preaching place. The center was the pulpit, and the acoustics of the building were either built for or changed for the hearing of the spoken word. And by the way, that was a big thing, because a lot of these churches were made for the mass, and the acoustics were not made for people to hear the preaching of the words. And a lot of these churches’ acoustics had to be changed so that the preaching of the word could, could happen. When I take people to a city like London, and we're just trying to see the history of the Christian Church, I'll take them to, a church like a fairly small Christopher Wren church off Piccadilly circus. It's been there for centuries, and when you walk in, the sanctuary is very stunning. It’s beautiful, but the most amazing thing about it is that it has these very tall, clear windows, and it's filled with light. And this is one of the churches that Wren built on the ruins of a former church burned in the great fire of London. So it's after the reformation. And I said, “you'll notice they built the church back pretty much like it would have been except for one thing, these giant windows, why these giant windows? well it's because the church has become a mouth-house. It's become a place for the study and declaration of the preaching of the word. And people come with a Bible now. And so they need to be able to read it. And the, the old dark churches of times past where the priests were up there doing the mass people didn't need to see anything only the priest needed to see, but now people have the word and with the word you need windows and you need light. It's a sign. The reformation has come.” All that to say, there’s an infinite glory in this building, because Christ’s people are in it. There is an infinite glory in the preaching of the word. This is what we're doing right now and studying God's word. There's will be an infinite glory when we gather for formal worship in just a short amount of time. That's Jesus's point—the glory was there with the disciples because they were his, he glory is there because they have the gospel. And this gets back to what you see in the opening to the gospel of John. I think it will be the most famous verse in John chapter one as John, 1:14, “we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the father, full of grace and truth.” But remember, you're talking about the glory that was of an infant. That was a hidden glory. Those who knew who he was saw the glory. If he didn't know who he was, you didn't see the glory. Unlike Renaissance art, he didn't glow in the dark. He was a baby. So here's another just wonderful reminder to us that we're surrounded by glory. CS Lewis famously said, you'll never meet a mere mortal. That's true, because every single human being is made in the image of God. You'll never go to an ordinary worship service. Now I know even the reformers called it ordinary worship, which meant not a festival day. Again, background of need for reformation, not a festival day, not a feast day. It's an ordinary worship. I remember when I was a kid, seeing the top of it, it said “the service of ordinary worship.” I was thinking, “well, Hey, let's set our let's set our standards low,” but the surface of ordinary worship meant this is Christian worship. And, uh, there are some prayer books that were called the ordinary. In other words, it's not that it's just, it's just non festival. This is just the way the Christian Church praise. But the glory that Christ has given us is the glory that the father gave him. And that means it's the glory of the gospel. It’s the glory of the truth. It's the glory of salvation. It's a hidden glory. Let's look at it. It makes you look better this morning. It makes me feel better about myself this morning. I don't have to look glorious to be glorious in light of the gospel of Jesus Christ for God's people. -- than the plural. We're experiencing glory together. There's glory given to us, the father gave Christ this glory, and he has given his church this glory. Now, hold on, just to remember that in the Ordo Salutis, the order of salvation, we shall be glorified. There is something yet to come. Christ’s church will be glorified. An infinite, visible glory is coming, but it's in the fullness of the kingdom, which is not yet. So after verse 22, you'll see, again, as that verse ends, it comes back to unity “that they may be one, even as we are one.” And then in verse 23, that unity is further explained in the Trinitarian reality. “I am them and you and me, that they may become perfectly one so that the world may know you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.” This is, this is a further exploration exposition. Now the unity has made very clear, the trinitarian reality, I in them and you and me, but that's the unity that they may become perfectly one. So, you know what, here's the other good thing about the unity of the church? Number one, it isn't institutional. It isn't thus ecumenical. It isn't a human invention. The lowest common denominator of theology we can put together to call people. A unity of the church is already accomplished in the truest sense because it is, we are unity in Christ and Christ is in the father. And so in that sense, the disunity of the church becomes impossible. That is to say, there will never be eschatologically churches, but only Christ’s church. In this, in this age, we need to do lean into the visibility of the unity of the church that Christ talks about, but there's going to be a limited visibility. I mean, we know we're in communion with so many other congregations are preaching the gospel and loving God's word. We helped to plant some of those churches. We encourage those churches. We were in fellowship with thousands of churches through the Southern Baptist convention that is a further sign of our unity together. And we believe that all those who are true evangelicals, even if they're in wrongly ordered belief nonetheless, if they believe the gospel and preach the gospel, they are a part of Christ’s church. And even though we're not the same congregation with them over that issue, we still believe we're in the same church with them. And again, it's historical past, present and future. That means we're in the same church with Charles and John Wesley. I means we're in the, we're in the same church with Jonathan Edwards and we're in the same church with people. My great grandfathers were in the same church with, I pray, my great, great grandchildren. I pray they come to know Christ, and that that's a great reassurance, but the unity is not even just the unity of those who believe in Christ. Once we've been united to Christ, it is Christ in the Father, the Father in the son, the demonstration of this is before the world is something we need not just to skip over that. The world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. So, in so far as we show our unity in Christ, we're showing the world the unity of Christ with the father, and the fact that the father sent the son. Verse 24. “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me may be with me, where I am to see my glory that you have given me, because you love me before the foundation of the world.” Now, just to remember again, go back to verse five. “and now, father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world started.” So when Jesus says where I am, he is speaking of himself with the father, he is speaking of his completed work on earth. He's speaking of himself, present with the father. And as we shall know, seated at the right hand of God, the father almighty, and he's already prayed for the restoration of the glory that he had with the father before the world was created. So before the first spec of cosmic dust, when he was with the father in their shared glory, he's returning to that. Then this is a part of his condescension and coming here as a part of the incarnation. This is a part of what the apostle Paul is talking about in Philippians chapter two—he thought it not robbery. He humbled himself well, even as he's humbling himself now in extreme as even to the cross, he is looking to the other side of his obedience when he is now with the father again. And he is praying for his, for the day when we in him with him will see the glory that he had with the father before the foundation of the world. How was that is what Christ desires for us. What Christ will make certain for us is that we will know him. But when we see him, we will see him not as the disciples saw him in the incarnation. We will not see him as he was visible in the incarnation would be the same body and a resurrection body. It's a continuity. The point is that when we see him, we will see him in the glory that he had with the father before the creation of the world. Now, when people talk about yearning for heaven, I think often we have people yearning for heaven that they I'd want to be free of these pains and cares. I want to be in a place of God's perfect reign. I want to be in that place where every eye is dry and every tear is wiped away. I want to be in that place that reflects God's perfect righteousness, justice, holiness, peace, but actually we should long to be in that place where we behold the glory of the son of God and the glory that he had with the father before the creation of the world. And Christ is longing for that for his own people. You’ll notice the love. It's not just the glory that he had is the glory that you have given me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world, the inner Trinitarian love, which is perhaps the sweetest reality, human ears can never hear. Verse 25, “Oh righteous Father, even though the world does not know you. I know you and these that you have sent me, these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known that the love with which you have loved me may be in them. And I am them.” So it's interesting in verse 25, when he prays to the father, in this case, he says, oh, righteous father. Now think of the background to that. Oh, righteous father. Why would righteous become so crucial? His prayer is coming to an end. What's happening right after this? It is betrayal and the arrest of Jesus. Now, in some sense, the betrayal is already underway because Jesus told Judas to go away. And what he must do, do quickly, but the manifestation of that betrayal is coming right away. And then, then the arrest and all the events will lead up to his crucifixion and the horror of his substitutionary atonement. Why now at this point, does Jesus say, oh, righteous father? It is because what is about to take place is going to be the demonstration of the righteousness of God. Paul makes that clear in a passage, such as Romans three, verses 21. And following what is all this about? It is about demonstrating the righteousness of the father. And so as Jesus prays to him, even right now, he praised him, oh, righteous father. I'm just going to turn to that text. Romans chapter 3:21, “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law though the law, and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, for all who believe. For there's no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forth 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. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just, and the justified of the one who has faith in Jesus.” And this gets back to the evangelicals, Sunday school songs, and stamps Baxter, whom you did not know. If you think about so much evangelicalism, sentimentality, it's not wrong when we say that the cross reveals the love of God. And again, that's a part of the apostolic preaching, but it's a minor key in the apistolic preaching. In the apostolic preaching, we are told more than anything else that what the cross of Christ shows us is the righteousness of God. Now, you don't say one at the expense of the other, because the new Testament it's rich with descriptions of the cross is love. “Greater love has no man than he laid down his life for his friends.” “And this is love.” “For God So loved the world.” And that's in the apostolic preaching as well. But just notice that when the cross is raised in this context such as Romans chapter three, what we are told is that, and in that passage five times that the cross reveals the righteousness of God. And as the prayer comes to a conclusion, Jesus refers to his own father as the righteous father, even though the world does not know you. And again, that is very similar to refrain of John chapter one in the very opening about Christ himself. He came into his own, and his own believed him not. There are those who just deny all the evidence of the existence, even of a creator God. “But even though the world doesn't know you, I know you, and I know you have sent me. I made known to them your name.” And again, there's more here than just a name. This is the truth about the father. “And I’ll continue to make it known that the love with which you love me may be in them. And I in them.” And the prayer concludes. But notice how the prayer concludes that those who are his, will be known by the love with which the father loved the son, that that love may be in them. And I in them. I'm not a big country music fan. I recognize the historical importance of country music and supposedly operatic qualities of country music. I also understand the honesty of country music. Johnny Cash, years ago sang a song, “your own personal Jesus.” I've never known exactly what to do with it. When it appeared that at least implicit in the song is the understanding that something's wrong with the spirituality in which we have our own personal Jesus. We have a personal relationship with Christ, but you'll notice that what we see here is that it is true. If anything of the gospel is true, it is that Christ is in us. It's not that we have our own personal Jesus. It’s that Jesus has his own personal disciples and that's who we are. And what more powerful demonstration of the love of God could there be? It's been a privilege to look through this prayer together with you. Ever since we began our study, I've been looking forward to John chapter 17, and here we are. I just want to leave us with one thought. And that is the thought that verse 24 is itself just a perfect illustration, not only of the gospel, but of the entirety of God's redemptive purpose. “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me may be with me where I am to see my glory that you have given me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world.” This explains all of biblical theology, everything from Genesis one until the end of the book of Revelation. It is about God redeeming a people through the blood of his son who will know his glory and who will exalt in that glory everlastingly. And so that there will be no explanation for why any creature knows that glory, but for Christ and what he did in obedience to the father. And that's just about the perfect summary, not only of the gospel, but of the Bible Father, We're thankful for this time together. We pray that you will use this time and you will use this word to conform us to the image of Christ. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.Third Avenue Baptist Church Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series April 18, 2021     Now we have seen that this is the high priestly prayer of Jesus. The word priest is a perplexity to some people because this is the most intimate prayer of Jesus. It's this long prayer. Jesus is praying to his father, of course the word priest doesn't appear in it. Why do we call this the high priestly prayer of Jesus? As we shall see, in its quintessence this morning in this text, this is a reminder of one of the three offices of Christ. Thinking about the doctrine of the person and work of Christ, we think historically of how the Bible has identified Christ to hold three offices. He is prophet and priest and king. Now, of course, if you look to the Old Testament, you see all three of those roles, those roles are not held by one person. The king cannot be a priest, the priest cannot be a king, and neither the king nor the priest is a prophet. But Jesus, as God in human flesh, and as the fulfillment of all the scriptures, and as the agent of our redemption, is infinitely prophet and priest and king, every single moment of our lives, not just at different aspects of our own experience of salvation—at every moment of our lives, we live only because he is prophet and priest and king as king. As king, he rules overall, and his kingdom shall know no end. It is as citizens of his kingdom that we have our ultimate identity, as we are United to him. His role as prophet is underlined by the fact that he is the teacher, and thus he came not only to die on the cross and to be raised on the third day; he came in order to teach. He came and ordered to instruct he left his, his church with his words. And as we saw in the gospel of John in our earlier study, he said, if you believe me, if you follow me, if you love me, keep my commandments. He is the continuing prophet of the church through the preaching of the word of God. Christ continues to instruct his church. The priestly role is Christ’s mediatorial role. That is the role of priest. And again, a lot of people, even who have been Christians for a long time, they think of a priest as someone who fulfills ministrations and has a sacred role when sacred right. Yet people fail to understand that the priest--in essence--is a mediator. The priest is a representative. The priest goes before God on behalf of the people. Now let's back up a minute. That's why we do not have I have one. That’s why we do not employ one. This church has no priest, we refer to no one as father, and we understand no priestly or sacred total ministry. We believe that such a ministry is unnecessary, and, if unnecessary, then Fundamentally wrong—misleading—because Christ is our priest. He's the only priest that we need. We need no other intercessor. Christ’s mediatorial role is now fulfilled in his session. That's a Latin word for seeding. You say a session of the legislature, that’s when they sit down and get to work. Christ is seated at the right hand of God, the father almighty right now, and he ever intercedes for us, says scripture. So we have a priest, and that is Jesus. But Jesus was priest even when he was with the disciples on earth. Jesus was to use a term that is archaic, but it was a real term. Jesus was “priest-ing” in the entirety of his earthly ministry. He was representing us before the father and representing the father to us in the entirety of his ministry, and he now does that. He does so from heaven, and he does so infinitely. If he did not do so, we would be destroyed, because he, even now, intercedes for us. So today, we arrive in the last few verses of John 17 in the high priestly prayer. In particular, we're looking at verses 20 and following. Jesus prays this: “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one just as you, father are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may see that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me, I have given to them that they may be one, even as we are one. I in them and you in me, that they may be perfectly one so the world may know that you sent me and loved them, even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me may be with me—to see my glory that you have given me, because you love me before the foundation of the world. Oh, righteous father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I've made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved may be in them, and I in them.” Now, remember that the last verses that we considered found their greatest thrust in verses 17-19, when Christ prayed, “sanctify them in truth—your word is truth. As you sent me into the world. So I have sent them into the world, and for their sake I consecrate myself, that they may also be sanctified in truth.” The hinge that comes in verse 20 is after Jesus has prayed that his church would be united and it would be consecrated in truth, that we will be bound together in truth—sanctify them in the truth, your word is truth. Again, it is a reminder of the fact that our unity is in Christ, and that unity operates through a scriptural unity. We are United in the truth. This is not a false unity. It's not an institutional unity. It's not an ecumenical unity. It's not some kind of lowest common denominator, theological unity. We are unified in the fullness of the faith once for all delivered to the saints. We are sanctified in the truth. But Jesus, at this point is very clearly just as we think about the proximate picture. He's praying. He's about to be arrested. The sequence of the events that lead to his crucifixion are about to happen. So when Jesus prays for his own, who have they been? They were his own. They were his disciples, and the larger band of those who believed in him. He described them as his flock. He is the good shepherd. But the great change that comes—and this is something so important to us, brothers and sisters. This is where we find ourselves in this passage. We look at verse 20, and Jesus then makes clear to the father: “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word.” So Jesus is praying this high priestly prayer for all of those who will be his. We're right here in this prayer in this agonizing prayer, and the intimacy of this prayer of the father, Jesus is not just praying for his disciples and followers as he knew them then. He is praying for us, and that's just astoundingly good news. Have you thought about the fact that Jesus, as he is here betrayed and about to be handed over to the authorities, as Jesus is soon to be crucified, that as he prayed for his own, he was praying for us. And just as much as he knew those disciples, then he knew us. He knew we were coming. Now, it's important that you recognize that he has told this before. He's spoken this way before. Look at John chapter 10. In chapter 10, Jesus described himself as the good shepherd. And you remember he said that my sheep hear my voice. They know me and they follow me. They obey me. But look at verse 16. “And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” So now we can look in retrospect and understand what John what Jesus was talking about here in John chapter 10:16. Even as Jesus was describing himself as the good shepherd, it was describing his own as his flock. He said, there are others in my flock who aren’t here yet, and I will gather them all together. They're not going to be able to different flock. They're going to get the same flock. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. Now, as we have been thinking about John chapter 17, the issue of the unity of the church comes, up and it will come up again even before we conclude this passage this morning. The unity of the church here is affirmed once again, as a spiritual unity in Christ. It's a true unity in Christ, and there's one shepherd—that's it. There's just one shepherd, and there's just one flock. Now, no matter how many different labels may be put on, no matter how many different languages, how many different countries, no matter how many different centuries and generations, it doesn't matter. Christ’s church is one. If it's true—if we’re really brought into Christ—we belonged to his church, and there is only one flock. Well, this is a great reassurance, because we understand that the ultimate fulfillment of that one flock is eschatological. We’re all going to be before the thrown together. Just to speak of the current picture that people wonder about, all who are truly United in Christ will be there in that one flock. There won't be Methodists, and Presbyterians, and Baptists; there will just be Christ, but it's also through time. When I wrote a book on the Apostle’s Creed, there are some who will get thrown off when first confronted with be this historic creed, the, the most universal of all Christian creeds. And they get to that, that phrase, “I believe in the holy catholic church.” And I do believe in the holy catholic church, this is one Southern Baptist who emphatically believes in the holy Catholic church. And I'm not going to give the church that calls itself Catholic, the use of the word catholic. it's a “little c”, but it's a very important word. The word catholic means universal. And, and people say that that's affirming the fact that there's one church, and wherever it's found, any true church, all true Christians are a part of that true church. It’s everywhere. But the word catholic is very important in this sense, and the word Catholic—capital C—church. It understands this claim. It is not only across space, but it's across time. So it's one church made up of all those who've ever become one with Christ from the beginning of his ministry until now and will be the ultimate eschatological fulfillment. But I love the language of John chapter 10, Jesus describing himself as the good shepherd, and the fact that there are sheep that belong to him, but he doesn't have them yet in the fold. Some of them haven't been born yet. Some of them haven't heard the gospel yet. And just as a shepherd goes and gathers a sheep, as we see in the famous cycle of parables in Luke chapter 15—the shepherd has 100, but he's lost one of them. What does he do? He goes and searches until he finds it. When he finds it, he celebrates. In that same sense, Jesus is not going to rest until all of his sheep are his and are a part of one flock and one shepherd. Look at chapter 11, verse 52, just one chapter over. In verse 51, we're told “he did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation. And not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. So from that day on, they made plans to put him to death.” Notice what's going on here. This is when the plot to kill Jesus is just beginning. And, and as you understand, the Jewish authorities were deciding that Jesus was going to have to go. But the problem was that even as they were in the cycle of the old Testament text, the old Testament text was speaking of the fact that there will be an in-gathering from the nations. And Jesus was clearly speaking of himself as the one who was going to do that, The agent of bringing all of God's people—the elect—together, not only for the nation, but also for the world. Well, you'll notice that language. And you'll notice in this case that it's actually coming from those who are the enemies of Jesus. And that's the context of John chapter 11. It's desperation on the part of the Jewish leaders. Why was Jesus being adored by so many? Why was Jesus being followed by the disciples, this, this Jesus who could even raise people from the dead? But now we're in John chapter 17, and now in these final verses of the high priestly prayer, Jesus, having already spoken of this mission that would unite all of us, people in one sheep with one shepherd, he now is praying. In his mediatorial priestly work, he makes very clear that all who will ever be his are included in this prayer. That is just phenomenally helpful. It's it should be of enormous unspeakable assurance. When we think about Christ for us, we're thinking about Christ for us as prophet, priest, and king, and here is Christ for us as priest. Years ago, I was a doing an installation of a service of a church in Georgia. This is when I was editor of the Christian index, and the actual preacher of the session with Dr. W.A. Criswell who was pastor of the first Baptist church of Dallas and Titanic figure in Baptist life. And I had another role in the service, and there was a giant choir. By giant choir, I mean the way Southern Baptist used to do giant choirs; it was about 300 people, full orchestra. It was big, it was glorious, it was loud, and they sang a song I had not heard before. I'm just curious, how many of you know, the name Stamps Baxter? … Well, this is fewer than I thought. Mary knows the name Stamps Baxter. Obviously, we're going to have to work at this convection. In the history of evangelical music with the rise of the Bible conference movement in the late 19th and early 20th century, you'd have these mass gatherings. And of course you think of Billy Graham coming much later, but think about the rise of these mass gatherings and evangelist efforts, some of them came out of the second great awakening, and some of them just came out of the evangelical revivals of the 19th and early 20th centuries. And out of that came what was known as gospel music and the original gospel music. In church, they were called Sunday school songs. Now, it's very interesting that in our morning worship here at Third Avenue Baptist church, we sing songs that we call hymns, yet some of them actually aren't hymns. I don't let you know, it's a dirty secret. I know it's horrible. Uh, but some of those are not. I say that because the musicologists among us would point out that a hymn has a particular metric structure. Most of the songs we sing and call hymns are actually hymns. You see them in stanzas, and there's a certain metrical structure. Okay, that's a hymn. Now your conscience is settled, but there are some other songs we sing that are wonderful Christian songs. But back in older evangelical eras, there was a distinction between hymns and then Sunday school songs, and Sunday school songs with Sunday school being largely and evangelistic assembly in the early years, Sunday school songs didn't have to have the metric structure of the hymns. And so some of the songs we sing aren’t that good. As a matter of fact, a song like “in the garden, I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses” is not a great hymn. It's not actually even a hymn. It doesn't have the metric structure. It's just a Sunday school song. There, there are a lot of books in the hymnal. We don't use that either, but there are a lot of books in the hymnal that are those old Sunday school songs. Well, Stamps Baxter wrote a lot of those old Sunday school songs. And it would they would be sometimes a little more upbeat than hymns. They sometimes be a little more maudlin than hymns, or they tended to be testimony songs about Jesus as our friend, about how I came to know Jesus, like the song, “oh, how I love Jesus.” That's the Sunday school song. Not a hymn. “There is a name I love to hear.” … Okay, if you don't know that song, I excommunicate you. But nonetheless, that was a Sunday school song, just to give an example. So Stamps Baxter wrote lots on Sundays school songs, and he taught people how to sing them with the stamps Baxter quartet. A lot of our gospel music as we know it came out of that, but the choir sang at this the service at Anthem that was made out of a stamps Baxter song, and that stamps Baxter song was both entitled and took as it’s major theme these words: “when he was on the cross, I was on his mind.” Now I have to tell you that, as young man, when I heard that song the first time, I thought, “I don't think we should sing it that way.” It’s a long debate in worship language. I was wrong in thinking that. That’s actually one of the most precious truths. I know that when he was on the cross, I was on his mind. The “I” is not so much important. We were on his mind. That's a better way to put it. When he was on the cross, we were on his mind. He knew us. And matter of fact, one line in that song is “he knew me, yet he loved me.” And expanding that from just the singular—he knew us, yet he loved us when he was on the cross. Let's just say we were on his mind. That's exactly what we have here in Christ’s Priestley mediatorial role. He already was thinking of us. We were included in this. Even without this text, maybe we would have been assured we're included in this because of the totality of the New Testament revelation, but how precious is it to be told right here that we were on his mind? “I do not ask for these visible only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word.” Through whose word? The disciples will preach, and people will hear, and in a succession of preaching and hearing, there'll be many who believe, and, believing, they will be saved. They will be united to Christ. They will be his. This is how the sheep hear his voice. This is beautiful, isn't it? So how do the sheep hear Jesus’s voice? It's through the preaching of the word of God, the taking of the gospel. Every time the word of God is preached, the sheep, hear his voice. And hearing his voice, we are drawn into this one flock of the one shepherd. So it’s not just, “I'm thinking now of all those who will believe in me, but believe in me through the disciples’ word, that they may all be one just as you father are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” Now, this is unity language that only makes sense because of the opening of the high priestly prayer. Just to remember going back to how Jesus opened the prayer, When he said in verse four, “I glorified you on earth. Having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.” And again, before the world existed comes up again in this last climactic section of the high priestly prayer. This is a prayer for unity. This is the true unity. And you'll notice it's not institutional. It's not the modern ecumenical movement, a lowest common denominator. It's not non-theological. It's inherently theological. It's essentially theological, and it's in the truth that we may be one, but notice the intimacy here: “just as you, father, are in me, and I in you.” “that day,” meaning, all those past present and future who are Christ. “That they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” So our identity is now as believers in Christ, and Christ’s identity is in the father. And so you understand what it means for Christ to be the door, for Christ to be our priest and intercessor, for Christ to be the first born of many brethren, for us to be joint heirs with Christ as Paul will tell us. It means that the unity, the Trinitarian, the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit is extended to include us. “As we are united to Christ” does not mean we're in the Godhead. It doesn’t mean we're in the Trinity. It means that by the miracle of the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ, we share in the Trinitarian unity and in the Trinitarian love of the one, true God. And if that doesn't blow your intellectual fuses, what would? How dare we think that it might be possible that we would be partakers of the Trinitarian love of God? but that's exactly what Jesus is declaring here and is praying for us. He continues in verse 22, “the glory that you have given me, I have given to them, that they may be one, even as we are one. The glory that you gave me, I've given to them.” Well, where is it? What is that glory? Well, this is a transformation of values. It's a redefinition of terms. Martin Luther would speak of this. When he warned of a theology of visible glory, visible glory is what we want. We're glory-mongers. We want to see visible glory. We love spectacle. We love for our eyes to see glory, and sometimes we see glimpses of glory. You think of the realities of heaven, and a new Jerusalem, and a new earth. And then you see a spectacular sunrise or sunset. Do you see a vision of just how glorious such a thing may be? Trying to recreate that glory, or trying to imagine and speculate that glory, and trying to make that the context of Christian worship turns out to go badly. And again, I'm turning back to the reformation, and it has everything to do with what we're looking at here. Jesus said that the glory of the father had given him, he's given to his church… and I was looking at you guys this morning. You don't look too glorious. No insult intended, but I look at you, I just don't see a lot of glory. We don't look a whole lot more glorious, and this building, you know, I’m thankful for it, but it’s not exactly glorious. What am I contrasting it to? There are buildings that declared glory, and I love to go in them, by the way. In church history, I love to step into those spaces and know also other things they represent, but in so far as they try to impress you with glory, that's the problem. Luther reminds us that the church is a Mouth-house, not an eye-house. “Moot house,” as Luther said. In other words, the church is a building, but it is a building where the word can be preached, and Christ’s people can worship and sing together. It's all about mouths. It's not mostly about eyes. For 500th anniversary of the reformation, I had the honor of preaching from the high pulpit in Wittenberg where he preached, and that building is pretty glorious to a Southern Baptist. It looks stunningly glorious. The parish church where Luther preached thousands of times is pretty glorious in contrast with third avenue Baptist church. But in contrast with the Roman Catholic church, it was very clearly a preaching place. The center was the pulpit, and the acoustics of the building were either built for or changed for the hearing of the spoken word. And by the way, that was a big thing, because a lot of these churches were made for the mass, and the acoustics were not made for people to hear the preaching of the words. And a lot of these churches’ acoustics had to be changed so that the preaching of the word could, could happen. When I take people to a city like London, and we're just trying to see the history of the Christian Church, I'll take them to, a church like a fairly small Christopher Wren church off Piccadilly circus. It's been there for centuries, and when you walk in, the sanctuary is very stunning. It’s beautiful, but the most amazing thing about it is that it has these very tall, clear windows, and it's filled with light. And this is one of the churches that Wren built on the ruins of a former church burned in the great fire of London. So it's after the reformation. And I said, “you'll notice they built the church back pretty much like it would have been except for one thing, these giant windows, why these giant windows? well it's because the church has become a mouth-house. It's become a place for the study and declaration of the preaching of the word. And people come with a Bible now. And so they need to be able to read it. And the, the old dark churches of times past where the priests were up there doing the mass people didn't need to see anything only the priest needed to see, but now people have the word and with the word you need windows and you need light. It's a sign. The reformation has come.” All that to say, there’s an infinite glory in this building, because Christ’s people are in it. There is an infinite glory in the preaching of the word. This is what we're doing right now and studying God's word. There's will be an infinite glory when we gather for formal worship in just a short amount of time. That's Jesus's point—the glory was there with the disciples because they were his, he glory is there because they have the gospel. And this gets back to what you see in the opening to the gospel of John. I think it will be the most famous verse in John chapter one as John, 1:14, “we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the father, full of grace and truth.” But remember, you're talking about the glory that was of an infant. That was a hidden glory. Those who knew who he was saw the glory. If he didn't know who he was, you didn't see the glory. Unlike Renaissance art, he didn't glow in the dark. He was a baby. So here's another just wonderful reminder to us that we're surrounded by glory. CS Lewis famously said, you'll never meet a mere mortal. That's true, because every single human being is made in the image of God. You'll never go to an ordinary worship service. Now I know even the reformers called it ordinary worship, which meant not a festival day. Again, background of need for reformation, not a festival day, not a feast day. It's an ordinary worship. I remember when I was a kid, seeing the top of it, it said “the service of ordinary worship.” I was thinking, “well, Hey, let's set our let's set our standards low,” but the surface of ordinary worship meant this is Christian worship. And, uh, there are some prayer books that were called the ordinary. In other words, it's not that it's just, it's just non festival. This is just the way the Christian Church praise. But the glory that Christ has given us is the glory that the father gave him. And that means it's the glory of the gospel. It’s the glory of the truth. It's the glory of salvation. It's a hidden glory. Let's look at it. It makes you look better this morning. It makes me feel better about myself this morning. I don't have to look glorious to be glorious in light of the gospel of Jesus Christ for God's people. -- than the plural. We're experiencing glory together. There's glory given to us, the father gave Christ this glory, and he has given his church this glory. Now, hold on, just to remember that in the Ordo Salutis, the order of salvation, we shall be glorified. There is something yet to come. Christ’s church will be glorified. An infinite, visible glory is coming, but it's in the fullness of the kingdom, which is not yet. So after verse 22, you'll see, again, as that verse ends, it comes back to unity “that they may be one, even as we are one.” And then in verse 23, that unity is further explained in the Trinitarian reality. “I am them and you and me, that they may become perfectly one so that the world may know you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.” This is, this is a further exploration exposition. Now the unity has made very clear, the trinitarian reality, I in them and you and me, but that's the unity that they may become perfectly one. So, you know what, here's the other good thing about the unity of the church? Number one, it isn't institutional. It isn't thus ecumenical. It isn't a human invention. The lowest common denominator of theology we can put together to call people. A unity of the church is already accomplished in the truest sense because it is, we are unity in Christ and Christ is in the father. And so in that sense, the disunity of the church becomes impossible. That is to say, there will never be eschatologically churches, but only Christ’s church. In this, in this age, we need to do lean into the visibility of the unity of the church that Christ talks about, but there's going to be a limited visibility. I mean, we know we're in communion with so many other congregations are preaching the gospel and loving God's word. We helped to plant some of those churches. We encourage those churches. We were in fellowship with thousands of churches through the Southern Baptist convention that is a further sign of our unity together. And we believe that all those who are true evangelicals, even if they're in wrongly ordered belief nonetheless, if they believe the gospel and preach the gospel, they are a part of Christ’s church. And even though we're not the same congregation with them over that issue, we still believe we're in the same church with them. And again, it's historical past, present and future. That means we're in the same church with Charles and John Wesley. I means we're in the, we're in the same church with Jonathan Edwards and we're in the same church with people. My great grandfathers were in the same church with, I pray, my great, great grandchildren. I pray they come to know Christ, and that that's a great reassurance, but the unity is not even just the unity of those who believe in Christ. Once we've been united to Christ, it is Christ in the Father, the Father in the son, the demonstration of this is before the world is something we need not just to skip over that. The world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. So, in so far as we show our unity in Christ, we're showing the world the unity of Christ with the father, and the fact that the father sent the son. Verse 24. “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me may be with me, where I am to see my glory that you have given me, because you love me before the foundation of the world.” Now, just to remember again, go back to verse five. “and now, father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world started.” So when Jesus says where I am, he is speaking of himself with the father, he is speaking of his completed work on earth. He's speaking of himself, present with the father. And as we shall know, seated at the right hand of God, the father almighty, and he's already prayed for the restoration of the glory that he had with the father before the world was created. So before the first spec of cosmic dust, when he was with the father in their shared glory, he's returning to that. Then this is a part of his condescension and coming here as a part of the incarnation. This is a part of what the apostle Paul is talking about in Philippians chapter two—he thought it not robbery. He humbled himself well, even as he's humbling himself now in extreme as even to the cross, he is looking to the other side of his obedience when he is now with the father again. And he is praying for his, for the day when we in him with him will see the glory that he had with the father before the foundation of the world. How was that is what Christ desires for us. What Christ will make certain for us is that we will know him. But when we see him, we will see him not as the disciples saw him in the incarnation. We will not see him as he was visible in the incarnation would be the same body and a resurrection body. It's a continuity. The point is that when we see him, we will see him in the glory that he had with the father before the creation of the world. Now, when people talk about yearning for heaven, I think often we have people yearning for heaven that they I'd want to be free of these pains and cares. I want to be in a place of God's perfect reign. I want to be in that place where every eye is dry and every tear is wiped away. I want to be in that place that reflects God's perfect righteousness, justice, holiness, peace, but actually we should long to be in that place where we behold the glory of the son of God and the glory that he had with the father before the creation of the world. And Christ is longing for that for his own people. You’ll notice the love. It's not just the glory that he had is the glory that you have given me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world, the inner Trinitarian love, which is perhaps the sweetest reality, human ears can never hear. Verse 25, “Oh righteous Father, even though the world does not know you. I know you and these that you have sent me, these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known that the love with which you have loved me may be in them. And I am them.” So it's interesting in verse 25, when he prays to the father, in this case, he says, oh, righteous father. Now think of the background to that. Oh, righteous father. Why would righteous become so crucial? His prayer is coming to an end. What's happening right after this? It is betrayal and the arrest of Jesus. Now, in some sense, the betrayal is already underway because Jesus told Judas to go away. And what he must do, do quickly, but the manifestation of that betrayal is coming right away. And then, then the arrest and all the events will lead up to his crucifixion and the horror of his substitutionary atonement. Why now at this point, does Jesus say, oh, righteous father? It is because what is about to take place is going to be the demonstration of the righteousness of God. Paul makes that clear in a passage, such as Romans three, verses 21. And following what is all this about? It is about demonstrating the righteousness of the father. And so as Jesus prays to him, even right now, he praised him, oh, righteous father. I'm just going to turn to that text. Romans chapter 3:21, “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law though the law, and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, for all who believe. For there's no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forth 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. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just, and the justified of the one who has faith in Jesus.” And this gets back to the evangelicals, Sunday school songs, and stamps Baxter, whom you did not know. If you think about so much evangelicalism, sentimentality, it's not wrong when we say that the cross reveals the love of God. And again, that's a part of the apostolic preaching, but it's a minor key in the apistolic preaching. In the apostolic preaching, we are told more than anything else that what the cross of Christ shows us is the righteousness of God. Now, you don't say one at the expense of the other, because the new Testament it's rich with descriptions of the cross is love. “Greater love has no man than he laid down his life for his friends.” “And this is love.” “For God So loved the world.” And that's in the apostolic preaching as well. But just notice that when the cross is raised in this context such as Romans chapter three, what we are told is that, and in that passage five times that the cross reveals the righteousness of God. And as the prayer comes to a conclusion, Jesus refers to his own father as the righteous father, even though the world does not know you. And again, that is very similar to refrain of John chapter one in the very opening about Christ himself. He came into his own, and his own believed him not. There are those who just deny all the evidence of the existence, even of a creator God. “But even though the world doesn't know you, I know you, and I know you have sent me. I made known to them your name.” And again, there's more here than just a name. This is the truth about the father. “And I’ll continue to make it known that the love with which you love me may be in them. And I in them.” And the prayer concludes. But notice how the prayer concludes that those who are his, will be known by the love with which the father loved the son, that that love may be in them. And I in them. I'm not a big country music fan. I recognize the historical importance of country music and supposedly operatic qualities of country music. I also understand the honesty of country music. Johnny Cash, years ago sang a song, “your own personal Jesus.” I've never known exactly what to do with it. When it appeared that at least implicit in the song is the understanding that something's wrong with the spirituality in which we have our own personal Jesus. We have a personal relationship with Christ, but you'll notice that what we see here is that it is true. If anything of the gospel is true, it is that Christ is in us. It's not that we have our own personal Jesus. It’s that Jesus has his own personal disciples and that's who we are. And what more powerful demonstration of the love of God could there be? It's been a privilege to look through this prayer together with you. Ever since we began our study, I've been looking forward to John chapter 17, and here we are. I just want to leave us with one thought. And that is the thought that verse 24 is itself just a perfect illustration, not only of the gospel, but of the entirety of God's redemptive purpose. “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me may be with me where I am to see my glory that you have given me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world.” This explains all of biblical theology, everything from Genesis one until the end of the book of Revelation. It is about God redeeming a people through the blood of his son who will know his glory and who will exalt in that glory everlastingly. And so that there will be no explanation for why any creature knows that glory, but for Christ and what he did in obedience to the father. And that's just about the perfect summary, not only of the gospel, but of the Bible Father, We're thankful for this time together. We pray that you will use this time and you will use this word to conform us to the image of Christ. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2021/03/28/john-1717-19/ Sun, 28 Mar 2021 12:00:43 +0000 Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series
March 28, 2021
Let's pray. Our Father, we are just so thankful that you have given us every word of Scripture, which begins with, “in the beginning, you created the heavens of the earth” and goes all the way to the end with, “even so Lord come quickly.” Father, we pray that you will bless our study of your word every time we open it. May your word, this living word, take hold of us, guide us, illuminate us, and help us to see what it would be to be faithful to you in this life as we await the life to come. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. 
So in this priestly prayer of Jesus, this high priestly prayer, as it is often referred to, Jesus is acting–as he acts now–as our intercessor and great high priest. This is the Son praying on behalf of us. And, even as the prayer begins with Jesus talking about the glory that he had with the Father before the creation of the world, the entire purpose of the prayer is that he's praying for his people. Just the existence of the prayer gives us the great, good news that our Savior cares for us, loves us, and prays for us. There's also this incredible distinction, and it's a very clear distinction, between the church and the world. And so Jesus actually speaks to the Father explicitly saying, “I am praying for those you have given me–I'm not praying for the world.”  And the phrase “those you have given me” comes up repeatedly. 
We see this incredible testimony to the sovereignty of God. To not only the doctrine of election, but also to the doctrine of perseverance and assurance. Because we have been given to the Son by the Father, no one can separate us. That, again, is just wonderful assurance and encouragement to us because if we have given ourselves to the Son, we can fail. But if we are given to the Son by the Father, then we actually are secure. But as we have been making our way through this prayer,  we look at the verses, in which we see in verse 10, Jesus says, “all mine are yours and your are mine. And I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world and I am coming to you, Holy father. Keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you and these things I speak in the world that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word and the world has hated them because they are not of this world just as I am not of this world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world, sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake, I consecrate myself that they may also be sanctified in truth.” 
Now, sometimes in this prayer, as in other passages of scripture, we make our way word by word, phrase by phrase. And yet when we think we see a phrase and understand its placement, we get a little further in the passage and understand, okay, that phrase has come up again. Or, that phrase has now been addressed from a different angle or aspect. Then we realize we need to go back and understand what's really going on here. That’s why we went back to verse 10 and began reading from there. Because again, we have this incredible emphasis from Jesus that he is going to the Father, but he is leaving his children in this world, in the world. 
Well, this turns out to be a bigger theme in this prayer than we might fully have recognized. So remember that Jesus was saying that he is anticipating after the cross and resurrection returning to be with the Father and receiving again, knowing again, the glory that he had with the Father before the creation of the world. Then he makes this statement just as he made to the disciples. But now he's speaking to the Father. He says, “I am no longer in the world” because he's looking in anticipation to that moment. But his believers will be left in the world. 
Now, remember the very last verse of chapter 16, what Jesus said. Jesus said, “I have said these things to you, that in me, you may have peace in the world. You will have tribulation, but take heart. I have overcome the world in the world.” In the world you will have tribulation. And some of you remember translations such as “in the world, you will have trouble.” And that is certainly true in the world. You will have trouble. So why are we in the world? Well, I guess you could state just a matter of fact, which is that if Jesus had taken the disciples out of the world then the end of the age would have been immediately inaugurated; we would not be here, and we would not be anywhere. 
One of the questions is why Christ has left his people in the world. Jesus says the world's full of trouble. And by the way, that's why he is praying for us. We're no match for the world. To be honest, we aren't in ourselves. We're no match for the world at all. The world will not only give us trouble, the world will smash us and arrest us and persecute us and scatter us and silence us. The world is so powerful, in the grip of sin, that it would extinguish the gospel except for the fact that Christ will not let it be so. And so when Christ said “upon this rock, I will build my church and gates of hell shall not prevail against it” he didn't say “you look really strong to me.” He just said, “I'm not going to let you perish.” Of course, it has an ultimate sense. He's not going to let the gospel be extinguished. He's not going to let the church itself be destroyed or extinguished. But then again, if this is such a difficult place, why are we here? 
Well, one thing to understand is that we're here because we are the witness. We are the light of the gospel in the world as the body of Christ. We are left in the world. There is work for the church to do. And that's a very important thing to recognize. We are not here merely to wait. There is a waiting, but we are not here merely to wait. As you look at the New Testament, there's much assigned to us. We have the Great Commission. And Jesus himself will make reference in this passage to what he has given the disciples to do. First of all, this is the theme of the New Testament, in the sense of the gospels and the assignment to the apostles. But you have the Great Commission as you find it, at the end of the gospel of Matthew, and you have the Great Commission as we will find it in Acts chapter one, “you will be my witnesses first in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and then the uttermost parts of the world.” There is witnessing for us to do, there's work for us to do. 
You come to the book of James written to the early church and you'll remember that we are told that true religion is to take care of widows and orphans. There’s work for us to do. There is work being salt and light. You take the letters of Peter in the New Testament, assignments to represent Christ, to live peaceably, or at least to seek to live peaceably among all. But very clearly by our conduct in the world, bear testimony to the gospel of Jesus Christ. And you have the apostle Paul, you have an explicit missionary mandate: How shall they hear unless they have a preacher? And blessed are the feet of those who take the gospel. 
And so you put together the New Testament and there's a theology of suffering. We are in the world. And part of our assignment is to suffer. And from time to time, the church has suffered horribly beyond our imagination. That too is witness, which is why the word martyrdom is actually taken from the same word as witness. That's what martyrdom is. It is the ultimate witness. But when you think about Jesus here, speaking of his own in the world, there's a remarkable statement. And we saw it before, but I wanna go back to it for a moment. 
“All mine are yours and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world but they are in the world.” Jesus says that in verse 10 and 11. So you'll notice when you look at verse 15, Jesus says, “I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.” Now that's a pretty astounding sentence and we're gonna encounter it again. Jesus says, “I do not ask that you take them out of the world.” So we are not left here by the Father's purpose. We are actually left here by the Father's purpose and the assignment of the Son. It's just one of those phrases where you think again how we have this intimate gift of a conversation, a prayer between the Son and the Father, and this most urgent of moments in the life and ministry of Jesus. 
And he makes clear what he is asked the Father to do, but he also makes clear what he's not asking the Father to do. He's not asking Him to take us out of the world. Now, as you think about that, I want you to think about another text and that will be I Corinthians 5; I Corinthians 5:9-10.  Now in I Corinthians 5, what's going on? Well, Paul was writing to the church, admonishing the church at Corinth in which horrible sin had been found in the church. And that sin was hindering the gospel witness of the church. Things are found amongst you, he said, that aren't even found amongst the Gentiles. He mentioned quite specifically some sexual sin. 
He goes on to say that in the church, we are to have nothing to do with a Christian who acts in such a way. We're not to extend a hand to fellowship. We are not to allow them in our homes. And again, the key is that he's speaking about someone who had been in the church who had been identified in the church. And he said you cannot act as if they are Christians. That's the whole point. You can't treat someone who is living in renunciation of the faith as if he is a Christian. You can't give him the fellowship you'd extend to a Christian. But you really can't have anything to do with him. But here's what's fascinating in verse 9 and 10. This is Paul. Paul said, “I wrote to you in my letter, not to associate with sexually imoral people, not at all, meaning the sexually imoral of this world or the greedy and swindelors or idolators since then you would need to go out of the world.” 
So there you have Paul echoing Jesus. Are we in the world? Yes. We are in the world by assignment. And does Jesus pray that we be taken out of the world? No, he doesn't. He explicitly does not pray that we would be taken out of the world, but that we be left in the world. The apostle Paul, speaking of the church having to deal excruciatingly with sin in its midst, says, “Look, I'm telling you, you can't have fellowship with someone who claims to be a believer and acts in this way. But I'm not telling you to have nothing to do with sinners out in the world. Because if I told you that, you just have to leave the world.”
I find that very, very interesting. To be in the world is to be in contact with those who are worldly. To be in the world means we're living in a world in which yes, all around us there are adulterers and the immoral and cheaters and backbiters and all the rest. That's pretty much what the world is like. If you can't handle that world, you gotta leave it. But we're not allowed to leave it. We've got to bear witness to the gospel and be salt and light in the midst of a world that is marked by all these things. This is not an accident; we weren't left behind. We are here for a purpose and that purpose is work. That purpose is to be a witness. That purpose is to glorify God in this age until such time that it is right, according to the Father, that this age should end and the kingdom of Christ should begin in fullness. 
I think we need to admit there are times in which we're ready to be taken out of the world. A part of this is the struggle of the church, understanding our own responsibility for holiness. And so just as you think about the church and the world, we're in the world, but we're not the world. I used to hear it said, “we're in the world, we're not of the world.” And that's actually a summary of the high priestly prayer and its logic. That language, “being in the world, but not of the world” is a summary of the very prayer that we are reading. But it's not just that we are not of the world. It's that we are not the world. So there's a distinction in identity between the church and the world. 
You also have in this passage the theme of unity, and we've arrived at that theme. And this is a precious thing. That theme is the fact that the distinction between the church and the world is to be one of holiness. Yet the church is to be marked by a unity. So he prays that we'll be one, even as he and the Father are one, and it comes fairly early in the prayer as a theme, but it becomes very clear in the passages, the verses that we just read. He prays that we will be one. He also prays that we will be consecrated in the truth. What does it mean that Christ prays that we will be one? What kind of one are we to be? When you think of unity in the church there have been several attempts to try to create an institutional unity. There are actually several different models of unity in the church. The first most obvious model in church history would be Catholicism. By that I don't yet even mean a capital C. The C becomes a capital C. But as you look at the early centuries of the church, the unity was institutional. 
And very quickly that unity took the shape of bishops. And the bishops were under the unity of the prime Bishop, who was the Bishop of Rome. So over time, this became more and more institutionalized, and so much so that in the early centuries of the church, the church was defined not by the presence of Christians, but by the presence of the Bishop. Where the Bishop is, there is the church. So you have this institutional unity. And of course that becomes absolutely crucial. And is unquestioned through, let's just say, a millennium. Now let's just kind of fast forward to the fifth century and then take it to the 15th century. For that millennium of time, the church is considered to be one thing. Now that gets a little complicated when in 1050 and the 11th century, there's a breach between the East and the West. 
So, Catholic means universal. It means everywhere. And so that institutional unity is fractured when you have the Eastern church, it goes off under the patriarch. But still in the West, in Western civilization, and Western Europe, that is Europe, primarily as it is culturally defined, the church is just one thing. Rome is the headquarters of the church. And so now we have Catholicism with the capital C. And of course then comes the Reformation in the 16th century. In terms of the history of the West, it's hard to come up with a more decisive event than that. Because up until that time, it was not just the unity of the church that was absolute and structural, it was the union of crown and altar. 
So it was not just the unity of the church, it was the union to the church and the monarchy in whatever respective realm. And so they were increasingly seen as sharing a common authority. The reformation breaks all of that. The reformation broke the structural unity of the church. And now you have church in plural, and that was unthinkable. As a matter of fact, even for quite a long time after the Reformation on various sides, you did not have any recognition of churches, it's still just church. There's not time to trace all of this, but very early in most of Europe, given the conflict that included the 30 Years War, which just minute for minute was probably the deadliest war ever fought on European territory, the basic concept came down to the fact that the religion of the state is the religion of the ruler. 
So if you had a Catholic prince you had Catholic church. If you had a Lutheran prince, you had a Lutheran church. This was not acceptable to Baptists because that doesn't even work, it's historically anachronistic. It wouldn't have worked to have a Baptist king (there weren't any really) andthen to have a Baptist church in the realm. It took centuries after that for the idea, and Robert Wilkin, I had the privilege of doing a Thinking in Public program with him. He said the language change came much later when people would speak of one realm with a plural word churches. A place to look for that, by the way, would be someplace like Prussia, where you had a very strong Catholic presence, very strong Lutheran presence, and very strong Reform presence. Eventually just to keep peace and to have a national identity larger than what would've been a Catholic state or a Lutheran state, or a Reform state, you end up with speaking of the churches.
Institutional unity doesn't work. Let me just put it that way. It doesn't work. And even as you look at Catholicism, I mean, right now in Catholicism, you have the German bishops at war theologically with the Vatican. The German bishops are going ahead with plans to have a sacrament, or a form of blessing, for same-sex unions. The German bishops are moving in radically liberal directions. So they're looking at schism in the Roman Catholic church because the German bishops, even this week said, we're not turning back. And the Vatican said a definitive, “No.” So it's going to be interesting to watch those developments in the Roman Catholic church. 
So even the Roman Catholic church, as it exists now, is not unified except supposedly organizationally under the Pope. Well, on the other side of the Reformation, there have been efforts to create something of an ecumenical church. And so the ecumenical movement, and the economy of pulling everybody together, in this common and unity in one. The ecumenical movement especially took root in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. And in the late 19th century, you had communications, you had transportation, you have trains, and you've got all kinds of things developing to the extent that you've got people moving all over the place, and you have to realize that's a part of what really came out of all this. You have people moving all over the place. So you used to have Catholic communities, Catholics live there. And you had Lutheran communities, Lutherans live there. But once you got people moving all over the place, well, then you got all kinds of people everywhere. 
By the way, you look at a map of the United States, you’ve got Scandinavian churches all over the great lakes; and you've got Congregationalists and Anglicans  in the Northeast; you have patterns of Catholic immigration that come into cities like Boston and New York and then later cities like Chicago. And so you've got Polish and Lithuanian and Irish, big Irish immigration, and a lot of German immigration. The city of Louisville is very interesting. You have the patterns of both early Irish and then later German Catholic immigration moving here, which even explains some of our neighborhoods and explains two Catholic boys schools. So it's not as unified as it looks. But once you have all these, these churches in a city like Louisville, I don’t know how many there are, but the claim was, we just need to create out of this one church. 
And so originally that was basically just a Protestant issue and the Catholics were watching with interest. So let's just get the Protestant churches together. We're supposed to be one. Okay. But the quick thing to speak of here is the fact that number one, not everybody bought into the ecumenical idea in the first place. The Baptists at the top of that list were Congregationalists. Furthermore, we're not joiners, Baptists are horrible joiners for this kind of thing, for theological reasons. But the reason, first of all, that this won't work is that the only way to make this happen is with some kind of “lowest common denominator” theology. So the ecumenical movement quickly moved into theological liberalism. Every time it started. Every major effort towards an ecumenical unity led to theological liberalism to a theological minimalism. 
They just kept dumping doctrines overboard, because we are going to stand in common, and we’re going to have a common statement. And so you have the World Council of Churches, the National Council of Churches of Christ, as it was known in the United States. And Southern Baptists, we theologically could have nothing to do with that. By the way, you hear almost nothing of that now, because the churches that did become a part of the World Council, those churches are now so weak and empty, hardly anyone even thinks of them or speaks of them. So it turns out that an institutional unity really doesn't work. It turns out that an ecumenical experiment really doesn't work. But the church of Christ is to be one. So, in what sense are we one? Well, this is where Baptists would argue, and this is really a traditional evangelical argument, that it's in doctrine and it is in spirit. 
It is a spiritual unity, and it's a doctrinal unity. Let me go back just a minute, by the way, and say one other model of unity that some have tried is liturgical unity, where people have argued that the actual center of unity in the church is the fact that we have, for instance, the Lord’s Supper. But then again, just ask the churches to describe the word “Supper.”  And then you understand that doesn't work either. Is it a mass? Is it a Eucharist? Is it a sacrament? Is it an ordinance? So the liturgical unity was an early effort. And people thought, well, you know, if it's a liturgical unity, it might be that the Eastern Orthodox could join in, if not the Roman Catholics. Well, I'm not gonna go further there. I'm going to say where unity is. The unity is spiritual and it is doctrinal. 
So let's take doctrinal first. So the evidence of that unity Jesus gets right here in John 17:17. Jesus says, “sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. And for their sake, I consecrated myself that they also may be sanctified in truth”  So it is sanctification in the truth, sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. So it turns out that our unity is in truth. And that is what doctrine is. Doctrine is what the church believes, confesses, and teaches on the basis of the word of GoD. That definition comes from Jaroslav Pelikan, a great historian of doctrine who taught at Yale for many years. And it's worth it just to be able to say his name, Jaroslav Pelikan. He was a titanic scholar and one of the greatest historians of history and one of the most important historians of theology and doctrine and dogma. 
He actually was a historian of the history of theology, but nonetheless, he defined doctrine in the beginning of his great five volume history in the history of doctrine as what the church believes, confesses and teaches on the basis of the word of God. Why three words: Believes, confesses and teaches? 
Belief is what actually resides as the conceptual convictional belief of the church. And as Pelikan understood, that's found in theology books, and that's found in creeds. It’s very importantly found in hymn books and it's apparent in prayer. And so if you want to know what the church believes–in fact, Roger Scruton, the late British philosopher, great loss to us when he died last year, Roger Scruton said, “if you want to know what people believe, do not ask them doctrinal questions, but rather listen to them, pray.” It's a keen insight. He was at that point, an unbelieving philosopher. That’s what the church believes. 
Then what the church confesses. And yes, that is the creeds and confessions. So where the church says, this is what we believe. Well, okay, listen to the church. It's telling you what the church believes. So whether it's the Apostles Creed, or  our Baptist Faith and Message, or when we, as a congregation, have a members' meeting and we say the covenant together, we're saying, this is what we believe. So Pelikan would say, listen to them, they're telling you what they believe. What the church believes, confesses, and teaches. Where do we teach? Well, that's the preaching. What's actually preached. 
I was reading a great scholar of the Reformation just a few days ago and he said, if you had just known nothing of Luther and you'd known nothing of Calvin, and you'd known nothing of any kind of theological controversy, if you went out of Germany in say 1520, and came back in 1570, you would be hearing preaching so different you would know something had happened. The preaching makes a difference. Luther was turning out preachers and having turned out all these preachers they went into the pulpit. They were preaching the word. It was a completely different event. The church in Germany, under the power of the Reformation, had been turned from, as Luther said, an “eye house into a mouth house.” You no longer come to see things. You come in to hear things. You no longer come into the church to watch priests, even behind a screen, performing a mass. 
No you're not there to watch anymore, you're there to hear. It's a “moot” house. It's a mouth house. So we look to what the church believes, confesses, and teaches on the basis of the word of God. 
But the word there becomes so important because actually that's what Jesus says. Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. Now is he referring to Scripture here? The answer is yes. Clearly he's referring to Scripture here because Scripture is included in God's word. But when Jesus speaks of sanctifying believers in the truth, “your word is truth,” that includes by his own designation, everything that he has said, and that's also been in this prayer. I gave them your “word,” or just earlier, just verses earlier, I gave them your “word.” It's one of the great identifying marks of the church. Where's the church? Well, it is where Christ is. 
Where's the church? Well, it is where is the word now? Now, remember in the institutional unity model. Where's the church? It is where the Bishop is. That's not the way we answer the question. Where's the church? Well, number one, where are the Christians? Where's the gospel? Where's the word? This is also why the Reformers in talking about the marks of the church identified the first two marks in this summary, often attributed to Luther: It's where the Word of the God is rightly preached and the sacraments, that is the ordinances, are rightly administered. 
The first thing is where the Word is rightly preached. And as Luther said, if the word is not rightly preached there, “I don't care what it calls itself. I don't care about its architecture. I don't care if it has a Bishop. (If it has a Bishop, it becomes less likely). I care about what's preached.” And so that's the unity of the church. That's the truth. That is the deposit at the center of the church. And here's the thing, Jesus, doesn't just say, “teach them thy word is truth.” He says, “sanctify them.” 
So here's the other revolutionary reality that jumps out at us from this prayer: Doctrine is sanctifying. God's truth is sanctifying. The Scripture is sanctifying. That's an amazing thing. We are to be holy, as God himself said: “As I am Holy, you be holy.” It's picked up by Peter in the New Testament. We're to be holy. We're to be the holy ones. We're to be Christ’s holy people. We're to be holy in a sinful world. How are we going to be holy? How are we made holy? Well, the answer according to Scripture is by the indwelling spirit and by the power of the Word, that's how we are made holy. There are disciplines of holiness, yes, but the source of holiness is truth. 
And so, by the way, this means something. It means that holiness has to begin in truth. And as truth works its way out, gospel truth, Christ’s truth, as the truth works its way out in our lives it produces holiness. This is a warning to us unless we try to find some other means of holiness. That's also been a temptation throughout the history of the church. We want some kind of instantaneous holiness. We want some kind of declaration of holiness.
By the way, there is an instantaneous declaration of holiness, which is once we are united with Christ, we are his and Christ is not united to sin. In other words, our eternal holiness is guaranteed and secure because we are united to Christ. But there is nonetheless, in this life, and certainly is revealed in Scripture, a continuous testimony to the need for us to reveal holiness, to display holiness, to be holy, to grow in holiness. And that's going to come only by the Word. Your word is truth. Sanctify them in the truth. There are no other means of holiness. 
Now this leads us to some interesting observations. So, for instance, one of the issues that puzzled Christians, and I would say they were Christians evidently who have easily puzzled, one of the issues that confused many Christians was with the encounter of world religions in the 19th century in particular.  It came even earlier in terms of exploration, but primarily the 19th century is when people were thinking about this, there was even a parliament of world religions held in Chicago in the 1890s. It was kind of like, you know, here's one of those, here's one of those, here's one of those, here's one of those, etc. But what confused many confuseable Christians, let me put it that way, what confused many Christians were the holy men of other religions. 
I was just going through life yesterday and happened to see a news story where there was someone talking about having met with the Daaii Lama. And the Dalai Lama right now is, whether you recognize it or not, at the white hot center of international geopolitics. I don't know that he really meant to be there, but he is there because the official, and I can't go into this as much as I would like as fascinating as it is, but the Communist Party in China, which of course, has cracked down on Nepal and upon the followers of the Dalia Lama and is officially atheistic. I mean absolutely officially atheistic and nonetheless claims now to be in control of the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. So you have an atheist regime, explicitly declaring legal rights to control the reincarnation of a priesthood. 
And if you're a communist, you gotta control everything. Even the things you don't think exist evidently. It is because it's very political, as you can imagine, and all the rest. But you know, why am I raising this now? It is because Westerners have no idea what to do with the Dalai Lama. He's a very holy man, according to worldly definitions of holiness. He's an ascetic. He is deeply meditative. And he's called holy because after all he is the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, according to tradition. I'm saying all this because I can understand why the particular Buddhism that he represents would consider him holy. But let me put it this way: This is the kind of holiness that Hollywood types are looking for. He looks the part. 
And so whether you're the British Royal family, or American politicians of a certain stripe, or Hollywood celebrities, you want to go and seek an audience with the Dalai Lama. Or, to bring it closer to us: The Pope, one of his titles is “Your Holiness.” This leads to all kinds of issues for Protestants when we are in a Catholic territory. It's because people just don't know what to say to us. You know? Basically there's not much you can say. You can't say “your imminence.” You can't say  to a Bishop, “your excellency.” You can't say “your holiness.” All you can say is “you,” and that's where we are. 
But people look at the Pope and they want to just touch him. You know, if you can just touch him, holiness will come to them. He's the most holy of all–that's even his title. And so, you know, if we can just get an audience with the Pope, if we can just go to a mass where the Pope is presiding, then holiness will come. And by the way he acts as if he is holy,  of course, with indulgences and all the rest of that system, it is still very much alive; the Roman Catholic church and all the rest. You look at that, and we go, “that's a model of visible holiness.” Visible holiness, in that sense, it isn't a holiness at all, according to Scripture. And this is where these issues get so confused. And I think even in many muddled minds of evangelicals, all of this is confusing. This is why I have evangelicals who will ask me, well, how do you explain someone like the Dalai Lama, who is so holy? 
Well, let’s back up for a moment and say, we only have one definition of holiness. And that is corresponding to the one true and living God. So are we clear about that? We're not talking about asceticism. We're not talking about meditative capacity. We're not talking about sitting on top of a stone or a column in the middle of the desert. We're talking about what holiness is, which is really clarifying and simplifying for Christians. All holiness means is corresponding to the attribute of the one and only holy God. And how do we do that? Only by His truth. That's the only way we can do it. So here's the radical statement. We actually believe there are nice people apart from the gospel. There are no holy people apart from the gospel. I know that sounds radical, but here we are in John 17, and here we are in John 17:17, and as we look at this passage, there are no holy ones. Apart from God, there are creatures, human creatures made in God's image who reflect His glory. 
And some of them are very nice. I'd rather be around the nice ones. Some of them are very peaceable. I'd rather be around the peaceable ones. Some of the people in the world are very honest. I'd rather be around the honest ones. But holiness pertains to God alone and to that which He makes holy. Look at the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, even in the tabernacle, and later in the temple, instruments, vessels were to be made and what happened? They were made and after they were made, God sanctified them. He's the only one who can sanctify them. And that meant not only making holy but reserving unto Himself for His own purposes. And that's the other meaning by the way, that applies to us as the saints, those who belong to God, we're made holy by Him. And we are His instruments. We are like the vessels in the temple, in that sense, we are now His. And because He's holy, we're to be holy. 
The point here is that there is no holiness apart from the one true and living God. There is no way to the one true and living God, but through Jesus Christ, whom He has sent. And there is no means of holiness other than Scripture. So that clarifies things enormously. Where do you find holy people? Those who belong to God through Christ made holy by the word of God. That's it. That's church, by the way, that's what we're here for. We're here to be made holy.. That's kind of a tough promise because you guys don't look a whole lot holier than you did last Sunday. I look in the mirror. I don't think I look a whole lot holier than I did last Sunday, and this is God's work. 
And we have to pray that over time, we do see that. We have to pray that over time, God sees that. But we understand that we're not talking about a class of people. We don't reserve the balcony for the most holy.. Those of us who sit up there like altitude, not holiness. We don't have any special category. We don't have orders of holiness. We're stuck together. We have the body of Christ. That by the way, goes back to our church covenant. When a church covenant says we are covenanting to live together and to worship together in such a way that we encourage one another unto holiness and seek to grow holy together. And that takes time. By the way, we won’t be finished in this life. 
And all this, just in what? 17 verses of this prayer. Already just this morning, we've looked at Christ speaking of the unity of the church, and we've asked the question, how in the world does that unity exist? And what kind of unity should we look for? And we're looking for a theological unity. We're looking for a spiritual unity. And that spiritual unity means that wherever we find those who are united to Christ, there is unity with them. 
So that means every true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is our brother or sister. But we're not members of the same congregation. Some of my best friends in the world are Presbyterian and we can preach the gospel together, but we can't do congregation together. Just on the issue of baptism. Just take one issue. And so if we were forced at the point of a gun to some kind of unity, what would it be? Believers baptism by immersion, or would it be the baptism of infants as covenant children by sprinkling? What would it be? Well, unless you're convinced together by the word of one thing, then that would be a false unity. We're just put in the same room and be “baptitarian?” That just doesn't work. By the way, I was asked by a high school student at an event this week as to whether or not the existence of denominations is a scandal to the unity of the body of Christ? 
I said, well, in some sense, yes, but the scandal is not the existence of the denominations, but the existence of the disagreement, that's the scandal. The scandal is that Presbyterians are wrong. Don't even talk about the Methodist. Seriously, yes, there is an embarrassment before the world. There's an embarrassment before the world that we haven't figured everything out to absolute unity among gospel Christians. And I'm just saying among gospel Christians, we haven't figured everything out. I often quote Sidney Mead, the American church historian, because he wrote this in a paragraph and it made more sense to me as a seminary student forty plus years ago. It's just one paragraph. And he said, look, it's basically a mathematical formula: Religious liberty plus doctrinal conviction equals denomination. That's it. If you have doctrinal religious disagreeance and you have religious Liberty, then you start churches that fit your convictions. 
Without religious Liberty, it might be very different, but since you have religious, you can do it. And I thought, well, that's it. It is a mathematical equation. It doesn't matter which one you put first. A difference in doctrine plus religious liberty equals denomination. So is that a scandal? Well, it's an embarrassment. I'll admit. A little bit of an embarrassment before the world. When I go on the television or I'm talking to the press and they say, well, what about the other? And the other? It gets complicated. I'd rather it be simple. And that simple would mean everybody's a Baptist. But it's not gonna happen apparently. So is that an embarrassment? 
Let me tell you what would be a greater embarrassment: We deny the truth in order to act like we agree. That'd be a far greater embarrassment. Or we create some kind of artificial unity that we know isn't real. That's more of an embarrassment. 
But coming to where we end this part of the prayer, and we'll have an interruption, I believe, with the resurrection Sunday coming, But as we look to this section of the prayer and where we end, the two words that are put together are two words that Christians need to increasingly and urgently to put together: Sanctify. Truth. Why? Because his word is truth. Let's pray. 
Father you've given us such glorious wealth, just in these verses and Father, I  am struck by how much we would lose in necessary knowledge for our existence as Christians if we did not have this prayer. Father, thank you for sharing it with us. And there's more yet to share. And in anticipation of that, we pray that the Holy Spirit will apply what we now know and have read and have studied to our hearts, to conform us to the image of Christ. And if you give us breath and life, we shall pray for yet more. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 46:59 https://albertmohler.com/?p=54331 Audio, Exposition, John, John Series, Video noThird Avenue Baptist Church Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series March 28, 2021 Let's pray. Our Father, we are just so thankful that you have given us every word of Scripture, which begins with, “in the beginning, you created the heavens of the earth” and goes all the way to the end with, “even so Lord come quickly.” Father, we pray that you will bless our study of your word every time we open it. May your word, this living word, take hold of us, guide us, illuminate us, and help us to see what it would be to be faithful to you in this life as we await the life to come. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.  So in this priestly prayer of Jesus, this high priestly prayer, as it is often referred to, Jesus is acting–as he acts now–as our intercessor and great high priest. This is the Son praying on behalf of us. And, even as the prayer begins with Jesus talking about the glory that he had with the Father before the creation of the world, the entire purpose of the prayer is that he's praying for his people. Just the existence of the prayer gives us the great, good news that our Savior cares for us, loves us, and prays for us. There's also this incredible distinction, and it's a very clear distinction, between the church and the world. And so Jesus actually speaks to the Father explicitly saying, “I am praying for those you have given me–I'm not praying for the world.”  And the phrase “those you have given me” comes up repeatedly.  We see this incredible testimony to the sovereignty of God. To not only the doctrine of election, but also to the doctrine of perseverance and assurance. Because we have been given to the Son by the Father, no one can separate us. That, again, is just wonderful assurance and encouragement to us because if we have given ourselves to the Son, we can fail. But if we are given to the Son by the Father, then we actually are secure. But as we have been making our way through this prayer,  we look at the verses, in which we see in verse 10, Jesus says, “all mine are yours and your are mine. And I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world and I am coming to you, Holy father. Keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you and these things I speak in the world that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word and the world has hated them because they are not of this world just as I am not of this world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world, sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake, I consecrate myself that they may also be sanctified in truth.”  Now, sometimes in this prayer, as in other passages of scripture, we make our way word by word, phrase by phrase. And yet when we think we see a phrase and understand its placement, we get a little further in the passage and understand, okay, that phrase has come up again. Or, that phrase has now been addressed from a different angle or aspect. Then we realize we need to go back and understand what's really going on here. That’s why we went back to verse 10 and began reading from there. Because again, we have this incredible emphasis from Jesus that he is going to the Father, but he is leaving his children in this world, in the world.  Well, this turns out to be a bigger theme in this prayer than we might fully have recognized. So remember that Jesus was saying that he is anticipating after the cross and resurrection returning to be with the Father and receiving again, knowing again, the glory that he had with the Father before the creation of the world. Then he makes this statement just as he made to the disciples. But now he's speaking to the Father. He says, “I am no longer in the world” because he's looking in anticipation to that moment. But his believers will be left in the world.  Now, remember the very last verse of chapter 16, what Jesus said. Jesus said, “I have said these things to you, that in me, you may have peace in the world. You will have tribulation, but take heart. I have overcome the world in the world.” In the world you will have tribulation. And some of you remember translations such as “in the world, you will have trouble.” And that is certainly true in the world. You will have trouble. So why are we in the world? Well, I guess you could state just a matter of fact, which is that if Jesus had taken the disciples out of the world then the end of the age would have been immediately inaugurated; we would not be here, and we would not be anywhere.  One of the questions is why Christ has left his people in the world. Jesus says the world's full of trouble. And by the way, that's why he is praying for us. We're no match for the world. To be honest, we aren't in ourselves. We're no match for the world at all. The world will not only give us trouble, the world will smash us and arrest us and persecute us and scatter us and silence us. The world is so powerful, in the grip of sin, that it would extinguish the gospel except for the fact that Christ will not let it be so. And so when Christ said “upon this rock, I will build my church and gates of hell shall not prevail against it” he didn't say “you look really strong to me.” He just said, “I'm not going to let you perish.” Of course, it has an ultimate sense. He's not going to let the gospel be extinguished. He's not going to let the church itself be destroyed or extinguished. But then again, if this is such a difficult place, why are we here?  Well, one thing to understand is that we're here because we are the witness. We are the light of the gospel in the world as the body of Christ. We are left in the world. There is work for the church to do. And that's a very important thing to recognize. We are not here merely to wait. There is a waiting, but we are not here merely to wait. As you look at the New Testament, there's much assigned to us. We have the Great Commission. And Jesus himself will make reference in this passage to what he has given the disciples to do. First of all, this is the theme of the New Testament, in the sense of the gospels and the assignment to the apostles. But you have the Great Commission as you find it, at the end of the gospel of Matthew, and you have the Great Commission as we will find it in Acts chapter one, “you will be my witnesses first in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and then the uttermost parts of the world.” There is witnessing for us to do, there's work for us to do.  You come to the book of James written to the early church and you'll remember that we are told that true religion is to take care of widows and orphans. There’s work for us to do. There is work being salt and light. You take the letters of Peter in the New Testament, assignments to represent Christ, to live peaceably, or at least to seek to live peaceably among all. But very clearly by our conduct in the world, bear testimony to the gospel of Jesus Christ. And you have the apostle Paul, you have an explicit missionary mandate: How shall they hear unless they have a preacher? And blessed are the feet of those who take the gospel.  And so you put together the New Testament and there's a theology of suffering. We are in the world. And part of our assignment is to suffer. And from time to time, the church has suffered horribly beyond our imagination. That too is witness, which is why the word martyrdom is actually taken from the same word as witness. That's what martyrdom is. It is the ultimate witness. But when you think about Jesus here, speaking of his own in the world, there's a remarkable statement. And we saw it before, but I wanna go back to it for a moment.  “All mine are yours and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world but they are in the world.” Jesus says that in verse 10 and 11. So you'll notice when you look at verse 15, Jesus says, “I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.” Now that's a pretty astounding sentence and we're gonna encounter it again. Jesus says, “I do not ask that you take them out of the world.” So we are not left here by the Father's purpose. We are actually left here by the Father's purpose and the assignment of the Son. It's just one of those phrases where you think again how we have this intimate gift of a conversation, a prayer between the Son and the Father, and this most urgent of moments in the life and ministry of Jesus.  And he makes clear what he is asked the Father to do, but he also makes clear what he's not asking the Father to do. He's not asking Him to take us out of the world. Now, as you think about that, I want you to think about another text and that will be I Corinthians 5; I Corinthians 5:9-10.  Now in I Corinthians 5, what's going on? Well, Paul was writing to the church, admonishing the church at Corinth in which horrible sin had been found in the church. And that sin was hindering the gospel witness of the church. Things are found amongst you, he said, that aren't even found amongst the Gentiles. He mentioned quite specifically some sexual sin.  He goes on to say that in the church, we are to have nothing to do with a Christian who acts in such a way. We're not to extend a hand to fellowship. We are not to allow them in our homes. And again, the key is that he's speaking about someone who had been in the church who had been identified in the church. And he said you cannot act as if they are Christians. That's the whole point. You can't treat someone who is living in renunciation of the faith as if he is a Christian. You can't give him the fellowship you'd extend to a Christian. But you really can't have anything to do with him. But here's what's fascinating in verse 9 and 10. This is Paul. Paul said, “I wrote to you in my letter, not to associate with sexually imoral people, not at all, meaning the sexually imoral of this world or the greedy and swindelors or idolators since then you would need to go out of the world.”  So there you have Paul echoing Jesus. Are we in the world? Yes. We are in the world by assignment. And does Jesus pray that we be taken out of the world? No, he doesn't. He explicitly does not pray that we would be taken out of the world, but that we be left in the world. The apostle Paul, speaking of the church having to deal excruciatingly with sin in its midst, says, “Look, I'm telling you, you can't have fellowship with someone who claims to be a believer and acts in this way. But I'm not telling you to have nothing to do with sinners out in the world. Because if I told you that, you just have to leave the world.” I find that very, very interesting. To be in the world is to be in contact with those who are worldly. To be in the world means we're living in a world in which yes, all around us there are adulterers and the immoral and cheaters and backbiters and all the rest. That's pretty much what the world is like. If you can't handle that world, you gotta leave it. But we're not allowed to leave it. We've got to bear witness to the gospel and be salt and light in the midst of a world that is marked by all these things. This is not an accident; we weren't left behind. We are here for a purpose and that purpose is work. That purpose is to be a witness. That purpose is to glorify God in this age until such time that it is right, according to the Father, that this age should end and the kingdom of Christ should begin in fullness.  I think we need to admit there are times in which we're ready to be taken out of the world. A part of this is the struggle of the church, understanding our own responsibility for holiness. And so just as you think about the church and the world, we're in the world, but we're not the world. I used to hear it said, “we're in the world, we're not of the world.” And that's actually a summary of the high priestly prayer and its logic. That language, “being in the world, but not of the world” is a summary of the very prayer that we are reading. But it's not just that we are not of the world. It's that we are not the world. So there's a distinction in identity between the church and the world.  You also have in this passage the theme of unity, and we've arrived at that theme. And this is a precious thing. That theme is the fact that the distinction between the church and the world is to be one of holiness. Yet the church is to be marked by a unity. So he prays that we'll be one, even as he and the Father are one, and it comes fairly early in the prayer as a theme, but it becomes very clear in the passages, the verses that we just read. He prays that we will be one. He also prays that we will be consecrated in the truth. What does it mean that Christ prays that we will be one? What kind of one are we to be? When you think of unity in the church there have been several attempts to try to create an institutional unity. There are actually several different models of unity in the church. The first most obvious model in church history would be Catholicism. By that I don't yet even mean a capital C. The C becomes a capital C. But as you look at the early centuries of the church, the unity was institutional.  And very quickly that unity took the shape of bishops. And the bishops were under the unity of the prime Bishop, who was the Bishop of Rome. So over time, this became more and more institutionalized, and so much so that in the early centuries of the church, the church was defined not by the presence of Christians, but by the presence of the Bishop. Where the Bishop is, there is the church. So you have this institutional unity. And of course that becomes absolutely crucial. And is unquestioned through, let's just say, a millennium. Now let's just kind of fast forward to the fifth century and then take it to the 15th century. For that millennium of time, the church is considered to be one thing. Now that gets a little complicated when in 1050 and the 11th century, there's a breach between the East and the West.  So, Catholic means universal. It means everywhere. And so that institutional unity is fractured when you have the Eastern church, it goes off under the patriarch. But still in the West, in Western civilization, and Western Europe, that is Europe, primarily as it is culturally defined, the church is just one thing. Rome is the headquarters of the church. And so now we have Catholicism with the capital C. And of course then comes the Reformation in the 16th century. In terms of the history of the West, it's hard to come up with a more decisive event than that. Because up until that time, it was not just the unity of the church that was absolute and structural, it was the union of crown and altar.  So it was not just the unity of the church, it was the union to the church and the monarchy in whatever respective realm. And so they were increasingly seen as sharing a common authority. The reformation breaks all of that. The reformation broke the structural unity of the church. And now you have church in plural, and that was unthinkable. As a matter of fact, even for quite a long time after the Reformation on various sides, you did not have any recognition of churches, it's still just church. There's not time to trace all of this, but very early in most of Europe, given the conflict that included the 30 Years War, which just minute for minute was probably the deadliest war ever fought on European territory, the basic concept came down to the fact that the religion of the state is the religion of the ruler.  So if you had a Catholic prince you had Catholic church. If you had a Lutheran prince, you had a Lutheran church. This was not acceptable to Baptists because that doesn't even work, it's historically anachronistic. It wouldn't have worked to have a Baptist king (there weren't any really) andthen to have a Baptist church in the realm. It took centuries after that for the idea, and Robert Wilkin, I had the privilege of doing a Thinking in Public program with him. He said the language change came much later when people would speak of one realm with a plural word churches. A place to look for that, by the way, would be someplace like Prussia, where you had a very strong Catholic presence, very strong Lutheran presence, and very strong Reform presence. Eventually just to keep peace and to have a national identity larger than what would've been a Catholic state or a Lutheran state, or a Reform state, you end up with speaking of the churches. Institutional unity doesn't work. Let me just put it that way. It doesn't work. And even as you look at Catholicism, I mean, right now in Catholicism, you have the German bishops at war theologically with the Vatican. The German bishops are going ahead with plans to have a sacrament, or a form of blessing, for same-sex unions. The German bishops are moving in radically liberal directions. So they're looking at schism in the Roman Catholic church because the German bishops, even this week said, we're not turning back. And the Vatican said a definitive, “No.” So it's going to be interesting to watch those developments in the Roman Catholic church.  So even the Roman Catholic church, as it exists now, is not unified except supposedly organizationally under the Pope. Well, on the other side of the Reformation, there have been efforts to create something of an ecumenical church. And so the ecumenical movement, and the economy of pulling everybody together, in this common and unity in one. The ecumenical movement especially took root in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. And in the late 19th century, you had communications, you had transportation, you have trains, and you've got all kinds of things developing to the extent that you've got people moving all over the place, and you have to realize that's a part of what really came out of all this. You have people moving all over the place. So you used to have Catholic communities, Catholics live there. And you had Lutheran communities, Lutherans live there. But once you got people moving all over the place, well, then you got all kinds of people everywhere.  By the way, you look at a map of the United States, you’ve got Scandinavian churches all over the great lakes; and you've got Congregationalists and Anglicans  in the Northeast; you have patterns of Catholic immigration that come into cities like Boston and New York and then later cities like Chicago. And so you've got Polish and Lithuanian and Irish, big Irish immigration, and a lot of German immigration. The city of Louisville is very interesting. You have the patterns of both early Irish and then later German Catholic immigration moving here, which even explains some of our neighborhoods and explains two Catholic boys schools. So it's not as unified as it looks. But once you have all these, these churches in a city like Louisville, I don’t know how many there are, but the claim was, we just need to create out of this one church.  And so originally that was basically just a Protestant issue and the Catholics were watching with interest. So let's just get the Protestant churches together. We're supposed to be one. Okay. But the quick thing to speak of here is the fact that number one, not everybody bought into the ecumenical idea in the first place. The Baptists at the top of that list were Congregationalists. Furthermore, we're not joiners, Baptists are horrible joiners for this kind of thing, for theological reasons. But the reason, first of all, that this won't work is that the only way to make this happen is with some kind of “lowest common denominator” theology. So the ecumenical movement quickly moved into theological liberalism. Every time it started. Every major effort towards an ecumenical unity led to theological liberalism to a theological minimalism.  They just kept dumping doctrines overboard, because we are going to stand in common, and we’re going to have a common statement. And so you have the World Council of Churches, the National Council of Churches of Christ, as it was known in the United States. And Southern Baptists, we theologically could have nothing to do with that. By the way, you hear almost nothing of that now, because the churches that did become a part of the World Council, those churches are now so weak and empty, hardly anyone even thinks of them or speaks of them. So it turns out that an institutional unity really doesn't work. It turns out that an ecumenical experiment really doesn't work. But the church of Christ is to be one. So, in what sense are we one? Well, this is where Baptists would argue, and this is really a traditional evangelical argument, that it's in doctrine and it is in spirit.  It is a spiritual unity, and it's a doctrinal unity. Let me go back just a minute, by the way, and say one other model of unity that some have tried is liturgical unity, where people have argued that the actual center of unity in the church is the fact that we have, for instance, the Lord’s Supper. But then again, just ask the churches to describe the word “Supper.”  And then you understand that doesn't work either. Is it a mass? Is it a Eucharist? Is it a sacrament? Is it an ordinance? So the liturgical unity was an early effort. And people thought, well, you know, if it's a liturgical unity, it might be that the Eastern Orthodox could join in, if not the Roman Catholics. Well, I'm not gonna go further there. I'm going to say where unity is. The unity is spiritual and it is doctrinal.  So let's take doctrinal first. So the evidence of that unity Jesus gets right here in John 17:17. Jesus says, “sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. And for their sake, I consecrated myself that they also may be sanctified in truth”  So it is sanctification in the truth, sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. So it turns out that our unity is in truth. And that is what doctrine is. Doctrine is what the church believes, confesses, and teaches on the basis of the word of GoD. That definition comes from Jaroslav Pelikan, a great historian of doctrine who taught at Yale for many years. And it's worth it just to be able to say his name, Jaroslav Pelikan. He was a titanic scholar and one of the greatest historians of history and one of the most important historians of theology and doctrine and dogma.  He actually was a historian of the history of theology, but nonetheless, he defined doctrine in the beginning of his great five volume history in the history of doctrine as what the church believes, confesses and teaches on the basis of the word of God. Why three words: Believes, confesses and teaches?  Belief is what actually resides as the conceptual convictional belief of the church. And as Pelikan understood, that's found in theology books, and that's found in creeds. It’s very importantly found in hymn books and it's apparent in prayer. And so if you want to know what the church believes–in fact, Roger Scruton, the late British philosopher, great loss to us when he died last year, Roger Scruton said, “if you want to know what people believe, do not ask them doctrinal questions, but rather listen to them, pray.” It's a keen insight. He was at that point, an unbelieving philosopher. That’s what the church believes.  Then what the church confesses. And yes, that is the creeds and confessions. So where the church says, this is what we believe. Well, okay, listen to the church. It's telling you what the church believes. So whether it's the Apostles Creed, or  our Baptist Faith and Message, or when we, as a congregation, have a members' meeting and we say the covenant together, we're saying, this is what we believe. So Pelikan would say, listen to them, they're telling you what they believe. What the church believes, confesses, and teaches. Where do we teach? Well, that's the preaching. What's actually preached.  I was reading a great scholar of the Reformation just a few days ago and he said, if you had just known nothing of Luther and you'd known nothing of Calvin, and you'd known nothing of any kind of theological controversy, if you went out of Germany in say 1520, and came back in 1570, you would be hearing preaching so different you would know something had happened. The preaching makes a difference. Luther was turning out preachers and having turned out all these preachers they went into the pulpit. They were preaching the word. It was a completely different event. The church in Germany, under the power of the Reformation, had been turned from, as Luther said, an “eye house into a mouth house.” You no longer come to see things. You come in to hear things. You no longer come into the church to watch priests, even behind a screen, performing a mass.  No you're not there to watch anymore, you're there to hear. It's a “moot” house. It's a mouth house. So we look to what the church believes, confesses, and teaches on the basis of the word of God.  But the word there becomes so important because actually that's what Jesus says. Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. Now is he referring to Scripture here? The answer is yes. Clearly he's referring to Scripture here because Scripture is included in God's word. But when Jesus speaks of sanctifying believers in the truth, “your word is truth,” that includes by his own designation, everything that he has said, and that's also been in this prayer. I gave them your “word,” or just earlier, just verses earlier, I gave them your “word.” It's one of the great identifying marks of the church. Where's the church? Well, it is where Christ is.  Where's the church? Well, it is where is the word now? Now, remember in the institutional unity model. Where's the church? It is where the Bishop is. That's not the way we answer the question. Where's the church? Well, number one, where are the Christians? Where's the gospel? Where's the word? This is also why the Reformers in talking about the marks of the church identified the first two marks in this summary, often attributed to Luther: It's where the Word of the God is rightly preached and the sacraments, that is the ordinances, are rightly administered.  The first thing is where the Word is rightly preached. And as Luther said, if the word is not rightly preached there, “I don't care what it calls itself. I don't care about its architecture. I don't care if it has a Bishop. (If it has a Bishop, it becomes less likely). I care about what's preached.” And so that's the unity of the church. That's the truth. That is the deposit at the center of the church. And here's the thing, Jesus, doesn't just say, “teach them thy word is truth.” He says, “sanctify them.”  So here's the other revolutionary reality that jumps out at us from this prayer: Doctrine is sanctifying. God's truth is sanctifying. The Scripture is sanctifying. That's an amazing thing. We are to be holy, as God himself said: “As I am Holy, you be holy.” It's picked up by Peter in the New Testament. We're to be holy. We're to be the holy ones. We're to be Christ’s holy people. We're to be holy in a sinful world. How are we going to be holy? How are we made holy? Well, the answer according to Scripture is by the indwelling spirit and by the power of the Word, that's how we are made holy. There are disciplines of holiness, yes, but the source of holiness is truth.  And so, by the way, this means something. It means that holiness has to begin in truth. And as truth works its way out, gospel truth, Christ’s truth, as the truth works its way out in our lives it produces holiness. This is a warning to us unless we try to find some other means of holiness. That's also been a temptation throughout the history of the church. We want some kind of instantaneous holiness. We want some kind of declaration of holiness. By the way, there is an instantaneous declaration of holiness, which is once we are united with Christ, we are his and Christ is not united to sin. In other words, our eternal holiness is guaranteed and secure because we are united to Christ. But there is nonetheless, in this life, and certainly is revealed in Scripture, a continuous testimony to the need for us to reveal holiness, to display holiness, to be holy, to grow in holiness. And that's going to come only by the Word. Your word is truth. Sanctify them in the truth. There are no other means of holiness.  Now this leads us to some interesting observations. So, for instance, one of the issues that puzzled Christians, and I would say they were Christians evidently who have easily puzzled, one of the issues that confused many Christians was with the encounter of world religions in the 19th century in particular.  It came even earlier in terms of exploration, but primarily the 19th century is when people were thinking about this, there was even a parliament of world religions held in Chicago in the 1890s. It was kind of like, you know, here's one of those, here's one of those, here's one of those, here's one of those, etc. But what confused many confuseable Christians, let me put it that way, what confused many Christians were the holy men of other religions.  I was just going through life yesterday and happened to see a news story where there was someone talking about having met with the Daaii Lama. And the Dalai Lama right now is, whether you recognize it or not, at the white hot center of international geopolitics. I don't know that he really meant to be there, but he is there because the official, and I can't go into this as much as I would like as fascinating as it is, but the Communist Party in China, which of course, has cracked down on Nepal and upon the followers of the Dalia Lama and is officially atheistic. I mean absolutely officially atheistic and nonetheless claims now to be in control of the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. So you have an atheist regime, explicitly declaring legal rights to control the reincarnation of a priesthood.  And if you're a communist, you gotta control everything. Even the things you don't think exist evidently. It is because it's very political, as you can imagine, and all the rest. But you know, why am I raising this now? It is because Westerners have no idea what to do with the Dalai Lama. He's a very holy man, according to worldly definitions of holiness. He's an ascetic. He is deeply meditative. And he's called holy because after all he is the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, according to tradition. I'm saying all this because I can understand why the particular Buddhism that he represents would consider him holy. But let me put it this way: This is the kind of holiness that Hollywood types are looking for. He looks the part.  And so whether you're the British Royal family, or American politicians of a certain stripe, or Hollywood celebrities, you want to go and seek an audience with the Dalai Lama. Or, to bring it closer to us: The Pope, one of his titles is “Your Holiness.” This leads to all kinds of issues for Protestants when we are in a Catholic territory. It's because people just don't know what to say to us. You know? Basically there's not much you can say. You can't say “your imminence.” You can't say  to a Bishop, “your excellency.” You can't say “your holiness.” All you can say is “you,” and that's where we are.  But people look at the Pope and they want to just touch him. You know, if you can just touch him, holiness will come to them. He's the most holy of all–that's even his title. And so, you know, if we can just get an audience with the Pope, if we can just go to a mass where the Pope is presiding, then holiness will come. And by the way he acts as if he is holy,  of course, with indulgences and all the rest of that system, it is still very much alive; the Roman Catholic church and all the rest. You look at that, and we go, “that's a model of visible holiness.” Visible holiness, in that sense, it isn't a holiness at all, according to Scripture. And this is where these issues get so confused. And I think even in many muddled minds of evangelicals, all of this is confusing. This is why I have evangelicals who will ask me, well, how do you explain someone like the Dalai Lama, who is so holy?  Well, let’s back up for a moment and say, we only have one definition of holiness. And that is corresponding to the one true and living God. So are we clear about that? We're not talking about asceticism. We're not talking about meditative capacity. We're not talking about sitting on top of a stone or a column in the middle of the desert. We're talking about what holiness is, which is really clarifying and simplifying for Christians. All holiness means is corresponding to the attribute of the one and only holy God. And how do we do that? Only by His truth. That's the only way we can do it. So here's the radical statement. We actually believe there are nice people apart from the gospel. There are no holy people apart from the gospel. I know that sounds radical, but here we are in John 17, and here we are in John 17:17, and as we look at this passage, there are no holy ones. Apart from God, there are creatures, human creatures made in God's image who reflect His glory.  And some of them are very nice. I'd rather be around the nice ones. Some of them are very peaceable. I'd rather be around the peaceable ones. Some of the people in the world are very honest. I'd rather be around the honest ones. But holiness pertains to God alone and to that which He makes holy. Look at the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, even in the tabernacle, and later in the temple, instruments, vessels were to be made and what happened? They were made and after they were made, God sanctified them. He's the only one who can sanctify them. And that meant not only making holy but reserving unto Himself for His own purposes. And that's the other meaning by the way, that applies to us as the saints, those who belong to God, we're made holy by Him. And we are His instruments. We are like the vessels in the temple, in that sense, we are now His. And because He's holy, we're to be holy.  The point here is that there is no holiness apart from the one true and living God. There is no way to the one true and living God, but through Jesus Christ, whom He has sent. And there is no means of holiness other than Scripture. So that clarifies things enormously. Where do you find holy people? Those who belong to God through Christ made holy by the word of God. That's it. That's church, by the way, that's what we're here for. We're here to be made holy.. That's kind of a tough promise because you guys don't look a whole lot holier than you did last Sunday. I look in the mirror. I don't think I look a whole lot holier than I did last Sunday, and this is God's work.  And we have to pray that over time, we do see that. We have to pray that over time, God sees that. But we understand that we're not talking about a class of people. We don't reserve the balcony for the most holy.. Those of us who sit up there like altitude, not holiness. We don't have any special category. We don't have orders of holiness. We're stuck together. We have the body of Christ. That by the way, goes back to our church covenant. When a church covenant says we are covenanting to live together and to worship together in such a way that we encourage one another unto holiness and seek to grow holy together. And that takes time. By the way, we won’t be finished in this life.  And all this, just in what? 17 verses of this prayer. Already just this morning, we've looked at Christ speaking of the unity of the church, and we've asked the question, how in the world does that unity exist? And what kind of unity should we look for? And we're looking for a theological unity. We're looking for a spiritual unity. And that spiritual unity means that wherever we find those who are united to Christ, there is unity with them.  So that means every true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is our brother or sister. But we're not members of the same congregation. Some of my best friends in the world are Presbyterian and we can preach the gospel together, but we can't do congregation together. Just on the issue of baptism. Just take one issue. And so if we were forced at the point of a gun to some kind of unity, what would it be? Believers baptism by immersion, or would it be the baptism of infants as covenant children by sprinkling? What would it be? Well, unless you're convinced together by the word of one thing, then that would be a false unity. We're just put in the same room and be “baptitarian?” That just doesn't work. By the way, I was asked by a high school student at an event this week as to whether or not the existence of denominations is a scandal to the unity of the body of Christ?  I said, well, in some sense, yes, but the scandal is not the existence of the denominations, but the existence of the disagreement, that's the scandal. The scandal is that Presbyterians are wrong. Don't even talk about the Methodist. Seriously, yes, there is an embarrassment before the world. There's an embarrassment before the world that we haven't figured everything out to absolute unity among gospel Christians. And I'm just saying among gospel Christians, we haven't figured everything out. I often quote Sidney Mead, the American church historian, because he wrote this in a paragraph and it made more sense to me as a seminary student forty plus years ago. It's just one paragraph. And he said, look, it's basically a mathematical formula: Religious liberty plus doctrinal conviction equals denomination. That's it. If you have doctrinal religious disagreeance and you have religious Liberty, then you start churches that fit your convictions.  Without religious Liberty, it might be very different, but since you have religious, you can do it. And I thought, well, that's it. It is a mathematical equation. It doesn't matter which one you put first. A difference in doctrine plus religious liberty equals denomination. So is that a scandal? Well, it's an embarrassment. I'll admit. A little bit of an embarrassment before the world. When I go on the television or I'm talking to the press and they say, well, what about the other? And the other? It gets complicated. I'd rather it be simple. And that simple would mean everybody's a Baptist. But it's not gonna happen apparently. So is that an embarrassment?  Let me tell you what would be a greater embarrassment: We deny the truth in order to act like we agree. That'd be a far greater embarrassment. Or we create some kind of artificial unity that we know isn't real. That's more of an embarrassment.  But coming to where we end this part of the prayer, and we'll have an interruption, I believe, with the resurrection Sunday coming, But as we look to this section of the prayer and where we end, the two words that are put together are two words that Christians need to increasingly and urgently to put together: Sanctify. Truth. Why? Because his word is truth. Let's pray.  Father you've given us such glorious wealth, just in these verses and Father, I  am struck by how much we would lose in necessary knowledge for our existence as Christians if we did not have this prayer. Father, thank you for sharing it with us. And there's more yet to share. And in anticipation of that, we pray that the Holy Spirit will apply what we now know and have read and have studied to our hearts, to conform us to the image of Christ. And if you give us breath and life, we shall pray for yet more. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.Third Avenue Baptist Church Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series March 28, 2021 Let's pray. Our Father, we are just so thankful that you have given us every word of Scripture, which begins with, “in the beginning, you created the heavens of the earth” and goes all the way to the end with, “even so Lord come quickly.” Father, we pray that you will bless our study of your word every time we open it. May your word, this living word, take hold of us, guide us, illuminate us, and help us to see what it would be to be faithful to you in this life as we await the life to come. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.  So in this priestly prayer of Jesus, this high priestly prayer, as it is often referred to, Jesus is acting–as he acts now–as our intercessor and great high priest. This is the Son praying on behalf of us. And, even as the prayer begins with Jesus talking about the glory that he had with the Father before the creation of the world, the entire purpose of the prayer is that he's praying for his people. Just the existence of the prayer gives us the great, good news that our Savior cares for us, loves us, and prays for us. There's also this incredible distinction, and it's a very clear distinction, between the church and the world. And so Jesus actually speaks to the Father explicitly saying, “I am praying for those you have given me–I'm not praying for the world.”  And the phrase “those you have given me” comes up repeatedly.  We see this incredible testimony to the sovereignty of God. To not only the doctrine of election, but also to the doctrine of perseverance and assurance. Because we have been given to the Son by the Father, no one can separate us. That, again, is just wonderful assurance and encouragement to us because if we have given ourselves to the Son, we can fail. But if we are given to the Son by the Father, then we actually are secure. But as we have been making our way through this prayer,  we look at the verses, in which we see in verse 10, Jesus says, “all mine are yours and your are mine. And I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world and I am coming to you, Holy father. Keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you and these things I speak in the world that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word and the world has hated them because they are not of this world just as I am not of this world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world, sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake, I consecrate myself that they may also be sanctified in truth.”  Now, sometimes in this prayer, as in other passages of scripture, we make our way word by word, phrase by phrase. And yet when we think we see a phrase and understand its placement, we get a little further in the passage and understand, okay, that phrase has come up again. Or, that phrase has now been addressed from a different angle or aspect. Then we realize we need to go back and understand what's really going on here. That’s why we went back to verse 10 and began reading from there. Because again, we have this incredible emphasis from Jesus that he is going to the Father, but he is leaving his children in this world, in the world.  Well, this turns out to be a bigger theme in this prayer than we might fully have recognized. So remember that Jesus was saying that he is anticipating after the cross and resurrection returning to be with the Father and receiving again, knowing again, the glory that he had with the Father before the creation of the world. Then he makes this statement just as he made to the disciples. But now he's speaking to the Father. He says, “I am no longer in the world” because he's looking in anticipation to that moment. But his believers will be left in the world.  Now, remember the very last verse of chapter 16, what Jesus said. Jesus said, “I have said these things to you, that in me, you may have peace in the world. You will have tribulation, but take heart. I have overcome the world in the world.” In the world you will have tribulation. And some of you remember translations such as “in the world, you will have trouble.” And that is certainly true in the world. You will have trouble. So why are we in the world? Well, I guess you could state just a matter of fact, which is that if Jesus had taken the disciples out of the world then the end of the age would have been immediately inaugurated; we would not be here, and we would not be anywhere.  One of the questions is why Christ has left his people in the world. Jesus says the world's full of trouble. And by the way, that's why he is praying for us. We're no match for the world. To be honest, we aren't in ourselves. We're no match for the world at all. The world will not only give us trouble, the world will smash us and arrest us and persecute us and scatter us and silence us. The world is so powerful, in the grip of sin, that it would extinguish the gospel except for the fact that Christ will not let it be so. And so when Christ said “upon this rock, I will build my church and gates of hell shall not prevail against it” he didn't say “you look really strong to me.” He just said, “I'm not going to let you perish.” Of course, it has an ultimate sense. He's not going to let the gospel be extinguished. He's not going to let the church itself be destroyed or extinguished. But then again, if this is such a difficult place, why are we here?  Well, one thing to understand is that we're here because we are the witness. We are the light of the gospel in the world as the body of Christ. We are left in the world. There is work for the church to do. And that's a very important thing to recognize. We are not here merely to wait. There is a waiting, but we are not here merely to wait. As you look at the New Testament, there's much assigned to us. We have the Great Commission. And Jesus himself will make reference in this passage to what he has given the disciples to do. First of all, this is the theme of the New Testament, in the sense of the gospels and the assignment to the apostles. But you have the Great Commission as you find it, at the end of the gospel of Matthew, and you have the Great Commission as we will find it in Acts chapter one, “you will be my witnesses first in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and then the uttermost parts of the world.” There is witnessing for us to do, there's work for us to do.  You come to the book of James written to the early church and you'll remember that we are told that true religion is to take care of widows and orphans. There’s work for us to do. There is work being salt and light. You take the letters of Peter in the New Testament, assignments to represent Christ, to live peaceably, or at least to seek to live peaceably among all. But very clearly by our conduct in the world, bear testimony to the gospel of Jesus Christ. And you have the apostle Paul, you have an explicit missionary mandate: How shall they hear unless they have a preacher? And blessed are the feet of those who take the gospel.  And so you put together the New Testament and there's a theology of suffering. We are in the world. And part of our assignment is to suffer. And from time to time, the church has suffered horribly beyond our imagination. That too is witness, which is why the word martyrdom is actually taken from the same word as witness. That's what martyrdom is. It is the ultimate witness. But when you think about Jesus here, speaking of his own in the world, there's a remarkable statement. And we saw it before, but I wanna go back to it for a moment.  “All mine are yours and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world but they are in the world.” Jesus says that in verse 10 and 11. So you'll notice when you look at verse 15, Jesus says, “I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.” Now that's a pretty astounding sentence and we're gonna encounter it again. Jesus says, “I do not ask that you take them out of the world.” So we are not left here by the Father's purpose. We are actually left here by the Father's purpose and the assignment of the Son. It's just one of those phrases where you think again how we have this intimate gift of a conversation, a prayer between the Son and the Father, and this most urgent of moments in the life and ministry of Jesus.  And he makes clear what he is asked the Father to do, but he also makes clear what he's not asking the Father to do. He's not asking Him to take us out of the world. Now, as you think about that, I want you to think about another text and that will be I Corinthians 5; I Corinthians 5:9-10.  Now in I Corinthians 5, what's going on? Well, Paul was writing to the church, admonishing the church at Corinth in which horrible sin had been found in the church. And that sin was hindering the gospel witness of the church. Things are found amongst you, he said, that aren't even found amongst the Gentiles. He mentioned quite specifically some sexual sin.  He goes on to say that in the church, we are to have nothing to do with a Christian who acts in such a way. We're not to extend a hand to fellowship. We are not to allow them in our homes. And again, the key is that he's speaking about someone who had been in the church who had been identified in the church. And he said you cannot act as if they are Christians. That's the whole point. You can't treat someone who is living in renunciation of the faith as if he is a Christian. You can't give him the fellowship you'd extend to a Christian. But you really can't have anything to do with him. But here's what's fascinating in verse 9 and 10. This is Paul. Paul said, “I wrote to you in my letter, not to associate with sexually imoral people, not at all, meaning the sexually imoral of this world or the greedy and swindelors or idolators since then you would need to go out of the world.”  So there you have Paul echoing Jesus. Are we in the world? Yes. We are in the world by assignment. And does Jesus pray that we be taken out of the world? No, he doesn't. He explicitly does not pray that we would be taken out of the world, but that we be left in the world. The apostle Paul, speaking of the church having to deal excruciatingly with sin in its midst, says, “Look, I'm telling you, you can't have fellowship with someone who claims to be a believer and acts in this way. But I'm not telling you to have nothing to do with sinners out in the world. Because if I told you that, you just have to leave the world.” I find that very, very interesting. To be in the world is to be in contact with those who are worldly. To be in the world means we're living in a world in which yes, all around us there are adulterers and the immoral and cheaters and backbiters and all the rest. That's pretty much what the world is like. If you can't handle that world, you gotta leave it. But we're not allowed to leave it. We've got to bear witness to the gospel and be salt and light in the midst of a world that is marked by all these things. This is not an accident; we weren't left behind. We are here for a purpose and that purpose is work. That purpose is to be a witness. That purpose is to glorify God in this age until such time that it is right, according to the Father, that this age should end and the kingdom of Christ should begin in fullness.  I think we need to admit there are times in which we're ready to be taken out of the world. A part of this is the struggle of the church, understanding our own responsibility for holiness. And so just as you think about the church and the world, we're in the world, but we're not the world. I used to hear it said, “we're in the world, we're not of the world.” And that's actually a summary of the high priestly prayer and its logic. That language, “being in the world, but not of the world” is a summary of the very prayer that we are reading. But it's not just that we are not of the world. It's that we are not the world. So there's a distinction in identity between the church and the world.  You also have in this passage the theme of unity, and we've arrived at that theme. And this is a precious thing. That theme is the fact that the distinction between the church and the world is to be one of holiness. Yet the church is to be marked by a unity. So he prays that we'll be one, even as he and the Father are one, and it comes fairly early in the prayer as a theme, but it becomes very clear in the passages, the verses that we just read. He prays that we will be one. He also prays that we will be consecrated in the truth. What does it mean that Christ prays that we will be one? What kind of one are we to be? When you think of unity in the church there have been several attempts to try to create an institutional unity. There are actually several different models of unity in the church. The first most obvious model in church history would be Catholicism. By that I don't yet even mean a capital C. The C becomes a capital C. But as you look at the early centuries of the church, the unity was institutional.  And very quickly that unity took the shape of bishops. And the bishops were under the unity of the prime Bishop, who was the Bishop of Rome. So over time, this became more and more institutionalized, and so much so that in the early centuries of the church, the church was defined not by the presence of Christians, but by the presence of the Bishop. Where the Bishop is, there is the church. So you have this institutional unity. And of course that becomes absolutely crucial. And is unquestioned through, let's just say, a millennium. Now let's just kind of fast forward to the fifth century and then take it to the 15th century. For that millennium of time, the church is considered to be one thing. Now that gets a little complicated when in 1050 and the 11th century, there's a breach between the East and the West.  So, Catholic means universal. It means everywhere. And so that institutional unity is fractured when you have the Eastern church, it goes off under the patriarch. But still in the West, in Western civilization, and Western Europe, that is Europe, primarily as it is culturally defined, the church is just one thing. Rome is the headquarters of the church. And so now we have Catholicism with the capital C. And of course then comes the Reformation in the 16th century. In terms of the history of the West, it's hard to come up with a more decisive event than that. Because up until that time, it was not just the unity of the church that was absolute and structural, it was the union of crown and altar.  So it was not just the unity of the church, it was the union to the church and the monarchy in whatever respective realm. And so they were increasingly seen as sharing a common authority. The reformation breaks all of that. The reformation broke the structural unity of the church. And now you have church in plural, and that was unthinkable. As a matter of fact, even for quite a long time after the Reformation on various sides, you did not have any recognition of churches, it's still just church. There's not time to trace all of this, but very early in most of Europe, given the conflict that included the 30 Years War, which just minute for minute was probably the deadliest war ever fought on European territory, the basic concept came down to the fact that the religion of the state is the religion of the ruler.  So if you had a Catholic prince you had Catholic church. If you had a Lutheran prince, you had a Lutheran church. This was not acceptable to Baptists because that doesn't even work, it's historically anachronistic. It wouldn't have worked to have a Baptist king (there weren't any really) andthen to have a Baptist church in the realm. It took centuries after that for the idea, and Robert Wilkin, I had the privilege of doing a Thinking in Public program with him. He said the language change came much later when people would speak of one realm with a plural word churches. A place to look for that, by the way, would be someplace like Prussia, where you had a very strong Catholic presence, very strong Lutheran presence, and very strong Reform presence. Eventually just to keep peace and to have a national identity larger than what would've been a Catholic state or a Lutheran state, or a Reform state, you end up with speaking of the churches. Institutional unity doesn't work. Let me just put it that way. It doesn't work. And even as you look at Catholicism, I mean, right now in Catholicism, you have the German bishops at war theologically with the Vatican. The German bishops are going ahead with plans to have a sacrament, or a form of blessing, for same-sex unions. The German bishops are moving in radically liberal directions. So they're looking at schism in the Roman Catholic church because the German bishops, even this week said, we're not turning back. And the Vatican said a definitive, “No.” So it's going to be interesting to watch those developments in the Roman Catholic church.  So even the Roman Catholic church, as it exists now, is not unified except supposedly organizationally under the Pope. Well, on the other side of the Reformation, there have been efforts to create something of an ecumenical church. And so the ecumenical movement, and the economy of pulling everybody together, in this common and unity in one. The ecumenical movement especially took root in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. And in the late 19th century, you had communications, you had transportation, you have trains, and you've got all kinds of things developing to the extent that you've got people moving all over the place, and you have to realize that's a part of what really came out of all this. You have people moving all over the place. So you used to have Catholic communities, Catholics live there. And you had Lutheran communities, Lutherans live there. But once you got people moving all over the place, well, then you got all kinds of people everywhere.  By the way, you look at a map of the United States, you’ve got Scandinavian churches all over the great lakes; and you've got Congregationalists and Anglicans  in the Northeast; you have patterns of Catholic immigration that come into cities like Boston and New York and then later cities like Chicago. And so you've got Polish and Lithuanian and Irish, big Irish immigration, and a lot of German immigration. The city of Louisville is very interesting. You have the patterns of both early Irish and then later German Catholic immigration moving here, which even explains some of our neighborhoods and explains two Catholic boys schools. So it's not as unified as it looks. But once you have all these, these churches in a city like Louisville, I don’t know how many there are, but the claim was, we just need to create out of this one church.  And so originally that was basically just a Protestant issue and the Catholics were watching with interest. So let's just get the Protestant churches together. We're supposed to be one. Okay. But the quick thing to speak of here is the fact that number one, not everybody bought into the ecumenical idea in the first place. The Baptists at the top of that list were Congregationalists. Furthermore, we're not joiners, Baptists are horrible joiners for this kind of thing, for theological reasons. But the reason, first of all, that this won't work is that the only way to make this happen is with some kind of “lowest common denominator” theology. So the ecumenical movement quickly moved into theological liberalism. Every time it started. Every major effort towards an ecumenical unity led to theological liberalism to a theological minimalism.  They just kept dumping doctrines overboard, because we are going to stand in common, and we’re going to have a common statement. And so you have the World Council of Churches, the National Council of Churches of Christ, as it was known in the United States. And Southern Baptists, we theologically could have nothing to do with that. By the way, you hear almost nothing of that now, because the churches that did become a part of the World Council, those churches are now so weak and empty, hardly anyone even thinks of them or speaks of them. So it turns out that an institutional unity really doesn't work. It turns out that an ecumenical experiment really doesn't work. But the church of Christ is to be one. So, in what sense are we one? Well, this is where Baptists would argue, and this is really a traditional evangelical argument, that it's in doctrine and it is in spirit.  It is a spiritual unity, and it's a doctrinal unity. Let me go back just a minute, by the way, and say one other model of unity that some have tried is liturgical unity, where people have argued that the actual center of unity in the church is the fact that we have, for instance, the Lord’s Supper. But then again, just ask the churches to describe the word “Supper.”  And then you understand that doesn't work either. Is it a mass? Is it a Eucharist? Is it a sacrament? Is it an ordinance? So the liturgical unity was an early effort. And people thought, well, you know, if it's a liturgical unity, it might be that the Eastern Orthodox could join in, if not the Roman Catholics. Well, I'm not gonna go further there. I'm going to say where unity is. The unity is spiritual and it is doctrinal.  So let's take doctrinal first. So the evidence of that unity Jesus gets right here in John 17:17. Jesus says, “sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. And for their sake, I consecrated myself that they also may be sanctified in truth”  So it is sanctification in the truth, sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. So it turns out that our unity is in truth. And that is what doctrine is. Doctrine is what the church believes, confesses, and teaches on the basis of the word of GoD. That definition comes from Jaroslav Pelikan, a great historian of doctrine who taught at Yale for many years. And it's worth it just to be able to say his name, Jaroslav Pelikan. He was a titanic scholar and one of the greatest historians of history and one of the most important historians of theology and doctrine and dogma.  He actually was a historian of the history of theology, but nonetheless, he defined doctrine in the beginning of his great five volume history in the history of doctrine as what the church believes, confesses and teaches on the basis of the word of God. Why three words: Believes, confesses and teaches?  Belief is what actually resides as the conceptual convictional belief of the church. And as Pelikan understood, that's found in theology books, and that's found in creeds. It’s very importantly found in hymn books and it's apparent in prayer. And so if you want to know what the church believes–in fact, Roger Scruton, the late British philosopher, great loss to us when he died last year, Roger Scruton said, “if you want to know what people believe, do not ask them doctrinal questions, but rather listen to them, pray.” It's a keen insight. He was at that point, an unbelieving philosopher. That’s what the church believes.  Then what the church confesses. And yes, that is the creeds and confessions. So where the church says, this is what we believe. Well, okay, listen to the church. It's telling you what the church believes. So whether it's the Apostles Creed, or  our Baptist Faith and Message, or when we, as a congregation, have a members' meeting and we say the covenant together, we're saying, this is what we believe. So Pelikan would say, listen to them, they're telling you what they believe. What the church believes, confesses, and teaches. Where do we teach? Well, that's the preaching. What's actually preached.  I was reading a great scholar of the Reformation just a few days ago and he said, if you had just known nothing of Luther and you'd known nothing of Calvin, and you'd known nothing of any kind of theological controversy, if you went out of Germany in say 1520, and came back in 1570, you would be hearing preaching so different you would know something had happened. The preaching makes a difference. Luther was turning out preachers and having turned out all these preachers they went into the pulpit. They were preaching the word. It was a completely different event. The church in Germany, under the power of the Reformation, had been turned from, as Luther said, an “eye house into a mouth house.” You no longer come to see things. You come in to hear things. You no longer come into the church to watch priests, even behind a screen, performing a mass.  No you're not there to watch anymore, you're there to hear. It's a “moot” house. It's a mouth house. So we look to what the church believes, confesses, and teaches on the basis of the word of God.  But the word there becomes so important because actually that's what Jesus says. Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. Now is he referring to Scripture here? The answer is yes. Clearly he's referring to Scripture here because Scripture is included in God's word. But when Jesus speaks of sanctifying believers in the truth, “your word is truth,” that includes by his own designation, everything that he has said, and that's also been in this prayer. I gave them your “word,” or just earlier, just verses earlier, I gave them your “word.” It's one of the great identifying marks of the church. Where's the church? Well, it is where Christ is.  Where's the church? Well, it is where is the word now? Now, remember in the institutional unity model. Where's the church? It is where the Bishop is. That's not the way we answer the question. Where's the church? Well, number one, where are the Christians? Where's the gospel? Where's the word? This is also why the Reformers in talking about the marks of the church identified the first two marks in this summary, often attributed to Luther: It's where the Word of the God is rightly preached and the sacraments, that is the ordinances, are rightly administered.  The first thing is where the Word is rightly preached. And as Luther said, if the word is not rightly preached there, “I don't care what it calls itself. I don't care about its architecture. I don't care if it has a Bishop. (If it has a Bishop, it becomes less likely). I care about what's preached.” And so that's the unity of the church. That's the truth. That is the deposit at the center of the church. And here's the thing, Jesus, doesn't just say, “teach them thy word is truth.” He says, “sanctify them.”  So here's the other revolutionary reality that jumps out at us from this prayer: Doctrine is sanctifying. God's truth is sanctifying. The Scripture is sanctifying. That's an amazing thing. We are to be holy, as God himself said: “As I am Holy, you be holy.” It's picked up by Peter in the New Testament. We're to be holy. We're to be the holy ones. We're to be Christ’s holy people. We're to be holy in a sinful world. How are we going to be holy? How are we made holy? Well, the answer according to Scripture is by the indwelling spirit and by the power of the Word, that's how we are made holy. There are disciplines of holiness, yes, but the source of holiness is truth.  And so, by the way, this means something. It means that holiness has to begin in truth. And as truth works its way out, gospel truth, Christ’s truth, as the truth works its way out in our lives it produces holiness. This is a warning to us unless we try to find some other means of holiness. That's also been a temptation throughout the history of the church. We want some kind of instantaneous holiness. We want some kind of declaration of holiness. By the way, there is an instantaneous declaration of holiness, which is once we are united with Christ, we are his and Christ is not united to sin. In other words, our eternal holiness is guaranteed and secure because we are united to Christ. But there is nonetheless, in this life, and certainly is revealed in Scripture, a continuous testimony to the need for us to reveal holiness, to display holiness, to be holy, to grow in holiness. And that's going to come only by the Word. Your word is truth. Sanctify them in the truth. There are no other means of holiness.  Now this leads us to some interesting observations. So, for instance, one of the issues that puzzled Christians, and I would say they were Christians evidently who have easily puzzled, one of the issues that confused many Christians was with the encounter of world religions in the 19th century in particular.  It came even earlier in terms of exploration, but primarily the 19th century is when people were thinking about this, there was even a parliament of world religions held in Chicago in the 1890s. It was kind of like, you know, here's one of those, here's one of those, here's one of those, here's one of those, etc. But what confused many confuseable Christians, let me put it that way, what confused many Christians were the holy men of other religions.  I was just going through life yesterday and happened to see a news story where there was someone talking about having met with the Daaii Lama. And the Dalai Lama right now is, whether you recognize it or not, at the white hot center of international geopolitics. I don't know that he really meant to be there, but he is there because the official, and I can't go into this as much as I would like as fascinating as it is, but the Communist Party in China, which of course, has cracked down on Nepal and upon the followers of the Dalia Lama and is officially atheistic. I mean absolutely officially atheistic and nonetheless claims now to be in control of the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. So you have an atheist regime, explicitly declaring legal rights to control the reincarnation of a priesthood.  And if you're a communist, you gotta control everything. Even the things you don't think exist evidently. It is because it's very political, as you can imagine, and all the rest. But you know, why am I raising this now? It is because Westerners have no idea what to do with the Dalai Lama. He's a very holy man, according to worldly definitions of holiness. He's an ascetic. He is deeply meditative. And he's called holy because after all he is the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, according to tradition. I'm saying all this because I can understand why the particular Buddhism that he represents would consider him holy. But let me put it this way: This is the kind of holiness that Hollywood types are looking for. He looks the part.  And so whether you're the British Royal family, or American politicians of a certain stripe, or Hollywood celebrities, you want to go and seek an audience with the Dalai Lama. Or, to bring it closer to us: The Pope, one of his titles is “Your Holiness.” This leads to all kinds of issues for Protestants when we are in a Catholic territory. It's because people just don't know what to say to us. You know? Basically there's not much you can say. You can't say “your imminence.” You can't say  to a Bishop, “your excellency.” You can't say “your holiness.” All you can say is “you,” and that's where we are.  But people look at the Pope and they want to just touch him. You know, if you can just touch him, holiness will come to them. He's the most holy of all–that's even his title. And so, you know, if we can just get an audience with the Pope, if we can just go to a mass where the Pope is presiding, then holiness will come. And by the way he acts as if he is holy,  of course, with indulgences and all the rest of that system, it is still very much alive; the Roman Catholic church and all the rest. You look at that, and we go, “that's a model of visible holiness.” Visible holiness, in that sense, it isn't a holiness at all, according to Scripture. And this is where these issues get so confused. And I think even in many muddled minds of evangelicals, all of this is confusing. This is why I have evangelicals who will ask me, well, how do you explain someone like the Dalai Lama, who is so holy?  Well, let’s back up for a moment and say, we only have one definition of holiness. And that is corresponding to the one true and living God. So are we clear about that? We're not talking about asceticism. We're not talking about meditative capacity. We're not talking about sitting on top of a stone or a column in the middle of the desert. We're talking about what holiness is, which is really clarifying and simplifying for Christians. All holiness means is corresponding to the attribute of the one and only holy God. And how do we do that? Only by His truth. That's the only way we can do it. So here's the radical statement. We actually believe there are nice people apart from the gospel. There are no holy people apart from the gospel. I know that sounds radical, but here we are in John 17, and here we are in John 17:17, and as we look at this passage, there are no holy ones. Apart from God, there are creatures, human creatures made in God's image who reflect His glory.  And some of them are very nice. I'd rather be around the nice ones. Some of them are very peaceable. I'd rather be around the peaceable ones. Some of the people in the world are very honest. I'd rather be around the honest ones. But holiness pertains to God alone and to that which He makes holy. Look at the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, even in the tabernacle, and later in the temple, instruments, vessels were to be made and what happened? They were made and after they were made, God sanctified them. He's the only one who can sanctify them. And that meant not only making holy but reserving unto Himself for His own purposes. And that's the other meaning by the way, that applies to us as the saints, those who belong to God, we're made holy by Him. And we are His instruments. We are like the vessels in the temple, in that sense, we are now His. And because He's holy, we're to be holy.  The point here is that there is no holiness apart from the one true and living God. There is no way to the one true and living God, but through Jesus Christ, whom He has sent. And there is no means of holiness other than Scripture. So that clarifies things enormously. Where do you find holy people? Those who belong to God through Christ made holy by the word of God. That's it. That's church, by the way, that's what we're here for. We're here to be made holy.. That's kind of a tough promise because you guys don't look a whole lot holier than you did last Sunday. I look in the mirror. I don't think I look a whole lot holier than I did last Sunday, and this is God's work.  And we have to pray that over time, we do see that. We have to pray that over time, God sees that. But we understand that we're not talking about a class of people. We don't reserve the balcony for the most holy.. Those of us who sit up there like altitude, not holiness. We don't have any special category. We don't have orders of holiness. We're stuck together. We have the body of Christ. That by the way, goes back to our church covenant. When a church covenant says we are covenanting to live together and to worship together in such a way that we encourage one another unto holiness and seek to grow holy together. And that takes time. By the way, we won’t be finished in this life.  And all this, just in what? 17 verses of this prayer. Already just this morning, we've looked at Christ speaking of the unity of the church, and we've asked the question, how in the world does that unity exist? And what kind of unity should we look for? And we're looking for a theological unity. We're looking for a spiritual unity. And that spiritual unity means that wherever we find those who are united to Christ, there is unity with them.  So that means every true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is our brother or sister. But we're not members of the same congregation. Some of my best friends in the world are Presbyterian and we can preach the gospel together, but we can't do congregation together. Just on the issue of baptism. Just take one issue. And so if we were forced at the point of a gun to some kind of unity, what would it be? Believers baptism by immersion, or would it be the baptism of infants as covenant children by sprinkling? What would it be? Well, unless you're convinced together by the word of one thing, then that would be a false unity. We're just put in the same room and be “baptitarian?” That just doesn't work. By the way, I was asked by a high school student at an event this week as to whether or not the existence of denominations is a scandal to the unity of the body of Christ?  I said, well, in some sense, yes, but the scandal is not the existence of the denominations, but the existence of the disagreement, that's the scandal. The scandal is that Presbyterians are wrong. Don't even talk about the Methodist. Seriously, yes, there is an embarrassment before the world. There's an embarrassment before the world that we haven't figured everything out to absolute unity among gospel Christians. And I'm just saying among gospel Christians, we haven't figured everything out. I often quote Sidney Mead, the American church historian, because he wrote this in a paragraph and it made more sense to me as a seminary student forty plus years ago. It's just one paragraph. And he said, look, it's basically a mathematical formula: Religious liberty plus doctrinal conviction equals denomination. That's it. If you have doctrinal religious disagreeance and you have religious Liberty, then you start churches that fit your convictions.  Without religious Liberty, it might be very different, but since you have religious, you can do it. And I thought, well, that's it. It is a mathematical equation. It doesn't matter which one you put first. A difference in doctrine plus religious liberty equals denomination. So is that a scandal? Well, it's an embarrassment. I'll admit. A little bit of an embarrassment before the world. When I go on the television or I'm talking to the press and they say, well, what about the other? And the other? It gets complicated. I'd rather it be simple. And that simple would mean everybody's a Baptist. But it's not gonna happen apparently. So is that an embarrassment?  Let me tell you what would be a greater embarrassment: We deny the truth in order to act like we agree. That'd be a far greater embarrassment. Or we create some kind of artificial unity that we know isn't real. That's more of an embarrassment.  But coming to where we end this part of the prayer, and we'll have an interruption, I believe, with the resurrection Sunday coming, But as we look to this section of the prayer and where we end, the two words that are put together are two words that Christians need to increasingly and urgently to put together: Sanctify. Truth. Why? Because his word is truth. Let's pray.  Father you've given us such glorious wealth, just in these verses and Father, I  am struck by how much we would lose in necessary knowledge for our existence as Christians if we did not have this prayer. Father, thank you for sharing it with us. And there's more yet to share. And in anticipation of that, we pray that the Holy Spirit will apply what we now know and have read and have studied to our hearts, to conform us to the image of Christ. And if you give us breath and life, we shall pray for yet more. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2021/03/21/john-1712-16/ Sun, 21 Mar 2021 12:00:30 +0000 Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series
March 21, 2021
We are continuing our study in John 17. As we continue our study throughout the Gospel of John, and at this point we are looking at the High Priestly Prayer of Jesus. The High Priestly prayer because that is how he is functioning. He is "priesting" for his people. When we come to the end of this passage, we are going to remind ourselves of the comprehensive office of Mediator that Christ holds.
To give us a summary, we often as Evangelicals have said, "We do not need a priest." You understand the Protestant impulse to say, "We do not need a priest." The person who gets up and presides over our service is not a priest. The reality is, we desperately need a priest. Without a priest, there is no mediation between us and the Father. Without a priest, there is no intercessor for us. 
Indeed, as the book of Hebrews tells us, we have a Great High Priest. The Great High Priest. Jesus Christ our Lord. He 'priests' for us. He is doing so even before his ascension in this prayer. In a sense, his entire incarnation is part of his priesthood. In particular, upon his ascension, when he is now seated at the right hand of God the Father, Almighty, and Jesus ever makes intercession for us, that is when Jesus Christ is functioning as the Great High Priest. 
We have had two sessions together looking at the High Priestly prayer, taking about five verses at a time. We are going to begin today right after verse 11. In order to gain the context, let us just remember the first verses. 
John tells us" When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world."
We are going to pause there for a moment. One of the most interesting lessons we learn is what we learn by being asked questions, rather than asking questions. We had a major youth event for High School students on Thursday night by virtual means. I was speaking to 1200 teenagers, and at the end of the night, we had an Ask Anything session. These young people from churches in Canada, to both coasts and in between, were sending in questions.
 It tells you something about the faithfulness of the churches where these students are being taught that their questions were so good. I was surprised that two of the questions had to do with the inter-trinitarian mystery. You had teenagers asking, "How is the Father related to the Son? How is it the Son did not know the time or the hour? Yet, he is fully God." You could see these young people trying to think through the mystery of the trinity. Jesus Christ is truly God, truly man. He has all the attributes of deity. And yet, he says that not even he knows the hour of his coming.
Then another question was directed towards the trinitarian mystery. An extremely smart question. I was able to refer to this very text because this passage really helps to explain the incarnation as a trinitarian experience. That is to say, what was the meaning of the incarnation, inside the relationship of the trinity? Obviously, we are dealing with what Calvin would call an analogical knowledge. These are words used to describe that which is beyond words, but they are true words. This is true knowledge. This is what human beings can handle.
Notice what Jesus says in verse 5, "Now Father, Glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world existed." Now remember the Prologue of the Gospel of John tells us that Jesus is the very agent of creation. Before the world was created, and before the incarnation, he knew a glory with the Father that he accepted to be diminished during the time of his incarnation. He is now looking to the cross. Looking to the empty tomb. Looking to his ascension, and praying to the Father, looking with anticipation to the restoration of the glory he had with the Father before the Creation of the world.
What does that tell us? It tells us something that Jesus experienced, and thus was the trinitarian experience, on behalf of the Son in the incarnation. He forfeited some of his glory to be among us. Not all of his glory. John tells us, "We beheld his glory, glory as the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." We could not have survived His full glory.
Even as I said, Calvin reminds us of the analogical nature of language. We also need to recognize that had Jesus presented himself to us, without hiding some of his glory, we would have been destroyed. We are not able to handle the presence. How do we know that? Because God told Moses that. We don't have any other text. God told Moses, "You want to behold my glory? You cannot handle my glory. My glory would destroy you. But I will pass by as you are hidden in the cleft of a rock."
Similarly, in Philippians chapter 2, where we are told about the incarnation, we have the very same logic in slightly different language. This is often called "The Kenosis" because of one Greek word. It’s a dangerous category because there are some who are tempted to push it far beyond its biblical bounds. Nonetheless, what we read in Philippians chapter 2, "Have this mind among yourselves" this is verse 5 "which is yours in Christ Jesus. Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped? But emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being found in the likeness of men, and being found in human form. He humbled himself, by becoming obedient to the point of death. Even death on the cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name. So that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth, and under the earth. And every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Now that tells us something else. Even as, in the incarnation, Christ in obedience accepted a reduction of his glory—certainly his invisible glory—and there was more to it than that. Again, the question is, how did the Son not know the hour of his return?
Paul tells us that the glory Christ prays to the father about in John 17, the glory he had with the Father before the foundation of the world, turns out to be an even greater glory. The obedience of the Son is rewarded by the Father, even with the title "Lord." The fact that every knee shall bow and tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
One of the things we need to note is the timeline of biblical history. This is probably intuitive to you. It should be intuitive to Christians. The timeline of biblical history eternity, eternity, You cannot say eternity to eternity, but we do not have any category other than that. We do not have a category of timelessness or everlastingness. We know intellectually it is true, but we cannot really experience it. We merely declare it.
The timeline of biblical History is eternity, and then the creation of time as God created the world. He created the world as objects in movement. Objects in movement define time. You might not have thought about that, but that’s actually what defines time, until you have objects in movement. The Biblical creation account tells us exactly how it happens, and then you have time. The time only lasts as long as the objects are in movement. If the objects stop time stops. All kinds of issues and witnesses can be brought here from physics. But when you look to the other side of time, eternity. What you have in the timeline of Scripture here, you have human history interrupted by the incarnation, which changes all time going forward.
Everything forward is incarnational time. Messiah time. That's why for instance, in accordance with the Christian understanding of time, you have the dates "BC" and "AD." It is not before Christ and after Chris. It is before Christ, yes, that's BC, but Anno Domini, or "The year of our Lord." That is where the letters 'AD' come from. It is also interesting if you follow this, and you know how you are supposed to do it—if its BC, say 646 BC, then you put 646 B period, C period, capital b, capital c. If it is AD, the AD comes before the year. 
So, if you look at classical history, written until the recent development, classical history was written such that this empire lasted from 646 BC to AD 45. The year of our Lord, 45. The AD comes before the year because Anno Domini. It announced, this is the year of our Lord. History split in two. Jesus is here, praying this prayer at the end of his incarnation, but the age is not coming to an end. That is what's really important. There is no incarnational age that comes to an end. The incarnation comes to an end on earth, but remember, Christ is incarnate now
He is incarnate in his resurrected body. Here is Paul, 1 Corinthians 15, He has a resurrection body, he is the first fruits of those who will follow in him. We too will have a resurrection body in heaven. We will not have a disembodied experience, but a resurrection body.
A little footnote here for political correctness, those who are trying to secularize BC and AD. It is just your typical kind of nonsense. I was in a public setting where I was able to puncture holes in it. I'll admit, it was probably an unhealthy delight. They say, "No you cannot say BC and AD. You cannot have secular people or people in the public schools going 'AD 45'. Then you have these little kids say, 'in the year of our lord' and you have the union of church and state. That's theocracy breaking out in American Schools."
They adopted the new language of BCE and CE. You cannot talk about Christ, so CE is our common era. Of course, why would we have this common era before the common era? Well, we won't talk about that because that would take us right back to AD. You have BCE meaning before the common era.
I was in a context, on a secular university campus, where I was chastised because I refused to go with BCE and CE. Know the current historical lingo has cut and removed the Christian references. I said, "Well how in the world did you do that?" "Well we took BC, and made it BCE. We took AD and made it CE." I said, "Yes, but how did you come up with the numbers? What has been split in two? I mean, everything goes down from here, and everything goes up from there. You think you can just rename what you're calling it as if someone just tripped over a rock in Spain and said, 'Let's just start counting all over again'?" No, sorry. It’s the centrality of the incarnation of the Lord, Jesus Christ.
Beginning in verse 6, "I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you, for I have given them the words you gave me. They have received them, and have come to know in truth that I came from you and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me. For they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine. I am glorified in them and I am no longer in the world, but you are in the world. And I am coming to you holy Father. Keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one. Even as we are one."
So, in the intimacy of the relationship between the Father and the Son, even as Jesus is praying, he says that he has accomplished what the Father sent him to do. He manifested and made real, visible, and he announced the Father's name to the people. Then the giving. This is what we spent our time last week on. It's this giving, not just of salvation to sinners, not just giving the world the Savior. It's this incomprehensible, except, comprehensible because it's made simple to us. We do not understand everything about it because it is one of the greatest mysteries of the Christian life.
The Father, giving the redeemed to the Son, as gifts. We have the Son, effectively giving the redeemed back to the Father, as gifts. The Son and the Father enjoying the redeemed as a gift.
So even as we think about the gift that has been given to us, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whosoever believes in Him, might not perish but have everlasting life." He has given us the gift of everlasting life. In reality, the redeemed, known before the foundation of the world, given by the Father to the Son before the world was created. There is the gift. The gift from the Father to the Son. Christ is, in effect, sharing the gift with the Father.
He goes on and says again, they are in me, they are in you. You gave them to me out of the world. Remember, that comes right after verse 5. "And now Father, glorify me in your presence, with the glory I had with you before the world existed." But not only is history split in two, humanity is split in two. It's so clear in this text. Between those who are in Christ, those who are his because they were given to him by the Father. You have history divided. You have humanity divided. This division of humanity is such that, as we have seen testified in John 6, the ones who belong to the Son can never be taken from him because they were given to the Son by the Father. That is really important! 
How is it that we came to be in Christ? The answer is, "Because the Father gave us to the Son." All the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me, I will by no means cast out. Of all that the Father gives me, the Son will lose none of them. That's very good news. Jesus is praying for some of his own here? No, he is praying for all of his own.
The astounding thing is the division in humanity that Jesus mentioned in verse 9. "I am praying for them," that is his own, who are in him, "I am not praying for the World, but for those you have given me, for they are yours." That is, as we saw last week, one of the most striking verses in all of Scripture. The distinction between those who are in and those who are in the world so much so, and here's what's so important for us to see: Christ is not a priest to the world, he's a priest to the church.
That is an astounding change as we think about biblical theology, because as we begin in the book of Genesis, God is Lord. Over the entire universe. He made everything, that is, he reigns over everything. Jesus reigns with him as the logos of the universe over the entire world. But he is priest mediator intercessor for his own. That clarity is a necessary clarity. The church is always gravely endangered when it loses the understanding of the distinction between the church and the world. That understanding of the church and the world that distinction can be falsely defined as something special about us. Once we do that, then we understand why the specialness of the distinction between the church and the world dissipates. Because if it's something special about us, all we have to do is spend some time looking in the mirror and experiencing life together to recognize we're not as special as we thought we were.
So the distinction between the church and the world, if dependent on the observation of us any given day, might be quite frustrating. But the point is that the distinction between the church and the world is Christ and those who are in Christ. That's the big distinction. Similarly, as you're thinking about the great distinction here is between those who are in Christ and those who are just in the world. It's the same thing when we talk about the fatherhood of God. This is a hard thing to talk about, when people talk about the fatherhood of God. So let's just talk about the, the first person of the Trinity for a moment, the fatherhood, it of God, and, or does God love the world? Is it fair to say, God loves the world? And, and if so, how does God love the world?
This is a footnote here, but it might be helpful just to kind of remind us that there are several aspects of God's love for his creature. So first of all, if God made it, he loves it in some sense, if he didn't love it, he wouldn't have made it. Every day of creation, he declares it's good. Of course, when he gets to human beings, made in his image, it's very good. Nonetheless, everything that he makes by the fact that he made it, it is the recipient of his love in some dimension. The first dimension we, which is common to all creation, is benevolence. So, when we talk about benevolence, that's a word for love. Benevolence means as the Bible says, he makes it rain on the, just, and the unjust.
God's benevolence towards all humanity means that we enjoy the sun and the rain. We enjoy the gift of life. Even unbelievers love their children. There are many good gifts that are given to us: what we eat and what we enjoy; the air we breathe; this cosmically anthropically designed planet in which life is habitable. God's benevolence is to all, to save time, even though there are different dimensions will reduce it to two elements of benevolence.  
Second is his mercy, his, his, his redeeming mercy is towards those who are in Christ. That's a different kind of love. The Baptist faith and message, which is our official confession of faith, says it this way— I think this is actually just incredibly right— It says, God is fatherly to all creation, but he is Father to those who are in his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, that's right. He's fatherly to all, but he's Father to those who are in Christ.
Well, you see that reflected in Jesus' prayer. But if I were a believer reading this, I would be more offended by this verse than anything else in the gospel of John. This to me, just to a secular reader would be the most shocking text because here we are told Jesus himself—just think of what the modern cultural conception of Jesus is a moral teacher, a remarkable example of righteousness, certainly he must be an exemplar non-discrimination and inclusivity. Well, actually reading the gospels you find many texts in which that's not true. Here you find that as he's facing the cross, Jesus doesn't pray for the world. That requires the Bible's world picture to be reminded to us again, that world picture.
When we speak of, Jesus, loving the world, what you see as the text to John begins, which is astounding. It's the only gospel who begins here begins in creation. All things are made by him and without him was not thing made that was made. He's the instrument of creation, but his love is for those the Father gave him before the creation of the world. For them, he now prays.
By the way, just another little footnote. There are certain parallel arguments that you find in scripture, the more you study. Some of those parallel arguments are between Old Testament and New Testament texts. You realize, this is a continuation and argument. This is the fulfillment of a promise. But inside the New Testament, there are also some lines of argument in which you all of a sudden recognize, "Well, here's this, and it's picked up over here."
One example is you’re reading the gospel of Matthew, Then you have two people studying different texts. Let's say one of them is reading Matthew, one of them is reading the book of Hebrews. Then all of a sudden you recognize, "Now, wait, just a minute. There's some incredible parallels here!" Another set of parallels, that is very easy to see, is between the gospel of John and Paul's letter to the Ephesians. 
So, throughout church history, sometimes the gospel of John has been referred to as the Ephesian gospel. Now that doesn't mean it was written to the Ephesians. What it means is that the similar laser focus on the sovereignty of God comes in lines of argument that are just incredibly parallel between John and Ephesians. As you look at John 17, we are going to look even this morning at Ephesians 1, in order to understand a bit more of what it means for the church to be in Christ. Let's turn right now to Ephesians chapter 1.
Now, remember we're doing this because we want to understand the church given to Christ. The church being described as "in him." Those who are mine. You see this in a verse like we read in verse 10, "All mine are yours and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them." But the bigger issue is that we are in Christ because the Father gave us to the Son, look at Ephesians 1. Begin reading in verse three:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
Now, this is not a prayer. This is a didactic passage. This is a passage from the apostle Paul who is writing to the Ephesians. Certainly you must sense the incredible weight of, of commonality here between John 17 and Ephesians 1. As a matter of fact, Ephesians 1 helps us to understand how it is that we came to be given to Christ before the foundation of the world. Which is also the timeline of Ephesians 1. Before the foundation of the world. We were predestined to see him. Now, Ephesians 1 is the great theater of the display of one of the biblical doctrines. Most Evangelicals failed to understand. Failing to understand the grand flow of biblical history and the heart of biblical theology is largely missing. They remain shallow, and this is the doctrine of union with Christ.
Once again, this is a characteristic emphasis of Reformed Christianity because it is Reformed Christianity that seeks above all others to understand the very text we're –reading John 17 in Ephesians 1--- how is it that these things reflect God's will and purpose, and heart. The answer is because what we are given in Ephesians chapter 1 is the reality that to be redeemed, to belong to Christ, is to be united to him in such a way we can never be severed from him. Which is what we had Jesus say consistently in the gospel of John. And the question becomes, how did that happen? In other words, when were we united with Christ?
Well, the apostle will help us to understand, and the New Testament will display that we were united with Christ, by faith- and justified by faith—when we came in the operations of our heart by the ministry, the holy spirit convicting us of sin. We came to be made alive. We responded to the gospel.  We believed. We trusted. We rested in Christ and thus, we became his. Wait, just a minute, we became his, but we were his specifically, You know, it's, it's not like if you could resist read John 17 and let's say,
"Oh, John's all you have, John, Seventeen's all you have." And we hear the Son praying to the Father about those you've given me and making the distinction between those and, and the world.
Well, I guess it's possible. You might say, "Okay, all right. Maybe Jesus came. So those the Father gave him were those who just decided to believe in him." Well, here's the truth. No one is his, who does not believe in him. That is absolutely true, but Ephesians makes very clear speaking of not only believers in toto, but of every believer, that we were predestined. That's a hard doctrine, but there it is. By the way, it's no harder than what you see in John 17.
The older I come to be, and the more I teach theology, the more I think that the great scandal of Christianity—it comes to the exclusivity, the gospel and, and the, the purity, the church, and all kinds of things, and it's very clear in Israel, too. The great scandal is us and them. You know, we're living in an age in which we're told, "It's just wrong to say us and them." So we 'us' will tell 'them' it's wrong to say us and them. It's inevitable, by the way.  Even in the most liberal college campuses where you say you don't have us and them, You now have all kinds of identity politics, which is US with a capital, set of letters and THEM with a capital set of letters.
But the interesting thing is this comes up again. And what you see in Ephesians is this symphonic explanation of the fact that we are united to Christ as believers. This union with Christ means we are in him. So as I look at the passage, just follow with me very quickly, Beginning with verse four, it tells us, even as he chose us in him, that's in Christ. So, we were chosen by the Father in Christ. Then just follow him. It says before him in love, he predestined us according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the redeemed. Then verse seven, "In him, we have redemption through his blood," and we continue on down.
This is the purpose which you set forth in Christ. Verse 11, "In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined, according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the council of his will." Verse 13, "In him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation believed in him were sealed." There, it is, "Sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantor, guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory."
There is no escape from the logic here. There is no escape from the logic of John 17. There's no escape from the logic of Ephesians 1. When you put John 17 and Ephesians 1 together, you have a comprehensive and glorious understanding of how it came to pass. The Father before the creation of the, a world predestined, chosen, gifted, gave –all these verbs are there. All these words are there. The redeem to the So. Those he's given to the Son can never be taken from him.
That becomes crucial as we continue on. So, we're back now, in John 17. We concluded with verse 11, "And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled."
So what we have here is a second acknowledgement, as we had in John chapter 6, that of those, the Father has given to the Son, Judas is not one. That Judas is not amongst those who was given before the foundation of the world to Jesus Christ. As a gift from the Father to the Son to be then presented by the Son of the Father and the reciprocity of inter Trinitarian love, no. Judas wasn't there. Judas just appeared to be there. Jesus knew this. He says this in John chapter 6, because some of the larger group of disciples no longer followed him. Jesus turned to the disciples and said,  "Do you also want to go away?" You'll recall in, in John chapter 6, and Peter says," Lord, to whom will we go? You have the words of, of eternal life, and besides that, we've come to know that you are Christ, the holy one of God."
But we were told then that Jesus knew, in himself,  the thoughts of all men. He knew in himself that Judas would betray him. So again, that was, that was told to us. And then in John chapter 13, there is a reference, as is in the background here, to Psalm 41 9. In Psalm 41:9, David speaks of the one who has betrayed him. The one who was so close to him, but has betrayed him. That's the text that is in the background of the statement about Judas in John chapter 13. It's in the background here. So, you have Psalm 41, John 6, John 13 in the background to this statement.
It's just a reminder to us that no one, that as Jesus and the Father, are not surprised by Judas. Judas is not an interruption in plan. Judas is not a disappointment in the sense that it didn't turn out like the Father and the Son had intended with Judas. No, it's a part of the divinely ordained plan of salvation, but Jesus is emphatically not praying for him. That's an astounding thing.
You think about doors of judgment, you know, an eternal door of judgment closing. Just imagine this: Jesus Christ does not pray for you. Jesus speaks of his flock, recognizing his voice and of himself as the good shepherd tending his flock. To be outside that flock is horror. To be outside that door is horror. To be un-prayed for by Jesus is the eternal slamming of a door. You see that right here in John 17.
"While I was with them," Jesus said in verse 12, "I kept them in your name." That's what's so sweet. Jesus having been given the people, those who would be in him, redeemed by the Father, Jesus kept them which is really sweet. He kept us. Imagine all the time the disciples were with him. Even as Jesus was sleeping, he was keeping them. He keeps us, though we can't keep ourselves. All we like sheep have gone astray. We can't keep ourselves in any sense, internally or externally. But Jesus says, while he was here, he kept us. He didn't lose any.
"I kept them in your name, which you have given me that they may be one, even as we are one, I have guarded them and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction that the scripture might be fulfilled." We know who he was. And he wasn't really lost because he was never a part of us in the beginning. But he was among us. In verse 13, Jesus says, "But now I am coming to you and these things I speak in the world that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves."
So once again, there's something astounding here that jumps out at us. Of course, it's following the flow of the prayer. We've been guarded by Christ. Not one has been lost, but again, Jesus says, as he said verses earlier, "But now I am coming to you." S0o he's praying about the church when he is absent as the incarnate Lord on earth. This is the purpose of the prayer. This is the main purpose of the prayer. Jesus' concern for us without him incarnate on earth. When he was here, he guarded us. He kept us. He's praying for us now. But notice what he prays in verse 13. "But now I am coming to you." He's already said that. And he repeats it. "And these things that I speak in the world that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves."
This is something we really need to know. The joy that Jesus knows as the Son with the Father is the joy in its own dimensionality that Jesus wants us to have. He wants us to share in that joy. However, you define the love of God toward the objects of his love—the Son is the object of his love—and we are in the Son or the objects of his love. Christ says, "When I am absent from them, I want them to know jo." That's really good news.
But the joy has a specific shape. It has a specific substance. It's not merely a mood. Look at what he says. It's the most amazing testimony to the Word of God. "But now I'm coming to you and these things that I speak about in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word and the world has hated them because they are not of this world. And the world has hated them because they are not of this world just as I am not of this world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world, sanctify them in the truth. Your word is the truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world and for their sake, I consecrate myself that they also may be sanctified in truth."
I think just about everyone thinking about John 17 knows of Jesus' prayer for the unity of the church. "May they be one as we are one." Even the larger ecumenical movement has claimed this, that we may all be one, let's just have one church. Let's just have a visible unity.
Here's the problem revealed in church history. Church history tells us about the problems. Here's one of the problems, every effort to try to come up with the lowest common denominator Christianity and say, "There is the unity of the church." It fails because we need to remember that the unity of the church is not institutional. That's a very important new Testament teaching. It's a very important understanding for us. I mean that we are, we are Baptist. If anybody on planet earth understands that the unity of the church is real, but not institutional it's Baptist.
We believe that unity of the church is seen, first of all, right here in the unity of this local church. This is a church where we're unified in our faith, in our confession, in our service, in our ministry, in our worship, in our covenant. This is why when we have a members meeting, we read the covenant so there's unity. We belong to one Lord, one faith, one baptism. We know there are other faithful Christians outside of Third Avenue Baptist church, just to remind ourselves of that. They're wonderful gospel Christians outside of third avenue, Baptist church, right down the street from us. And, thanks be to God.
We believe that there are Christians in churches that are labeled differently. The key issue for us is not the name of the church, but whether or not the Bible is preached as the word of God. That the gospel is preached in its clarity and purity producing a gospel people. But there's a reason why, and part of this is in the mystery of God's on, omniscience. There's a reason why we're not all the Christians in Louisville. We aren't meeting in one room this morning. That reason is not COVID by the way. There is a theological reason why we're not meeting. It is because we have congregations by conviction that are established and we can know one another and we can experience unity together. This is so much more than the world's idea of unity. They say put everyone in Madison Square Gardens and look at all the people you see. But of course, what you're looking at is a multitude. There is actually no unity, just proximity.
Ecclesiology is based upon unity in Christ, but there's more to it than that. As you look at this, you recognize that the unity is theological and the unity is in the scriptures! "I have given them your word". He said that earlier, but now the context is very tight. "I've given them your word and the world has hated them because they're not of the world just as I am out of the world." So, at least a part of having the word means that the world hates us. Well, that's something helpful to know.
"I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one." Very good. Very good. This helps us. In other words, one of the questions in the flow of biblical history is why are we here right now? Why is there time between the Ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ and his coming? What is the purpose of all this time? We're waiting, crying out loud. Jesus answered it. When in the book of Acts, he says, "You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the world." He is Christ, showing his glory in the world, but in the world, he shows his glory is in the church and through the preaching of the gospel. This is, this is the gospel preaching age. There's no other reason for this age. There is no other act of salvation history that remains to take place before the coming of Christ which will consummate all things. We're not waiting for Christ to do anything. When he said it is finish, it is finished.
No, we have a job to do and we'll do it until Jesus comes. But while we're in the world, in the dangers of the world, Jesus prays for the unity of his church. The unity is in truth. This is one the issues of singular importance for us to understand. True Christian unity is unity is always in truth. It's never a unity at the expense of truth. It's never trying to find a lowest common denominator. It's always leaning into the truth together. Now this again, doesn't mean that we believe we're the only Christians. Thanks be to God. It does mean that where there is no obedience to scripture, there is no true Christianity. As we shall see, when we gather together again in verse 17, Jesus actually says, "Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth."
Now we find out that it's by the preaching of the word of God. Now, when we say here, "Your word." We'll speak very clearly Jesus means your revelation. So, it means the entirety of revelation included in that is the word of the gospel. Included in that is the Old Testament included in that is all that God has spoken. Most importantly, what is accessible to us and given to us as the Holy Scripture. So that is what we're looking at here. "Your word is truth." By the word that we're sanctified. Sanctify them. Make the church, those you've given me, before the foundation of the world, wholly in your truth.
That's where we're going to have to end today, but it does point out something else. Why do we study the scripture? Why do Christ's people study the scripture? Why are we drawn to come back to the scripture again? And again and again? Because we love the Bible? Yes. Because God speaks, and how dare we not want to hear what he says? Yes, of course.
But you also have to understand that this is Christ's priestly ministry to his own, through the preaching of the word, to make his people holy. You can put it another way. There is no holiness apart from the word of God. In the knowledge of the word, the constraining power of the word, the indwelling presence, the Holy Spirit confirming the word and applying the word without, without the word of God, there's no holiness.
We need all the holiness we can get, which means we need all the Bible we can get. Those who belong to Christ are those who gather together for the preaching and teaching of the word of God, whose instincts are to turn to God's word. Jesus will say much more in the context of this unprecedented prayer to follow. It has been such a privilege today just to look, not only to this text, but to Ephesians 1 and come to understand the common witness of scripture. We come to the end and we pray with the words of Jesus. "Father sanctify us in the truth for your word is truth." Let's pray, Father, thank you for everything you've given to us. Every syllable of this text and Father, we pray that even now you'll be sanctifying your people. These people, we who are studying your word here at this church. We pray that you will sanctify us and sanctify your entire church in the truth. Your word is, truth to the everlasting glory of your name in Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full https://albertmohler.com/?p=54258 Audio, Exposition, John, John Series, Video noThird Avenue Baptist Church Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series March 21, 2021 We are continuing our study in John 17. As we continue our study throughout the Gospel of John, and at this point we are looking at the High Priestly Prayer of Jesus. The High Priestly prayer because that is how he is functioning. He is "priesting" for his people. When we come to the end of this passage, we are going to remind ourselves of the comprehensive office of Mediator that Christ holds. To give us a summary, we often as Evangelicals have said, "We do not need a priest." You understand the Protestant impulse to say, "We do not need a priest." The person who gets up and presides over our service is not a priest. The reality is, we desperately need a priest. Without a priest, there is no mediation between us and the Father. Without a priest, there is no intercessor for us.  Indeed, as the book of Hebrews tells us, we have a Great High Priest. The Great High Priest. Jesus Christ our Lord. He 'priests' for us. He is doing so even before his ascension in this prayer. In a sense, his entire incarnation is part of his priesthood. In particular, upon his ascension, when he is now seated at the right hand of God the Father, Almighty, and Jesus ever makes intercession for us, that is when Jesus Christ is functioning as the Great High Priest.  We have had two sessions together looking at the High Priestly prayer, taking about five verses at a time. We are going to begin today right after verse 11. In order to gain the context, let us just remember the first verses.  John tells us" When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world." We are going to pause there for a moment. One of the most interesting lessons we learn is what we learn by being asked questions, rather than asking questions. We had a major youth event for High School students on Thursday night by virtual means. I was speaking to 1200 teenagers, and at the end of the night, we had an Ask Anything session. These young people from churches in Canada, to both coasts and in between, were sending in questions.  It tells you something about the faithfulness of the churches where these students are being taught that their questions were so good. I was surprised that two of the questions had to do with the inter-trinitarian mystery. You had teenagers asking, "How is the Father related to the Son? How is it the Son did not know the time or the hour? Yet, he is fully God." You could see these young people trying to think through the mystery of the trinity. Jesus Christ is truly God, truly man. He has all the attributes of deity. And yet, he says that not even he knows the hour of his coming. Then another question was directed towards the trinitarian mystery. An extremely smart question. I was able to refer to this very text because this passage really helps to explain the incarnation as a trinitarian experience. That is to say, what was the meaning of the incarnation, inside the relationship of the trinity? Obviously, we are dealing with what Calvin would call an analogical knowledge. These are words used to describe that which is beyond words, but they are true words. This is true knowledge. This is what human beings can handle. Notice what Jesus says in verse 5, "Now Father, Glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world existed." Now remember the Prologue of the Gospel of John tells us that Jesus is the very agent of creation. Before the world was created, and before the incarnation, he knew a glory with the Father that he accepted to be diminished during the time of his incarnation. He is now looking to the cross. Looking to the empty tomb. Looking to his ascension, and praying to the Father, looking with anticipation to the restoration of the glory he had with the Father before the Creation of the world. What does that tell us? It tells us something that Jesus experienced, and thus was the trinitarian experience, on behalf of the Son in the incarnation. He forfeited some of his glory to be among us. Not all of his glory. John tells us, "We beheld his glory, glory as the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." We could not have survived His full glory. Even as I said, Calvin reminds us of the analogical nature of language. We also need to recognize that had Jesus presented himself to us, without hiding some of his glory, we would have been destroyed. We are not able to handle the presence. How do we know that? Because God told Moses that. We don't have any other text. God told Moses, "You want to behold my glory? You cannot handle my glory. My glory would destroy you. But I will pass by as you are hidden in the cleft of a rock." Similarly, in Philippians chapter 2, where we are told about the incarnation, we have the very same logic in slightly different language. This is often called "The Kenosis" because of one Greek word. It’s a dangerous category because there are some who are tempted to push it far beyond its biblical bounds. Nonetheless, what we read in Philippians chapter 2, "Have this mind among yourselves" this is verse 5 "which is yours in Christ Jesus. Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped? But emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being found in the likeness of men, and being found in human form. He humbled himself, by becoming obedient to the point of death. Even death on the cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name. So that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth, and under the earth. And every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Now that tells us something else. Even as, in the incarnation, Christ in obedience accepted a reduction of his glory—certainly his invisible glory—and there was more to it than that. Again, the question is, how did the Son not know the hour of his return? Paul tells us that the glory Christ prays to the father about in John 17, the glory he had with the Father before the foundation of the world, turns out to be an even greater glory. The obedience of the Son is rewarded by the Father, even with the title "Lord." The fact that every knee shall bow and tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. One of the things we need to note is the timeline of biblical history. This is probably intuitive to you. It should be intuitive to Christians. The timeline of biblical history eternity, eternity, You cannot say eternity to eternity, but we do not have any category other than that. We do not have a category of timelessness or everlastingness. We know intellectually it is true, but we cannot really experience it. We merely declare it. The timeline of biblical History is eternity, and then the creation of time as God created the world. He created the world as objects in movement. Objects in movement define time. You might not have thought about that, but that’s actually what defines time, until you have objects in movement. The Biblical creation account tells us exactly how it happens, and then you have time. The time only lasts as long as the objects are in movement. If the objects stop time stops. All kinds of issues and witnesses can be brought here from physics. But when you look to the other side of time, eternity. What you have in the timeline of Scripture here, you have human history interrupted by the incarnation, which changes all time going forward. Everything forward is incarnational time. Messiah time. That's why for instance, in accordance with the Christian understanding of time, you have the dates "BC" and "AD." It is not before Christ and after Chris. It is before Christ, yes, that's BC, but Anno Domini, or "The year of our Lord." That is where the letters 'AD' come from. It is also interesting if you follow this, and you know how you are supposed to do it—if its BC, say 646 BC, then you put 646 B period, C period, capital b, capital c. If it is AD, the AD comes before the year.  So, if you look at classical history, written until the recent development, classical history was written such that this empire lasted from 646 BC to AD 45. The year of our Lord, 45. The AD comes before the year because Anno Domini. It announced, this is the year of our Lord. History split in two. Jesus is here, praying this prayer at the end of his incarnation, but the age is not coming to an end. That is what's really important. There is no incarnational age that comes to an end. The incarnation comes to an end on earth, but remember, Christ is incarnate now He is incarnate in his resurrected body. Here is Paul, 1 Corinthians 15, He has a resurrection body, he is the first fruits of those who will follow in him. We too will have a resurrection body in heaven. We will not have a disembodied experience, but a resurrection body. A little footnote here for political correctness, those who are trying to secularize BC and AD. It is just your typical kind of nonsense. I was in a public setting where I was able to puncture holes in it. I'll admit, it was probably an unhealthy delight. They say, "No you cannot say BC and AD. You cannot have secular people or people in the public schools going 'AD 45'. Then you have these little kids say, 'in the year of our lord' and you have the union of church and state. That's theocracy breaking out in American Schools." They adopted the new language of BCE and CE. You cannot talk about Christ, so CE is our common era. Of course, why would we have this common era before the common era? Well, we won't talk about that because that would take us right back to AD. You have BCE meaning before the common era. I was in a context, on a secular university campus, where I was chastised because I refused to go with BCE and CE. Know the current historical lingo has cut and removed the Christian references. I said, "Well how in the world did you do that?" "Well we took BC, and made it BCE. We took AD and made it CE." I said, "Yes, but how did you come up with the numbers? What has been split in two? I mean, everything goes down from here, and everything goes up from there. You think you can just rename what you're calling it as if someone just tripped over a rock in Spain and said, 'Let's just start counting all over again'?" No, sorry. It’s the centrality of the incarnation of the Lord, Jesus Christ. Beginning in verse 6, "I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you, for I have given them the words you gave me. They have received them, and have come to know in truth that I came from you and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me. For they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine. I am glorified in them and I am no longer in the world, but you are in the world. And I am coming to you holy Father. Keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one. Even as we are one." So, in the intimacy of the relationship between the Father and the Son, even as Jesus is praying, he says that he has accomplished what the Father sent him to do. He manifested and made real, visible, and he announced the Father's name to the people. Then the giving. This is what we spent our time last week on. It's this giving, not just of salvation to sinners, not just giving the world the Savior. It's this incomprehensible, except, comprehensible because it's made simple to us. We do not understand everything about it because it is one of the greatest mysteries of the Christian life. The Father, giving the redeemed to the Son, as gifts. We have the Son, effectively giving the redeemed back to the Father, as gifts. The Son and the Father enjoying the redeemed as a gift. So even as we think about the gift that has been given to us, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whosoever believes in Him, might not perish but have everlasting life." He has given us the gift of everlasting life. In reality, the redeemed, known before the foundation of the world, given by the Father to the Son before the world was created. There is the gift. The gift from the Father to the Son. Christ is, in effect, sharing the gift with the Father. He goes on and says again, they are in me, they are in you. You gave them to me out of the world. Remember, that comes right after verse 5. "And now Father, glorify me in your presence, with the glory I had with you before the world existed." But not only is history split in two, humanity is split in two. It's so clear in this text. Between those who are in Christ, those who are his because they were given to him by the Father. You have history divided. You have humanity divided. This division of humanity is such that, as we have seen testified in John 6, the ones who belong to the Son can never be taken from him because they were given to the Son by the Father. That is really important!  How is it that we came to be in Christ? The answer is, "Because the Father gave us to the Son." All the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me, I will by no means cast out. Of all that the Father gives me, the Son will lose none of them. That's very good news. Jesus is praying for some of his own here? No, he is praying for all of his own. The astounding thing is the division in humanity that Jesus mentioned in verse 9. "I am praying for them," that is his own, who are in him, "I am not praying for the World, but for those you have given me, for they are yours." That is, as we saw last week, one of the most striking verses in all of Scripture. The distinction between those who are in and those who are in the world so much so, and here's what's so important for us to see: Christ is not a priest to the world, he's a priest to the church. That is an astounding change as we think about biblical theology, because as we begin in the book of Genesis, God is Lord. Over the entire universe. He made everything, that is, he reigns over everything. Jesus reigns with him as the logos of the universe over the entire world. But he is priest mediator intercessor for his own. That clarity is a necessary clarity. The church is always gravely endangered when it loses the understanding of the distinction between the church and the world. That understanding of the church and the world that distinction can be falsely defined as something special about us. Once we do that, then we understand why the specialness of the distinction between the church and the world dissipates. Because if it's something special about us, all we have to do is spend some time looking in the mirror and experiencing life together to recognize we're not as special as we thought we were. So the distinction between the church and the world, if dependent on the observation of us any given day, might be quite frustrating. But the point is that the distinction between the church and the world is Christ and those who are in Christ. That's the big distinction. Similarly, as you're thinking about the great distinction here is between those who are in Christ and those who are just in the world. It's the same thing when we talk about the fatherhood of God. This is a hard thing to talk about, when people talk about the fatherhood of God. So let's just talk about the, the first person of the Trinity for a moment, the fatherhood, it of God, and, or does God love the world? Is it fair to say, God loves the world? And, and if so, how does God love the world? This is a footnote here, but it might be helpful just to kind of remind us that there are several aspects of God's love for his creature. So first of all, if God made it, he loves it in some sense, if he didn't love it, he wouldn't have made it. Every day of creation, he declares it's good. Of course, when he gets to human beings, made in his image, it's very good. Nonetheless, everything that he makes by the fact that he made it, it is the recipient of his love in some dimension. The first dimension we, which is common to all creation, is benevolence. So, when we talk about benevolence, that's a word for love. Benevolence means as the Bible says, he makes it rain on the, just, and the unjust. God's benevolence towards all humanity means that we enjoy the sun and the rain. We enjoy the gift of life. Even unbelievers love their children. There are many good gifts that are given to us: what we eat and what we enjoy; the air we breathe; this cosmically anthropically designed planet in which life is habitable. God's benevolence is to all, to save time, even though there are different dimensions will reduce it to two elements of benevolence.   Second is his mercy, his, his, his redeeming mercy is towards those who are in Christ. That's a different kind of love. The Baptist faith and message, which is our official confession of faith, says it this way— I think this is actually just incredibly right— It says, God is fatherly to all creation, but he is Father to those who are in his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, that's right. He's fatherly to all, but he's Father to those who are in Christ. Well, you see that reflected in Jesus' prayer. But if I were a believer reading this, I would be more offended by this verse than anything else in the gospel of John. This to me, just to a secular reader would be the most shocking text because here we are told Jesus himself—just think of what the modern cultural conception of Jesus is a moral teacher, a remarkable example of righteousness, certainly he must be an exemplar non-discrimination and inclusivity. Well, actually reading the gospels you find many texts in which that's not true. Here you find that as he's facing the cross, Jesus doesn't pray for the world. That requires the Bible's world picture to be reminded to us again, that world picture. When we speak of, Jesus, loving the world, what you see as the text to John begins, which is astounding. It's the only gospel who begins here begins in creation. All things are made by him and without him was not thing made that was made. He's the instrument of creation, but his love is for those the Father gave him before the creation of the world. For them, he now prays. By the way, just another little footnote. There are certain parallel arguments that you find in scripture, the more you study. Some of those parallel arguments are between Old Testament and New Testament texts. You realize, this is a continuation and argument. This is the fulfillment of a promise. But inside the New Testament, there are also some lines of argument in which you all of a sudden recognize, "Well, here's this, and it's picked up over here." One example is you’re reading the gospel of Matthew, Then you have two people studying different texts. Let's say one of them is reading Matthew, one of them is reading the book of Hebrews. Then all of a sudden you recognize, "Now, wait, just a minute. There's some incredible parallels here!" Another set of parallels, that is very easy to see, is between the gospel of John and Paul's letter to the Ephesians.  So, throughout church history, sometimes the gospel of John has been referred to as the Ephesian gospel. Now that doesn't mean it was written to the Ephesians. What it means is that the similar laser focus on the sovereignty of God comes in lines of argument that are just incredibly parallel between John and Ephesians. As you look at John 17, we are going to look even this morning at Ephesians 1, in order to understand a bit more of what it means for the church to be in Christ. Let's turn right now to Ephesians chapter 1. Now, remember we're doing this because we want to understand the church given to Christ. The church being described as "in him." Those who are mine. You see this in a verse like we read in verse 10, "All mine are yours and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them." But the bigger issue is that we are in Christ because the Father gave us to the Son, look at Ephesians 1. Begin reading in verse three: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. Now, this is not a prayer. This is a didactic passage. This is a passage from the apostle Paul who is writing to the Ephesians. Certainly you must sense the incredible weight of, of commonality here between John 17 and Ephesians 1. As a matter of fact, Ephesians 1 helps us to understand how it is that we came to be given to Christ before the foundation of the world. Which is also the timeline of Ephesians 1. Before the foundation of the world. We were predestined to see him. Now, Ephesians 1 is the great theater of the display of one of the biblical doctrines. Most Evangelicals failed to understand. Failing to understand the grand flow of biblical history and the heart of biblical theology is largely missing. They remain shallow, and this is the doctrine of union with Christ. Once again, this is a characteristic emphasis of Reformed Christianity because it is Reformed Christianity that seeks above all others to understand the very text we're –reading John 17 in Ephesians 1--- how is it that these things reflect God's will and purpose, and heart. The answer is because what we are given in Ephesians chapter 1 is the reality that to be redeemed, to belong to Christ, is to be united to him in such a way we can never be severed from him. Which is what we had Jesus say consistently in the gospel of John. And the question becomes, how did that happen? In other words, when were we united with Christ? Well, the apostle will help us to understand, and the New Testament will display that we were united with Christ, by faith- and justified by faith—when we came in the operations of our heart by the ministry, the holy spirit convicting us of sin. We came to be made alive. We responded to the gospel.  We believed. We trusted. We rested in Christ and thus, we became his. Wait, just a minute, we became his, but we were his specifically, You know, it's, it's not like if you could resist read John 17 and let's say, "Oh, John's all you have, John, Seventeen's all you have." And we hear the Son praying to the Father about those you've given me and making the distinction between those and, and the world. Well, I guess it's possible. You might say, "Okay, all right. Maybe Jesus came. So those the Father gave him were those who just decided to believe in him." Well, here's the truth. No one is his, who does not believe in him. That is absolutely true, but Ephesians makes very clear speaking of not only believers in toto, but of every believer, that we were predestined. That's a hard doctrine, but there it is. By the way, it's no harder than what you see in John 17. The older I come to be, and the more I teach theology, the more I think that the great scandal of Christianity—it comes to the exclusivity, the gospel and, and the, the purity, the church, and all kinds of things, and it's very clear in Israel, too. The great scandal is us and them. You know, we're living in an age in which we're told, "It's just wrong to say us and them." So we 'us' will tell 'them' it's wrong to say us and them. It's inevitable, by the way.  Even in the most liberal college campuses where you say you don't have us and them, You now have all kinds of identity politics, which is US with a capital, set of letters and THEM with a capital set of letters. But the interesting thing is this comes up again. And what you see in Ephesians is this symphonic explanation of the fact that we are united to Christ as believers. This union with Christ means we are in him. So as I look at the passage, just follow with me very quickly, Beginning with verse four, it tells us, even as he chose us in him, that's in Christ. So, we were chosen by the Father in Christ. Then just follow him. It says before him in love, he predestined us according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the redeemed. Then verse seven, "In him, we have redemption through his blood," and we continue on down. This is the purpose which you set forth in Christ. Verse 11, "In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined, according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the council of his will." Verse 13, "In him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation believed in him were sealed." There, it is, "Sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantor, guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory." There is no escape from the logic here. There is no escape from the logic of John 17. There's no escape from the logic of Ephesians 1. When you put John 17 and Ephesians 1 together, you have a comprehensive and glorious understanding of how it came to pass. The Father before the creation of the, a world predestined, chosen, gifted, gave –all these verbs are there. All these words are there. The redeem to the So. Those he's given to the Son can never be taken from him. That becomes crucial as we continue on. So, we're back now, in John 17. We concluded with verse 11, "And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled." So what we have here is a second acknowledgement, as we had in John chapter 6, that of those, the Father has given to the Son, Judas is not one. That Judas is not amongst those who was given before the foundation of the world to Jesus Christ. As a gift from the Father to the Son to be then presented by the Son of the Father and the reciprocity of inter Trinitarian love, no. Judas wasn't there. Judas just appeared to be there. Jesus knew this. He says this in John chapter 6, because some of the larger group of disciples no longer followed him. Jesus turned to the disciples and said,  "Do you also want to go away?" You'll recall in, in John chapter 6, and Peter says," Lord, to whom will we go? You have the words of, of eternal life, and besides that, we've come to know that you are Christ, the holy one of God." But we were told then that Jesus knew, in himself,  the thoughts of all men. He knew in himself that Judas would betray him. So again, that was, that was told to us. And then in John chapter 13, there is a reference, as is in the background here, to Psalm 41 9. In Psalm 41:9, David speaks of the one who has betrayed him. The one who was so close to him, but has betrayed him. That's the text that is in the background of the statement about Judas in John chapter 13. It's in the background here. So, you have Psalm 41, John 6, John 13 in the background to this statement. It's just a reminder to us that no one, that as Jesus and the Father, are not surprised by Judas. Judas is not an interruption in plan. Judas is not a disappointment in the sense that it didn't turn out like the Father and the Son had intended with Judas. No, it's a part of the divinely ordained plan of salvation, but Jesus is emphatically not praying for him. That's an astounding thing. You think about doors of judgment, you know, an eternal door of judgment closing. Just imagine this: Jesus Christ does not pray for you. Jesus speaks of his flock, recognizing his voice and of himself as the good shepherd tending his flock. To be outside that flock is horror. To be outside that door is horror. To be un-prayed for by Jesus is the eternal slamming of a door. You see that right here in John 17. "While I was with them," Jesus said in verse 12, "I kept them in your name." That's what's so sweet. Jesus having been given the people, those who would be in him, redeemed by the Father, Jesus kept them which is really sweet. He kept us. Imagine all the time the disciples were with him. Even as Jesus was sleeping, he was keeping them. He keeps us, though we can't keep ourselves. All we like sheep have gone astray. We can't keep ourselves in any sense, internally or externally. But Jesus says, while he was here, he kept us. He didn't lose any. "I kept them in your name, which you have given me that they may be one, even as we are one, I have guarded them and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction that the scripture might be fulfilled." We know who he was. And he wasn't really lost because he was never a part of us in the beginning. But he was among us. In verse 13, Jesus says, "But now I am coming to you and these things I speak in the world that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves." So once again, there's something astounding here that jumps out at us. Of course, it's following the flow of the prayer. We've been guarded by Christ. Not one has been lost, but again, Jesus says, as he said verses earlier, "But now I am coming to you." S0o he's praying about the church when he is absent as the incarnate Lord on earth. This is the purpose of the prayer. This is the main purpose of the prayer. Jesus' concern for us without him incarnate on earth. When he was here, he guarded us. He kept us. He's praying for us now. But notice what he prays in verse 13. "But now I am coming to you." He's already said that. And he repeats it. "And these things that I speak in the world that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves." This is something we really need to know. The joy that Jesus knows as the Son with the Father is the joy in its own dimensionality that Jesus wants us to have. He wants us to share in that joy. However, you define the love of God toward the objects of his love—the Son is the object of his love—and we are in the Son or the objects of his love. Christ says, "When I am absent from them, I want them to know jo." That's really good news. But the joy has a specific shape. It has a specific substance. It's not merely a mood. Look at what he says. It's the most amazing testimony to the Word of God. "But now I'm coming to you and these things that I speak about in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word and the world has hated them because they are not of this world. And the world has hated them because they are not of this world just as I am not of this world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world, sanctify them in the truth. Your word is the truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world and for their sake, I consecrate myself that they also may be sanctified in truth." I think just about everyone thinking about John 17 knows of Jesus' prayer for the unity of the church. "May they be one as we are one." Even the larger ecumenical movement has claimed this, that we may all be one, let's just have one church. Let's just have a visible unity. Here's the problem revealed in church history. Church history tells us about the problems. Here's one of the problems, every effort to try to come up with the lowest common denominator Christianity and say, "There is the unity of the church." It fails because we need to remember that the unity of the church is not institutional. That's a very important new Testament teaching. It's a very important understanding for us. I mean that we are, we are Baptist. If anybody on planet earth understands that the unity of the church is real, but not institutional it's Baptist. We believe that unity of the church is seen, first of all, right here in the unity of this local church. This is a church where we're unified in our faith, in our confession, in our service, in our ministry, in our worship, in our covenant. This is why when we have a members meeting, we read the covenant so there's unity. We belong to one Lord, one faith, one baptism. We know there are other faithful Christians outside of Third Avenue Baptist church, just to remind ourselves of that. They're wonderful gospel Christians outside of third avenue, Baptist church, right down the street from us. And, thanks be to God. We believe that there are Christians in churches that are labeled differently. The key issue for us is not the name of the church, but whether or not the Bible is preached as the word of God. That the gospel is preached in its clarity and purity producing a gospel people. But there's a reason why, and part of this is in the mystery of God's on, omniscience. There's a reason why we're not all the Christians in Louisville. We aren't meeting in one room this morning. That reason is not COVID by the way. There is a theological reason why we're not meeting. It is because we have congregations by conviction that are established and we can know one another and we can experience unity together. This is so much more than the world's idea of unity. They say put everyone in Madison Square Gardens and look at all the people you see. But of course, what you're looking at is a multitude. There is actually no unity, just proximity. Ecclesiology is based upon unity in Christ, but there's more to it than that. As you look at this, you recognize that the unity is theological and the unity is in the scriptures! "I have given them your word". He said that earlier, but now the context is very tight. "I've given them your word and the world has hated them because they're not of the world just as I am out of the world." So, at least a part of having the word means that the world hates us. Well, that's something helpful to know. "I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one." Very good. Very good. This helps us. In other words, one of the questions in the flow of biblical history is why are we here right now? Why is there time between the Ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ and his coming? What is the purpose of all this time? We're waiting, crying out loud. Jesus answered it. When in the book of Acts, he says, "You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the world." He is Christ, showing his glory in the world, but in the world, he shows his glory is in the church and through the preaching of the gospel. This is, this is the gospel preaching age. There's no other reason for this age. There is no other act of salvation history that remains to take place before the coming of Christ which will consummate all things. We're not waiting for Christ to do anything. When he said it is finish, it is finished. No, we have a job to do and we'll do it until Jesus comes. But while we're in the world, in the dangers of the world, Jesus prays for the unity of his church. The unity is in truth. This is one the issues of singular importance for us to understand. True Christian unity is unity is always in truth. It's never a unity at the expense of truth. It's never trying to find a lowest common denominator. It's always leaning into the truth together. Now this again, doesn't mean that we believe we're the only Christians. Thanks be to God. It does mean that where there is no obedience to scripture, there is no true Christianity. As we shall see, when we gather together again in verse 17, Jesus actually says, "Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth." Now we find out that it's by the preaching of the word of God. Now, when we say here, "Your word." We'll speak very clearly Jesus means your revelation. So, it means the entirety of revelation included in that is the word of the gospel. Included in that is the Old Testament included in that is all that God has spoken. Most importantly, what is accessible to us and given to us as the Holy Scripture. So that is what we're looking at here. "Your word is truth." By the word that we're sanctified. Sanctify them. Make the church, those you've given me, before the foundation of the world, wholly in your truth. That's where we're going to have to end today, but it does point out something else. Why do we study the scripture? Why do Christ's people study the scripture? Why are we drawn to come back to the scripture again? And again and again? Because we love the Bible? Yes. Because God speaks, and how dare we not want to hear what he says? Yes, of course. But you also have to understand that this is Christ's priestly ministry to his own, through the preaching of the word, to make his people holy. You can put it another way. There is no holiness apart from the word of God. In the knowledge of the word, the constraining power of the word, the indwelling presence, the Holy Spirit confirming the word and applying the word without, without the word of God, there's no holiness. We need all the holiness we can get, which means we need all the Bible we can get. Those who belong to Christ are those who gather together for the preaching and teaching of the word of God, whose instincts are to turn to God's word. Jesus will say much more in the context of this unprecedented prayer to follow. It has been such a privilege today just to look, not only to this text, but to Ephesians 1 and come to understand the common witness of scripture. We come to the end and we pray with the words of Jesus. "Father sanctify us in the truth for your word is truth." Let's pray, Father, thank you for everything you've given to us. Every syllable of this text and Father, we pray that even now you'll be sanctifying your people. These people, we who are studying your word here at this church. We pray that you will sanctify us and sanctify your entire church in the truth. Your word is, truth to the everlasting glory of your name in Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.Third Avenue Baptist Church Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series March 21, 2021 We are continuing our study in John 17. As we continue our study throughout the Gospel of John, and at this point we are looking at the High Priestly Prayer of Jesus. The High Priestly prayer because that is how he is functioning. He is "priesting" for his people. When we come to the end of this passage, we are going to remind ourselves of the comprehensive office of Mediator that Christ holds. To give us a summary, we often as Evangelicals have said, "We do not need a priest." You understand the Protestant impulse to say, "We do not need a priest." The person who gets up and presides over our service is not a priest. The reality is, we desperately need a priest. Without a priest, there is no mediation between us and the Father. Without a priest, there is no intercessor for us.  Indeed, as the book of Hebrews tells us, we have a Great High Priest. The Great High Priest. Jesus Christ our Lord. He 'priests' for us. He is doing so even before his ascension in this prayer. In a sense, his entire incarnation is part of his priesthood. In particular, upon his ascension, when he is now seated at the right hand of God the Father, Almighty, and Jesus ever makes intercession for us, that is when Jesus Christ is functioning as the Great High Priest.  We have had two sessions together looking at the High Priestly prayer, taking about five verses at a time. We are going to begin today right after verse 11. In order to gain the context, let us just remember the first verses.  John tells us" When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world." We are going to pause there for a moment. One of the most interesting lessons we learn is what we learn by being asked questions, rather than asking questions. We had a major youth event for High School students on Thursday night by virtual means. I was speaking to 1200 teenagers, and at the end of the night, we had an Ask Anything session. These young people from churches in Canada, to both coasts and in between, were sending in questions.  It tells you something about the faithfulness of the churches where these students are being taught that their questions were so good. I was surprised that two of the questions had to do with the inter-trinitarian mystery. You had teenagers asking, "How is the Father related to the Son? How is it the Son did not know the time or the hour? Yet, he is fully God." You could see these young people trying to think through the mystery of the trinity. Jesus Christ is truly God, truly man. He has all the attributes of deity. And yet, he says that not even he knows the hour of his coming. Then another question was directed towards the trinitarian mystery. An extremely smart question. I was able to refer to this very text because this passage really helps to explain the incarnation as a trinitarian experience. That is to say, what was the meaning of the incarnation, inside the relationship of the trinity? Obviously, we are dealing with what Calvin would call an analogical knowledge. These are words used to describe that which is beyond words, but they are true words. This is true knowledge. This is what human beings can handle. Notice what Jesus says in verse 5, "Now Father, Glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world existed." Now remember the Prologue of the Gospel of John tells us that Jesus is the very agent of creation. Before the world was created, and before the incarnation, he knew a glory with the Father that he accepted to be diminished during the time of his incarnation. He is now looking to the cross. Looking to the empty tomb. Looking to his ascension, and praying to the Father, looking with anticipation to the restoration of the glory he had with the Father before the Creation of the world. What does that tell us? It tells us something that Jesus experienced, and thus was the trinitarian experience, on behalf of the Son in the incarnation. He forfeited some of his glory to be among us. Not all of his glory. John tells us, "We beheld his glory, glory as the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." We could not have survived His full glory. Even as I said, Calvin reminds us of the analogical nature of language. We also need to recognize that had Jesus presented himself to us, without hiding some of his glory, we would have been destroyed. We are not able to handle the presence. How do we know that? Because God told Moses that. We don't have any other text. God told Moses, "You want to behold my glory? You cannot handle my glory. My glory would destroy you. But I will pass by as you are hidden in the cleft of a rock." Similarly, in Philippians chapter 2, where we are told about the incarnation, we have the very same logic in slightly different language. This is often called "The Kenosis" because of one Greek word. It’s a dangerous category because there are some who are tempted to push it far beyond its biblical bounds. Nonetheless, what we read in Philippians chapter 2, "Have this mind among yourselves" this is verse 5 "which is yours in Christ Jesus. Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped? But emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being found in the likeness of men, and being found in human form. He humbled himself, by becoming obedient to the point of death. Even death on the cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name. So that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth, and under the earth. And every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Now that tells us something else. Even as, in the incarnation, Christ in obedience accepted a reduction of his glory—certainly his invisible glory—and there was more to it than that. Again, the question is, how did the Son not know the hour of his return? Paul tells us that the glory Christ prays to the father about in John 17, the glory he had with the Father before the foundation of the world, turns out to be an even greater glory. The obedience of the Son is rewarded by the Father, even with the title "Lord." The fact that every knee shall bow and tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. One of the things we need to note is the timeline of biblical history. This is probably intuitive to you. It should be intuitive to Christians. The timeline of biblical history eternity, eternity, You cannot say eternity to eternity, but we do not have any category other than that. We do not have a category of timelessness or everlastingness. We know intellectually it is true, but we cannot really experience it. We merely declare it. The timeline of biblical History is eternity, and then the creation of time as God created the world. He created the world as objects in movement. Objects in movement define time. You might not have thought about that, but that’s actually what defines time, until you have objects in movement. The Biblical creation account tells us exactly how it happens, and then you have time. The time only lasts as long as the objects are in movement. If the objects stop time stops. All kinds of issues and witnesses can be brought here from physics. But when you look to the other side of time, eternity. What you have in the timeline of Scripture here, you have human history interrupted by the incarnation, which changes all time going forward. Everything forward is incarnational time. Messiah time. That's why for instance, in accordance with the Christian understanding of time, you have the dates "BC" and "AD." It is not before Christ and after Chris. It is before Christ, yes, that's BC, but Anno Domini, or "The year of our Lord." That is where the letters 'AD' come from. It is also interesting if you follow this, and you know how you are supposed to do it—if its BC, say 646 BC, then you put 646 B period, C period, capital b, capital c. If it is AD, the AD comes before the year.  So, if you look at classical history, written until the recent development, classical history was written such that this empire lasted from 646 BC to AD 45. The year of our Lord, 45. The AD comes before the year because Anno Domini. It announced, this is the year of our Lord. History split in two. Jesus is here, praying this prayer at the end of his incarnation, but the age is not coming to an end. That is what's really important. There is no incarnational age that comes to an end. The incarnation comes to an end on earth, but remember, Christ is incarnate now He is incarnate in his resurrected body. Here is Paul, 1 Corinthians 15, He has a resurrection body, he is the first fruits of those who will follow in him. We too will have a resurrection body in heaven. We will not have a disembodied experience, but a resurrection body. A little footnote here for political correctness, those who are trying to secularize BC and AD. It is just your typical kind of nonsense. I was in a public setting where I was able to puncture holes in it. I'll admit, it was probably an unhealthy delight. They say, "No you cannot say BC and AD. You cannot have secular people or people in the public schools going 'AD 45'. Then you have these little kids say, 'in the year of our lord' and you have the union of church and state. That's theocracy breaking out in American Schools." They adopted the new language of BCE and CE. You cannot talk about Christ, so CE is our common era. Of course, why would we have this common era before the common era? Well, we won't talk about that because that would take us right back to AD. You have BCE meaning before the common era. I was in a context, on a secular university campus, where I was chastised because I refused to go with BCE and CE. Know the current historical lingo has cut and removed the Christian references. I said, "Well how in the world did you do that?" "Well we took BC, and made it BCE. We took AD and made it CE." I said, "Yes, but how did you come up with the numbers? What has been split in two? I mean, everything goes down from here, and everything goes up from there. You think you can just rename what you're calling it as if someone just tripped over a rock in Spain and said, 'Let's just start counting all over again'?" No, sorry. It’s the centrality of the incarnation of the Lord, Jesus Christ. Beginning in verse 6, "I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you, for I have given them the words you gave me. They have received them, and have come to know in truth that I came from you and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me. For they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine. I am glorified in them and I am no longer in the world, but you are in the world. And I am coming to you holy Father. Keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one. Even as we are one." So, in the intimacy of the relationship between the Father and the Son, even as Jesus is praying, he says that he has accomplished what the Father sent him to do. He manifested and made real, visible, and he announced the Father's name to the people. Then the giving. This is what we spent our time last week on. It's this giving, not just of salvation to sinners, not just giving the world the Savior. It's this incomprehensible, except, comprehensible because it's made simple to us. We do not understand everything about it because it is one of the greatest mysteries of the Christian life. The Father, giving the redeemed to the Son, as gifts. We have the Son, effectively giving the redeemed back to the Father, as gifts. The Son and the Father enjoying the redeemed as a gift. So even as we think about the gift that has been given to us, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whosoever believes in Him, might not perish but have everlasting life." He has given us the gift of everlasting life. In reality, the redeemed, known before the foundation of the world, given by the Father to the Son before the world was created. There is the gift. The gift from the Father to the Son. Christ is, in effect, sharing the gift with the Father. He goes on and says again, they are in me, they are in you. You gave them to me out of the world. Remember, that comes right after verse 5. "And now Father, glorify me in your presence, with the glory I had with you before the world existed." But not only is history split in two, humanity is split in two. It's so clear in this text. Between those who are in Christ, those who are his because they were given to him by the Father. You have history divided. You have humanity divided. This division of humanity is such that, as we have seen testified in John 6, the ones who belong to the Son can never be taken from him because they were given to the Son by the Father. That is really important!  How is it that we came to be in Christ? The answer is, "Because the Father gave us to the Son." All the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me, I will by no means cast out. Of all that the Father gives me, the Son will lose none of them. That's very good news. Jesus is praying for some of his own here? No, he is praying for all of his own. The astounding thing is the division in humanity that Jesus mentioned in verse 9. "I am praying for them," that is his own, who are in him, "I am not praying for the World, but for those you have given me, for they are yours." That is, as we saw last week, one of the most striking verses in all of Scripture. The distinction between those who are in and those who are in the world so much so, and here's what's so important for us to see: Christ is not a priest to the world, he's a priest to the church. That is an astounding change as we think about biblical theology, because as we begin in the book of Genesis, God is Lord. Over the entire universe. He made everything, that is, he reigns over everything. Jesus reigns with him as the logos of the universe over the entire world. But he is priest mediator intercessor for his own. That clarity is a necessary clarity. The church is always gravely endangered when it loses the understanding of the distinction between the church and the world. That understanding of the church and the world that distinction can be falsely defined as something special about us. Once we do that, then we understand why the specialness of the distinction between the church and the world dissipates. Because if it's something special about us, all we have to do is spend some time looking in the mirror and experiencing life together to recognize we're not as special as we thought we were. So the distinction between the church and the world, if dependent on the observation of us any given day, might be quite frustrating. But the point is that the distinction between the church and the world is Christ and those who are in Christ. That's the big distinction. Similarly, as you're thinking about the great distinction here is between those who are in Christ and those who are just in the world. It's the same thing when we talk about the fatherhood of God. This is a hard thing to talk about, when people talk about the fatherhood of God. So let's just talk about the, the first person of the Trinity for a moment, the fatherhood, it of God, and, or does God love the world? Is it fair to say, God loves the world? And, and if so, how does God love the world? This is a footnote here, but it might be helpful just to kind of remind us that there are several aspects of God's love for his creature. So first of all, if God made it, he loves it in some sense, if he didn't love it, he wouldn't have made it. Every day of creation, he declares it's good. Of course, when he gets to human beings, made in his image, it's very good. Nonetheless, everything that he makes by the fact that he made it, it is the recipient of his love in some dimension. The first dimension we, which is common to all creation, is benevolence. So, when we talk about benevolence, that's a word for love. Benevolence means as the Bible says, he makes it rain on the, just, and the unjust. God's benevolence towards all humanity means that we enjoy the sun and the rain. We enjoy the gift of life. Even unbelievers love their children. There are many good gifts that are given to us: what we eat and what we enjoy; the air we breathe; this cosmically anthropically designed planet in which life is habitable. God's benevolence is to all, to save time, even though there are different dimensions will reduce it to two elements of benevolence.   Second is his mercy, his, his, his redeeming mercy is towards those who are in Christ. That's a different kind of love. The Baptist faith and message, which is our official confession of faith, says it this way— I think this is actually just incredibly right— It says, God is fatherly to all creation, but he is Father to those who are in his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, that's right. He's fatherly to all, but he's Father to those who are in Christ. Well, you see that reflected in Jesus' prayer. But if I were a believer reading this, I would be more offended by this verse than anything else in the gospel of John. This to me, just to a secular reader would be the most shocking text because here we are told Jesus himself—just think of what the modern cultural conception of Jesus is a moral teacher, a remarkable example of righteousness, certainly he must be an exemplar non-discrimination and inclusivity. Well, actually reading the gospels you find many texts in which that's not true. Here you find that as he's facing the cross, Jesus doesn't pray for the world. That requires the Bible's world picture to be reminded to us again, that world picture. When we speak of, Jesus, loving the world, what you see as the text to John begins, which is astounding. It's the only gospel who begins here begins in creation. All things are made by him and without him was not thing made that was made. He's the instrument of creation, but his love is for those the Father gave him before the creation of the world. For them, he now prays. By the way, just another little footnote. There are certain parallel arguments that you find in scripture, the more you study. Some of those parallel arguments are between Old Testament and New Testament texts. You realize, this is a continuation and argument. This is the fulfillment of a promise. But inside the New Testament, there are also some lines of argument in which you all of a sudden recognize, "Well, here's this, and it's picked up over here." One example is you’re reading the gospel of Matthew, Then you have two people studying different texts. Let's say one of them is reading Matthew, one of them is reading the book of Hebrews. Then all of a sudden you recognize, "Now, wait, just a minute. There's some incredible parallels here!" Another set of parallels, that is very easy to see, is between the gospel of John and Paul's letter to the Ephesians.  So, throughout church history, sometimes the gospel of John has been referred to as the Ephesian gospel. Now that doesn't mean it was written to the Ephesians. What it means is that the similar laser focus on the sovereignty of God comes in lines of argument that are just incredibly parallel between John and Ephesians. As you look at John 17, we are going to look even this morning at Ephesians 1, in order to understand a bit more of what it means for the church to be in Christ. Let's turn right now to Ephesians chapter 1. Now, remember we're doing this because we want to understand the church given to Christ. The church being described as "in him." Those who are mine. You see this in a verse like we read in verse 10, "All mine are yours and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them." But the bigger issue is that we are in Christ because the Father gave us to the Son, look at Ephesians 1. Begin reading in verse three: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. Now, this is not a prayer. This is a didactic passage. This is a passage from the apostle Paul who is writing to the Ephesians. Certainly you must sense the incredible weight of, of commonality here between John 17 and Ephesians 1. As a matter of fact, Ephesians 1 helps us to understand how it is that we came to be given to Christ before the foundation of the world. Which is also the timeline of Ephesians 1. Before the foundation of the world. We were predestined to see him. Now, Ephesians 1 is the great theater of the display of one of the biblical doctrines. Most Evangelicals failed to understand. Failing to understand the grand flow of biblical history and the heart of biblical theology is largely missing. They remain shallow, and this is the doctrine of union with Christ. Once again, this is a characteristic emphasis of Reformed Christianity because it is Reformed Christianity that seeks above all others to understand the very text we're –reading John 17 in Ephesians 1--- how is it that these things reflect God's will and purpose, and heart. The answer is because what we are given in Ephesians chapter 1 is the reality that to be redeemed, to belong to Christ, is to be united to him in such a way we can never be severed from him. Which is what we had Jesus say consistently in the gospel of John. And the question becomes, how did that happen? In other words, when were we united with Christ? Well, the apostle will help us to understand, and the New Testament will display that we were united with Christ, by faith- and justified by faith—when we came in the operations of our heart by the ministry, the holy spirit convicting us of sin. We came to be made alive. We responded to the gospel.  We believed. We trusted. We rested in Christ and thus, we became his. Wait, just a minute, we became his, but we were his specifically, You know, it's, it's not like if you could resist read John 17 and let's say, "Oh, John's all you have, John, Seventeen's all you have." And we hear the Son praying to the Father about those you've given me and making the distinction between those and, and the world. Well, I guess it's possible. You might say, "Okay, all right. Maybe Jesus came. So those the Father gave him were those who just decided to believe in him." Well, here's the truth. No one is his, who does not believe in him. That is absolutely true, but Ephesians makes very clear speaking of not only believers in toto, but of every believer, that we were predestined. That's a hard doctrine, but there it is. By the way, it's no harder than what you see in John 17. The older I come to be, and the more I teach theology, the more I think that the great scandal of Christianity—it comes to the exclusivity, the gospel and, and the, the purity, the church, and all kinds of things, and it's very clear in Israel, too. The great scandal is us and them. You know, we're living in an age in which we're told, "It's just wrong to say us and them." So we 'us' will tell 'them' it's wrong to say us and them. It's inevitable, by the way.  Even in the most liberal college campuses where you say you don't have us and them, You now have all kinds of identity politics, which is US with a capital, set of letters and THEM with a capital set of letters. But the interesting thing is this comes up again. And what you see in Ephesians is this symphonic explanation of the fact that we are united to Christ as believers. This union with Christ means we are in him. So as I look at the passage, just follow with me very quickly, Beginning with verse four, it tells us, even as he chose us in him, that's in Christ. So, we were chosen by the Father in Christ. Then just follow him. It says before him in love, he predestined us according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the redeemed. Then verse seven, "In him, we have redemption through his blood," and we continue on down. This is the purpose which you set forth in Christ. Verse 11, "In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined, according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the council of his will." Verse 13, "In him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation believed in him were sealed." There, it is, "Sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantor, guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory." There is no escape from the logic here. There is no escape from the logic of John 17. There's no escape from the logic of Ephesians 1. When you put John 17 and Ephesians 1 together, you have a comprehensive and glorious understanding of how it came to pass. The Father before the creation of the, a world predestined, chosen, gifted, gave –all these verbs are there. All these words are there. The redeem to the So. Those he's given to the Son can never be taken from him. That becomes crucial as we continue on. So, we're back now, in John 17. We concluded with verse 11, "And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled." So what we have here is a second acknowledgement, as we had in John chapter 6, that of those, the Father has given to the Son, Judas is not one. That Judas is not amongst those who was given before the foundation of the world to Jesus Christ. As a gift from the Father to the Son to be then presented by the Son of the Father and the reciprocity of inter Trinitarian love, no. Judas wasn't there. Judas just appeared to be there. Jesus knew this. He says this in John chapter 6, because some of the larger group of disciples no longer followed him. Jesus turned to the disciples and said,  "Do you also want to go away?" You'll recall in, in John chapter 6, and Peter says," Lord, to whom will we go? You have the words of, of eternal life, and besides that, we've come to know that you are Christ, the holy one of God." But we were told then that Jesus knew, in himself,  the thoughts of all men. He knew in himself that Judas would betray him. So again, that was, that was told to us. And then in John chapter 13, there is a reference, as is in the background here, to Psalm 41 9. In Psalm 41:9, David speaks of the one who has betrayed him. The one who was so close to him, but has betrayed him. That's the text that is in the background of the statement about Judas in John chapter 13. It's in the background here. So, you have Psalm 41, John 6, John 13 in the background to this statement. It's just a reminder to us that no one, that as Jesus and the Father, are not surprised by Judas. Judas is not an interruption in plan. Judas is not a disappointment in the sense that it didn't turn out like the Father and the Son had intended with Judas. No, it's a part of the divinely ordained plan of salvation, but Jesus is emphatically not praying for him. That's an astounding thing. You think about doors of judgment, you know, an eternal door of judgment closing. Just imagine this: Jesus Christ does not pray for you. Jesus speaks of his flock, recognizing his voice and of himself as the good shepherd tending his flock. To be outside that flock is horror. To be outside that door is horror. To be un-prayed for by Jesus is the eternal slamming of a door. You see that right here in John 17. "While I was with them," Jesus said in verse 12, "I kept them in your name." That's what's so sweet. Jesus having been given the people, those who would be in him, redeemed by the Father, Jesus kept them which is really sweet. He kept us. Imagine all the time the disciples were with him. Even as Jesus was sleeping, he was keeping them. He keeps us, though we can't keep ourselves. All we like sheep have gone astray. We can't keep ourselves in any sense, internally or externally. But Jesus says, while he was here, he kept us. He didn't lose any. "I kept them in your name, which you have given me that they may be one, even as we are one, I have guarded them and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction that the scripture might be fulfilled." We know who he was. And he wasn't really lost because he was never a part of us in the beginning. But he was among us. In verse 13, Jesus says, "But now I am coming to you and these things I speak in the world that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves." So once again, there's something astounding here that jumps out at us. Of course, it's following the flow of the prayer. We've been guarded by Christ. Not one has been lost, but again, Jesus says, as he said verses earlier, "But now I am coming to you." S0o he's praying about the church when he is absent as the incarnate Lord on earth. This is the purpose of the prayer. This is the main purpose of the prayer. Jesus' concern for us without him incarnate on earth. When he was here, he guarded us. He kept us. He's praying for us now. But notice what he prays in verse 13. "But now I am coming to you." He's already said that. And he repeats it. "And these things that I speak in the world that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves." This is something we really need to know. The joy that Jesus knows as the Son with the Father is the joy in its own dimensionality that Jesus wants us to have. He wants us to share in that joy. However, you define the love of God toward the objects of his love—the Son is the object of his love—and we are in the Son or the objects of his love. Christ says, "When I am absent from them, I want them to know jo." That's really good news. But the joy has a specific shape. It has a specific substance. It's not merely a mood. Look at what he says. It's the most amazing testimony to the Word of God. "But now I'm coming to you and these things that I speak about in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word and the world has hated them because they are not of this world. And the world has hated them because they are not of this world just as I am not of this world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world, sanctify them in the truth. Your word is the truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world and for their sake, I consecrate myself that they also may be sanctified in truth." I think just about everyone thinking about John 17 knows of Jesus' prayer for the unity of the church. "May they be one as we are one." Even the larger ecumenical movement has claimed this, that we may all be one, let's just have one church. Let's just have a visible unity. Here's the problem revealed in church history. Church history tells us about the problems. Here's one of the problems, every effort to try to come up with the lowest common denominator Christianity and say, "There is the unity of the church." It fails because we need to remember that the unity of the church is not institutional. That's a very important new Testament teaching. It's a very important understanding for us. I mean that we are, we are Baptist. If anybody on planet earth understands that the unity of the church is real, but not institutional it's Baptist. We believe that unity of the church is seen, first of all, right here in the unity of this local church. This is a church where we're unified in our faith, in our confession, in our service, in our ministry, in our worship, in our covenant. This is why when we have a members meeting, we read the covenant so there's unity. We belong to one Lord, one faith, one baptism. We know there are other faithful Christians outside of Third Avenue Baptist church, just to remind ourselves of that. They're wonderful gospel Christians outside of third avenue, Baptist church, right down the street from us. And, thanks be to God. We believe that there are Christians in churches that are labeled differently. The key issue for us is not the name of the church, but whether or not the Bible is preached as the word of God. That the gospel is preached in its clarity and purity producing a gospel people. But there's a reason why, and part of this is in the mystery of God's on, omniscience. There's a reason why we're not all the Christians in Louisville. We aren't meeting in one room this morning. That reason is not COVID by the way. There is a theological reason why we're not meeting. It is because we have congregations by conviction that are established and we can know one another and we can experience unity together. This is so much more than the world's idea of unity. They say put everyone in Madison Square Gardens and look at all the people you see. But of course, what you're looking at is a multitude. There is actually no unity, just proximity. Ecclesiology is based upon unity in Christ, but there's more to it than that. As you look at this, you recognize that the unity is theological and the unity is in the scriptures! "I have given them your word". He said that earlier, but now the context is very tight. "I've given them your word and the world has hated them because they're not of the world just as I am out of the world." So, at least a part of having the word means that the world hates us. Well, that's something helpful to know. "I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one." Very good. Very good. This helps us. In other words, one of the questions in the flow of biblical history is why are we here right now? Why is there time between the Ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ and his coming? What is the purpose of all this time? We're waiting, crying out loud. Jesus answered it. When in the book of Acts, he says, "You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the world." He is Christ, showing his glory in the world, but in the world, he shows his glory is in the church and through the preaching of the gospel. This is, this is the gospel preaching age. There's no other reason for this age. There is no other act of salvation history that remains to take place before the coming of Christ which will consummate all things. We're not waiting for Christ to do anything. When he said it is finish, it is finished. No, we have a job to do and we'll do it until Jesus comes. But while we're in the world, in the dangers of the world, Jesus prays for the unity of his church. The unity is in truth. This is one the issues of singular importance for us to understand. True Christian unity is unity is always in truth. It's never a unity at the expense of truth. It's never trying to find a lowest common denominator. It's always leaning into the truth together. Now this again, doesn't mean that we believe we're the only Christians. Thanks be to God. It does mean that where there is no obedience to scripture, there is no true Christianity. As we shall see, when we gather together again in verse 17, Jesus actually says, "Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth." Now we find out that it's by the preaching of the word of God. Now, when we say here, "Your word." We'll speak very clearly Jesus means your revelation. So, it means the entirety of revelation included in that is the word of the gospel. Included in that is the Old Testament included in that is all that God has spoken. Most importantly, what is accessible to us and given to us as the Holy Scripture. So that is what we're looking at here. "Your word is truth." By the word that we're sanctified. Sanctify them. Make the church, those you've given me, before the foundation of the world, wholly in your truth. That's where we're going to have to end today, but it does point out something else. Why do we study the scripture? Why do Christ's people study the scripture? Why are we drawn to come back to the scripture again? And again and again? Because we love the Bible? Yes. Because God speaks, and how dare we not want to hear what he says? Yes, of course. But you also have to understand that this is Christ's priestly ministry to his own, through the preaching of the word, to make his people holy. You can put it another way. There is no holiness apart from the word of God. In the knowledge of the word, the constraining power of the word, the indwelling presence, the Holy Spirit confirming the word and applying the word without, without the word of God, there's no holiness. We need all the holiness we can get, which means we need all the Bible we can get. Those who belong to Christ are those who gather together for the preaching and teaching of the word of God, whose instincts are to turn to God's word. Jesus will say much more in the context of this unprecedented prayer to follow. It has been such a privilege today just to look, not only to this text, but to Ephesians 1 and come to understand the common witness of scripture. We come to the end and we pray with the words of Jesus. "Father sanctify us in the truth for your word is truth." Let's pray, Father, thank you for everything you've given to us. Every syllable of this text and Father, we pray that even now you'll be sanctifying your people. These people, we who are studying your word here at this church. We pray that you will sanctify us and sanctify your entire church in the truth. Your word is, truth to the everlasting glory of your name in Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2021/03/14/john-176-11/ Sun, 14 Mar 2021 12:00:23 +0000 Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series
March 14, 2021
We're continuing our study in the High Priestly Prayer. And we began with the first five verses when we were together last week. We've seen the Farewell Discourse, as Jesus speaks to his disciples, come to an end. And now we're reaching what, in many ways as the climax of the gospel of John, and what I want us to see is that it's like the final movement of a symphony. It begins to bring in all the previous movements, all the previous musical strains, all the previous theological affirmations in such a way that there's a richness to this,  and a beauty to this that is such that this text is singular in the entire canon of scripture. In the entire New Testament, there's nothing like this. There is no lengthy prayer between the Son and the Father in which we see the intimacy, but what we also share in the exchange of  both love and truth, that gives us so much of our knowledge of the Christian faith. So as we begin, let's ask the Lord's blessing. 
Father, we do pray that you would open our eyes and open our hearts, that we would receive everything you would have for us from just a few verses today in the high priestly prayer of Jesus. And Father, perhaps never having articulated this gratitude in such words, Father, we thank you that you and your Son have shared the intimacy of this prayer with us. Father, thank you for allowing us to hear it, that we may learn from it and never learn all of it. And we pray all of this in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, amen.
That latter part of my prayer was dependent upon the fact that we are dealing here with a God who's infinite in his perfections as the Father and of the Son. And so there's a sense in which we will never understand this prayer in the way that Jesus and the father understand it, and it's in its infinite truth. But on the other hand, God condescends to us in scripture, and He knows what we need. As Calvin said, it is as if in Scripture, a parent–in this case, God, our  heavenly parent–leans down to us softly and speaks kindly, lest we be destroyed. Even in this text, God is bending over graciously, and he's speaking kindly in order that we can understand what He wants us to see here. When we looked at the first verses of the high priestly prayer, we saw this incredible introduction to the inner reality of the Trinity.
Let's just remind ourselves of the words we studied last and verse one, “when Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.” So here in the opening to this prayer, Jesus speaks about having been with the Father before the world existed and sharing a glory. And this is what’s so important for us to recognize–it was a glory that to some degree He as left, as he obeyed the will of the Father in the incarnation. Paul will speak of this in Philippians 2, where we come to understand that Christ emptied himself–in this sense, that doesn't mean empting himself of deity, but He did empty himself of some glory in order to assume human flesh. 
This was indeed a gift of incredible divine love, unspeakable divine love. He speaks of the glory that he had with you with the father before the world existed, and then he spoke with this reciprocity of glory. “I go glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.” Then he prays to the Father, “Now glorify me with that glory, which we shared before the creation of the world.” This resets all of history. It's very interesting, and this tells you a great deal about human beings. Even as Christians think of history, we look at Before Christ and After Christ. Of course there's some sense we look at before creation and after creation, but the problem is we know nothing of before creation, and of course, God is eternal, so the timeline is of his own construction. It's not something in which he himself is trapped, but we can't get out of the conception of time, so we'll just allow ourselves to imagine what eternity must be. Not an endless time, but in the realm beyond time in the before and the after. Our permission for doing that is Jesus himself. He speaks of this and then dates it, saying “before the world was created.”  But then you look at where we go from here.
In verse six, Christ says, “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours, they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know everything that you have given me is from you, for I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I'm not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.” In so many ways, it's not that all of a sudden we found a hidden key for understanding the gospel of John, which is the hidden key for understanding the New Testament, which is the key for understanding the entirety of scripture. It's not that, but it almost feels like that, because what we have here are statements made in the intimacy of the relationship between the Father and the Son. We are overhearing this, and here at the bottom line, nowhere else in scripture do we know these truths in this clarity. This is not contrary to what we know from other passages of scripture. It's not contrary to what we know from the gospel of John. As a matter of fact, it's like an explosion of truth, amplifying and illuminating what we've already known for the gospel of John, as we shall see about the Son manifesting the Father. But we do have declarative statements here, and it's repetitive. These statements are not isolated. The fact that there are those given by the Father to the Son–again, that's not new in the gospel of John, but it takes on a completely new significance, so much so that Jesus says “I'm not praying for the world. I'm praying for the one you gave me.” Now that's a radical statement. That's a statement that the average Christian, I think, hasn't ever thought about. “Well, in what sense does Jesus pray? Well, he prays for all the world.” And, this incredible night, which is now the hour that has come, and his crucifixion is nigh, Jesus doesn't pray for everybody in the world? He said he prays for those who the Father has given him? 
Well, let's look at the words carefully. Verse six, “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world.” Before we get the, “to whom,” let's just think about what he said he did. He said he has manifested the father. Now, in one sense, that's a short, wonderful, almost comprehensive definition of the incarnation. What was the incarnation? It was the Son manifesting the Father. But what does it mean to manifest? You know, we use that word. We hear that word. There was a Communist Manifesto. American history–Manifest Destiny. What is manifest? What's a manifestation? Well, what Jesus is saying here is that he has shown us the Father. It's really “to show.” He has shown us the Father, he’s made the Father tangible. “You want to see God, look to me.” But you think about this for a moment, and you recognize, “well, were there manifestations of God prior to the incarnation of Christ?” And the answer is yes, but they were all foreshadowings of what would would come in Jesus. Everything that happened before, from Moses being hidden in the cleft of the rock, to Israel hearing the voice of God speaking, from Moses himself hearing the voice of God speaking from the Bush that was burning, yet not consumed. God spoke through the prophets, and God spoke “through many in various ways,” as the writer of the book of Hebrew says in the introduction to that work, “But in these last days, he has spoken to us in his Son.” This is the consummate manifestation. This is not a manifestation, This is the manifestation. This is the absolute culmination. But this is something that John has helped us to understand all throughout his gospel. There are three passages in particular to which I want to look. We'll look backwards here for just a moment. Jesus says, “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world.” Look back to John chapter one, back to the prologue itself. The very first chapte–John 1:18.
John tells us in verse 1:18, “no one has ever seen God. The only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.” So there's the manifestation in the very prologue, explaining the incarnation. As John is introducing us to Jesus and is telling us who he is, the incarnate Logos through whom the world was created, we are told that no one has seen the Father. No one has seen God in this sense, but here it is the Son, it's the Logos who makes him known. Now if you think of the most incredible development in all human history, it would have to be for God to be made known and to be shown.
This is not just a voice. This is not just a word. This is not just a scripture. This is not just a prophet. This is not just a priest. This is not just a miracle. This is not just a burning bush that is not consumed. This is the incarnate Son. This is God's own son who manifests–He shows the father. And one of the things we see in the logic of the gospel of John is that no one can manifest the Father But the son. That turns out to be the key to New Testament theology. There is no manifestation of the Father without the Son. in the inter- trinitarian life of the Father, of the Son, and the Holy Spirit, it is the Father's good will that he be manifested by the Son. Jesus will, in his own comments, make this over and over again. Why has he come? He's come to show us the Father. Does this mean we look to Jesus, we're seeing the father? Well, in, in essence, yes. In other words, you're seeing God. He has made the Father known. And that's just in the prologue, reminding us that many other refrains of the prologue come up here in John chapter 17 in high priestly, prayer, including the issue of truth, as we shall see in just a moment.
That’s John 1:18, let’s look at John 12:45. Beginning, verse 44, we read “and Jesus cried out and said, ‘whoever believes in me believes not in me, but in him who sent me.’” So that's a helpful way to introduce this issue. And in verse 45, “‘and whoever sees me sees him who sent me. I've come into the world as light so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.’” The key there is verse 45, “whoever sees me, sees him who sent me.” So Jesus says this in chapter 12, it was said of him in chapter one. There have been other verses such as in chapter eight, where there are similar kinds of revelations concerning Christ and how he manifests the Father. No one can see the Father, but we can see the Son. No one can show the Father other than the Son, as the Son can, and the Son does, and the Son has. But then look at chapter 14, beginning in verse nine.
Now, when we were just a few weeks ago in John chapter 14, we looked at this passage, but now looking backwards, it takes on an entirely new significance. “Philip said to him, ‘Lord, show us the father, and it is enough for us.’” Verse nine, “Jesus said to him, ‘have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, show us the Father? Do you not believe that I am in the Father? And the Father is in me, the words that I say to you, I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me, that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.’” The point here is that this far into the ministry of Jesus–and this is rather astounding–it's another indication by the way of the truthfulness of the gospels.  
CS Lewis, responding to the theological liberalism and high supernaturalism of the early 20th century was responding in the British intellectual life to the fact that there were so many people who were borrowing German higher criticism to come back and say, “well, you know, the new Testament is mythological. The gospels are written as legends.” Lewis, who was a specialist, of course, in legends, he came back and said, “I spent my entire life studying legend. This isn't legend. Legend tells you things about people to pull out a completely orbed, developed character.” And he points out that that's not what the gospels do. The gospels do amazing things. One of the things that CS Lewis noted is that–and again, just thinking of him as a scholar of legend and myth–that’s what he did, especially ancient, medieval English literature.  He says, “I know legends. In a legend, you would not have Jesus write in the sand, for instance, in the story of the women caught in adultery. You wouldn't have Jesus with his finger right in the sand and leave it there. If it's legend, it's going to tell you what he wrote in the sand.” This is instead like a frustrating eyewitness account if you're looking at it for legend, because it's frustrating in the sense of what we're not told. We're not told a lot about Jesus. It's the most selective presentation of Jesus. 
But Lewis said, “There’s another fact that if you are looking at legend, legend doesn't include corrections. It does include someone in the inner circle being corrected legend. Instead shows this constant growth and awareness, kind of agnostic development.” And here you have of all things in the very passage that we're looking at here, Philip at this point says, “just show us the father,” which is the most astounding thing. Now let's not be haughty, we might not even have been as sharp as Philip. But the point is, this is one of the proofs of the fact that we are actually tracking here in the life and ministry of Jesus, so, honestly, as Lewis said, “I know legend, this isn't legend.” So honestly, that we have Philip revealed this late in the gospel of John to have missed the whole point of the incarnation. Jesus, by the way, doesn't kick him out. But he does speak clearly, “Philip, how can you, how can you say to me, ‘show me the Father?’ If you see me, you see the Father.”
So if you take those passages together from chapter 1, chapter 12 and chapter 14, you come to understand what Jesus has already said to us, but now he's speaking to the Father. He has said to us–and John has helped us to understand by speaking to us–that the Son has shown the Father, that to see the Son is to see the Father. Now, just remember that this is so astounding that we can't let this pass without reflecting on the fact that if you look through the Old Testament, Israel's singularity as God's covenant purpose was repeatedly defined as the fact that they heard God, but did not see him. The great contrast between the reality of the one true and living God and the idols of all the people around Israel is that the idols are mute. The idols don't speak. That's the sign of their futility. But God speaks in a passage like Deuteronomy 30.  Israel will be reminded of the time when they stood with their children there at the foot of the mountain, and they heard God's voice speak. And then Moses asked the question, “has any other people heard the voice of the Lord and survived?” Fascinating question. But God's grace and mercy to Israel was to allow Israel to hear him, but not to see him. 
Even when you think of Moses asking to see God–and of course, Moses was hidden in the cleft of the rock, and God simply passed by, His spirit passed by. That's quite different than the incarnation. The incarnation is flesh and blood. The incarnation is baby in Bethlehem. The incarnation is boy in Nazareth. The incarnation is Jesus in Galilee, Jesus in Juda, Jesus in Jerusalem–this is incarnation. This is different. This is God showing himself, which is the one thing that in this sense, God did not and would not do except by Jesus. The arrogance of people to say, “God, if you will just show yourself to us.” And it's the arrogance in one sense, and the embarrassing nature of Philip’s question, but how many people around us are saying, “I’d believe in God, if I could just see him?”  How many people are actually operating out of the intellectual conceit? “You know, if God's real, then he would show himself to me. And I would believe Philip, ‘it will be enough for us. Lord, if you show us the Father.’”  “If I show you the Father? To see me is to see the Father.” But going back to John 17, the high priestly prayer is just an amazing little phrase in which Jesus says, “Mission accomplished. I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world.” Now that's something else.
When we speak of the gospel, and we speak of the exclusivity of the gospel, it's an absolutely crucial, biblical New Testament teaching. There's only one way to the Father, and that's by the Son. Only one way by the Son, and that is by the knowledge of him. We would define that as saving faith, but there's also only one people redeemed. Now this is humbling. Maybe for us, it's a bit embarrassing, but it's not just that there's one savior. It's just that there's one church. There's one people. That becomes absolutely crucial in the I priestly prayer–so crucial that what shocks us is not that the text says that Jesus will speak of the church “saying these are mine,” but he makes the distinction himself. “If you're not one of these, you're not mine.” It's hard heard to talk after that. Actually, if all of human history is divided by the incarnation, then all of humanity is actually most fundamentally divided by those who belong to Christ And those who do not. 
So the exclusivity of the gospel necessarily comes with the exclusivity of ecclesia. So when you see the ancient principle, “Outside the church, there's no salvation,” well, that's absolutely true, but outside the church, there's no Jesus. I don't think a lot of American evangelicals either know this or want to know this, and that's a shame. That's a weakness. It's an evasiveness on the part of many, because you say, “Well, what about all of humanity? Does God love all of humanity?” Well, in some sense he does, yes. God's benevolence is to all, he causes it to rain on the just and the unjust, and to all to whom he's given the gift of life, there is love that he shows even allowing that gift and in giving the good things of life and the habitation of planet earth, and even the common grace goods of family and marriage, and even the opportunity to work and to be a part of taking dominion. 
The one who is not in Christ still receives God's benevolence, but God's redemptive love is demonstrated only to those who are Christ’s. And that's tough. So tough that throughout the recent centuries, groups of historic Christianity have been unable to hold it. Epecially in the 19th 20th centuries with the routine discovery of others–that is those who are other than us who believe differently than we do–a bit of intellectual hesitation came among some Christians to say, “well, how can we say, we're the only people of God? Look at these other people. They have their gods. Surely God must love them too. There must be some sense in which they're included in what the Roman Catholic church would call the ‘economy of salvation.’ Surely they must be included in some way.” And by the way, those, those questions are directly answered in scripture–directly answered. It's not so much that there's only one way. There is only one way, but it is that there is a way. From the Bible's perspective, you don't begin with all these groups who are at different points in a continuum on the race to get to salvation, it's that there is only actually one, one way of salvation. This is the oneness of the incarnation, the oneness of God saving purpose, the oneness of God's will, and there is nothing salvific outside  of that will, period, but there has been a compromise, a loss, a theological abdication. In the Protestant world, the Protestant liberalism came along and said, “well, we need to…” and by the way, this will show you how, if you're going to create a theology anything other than biblical, you're gonna make it in your own image. And, The people who are shaping that theology of Protestant liberalism were primarily Europeans and north Americans who said, “It’s a matter of greater and lesser lights.”
Well, of course, they're not going to say Christianity is the lesser light, Christianity is the greater light. “And all these people that we meet with all their belief systems, they still have some light.  There may be salvation in that light, but it's not so likely as what will happen in Christianity.” And of course, this is the same time the history of religion school is developing in, in the German universities. It just says, “we're going to look at religion as a phenomena, phenomenology. We're going to say all religion is a thing. It's a human thing, different humans do religion differently. We're going tolook at it and say, ‘well, look at the commonalities.’” 
Here's the problem: the closer you look, the fewer commonalities you find, and yet does God love all? well, yes. In some sense, benevolent, yes.  But his redemptive love, his mercy, his agape is towards those who are in Christ.  But how did we end up in Christ? That’s the other thing, how there's a bluntness and a concision to the way the gospel is defined right here in the high priesty prayer. And again, Jesus and the Father don't have to explain things to one another. Jesus is saying to the father, “Hey, explain this gospel to me once again.” Instead, there's merely affirmation,  and what what's called summative affirmation, that is to say is just a summary. This is just Jesus summarizing in his prayer to the Father affirmations that we desperately need to know. “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world.” 
So how do we become Christ’s? This is of course the doctrine of election. You can see that immediately. It is that the Father has given a people to the Son. And when did this happen? Well it happened before the incarnation. As a matter of fact, given the timeline of what Jesus is saying here, it happened before the creation of the world. Before the creation of the world, God had already given. It's not just determined. It's not just what you rightly call election. God had given to the Son people who did not yet exist, a people who did not yet exist and, and notice exactly how Jesus speaks here in verse six, “I manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world.” Well, this is before the world exists. So there's already an “in the world and an out of the world” before there is a world. That is so helpful, and it reminds us of the fact that God's sovereign purpose in salvation, his sovereign purpose in the entire order of all things visible and invisible, is completely consistent.
So who are those who belong to Christ? The ones that father given to him.How do you know who's been given to the Son? By the Father, because they're Christ people. It’s an unbroken form of reasoning here that Jesus simply articulates with the Father, but you'll also notice something else. It says “whom you gave me out of the world.” And again, that's where the world exists, but it makes this clear distinction between the church and the world. This too is something that causes us awkwardness: the fact that there's such a distinction between the church and the world–and that distinction is never more radical than in this prayer. It helps us to understand all the rest of scripture. It helps us to understand the gospel. But this is so radical as to say that the entire purpose for which the cosmos was created was for the gospel of redemption to take place and be accomplished cosmos in a universe, on a planet where God would, in the Son, bring glory to himself, through the redemption of sinners who belong to him because of the Father's grace.
“And they are distinct from the world.” We are distinct from the world. We are out of the world. It doesn't feel like it's helpful for us. It doesn't feel like we're out of the world, but we actually are out of the world. By the way, one of the ways that this prayer helps us to affirm that we're out of the world and what that means is that out of the world, we're completely safe in Jesus. This explains so many of the hymns that we sing, so many of the glad affirmations that we share with one another. Nothing the world can do to us can separate us from the love of Christ. This gets back to the gift to the Son by the Father of his people, and notice what he says in the next phrase. “Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.”
My goodness. So they belonged to the father, but the father gives this people to the Son, and the characteristic that is most important of them is, “and they have kept your word,” which means more than anything else believing it. So this gets back to the manifesting. Jesus says to the father, “I have manifested your name to them.” And now he says of those to whom he manifested, “they've kept your word.” So here's another thing about the people who are redeemed because they belong to the Father, and the Father has given us to the Son: we can't be separated from him, and we will keep the faith.
This is true. So true, that it means anyonewho  does not keep the faith is not one of those given by the Father to the Son, because the distinctive of the ones given by the Father to the Son is that they keep the faith. They keep the word. “If you love me, keep my commandments.” And so at any point in human history, our eyes may deceive us as to who is in this people and who is in the world, but there's no confusion to the Father or the Son. There's even more in this particular verse. “Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you." So that now is very interesting. Now at the very end of his ministry as he's coming right up to the accomplishment of atonement by crucifixion to offer himself a sacrific, as a substitute for us.
And speaking of us, he says, “now they know that you have given all this to me.” So the father gives, there's a lot of giving here. The father gives to the son the people. The father, having given the son to his people, the people having received the ministry of the son now come to know that all that they were given in the son is given by the father. Now, you say, “well, I get that. That's good theological logic. It's essential. And thank you that, that's helpful. We appreciate this text that helps to clarify things,” but just remember something else. This is in the context of old Testament expectation. It's in the context of Jewish understanding. And so now we are told that the only way to know the father is the son. And again, all of a sudden incidents from the gospel of John become very clear to us when there's Jewish opposition to Jesus and, and they claim to be the children of Moses. What does Jesus say? Jesus says, “Abraham knew me and believed.” So that means that there are people that belong to the father. The father is given to the son who have been long dead. The book of Hebrews helps to explain this. The book of Romans helps to explain this, just think about Abraham and in Romans chapter four. And we have to come back to this time and time again–we're told that Abraham believed, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. “Justification by faith,” Paul says, “is not a new concept. That’s Genesis. You should have seen it.”
Hebrews 11 helps us to understand that they believed in Christ, but we often say that they had not seen him. But Jesus said Abraham did know him and believed. He made similar statements about Moses. But when you get to this point, you understand  just how tight the definitions are now coming. There are no redeemed people outside the people that the father has given to the son. These are redeemed people are identified first of all by how they came to be, and that's by the father's will, but also by what they see. They see the truth and believe. In verse eight–”for I've given them the words that you gave me and they have received them. And they have come to know in truth that I came from you and they believe that you sent me.” So the teaching ministry of Jesus becomes very clear in Jesus's revelation. It's not just in his body. It's not just on the cross. It's not just in the miracles, but it's in the words, these are the words Jesus gave. But how many times did we see in the gospel of John already, where Jesus said, “pay attention to my words. If you love me, then you will receive words. You'll believe my words. You will keep my commandments.” So the son here makes very clear that the words that he has given us are words he receives from the father.
There's nothing else that we would come to understand out of this, the indivisibility the relationship between the father in the son. There’s not a crack in this invisibility. Again, those who are the redeemed people are evident because we believe that the father sent the son. And then in verse nine, this is the verse that is shocking and offensive to so many people. Jesus says, “I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.” Jesus says, “I'm not praying for the world.”
I think that's the way we would have assumed this would go. Jesus, on the brink of the beginning moments of his hour, which includes his crucifixion and what he's doing on behalf of sinful humanity– this is where the average evangelical, I think looking at this would say, “well, Jesus would just pray the world, and say ‘I hope as many of them as possible come to faith in me. I hope that now, finally, they understand why I've come,’” but he doesn't even say that he doesn't even pray for them. Here's where we have to understand something that is absolutely essential to our identity in Christ, and that is that we are only redeemed because Christ is right now, our high priest, we are only redeemed because Christ perfectly fulfills three offices of prophet, and priest, and king. And you often hear many evangelicals say, “I don't need a priest.” Well, yes, you do. We are doomed and lost. We could never begin the Christian life, much less in the Christian life without a priest. There is no Christianity without the priest. There is no gospel without the priest. There is no salvation without the priest. Jesus is our priest. And what does Jesus do as our priest? He pray for us.
He, right now in his session, the Latin word for sitting, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, the father almighty–in his session, he prays for us. He ever intercedes for us. And so even as he prays for us here in John chapter 17, he prays for us right now. We're only alive because Jesus Christ is our high priest. Right now, we're only able to do what we're doing because Jesus is now and forevermore our high priest, our identity in Christ, and our peace with the father is only possible, not only because of what Christ did for us on the cross and what God did and raising him from the dead, but it's only possible because right now we have prophet, priest, and king. We have a great high priest who sympathizes with us, the Scripture says. He prays for us, and the very first time we see that happen is right here in John chapter 17, on the brink of his consummate work of atonement, Jesus says to the father, “I am praying not for the world, but for those you've given me.”
Now that raises another issue. That takes us back to where we were talking about the exclusivity of the gospel and the exclusivity of the church–does the coming of Jesus mean anything good for those who are not in him? Did any good thing come to the world by the incarnation of Christ? And the answer to that is yes. Yes. And  the most obvious “yes” is one we don't often think about. And that is the fact that history did not end when the earthly ministry of Jesus ended.
So the very continuation of history and the outworking of God's plan means that there will be billions of people who will have life, who otherwise would never have had life. Does Jesus give anything to the world beyond salvation? And the answer is yes, there are people who have been greatly encouraged, illuminated by Jesus, but the confusion in all of that is that in sinfulness–Jesus is cut down to size. His person and his work are redefined. It is not the worship of Jesus in truth, because that comes only from the inside.
The distinction between the world and the church is never more apparent in answering the question for whom does Christ pray? Period. To whom is Christ priest? Period. It's deeply, deeply humbling. The mercy of God is so clear here. Jesus says, “I'm not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours,” There's the “yours” again. “All mine are yours, and yours are mine. And I am glorified in them. I'm no longer in the world, but they are in the world.” What's going to happen in this shift that's coming in this next portion of the high priestly prayer is that Jesus is going to start praying for us concretely. He's going to be praying for us, who we are left in the world. He is not going to be in the world, but we are going to be in the world,  and he leaving us recognizes that we we would be like sheep without a shepherd. But actually we were like sheep without a shepherd before Jesus came. And after Jesus came, we're never in the risk of being sheep without a shepherd. Because number one, he is our good shepherd always. But then also, as he said, and he made this very clear just as we were walking up to the high priestly prayer, Jesus actually told his disciples, “it will be better for you when I am not with you, for I will send the Holy Spirit.” And the Holy Spirit, as we saw, will do a work which is absolutely essential for the church.
So we're not being abandoned, but we are being left in the world. And Jesus understood the world. Of course, Jesus understood the world. The world's about to crucify him. “He came into his own,” as we know, from the prologue, “and his own received him not.” There's never more graphic a moment when his own received him not as in when his own demanded, “give us Barabbas,” and cried out, “crucify him,” which they did. Jesus is praying here, first in the intimacy of his relationship with the father, sharing truth about that relationship and about even the entirety of salvation, the otherwise wouldn't know. But Jesus is also here going to be praying for his disciples. And that is where we will turn when we're together again in the next Lord's day. But look at the transition, look at how it happened. “I'm praying for them. I'm not praying for the world, but for those whom you've given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I'm glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world.”
Now, what he says in the next few words of verse 11 is, “and I am coming to you. Holy father, keep them in your name, which you've given me that they may be one, even as we are one.” Now it's to that passage that we will turn next week, but you'll notice how this transition comes. Jesus, as he's praying to the father, is no longer praying about the accomplishment of salvation, but the plight of his people left in the world, left in a world of hostility. Jesus said, “if they hated me, they'll hate you. Why do you think that a servant will be greater than his master? They're gonna drive you out of the synagogues. They're gonna hunt you down and they're going to kill you. You'd be safe, but nonetheless the antipathy of the world is real. “ This also reminds us, there's a world. If we're living in a context in which there is no antipathy from the world, there may be a lack of clarity on our part about Christ.
I want to say as we're closing here this morning, all around us in the city of Louisville, people are doing what they do. As we come in this morning, we see people walking dogs and people doing the things many of them are doing on Sunday morning. They saw us come in here and they probably thought, “well, that's what those people do. Religious people going into the church. That's what religious people do.” Yet if they heard what we've just been talking about, they'd be horribly offended. I don't just mean a little bit offended. I mean horribly offended, because we just made the statement that the distinction is between those who are in Christ and those who are in the world. If you're not in Christ, then you are lost. Not only that Christ doesn't even pray for you. We just said it because the word just taught it.
This really is dangerous. It's really true that if we teach the gospel with sufficient clarity, yes, there'll be people who will hear and believe that's the good news, but there's going to be a world that's going to hear us and say, “wait, just a minute. Anyone who will believe such a thing has no place in a democratic free society.” This wasn't an egalitarian, libertarian, personal autonomy inclusivist text. Jesus would say his ministry was none of those things. This gives the church absolutely no justification for pride. For one thing, it's going to be made very clear that we are so weak, that we would be prophetically destroyed by the world, but for the fact that we're protected by Christ, and that no one’s going to be able to take from the son those the father has given him. There's no ground for pride here. It reminds us of the fact that even as the entry into the gospel is personal faith, and even as we tell people about Jesus, knowing that if they believe they will be saved, the reality is that just back before the creation of the world, the identity of that people both in terms of the individuals, but the identity that people together was already established. That's humbling. 
So what did you and I contribute to this? Nothing. Does that make our relationship with Christ any less real? No. Does it make it all the more gracious? Yes. Let's pray. Father, we come before you astounded by the fact that even as we are in the name of Christ, praying to you, Christ is always, evermore, everlastingly, without ceasing praying for us. Father, thank you. How we know we need Christ. How we know we need the prayer of Christ before you. We need a priest, father, and you've given us all the priests we need in the son, father. Thank you for allowing us entry into your relationship with the son and the son's love for you in these verses. As we continue, may you open our eyes as that we might see, and father, even as we will never be able to exhaust this text, we dare to pray that we would gain from our reading and knowledge and study this text, everything needful for us, for our sanctification and our salvation until you make us whole in Christ on that day. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 49:18 https://albertmohler.com/?p=54199 Audio, Exposition, John, John Series, Video noThird Avenue Baptist Church Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series March 14, 2021 We're continuing our study in the High Priestly Prayer. And we began with the first five verses when we were together last week. We've seen the Farewell Discourse, as Jesus speaks to his disciples, come to an end. And now we're reaching what, in many ways as the climax of the gospel of John, and what I want us to see is that it's like the final movement of a symphony. It begins to bring in all the previous movements, all the previous musical strains, all the previous theological affirmations in such a way that there's a richness to this,  and a beauty to this that is such that this text is singular in the entire canon of scripture. In the entire New Testament, there's nothing like this. There is no lengthy prayer between the Son and the Father in which we see the intimacy, but what we also share in the exchange of  both love and truth, that gives us so much of our knowledge of the Christian faith. So as we begin, let's ask the Lord's blessing.  Father, we do pray that you would open our eyes and open our hearts, that we would receive everything you would have for us from just a few verses today in the high priestly prayer of Jesus. And Father, perhaps never having articulated this gratitude in such words, Father, we thank you that you and your Son have shared the intimacy of this prayer with us. Father, thank you for allowing us to hear it, that we may learn from it and never learn all of it. And we pray all of this in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, amen. That latter part of my prayer was dependent upon the fact that we are dealing here with a God who's infinite in his perfections as the Father and of the Son. And so there's a sense in which we will never understand this prayer in the way that Jesus and the father understand it, and it's in its infinite truth. But on the other hand, God condescends to us in scripture, and He knows what we need. As Calvin said, it is as if in Scripture, a parent–in this case, God, our  heavenly parent–leans down to us softly and speaks kindly, lest we be destroyed. Even in this text, God is bending over graciously, and he's speaking kindly in order that we can understand what He wants us to see here. When we looked at the first verses of the high priestly prayer, we saw this incredible introduction to the inner reality of the Trinity. Let's just remind ourselves of the words we studied last and verse one, “when Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.” So here in the opening to this prayer, Jesus speaks about having been with the Father before the world existed and sharing a glory. And this is what’s so important for us to recognize–it was a glory that to some degree He as left, as he obeyed the will of the Father in the incarnation. Paul will speak of this in Philippians 2, where we come to understand that Christ emptied himself–in this sense, that doesn't mean empting himself of deity, but He did empty himself of some glory in order to assume human flesh.  This was indeed a gift of incredible divine love, unspeakable divine love. He speaks of the glory that he had with you with the father before the world existed, and then he spoke with this reciprocity of glory. “I go glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.” Then he prays to the Father, “Now glorify me with that glory, which we shared before the creation of the world.” This resets all of history. It's very interesting, and this tells you a great deal about human beings. Even as Christians think of history, we look at Before Christ and After Christ. Of course there's some sense we look at before creation and after creation, but the problem is we know nothing of before creation, and of course, God is eternal, so the timeline is of his own construction. It's not something in which he himself is trapped, but we can't get out of the conception of time, so we'll just allow ourselves to imagine what eternity must be. Not an endless time, but in the realm beyond time in the before and the after. Our permission for doing that is Jesus himself. He speaks of this and then dates it, saying “before the world was created.”  But then you look at where we go from here. In verse six, Christ says, “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours, they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know everything that you have given me is from you, for I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I'm not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.” In so many ways, it's not that all of a sudden we found a hidden key for understanding the gospel of John, which is the hidden key for understanding the New Testament, which is the key for understanding the entirety of scripture. It's not that, but it almost feels like that, because what we have here are statements made in the intimacy of the relationship between the Father and the Son. We are overhearing this, and here at the bottom line, nowhere else in scripture do we know these truths in this clarity. This is not contrary to what we know from other passages of scripture. It's not contrary to what we know from the gospel of John. As a matter of fact, it's like an explosion of truth, amplifying and illuminating what we've already known for the gospel of John, as we shall see about the Son manifesting the Father. But we do have declarative statements here, and it's repetitive. These statements are not isolated. The fact that there are those given by the Father to the Son–again, that's not new in the gospel of John, but it takes on a completely new significance, so much so that Jesus says “I'm not praying for the world. I'm praying for the one you gave me.” Now that's a radical statement. That's a statement that the average Christian, I think, hasn't ever thought about. “Well, in what sense does Jesus pray? Well, he prays for all the world.” And, this incredible night, which is now the hour that has come, and his crucifixion is nigh, Jesus doesn't pray for everybody in the world? He said he prays for those who the Father has given him?  Well, let's look at the words carefully. Verse six, “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world.” Before we get the, “to whom,” let's just think about what he said he did. He said he has manifested the father. Now, in one sense, that's a short, wonderful, almost comprehensive definition of the incarnation. What was the incarnation? It was the Son manifesting the Father. But what does it mean to manifest? You know, we use that word. We hear that word. There was a Communist Manifesto. American history–Manifest Destiny. What is manifest? What's a manifestation? Well, what Jesus is saying here is that he has shown us the Father. It's really “to show.” He has shown us the Father, he’s made the Father tangible. “You want to see God, look to me.” But you think about this for a moment, and you recognize, “well, were there manifestations of God prior to the incarnation of Christ?” And the answer is yes, but they were all foreshadowings of what would would come in Jesus. Everything that happened before, from Moses being hidden in the cleft of the rock, to Israel hearing the voice of God speaking, from Moses himself hearing the voice of God speaking from the Bush that was burning, yet not consumed. God spoke through the prophets, and God spoke “through many in various ways,” as the writer of the book of Hebrew says in the introduction to that work, “But in these last days, he has spoken to us in his Son.” This is the consummate manifestation. This is not a manifestation, This is the manifestation. This is the absolute culmination. But this is something that John has helped us to understand all throughout his gospel. There are three passages in particular to which I want to look. We'll look backwards here for just a moment. Jesus says, “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world.” Look back to John chapter one, back to the prologue itself. The very first chapte–John 1:18. John tells us in verse 1:18, “no one has ever seen God. The only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.” So there's the manifestation in the very prologue, explaining the incarnation. As John is introducing us to Jesus and is telling us who he is, the incarnate Logos through whom the world was created, we are told that no one has seen the Father. No one has seen God in this sense, but here it is the Son, it's the Logos who makes him known. Now if you think of the most incredible development in all human history, it would have to be for God to be made known and to be shown. This is not just a voice. This is not just a word. This is not just a scripture. This is not just a prophet. This is not just a priest. This is not just a miracle. This is not just a burning bush that is not consumed. This is the incarnate Son. This is God's own son who manifests–He shows the father. And one of the things we see in the logic of the gospel of John is that no one can manifest the Father But the son. That turns out to be the key to New Testament theology. There is no manifestation of the Father without the Son. in the inter- trinitarian life of the Father, of the Son, and the Holy Spirit, it is the Father's good will that he be manifested by the Son. Jesus will, in his own comments, make this over and over again. Why has he come? He's come to show us the Father. Does this mean we look to Jesus, we're seeing the father? Well, in, in essence, yes. In other words, you're seeing God. He has made the Father known. And that's just in the prologue, reminding us that many other refrains of the prologue come up here in John chapter 17 in high priestly, prayer, including the issue of truth, as we shall see in just a moment. That’s John 1:18, let’s look at John 12:45. Beginning, verse 44, we read “and Jesus cried out and said, ‘whoever believes in me believes not in me, but in him who sent me.’” So that's a helpful way to introduce this issue. And in verse 45, “‘and whoever sees me sees him who sent me. I've come into the world as light so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.’” The key there is verse 45, “whoever sees me, sees him who sent me.” So Jesus says this in chapter 12, it was said of him in chapter one. There have been other verses such as in chapter eight, where there are similar kinds of revelations concerning Christ and how he manifests the Father. No one can see the Father, but we can see the Son. No one can show the Father other than the Son, as the Son can, and the Son does, and the Son has. But then look at chapter 14, beginning in verse nine. Now, when we were just a few weeks ago in John chapter 14, we looked at this passage, but now looking backwards, it takes on an entirely new significance. “Philip said to him, ‘Lord, show us the father, and it is enough for us.’” Verse nine, “Jesus said to him, ‘have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, show us the Father? Do you not believe that I am in the Father? And the Father is in me, the words that I say to you, I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me, that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.’” The point here is that this far into the ministry of Jesus–and this is rather astounding–it's another indication by the way of the truthfulness of the gospels.   CS Lewis, responding to the theological liberalism and high supernaturalism of the early 20th century was responding in the British intellectual life to the fact that there were so many people who were borrowing German higher criticism to come back and say, “well, you know, the new Testament is mythological. The gospels are written as legends.” Lewis, who was a specialist, of course, in legends, he came back and said, “I spent my entire life studying legend. This isn't legend. Legend tells you things about people to pull out a completely orbed, developed character.” And he points out that that's not what the gospels do. The gospels do amazing things. One of the things that CS Lewis noted is that–and again, just thinking of him as a scholar of legend and myth–that’s what he did, especially ancient, medieval English literature.  He says, “I know legends. In a legend, you would not have Jesus write in the sand, for instance, in the story of the women caught in adultery. You wouldn't have Jesus with his finger right in the sand and leave it there. If it's legend, it's going to tell you what he wrote in the sand.” This is instead like a frustrating eyewitness account if you're looking at it for legend, because it's frustrating in the sense of what we're not told. We're not told a lot about Jesus. It's the most selective presentation of Jesus.  But Lewis said, “There’s another fact that if you are looking at legend, legend doesn't include corrections. It does include someone in the inner circle being corrected legend. Instead shows this constant growth and awareness, kind of agnostic development.” And here you have of all things in the very passage that we're looking at here, Philip at this point says, “just show us the father,” which is the most astounding thing. Now let's not be haughty, we might not even have been as sharp as Philip. But the point is, this is one of the proofs of the fact that we are actually tracking here in the life and ministry of Jesus, so, honestly, as Lewis said, “I know legend, this isn't legend.” So honestly, that we have Philip revealed this late in the gospel of John to have missed the whole point of the incarnation. Jesus, by the way, doesn't kick him out. But he does speak clearly, “Philip, how can you, how can you say to me, ‘show me the Father?’ If you see me, you see the Father.” So if you take those passages together from chapter 1, chapter 12 and chapter 14, you come to understand what Jesus has already said to us, but now he's speaking to the Father. He has said to us–and John has helped us to understand by speaking to us–that the Son has shown the Father, that to see the Son is to see the Father. Now, just remember that this is so astounding that we can't let this pass without reflecting on the fact that if you look through the Old Testament, Israel's singularity as God's covenant purpose was repeatedly defined as the fact that they heard God, but did not see him. The great contrast between the reality of the one true and living God and the idols of all the people around Israel is that the idols are mute. The idols don't speak. That's the sign of their futility. But God speaks in a passage like Deuteronomy 30.  Israel will be reminded of the time when they stood with their children there at the foot of the mountain, and they heard God's voice speak. And then Moses asked the question, “has any other people heard the voice of the Lord and survived?” Fascinating question. But God's grace and mercy to Israel was to allow Israel to hear him, but not to see him.  Even when you think of Moses asking to see God–and of course, Moses was hidden in the cleft of the rock, and God simply passed by, His spirit passed by. That's quite different than the incarnation. The incarnation is flesh and blood. The incarnation is baby in Bethlehem. The incarnation is boy in Nazareth. The incarnation is Jesus in Galilee, Jesus in Juda, Jesus in Jerusalem–this is incarnation. This is different. This is God showing himself, which is the one thing that in this sense, God did not and would not do except by Jesus. The arrogance of people to say, “God, if you will just show yourself to us.” And it's the arrogance in one sense, and the embarrassing nature of Philip’s question, but how many people around us are saying, “I’d believe in God, if I could just see him?”  How many people are actually operating out of the intellectual conceit? “You know, if God's real, then he would show himself to me. And I would believe Philip, ‘it will be enough for us. Lord, if you show us the Father.’”  “If I show you the Father? To see me is to see the Father.” But going back to John 17, the high priestly prayer is just an amazing little phrase in which Jesus says, “Mission accomplished. I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world.” Now that's something else. When we speak of the gospel, and we speak of the exclusivity of the gospel, it's an absolutely crucial, biblical New Testament teaching. There's only one way to the Father, and that's by the Son. Only one way by the Son, and that is by the knowledge of him. We would define that as saving faith, but there's also only one people redeemed. Now this is humbling. Maybe for us, it's a bit embarrassing, but it's not just that there's one savior. It's just that there's one church. There's one people. That becomes absolutely crucial in the I priestly prayer–so crucial that what shocks us is not that the text says that Jesus will speak of the church “saying these are mine,” but he makes the distinction himself. “If you're not one of these, you're not mine.” It's hard heard to talk after that. Actually, if all of human history is divided by the incarnation, then all of humanity is actually most fundamentally divided by those who belong to Christ And those who do not.  So the exclusivity of the gospel necessarily comes with the exclusivity of ecclesia. So when you see the ancient principle, “Outside the church, there's no salvation,” well, that's absolutely true, but outside the church, there's no Jesus. I don't think a lot of American evangelicals either know this or want to know this, and that's a shame. That's a weakness. It's an evasiveness on the part of many, because you say, “Well, what about all of humanity? Does God love all of humanity?” Well, in some sense he does, yes. God's benevolence is to all, he causes it to rain on the just and the unjust, and to all to whom he's given the gift of life, there is love that he shows even allowing that gift and in giving the good things of life and the habitation of planet earth, and even the common grace goods of family and marriage, and even the opportunity to work and to be a part of taking dominion.  The one who is not in Christ still receives God's benevolence, but God's redemptive love is demonstrated only to those who are Christ’s. And that's tough. So tough that throughout the recent centuries, groups of historic Christianity have been unable to hold it. Epecially in the 19th 20th centuries with the routine discovery of others–that is those who are other than us who believe differently than we do–a bit of intellectual hesitation came among some Christians to say, “well, how can we say, we're the only people of God? Look at these other people. They have their gods. Surely God must love them too. There must be some sense in which they're included in what the Roman Catholic church would call the ‘economy of salvation.’ Surely they must be included in some way.” And by the way, those, those questions are directly answered in scripture–directly answered. It's not so much that there's only one way. There is only one way, but it is that there is a way. From the Bible's perspective, you don't begin with all these groups who are at different points in a continuum on the race to get to salvation, it's that there is only actually one, one way of salvation. This is the oneness of the incarnation, the oneness of God saving purpose, the oneness of God's will, and there is nothing salvific outside  of that will, period, but there has been a compromise, a loss, a theological abdication. In the Protestant world, the Protestant liberalism came along and said, “well, we need to…” and by the way, this will show you how, if you're going to create a theology anything other than biblical, you're gonna make it in your own image. And, The people who are shaping that theology of Protestant liberalism were primarily Europeans and north Americans who said, “It’s a matter of greater and lesser lights.” Well, of course, they're not going to say Christianity is the lesser light, Christianity is the greater light. “And all these people that we meet with all their belief systems, they still have some light.  There may be salvation in that light, but it's not so likely as what will happen in Christianity.” And of course, this is the same time the history of religion school is developing in, in the German universities. It just says, “we're going to look at religion as a phenomena, phenomenology. We're going to say all religion is a thing. It's a human thing, different humans do religion differently. We're going tolook at it and say, ‘well, look at the commonalities.’”  Here's the problem: the closer you look, the fewer commonalities you find, and yet does God love all? well, yes. In some sense, benevolent, yes.  But his redemptive love, his mercy, his agape is towards those who are in Christ.  But how did we end up in Christ? That’s the other thing, how there's a bluntness and a concision to the way the gospel is defined right here in the high priesty prayer. And again, Jesus and the Father don't have to explain things to one another. Jesus is saying to the father, “Hey, explain this gospel to me once again.” Instead, there's merely affirmation,  and what what's called summative affirmation, that is to say is just a summary. This is just Jesus summarizing in his prayer to the Father affirmations that we desperately need to know. “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world.”  So how do we become Christ’s? This is of course the doctrine of election. You can see that immediately. It is that the Father has given a people to the Son. And when did this happen? Well it happened before the incarnation. As a matter of fact, given the timeline of what Jesus is saying here, it happened before the creation of the world. Before the creation of the world, God had already given. It's not just determined. It's not just what you rightly call election. God had given to the Son people who did not yet exist, a people who did not yet exist and, and notice exactly how Jesus speaks here in verse six, “I manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world.” Well, this is before the world exists. So there's already an “in the world and an out of the world” before there is a world. That is so helpful, and it reminds us of the fact that God's sovereign purpose in salvation, his sovereign purpose in the entire order of all things visible and invisible, is completely consistent. So who are those who belong to Christ? The ones that father given to him.How do you know who's been given to the Son? By the Father, because they're Christ people. It’s an unbroken form of reasoning here that Jesus simply articulates with the Father, but you'll also notice something else. It says “whom you gave me out of the world.” And again, that's where the world exists, but it makes this clear distinction between the church and the world. This too is something that causes us awkwardness: the fact that there's such a distinction between the church and the world–and that distinction is never more radical than in this prayer. It helps us to understand all the rest of scripture. It helps us to understand the gospel. But this is so radical as to say that the entire purpose for which the cosmos was created was for the gospel of redemption to take place and be accomplished cosmos in a universe, on a planet where God would, in the Son, bring glory to himself, through the redemption of sinners who belong to him because of the Father's grace. “And they are distinct from the world.” We are distinct from the world. We are out of the world. It doesn't feel like it's helpful for us. It doesn't feel like we're out of the world, but we actually are out of the world. By the way, one of the ways that this prayer helps us to affirm that we're out of the world and what that means is that out of the world, we're completely safe in Jesus. This explains so many of the hymns that we sing, so many of the glad affirmations that we share with one another. Nothing the world can do to us can separate us from the love of Christ. This gets back to the gift to the Son by the Father of his people, and notice what he says in the next phrase. “Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.” My goodness. So they belonged to the father, but the father gives this people to the Son, and the characteristic that is most important of them is, “and they have kept your word,” which means more than anything else believing it. So this gets back to the manifesting. Jesus says to the father, “I have manifested your name to them.” And now he says of those to whom he manifested, “they've kept your word.” So here's another thing about the people who are redeemed because they belong to the Father, and the Father has given us to the Son: we can't be separated from him, and we will keep the faith. This is true. So true, that it means anyonewho  does not keep the faith is not one of those given by the Father to the Son, because the distinctive of the ones given by the Father to the Son is that they keep the faith. They keep the word. “If you love me, keep my commandments.” And so at any point in human history, our eyes may deceive us as to who is in this people and who is in the world, but there's no confusion to the Father or the Son. There's even more in this particular verse. “Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you." So that now is very interesting. Now at the very end of his ministry as he's coming right up to the accomplishment of atonement by crucifixion to offer himself a sacrific, as a substitute for us. And speaking of us, he says, “now they know that you have given all this to me.” So the father gives, there's a lot of giving here. The father gives to the son the people. The father, having given the son to his people, the people having received the ministry of the son now come to know that all that they were given in the son is given by the father. Now, you say, “well, I get that. That's good theological logic. It's essential. And thank you that, that's helpful. We appreciate this text that helps to clarify things,” but just remember something else. This is in the context of old Testament expectation. It's in the context of Jewish understanding. And so now we are told that the only way to know the father is the son. And again, all of a sudden incidents from the gospel of John become very clear to us when there's Jewish opposition to Jesus and, and they claim to be the children of Moses. What does Jesus say? Jesus says, “Abraham knew me and believed.” So that means that there are people that belong to the father. The father is given to the son who have been long dead. The book of Hebrews helps to explain this. The book of Romans helps to explain this, just think about Abraham and in Romans chapter four. And we have to come back to this time and time again–we're told that Abraham believed, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. “Justification by faith,” Paul says, “is not a new concept. That’s Genesis. You should have seen it.” Hebrews 11 helps us to understand that they believed in Christ, but we often say that they had not seen him. But Jesus said Abraham did know him and believed. He made similar statements about Moses. But when you get to this point, you understand  just how tight the definitions are now coming. There are no redeemed people outside the people that the father has given to the son. These are redeemed people are identified first of all by how they came to be, and that's by the father's will, but also by what they see. They see the truth and believe. In verse eight–”for I've given them the words that you gave me and they have received them. And they have come to know in truth that I came from you and they believe that you sent me.” So the teaching ministry of Jesus becomes very clear in Jesus's revelation. It's not just in his body. It's not just on the cross. It's not just in the miracles, but it's in the words, these are the words Jesus gave. But how many times did we see in the gospel of John already, where Jesus said, “pay attention to my words. If you love me, then you will receive words. You'll believe my words. You will keep my commandments.” So the son here makes very clear that the words that he has given us are words he receives from the father. There's nothing else that we would come to understand out of this, the indivisibility the relationship between the father in the son. There’s not a crack in this invisibility. Again, those who are the redeemed people are evident because we believe that the father sent the son. And then in verse nine, this is the verse that is shocking and offensive to so many people. Jesus says, “I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.” Jesus says, “I'm not praying for the world.” I think that's the way we would have assumed this would go. Jesus, on the brink of the beginning moments of his hour, which includes his crucifixion and what he's doing on behalf of sinful humanity– this is where the average evangelical, I think looking at this would say, “well, Jesus would just pray the world, and say ‘I hope as many of them as possible come to faith in me. I hope that now, finally, they understand why I've come,’” but he doesn't even say that he doesn't even pray for them. Here's where we have to understand something that is absolutely essential to our identity in Christ, and that is that we are only redeemed because Christ is right now, our high priest, we are only redeemed because Christ perfectly fulfills three offices of prophet, and priest, and king. And you often hear many evangelicals say, “I don't need a priest.” Well, yes, you do. We are doomed and lost. We could never begin the Christian life, much less in the Christian life without a priest. There is no Christianity without the priest. There is no gospel without the priest. There is no salvation without the priest. Jesus is our priest. And what does Jesus do as our priest? He pray for us. He, right now in his session, the Latin word for sitting, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, the father almighty–in his session, he prays for us. He ever intercedes for us. And so even as he prays for us here in John chapter 17, he prays for us right now. We're only alive because Jesus Christ is our high priest. Right now, we're only able to do what we're doing because Jesus is now and forevermore our high priest, our identity in Christ, and our peace with the father is only possible, not only because of what Christ did for us on the cross and what God did and raising him from the dead, but it's only possible because right now we have prophet, priest, and king. We have a great high priest who sympathizes with us, the Scripture says. He prays for us, and the very first time we see that happen is right here in John chapter 17, on the brink of his consummate work of atonement, Jesus says to the father, “I am praying not for the world, but for those you've given me.” Now that raises another issue. That takes us back to where we were talking about the exclusivity of the gospel and the exclusivity of the church–does the coming of Jesus mean anything good for those who are not in him? Did any good thing come to the world by the incarnation of Christ? And the answer to that is yes. Yes. And  the most obvious “yes” is one we don't often think about. And that is the fact that history did not end when the earthly ministry of Jesus ended. So the very continuation of history and the outworking of God's plan means that there will be billions of people who will have life, who otherwise would never have had life. Does Jesus give anything to the world beyond salvation? And the answer is yes, there are people who have been greatly encouraged, illuminated by Jesus, but the confusion in all of that is that in sinfulness–Jesus is cut down to size. His person and his work are redefined. It is not the worship of Jesus in truth, because that comes only from the inside. The distinction between the world and the church is never more apparent in answering the question for whom does Christ pray? Period. To whom is Christ priest? Period. It's deeply, deeply humbling. The mercy of God is so clear here. Jesus says, “I'm not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours,” There's the “yours” again. “All mine are yours, and yours are mine. And I am glorified in them. I'm no longer in the world, but they are in the world.” What's going to happen in this shift that's coming in this next portion of the high priestly prayer is that Jesus is going to start praying for us concretely. He's going to be praying for us, who we are left in the world. He is not going to be in the world, but we are going to be in the world,  and he leaving us recognizes that we we would be like sheep without a shepherd. But actually we were like sheep without a shepherd before Jesus came. And after Jesus came, we're never in the risk of being sheep without a shepherd. Because number one, he is our good shepherd always. But then also, as he said, and he made this very clear just as we were walking up to the high priestly prayer, Jesus actually told his disciples, “it will be better for you when I am not with you, for I will send the Holy Spirit.” And the Holy Spirit, as we saw, will do a work which is absolutely essential for the church. So we're not being abandoned, but we are being left in the world. And Jesus understood the world. Of course, Jesus understood the world. The world's about to crucify him. “He came into his own,” as we know, from the prologue, “and his own received him not.” There's never more graphic a moment when his own received him not as in when his own demanded, “give us Barabbas,” and cried out, “crucify him,” which they did. Jesus is praying here, first in the intimacy of his relationship with the father, sharing truth about that relationship and about even the entirety of salvation, the otherwise wouldn't know. But Jesus is also here going to be praying for his disciples. And that is where we will turn when we're together again in the next Lord's day. But look at the transition, look at how it happened. “I'm praying for them. I'm not praying for the world, but for those whom you've given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I'm glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world.” Now, what he says in the next few words of verse 11 is, “and I am coming to you. Holy father, keep them in your name, which you've given me that they may be one, even as we are one.” Now it's to that passage that we will turn next week, but you'll notice how this transition comes. Jesus, as he's praying to the father, is no longer praying about the accomplishment of salvation, but the plight of his people left in the world, left in a world of hostility. Jesus said, “if they hated me, they'll hate you. Why do you think that a servant will be greater than his master? They're gonna drive you out of the synagogues. They're gonna hunt you down and they're going to kill you. You'd be safe, but nonetheless the antipathy of the world is real. “ This also reminds us, there's a world. If we're living in a context in which there is no antipathy from the world, there may be a lack of clarity on our part about Christ. I want to say as we're closing here this morning, all around us in the city of Louisville, people are doing what they do. As we come in this morning, we see people walking dogs and people doing the things many of them are doing on Sunday morning. They saw us come in here and they probably thought, “well, that's what those people do. Religious people going into the church. That's what religious people do.” Yet if they heard what we've just been talking about, they'd be horribly offended. I don't just mean a little bit offended. I mean horribly offended, because we just made the statement that the distinction is between those who are in Christ and those who are in the world. If you're not in Christ, then you are lost. Not only that Christ doesn't even pray for you. We just said it because the word just taught it. This really is dangerous. It's really true that if we teach the gospel with sufficient clarity, yes, there'll be people who will hear and believe that's the good news, but there's going to be a world that's going to hear us and say, “wait, just a minute. Anyone who will believe such a thing has no place in a democratic free society.” This wasn't an egalitarian, libertarian, personal autonomy inclusivist text. Jesus would say his ministry was none of those things. This gives the church absolutely no justification for pride. For one thing, it's going to be made very clear that we are so weak, that we would be prophetically destroyed by the world, but for the fact that we're protected by Christ, and that no one’s going to be able to take from the son those the father has given him. There's no ground for pride here. It reminds us of the fact that even as the entry into the gospel is personal faith, and even as we tell people about Jesus, knowing that if they believe they will be saved, the reality is that just back before the creation of the world, the identity of that people both in terms of the individuals, but the identity that people together was already established. That's humbling.  So what did you and I contribute to this? Nothing. Does that make our relationship with Christ any less real? No. Does it make it all the more gracious? Yes. Let's pray. Father, we come before you astounded by the fact that even as we are in the name of Christ, praying to you, Christ is always, evermore, everlastingly, without ceasing praying for us. Father, thank you. How we know we need Christ. How we know we need the prayer of Christ before you. We need a priest, father, and you've given us all the priests we need in the son, father. Thank you for allowing us entry into your relationship with the son and the son's love for you in these verses. As we continue, may you open our eyes as that we might see, and father, even as we will never be able to exhaust this text, we dare to pray that we would gain from our reading and knowledge and study this text, everything needful for us, for our sanctification and our salvation until you make us whole in Christ on that day. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.Third Avenue Baptist Church Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series March 14, 2021 We're continuing our study in the High Priestly Prayer. And we began with the first five verses when we were together last week. We've seen the Farewell Discourse, as Jesus speaks to his disciples, come to an end. And now we're reaching what, in many ways as the climax of the gospel of John, and what I want us to see is that it's like the final movement of a symphony. It begins to bring in all the previous movements, all the previous musical strains, all the previous theological affirmations in such a way that there's a richness to this,  and a beauty to this that is such that this text is singular in the entire canon of scripture. In the entire New Testament, there's nothing like this. There is no lengthy prayer between the Son and the Father in which we see the intimacy, but what we also share in the exchange of  both love and truth, that gives us so much of our knowledge of the Christian faith. So as we begin, let's ask the Lord's blessing.  Father, we do pray that you would open our eyes and open our hearts, that we would receive everything you would have for us from just a few verses today in the high priestly prayer of Jesus. And Father, perhaps never having articulated this gratitude in such words, Father, we thank you that you and your Son have shared the intimacy of this prayer with us. Father, thank you for allowing us to hear it, that we may learn from it and never learn all of it. And we pray all of this in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, amen. That latter part of my prayer was dependent upon the fact that we are dealing here with a God who's infinite in his perfections as the Father and of the Son. And so there's a sense in which we will never understand this prayer in the way that Jesus and the father understand it, and it's in its infinite truth. But on the other hand, God condescends to us in scripture, and He knows what we need. As Calvin said, it is as if in Scripture, a parent–in this case, God, our  heavenly parent–leans down to us softly and speaks kindly, lest we be destroyed. Even in this text, God is bending over graciously, and he's speaking kindly in order that we can understand what He wants us to see here. When we looked at the first verses of the high priestly prayer, we saw this incredible introduction to the inner reality of the Trinity. Let's just remind ourselves of the words we studied last and verse one, “when Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.” So here in the opening to this prayer, Jesus speaks about having been with the Father before the world existed and sharing a glory. And this is what’s so important for us to recognize–it was a glory that to some degree He as left, as he obeyed the will of the Father in the incarnation. Paul will speak of this in Philippians 2, where we come to understand that Christ emptied himself–in this sense, that doesn't mean empting himself of deity, but He did empty himself of some glory in order to assume human flesh.  This was indeed a gift of incredible divine love, unspeakable divine love. He speaks of the glory that he had with you with the father before the world existed, and then he spoke with this reciprocity of glory. “I go glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.” Then he prays to the Father, “Now glorify me with that glory, which we shared before the creation of the world.” This resets all of history. It's very interesting, and this tells you a great deal about human beings. Even as Christians think of history, we look at Before Christ and After Christ. Of course there's some sense we look at before creation and after creation, but the problem is we know nothing of before creation, and of course, God is eternal, so the timeline is of his own construction. It's not something in which he himself is trapped, but we can't get out of the conception of time, so we'll just allow ourselves to imagine what eternity must be. Not an endless time, but in the realm beyond time in the before and the after. Our permission for doing that is Jesus himself. He speaks of this and then dates it, saying “before the world was created.”  But then you look at where we go from here. In verse six, Christ says, “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours, they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know everything that you have given me is from you, for I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I'm not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.” In so many ways, it's not that all of a sudden we found a hidden key for understanding the gospel of John, which is the hidden key for understanding the New Testament, which is the key for understanding the entirety of scripture. It's not that, but it almost feels like that, because what we have here are statements made in the intimacy of the relationship between the Father and the Son. We are overhearing this, and here at the bottom line, nowhere else in scripture do we know these truths in this clarity. This is not contrary to what we know from other passages of scripture. It's not contrary to what we know from the gospel of John. As a matter of fact, it's like an explosion of truth, amplifying and illuminating what we've already known for the gospel of John, as we shall see about the Son manifesting the Father. But we do have declarative statements here, and it's repetitive. These statements are not isolated. The fact that there are those given by the Father to the Son–again, that's not new in the gospel of John, but it takes on a completely new significance, so much so that Jesus says “I'm not praying for the world. I'm praying for the one you gave me.” Now that's a radical statement. That's a statement that the average Christian, I think, hasn't ever thought about. “Well, in what sense does Jesus pray? Well, he prays for all the world.” And, this incredible night, which is now the hour that has come, and his crucifixion is nigh, Jesus doesn't pray for everybody in the world? He said he prays for those who the Father has given him?  Well, let's look at the words carefully. Verse six, “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world.” Before we get the, “to whom,” let's just think about what he said he did. He said he has manifested the father. Now, in one sense, that's a short, wonderful, almost comprehensive definition of the incarnation. What was the incarnation? It was the Son manifesting the Father. But what does it mean to manifest? You know, we use that word. We hear that word. There was a Communist Manifesto. American history–Manifest Destiny. What is manifest? What's a manifestation? Well, what Jesus is saying here is that he has shown us the Father. It's really “to show.” He has shown us the Father, he’s made the Father tangible. “You want to see God, look to me.” But you think about this for a moment, and you recognize, “well, were there manifestations of God prior to the incarnation of Christ?” And the answer is yes, but they were all foreshadowings of what would would come in Jesus. Everything that happened before, from Moses being hidden in the cleft of the rock, to Israel hearing the voice of God speaking, from Moses himself hearing the voice of God speaking from the Bush that was burning, yet not consumed. God spoke through the prophets, and God spoke “through many in various ways,” as the writer of the book of Hebrew says in the introduction to that work, “But in these last days, he has spoken to us in his Son.” This is the consummate manifestation. This is not a manifestation, This is the manifestation. This is the absolute culmination. But this is something that John has helped us to understand all throughout his gospel. There are three passages in particular to which I want to look. We'll look backwards here for just a moment. Jesus says, “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world.” Look back to John chapter one, back to the prologue itself. The very first chapte–John 1:18. John tells us in verse 1:18, “no one has ever seen God. The only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.” So there's the manifestation in the very prologue, explaining the incarnation. As John is introducing us to Jesus and is telling us who he is, the incarnate Logos through whom the world was created, we are told that no one has seen the Father. No one has seen God in this sense, but here it is the Son, it's the Logos who makes him known. Now if you think of the most incredible development in all human history, it would have to be for God to be made known and to be shown. This is not just a voice. This is not just a word. This is not just a scripture. This is not just a prophet. This is not just a priest. This is not just a miracle. This is not just a burning bush that is not consumed. This is the incarnate Son. This is God's own son who manifests–He shows the father. And one of the things we see in the logic of the gospel of John is that no one can manifest the Father But the son. That turns out to be the key to New Testament theology. There is no manifestation of the Father without the Son. in the inter- trinitarian life of the Father, of the Son, and the Holy Spirit, it is the Father's good will that he be manifested by the Son. Jesus will, in his own comments, make this over and over again. Why has he come? He's come to show us the Father. Does this mean we look to Jesus, we're seeing the father? Well, in, in essence, yes. In other words, you're seeing God. He has made the Father known. And that's just in the prologue, reminding us that many other refrains of the prologue come up here in John chapter 17 in high priestly, prayer, including the issue of truth, as we shall see in just a moment. That’s John 1:18, let’s look at John 12:45. Beginning, verse 44, we read “and Jesus cried out and said, ‘whoever believes in me believes not in me, but in him who sent me.’” So that's a helpful way to introduce this issue. And in verse 45, “‘and whoever sees me sees him who sent me. I've come into the world as light so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.’” The key there is verse 45, “whoever sees me, sees him who sent me.” So Jesus says this in chapter 12, it was said of him in chapter one. There have been other verses such as in chapter eight, where there are similar kinds of revelations concerning Christ and how he manifests the Father. No one can see the Father, but we can see the Son. No one can show the Father other than the Son, as the Son can, and the Son does, and the Son has. But then look at chapter 14, beginning in verse nine. Now, when we were just a few weeks ago in John chapter 14, we looked at this passage, but now looking backwards, it takes on an entirely new significance. “Philip said to him, ‘Lord, show us the father, and it is enough for us.’” Verse nine, “Jesus said to him, ‘have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, show us the Father? Do you not believe that I am in the Father? And the Father is in me, the words that I say to you, I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me, that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.’” The point here is that this far into the ministry of Jesus–and this is rather astounding–it's another indication by the way of the truthfulness of the gospels.   CS Lewis, responding to the theological liberalism and high supernaturalism of the early 20th century was responding in the British intellectual life to the fact that there were so many people who were borrowing German higher criticism to come back and say, “well, you know, the new Testament is mythological. The gospels are written as legends.” Lewis, who was a specialist, of course, in legends, he came back and said, “I spent my entire life studying legend. This isn't legend. Legend tells you things about people to pull out a completely orbed, developed character.” And he points out that that's not what the gospels do. The gospels do amazing things. One of the things that CS Lewis noted is that–and again, just thinking of him as a scholar of legend and myth–that’s what he did, especially ancient, medieval English literature.  He says, “I know legends. In a legend, you would not have Jesus write in the sand, for instance, in the story of the women caught in adultery. You wouldn't have Jesus with his finger right in the sand and leave it there. If it's legend, it's going to tell you what he wrote in the sand.” This is instead like a frustrating eyewitness account if you're looking at it for legend, because it's frustrating in the sense of what we're not told. We're not told a lot about Jesus. It's the most selective presentation of Jesus.  But Lewis said, “There’s another fact that if you are looking at legend, legend doesn't include corrections. It does include someone in the inner circle being corrected legend. Instead shows this constant growth and awareness, kind of agnostic development.” And here you have of all things in the very passage that we're looking at here, Philip at this point says, “just show us the father,” which is the most astounding thing. Now let's not be haughty, we might not even have been as sharp as Philip. But the point is, this is one of the proofs of the fact that we are actually tracking here in the life and ministry of Jesus, so, honestly, as Lewis said, “I know legend, this isn't legend.” So honestly, that we have Philip revealed this late in the gospel of John to have missed the whole point of the incarnation. Jesus, by the way, doesn't kick him out. But he does speak clearly, “Philip, how can you, how can you say to me, ‘show me the Father?’ If you see me, you see the Father.” So if you take those passages together from chapter 1, chapter 12 and chapter 14, you come to understand what Jesus has already said to us, but now he's speaking to the Father. He has said to us–and John has helped us to understand by speaking to us–that the Son has shown the Father, that to see the Son is to see the Father. Now, just remember that this is so astounding that we can't let this pass without reflecting on the fact that if you look through the Old Testament, Israel's singularity as God's covenant purpose was repeatedly defined as the fact that they heard God, but did not see him. The great contrast between the reality of the one true and living God and the idols of all the people around Israel is that the idols are mute. The idols don't speak. That's the sign of their futility. But God speaks in a passage like Deuteronomy 30.  Israel will be reminded of the time when they stood with their children there at the foot of the mountain, and they heard God's voice speak. And then Moses asked the question, “has any other people heard the voice of the Lord and survived?” Fascinating question. But God's grace and mercy to Israel was to allow Israel to hear him, but not to see him.  Even when you think of Moses asking to see God–and of course, Moses was hidden in the cleft of the rock, and God simply passed by, His spirit passed by. That's quite different than the incarnation. The incarnation is flesh and blood. The incarnation is baby in Bethlehem. The incarnation is boy in Nazareth. The incarnation is Jesus in Galilee, Jesus in Juda, Jesus in Jerusalem–this is incarnation. This is different. This is God showing himself, which is the one thing that in this sense, God did not and would not do except by Jesus. The arrogance of people to say, “God, if you will just show yourself to us.” And it's the arrogance in one sense, and the embarrassing nature of Philip’s question, but how many people around us are saying, “I’d believe in God, if I could just see him?”  How many people are actually operating out of the intellectual conceit? “You know, if God's real, then he would show himself to me. And I would believe Philip, ‘it will be enough for us. Lord, if you show us the Father.’”  “If I show you the Father? To see me is to see the Father.” But going back to John 17, the high priestly prayer is just an amazing little phrase in which Jesus says, “Mission accomplished. I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world.” Now that's something else. When we speak of the gospel, and we speak of the exclusivity of the gospel, it's an absolutely crucial, biblical New Testament teaching. There's only one way to the Father, and that's by the Son. Only one way by the Son, and that is by the knowledge of him. We would define that as saving faith, but there's also only one people redeemed. Now this is humbling. Maybe for us, it's a bit embarrassing, but it's not just that there's one savior. It's just that there's one church. There's one people. That becomes absolutely crucial in the I priestly prayer–so crucial that what shocks us is not that the text says that Jesus will speak of the church “saying these are mine,” but he makes the distinction himself. “If you're not one of these, you're not mine.” It's hard heard to talk after that. Actually, if all of human history is divided by the incarnation, then all of humanity is actually most fundamentally divided by those who belong to Christ And those who do not.  So the exclusivity of the gospel necessarily comes with the exclusivity of ecclesia. So when you see the ancient principle, “Outside the church, there's no salvation,” well, that's absolutely true, but outside the church, there's no Jesus. I don't think a lot of American evangelicals either know this or want to know this, and that's a shame. That's a weakness. It's an evasiveness on the part of many, because you say, “Well, what about all of humanity? Does God love all of humanity?” Well, in some sense he does, yes. God's benevolence is to all, he causes it to rain on the just and the unjust, and to all to whom he's given the gift of life, there is love that he shows even allowing that gift and in giving the good things of life and the habitation of planet earth, and even the common grace goods of family and marriage, and even the opportunity to work and to be a part of taking dominion.  The one who is not in Christ still receives God's benevolence, but God's redemptive love is demonstrated only to those who are Christ’s. And that's tough. So tough that throughout the recent centuries, groups of historic Christianity have been unable to hold it. Epecially in the 19th 20th centuries with the routine discovery of others–that is those who are other than us who believe differently than we do–a bit of intellectual hesitation came among some Christians to say, “well, how can we say, we're the only people of God? Look at these other people. They have their gods. Surely God must love them too. There must be some sense in which they're included in what the Roman Catholic church would call the ‘economy of salvation.’ Surely they must be included in some way.” And by the way, those, those questions are directly answered in scripture–directly answered. It's not so much that there's only one way. There is only one way, but it is that there is a way. From the Bible's perspective, you don't begin with all these groups who are at different points in a continuum on the race to get to salvation, it's that there is only actually one, one way of salvation. This is the oneness of the incarnation, the oneness of God saving purpose, the oneness of God's will, and there is nothing salvific outside  of that will, period, but there has been a compromise, a loss, a theological abdication. In the Protestant world, the Protestant liberalism came along and said, “well, we need to…” and by the way, this will show you how, if you're going to create a theology anything other than biblical, you're gonna make it in your own image. And, The people who are shaping that theology of Protestant liberalism were primarily Europeans and north Americans who said, “It’s a matter of greater and lesser lights.” Well, of course, they're not going to say Christianity is the lesser light, Christianity is the greater light. “And all these people that we meet with all their belief systems, they still have some light.  There may be salvation in that light, but it's not so likely as what will happen in Christianity.” And of course, this is the same time the history of religion school is developing in, in the German universities. It just says, “we're going to look at religion as a phenomena, phenomenology. We're going to say all religion is a thing. It's a human thing, different humans do religion differently. We're going tolook at it and say, ‘well, look at the commonalities.’”  Here's the problem: the closer you look, the fewer commonalities you find, and yet does God love all? well, yes. In some sense, benevolent, yes.  But his redemptive love, his mercy, his agape is towards those who are in Christ.  But how did we end up in Christ? That’s the other thing, how there's a bluntness and a concision to the way the gospel is defined right here in the high priesty prayer. And again, Jesus and the Father don't have to explain things to one another. Jesus is saying to the father, “Hey, explain this gospel to me once again.” Instead, there's merely affirmation,  and what what's called summative affirmation, that is to say is just a summary. This is just Jesus summarizing in his prayer to the Father affirmations that we desperately need to know. “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world.”  So how do we become Christ’s? This is of course the doctrine of election. You can see that immediately. It is that the Father has given a people to the Son. And when did this happen? Well it happened before the incarnation. As a matter of fact, given the timeline of what Jesus is saying here, it happened before the creation of the world. Before the creation of the world, God had already given. It's not just determined. It's not just what you rightly call election. God had given to the Son people who did not yet exist, a people who did not yet exist and, and notice exactly how Jesus speaks here in verse six, “I manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world.” Well, this is before the world exists. So there's already an “in the world and an out of the world” before there is a world. That is so helpful, and it reminds us of the fact that God's sovereign purpose in salvation, his sovereign purpose in the entire order of all things visible and invisible, is completely consistent. So who are those who belong to Christ? The ones that father given to him.How do you know who's been given to the Son? By the Father, because they're Christ people. It’s an unbroken form of reasoning here that Jesus simply articulates with the Father, but you'll also notice something else. It says “whom you gave me out of the world.” And again, that's where the world exists, but it makes this clear distinction between the church and the world. This too is something that causes us awkwardness: the fact that there's such a distinction between the church and the world–and that distinction is never more radical than in this prayer. It helps us to understand all the rest of scripture. It helps us to understand the gospel. But this is so radical as to say that the entire purpose for which the cosmos was created was for the gospel of redemption to take place and be accomplished cosmos in a universe, on a planet where God would, in the Son, bring glory to himself, through the redemption of sinners who belong to him because of the Father's grace. “And they are distinct from the world.” We are distinct from the world. We are out of the world. It doesn't feel like it's helpful for us. It doesn't feel like we're out of the world, but we actually are out of the world. By the way, one of the ways that this prayer helps us to affirm that we're out of the world and what that means is that out of the world, we're completely safe in Jesus. This explains so many of the hymns that we sing, so many of the glad affirmations that we share with one another. Nothing the world can do to us can separate us from the love of Christ. This gets back to the gift to the Son by the Father of his people, and notice what he says in the next phrase. “Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.” My goodness. So they belonged to the father, but the father gives this people to the Son, and the characteristic that is most important of them is, “and they have kept your word,” which means more than anything else believing it. So this gets back to the manifesting. Jesus says to the father, “I have manifested your name to them.” And now he says of those to whom he manifested, “they've kept your word.” So here's another thing about the people who are redeemed because they belong to the Father, and the Father has given us to the Son: we can't be separated from him, and we will keep the faith. This is true. So true, that it means anyonewho  does not keep the faith is not one of those given by the Father to the Son, because the distinctive of the ones given by the Father to the Son is that they keep the faith. They keep the word. “If you love me, keep my commandments.” And so at any point in human history, our eyes may deceive us as to who is in this people and who is in the world, but there's no confusion to the Father or the Son. There's even more in this particular verse. “Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you." So that now is very interesting. Now at the very end of his ministry as he's coming right up to the accomplishment of atonement by crucifixion to offer himself a sacrific, as a substitute for us. And speaking of us, he says, “now they know that you have given all this to me.” So the father gives, there's a lot of giving here. The father gives to the son the people. The father, having given the son to his people, the people having received the ministry of the son now come to know that all that they were given in the son is given by the father. Now, you say, “well, I get that. That's good theological logic. It's essential. And thank you that, that's helpful. We appreciate this text that helps to clarify things,” but just remember something else. This is in the context of old Testament expectation. It's in the context of Jewish understanding. And so now we are told that the only way to know the father is the son. And again, all of a sudden incidents from the gospel of John become very clear to us when there's Jewish opposition to Jesus and, and they claim to be the children of Moses. What does Jesus say? Jesus says, “Abraham knew me and believed.” So that means that there are people that belong to the father. The father is given to the son who have been long dead. The book of Hebrews helps to explain this. The book of Romans helps to explain this, just think about Abraham and in Romans chapter four. And we have to come back to this time and time again–we're told that Abraham believed, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. “Justification by faith,” Paul says, “is not a new concept. That’s Genesis. You should have seen it.” Hebrews 11 helps us to understand that they believed in Christ, but we often say that they had not seen him. But Jesus said Abraham did know him and believed. He made similar statements about Moses. But when you get to this point, you understand  just how tight the definitions are now coming. There are no redeemed people outside the people that the father has given to the son. These are redeemed people are identified first of all by how they came to be, and that's by the father's will, but also by what they see. They see the truth and believe. In verse eight–”for I've given them the words that you gave me and they have received them. And they have come to know in truth that I came from you and they believe that you sent me.” So the teaching ministry of Jesus becomes very clear in Jesus's revelation. It's not just in his body. It's not just on the cross. It's not just in the miracles, but it's in the words, these are the words Jesus gave. But how many times did we see in the gospel of John already, where Jesus said, “pay attention to my words. If you love me, then you will receive words. You'll believe my words. You will keep my commandments.” So the son here makes very clear that the words that he has given us are words he receives from the father. There's nothing else that we would come to understand out of this, the indivisibility the relationship between the father in the son. There’s not a crack in this invisibility. Again, those who are the redeemed people are evident because we believe that the father sent the son. And then in verse nine, this is the verse that is shocking and offensive to so many people. Jesus says, “I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.” Jesus says, “I'm not praying for the world.” I think that's the way we would have assumed this would go. Jesus, on the brink of the beginning moments of his hour, which includes his crucifixion and what he's doing on behalf of sinful humanity– this is where the average evangelical, I think looking at this would say, “well, Jesus would just pray the world, and say ‘I hope as many of them as possible come to faith in me. I hope that now, finally, they understand why I've come,’” but he doesn't even say that he doesn't even pray for them. Here's where we have to understand something that is absolutely essential to our identity in Christ, and that is that we are only redeemed because Christ is right now, our high priest, we are only redeemed because Christ perfectly fulfills three offices of prophet, and priest, and king. And you often hear many evangelicals say, “I don't need a priest.” Well, yes, you do. We are doomed and lost. We could never begin the Christian life, much less in the Christian life without a priest. There is no Christianity without the priest. There is no gospel without the priest. There is no salvation without the priest. Jesus is our priest. And what does Jesus do as our priest? He pray for us. He, right now in his session, the Latin word for sitting, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, the father almighty–in his session, he prays for us. He ever intercedes for us. And so even as he prays for us here in John chapter 17, he prays for us right now. We're only alive because Jesus Christ is our high priest. Right now, we're only able to do what we're doing because Jesus is now and forevermore our high priest, our identity in Christ, and our peace with the father is only possible, not only because of what Christ did for us on the cross and what God did and raising him from the dead, but it's only possible because right now we have prophet, priest, and king. We have a great high priest who sympathizes with us, the Scripture says. He prays for us, and the very first time we see that happen is right here in John chapter 17, on the brink of his consummate work of atonement, Jesus says to the father, “I am praying not for the world, but for those you've given me.” Now that raises another issue. That takes us back to where we were talking about the exclusivity of the gospel and the exclusivity of the church–does the coming of Jesus mean anything good for those who are not in him? Did any good thing come to the world by the incarnation of Christ? And the answer to that is yes. Yes. And  the most obvious “yes” is one we don't often think about. And that is the fact that history did not end when the earthly ministry of Jesus ended. So the very continuation of history and the outworking of God's plan means that there will be billions of people who will have life, who otherwise would never have had life. Does Jesus give anything to the world beyond salvation? And the answer is yes, there are people who have been greatly encouraged, illuminated by Jesus, but the confusion in all of that is that in sinfulness–Jesus is cut down to size. His person and his work are redefined. It is not the worship of Jesus in truth, because that comes only from the inside. The distinction between the world and the church is never more apparent in answering the question for whom does Christ pray? Period. To whom is Christ priest? Period. It's deeply, deeply humbling. The mercy of God is so clear here. Jesus says, “I'm not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours,” There's the “yours” again. “All mine are yours, and yours are mine. And I am glorified in them. I'm no longer in the world, but they are in the world.” What's going to happen in this shift that's coming in this next portion of the high priestly prayer is that Jesus is going to start praying for us concretely. He's going to be praying for us, who we are left in the world. He is not going to be in the world, but we are going to be in the world,  and he leaving us recognizes that we we would be like sheep without a shepherd. But actually we were like sheep without a shepherd before Jesus came. And after Jesus came, we're never in the risk of being sheep without a shepherd. Because number one, he is our good shepherd always. But then also, as he said, and he made this very clear just as we were walking up to the high priestly prayer, Jesus actually told his disciples, “it will be better for you when I am not with you, for I will send the Holy Spirit.” And the Holy Spirit, as we saw, will do a work which is absolutely essential for the church. So we're not being abandoned, but we are being left in the world. And Jesus understood the world. Of course, Jesus understood the world. The world's about to crucify him. “He came into his own,” as we know, from the prologue, “and his own received him not.” There's never more graphic a moment when his own received him not as in when his own demanded, “give us Barabbas,” and cried out, “crucify him,” which they did. Jesus is praying here, first in the intimacy of his relationship with the father, sharing truth about that relationship and about even the entirety of salvation, the otherwise wouldn't know. But Jesus is also here going to be praying for his disciples. And that is where we will turn when we're together again in the next Lord's day. But look at the transition, look at how it happened. “I'm praying for them. I'm not praying for the world, but for those whom you've given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I'm glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world.” Now, what he says in the next few words of verse 11 is, “and I am coming to you. Holy father, keep them in your name, which you've given me that they may be one, even as we are one.” Now it's to that passage that we will turn next week, but you'll notice how this transition comes. Jesus, as he's praying to the father, is no longer praying about the accomplishment of salvation, but the plight of his people left in the world, left in a world of hostility. Jesus said, “if they hated me, they'll hate you. Why do you think that a servant will be greater than his master? They're gonna drive you out of the synagogues. They're gonna hunt you down and they're going to kill you. You'd be safe, but nonetheless the antipathy of the world is real. “ This also reminds us, there's a world. If we're living in a context in which there is no antipathy from the world, there may be a lack of clarity on our part about Christ. I want to say as we're closing here this morning, all around us in the city of Louisville, people are doing what they do. As we come in this morning, we see people walking dogs and people doing the things many of them are doing on Sunday morning. They saw us come in here and they probably thought, “well, that's what those people do. Religious people going into the church. That's what religious people do.” Yet if they heard what we've just been talking about, they'd be horribly offended. I don't just mean a little bit offended. I mean horribly offended, because we just made the statement that the distinction is between those who are in Christ and those who are in the world. If you're not in Christ, then you are lost. Not only that Christ doesn't even pray for you. We just said it because the word just taught it. This really is dangerous. It's really true that if we teach the gospel with sufficient clarity, yes, there'll be people who will hear and believe that's the good news, but there's going to be a world that's going to hear us and say, “wait, just a minute. Anyone who will believe such a thing has no place in a democratic free society.” This wasn't an egalitarian, libertarian, personal autonomy inclusivist text. Jesus would say his ministry was none of those things. This gives the church absolutely no justification for pride. For one thing, it's going to be made very clear that we are so weak, that we would be prophetically destroyed by the world, but for the fact that we're protected by Christ, and that no one’s going to be able to take from the son those the father has given him. There's no ground for pride here. It reminds us of the fact that even as the entry into the gospel is personal faith, and even as we tell people about Jesus, knowing that if they believe they will be saved, the reality is that just back before the creation of the world, the identity of that people both in terms of the individuals, but the identity that people together was already established. That's humbling.  So what did you and I contribute to this? Nothing. Does that make our relationship with Christ any less real? No. Does it make it all the more gracious? Yes. Let's pray. Father, we come before you astounded by the fact that even as we are in the name of Christ, praying to you, Christ is always, evermore, everlastingly, without ceasing praying for us. Father, thank you. How we know we need Christ. How we know we need the prayer of Christ before you. We need a priest, father, and you've given us all the priests we need in the son, father. Thank you for allowing us entry into your relationship with the son and the son's love for you in these verses. As we continue, may you open our eyes as that we might see, and father, even as we will never be able to exhaust this text, we dare to pray that we would gain from our reading and knowledge and study this text, everything needful for us, for our sanctification and our salvation until you make us whole in Christ on that day. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2021/03/07/john-171-5/ Sun, 07 Mar 2021 12:00:37 +0000 Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series
March 7, 2021
 
 
Now again, we look to the sermon on the Mount in what we call the Lord's prayer, but we call it the Lord's prayer primarily because the church has referred to it in those terms. it's not referred to as the Lord's prayer in the text, it simply is the Lord's prayer and familiar to us. And you see the fact that most modern translations that have some kind of paragraph identification will put the Lord's prayer on it.
But it is believed that the earliest Christians refer to it as the Lord's prayer, because this was how the Lord taught his disciples to pray. And you'll recall that in the Gospel of Luke, the Lord's prayer comes when Jesus’ disciples come to him and say, ‘John taught his disciples how to pray, teach us also how to pray.’ So you assume that the disciples of John had John's prayer and this is the Lord's prayer, but as you look at it, you recognize that in his earthly incarnation Christ could pray every word of the Lord's prayer, except one portion of it. And that is the forgiveness of sins. He was sinless. That is to say he had no need of that prayer, that one line or phrase in the Lord's prayer reminds us of that. That was his prayer for us, not his own prayer as unto the Father.
But as you look to John chapter 17, it's a very different reality. And we are taken into something like 300 words of prayer between Jesus and the Father, that reveals an intimacy that is unparalleled anywhere in Scripture. It reveals a depth that is greater than anything most Christians imagine when thinking about this text. And it actually presents to us an entire Biblical theology.
And that's a part of what we're going to see and have the joy of seeing together. That is, there is no such prayer as an ordinary prayer between Jesus and the Father. There is no ordinary access to that prayer. This is extraordinary in every way, but it's also in the relationship between the Father and the Son extraordinary in that it is, and could well be called the prayer of obedience of the son. As he is preparing for the ultimate act of obedience to the Father in the Cross.
There are several ways to look at a text like this, and we paused even last week before entering into the High Priestly Prayer, because I believe the best way to study it, first is sequentially. Just taking the texts as we would take another text verse by verse and word by word.
But after that, we'll consider the prayer thematically. And, one of the things we'll look at after we look at the prayer, sequentially, are the gifts that are referenced. Gifts from the Son to the Father, Gifts from the Father to the Son. It's an extraordinary passage. It is also just in terms of theology, proper, the doctrine of God. This text takes us further into the depths of the Trinitarian mystery than any other text of Scripture. And so even though this text, as it is said in the English translation, probably doesn't put over the depths of the Trinity, that's actually what we're looking at. This is the greatest access we have and will ever have in Scripture to the inner Trinitarian relationship between the Father and the Son.
So it as the Lord will bless us, let's look to the text, to Scripture. John 17, verse one, “when Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted his eyes to heaven and said, father, the hour has come glorify your son, that the son may glorify you since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life that they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth. Having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.”
Five verses, and I'm struck even just reading it now, how much is here and how impossible it is to plumb the depths of this passage. But let's do our best to follow through what we are overhearing Jesus, pray to the Father.
Now we're told that this was as the Farewell Discourse had come to an end. Jesus' teaching of his disciples has come to an end.
That magnificent didactic passage which was not only didactic in the classical sense, but it was relational. Jesus is speaking to them, they're speaking to him. We have a sense of the dynamism of the farewell discourse and the experience of the disciples with Jesus. But now this is a very different, context.
Jesus had spoken those words, but then he lifted his eyes to heaven and said, and here's where the prayer begins. “Father, the hour has come.” Now, of course, this is one of the most significant phrases in the Gospel of John going all the way back, very, very early in the gospel. As we saw even last week.
When Jesus says ‘my hour has come”, he actually himself likens it unto the delivery of a child. And he does so in two ways, number one, everything's kind of before and after. And, yet once labor has begun, this is a process that has a conclusion. It is a process of urgency. And the woman who's expecting is looking forward to those pains of delivery. Once they begin, then here it is.
And, everything's going to be a before and after for Jesus. Of course, it's more eschatological than that. It's more teleological, there's a good theological word for that. And that it's not just about the birth of a child. It is about the salvation, the atonement that he is to accomplish.
But as hours come, this is why he came. The culmination of pregnancy is the delivery of the baby. The culmination of Christ’s messianic work is the atonement that he will now accomplish. And this sequence is now unfolding. This is a public event. Jesus will be arrested and he will be publicly crucified in Romans chapter three, the apostle Paul will speak of it as God putting Christ forth publicly as a propitiation. So now all the world is going to know all the world is going to see.
But as the prayer begins, he references the father, just as he taught us too, by the way, in what we call the Lord's prayer, “our Father, who is in heaven.” And we tend to kind of rush over that, but we just remind ourselves of the incredible truth that it makes perfect Trinitarian sense for Jesus to pray to the Father as Father. But it is only because Christ gives us the privilege of praying to God, his Father, that we also pray that way.
And so, even as I just began this morning and we naturally begin our prayers, we have no natural right to pray to God as father, It's a gift. Jesus prays by natural right. “Father, the hour’s come,” What will follow then? What makes sense will immediately follow. And you'll notice it's the words “glorify your Son, that the Son may glorify you.”
Well, this is the hour that's come. The hour of atonement, the hour of arrest, the hour of torture, the hour of crucifixion, the hour of burial, the hour of resurrection.
You know, what word would we use if we were trying theologically to cope with this? What word would we use to say, okay, here's the one word summary of what all that means. But in the radical nature of what is revealed to us here, the one word that describes all of this is probably the one word that we would not have conceived. And it's the word glory.
What is taking place and what will take place even in the immediate future as Jesus is praying this prayer to the father is an exchange of glory. And it turns out that this is in the economy of the Trinity. This is the greatest summation of the obedience of the Son to the Father. It is a mutuality of glory. It is the Son praying to the Father, glorify me that I may glorify you.
Now, here's something, again, we have to keep in mind, we use this language. And I've written a lot about this because it puzzled me as a young Christian to hear this language. And it didn't make sense. If God is infinite in his perfections and the Son shares in the perfections of the Father. And if God is all infinitely righteous, and just, and if he is also unchanging, and in other words, he's not more righteous and less righteous.
And then how can he be glorious and then more glorious? And actually, yeah, biblical theology helps to reveal that because God's intrinsic glory, doesn't change. His godness doesn't change, but the reflection of his glory, the knowledge, the consciousness of his glory amongst his creatures, does change.
And thus the glory of God is never more real and less real, but it is sometimes in creation, more visible and less visible. A part of the task of the church is to make the glory of God more visible. We're not adding glory to God that we can add anything to him, but we are making his glory more visible, more apparent, more known to the world.
But in the inner-Trinitarian relation between the Son and the Father, there's an exchange of glory of just this, I started to say cosmic significance, but that's an understatement. It's a trans cosmic reality. Where it’s said that each glorifies the other.
And it's the glory that will be explained to us later in the New Testament that also fits in the context of all that has come before. It is the glory of the obedience of the Son to the Father. It's not a good, healthy obedience, it's a perfect obedience.
You'll notice the sequence. Father, the hour has come, glorify your son, that the Son may glorify you. There's that exchange. And the son is praying to the father that he be glorified in order that he may glorify the Father. And again, it shows you that there is a, there's an order within the Godhead. And it is the Son who is praying to the Father here.
The words continue and the words get to, again, what in Biblical theology turns out to be pretty astounding. “Father, the hour has come to glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you since you have given him…” speaking of the Son of himself, “...authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.”
Alright. So now we have glory and then we have authority. And its authority of a particular nature. It's authority to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. Okay. We're two versus in.
Let's think about what we have here. Seeing the exchange of glory. You've seen the intimacy of the prayer. The hour has come.
But then in verse two, we are told that the father has given the son authority over all flesh. Now, before we see how that continues, we use that word so naturally. Authority. We use it to speak of parental authority, or the authority of the state or a Biblical authority. I mean, we speak of authority. We even call them plural. The authorities.
Well just, ‘did you notify the authorities?’ What is an authority? What does that mean? Well, it means one who rightly holds power, who rightly exercises power.
The more traditional use of a phrase like authority would be to someone referring to kings and princes. And, why do they hold power? What kind of power do they hold? It's rightful power. In other words, it's different than if somebody just stands up on the corner and says, I decree this, or I decree that. That's not authority, that's pathetic. Or a child, in the family saying, you know, I decree this, or I decree that, you know. A father looks at him and says, "Sit down." You know, that's a clarification of authority.
And, authority. It's not just power because power can come up here. Power can come up there. Power can be transient. Power can be permanent. Just in terms of earthly, even in the temporal sphere, there's lasting power. There's episodic power.
But authority is vested in power rightfully displayed. And then the question is: why rightful?, who rightful?
And of course in the political sphere, you do have prime ministers, and presidents, and princes, and kings, and queens.
In the church, we speak of the authority of the teaching office. And we understand that that's not an authority that’s ultimate. That's an authority, that’s delegated. It’s an authority in preaching the Word, but it's the word Itself that has the authority. And it's Christ who has the authority and the Church. Every human responsibility is a delegated responsibility. And it's like the Russian dolls, you know, the famous nesting dolls. And you know, eventually, there isn't any authority except the authority of the, author. In other words, the Biblical theology of authority is that the Creator actually owns everything.
BB Warfield, the Presbyterian theologian famous in the early 20th century. He said, "You know, the most basic thing you have to understand about the entire revelation of Scripture is that it begins and ends with God. He owns it in the beginning, in the middle, and in the end, it all belongs to him."
Every entity that is not God, exists only because of God, and is totally owned by God and a subservient to God. And not only that as Romans chapter 11 says, it's from him and to him and through him are all things. It's pointed to him. Its origins explained only in God, its ultimate destiny is explained only in God.
The Greek word ἐξουσία is the word for authority. And you have authority of the, as I say, the political nature, you have ultimately the authority of God and that's what's here. God has given Christ authority.
Well authority over whom or over what? Well, again, this goes back to the fact that John begins the gospel by telling us that he's the λογος of creation. So the Father created all that is, through the Son. In Colossians chapter one, the same creation theology will be made clear when we were told that he is over all things, all principalities and powers and everything that exists is under him.
But the Son has received that authority from the Father. Again, we have to be very careful in speaking of the inter-Trinitarian relationships, but we must be careful to come to know and to understand and affirm everything that Scripture tells us. And Scripture tells us that the authority of the Son’s, is a delegated authority from the Father, but it's that full delegated authority from the Father to whom does it extend to? All flesh. All flesh.
This is an astounding statement. And as you think about, again, just reading this text, this just reminds us that right now on planet earth, there is not a human being who is not now and will forever be and has forever been under the authority of Jesus Christ, the Son.
We speak of Christ’s authority in the church, and we say, well, Christ has authority over the Church. Now Christ actually has authority over all flesh period. Over, and of course by extension, the entire cosmos, every atom and molecule. And Paul makes that clear. For that matter, the Biblical theologies makes that clear because there is no atom or molecule that is a) finding its origin at anything other than God through the Son, and b) continuing to exist. Even as we are reminded that in him, all things hold together. He is before all things and in him, all things hold together. But coming down to human beings and that's the flesh that is referred to here, this is an explicit reference to humanity.
There is not a human being right now who is not under the authority of Christ. And that means that the distinction are those who know and acknowledge that they are under the authority of Christ and those who do not. Those who obey Christ and those who do not. Those who are gladly, submissively, faithfully, recognizing his lordship and those who deny it, don't know it and there's responsibility in not knowing it, according to Scripture.
But this authority has been given from the Father to the Son over all flesh. But there's a purpose to it “to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.” Again, just look at that one phrase. So here we have the Son praying about the exchange of glory that is to take place. He's praying for the Father, to glorify him, that he may glorify the Father, now that his hour has come. And then he explains this with since, so that's the tie in here. He's saying that this is what now makes sense. The hour’s come.
So now, since you have given him authority over all flesh, the next phrase is so important, to give eternal life to all you have given him to give eternal life. Eternal life. Again, we talk about this so often we need to step back and recognize what we're actually saying.
So let's think about biblical theology. Let’s go back to Genesis. God made Adam and he made Eve. And then he speaks to them in Genesis chapter three and his purpose for them and in creation and putting them in the garden. He explains to them, that they forever, under his lordship in the garden, that they forever enjoy everything in the garden. The fruit of every single tree save one.
But then he said, if you eat of this tree the very day you eat of it, you shall die. Now he didn't mean immediately be struck dead. He meant become mortal. You will now become death. As a way, you can almost translate that you will, the moment, the day you eat of that tree, you will become death.
Well, even beginning in John chapter one, we're told that the purpose of the Son is to come and give eternal life. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. He came into his own and his own received him not, but those who as many as received him to them gave the power the children, sons of God.
John chapter six, we have the very same thing, eternal life.
But before we get there, we have John chapter three, the most famous verse you remember from the New Testament. "For God So loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believed in him might not perish, but have eternal or everlasting life."
So here's the dichotomy, here's mortality. There's Adam and Eve, they did eat of that tree, and death did enter into them.
And then death becomes the human portion from that moment on. So we are now mortal, and doesn't it show that not only do we have mortality when we stand at the grave, as all of us will, again and again and again, we also have mortality, as the Apostle Paul says, in our bodies.
You know, you don't have to be a very good theologian, you don't have to know much theology to look at your own body and recognize, I'm dying. Now, of course, this is a dawning revelation. Because in the normal cycle of life, as the child grows and enters into adolescence, and then at a young adulthood, things are looking pretty good. Things are looking pretty good.
Generally, you know, you just have growth and growth and growth and growth and growth. I was talking to a father of several children, one of them, a son who's in the seventh grade. And, I saw a picture of him and I said, what happened?
And he said, seven inches just in COVID, boy's grown seven inches in COVID. It's been a very good pandemic for that boy.
You look at that, but then you think, you know, I, as a boy, I can remember growing like that, there's that enormous skeletal and other growth spurt. Things are looking really good. Good until things start looking the other way.
And then you realize I've got mortality everywhere I look. And not only that when my mother died and went to be with the Lord. Just a matter of almost exactly a month ago, people responded. And one of the ways people respond with love and care is to send flowers.
And by the way, there's something kind of natural about that. I mean, here's just a reminder. God loves you. Look what God made for you. Look at this, look at this. And so in the arranges we received, had flowers in it I didn't even know existed. It looked like Disney had created them. Dr. Seuss, oops, can't mention him now, but the amazing flowers, but we're at that stage in our house right now of deciding when we have to part with them because they are dead. They're dying. They're actually dead the moment they were cut off, but just wanted the appearance of life. They don't keep it. And I mentioned the seasons earlier because the seasons are a reminder of mortality as well and comes again and again.
Eternal life is such an astounding statement because those are two words that actually don't go together after Genesis 3, after the curse, after sin. Eternal life requires some kind of cosmic explanation. Then of course, that's what we have. How can we speak of eternal life? How can we even speak of the hope of eternal life? How can we speak to the reality of eternal life? It is because this is why the Son has come.
"For God so Loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. So that whosoever believes in him might not perish, but have everlasting life." And that everlasting life explained over and over again. Jesus has spoken about it. Now he's spoken, speaking about it to the Father, but it is to give eternal life to all whom you have given me. Now, this giftedness turns out to be the key to understanding their high priestly prayer of Jesus.
There are gifts the Son gives to the Father. There are gifts that the Father gives to the Son. And by the way, we are one of the gifts. This is amazing. You know, how is it that we are so honored that we are one of the gifts given by the Son to the Father? Only after the Father has given us to him. In the verses that we will read just shortly is going to be explained. Even in terms of separating all of humanity, basically into what turned out to be the two most fundamental groups. Those who are those, that the Father has given to the Son and the world.
That's going to be the language that Jesus uses in this prayer. That's the great division. That's the great separation. Those you have given me and the world. The language about God giving redeemed believers to the Son is so established by now in the gospel of John. Just consider
What we have read and looked at together in John chapter 6. "All the Father gives me will come to me. And the one who comes to me, I, by no means cast out. No one comes to me unless the Father draws him." And so, so it's this, it's this giftedness. And it just reminds us that this is prior to our hearing of the gospel. It's prior to us, it's actually prior to earth. It's just astounding.
Well, as a child, I learned to sing that little song. Jesus loves me, this I know for the Bible tells me so little ones to him belong. We are weak, but he is strong. How is it that we belong to Jesus? And you say, well, I can tell you, I came to faith in Christ then. No, no, no. Turns out that we belonged to Jesus before the cosmos was created. So much before that time is an impossible reference point here. But before the world was created, we belonged to Christ. It's astounding. It grounds us. Doesn't it?
I mean, this is where a Biblical theology, based upon what we see here; This breathtaking reality tells us that we can't be severed. We can't be severed from the Father. We can't be severed from Christ because after all we were given by the Father to the Son, before the creation of the entire cosmos.
Before the creation of the world, We were Christ’s. Well, before we knew it, we were Christ’s and this is it: Long after we can know it, We are Christ’s. At my mom's funeral, just a matter of couple weeks ago, I ended it by making reference to the song we sang, He will Hold Me Fast.
My mom had Alzheimer's disease. We lost her inch by inch. And then she died suddenly she'd been in good physical health. Mary and I had spent time with her in January. And, we're very thankful for that, given the virus context. So it was kind of a miracle in itself. We were able to spend that kind of time with her outside there at her facility in Florida. She did not know us. That is hard for son's heart, but she knew we were her people. And she definitely was very glad to be with us. She was at the point where I don't even think she recognized that she didn't really know how to put all the pieces together, but that was all right. The Lord gave us the time with her and then the word took her home.
But that, that song, and it's a contemporary version by Matt Merker that we sing. It's that amazing language, “He shall, or he will hold me fast.” And he holds us fast when we can't hold anything. And it really helps me to think about even Alzheimer's disease, because you know, if I'm holding myself to Christ, I'm in big trouble. I cannot hold myself to Christ in love. I can't, my heart just can't stay constant. I can't stay holding myself to Christ in obedience. I’m just too prone to disobedience and terms of sin conscious and unconscious. Sins of commission and sins of omission. The fact is we do have to pray that prayer, that the Lord taught us daily to pray for the forgiveness of sins. If I have to hold myself to Christ in energy or fervor, it just doesn't work because I don't have that much. Or it comes in spurts. If I have to hold myself to Christ in consciousness, then I'm in big trouble. I can't sleep and I can't get Alzheimer's disease. But if Christ is holding me, then not even Alzheimer's disease can sever me from him. But it's not just the crisis holding me.
It's that God has given me to Christ and nothing can separate me from him. And that's exactly the point that Jesus makes in John chapter 10. So, just look back just a few chapters to John chapter 10 and remember that's exactly what he said.
Let's look at verses 22 and following. Jesus is talking about being the, the good shepherd look in verse 27. "My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life and they will never perish. And no one will snatch them out of my hand, my Father who has given them to me is greater than all. And no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one."
So there again is that assurance: we've been given to the Son by the Father and those the Father gives to the Son can never be severed from him. No one can snatch us from his hand.
So the prayer is continuing.
Since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And then Jesus says, and this is eternal life that they know you. The only true God and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
So now we are told that eternal life is a knowledge. Now, of course it is more than that. But Jesus says, this is eternal life. That this is what eternal life is. It is a knowledge. It is that they know you. The only true God and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. Now it's easy for us to say “No, no, no, no, no, no. Okay. Let's try that and understand this. The entry into this is knowledge.” But no, that's not what the text says. The text says that eternal life is this knowledge. Now there's more to it than that. When you think about heaven and Christ kingdom and the consummation of all things, but the one word that defines that more than anything else is they unmitigated unmediated, immediate knowledge of God, the Father, and of Jesus Christ, whom he has sent.
And this is the biblical theology that follows all the way through the book of Revelation. And the book of Revelation describes the New Jerusalem, coming down from heaven. And you recall that there is no need for the sun and there is no need for the moon because the Father is as the sun is as the sun. And the Son is as the moon. So we have this direct light. We won't be in a cosmos in which we need a sun or a moon because we have the Father and the Son and the Father and the Son become to us the light. We no longer see through a glass darkly. We will see face-to-face in the sense that is defined by Biblical theology.
We will certainly see the Son face-to-face. The Son shows us the Father. It's an amazing passage. And this sneaks up on us.
This, he says, is eternal life. What do we expect to follow?
A kind of a definition of heaven or a definition of it like that is everlasting. No, it comes down to knowledge that they know you. The only true God and Jesus Christ to me, you have sent.
Then in the next verse, verse four, Christ says this. I glorified you on earth. Having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now Father glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
Just a few words, it's going to be a stretch, just to think about all of these words. I glorified you on earth. Again, John chapter one tells us of this theology of glory and how it is revealed to us. The Son came in order to glorify the father to bring his glory to earth. Now God's glory was already here, but this is the glory of the son in the midst of creation, the glory of the Logos, the, the very word of creation. This is the glory of the Father's Son. Now humbling himself to take on humanity.
"We have seen his glory; glory as of the only begotten of the Father. They're full of grace and truth." This glory, this visible expression and knowledge of the Father and of the Father's infinite greatness. This is brought to the earth by the Son. He has glorified God. To see Christ to see the Father is to see the glory of the Father.
This glory is all over Christmas. This is when we speak about the glory of Christmas, what is the glory of Christmas? This is the glory of the Son, coming into the world that he had made, in order to reveal what only he can reveal perfectly. And that is the glory of the Father.
And thus, you have angels singing about glory. You have shepherds speaking about glory. You have, you have the most, apparently inglorious people on the planet, talking about the most glorious event imaginable that unto us is born this day in the city of David, a savior who is Christ the Lord.
But in everything Jesus did in the entirety of his earthly ministry, it was all about glorifying the Father. It was constantly. Sometimes Jesus will say that, but even when Jesus is saying that, that's what it's all about. Everything he did, every miracle he performed, every word that he spoke at every that, that he prayed. It was all about glorifying the Father. And in this consummate mediatorial high priestly prayer, where Jesus speaks of glorifying the Father.
"I glorified you on earth having accomplished the work that you gave me to do."
So again, that's defined. So in what way, most importantly, in the relationship between the Son and the Father, did the Son glorify the Father honor on earth? It was by doing his well. By accomplishing his will. And we've also seen this where over and over again, Jesus says the Son has no will except to do the will of the Father in Jesus' earthly ministry.
It was all about the accomplishment, the demonstration of the will of the Father. And now the Son is mentioning this to his Father. And he's saying, I glorified you on earth by accomplishing your will. And now that Jesus’ hour has come, this is the ultimate moment of the accomplishment of the work that you gave me to do.
We speak to the person and the work of Christ. So does Christ. Notice that Christ speaks of the distinction between himself and his work. Now they are united in Christ or united in God's purpose. But, here, we have even Christ speaking about his work. Work that the father gave him to do. It was a work that would end in an hour and the hour has now come in the consummate events of the work that are now to be revealed. "And now Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed."
This is going to take a little thinking. We understand the first words here. He's saying, and now Father, this being the case, Father, glorify me. Now when Christ says glorify me, is he praying for what belongs to the Father and not to himself? He's praying here that the Father will, and language is lacking here, we're stretching ourselves for the language. He's praying that the Father will increase his own glory in the Son. In the events that are now to unfold, glorify me.
Well, if the Son’s existence is merely to glorify the Father, and in this reciprocity, he asked the Father to glorify him. It is, as we shall see in subsequent verses, in order that he may then give the Father even greater glory. But there's a sweetness here. And there's a cosmos shaking phrase here. I glorified you on earth. Having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now Father, glorify in your own presence.
Hmm. Glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. I was in a conversation with another theologian this week, about some contemporary issues, theology, and we both independently came to the conversation saying that we believed the great derailing of the theology in the church today in so many ways is the failure to ground everything; Every doctrine, every understanding, in creation. That is to say, not that there's nothing before creation. No, that's actually a part of what creation testifies to, even as we have it here. It is to say that the biblical story begins in creation, and thus, everything that's revealed in scripture has to be brought back to creation.
Paul gives us constant examples of how that is to take place. John does in this gospel provides us constant teaching how that is to take place. Jesus again, and again, shows us how that is to take place. But the most important thing about the Doctrine of Creation is that there was something before creation and that creation only takes place because the self existent sovereign God decreed that it should be. But God's story, so to speak, doesn't begin in creation. Our story begins at creation. The story of redemption accomplished begins at creation. But before the world existed, there was the Father and the Son. There was the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In the existence and intimacy, which is theirs alone. But at least a part of what we are given a vision of here, a sight of here, is that there is glory, given and received in the Trinity. The old English would say, “In the Godhead.” There is glory, given and received before the world exists.
In the existence they knew only amongst themselves. In the privacy of the Trinity, there was a reciprocity of glory. A part of what Christ forfeited in his humiliation in the incarnation was some of the reciprocity of glory that he had with the father before the incarnation. The two giant ‘before’ and ‘afters’ in biblical theology: we have to think of before and after creation. And then before and after incarnation. Before incarnation, there was a reciprocity of glory in the presence of the Father, the Son knew and has not known in the same way on earth.
Part of what he gave up in his condescension in his incarnation was what he hear prays about. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. That's all we know. This is where we are taken right up to the knowledge of something that is so far surpassing our understanding that we don't know. And we can't know. and we'll never know we will never know all that. It means for Christ to have prayed for the glory that he had with the Father in his presence before the world was created.
All, all we do know is that the glory of the Son now is even greater than it was before. The glory of the Son is now greater due to his accomplishment of all that the Father had given him the obedience and that. In Philippians chapter two, Paul tells us why the Father has given him the name Lord. That every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, the Father.
We're only in five verses, and the entire history of the world's been rewritten.
Our understanding of why Jesus came has actually been redefined because we want to say, okay, and this is where we have to end today. But just think about this because this is the way we will tell the story.
As Bible-believing Christians say by grace, if we get to tell the story the way we want to tell the story, it is this. God loved us so much that he sent us Jesus. Jesus died on the cross as a substitute for our sins. God raised him from the dead. Salvation comes to all who believe in him, who believe and repent of sins, salvation comes to them. And we're given the gift of eternal life and we can never re-sever from God. That's the Bible storyline, except it's not. No that’s a part of the Bible’s storyline.
But it's actually put in the Bible storyline as, as kind of a parenthetical statement. The Bible’s real Storyline is the Father and the Son glorifying one another with a greater glory yet to come/ When the Son forfeits some of that glory, the glory he knew with the Father, before the creation of the world, in order to come into the world. But there's an even greater glory in this inter-Trinitarian exchange and transaction of glory after Christ's perfect obedience. And when he ascends to the Father. This high priestly prayer reminds us that, it's all about the fact this greater glory that Christ now knows, is a glory of an enduring priesthood. Of a people who have been given to him by the Father before the world was created.
There's no risk that American Christians, or Christians of any age, when I think particularly of the church in the United States, are going to be shocked to find out that the gospel was a big story, is a big story. The problem is most American Christians have no clue how big a story this is.
But only the very threshold of his obedience to the Father, just five verses in, Jesus has given us an entire cosmology. And by the way, he has reminded us, and this is something that as you're walking on the sidewalks today, as you are seeing people today, regardless of what they're doing; How many of them have any understanding that the Great Before and After is, in this case, before the world was made? That the world is not a self-existing thing. The world constantly is telling us someone made this. There was someone before this. There will be something after this.
How many people recognize that the entire purpose of the cosmos is an exchange of glory between the Father and the Son? And let's admit something else: we wouldn't figure any of this out. We only know this because of the revelation of God in the Bible, but even more importantly, we only know it at this point because this prayer between the Son and the Father. Properly, this prayer of the Son to the Father is made known to us. Otherwise we would never know these things. And we're only five verses in.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 50:46 https://albertmohler.com/?p=54181 Audio, Exposition, John, John Series, Video noThird Avenue Baptist Church Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series March 7, 2021     Now again, we look to the sermon on the Mount in what we call the Lord's prayer, but we call it the Lord's prayer primarily because the church has referred to it in those terms. it's not referred to as the Lord's prayer in the text, it simply is the Lord's prayer and familiar to us. And you see the fact that most modern translations that have some kind of paragraph identification will put the Lord's prayer on it. But it is believed that the earliest Christians refer to it as the Lord's prayer, because this was how the Lord taught his disciples to pray. And you'll recall that in the Gospel of Luke, the Lord's prayer comes when Jesus’ disciples come to him and say, ‘John taught his disciples how to pray, teach us also how to pray.’ So you assume that the disciples of John had John's prayer and this is the Lord's prayer, but as you look at it, you recognize that in his earthly incarnation Christ could pray every word of the Lord's prayer, except one portion of it. And that is the forgiveness of sins. He was sinless. That is to say he had no need of that prayer, that one line or phrase in the Lord's prayer reminds us of that. That was his prayer for us, not his own prayer as unto the Father. But as you look to John chapter 17, it's a very different reality. And we are taken into something like 300 words of prayer between Jesus and the Father, that reveals an intimacy that is unparalleled anywhere in Scripture. It reveals a depth that is greater than anything most Christians imagine when thinking about this text. And it actually presents to us an entire Biblical theology. And that's a part of what we're going to see and have the joy of seeing together. That is, there is no such prayer as an ordinary prayer between Jesus and the Father. There is no ordinary access to that prayer. This is extraordinary in every way, but it's also in the relationship between the Father and the Son extraordinary in that it is, and could well be called the prayer of obedience of the son. As he is preparing for the ultimate act of obedience to the Father in the Cross. There are several ways to look at a text like this, and we paused even last week before entering into the High Priestly Prayer, because I believe the best way to study it, first is sequentially. Just taking the texts as we would take another text verse by verse and word by word. But after that, we'll consider the prayer thematically. And, one of the things we'll look at after we look at the prayer, sequentially, are the gifts that are referenced. Gifts from the Son to the Father, Gifts from the Father to the Son. It's an extraordinary passage. It is also just in terms of theology, proper, the doctrine of God. This text takes us further into the depths of the Trinitarian mystery than any other text of Scripture. And so even though this text, as it is said in the English translation, probably doesn't put over the depths of the Trinity, that's actually what we're looking at. This is the greatest access we have and will ever have in Scripture to the inner Trinitarian relationship between the Father and the Son. So it as the Lord will bless us, let's look to the text, to Scripture. John 17, verse one, “when Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted his eyes to heaven and said, father, the hour has come glorify your son, that the son may glorify you since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life that they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth. Having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.” Five verses, and I'm struck even just reading it now, how much is here and how impossible it is to plumb the depths of this passage. But let's do our best to follow through what we are overhearing Jesus, pray to the Father. Now we're told that this was as the Farewell Discourse had come to an end. Jesus' teaching of his disciples has come to an end. That magnificent didactic passage which was not only didactic in the classical sense, but it was relational. Jesus is speaking to them, they're speaking to him. We have a sense of the dynamism of the farewell discourse and the experience of the disciples with Jesus. But now this is a very different, context. Jesus had spoken those words, but then he lifted his eyes to heaven and said, and here's where the prayer begins. “Father, the hour has come.” Now, of course, this is one of the most significant phrases in the Gospel of John going all the way back, very, very early in the gospel. As we saw even last week. When Jesus says ‘my hour has come”, he actually himself likens it unto the delivery of a child. And he does so in two ways, number one, everything's kind of before and after. And, yet once labor has begun, this is a process that has a conclusion. It is a process of urgency. And the woman who's expecting is looking forward to those pains of delivery. Once they begin, then here it is. And, everything's going to be a before and after for Jesus. Of course, it's more eschatological than that. It's more teleological, there's a good theological word for that. And that it's not just about the birth of a child. It is about the salvation, the atonement that he is to accomplish. But as hours come, this is why he came. The culmination of pregnancy is the delivery of the baby. The culmination of Christ’s messianic work is the atonement that he will now accomplish. And this sequence is now unfolding. This is a public event. Jesus will be arrested and he will be publicly crucified in Romans chapter three, the apostle Paul will speak of it as God putting Christ forth publicly as a propitiation. So now all the world is going to know all the world is going to see. But as the prayer begins, he references the father, just as he taught us too, by the way, in what we call the Lord's prayer, “our Father, who is in heaven.” And we tend to kind of rush over that, but we just remind ourselves of the incredible truth that it makes perfect Trinitarian sense for Jesus to pray to the Father as Father. But it is only because Christ gives us the privilege of praying to God, his Father, that we also pray that way. And so, even as I just began this morning and we naturally begin our prayers, we have no natural right to pray to God as father, It's a gift. Jesus prays by natural right. “Father, the hour’s come,” What will follow then? What makes sense will immediately follow. And you'll notice it's the words “glorify your Son, that the Son may glorify you.” Well, this is the hour that's come. The hour of atonement, the hour of arrest, the hour of torture, the hour of crucifixion, the hour of burial, the hour of resurrection. You know, what word would we use if we were trying theologically to cope with this? What word would we use to say, okay, here's the one word summary of what all that means. But in the radical nature of what is revealed to us here, the one word that describes all of this is probably the one word that we would not have conceived. And it's the word glory. What is taking place and what will take place even in the immediate future as Jesus is praying this prayer to the father is an exchange of glory. And it turns out that this is in the economy of the Trinity. This is the greatest summation of the obedience of the Son to the Father. It is a mutuality of glory. It is the Son praying to the Father, glorify me that I may glorify you. Now, here's something, again, we have to keep in mind, we use this language. And I've written a lot about this because it puzzled me as a young Christian to hear this language. And it didn't make sense. If God is infinite in his perfections and the Son shares in the perfections of the Father. And if God is all infinitely righteous, and just, and if he is also unchanging, and in other words, he's not more righteous and less righteous. And then how can he be glorious and then more glorious? And actually, yeah, biblical theology helps to reveal that because God's intrinsic glory, doesn't change. His godness doesn't change, but the reflection of his glory, the knowledge, the consciousness of his glory amongst his creatures, does change. And thus the glory of God is never more real and less real, but it is sometimes in creation, more visible and less visible. A part of the task of the church is to make the glory of God more visible. We're not adding glory to God that we can add anything to him, but we are making his glory more visible, more apparent, more known to the world. But in the inner-Trinitarian relation between the Son and the Father, there's an exchange of glory of just this, I started to say cosmic significance, but that's an understatement. It's a trans cosmic reality. Where it’s said that each glorifies the other. And it's the glory that will be explained to us later in the New Testament that also fits in the context of all that has come before. It is the glory of the obedience of the Son to the Father. It's not a good, healthy obedience, it's a perfect obedience. You'll notice the sequence. Father, the hour has come, glorify your son, that the Son may glorify you. There's that exchange. And the son is praying to the father that he be glorified in order that he may glorify the Father. And again, it shows you that there is a, there's an order within the Godhead. And it is the Son who is praying to the Father here. The words continue and the words get to, again, what in Biblical theology turns out to be pretty astounding. “Father, the hour has come to glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you since you have given him…” speaking of the Son of himself, “...authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.” Alright. So now we have glory and then we have authority. And its authority of a particular nature. It's authority to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. Okay. We're two versus in. Let's think about what we have here. Seeing the exchange of glory. You've seen the intimacy of the prayer. The hour has come. But then in verse two, we are told that the father has given the son authority over all flesh. Now, before we see how that continues, we use that word so naturally. Authority. We use it to speak of parental authority, or the authority of the state or a Biblical authority. I mean, we speak of authority. We even call them plural. The authorities. Well just, ‘did you notify the authorities?’ What is an authority? What does that mean? Well, it means one who rightly holds power, who rightly exercises power. The more traditional use of a phrase like authority would be to someone referring to kings and princes. And, why do they hold power? What kind of power do they hold? It's rightful power. In other words, it's different than if somebody just stands up on the corner and says, I decree this, or I decree that. That's not authority, that's pathetic. Or a child, in the family saying, you know, I decree this, or I decree that, you know. A father looks at him and says, "Sit down." You know, that's a clarification of authority. And, authority. It's not just power because power can come up here. Power can come up there. Power can be transient. Power can be permanent. Just in terms of earthly, even in the temporal sphere, there's lasting power. There's episodic power. But authority is vested in power rightfully displayed. And then the question is: why rightful?, who rightful? And of course in the political sphere, you do have prime ministers, and presidents, and princes, and kings, and queens. In the church, we speak of the authority of the teaching office. And we understand that that's not an authority that’s ultimate. That's an authority, that’s delegated. It’s an authority in preaching the Word, but it's the word Itself that has the authority. And it's Christ who has the authority and the Church. Every human responsibility is a delegated responsibility. And it's like the Russian dolls, you know, the famous nesting dolls. And you know, eventually, there isn't any authority except the authority of the, author. In other words, the Biblical theology of authority is that the Creator actually owns everything. BB Warfield, the Presbyterian theologian famous in the early 20th century. He said, "You know, the most basic thing you have to understand about the entire revelation of Scripture is that it begins and ends with God. He owns it in the beginning, in the middle, and in the end, it all belongs to him." Every entity that is not God, exists only because of God, and is totally owned by God and a subservient to God. And not only that as Romans chapter 11 says, it's from him and to him and through him are all things. It's pointed to him. Its origins explained only in God, its ultimate destiny is explained only in God. The Greek word ἐξουσία is the word for authority. And you have authority of the, as I say, the political nature, you have ultimately the authority of God and that's what's here. God has given Christ authority. Well authority over whom or over what? Well, again, this goes back to the fact that John begins the gospel by telling us that he's the λογος of creation. So the Father created all that is, through the Son. In Colossians chapter one, the same creation theology will be made clear when we were told that he is over all things, all principalities and powers and everything that exists is under him. But the Son has received that authority from the Father. Again, we have to be very careful in speaking of the inter-Trinitarian relationships, but we must be careful to come to know and to understand and affirm everything that Scripture tells us. And Scripture tells us that the authority of the Son’s, is a delegated authority from the Father, but it's that full delegated authority from the Father to whom does it extend to? All flesh. All flesh. This is an astounding statement. And as you think about, again, just reading this text, this just reminds us that right now on planet earth, there is not a human being who is not now and will forever be and has forever been under the authority of Jesus Christ, the Son. We speak of Christ’s authority in the church, and we say, well, Christ has authority over the Church. Now Christ actually has authority over all flesh period. Over, and of course by extension, the entire cosmos, every atom and molecule. And Paul makes that clear. For that matter, the Biblical theologies makes that clear because there is no atom or molecule that is a) finding its origin at anything other than God through the Son, and b) continuing to exist. Even as we are reminded that in him, all things hold together. He is before all things and in him, all things hold together. But coming down to human beings and that's the flesh that is referred to here, this is an explicit reference to humanity. There is not a human being right now who is not under the authority of Christ. And that means that the distinction are those who know and acknowledge that they are under the authority of Christ and those who do not. Those who obey Christ and those who do not. Those who are gladly, submissively, faithfully, recognizing his lordship and those who deny it, don't know it and there's responsibility in not knowing it, according to Scripture. But this authority has been given from the Father to the Son over all flesh. But there's a purpose to it “to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.” Again, just look at that one phrase. So here we have the Son praying about the exchange of glory that is to take place. He's praying for the Father, to glorify him, that he may glorify the Father, now that his hour has come. And then he explains this with since, so that's the tie in here. He's saying that this is what now makes sense. The hour’s come. So now, since you have given him authority over all flesh, the next phrase is so important, to give eternal life to all you have given him to give eternal life. Eternal life. Again, we talk about this so often we need to step back and recognize what we're actually saying. So let's think about biblical theology. Let’s go back to Genesis. God made Adam and he made Eve. And then he speaks to them in Genesis chapter three and his purpose for them and in creation and putting them in the garden. He explains to them, that they forever, under his lordship in the garden, that they forever enjoy everything in the garden. The fruit of every single tree save one. But then he said, if you eat of this tree the very day you eat of it, you shall die. Now he didn't mean immediately be struck dead. He meant become mortal. You will now become death. As a way, you can almost translate that you will, the moment, the day you eat of that tree, you will become death. Well, even beginning in John chapter one, we're told that the purpose of the Son is to come and give eternal life. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. He came into his own and his own received him not, but those who as many as received him to them gave the power the children, sons of God. John chapter six, we have the very same thing, eternal life. But before we get there, we have John chapter three, the most famous verse you remember from the New Testament. "For God So loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believed in him might not perish, but have eternal or everlasting life." So here's the dichotomy, here's mortality. There's Adam and Eve, they did eat of that tree, and death did enter into them. And then death becomes the human portion from that moment on. So we are now mortal, and doesn't it show that not only do we have mortality when we stand at the grave, as all of us will, again and again and again, we also have mortality, as the Apostle Paul says, in our bodies. You know, you don't have to be a very good theologian, you don't have to know much theology to look at your own body and recognize, I'm dying. Now, of course, this is a dawning revelation. Because in the normal cycle of life, as the child grows and enters into adolescence, and then at a young adulthood, things are looking pretty good. Things are looking pretty good. Generally, you know, you just have growth and growth and growth and growth and growth. I was talking to a father of several children, one of them, a son who's in the seventh grade. And, I saw a picture of him and I said, what happened? And he said, seven inches just in COVID, boy's grown seven inches in COVID. It's been a very good pandemic for that boy. You look at that, but then you think, you know, I, as a boy, I can remember growing like that, there's that enormous skeletal and other growth spurt. Things are looking really good. Good until things start looking the other way. And then you realize I've got mortality everywhere I look. And not only that when my mother died and went to be with the Lord. Just a matter of almost exactly a month ago, people responded. And one of the ways people respond with love and care is to send flowers. And by the way, there's something kind of natural about that. I mean, here's just a reminder. God loves you. Look what God made for you. Look at this, look at this. And so in the arranges we received, had flowers in it I didn't even know existed. It looked like Disney had created them. Dr. Seuss, oops, can't mention him now, but the amazing flowers, but we're at that stage in our house right now of deciding when we have to part with them because they are dead. They're dying. They're actually dead the moment they were cut off, but just wanted the appearance of life. They don't keep it. And I mentioned the seasons earlier because the seasons are a reminder of mortality as well and comes again and again. Eternal life is such an astounding statement because those are two words that actually don't go together after Genesis 3, after the curse, after sin. Eternal life requires some kind of cosmic explanation. Then of course, that's what we have. How can we speak of eternal life? How can we even speak of the hope of eternal life? How can we speak to the reality of eternal life? It is because this is why the Son has come. "For God so Loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. So that whosoever believes in him might not perish, but have everlasting life." And that everlasting life explained over and over again. Jesus has spoken about it. Now he's spoken, speaking about it to the Father, but it is to give eternal life to all whom you have given me. Now, this giftedness turns out to be the key to understanding their high priestly prayer of Jesus. There are gifts the Son gives to the Father. There are gifts that the Father gives to the Son. And by the way, we are one of the gifts. This is amazing. You know, how is it that we are so honored that we are one of the gifts given by the Son to the Father? Only after the Father has given us to him. In the verses that we will read just shortly is going to be explained. Even in terms of separating all of humanity, basically into what turned out to be the two most fundamental groups. Those who are those, that the Father has given to the Son and the world. That's going to be the language that Jesus uses in this prayer. That's the great division. That's the great separation. Those you have given me and the world. The language about God giving redeemed believers to the Son is so established by now in the gospel of John. Just consider What we have read and looked at together in John chapter 6. "All the Father gives me will come to me. And the one who comes to me, I, by no means cast out. No one comes to me unless the Father draws him." And so, so it's this, it's this giftedness. And it just reminds us that this is prior to our hearing of the gospel. It's prior to us, it's actually prior to earth. It's just astounding. Well, as a child, I learned to sing that little song. Jesus loves me, this I know for the Bible tells me so little ones to him belong. We are weak, but he is strong. How is it that we belong to Jesus? And you say, well, I can tell you, I came to faith in Christ then. No, no, no. Turns out that we belonged to Jesus before the cosmos was created. So much before that time is an impossible reference point here. But before the world was created, we belonged to Christ. It's astounding. It grounds us. Doesn't it? I mean, this is where a Biblical theology, based upon what we see here; This breathtaking reality tells us that we can't be severed. We can't be severed from the Father. We can't be severed from Christ because after all we were given by the Father to the Son, before the creation of the entire cosmos. Before the creation of the world, We were Christ’s. Well, before we knew it, we were Christ’s and this is it: Long after we can know it, We are Christ’s. At my mom's funeral, just a matter of couple weeks ago, I ended it by making reference to the song we sang, He will Hold Me Fast. My mom had Alzheimer's disease. We lost her inch by inch. And then she died suddenly she'd been in good physical health. Mary and I had spent time with her in January. And, we're very thankful for that, given the virus context. So it was kind of a miracle in itself. We were able to spend that kind of time with her outside there at her facility in Florida. She did not know us. That is hard for son's heart, but she knew we were her people. And she definitely was very glad to be with us. She was at the point where I don't even think she recognized that she didn't really know how to put all the pieces together, but that was all right. The Lord gave us the time with her and then the word took her home. But that, that song, and it's a contemporary version by Matt Merker that we sing. It's that amazing language, “He shall, or he will hold me fast.” And he holds us fast when we can't hold anything. And it really helps me to think about even Alzheimer's disease, because you know, if I'm holding myself to Christ, I'm in big trouble. I cannot hold myself to Christ in love. I can't, my heart just can't stay constant. I can't stay holding myself to Christ in obedience. I’m just too prone to disobedience and terms of sin conscious and unconscious. Sins of commission and sins of omission. The fact is we do have to pray that prayer, that the Lord taught us daily to pray for the forgiveness of sins. If I have to hold myself to Christ in energy or fervor, it just doesn't work because I don't have that much. Or it comes in spurts. If I have to hold myself to Christ in consciousness, then I'm in big trouble. I can't sleep and I can't get Alzheimer's disease. But if Christ is holding me, then not even Alzheimer's disease can sever me from him. But it's not just the crisis holding me. It's that God has given me to Christ and nothing can separate me from him. And that's exactly the point that Jesus makes in John chapter 10. So, just look back just a few chapters to John chapter 10 and remember that's exactly what he said. Let's look at verses 22 and following. Jesus is talking about being the, the good shepherd look in verse 27. "My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life and they will never perish. And no one will snatch them out of my hand, my Father who has given them to me is greater than all. And no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one." So there again is that assurance: we've been given to the Son by the Father and those the Father gives to the Son can never be severed from him. No one can snatch us from his hand. So the prayer is continuing. Since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And then Jesus says, and this is eternal life that they know you. The only true God and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. So now we are told that eternal life is a knowledge. Now, of course it is more than that. But Jesus says, this is eternal life. That this is what eternal life is. It is a knowledge. It is that they know you. The only true God and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. Now it's easy for us to say “No, no, no, no, no, no. Okay. Let's try that and understand this. The entry into this is knowledge.” But no, that's not what the text says. The text says that eternal life is this knowledge. Now there's more to it than that. When you think about heaven and Christ kingdom and the consummation of all things, but the one word that defines that more than anything else is they unmitigated unmediated, immediate knowledge of God, the Father, and of Jesus Christ, whom he has sent. And this is the biblical theology that follows all the way through the book of Revelation. And the book of Revelation describes the New Jerusalem, coming down from heaven. And you recall that there is no need for the sun and there is no need for the moon because the Father is as the sun is as the sun. And the Son is as the moon. So we have this direct light. We won't be in a cosmos in which we need a sun or a moon because we have the Father and the Son and the Father and the Son become to us the light. We no longer see through a glass darkly. We will see face-to-face in the sense that is defined by Biblical theology. We will certainly see the Son face-to-face. The Son shows us the Father. It's an amazing passage. And this sneaks up on us. This, he says, is eternal life. What do we expect to follow? A kind of a definition of heaven or a definition of it like that is everlasting. No, it comes down to knowledge that they know you. The only true God and Jesus Christ to me, you have sent. Then in the next verse, verse four, Christ says this. I glorified you on earth. Having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now Father glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. Just a few words, it's going to be a stretch, just to think about all of these words. I glorified you on earth. Again, John chapter one tells us of this theology of glory and how it is revealed to us. The Son came in order to glorify the father to bring his glory to earth. Now God's glory was already here, but this is the glory of the son in the midst of creation, the glory of the Logos, the, the very word of creation. This is the glory of the Father's Son. Now humbling himself to take on humanity. "We have seen his glory; glory as of the only begotten of the Father. They're full of grace and truth." This glory, this visible expression and knowledge of the Father and of the Father's infinite greatness. This is brought to the earth by the Son. He has glorified God. To see Christ to see the Father is to see the glory of the Father. This glory is all over Christmas. This is when we speak about the glory of Christmas, what is the glory of Christmas? This is the glory of the Son, coming into the world that he had made, in order to reveal what only he can reveal perfectly. And that is the glory of the Father. And thus, you have angels singing about glory. You have shepherds speaking about glory. You have, you have the most, apparently inglorious people on the planet, talking about the most glorious event imaginable that unto us is born this day in the city of David, a savior who is Christ the Lord. But in everything Jesus did in the entirety of his earthly ministry, it was all about glorifying the Father. It was constantly. Sometimes Jesus will say that, but even when Jesus is saying that, that's what it's all about. Everything he did, every miracle he performed, every word that he spoke at every that, that he prayed. It was all about glorifying the Father. And in this consummate mediatorial high priestly prayer, where Jesus speaks of glorifying the Father. "I glorified you on earth having accomplished the work that you gave me to do." So again, that's defined. So in what way, most importantly, in the relationship between the Son and the Father, did the Son glorify the Father honor on earth? It was by doing his well. By accomplishing his will. And we've also seen this where over and over again, Jesus says the Son has no will except to do the will of the Father in Jesus' earthly ministry. It was all about the accomplishment, the demonstration of the will of the Father. And now the Son is mentioning this to his Father. And he's saying, I glorified you on earth by accomplishing your will. And now that Jesus’ hour has come, this is the ultimate moment of the accomplishment of the work that you gave me to do. We speak to the person and the work of Christ. So does Christ. Notice that Christ speaks of the distinction between himself and his work. Now they are united in Christ or united in God's purpose. But, here, we have even Christ speaking about his work. Work that the father gave him to do. It was a work that would end in an hour and the hour has now come in the consummate events of the work that are now to be revealed. "And now Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed." This is going to take a little thinking. We understand the first words here. He's saying, and now Father, this being the case, Father, glorify me. Now when Christ says glorify me, is he praying for what belongs to the Father and not to himself? He's praying here that the Father will, and language is lacking here, we're stretching ourselves for the language. He's praying that the Father will increase his own glory in the Son. In the events that are now to unfold, glorify me. Well, if the Son’s existence is merely to glorify the Father, and in this reciprocity, he asked the Father to glorify him. It is, as we shall see in subsequent verses, in order that he may then give the Father even greater glory. But there's a sweetness here. And there's a cosmos shaking phrase here. I glorified you on earth. Having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now Father, glorify in your own presence. Hmm. Glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. I was in a conversation with another theologian this week, about some contemporary issues, theology, and we both independently came to the conversation saying that we believed the great derailing of the theology in the church today in so many ways is the failure to ground everything; Every doctrine, every understanding, in creation. That is to say, not that there's nothing before creation. No, that's actually a part of what creation testifies to, even as we have it here. It is to say that the biblical story begins in creation, and thus, everything that's revealed in scripture has to be brought back to creation. Paul gives us constant examples of how that is to take place. John does in this gospel provides us constant teaching how that is to take place. Jesus again, and again, shows us how that is to take place. But the most important thing about the Doctrine of Creation is that there was something before creation and that creation only takes place because the self existent sovereign God decreed that it should be. But God's story, so to speak, doesn't begin in creation. Our story begins at creation. The story of redemption accomplished begins at creation. But before the world existed, there was the Father and the Son. There was the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In the existence and intimacy, which is theirs alone. But at least a part of what we are given a vision of here, a sight of here, is that there is glory, given and received in the Trinity. The old English would say, “In the Godhead.” There is glory, given and received before the world exists. In the existence they knew only amongst themselves. In the privacy of the Trinity, there was a reciprocity of glory. A part of what Christ forfeited in his humiliation in the incarnation was some of the reciprocity of glory that he had with the father before the incarnation. The two giant ‘before’ and ‘afters’ in biblical theology: we have to think of before and after creation. And then before and after incarnation. Before incarnation, there was a reciprocity of glory in the presence of the Father, the Son knew and has not known in the same way on earth. Part of what he gave up in his condescension in his incarnation was what he hear prays about. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. That's all we know. This is where we are taken right up to the knowledge of something that is so far surpassing our understanding that we don't know. And we can't know. and we'll never know we will never know all that. It means for Christ to have prayed for the glory that he had with the Father in his presence before the world was created. All, all we do know is that the glory of the Son now is even greater than it was before. The glory of the Son is now greater due to his accomplishment of all that the Father had given him the obedience and that. In Philippians chapter two, Paul tells us why the Father has given him the name Lord. That every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, the Father. We're only in five verses, and the entire history of the world's been rewritten. Our understanding of why Jesus came has actually been redefined because we want to say, okay, and this is where we have to end today. But just think about this because this is the way we will tell the story. As Bible-believing Christians say by grace, if we get to tell the story the way we want to tell the story, it is this. God loved us so much that he sent us Jesus. Jesus died on the cross as a substitute for our sins. God raised him from the dead. Salvation comes to all who believe in him, who believe and repent of sins, salvation comes to them. And we're given the gift of eternal life and we can never re-sever from God. That's the Bible storyline, except it's not. No that’s a part of the Bible’s storyline. But it's actually put in the Bible storyline as, as kind of a parenthetical statement. The Bible’s real Storyline is the Father and the Son glorifying one another with a greater glory yet to come/ When the Son forfeits some of that glory, the glory he knew with the Father, before the creation of the world, in order to come into the world. But there's an even greater glory in this inter-Trinitarian exchange and transaction of glory after Christ's perfect obedience. And when he ascends to the Father. This high priestly prayer reminds us that, it's all about the fact this greater glory that Christ now knows, is a glory of an enduring priesthood. Of a people who have been given to him by the Father before the world was created. There's no risk that American Christians, or Christians of any age, when I think particularly of the church in the United States, are going to be shocked to find out that the gospel was a big story, is a big story. The problem is most American Christians have no clue how big a story this is. But only the very threshold of his obedience to the Father, just five verses in, Jesus has given us an entire cosmology. And by the way, he has reminded us, and this is something that as you're walking on the sidewalks today, as you are seeing people today, regardless of what they're doing; How many of them have any understanding that the Great Before and After is, in this case, before the world was made? That the world is not a self-existing thing. The world constantly is telling us someone made this. There was someone before this. There will be something after this. How many people recognize that the entire purpose of the cosmos is an exchange of glory between the Father and the Son? And let's admit something else: we wouldn't figure any of this out. We only know this because of the revelation of God in the Bible, but even more importantly, we only know it at this point because this prayer between the Son and the Father. Properly, this prayer of the Son to the Father is made known to us. Otherwise we would never know these things. And we're only five verses in. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.Third Avenue Baptist Church Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series March 7, 2021     Now again, we look to the sermon on the Mount in what we call the Lord's prayer, but we call it the Lord's prayer primarily because the church has referred to it in those terms. it's not referred to as the Lord's prayer in the text, it simply is the Lord's prayer and familiar to us. And you see the fact that most modern translations that have some kind of paragraph identification will put the Lord's prayer on it. But it is believed that the earliest Christians refer to it as the Lord's prayer, because this was how the Lord taught his disciples to pray. And you'll recall that in the Gospel of Luke, the Lord's prayer comes when Jesus’ disciples come to him and say, ‘John taught his disciples how to pray, teach us also how to pray.’ So you assume that the disciples of John had John's prayer and this is the Lord's prayer, but as you look at it, you recognize that in his earthly incarnation Christ could pray every word of the Lord's prayer, except one portion of it. And that is the forgiveness of sins. He was sinless. That is to say he had no need of that prayer, that one line or phrase in the Lord's prayer reminds us of that. That was his prayer for us, not his own prayer as unto the Father. But as you look to John chapter 17, it's a very different reality. And we are taken into something like 300 words of prayer between Jesus and the Father, that reveals an intimacy that is unparalleled anywhere in Scripture. It reveals a depth that is greater than anything most Christians imagine when thinking about this text. And it actually presents to us an entire Biblical theology. And that's a part of what we're going to see and have the joy of seeing together. That is, there is no such prayer as an ordinary prayer between Jesus and the Father. There is no ordinary access to that prayer. This is extraordinary in every way, but it's also in the relationship between the Father and the Son extraordinary in that it is, and could well be called the prayer of obedience of the son. As he is preparing for the ultimate act of obedience to the Father in the Cross. There are several ways to look at a text like this, and we paused even last week before entering into the High Priestly Prayer, because I believe the best way to study it, first is sequentially. Just taking the texts as we would take another text verse by verse and word by word. But after that, we'll consider the prayer thematically. And, one of the things we'll look at after we look at the prayer, sequentially, are the gifts that are referenced. Gifts from the Son to the Father, Gifts from the Father to the Son. It's an extraordinary passage. It is also just in terms of theology, proper, the doctrine of God. This text takes us further into the depths of the Trinitarian mystery than any other text of Scripture. And so even though this text, as it is said in the English translation, probably doesn't put over the depths of the Trinity, that's actually what we're looking at. This is the greatest access we have and will ever have in Scripture to the inner Trinitarian relationship between the Father and the Son. So it as the Lord will bless us, let's look to the text, to Scripture. John 17, verse one, “when Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted his eyes to heaven and said, father, the hour has come glorify your son, that the son may glorify you since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life that they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth. Having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.” Five verses, and I'm struck even just reading it now, how much is here and how impossible it is to plumb the depths of this passage. But let's do our best to follow through what we are overhearing Jesus, pray to the Father. Now we're told that this was as the Farewell Discourse had come to an end. Jesus' teaching of his disciples has come to an end. That magnificent didactic passage which was not only didactic in the classical sense, but it was relational. Jesus is speaking to them, they're speaking to him. We have a sense of the dynamism of the farewell discourse and the experience of the disciples with Jesus. But now this is a very different, context. Jesus had spoken those words, but then he lifted his eyes to heaven and said, and here's where the prayer begins. “Father, the hour has come.” Now, of course, this is one of the most significant phrases in the Gospel of John going all the way back, very, very early in the gospel. As we saw even last week. When Jesus says ‘my hour has come”, he actually himself likens it unto the delivery of a child. And he does so in two ways, number one, everything's kind of before and after. And, yet once labor has begun, this is a process that has a conclusion. It is a process of urgency. And the woman who's expecting is looking forward to those pains of delivery. Once they begin, then here it is. And, everything's going to be a before and after for Jesus. Of course, it's more eschatological than that. It's more teleological, there's a good theological word for that. And that it's not just about the birth of a child. It is about the salvation, the atonement that he is to accomplish. But as hours come, this is why he came. The culmination of pregnancy is the delivery of the baby. The culmination of Christ’s messianic work is the atonement that he will now accomplish. And this sequence is now unfolding. This is a public event. Jesus will be arrested and he will be publicly crucified in Romans chapter three, the apostle Paul will speak of it as God putting Christ forth publicly as a propitiation. So now all the world is going to know all the world is going to see. But as the prayer begins, he references the father, just as he taught us too, by the way, in what we call the Lord's prayer, “our Father, who is in heaven.” And we tend to kind of rush over that, but we just remind ourselves of the incredible truth that it makes perfect Trinitarian sense for Jesus to pray to the Father as Father. But it is only because Christ gives us the privilege of praying to God, his Father, that we also pray that way. And so, even as I just began this morning and we naturally begin our prayers, we have no natural right to pray to God as father, It's a gift. Jesus prays by natural right. “Father, the hour’s come,” What will follow then? What makes sense will immediately follow. And you'll notice it's the words “glorify your Son, that the Son may glorify you.” Well, this is the hour that's come. The hour of atonement, the hour of arrest, the hour of torture, the hour of crucifixion, the hour of burial, the hour of resurrection. You know, what word would we use if we were trying theologically to cope with this? What word would we use to say, okay, here's the one word summary of what all that means. But in the radical nature of what is revealed to us here, the one word that describes all of this is probably the one word that we would not have conceived. And it's the word glory. What is taking place and what will take place even in the immediate future as Jesus is praying this prayer to the father is an exchange of glory. And it turns out that this is in the economy of the Trinity. This is the greatest summation of the obedience of the Son to the Father. It is a mutuality of glory. It is the Son praying to the Father, glorify me that I may glorify you. Now, here's something, again, we have to keep in mind, we use this language. And I've written a lot about this because it puzzled me as a young Christian to hear this language. And it didn't make sense. If God is infinite in his perfections and the Son shares in the perfections of the Father. And if God is all infinitely righteous, and just, and if he is also unchanging, and in other words, he's not more righteous and less righteous. And then how can he be glorious and then more glorious? And actually, yeah, biblical theology helps to reveal that because God's intrinsic glory, doesn't change. His godness doesn't change, but the reflection of his glory, the knowledge, the consciousness of his glory amongst his creatures, does change. And thus the glory of God is never more real and less real, but it is sometimes in creation, more visible and less visible. A part of the task of the church is to make the glory of God more visible. We're not adding glory to God that we can add anything to him, but we are making his glory more visible, more apparent, more known to the world. But in the inner-Trinitarian relation between the Son and the Father, there's an exchange of glory of just this, I started to say cosmic significance, but that's an understatement. It's a trans cosmic reality. Where it’s said that each glorifies the other. And it's the glory that will be explained to us later in the New Testament that also fits in the context of all that has come before. It is the glory of the obedience of the Son to the Father. It's not a good, healthy obedience, it's a perfect obedience. You'll notice the sequence. Father, the hour has come, glorify your son, that the Son may glorify you. There's that exchange. And the son is praying to the father that he be glorified in order that he may glorify the Father. And again, it shows you that there is a, there's an order within the Godhead. And it is the Son who is praying to the Father here. The words continue and the words get to, again, what in Biblical theology turns out to be pretty astounding. “Father, the hour has come to glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you since you have given him…” speaking of the Son of himself, “...authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.” Alright. So now we have glory and then we have authority. And its authority of a particular nature. It's authority to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. Okay. We're two versus in. Let's think about what we have here. Seeing the exchange of glory. You've seen the intimacy of the prayer. The hour has come. But then in verse two, we are told that the father has given the son authority over all flesh. Now, before we see how that continues, we use that word so naturally. Authority. We use it to speak of parental authority, or the authority of the state or a Biblical authority. I mean, we speak of authority. We even call them plural. The authorities. Well just, ‘did you notify the authorities?’ What is an authority? What does that mean? Well, it means one who rightly holds power, who rightly exercises power. The more traditional use of a phrase like authority would be to someone referring to kings and princes. And, why do they hold power? What kind of power do they hold? It's rightful power. In other words, it's different than if somebody just stands up on the corner and says, I decree this, or I decree that. That's not authority, that's pathetic. Or a child, in the family saying, you know, I decree this, or I decree that, you know. A father looks at him and says, "Sit down." You know, that's a clarification of authority. And, authority. It's not just power because power can come up here. Power can come up there. Power can be transient. Power can be permanent. Just in terms of earthly, even in the temporal sphere, there's lasting power. There's episodic power. But authority is vested in power rightfully displayed. And then the question is: why rightful?, who rightful? And of course in the political sphere, you do have prime ministers, and presidents, and princes, and kings, and queens. In the church, we speak of the authority of the teaching office. And we understand that that's not an authority that’s ultimate. That's an authority, that’s delegated. It’s an authority in preaching the Word, but it's the word Itself that has the authority. And it's Christ who has the authority and the Church. Every human responsibility is a delegated responsibility. And it's like the Russian dolls, you know, the famous nesting dolls. And you know, eventually, there isn't any authority except the authority of the, author. In other words, the Biblical theology of authority is that the Creator actually owns everything. BB Warfield, the Presbyterian theologian famous in the early 20th century. He said, "You know, the most basic thing you have to understand about the entire revelation of Scripture is that it begins and ends with God. He owns it in the beginning, in the middle, and in the end, it all belongs to him." Every entity that is not God, exists only because of God, and is totally owned by God and a subservient to God. And not only that as Romans chapter 11 says, it's from him and to him and through him are all things. It's pointed to him. Its origins explained only in God, its ultimate destiny is explained only in God. The Greek word ἐξουσία is the word for authority. And you have authority of the, as I say, the political nature, you have ultimately the authority of God and that's what's here. God has given Christ authority. Well authority over whom or over what? Well, again, this goes back to the fact that John begins the gospel by telling us that he's the λογος of creation. So the Father created all that is, through the Son. In Colossians chapter one, the same creation theology will be made clear when we were told that he is over all things, all principalities and powers and everything that exists is under him. But the Son has received that authority from the Father. Again, we have to be very careful in speaking of the inter-Trinitarian relationships, but we must be careful to come to know and to understand and affirm everything that Scripture tells us. And Scripture tells us that the authority of the Son’s, is a delegated authority from the Father, but it's that full delegated authority from the Father to whom does it extend to? All flesh. All flesh. This is an astounding statement. And as you think about, again, just reading this text, this just reminds us that right now on planet earth, there is not a human being who is not now and will forever be and has forever been under the authority of Jesus Christ, the Son. We speak of Christ’s authority in the church, and we say, well, Christ has authority over the Church. Now Christ actually has authority over all flesh period. Over, and of course by extension, the entire cosmos, every atom and molecule. And Paul makes that clear. For that matter, the Biblical theologies makes that clear because there is no atom or molecule that is a) finding its origin at anything other than God through the Son, and b) continuing to exist. Even as we are reminded that in him, all things hold together. He is before all things and in him, all things hold together. But coming down to human beings and that's the flesh that is referred to here, this is an explicit reference to humanity. There is not a human being right now who is not under the authority of Christ. And that means that the distinction are those who know and acknowledge that they are under the authority of Christ and those who do not. Those who obey Christ and those who do not. Those who are gladly, submissively, faithfully, recognizing his lordship and those who deny it, don't know it and there's responsibility in not knowing it, according to Scripture. But this authority has been given from the Father to the Son over all flesh. But there's a purpose to it “to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.” Again, just look at that one phrase. So here we have the Son praying about the exchange of glory that is to take place. He's praying for the Father, to glorify him, that he may glorify the Father, now that his hour has come. And then he explains this with since, so that's the tie in here. He's saying that this is what now makes sense. The hour’s come. So now, since you have given him authority over all flesh, the next phrase is so important, to give eternal life to all you have given him to give eternal life. Eternal life. Again, we talk about this so often we need to step back and recognize what we're actually saying. So let's think about biblical theology. Let’s go back to Genesis. God made Adam and he made Eve. And then he speaks to them in Genesis chapter three and his purpose for them and in creation and putting them in the garden. He explains to them, that they forever, under his lordship in the garden, that they forever enjoy everything in the garden. The fruit of every single tree save one. But then he said, if you eat of this tree the very day you eat of it, you shall die. Now he didn't mean immediately be struck dead. He meant become mortal. You will now become death. As a way, you can almost translate that you will, the moment, the day you eat of that tree, you will become death. Well, even beginning in John chapter one, we're told that the purpose of the Son is to come and give eternal life. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. He came into his own and his own received him not, but those who as many as received him to them gave the power the children, sons of God. John chapter six, we have the very same thing, eternal life. But before we get there, we have John chapter three, the most famous verse you remember from the New Testament. "For God So loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believed in him might not perish, but have eternal or everlasting life." So here's the dichotomy, here's mortality. There's Adam and Eve, they did eat of that tree, and death did enter into them. And then death becomes the human portion from that moment on. So we are now mortal, and doesn't it show that not only do we have mortality when we stand at the grave, as all of us will, again and again and again, we also have mortality, as the Apostle Paul says, in our bodies. You know, you don't have to be a very good theologian, you don't have to know much theology to look at your own body and recognize, I'm dying. Now, of course, this is a dawning revelation. Because in the normal cycle of life, as the child grows and enters into adolescence, and then at a young adulthood, things are looking pretty good. Things are looking pretty good. Generally, you know, you just have growth and growth and growth and growth and growth. I was talking to a father of several children, one of them, a son who's in the seventh grade. And, I saw a picture of him and I said, what happened? And he said, seven inches just in COVID, boy's grown seven inches in COVID. It's been a very good pandemic for that boy. You look at that, but then you think, you know, I, as a boy, I can remember growing like that, there's that enormous skeletal and other growth spurt. Things are looking really good. Good until things start looking the other way. And then you realize I've got mortality everywhere I look. And not only that when my mother died and went to be with the Lord. Just a matter of almost exactly a month ago, people responded. And one of the ways people respond with love and care is to send flowers. And by the way, there's something kind of natural about that. I mean, here's just a reminder. God loves you. Look what God made for you. Look at this, look at this. And so in the arranges we received, had flowers in it I didn't even know existed. It looked like Disney had created them. Dr. Seuss, oops, can't mention him now, but the amazing flowers, but we're at that stage in our house right now of deciding when we have to part with them because they are dead. They're dying. They're actually dead the moment they were cut off, but just wanted the appearance of life. They don't keep it. And I mentioned the seasons earlier because the seasons are a reminder of mortality as well and comes again and again. Eternal life is such an astounding statement because those are two words that actually don't go together after Genesis 3, after the curse, after sin. Eternal life requires some kind of cosmic explanation. Then of course, that's what we have. How can we speak of eternal life? How can we even speak of the hope of eternal life? How can we speak to the reality of eternal life? It is because this is why the Son has come. "For God so Loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. So that whosoever believes in him might not perish, but have everlasting life." And that everlasting life explained over and over again. Jesus has spoken about it. Now he's spoken, speaking about it to the Father, but it is to give eternal life to all whom you have given me. Now, this giftedness turns out to be the key to understanding their high priestly prayer of Jesus. There are gifts the Son gives to the Father. There are gifts that the Father gives to the Son. And by the way, we are one of the gifts. This is amazing. You know, how is it that we are so honored that we are one of the gifts given by the Son to the Father? Only after the Father has given us to him. In the verses that we will read just shortly is going to be explained. Even in terms of separating all of humanity, basically into what turned out to be the two most fundamental groups. Those who are those, that the Father has given to the Son and the world. That's going to be the language that Jesus uses in this prayer. That's the great division. That's the great separation. Those you have given me and the world. The language about God giving redeemed believers to the Son is so established by now in the gospel of John. Just consider What we have read and looked at together in John chapter 6. "All the Father gives me will come to me. And the one who comes to me, I, by no means cast out. No one comes to me unless the Father draws him." And so, so it's this, it's this giftedness. And it just reminds us that this is prior to our hearing of the gospel. It's prior to us, it's actually prior to earth. It's just astounding. Well, as a child, I learned to sing that little song. Jesus loves me, this I know for the Bible tells me so little ones to him belong. We are weak, but he is strong. How is it that we belong to Jesus? And you say, well, I can tell you, I came to faith in Christ then. No, no, no. Turns out that we belonged to Jesus before the cosmos was created. So much before that time is an impossible reference point here. But before the world was created, we belonged to Christ. It's astounding. It grounds us. Doesn't it? I mean, this is where a Biblical theology, based upon what we see here; This breathtaking reality tells us that we can't be severed. We can't be severed from the Father. We can't be severed from Christ because after all we were given by the Father to the Son, before the creation of the entire cosmos. Before the creation of the world, We were Christ’s. Well, before we knew it, we were Christ’s and this is it: Long after we can know it, We are Christ’s. At my mom's funeral, just a matter of couple weeks ago, I ended it by making reference to the song we sang, He will Hold Me Fast. My mom had Alzheimer's disease. We lost her inch by inch. And then she died suddenly she'd been in good physical health. Mary and I had spent time with her in January. And, we're very thankful for that, given the virus context. So it was kind of a miracle in itself. We were able to spend that kind of time with her outside there at her facility in Florida. She did not know us. That is hard for son's heart, but she knew we were her people. And she definitely was very glad to be with us. She was at the point where I don't even think she recognized that she didn't really know how to put all the pieces together, but that was all right. The Lord gave us the time with her and then the word took her home. But that, that song, and it's a contemporary version by Matt Merker that we sing. It's that amazing language, “He shall, or he will hold me fast.” And he holds us fast when we can't hold anything. And it really helps me to think about even Alzheimer's disease, because you know, if I'm holding myself to Christ, I'm in big trouble. I cannot hold myself to Christ in love. I can't, my heart just can't stay constant. I can't stay holding myself to Christ in obedience. I’m just too prone to disobedience and terms of sin conscious and unconscious. Sins of commission and sins of omission. The fact is we do have to pray that prayer, that the Lord taught us daily to pray for the forgiveness of sins. If I have to hold myself to Christ in energy or fervor, it just doesn't work because I don't have that much. Or it comes in spurts. If I have to hold myself to Christ in consciousness, then I'm in big trouble. I can't sleep and I can't get Alzheimer's disease. But if Christ is holding me, then not even Alzheimer's disease can sever me from him. But it's not just the crisis holding me. It's that God has given me to Christ and nothing can separate me from him. And that's exactly the point that Jesus makes in John chapter 10. So, just look back just a few chapters to John chapter 10 and remember that's exactly what he said. Let's look at verses 22 and following. Jesus is talking about being the, the good shepherd look in verse 27. "My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life and they will never perish. And no one will snatch them out of my hand, my Father who has given them to me is greater than all. And no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one." So there again is that assurance: we've been given to the Son by the Father and those the Father gives to the Son can never be severed from him. No one can snatch us from his hand. So the prayer is continuing. Since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And then Jesus says, and this is eternal life that they know you. The only true God and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. So now we are told that eternal life is a knowledge. Now, of course it is more than that. But Jesus says, this is eternal life. That this is what eternal life is. It is a knowledge. It is that they know you. The only true God and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. Now it's easy for us to say “No, no, no, no, no, no. Okay. Let's try that and understand this. The entry into this is knowledge.” But no, that's not what the text says. The text says that eternal life is this knowledge. Now there's more to it than that. When you think about heaven and Christ kingdom and the consummation of all things, but the one word that defines that more than anything else is they unmitigated unmediated, immediate knowledge of God, the Father, and of Jesus Christ, whom he has sent. And this is the biblical theology that follows all the way through the book of Revelation. And the book of Revelation describes the New Jerusalem, coming down from heaven. And you recall that there is no need for the sun and there is no need for the moon because the Father is as the sun is as the sun. And the Son is as the moon. So we have this direct light. We won't be in a cosmos in which we need a sun or a moon because we have the Father and the Son and the Father and the Son become to us the light. We no longer see through a glass darkly. We will see face-to-face in the sense that is defined by Biblical theology. We will certainly see the Son face-to-face. The Son shows us the Father. It's an amazing passage. And this sneaks up on us. This, he says, is eternal life. What do we expect to follow? A kind of a definition of heaven or a definition of it like that is everlasting. No, it comes down to knowledge that they know you. The only true God and Jesus Christ to me, you have sent. Then in the next verse, verse four, Christ says this. I glorified you on earth. Having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now Father glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. Just a few words, it's going to be a stretch, just to think about all of these words. I glorified you on earth. Again, John chapter one tells us of this theology of glory and how it is revealed to us. The Son came in order to glorify the father to bring his glory to earth. Now God's glory was already here, but this is the glory of the son in the midst of creation, the glory of the Logos, the, the very word of creation. This is the glory of the Father's Son. Now humbling himself to take on humanity. "We have seen his glory; glory as of the only begotten of the Father. They're full of grace and truth." This glory, this visible expression and knowledge of the Father and of the Father's infinite greatness. This is brought to the earth by the Son. He has glorified God. To see Christ to see the Father is to see the glory of the Father. This glory is all over Christmas. This is when we speak about the glory of Christmas, what is the glory of Christmas? This is the glory of the Son, coming into the world that he had made, in order to reveal what only he can reveal perfectly. And that is the glory of the Father. And thus, you have angels singing about glory. You have shepherds speaking about glory. You have, you have the most, apparently inglorious people on the planet, talking about the most glorious event imaginable that unto us is born this day in the city of David, a savior who is Christ the Lord. But in everything Jesus did in the entirety of his earthly ministry, it was all about glorifying the Father. It was constantly. Sometimes Jesus will say that, but even when Jesus is saying that, that's what it's all about. Everything he did, every miracle he performed, every word that he spoke at every that, that he prayed. It was all about glorifying the Father. And in this consummate mediatorial high priestly prayer, where Jesus speaks of glorifying the Father. "I glorified you on earth having accomplished the work that you gave me to do." So again, that's defined. So in what way, most importantly, in the relationship between the Son and the Father, did the Son glorify the Father honor on earth? It was by doing his well. By accomplishing his will. And we've also seen this where over and over again, Jesus says the Son has no will except to do the will of the Father in Jesus' earthly ministry. It was all about the accomplishment, the demonstration of the will of the Father. And now the Son is mentioning this to his Father. And he's saying, I glorified you on earth by accomplishing your will. And now that Jesus’ hour has come, this is the ultimate moment of the accomplishment of the work that you gave me to do. We speak to the person and the work of Christ. So does Christ. Notice that Christ speaks of the distinction between himself and his work. Now they are united in Christ or united in God's purpose. But, here, we have even Christ speaking about his work. Work that the father gave him to do. It was a work that would end in an hour and the hour has now come in the consummate events of the work that are now to be revealed. "And now Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed." This is going to take a little thinking. We understand the first words here. He's saying, and now Father, this being the case, Father, glorify me. Now when Christ says glorify me, is he praying for what belongs to the Father and not to himself? He's praying here that the Father will, and language is lacking here, we're stretching ourselves for the language. He's praying that the Father will increase his own glory in the Son. In the events that are now to unfold, glorify me. Well, if the Son’s existence is merely to glorify the Father, and in this reciprocity, he asked the Father to glorify him. It is, as we shall see in subsequent verses, in order that he may then give the Father even greater glory. But there's a sweetness here. And there's a cosmos shaking phrase here. I glorified you on earth. Having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now Father, glorify in your own presence. Hmm. Glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. I was in a conversation with another theologian this week, about some contemporary issues, theology, and we both independently came to the conversation saying that we believed the great derailing of the theology in the church today in so many ways is the failure to ground everything; Every doctrine, every understanding, in creation. That is to say, not that there's nothing before creation. No, that's actually a part of what creation testifies to, even as we have it here. It is to say that the biblical story begins in creation, and thus, everything that's revealed in scripture has to be brought back to creation. Paul gives us constant examples of how that is to take place. John does in this gospel provides us constant teaching how that is to take place. Jesus again, and again, shows us how that is to take place. But the most important thing about the Doctrine of Creation is that there was something before creation and that creation only takes place because the self existent sovereign God decreed that it should be. But God's story, so to speak, doesn't begin in creation. Our story begins at creation. The story of redemption accomplished begins at creation. But before the world existed, there was the Father and the Son. There was the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In the existence and intimacy, which is theirs alone. But at least a part of what we are given a vision of here, a sight of here, is that there is glory, given and received in the Trinity. The old English would say, “In the Godhead.” There is glory, given and received before the world exists. In the existence they knew only amongst themselves. In the privacy of the Trinity, there was a reciprocity of glory. A part of what Christ forfeited in his humiliation in the incarnation was some of the reciprocity of glory that he had with the father before the incarnation. The two giant ‘before’ and ‘afters’ in biblical theology: we have to think of before and after creation. And then before and after incarnation. Before incarnation, there was a reciprocity of glory in the presence of the Father, the Son knew and has not known in the same way on earth. Part of what he gave up in his condescension in his incarnation was what he hear prays about. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. That's all we know. This is where we are taken right up to the knowledge of something that is so far surpassing our understanding that we don't know. And we can't know. and we'll never know we will never know all that. It means for Christ to have prayed for the glory that he had with the Father in his presence before the world was created. All, all we do know is that the glory of the Son now is even greater than it was before. The glory of the Son is now greater due to his accomplishment of all that the Father had given him the obedience and that. In Philippians chapter two, Paul tells us why the Father has given him the name Lord. That every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, the Father. We're only in five verses, and the entire history of the world's been rewritten. Our understanding of why Jesus came has actually been redefined because we want to say, okay, and this is where we have to end today. But just think about this because this is the way we will tell the story. As Bible-believing Christians say by grace, if we get to tell the story the way we want to tell the story, it is this. God loved us so much that he sent us Jesus. Jesus died on the cross as a substitute for our sins. God raised him from the dead. Salvation comes to all who believe in him, who believe and repent of sins, salvation comes to them. And we're given the gift of eternal life and we can never re-sever from God. That's the Bible storyline, except it's not. No that’s a part of the Bible’s storyline. But it's actually put in the Bible storyline as, as kind of a parenthetical statement. The Bible’s real Storyline is the Father and the Son glorifying one another with a greater glory yet to come/ When the Son forfeits some of that glory, the glory he knew with the Father, before the creation of the world, in order to come into the world. But there's an even greater glory in this inter-Trinitarian exchange and transaction of glory after Christ's perfect obedience. And when he ascends to the Father. This high priestly prayer reminds us that, it's all about the fact this greater glory that Christ now knows, is a glory of an enduring priesthood. Of a people who have been given to him by the Father before the world was created. There's no risk that American Christians, or Christians of any age, when I think particularly of the church in the United States, are going to be shocked to find out that the gospel was a big story, is a big story. The problem is most American Christians have no clue how big a story this is. But only the very threshold of his obedience to the Father, just five verses in, Jesus has given us an entire cosmology. And by the way, he has reminded us, and this is something that as you're walking on the sidewalks today, as you are seeing people today, regardless of what they're doing; How many of them have any understanding that the Great Before and After is, in this case, before the world was made? That the world is not a self-existing thing. The world constantly is telling us someone made this. There was someone before this. There will be something after this. How many people recognize that the entire purpose of the cosmos is an exchange of glory between the Father and the Son? And let's admit something else: we wouldn't figure any of this out. We only know this because of the revelation of God in the Bible, but even more importantly, we only know it at this point because this prayer between the Son and the Father. Properly, this prayer of the Son to the Father is made known to us. Otherwise we would never know these things. And we're only five verses in. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2021/02/28/john-1616-33/ Sun, 28 Feb 2021 12:00:38 +0000 Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series
February 28, 2021
We're in John chapter 16. And after we pray, we'll begin in verse 16 of chapter 16, as we are seeing the groundwork laid for the high priestly prayer of Jesus coming in John 17, let's pray. 
Father, we're just so thankful that you give us what we need. And, that means sun and sometimes it means rain. And Father, you knew that now we need rain. Thank you for giving it to us. Thank you for watering the earth. How many people throughout history have had to pray in a time of drought for the gift of even a drop of water. Thank you for watering us abundantly. Thank you for giving us your Lord. May we feast on your Word this hour, and we pray your Holy Spirit will apply the Word to our hearts. Even as the Holy Spirit, he inspired John to write this gospel. Father, we pray that all of this will come full circle in increase through us for your glory. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ. Our Lord, amen. 
The Farewell Discourse of Jesus is ending. And as we have to remind ourselves, this is one conversation. It's one very long conversation and it's not just conversational, in the sense that every once in a while you do see the disciple ask a question, It is didactic. It's pastoral. It's didactic, in the sense that it's teaching. This is Jesus telling them things. It's like a final briefing. It's like a general before an army goes to war. It's a final briefing. Things are about to happen that he's been trying to tell the Disciples now for what we might say is three years. You look at the gospel of John and, and you look in the very beginning until now. How many times has Jesus spoken about his hour that's coming? Now sometimes he says it negatively. My hour is not yet come. 
And so if his hour is not yet come, then his hour is coming. And of course, then what is his hour? Well, it's the culmination of his earthly ministry, but it isn't come yet. His hour has not yet come, but it's coming, it's coming. It is not at all clear that the disciples had any sense of a timetable and of any quickening of that timetable. And of any immanence of this hour that is coming. Furthermore, Jesus has told them things that will make sense in retrospect. And they only make sense to us because we've read the gospel of John and we know these things and the disciples don't. We're going into a passage right now in which the disciples at one level seem to understand what Jesus means. And yet they still don't seem to understand his timetable. 
Now he has told them that one of them will betray him. This is back in chapter 13 and, and he has spoken to those issues happening. But here in John chapter 16, where we had just seen Jesus speak the gift to the Holy Spirit last week, we were in that amazing passage earlier in this chapter where Jesus says it is better for you, that I go for I am sending the helper. So we're looking at, in salvation history, one of these great hinge moments, it's like salvation history is a symphony and, and there's a climactic movement coming, but we're right in the central movement, that is the hinge in which everything turns the incarnation of the Lord, Jesus Christ, his accomplished mission. And, and then there's another age coming, the age of the church when Jesus will ascend to the Father, he will leave the disciples, but the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send and he will send will be with us. As you look to verse 16, Jesus says a little while, and you will see me no longer and again, a little while, and you will see me. So some of his disciples said to one another, what is this? He says to us a little while, and you will not see me and again, a little while, and you will see me and because I'm going to the Father. So they were saying, what does he mean by a little while? We do not know what he is talking about. 
The joy of having children, little, little children, preschool children, children, just learning to talk and minds just soaking everything up. The joy of that is that they ask the questions they want to ask. And you say something and they don't understand it, they’ll say something like that. Grandchildren turn out to do the same. And Benjamin and Henry, Benjamin's five, Henry's two. We were FaceTiming with them while we were in Florida for my mother's funeral. They had been in Florida with us earlier in the month of January. And we're just FaceTiming. And it came up that we were in Florida and Benjamin just said, what'd you mean you were in Florida? Like, it can't be, you were just in Florida, you weren't in Florida anymore. How can you be back in Florida? This doesn't make any sense. What do you mean you're in Florida?
Well, this is like the disciple saying what'd you mean this little while? What does he mean? A little while I won't be with you and then a little while I'll be with you. What's he mean now? The amazing thing is that this has been said before in chapter 13. In chapter 13, verse 33, Jesus said to them a little while, and I will not be with you. And then in a little while you will see me and it's this little while see me, little while not see me. And the interesting again, is that the disciples asking the question is actually in the text. 
So they went on and spoke. So they were saying, what does he mean by a little while? We do not know what he's talking about. So again, very honest, the disciples don't know what he's talking about. And you want to look there at chapter 16 and say, how can you not know what he's talking about? But then again, just humbly realize we would be in the same position as they are, because we only know what Jesus is talking about because we know the rest of the story. In verse 19 we’re told Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him. So he said to them, “Is this what you were asking yourselves? What I meant by saying ‘a little while, and you will not see me and again a little while, and you will see me’ truly, truly I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. 
You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn to joy. When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow. Her hour has come. But when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish for joy, that a human being has been born into the world. So also you will, you have sorrow now, but I will see you again. And your hearts will rejoice and no one will take your joy from you. And that day you'll ask nothing of me, truly, truly I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now, you've asked nothing in my name asking, you'll receive that your joy may be full.” So Jesus knows in himself what they're asking. You see the same thing in John chapter six, Jesus knows what they're thinking. 
And so he speaks right into their thinking. He knows what they're asking. And so he even repeats himself. I know this is what you're asking about, but then he doesn't exactly answer it. Not, immediately. It's kind of like going up to a child and saying, I know this is what you're asking about. Well, let me tell you about this and Jesus uses the example of a woman in childbirth. But even as he's speaking to them, beginning in verse 19, he says, this is it. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn to joy. But even as you weep and lament, the world will rejoice. 
So when Jesus is tried and when he is crucified, he says the world's gonna rejoice. And he means by that, of course, the powers that be. The powers of evil, he means those who will seek to take his life. He means those who believe that their political and social power will be protected, if Jesus is gone, those who hate him. And as Jesus has said, hating him will hate his disciples. They will rejoice in his death. And, and we see that. This is done. We put him out of the way, but he says, even as the world will rejoice and you're filled with sorrow, you will be filled with joy. And that's just made very clear. And he refers to what is going to happen and his hour. And he even uses that expression. He, when her hour has come. Now, all of a sudden doesn't that clarify everything. 
Doesn’t that clarify everything? A baby is coming. A woman knows the baby is coming. And yet the process of labor is the hour that’s it. Her hour will come. And when it comes, there's anguish. Anguish in that process goes back to Genesis three. But the mother doesn't remember the anguish when she's holding the baby. And Jesus speaks of his own atoning sacrifice. In those very terms, it's going to be like childbirth. When his hour comes will be anguish, but as the scripture says, joy is coming in the morning. Now, again, they can understand part of this, maybe. They don't appear to understand much of it. Jesus went on also to continue something of the theme of what it will mean that he is no longer with them. And this is what you really find in the agency in prayer, that Jesus mentions in verse 23 and following. 
“In that day you'll ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give to you. Until now you've asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you'll receive, that your joy may be full.” Now, those are just two little verses, and generally they're read the wrong way and prosperity theologians  or someone saying, well, there's Jesus. Just saying, if you ask him my name, the Father's gonna give it to you. No, there's something earth shatteringly swinging like on a hinge here. Have you, you noticed that no one has invoked the name of Jesus in prayer, until now. We pray in Jesus’ name. We think nothing of it, because we're taught to do that. But how is it that we pray in Jesus' name? On what authority do we pray in Jesus' name? If you look at all the prayers in the old Testament, the prayer’s to the Father.
If you look at the prayers Jesus has prayed, they are prayers to the Father. As you think about how the Jewish people have been trained to pray, they would've considered it idolatry and the breaking of two commandments to pray to anyone other than the Father. But we pray naturally, we're authorized to pray. We pray rightly. Orthodoxly. We pray properly by praying in Jesus’ name. How, why, and on what authority?  Well, first of all, on Jesus' authority. And as we shall see,  by Jesus's authority made manifest in the practice of the apostles in the early church. But the huge question is why and how? How does that happen? Why does it matter? Why do we not just pray to the Father? Why do we pray to the Father in Jesus' name? And, and why do we not pray to Jesus in the sense of just crying out to Jesus and relegating the Father to a secondary role. It is because this is a Trinitarian theology that's being revealed to us, and it is spectacular. 
The Son, in obedience to the Father, fulfilling all that the Father commands. Obedient as the apostle Paul will say in Philippians two “even unto death.” He who the Father will raise from the dead. He whom the Father will give the name, Lord, the name that is above all names, the name to which every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. The trinitarian shape of Christian theology comes down to the fact that our prayer is now prayer to the Father through Jesus. This is what theologians rightly have called the session of Christ. And it is precious. He has sat down at the right hand of God, the Father almighty, and, and there he is our mediator, the sole mediator between God and man, and he mediates our prayer. So he intercedes for us before the Father. 
He ever intercedes. We don't pray to Jesus as if the Father is absent. We pray to the Father through the Son, by the Holy Spirit. That's the Trinitarian shape of Christian prayer. We pray to the Father through the Son by the Holy Spirit and Jesus here, astoundingly says, you've never asked anything in my name, but now you're authorized to do so. Now when Jesus is speaking now, does it mean right then that second? Well in one sense, perhaps. But what he's really speaking about is now of the age in which he will be absent from the Church, but he will not be absent. He'll be seated. That's the session, the Latin session seated at the right hand of God, the Father almighty there, he is our priest and we need desperately a priest. It's not that we don't have a priest. 
It's that we have one priest, the all sufficient priest, the priest of priests who sits at the right hand of God, the Father. Now, is he a priest? Is he a priest to try to intercede against the merciful will of the Father? No, he is here to intercede for us to make pleadings for us to, to mediate fallen, and now redeemed humanity to the Father. And this is the thing, we need a mediator, not just on the cross. We need a mediator seated at the right hand of the Father. And we have that mediator. What Jesus is saying here is not prosperity theology. You ask anything in my name and the Father will do it for you as for a, what was it, controversy, early in COVID a 17 million private? No, it was more than that, like 70 million private jet, one prosperity preacher. That is not what Jesus is talking about. Instead, what he's talking about is much more spectacular. 
One of the big questions that was always on the Jewish mind, and this is something else we sometimes don't think about, but you'll see this in some popular piety. If you're talking to people about prayer, pastors, talking to people about prayer. Just common parlance about prayer, the assumption of many people, and this was, this was just in the warp and woof of Judaism. And you can understand why the assumption was that prayer would have its variability in two things. Number one, the relative status of the one praying to pray, and then the relative disposition of God to the prayer. So you can see in conventional wisdom, why that would, you know, will my prayer be answered? Well, it depends on how righteous I am when I pray, right? I mean that just, just fallen into gross sin. Maybe that's not the best time to pray, in conventional theology. 
And then will God answer the prayer? Well, maybe it depends on whether he's inclined towards mercy or wrath or indifference or who knows. By the way, you can see why that conventional wisdom theology develops. And in every popular piety, there's this kind of conventional theology, because as you look at the Old Testament in prayer, it appears God sometimes answers prayer. Sometimes he takes a long time to answer prayer. Sometimes he says no, and yes, some of the people who are praying, the very agency of their prayer is tainted by something in their lives. That is not our primary concern in the Christian Church, we pray and the power of our prayer is guaranteed by the power of Christ. 
And  I can remember as a little boy as a very little boy, I don't know, maybe 8, 9, 10 years old, you know, just when a child on the, you know, the cusp of adolescence is beginning to think about thinking and that critical thinking begins to enter. And I began to wonder how might prayers could possibly measure up and how I could even remember to pray for all the things I need to pray for. I mean, then, and now I find that I can't keep everything that I even wanna pray about in my mind. You'll pray, and then you think, oh, I should have prayed for this person. Or I should have thought about that. I had this test coming up or dealing with this situation or that person's sick. Now, this is not an argument for laziness in prayer, or isn’t certainly indifference. It's just to say that our prayer is not our achievement. 
It's all Jesus. And it's not about God's relative disposition because God's disposition to his Son is always favored, that's it. So we don't really have to worry about his disposition to us. Like in the Old Testament, people may have worried. Because the issue now is God's disposition towards his Son in whom we are, whose mediator is that Son. So the big thing here is that you're really looking at the Lordship of Christ before that language is being used. As Jesus is speaking as the mediator, he will be seated at the right hand of the Father, but he's speaking here about what's going to happen. He's trying to tell the disciples so that they're ready. And those two verses about prayer, which are far more astounding than maybe they appear at first, are interjected here. But then Jesus goes back to the little while in verse 25, he says, I have said these things to you in figures of speech. Now that's a good translation of the Greek. And maybe it's a good time for us just to think about figures of speech. Figures of speech is not trick language it's any kind of parable, any kind of metaphor, any kind of language that is just to use the word figurative. 
You can't help using figurative language in a certain sense. And, and by the way, in every language you're learning a new language, figurative speech is the hardest speech. It just is. I can still remember reading the book, The Curious Case of the Dog at Midnight. I think it's the title. How many of you read that? It's actually a stupendously well written little novel. And the boy at the center of the story is autistic in a classic sense, but he's high, a very intelligent high operational, on the spectrum, we now call it. and, the father loves him. He has a single father who takes care of him. The father loves him. The father understands him. The father can get quite exasperated with him, but one of the points being made, and the author of the book is autistic, so he is writing from inside the experience. And he writes about the fact that figures of speech are generally lost on someone on the spectrum like that. So he says something like, you know, ‘that man's as big as a barn.’ And he would say to his father, ‘That is a lie. 
He is not as big as a barn.’ It's just that those things you go, ‘he's smart as a tack.’ What does that mean? Figures of speech require abstract thinking. It requires the ability to leave where you are and think about that and make the connection from that back to where you are. And that's a part of what is a challenge for some people, but actually is a challenge for all of us. If you don't know the inside code. So if you're among the French speaking French, if you're among the German speaking Germans, and they use a figure of speech, you're doomed, hopefully you're not ordering dinner or getting directions. Figures of speech are very difficult. So have some sympathy for the Disciples. Jesus has a strategy, and that's what he talks about. He says,I have said these things to you in figures of speech, the hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech, but will tell you plainly about the Father. 
There was teaching that came after the resurrection. We have some of it in the New Testament. We have some of it. We have of course the entire apostolic testimony. The point is that after the accomplishment of Christ's earthly ministry, there will be things we can know that we can't know before. It simply can't be. And Jesus acknowledges that he's spoken to them in figures of speech. The time is coming when he will no longer do so. In that day, you will ask in my name. And I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf for the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. I came from the Father and have come into the world. And now I am leaving the world and going to the Father. Now this goes back to those two verses in the earlier paragraph about prayer. And Jesus himself says, not that the Father is reluctant. It's just that, now you ask in my name and the Father's disposition to you is his disposition to me because you believed in me and you are now in me as the New Testament will teach us. The Father himself loves you because you've loved me and have believed that I have come from God. 
But then he says, I'm leaving the world and going to the Father. Now that is not a figure speech. That is plain language. The Disciples are being told that he is going to leave them and go to the Father. His Disciples said, this is verse 29. “Ah, now you are speaking plainly and not using figurative speech. Now we know that you know all things or do not need anyone to question you. This is why we believe that you came from God. Jesus, answer them, Do you now believe?” now on the one hand, there's just a human drama we're witnesses of here. And a part of the human drama is the disciple saying, we don't understand. And Jesus saying, you will understand. 
And then the human drama, the disciples saying, oh, now we understand. And Jesus saying, not, really, you understand more, but it's clear they don't really yet understand. And again, they can't yet understand because these events have not yet happened. But it is so sweet that the Holy Spirit knew we needed this kind of testimony. Even the give and take between Jesus and the disciples. Now we know that you know all things. Well, when we say now we know that you know all things. One of the questions that was being asked continually, evidently on their minds, and again, Jesus answered this. You go back to John chapter seven where Jesus says my hour’s not yet come. I mean, so early in the earthly ministry of Jesus, when you're talking about a messianic fulfillment, you're talking about the atonement that Christ will accomplish. 
You're talking about God's great purpose and the entire flow of biblical history. The when becomes a really huge question, when? And Jesus tells them, well, you will know more, many of these things you'll understand in retrospect, more or less Jesus in verse 31 addresses them. “Do you now believe?” It's a strange question. As a matter of fact, we need to think about this for a minute. They just said to him, we believe, we now know, you know, all things, ‘do you now believe?,” this is a scary question. If we're honest, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. Very honest plea in Scripture. What does it mean that Jesus, at this point, turns to his Disciples and says, but do you believe? They just affirmed to believing him. John chapter six, you'll recall. Jesus asked them that very question. When he says, “Do you also want to go away?” 
And that's when Peter answered so beautifully “Lord to whom will we go?” You have the words of eternal life and beyond that we have come to know that you are the holy one from God. But Jesus here just as he is about to be betrayed, asks them, do you believe? And then he gives them this word of warning. And it's like, we're back in chapter 15, “behold, the hour is coming, Indeed, it has come when you'll be scattered each to his own home and will leave me alone, yet I'm not alone for the Father is with me.
Back in the prophet, Zechariah. The prophet Zechariah chapter 13, verse seven, “Awake oh, sword against my shepherd against the man who stands next to me, declare the Lord of host. Strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered.” It certainly appears that Jesus has that text in mind. As you strike the shepherd, the sheep will be scattered and Jesus picking up on that language with himself as the good shepherd, as he's already said, the good Shepherd's telling you sheep, I will be stricken and you will be scattered. He says each to his own home. And of course there's an immediate proximity to this. And that's after the betrayal of Jesus, as the disciples are scattered. They're no longer with him. Of course, Peter will deny him. They are scattered. And though just think about this, think of the incredible unity that is being expressed right now in this text. 
And with Jesus, with them in this farewell discourse, he is sharing with them the most intimate, urgent, revelatory truths that they will need for when he is no longer with them. And even they're going to need more urgency urgently as the days are unfolding and the hours are unfolding with his arrest, and prosecution and trial, crucifixion and burial, even the resurrection, all these things, they're gonna need everything they can get from Jesus and their unity with him is so sweet. Now we see what you're talking about. Now we believe. We know, you know, all things and Jesus says, good enough, but you're about to be scattered. You know, there's something else here, just a little footnote. That's kind of interesting. We're talking about Judean and Galilean fisherman, tax collectors, well, not now, but, common people. They were expected to know the Bible. They had been going to the synagogue where the word of God had been read and had been read and had been read and had been read. It's just really, really interesting for us to, at the fact that Jesus could mention a text like this, which we know echoes the prophet Zecharia chapter 13, verse seven. And it anticipated that they, and we would, would, would catch that reference. This is what it means. If you strike the shepherd and the sheep are scattered. But Jesus doesn't conclude there. 
“You'll be scattered each to his own home and will leave me alone. Yet, I am not alone for the Father is with me. I have said these things to you that in me, you may have peace in the world. You will have tribulation, but take heart, I have overcome the world.”
So Jesus here is concluding this farewell discourse and he does so by saying that I have given you these words, that in me, you may have peace. And this is where Christians are left. Christians are left with knowing that we are safe in Christ. Christ has given us all that we need to know. And what we don't know is safe in Christ. We can be scattered like sheep because the shepherd has been, but the shepherd will be resurrected. We can, we, we, we can be chased off. We can be persecuted by the world, which will hate us because the world hated him first. But it's all right, because we are his. The final words here are take heart, I have overcome the world. This is what's called a prolepsis. This is the future being declared. And the reason why Jesus can do this is because he is indeed the Son of the Father. 
He is the one who will be given the title of Lord. He can say, because he is the Father's Son, that this has happened as if it has happened. It's just the same thing that you see in, in Romans chapter eight, where in the order of salutis, the order of salvation, it says we have been, and then it says, glorified. Well, we haven't been glorified yet, but the point is in Christ, it's already accomplished so that we will be glorified. There's not a question as to whether we would be glorified. We don't experience that glorification in this life, but we can already say that even as we have been predestined and we've been sanctified and justified, we can also say we have been glorified because it will happen because Christ has already accomplished all that is necessary for it. Similarly, he can say here to the Disciples, I have overcome the world. Now the world is about to arrest him. The world is about to try him. The world is about flog him and humiliate him. The world is about to kill him in the most excruciatingly, public humiliating, agonizing tortuous, form of death in crucifixion. But the world is about to discover that he has overcome the world. 
We're now at that break between the end of the farewell discourse and the beginning of the high priestly prayer. I don't want to rush into the high priestly prayer of Jesus at this point, because I just want us to rest in where we are with this farewell discourse coming to an end. We also, I think, just in terms of our opportunity to learn, need to take the break here, because we need to keep in mind that the Disciples were very much a part of the conversation in the farewell discourse. They were listening to Jesus speak to them. They did not hear Jesus pray the prayer we know as the high priestly prayer beginning in verse, one of chapter 17, the Holy Spirit gives that through John to us, but they were not a part of this. The farewell discourse marks the last word of the last teaching of Christ before his arrest and crucifixion. There will be some teaching in the time that he was with them after the resurrection, before the ascension, but this ends, most of the teaching that Christ will give the disciples and the intimacy of that remarkable period of time for about three years in his earthly ministry, when he chose them, he called them, he taught them, corrected them. And through the testimony of Scripture teaches us as well.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 34:29 https://albertmohler.com/?p=54081 Audio, Exposition, John, John Series, Video noThird Avenue Baptist Church Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series February 28, 2021 We're in John chapter 16. And after we pray, we'll begin in verse 16 of chapter 16, as we are seeing the groundwork laid for the high priestly prayer of Jesus coming in John 17, let's pray.  Father, we're just so thankful that you give us what we need. And, that means sun and sometimes it means rain. And Father, you knew that now we need rain. Thank you for giving it to us. Thank you for watering the earth. How many people throughout history have had to pray in a time of drought for the gift of even a drop of water. Thank you for watering us abundantly. Thank you for giving us your Lord. May we feast on your Word this hour, and we pray your Holy Spirit will apply the Word to our hearts. Even as the Holy Spirit, he inspired John to write this gospel. Father, we pray that all of this will come full circle in increase through us for your glory. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ. Our Lord, amen.  The Farewell Discourse of Jesus is ending. And as we have to remind ourselves, this is one conversation. It's one very long conversation and it's not just conversational, in the sense that every once in a while you do see the disciple ask a question, It is didactic. It's pastoral. It's didactic, in the sense that it's teaching. This is Jesus telling them things. It's like a final briefing. It's like a general before an army goes to war. It's a final briefing. Things are about to happen that he's been trying to tell the Disciples now for what we might say is three years. You look at the gospel of John and, and you look in the very beginning until now. How many times has Jesus spoken about his hour that's coming? Now sometimes he says it negatively. My hour is not yet come.  And so if his hour is not yet come, then his hour is coming. And of course, then what is his hour? Well, it's the culmination of his earthly ministry, but it isn't come yet. His hour has not yet come, but it's coming, it's coming. It is not at all clear that the disciples had any sense of a timetable and of any quickening of that timetable. And of any immanence of this hour that is coming. Furthermore, Jesus has told them things that will make sense in retrospect. And they only make sense to us because we've read the gospel of John and we know these things and the disciples don't. We're going into a passage right now in which the disciples at one level seem to understand what Jesus means. And yet they still don't seem to understand his timetable.  Now he has told them that one of them will betray him. This is back in chapter 13 and, and he has spoken to those issues happening. But here in John chapter 16, where we had just seen Jesus speak the gift to the Holy Spirit last week, we were in that amazing passage earlier in this chapter where Jesus says it is better for you, that I go for I am sending the helper. So we're looking at, in salvation history, one of these great hinge moments, it's like salvation history is a symphony and, and there's a climactic movement coming, but we're right in the central movement, that is the hinge in which everything turns the incarnation of the Lord, Jesus Christ, his accomplished mission. And, and then there's another age coming, the age of the church when Jesus will ascend to the Father, he will leave the disciples, but the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send and he will send will be with us. As you look to verse 16, Jesus says a little while, and you will see me no longer and again, a little while, and you will see me. So some of his disciples said to one another, what is this? He says to us a little while, and you will not see me and again, a little while, and you will see me and because I'm going to the Father. So they were saying, what does he mean by a little while? We do not know what he is talking about.  The joy of having children, little, little children, preschool children, children, just learning to talk and minds just soaking everything up. The joy of that is that they ask the questions they want to ask. And you say something and they don't understand it, they’ll say something like that. Grandchildren turn out to do the same. And Benjamin and Henry, Benjamin's five, Henry's two. We were FaceTiming with them while we were in Florida for my mother's funeral. They had been in Florida with us earlier in the month of January. And we're just FaceTiming. And it came up that we were in Florida and Benjamin just said, what'd you mean you were in Florida? Like, it can't be, you were just in Florida, you weren't in Florida anymore. How can you be back in Florida? This doesn't make any sense. What do you mean you're in Florida? Well, this is like the disciple saying what'd you mean this little while? What does he mean? A little while I won't be with you and then a little while I'll be with you. What's he mean now? The amazing thing is that this has been said before in chapter 13. In chapter 13, verse 33, Jesus said to them a little while, and I will not be with you. And then in a little while you will see me and it's this little while see me, little while not see me. And the interesting again, is that the disciples asking the question is actually in the text.  So they went on and spoke. So they were saying, what does he mean by a little while? We do not know what he's talking about. So again, very honest, the disciples don't know what he's talking about. And you want to look there at chapter 16 and say, how can you not know what he's talking about? But then again, just humbly realize we would be in the same position as they are, because we only know what Jesus is talking about because we know the rest of the story. In verse 19 we’re told Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him. So he said to them, “Is this what you were asking yourselves? What I meant by saying ‘a little while, and you will not see me and again a little while, and you will see me’ truly, truly I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice.  You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn to joy. When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow. Her hour has come. But when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish for joy, that a human being has been born into the world. So also you will, you have sorrow now, but I will see you again. And your hearts will rejoice and no one will take your joy from you. And that day you'll ask nothing of me, truly, truly I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now, you've asked nothing in my name asking, you'll receive that your joy may be full.” So Jesus knows in himself what they're asking. You see the same thing in John chapter six, Jesus knows what they're thinking.  And so he speaks right into their thinking. He knows what they're asking. And so he even repeats himself. I know this is what you're asking about, but then he doesn't exactly answer it. Not, immediately. It's kind of like going up to a child and saying, I know this is what you're asking about. Well, let me tell you about this and Jesus uses the example of a woman in childbirth. But even as he's speaking to them, beginning in verse 19, he says, this is it. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn to joy. But even as you weep and lament, the world will rejoice.  So when Jesus is tried and when he is crucified, he says the world's gonna rejoice. And he means by that, of course, the powers that be. The powers of evil, he means those who will seek to take his life. He means those who believe that their political and social power will be protected, if Jesus is gone, those who hate him. And as Jesus has said, hating him will hate his disciples. They will rejoice in his death. And, and we see that. This is done. We put him out of the way, but he says, even as the world will rejoice and you're filled with sorrow, you will be filled with joy. And that's just made very clear. And he refers to what is going to happen and his hour. And he even uses that expression. He, when her hour has come. Now, all of a sudden doesn't that clarify everything.  Doesn’t that clarify everything? A baby is coming. A woman knows the baby is coming. And yet the process of labor is the hour that’s it. Her hour will come. And when it comes, there's anguish. Anguish in that process goes back to Genesis three. But the mother doesn't remember the anguish when she's holding the baby. And Jesus speaks of his own atoning sacrifice. In those very terms, it's going to be like childbirth. When his hour comes will be anguish, but as the scripture says, joy is coming in the morning. Now, again, they can understand part of this, maybe. They don't appear to understand much of it. Jesus went on also to continue something of the theme of what it will mean that he is no longer with them. And this is what you really find in the agency in prayer, that Jesus mentions in verse 23 and following.  “In that day you'll ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give to you. Until now you've asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you'll receive, that your joy may be full.” Now, those are just two little verses, and generally they're read the wrong way and prosperity theologians  or someone saying, well, there's Jesus. Just saying, if you ask him my name, the Father's gonna give it to you. No, there's something earth shatteringly swinging like on a hinge here. Have you, you noticed that no one has invoked the name of Jesus in prayer, until now. We pray in Jesus’ name. We think nothing of it, because we're taught to do that. But how is it that we pray in Jesus' name? On what authority do we pray in Jesus' name? If you look at all the prayers in the old Testament, the prayer’s to the Father. If you look at the prayers Jesus has prayed, they are prayers to the Father. As you think about how the Jewish people have been trained to pray, they would've considered it idolatry and the breaking of two commandments to pray to anyone other than the Father. But we pray naturally, we're authorized to pray. We pray rightly. Orthodoxly. We pray properly by praying in Jesus’ name. How, why, and on what authority?  Well, first of all, on Jesus' authority. And as we shall see,  by Jesus's authority made manifest in the practice of the apostles in the early church. But the huge question is why and how? How does that happen? Why does it matter? Why do we not just pray to the Father? Why do we pray to the Father in Jesus' name? And, and why do we not pray to Jesus in the sense of just crying out to Jesus and relegating the Father to a secondary role. It is because this is a Trinitarian theology that's being revealed to us, and it is spectacular.  The Son, in obedience to the Father, fulfilling all that the Father commands. Obedient as the apostle Paul will say in Philippians two “even unto death.” He who the Father will raise from the dead. He whom the Father will give the name, Lord, the name that is above all names, the name to which every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. The trinitarian shape of Christian theology comes down to the fact that our prayer is now prayer to the Father through Jesus. This is what theologians rightly have called the session of Christ. And it is precious. He has sat down at the right hand of God, the Father almighty, and, and there he is our mediator, the sole mediator between God and man, and he mediates our prayer. So he intercedes for us before the Father.  He ever intercedes. We don't pray to Jesus as if the Father is absent. We pray to the Father through the Son, by the Holy Spirit. That's the Trinitarian shape of Christian prayer. We pray to the Father through the Son by the Holy Spirit and Jesus here, astoundingly says, you've never asked anything in my name, but now you're authorized to do so. Now when Jesus is speaking now, does it mean right then that second? Well in one sense, perhaps. But what he's really speaking about is now of the age in which he will be absent from the Church, but he will not be absent. He'll be seated. That's the session, the Latin session seated at the right hand of God, the Father almighty there, he is our priest and we need desperately a priest. It's not that we don't have a priest.  It's that we have one priest, the all sufficient priest, the priest of priests who sits at the right hand of God, the Father. Now, is he a priest? Is he a priest to try to intercede against the merciful will of the Father? No, he is here to intercede for us to make pleadings for us to, to mediate fallen, and now redeemed humanity to the Father. And this is the thing, we need a mediator, not just on the cross. We need a mediator seated at the right hand of the Father. And we have that mediator. What Jesus is saying here is not prosperity theology. You ask anything in my name and the Father will do it for you as for a, what was it, controversy, early in COVID a 17 million private? No, it was more than that, like 70 million private jet, one prosperity preacher. That is not what Jesus is talking about. Instead, what he's talking about is much more spectacular.  One of the big questions that was always on the Jewish mind, and this is something else we sometimes don't think about, but you'll see this in some popular piety. If you're talking to people about prayer, pastors, talking to people about prayer. Just common parlance about prayer, the assumption of many people, and this was, this was just in the warp and woof of Judaism. And you can understand why the assumption was that prayer would have its variability in two things. Number one, the relative status of the one praying to pray, and then the relative disposition of God to the prayer. So you can see in conventional wisdom, why that would, you know, will my prayer be answered? Well, it depends on how righteous I am when I pray, right? I mean that just, just fallen into gross sin. Maybe that's not the best time to pray, in conventional theology.  And then will God answer the prayer? Well, maybe it depends on whether he's inclined towards mercy or wrath or indifference or who knows. By the way, you can see why that conventional wisdom theology develops. And in every popular piety, there's this kind of conventional theology, because as you look at the Old Testament in prayer, it appears God sometimes answers prayer. Sometimes he takes a long time to answer prayer. Sometimes he says no, and yes, some of the people who are praying, the very agency of their prayer is tainted by something in their lives. That is not our primary concern in the Christian Church, we pray and the power of our prayer is guaranteed by the power of Christ.  And  I can remember as a little boy as a very little boy, I don't know, maybe 8, 9, 10 years old, you know, just when a child on the, you know, the cusp of adolescence is beginning to think about thinking and that critical thinking begins to enter. And I began to wonder how might prayers could possibly measure up and how I could even remember to pray for all the things I need to pray for. I mean, then, and now I find that I can't keep everything that I even wanna pray about in my mind. You'll pray, and then you think, oh, I should have prayed for this person. Or I should have thought about that. I had this test coming up or dealing with this situation or that person's sick. Now, this is not an argument for laziness in prayer, or isn’t certainly indifference. It's just to say that our prayer is not our achievement.  It's all Jesus. And it's not about God's relative disposition because God's disposition to his Son is always favored, that's it. So we don't really have to worry about his disposition to us. Like in the Old Testament, people may have worried. Because the issue now is God's disposition towards his Son in whom we are, whose mediator is that Son. So the big thing here is that you're really looking at the Lordship of Christ before that language is being used. As Jesus is speaking as the mediator, he will be seated at the right hand of the Father, but he's speaking here about what's going to happen. He's trying to tell the disciples so that they're ready. And those two verses about prayer, which are far more astounding than maybe they appear at first, are interjected here. But then Jesus goes back to the little while in verse 25, he says, I have said these things to you in figures of speech. Now that's a good translation of the Greek. And maybe it's a good time for us just to think about figures of speech. Figures of speech is not trick language it's any kind of parable, any kind of metaphor, any kind of language that is just to use the word figurative.  You can't help using figurative language in a certain sense. And, and by the way, in every language you're learning a new language, figurative speech is the hardest speech. It just is. I can still remember reading the book, The Curious Case of the Dog at Midnight. I think it's the title. How many of you read that? It's actually a stupendously well written little novel. And the boy at the center of the story is autistic in a classic sense, but he's high, a very intelligent high operational, on the spectrum, we now call it. and, the father loves him. He has a single father who takes care of him. The father loves him. The father understands him. The father can get quite exasperated with him, but one of the points being made, and the author of the book is autistic, so he is writing from inside the experience. And he writes about the fact that figures of speech are generally lost on someone on the spectrum like that. So he says something like, you know, ‘that man's as big as a barn.’ And he would say to his father, ‘That is a lie.  He is not as big as a barn.’ It's just that those things you go, ‘he's smart as a tack.’ What does that mean? Figures of speech require abstract thinking. It requires the ability to leave where you are and think about that and make the connection from that back to where you are. And that's a part of what is a challenge for some people, but actually is a challenge for all of us. If you don't know the inside code. So if you're among the French speaking French, if you're among the German speaking Germans, and they use a figure of speech, you're doomed, hopefully you're not ordering dinner or getting directions. Figures of speech are very difficult. So have some sympathy for the Disciples. Jesus has a strategy, and that's what he talks about. He says,I have said these things to you in figures of speech, the hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech, but will tell you plainly about the Father.  There was teaching that came after the resurrection. We have some of it in the New Testament. We have some of it. We have of course the entire apostolic testimony. The point is that after the accomplishment of Christ's earthly ministry, there will be things we can know that we can't know before. It simply can't be. And Jesus acknowledges that he's spoken to them in figures of speech. The time is coming when he will no longer do so. In that day, you will ask in my name. And I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf for the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. I came from the Father and have come into the world. And now I am leaving the world and going to the Father. Now this goes back to those two verses in the earlier paragraph about prayer. And Jesus himself says, not that the Father is reluctant. It's just that, now you ask in my name and the Father's disposition to you is his disposition to me because you believed in me and you are now in me as the New Testament will teach us. The Father himself loves you because you've loved me and have believed that I have come from God.  But then he says, I'm leaving the world and going to the Father. Now that is not a figure speech. That is plain language. The Disciples are being told that he is going to leave them and go to the Father. His Disciples said, this is verse 29. “Ah, now you are speaking plainly and not using figurative speech. Now we know that you know all things or do not need anyone to question you. This is why we believe that you came from God. Jesus, answer them, Do you now believe?” now on the one hand, there's just a human drama we're witnesses of here. And a part of the human drama is the disciple saying, we don't understand. And Jesus saying, you will understand.  And then the human drama, the disciples saying, oh, now we understand. And Jesus saying, not, really, you understand more, but it's clear they don't really yet understand. And again, they can't yet understand because these events have not yet happened. But it is so sweet that the Holy Spirit knew we needed this kind of testimony. Even the give and take between Jesus and the disciples. Now we know that you know all things. Well, when we say now we know that you know all things. One of the questions that was being asked continually, evidently on their minds, and again, Jesus answered this. You go back to John chapter seven where Jesus says my hour’s not yet come. I mean, so early in the earthly ministry of Jesus, when you're talking about a messianic fulfillment, you're talking about the atonement that Christ will accomplish.  You're talking about God's great purpose and the entire flow of biblical history. The when becomes a really huge question, when? And Jesus tells them, well, you will know more, many of these things you'll understand in retrospect, more or less Jesus in verse 31 addresses them. “Do you now believe?” It's a strange question. As a matter of fact, we need to think about this for a minute. They just said to him, we believe, we now know, you know, all things, ‘do you now believe?,” this is a scary question. If we're honest, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. Very honest plea in Scripture. What does it mean that Jesus, at this point, turns to his Disciples and says, but do you believe? They just affirmed to believing him. John chapter six, you'll recall. Jesus asked them that very question. When he says, “Do you also want to go away?”  And that's when Peter answered so beautifully “Lord to whom will we go?” You have the words of eternal life and beyond that we have come to know that you are the holy one from God. But Jesus here just as he is about to be betrayed, asks them, do you believe? And then he gives them this word of warning. And it's like, we're back in chapter 15, “behold, the hour is coming, Indeed, it has come when you'll be scattered each to his own home and will leave me alone, yet I'm not alone for the Father is with me. Back in the prophet, Zechariah. The prophet Zechariah chapter 13, verse seven, “Awake oh, sword against my shepherd against the man who stands next to me, declare the Lord of host. Strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered.” It certainly appears that Jesus has that text in mind. As you strike the shepherd, the sheep will be scattered and Jesus picking up on that language with himself as the good shepherd, as he's already said, the good Shepherd's telling you sheep, I will be stricken and you will be scattered. He says each to his own home. And of course there's an immediate proximity to this. And that's after the betrayal of Jesus, as the disciples are scattered. They're no longer with him. Of course, Peter will deny him. They are scattered. And though just think about this, think of the incredible unity that is being expressed right now in this text.  And with Jesus, with them in this farewell discourse, he is sharing with them the most intimate, urgent, revelatory truths that they will need for when he is no longer with them. And even they're going to need more urgency urgently as the days are unfolding and the hours are unfolding with his arrest, and prosecution and trial, crucifixion and burial, even the resurrection, all these things, they're gonna need everything they can get from Jesus and their unity with him is so sweet. Now we see what you're talking about. Now we believe. We know, you know, all things and Jesus says, good enough, but you're about to be scattered. You know, there's something else here, just a little footnote. That's kind of interesting. We're talking about Judean and Galilean fisherman, tax collectors, well, not now, but, common people. They were expected to know the Bible. They had been going to the synagogue where the word of God had been read and had been read and had been read and had been read. It's just really, really interesting for us to, at the fact that Jesus could mention a text like this, which we know echoes the prophet Zecharia chapter 13, verse seven. And it anticipated that they, and we would, would, would catch that reference. This is what it means. If you strike the shepherd and the sheep are scattered. But Jesus doesn't conclude there.  “You'll be scattered each to his own home and will leave me alone. Yet, I am not alone for the Father is with me. I have said these things to you that in me, you may have peace in the world. You will have tribulation, but take heart, I have overcome the world.” So Jesus here is concluding this farewell discourse and he does so by saying that I have given you these words, that in me, you may have peace. And this is where Christians are left. Christians are left with knowing that we are safe in Christ. Christ has given us all that we need to know. And what we don't know is safe in Christ. We can be scattered like sheep because the shepherd has been, but the shepherd will be resurrected. We can, we, we, we can be chased off. We can be persecuted by the world, which will hate us because the world hated him first. But it's all right, because we are his. The final words here are take heart, I have overcome the world. This is what's called a prolepsis. This is the future being declared. And the reason why Jesus can do this is because he is indeed the Son of the Father.  He is the one who will be given the title of Lord. He can say, because he is the Father's Son, that this has happened as if it has happened. It's just the same thing that you see in, in Romans chapter eight, where in the order of salutis, the order of salvation, it says we have been, and then it says, glorified. Well, we haven't been glorified yet, but the point is in Christ, it's already accomplished so that we will be glorified. There's not a question as to whether we would be glorified. We don't experience that glorification in this life, but we can already say that even as we have been predestined and we've been sanctified and justified, we can also say we have been glorified because it will happen because Christ has already accomplished all that is necessary for it. Similarly, he can say here to the Disciples, I have overcome the world. Now the world is about to arrest him. The world is about to try him. The world is about flog him and humiliate him. The world is about to kill him in the most excruciatingly, public humiliating, agonizing tortuous, form of death in crucifixion. But the world is about to discover that he has overcome the world.  We're now at that break between the end of the farewell discourse and the beginning of the high priestly prayer. I don't want to rush into the high priestly prayer of Jesus at this point, because I just want us to rest in where we are with this farewell discourse coming to an end. We also, I think, just in terms of our opportunity to learn, need to take the break here, because we need to keep in mind that the Disciples were very much a part of the conversation in the farewell discourse. They were listening to Jesus speak to them. They did not hear Jesus pray the prayer we know as the high priestly prayer beginning in verse, one of chapter 17, the Holy Spirit gives that through John to us, but they were not a part of this. The farewell discourse marks the last word of the last teaching of Christ before his arrest and crucifixion. There will be some teaching in the time that he was with them after the resurrection, before the ascension, but this ends, most of the teaching that Christ will give the disciples and the intimacy of that remarkable period of time for about three years in his earthly ministry, when he chose them, he called them, he taught them, corrected them. And through the testimony of Scripture teaches us as well. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.Third Avenue Baptist Church Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series February 28, 2021 We're in John chapter 16. And after we pray, we'll begin in verse 16 of chapter 16, as we are seeing the groundwork laid for the high priestly prayer of Jesus coming in John 17, let's pray.  Father, we're just so thankful that you give us what we need. And, that means sun and sometimes it means rain. And Father, you knew that now we need rain. Thank you for giving it to us. Thank you for watering the earth. How many people throughout history have had to pray in a time of drought for the gift of even a drop of water. Thank you for watering us abundantly. Thank you for giving us your Lord. May we feast on your Word this hour, and we pray your Holy Spirit will apply the Word to our hearts. Even as the Holy Spirit, he inspired John to write this gospel. Father, we pray that all of this will come full circle in increase through us for your glory. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ. Our Lord, amen.  The Farewell Discourse of Jesus is ending. And as we have to remind ourselves, this is one conversation. It's one very long conversation and it's not just conversational, in the sense that every once in a while you do see the disciple ask a question, It is didactic. It's pastoral. It's didactic, in the sense that it's teaching. This is Jesus telling them things. It's like a final briefing. It's like a general before an army goes to war. It's a final briefing. Things are about to happen that he's been trying to tell the Disciples now for what we might say is three years. You look at the gospel of John and, and you look in the very beginning until now. How many times has Jesus spoken about his hour that's coming? Now sometimes he says it negatively. My hour is not yet come.  And so if his hour is not yet come, then his hour is coming. And of course, then what is his hour? Well, it's the culmination of his earthly ministry, but it isn't come yet. His hour has not yet come, but it's coming, it's coming. It is not at all clear that the disciples had any sense of a timetable and of any quickening of that timetable. And of any immanence of this hour that is coming. Furthermore, Jesus has told them things that will make sense in retrospect. And they only make sense to us because we've read the gospel of John and we know these things and the disciples don't. We're going into a passage right now in which the disciples at one level seem to understand what Jesus means. And yet they still don't seem to understand his timetable.  Now he has told them that one of them will betray him. This is back in chapter 13 and, and he has spoken to those issues happening. But here in John chapter 16, where we had just seen Jesus speak the gift to the Holy Spirit last week, we were in that amazing passage earlier in this chapter where Jesus says it is better for you, that I go for I am sending the helper. So we're looking at, in salvation history, one of these great hinge moments, it's like salvation history is a symphony and, and there's a climactic movement coming, but we're right in the central movement, that is the hinge in which everything turns the incarnation of the Lord, Jesus Christ, his accomplished mission. And, and then there's another age coming, the age of the church when Jesus will ascend to the Father, he will leave the disciples, but the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send and he will send will be with us. As you look to verse 16, Jesus says a little while, and you will see me no longer and again, a little while, and you will see me. So some of his disciples said to one another, what is this? He says to us a little while, and you will not see me and again, a little while, and you will see me and because I'm going to the Father. So they were saying, what does he mean by a little while? We do not know what he is talking about.  The joy of having children, little, little children, preschool children, children, just learning to talk and minds just soaking everything up. The joy of that is that they ask the questions they want to ask. And you say something and they don't understand it, they’ll say something like that. Grandchildren turn out to do the same. And Benjamin and Henry, Benjamin's five, Henry's two. We were FaceTiming with them while we were in Florida for my mother's funeral. They had been in Florida with us earlier in the month of January. And we're just FaceTiming. And it came up that we were in Florida and Benjamin just said, what'd you mean you were in Florida? Like, it can't be, you were just in Florida, you weren't in Florida anymore. How can you be back in Florida? This doesn't make any sense. What do you mean you're in Florida? Well, this is like the disciple saying what'd you mean this little while? What does he mean? A little while I won't be with you and then a little while I'll be with you. What's he mean now? The amazing thing is that this has been said before in chapter 13. In chapter 13, verse 33, Jesus said to them a little while, and I will not be with you. And then in a little while you will see me and it's this little while see me, little while not see me. And the interesting again, is that the disciples asking the question is actually in the text.  So they went on and spoke. So they were saying, what does he mean by a little while? We do not know what he's talking about. So again, very honest, the disciples don't know what he's talking about. And you want to look there at chapter 16 and say, how can you not know what he's talking about? But then again, just humbly realize we would be in the same position as they are, because we only know what Jesus is talking about because we know the rest of the story. In verse 19 we’re told Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him. So he said to them, “Is this what you were asking yourselves? What I meant by saying ‘a little while, and you will not see me and again a little while, and you will see me’ truly, truly I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice.  You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn to joy. When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow. Her hour has come. But when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish for joy, that a human being has been born into the world. So also you will, you have sorrow now, but I will see you again. And your hearts will rejoice and no one will take your joy from you. And that day you'll ask nothing of me, truly, truly I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now, you've asked nothing in my name asking, you'll receive that your joy may be full.” So Jesus knows in himself what they're asking. You see the same thing in John chapter six, Jesus knows what they're thinking.  And so he speaks right into their thinking. He knows what they're asking. And so he even repeats himself. I know this is what you're asking about, but then he doesn't exactly answer it. Not, immediately. It's kind of like going up to a child and saying, I know this is what you're asking about. Well, let me tell you about this and Jesus uses the example of a woman in childbirth. But even as he's speaking to them, beginning in verse 19, he says, this is it. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn to joy. But even as you weep and lament, the world will rejoice.  So when Jesus is tried and when he is crucified, he says the world's gonna rejoice. And he means by that, of course, the powers that be. The powers of evil, he means those who will seek to take his life. He means those who believe that their political and social power will be protected, if Jesus is gone, those who hate him. And as Jesus has said, hating him will hate his disciples. They will rejoice in his death. And, and we see that. This is done. We put him out of the way, but he says, even as the world will rejoice and you're filled with sorrow, you will be filled with joy. And that's just made very clear. And he refers to what is going to happen and his hour. And he even uses that expression. He, when her hour has come. Now, all of a sudden doesn't that clarify everything.  Doesn’t that clarify everything? A baby is coming. A woman knows the baby is coming. And yet the process of labor is the hour that’s it. Her hour will come. And when it comes, there's anguish. Anguish in that process goes back to Genesis three. But the mother doesn't remember the anguish when she's holding the baby. And Jesus speaks of his own atoning sacrifice. In those very terms, it's going to be like childbirth. When his hour comes will be anguish, but as the scripture says, joy is coming in the morning. Now, again, they can understand part of this, maybe. They don't appear to understand much of it. Jesus went on also to continue something of the theme of what it will mean that he is no longer with them. And this is what you really find in the agency in prayer, that Jesus mentions in verse 23 and following.  “In that day you'll ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give to you. Until now you've asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you'll receive, that your joy may be full.” Now, those are just two little verses, and generally they're read the wrong way and prosperity theologians  or someone saying, well, there's Jesus. Just saying, if you ask him my name, the Father's gonna give it to you. No, there's something earth shatteringly swinging like on a hinge here. Have you, you noticed that no one has invoked the name of Jesus in prayer, until now. We pray in Jesus’ name. We think nothing of it, because we're taught to do that. But how is it that we pray in Jesus' name? On what authority do we pray in Jesus' name? If you look at all the prayers in the old Testament, the prayer’s to the Father. If you look at the prayers Jesus has prayed, they are prayers to the Father. As you think about how the Jewish people have been trained to pray, they would've considered it idolatry and the breaking of two commandments to pray to anyone other than the Father. But we pray naturally, we're authorized to pray. We pray rightly. Orthodoxly. We pray properly by praying in Jesus’ name. How, why, and on what authority?  Well, first of all, on Jesus' authority. And as we shall see,  by Jesus's authority made manifest in the practice of the apostles in the early church. But the huge question is why and how? How does that happen? Why does it matter? Why do we not just pray to the Father? Why do we pray to the Father in Jesus' name? And, and why do we not pray to Jesus in the sense of just crying out to Jesus and relegating the Father to a secondary role. It is because this is a Trinitarian theology that's being revealed to us, and it is spectacular.  The Son, in obedience to the Father, fulfilling all that the Father commands. Obedient as the apostle Paul will say in Philippians two “even unto death.” He who the Father will raise from the dead. He whom the Father will give the name, Lord, the name that is above all names, the name to which every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. The trinitarian shape of Christian theology comes down to the fact that our prayer is now prayer to the Father through Jesus. This is what theologians rightly have called the session of Christ. And it is precious. He has sat down at the right hand of God, the Father almighty, and, and there he is our mediator, the sole mediator between God and man, and he mediates our prayer. So he intercedes for us before the Father.  He ever intercedes. We don't pray to Jesus as if the Father is absent. We pray to the Father through the Son, by the Holy Spirit. That's the Trinitarian shape of Christian prayer. We pray to the Father through the Son by the Holy Spirit and Jesus here, astoundingly says, you've never asked anything in my name, but now you're authorized to do so. Now when Jesus is speaking now, does it mean right then that second? Well in one sense, perhaps. But what he's really speaking about is now of the age in which he will be absent from the Church, but he will not be absent. He'll be seated. That's the session, the Latin session seated at the right hand of God, the Father almighty there, he is our priest and we need desperately a priest. It's not that we don't have a priest.  It's that we have one priest, the all sufficient priest, the priest of priests who sits at the right hand of God, the Father. Now, is he a priest? Is he a priest to try to intercede against the merciful will of the Father? No, he is here to intercede for us to make pleadings for us to, to mediate fallen, and now redeemed humanity to the Father. And this is the thing, we need a mediator, not just on the cross. We need a mediator seated at the right hand of the Father. And we have that mediator. What Jesus is saying here is not prosperity theology. You ask anything in my name and the Father will do it for you as for a, what was it, controversy, early in COVID a 17 million private? No, it was more than that, like 70 million private jet, one prosperity preacher. That is not what Jesus is talking about. Instead, what he's talking about is much more spectacular.  One of the big questions that was always on the Jewish mind, and this is something else we sometimes don't think about, but you'll see this in some popular piety. If you're talking to people about prayer, pastors, talking to people about prayer. Just common parlance about prayer, the assumption of many people, and this was, this was just in the warp and woof of Judaism. And you can understand why the assumption was that prayer would have its variability in two things. Number one, the relative status of the one praying to pray, and then the relative disposition of God to the prayer. So you can see in conventional wisdom, why that would, you know, will my prayer be answered? Well, it depends on how righteous I am when I pray, right? I mean that just, just fallen into gross sin. Maybe that's not the best time to pray, in conventional theology.  And then will God answer the prayer? Well, maybe it depends on whether he's inclined towards mercy or wrath or indifference or who knows. By the way, you can see why that conventional wisdom theology develops. And in every popular piety, there's this kind of conventional theology, because as you look at the Old Testament in prayer, it appears God sometimes answers prayer. Sometimes he takes a long time to answer prayer. Sometimes he says no, and yes, some of the people who are praying, the very agency of their prayer is tainted by something in their lives. That is not our primary concern in the Christian Church, we pray and the power of our prayer is guaranteed by the power of Christ.  And  I can remember as a little boy as a very little boy, I don't know, maybe 8, 9, 10 years old, you know, just when a child on the, you know, the cusp of adolescence is beginning to think about thinking and that critical thinking begins to enter. And I began to wonder how might prayers could possibly measure up and how I could even remember to pray for all the things I need to pray for. I mean, then, and now I find that I can't keep everything that I even wanna pray about in my mind. You'll pray, and then you think, oh, I should have prayed for this person. Or I should have thought about that. I had this test coming up or dealing with this situation or that person's sick. Now, this is not an argument for laziness in prayer, or isn’t certainly indifference. It's just to say that our prayer is not our achievement.  It's all Jesus. And it's not about God's relative disposition because God's disposition to his Son is always favored, that's it. So we don't really have to worry about his disposition to us. Like in the Old Testament, people may have worried. Because the issue now is God's disposition towards his Son in whom we are, whose mediator is that Son. So the big thing here is that you're really looking at the Lordship of Christ before that language is being used. As Jesus is speaking as the mediator, he will be seated at the right hand of the Father, but he's speaking here about what's going to happen. He's trying to tell the disciples so that they're ready. And those two verses about prayer, which are far more astounding than maybe they appear at first, are interjected here. But then Jesus goes back to the little while in verse 25, he says, I have said these things to you in figures of speech. Now that's a good translation of the Greek. And maybe it's a good time for us just to think about figures of speech. Figures of speech is not trick language it's any kind of parable, any kind of metaphor, any kind of language that is just to use the word figurative.  You can't help using figurative language in a certain sense. And, and by the way, in every language you're learning a new language, figurative speech is the hardest speech. It just is. I can still remember reading the book, The Curious Case of the Dog at Midnight. I think it's the title. How many of you read that? It's actually a stupendously well written little novel. And the boy at the center of the story is autistic in a classic sense, but he's high, a very intelligent high operational, on the spectrum, we now call it. and, the father loves him. He has a single father who takes care of him. The father loves him. The father understands him. The father can get quite exasperated with him, but one of the points being made, and the author of the book is autistic, so he is writing from inside the experience. And he writes about the fact that figures of speech are generally lost on someone on the spectrum like that. So he says something like, you know, ‘that man's as big as a barn.’ And he would say to his father, ‘That is a lie.  He is not as big as a barn.’ It's just that those things you go, ‘he's smart as a tack.’ What does that mean? Figures of speech require abstract thinking. It requires the ability to leave where you are and think about that and make the connection from that back to where you are. And that's a part of what is a challenge for some people, but actually is a challenge for all of us. If you don't know the inside code. So if you're among the French speaking French, if you're among the German speaking Germans, and they use a figure of speech, you're doomed, hopefully you're not ordering dinner or getting directions. Figures of speech are very difficult. So have some sympathy for the Disciples. Jesus has a strategy, and that's what he talks about. He says,I have said these things to you in figures of speech, the hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech, but will tell you plainly about the Father.  There was teaching that came after the resurrection. We have some of it in the New Testament. We have some of it. We have of course the entire apostolic testimony. The point is that after the accomplishment of Christ's earthly ministry, there will be things we can know that we can't know before. It simply can't be. And Jesus acknowledges that he's spoken to them in figures of speech. The time is coming when he will no longer do so. In that day, you will ask in my name. And I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf for the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. I came from the Father and have come into the world. And now I am leaving the world and going to the Father. Now this goes back to those two verses in the earlier paragraph about prayer. And Jesus himself says, not that the Father is reluctant. It's just that, now you ask in my name and the Father's disposition to you is his disposition to me because you believed in me and you are now in me as the New Testament will teach us. The Father himself loves you because you've loved me and have believed that I have come from God.  But then he says, I'm leaving the world and going to the Father. Now that is not a figure speech. That is plain language. The Disciples are being told that he is going to leave them and go to the Father. His Disciples said, this is verse 29. “Ah, now you are speaking plainly and not using figurative speech. Now we know that you know all things or do not need anyone to question you. This is why we believe that you came from God. Jesus, answer them, Do you now believe?” now on the one hand, there's just a human drama we're witnesses of here. And a part of the human drama is the disciple saying, we don't understand. And Jesus saying, you will understand.  And then the human drama, the disciples saying, oh, now we understand. And Jesus saying, not, really, you understand more, but it's clear they don't really yet understand. And again, they can't yet understand because these events have not yet happened. But it is so sweet that the Holy Spirit knew we needed this kind of testimony. Even the give and take between Jesus and the disciples. Now we know that you know all things. Well, when we say now we know that you know all things. One of the questions that was being asked continually, evidently on their minds, and again, Jesus answered this. You go back to John chapter seven where Jesus says my hour’s not yet come. I mean, so early in the earthly ministry of Jesus, when you're talking about a messianic fulfillment, you're talking about the atonement that Christ will accomplish.  You're talking about God's great purpose and the entire flow of biblical history. The when becomes a really huge question, when? And Jesus tells them, well, you will know more, many of these things you'll understand in retrospect, more or less Jesus in verse 31 addresses them. “Do you now believe?” It's a strange question. As a matter of fact, we need to think about this for a minute. They just said to him, we believe, we now know, you know, all things, ‘do you now believe?,” this is a scary question. If we're honest, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. Very honest plea in Scripture. What does it mean that Jesus, at this point, turns to his Disciples and says, but do you believe? They just affirmed to believing him. John chapter six, you'll recall. Jesus asked them that very question. When he says, “Do you also want to go away?”  And that's when Peter answered so beautifully “Lord to whom will we go?” You have the words of eternal life and beyond that we have come to know that you are the holy one from God. But Jesus here just as he is about to be betrayed, asks them, do you believe? And then he gives them this word of warning. And it's like, we're back in chapter 15, “behold, the hour is coming, Indeed, it has come when you'll be scattered each to his own home and will leave me alone, yet I'm not alone for the Father is with me. Back in the prophet, Zechariah. The prophet Zechariah chapter 13, verse seven, “Awake oh, sword against my shepherd against the man who stands next to me, declare the Lord of host. Strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered.” It certainly appears that Jesus has that text in mind. As you strike the shepherd, the sheep will be scattered and Jesus picking up on that language with himself as the good shepherd, as he's already said, the good Shepherd's telling you sheep, I will be stricken and you will be scattered. He says each to his own home. And of course there's an immediate proximity to this. And that's after the betrayal of Jesus, as the disciples are scattered. They're no longer with him. Of course, Peter will deny him. They are scattered. And though just think about this, think of the incredible unity that is being expressed right now in this text.  And with Jesus, with them in this farewell discourse, he is sharing with them the most intimate, urgent, revelatory truths that they will need for when he is no longer with them. And even they're going to need more urgency urgently as the days are unfolding and the hours are unfolding with his arrest, and prosecution and trial, crucifixion and burial, even the resurrection, all these things, they're gonna need everything they can get from Jesus and their unity with him is so sweet. Now we see what you're talking about. Now we believe. We know, you know, all things and Jesus says, good enough, but you're about to be scattered. You know, there's something else here, just a little footnote. That's kind of interesting. We're talking about Judean and Galilean fisherman, tax collectors, well, not now, but, common people. They were expected to know the Bible. They had been going to the synagogue where the word of God had been read and had been read and had been read and had been read. It's just really, really interesting for us to, at the fact that Jesus could mention a text like this, which we know echoes the prophet Zecharia chapter 13, verse seven. And it anticipated that they, and we would, would, would catch that reference. This is what it means. If you strike the shepherd and the sheep are scattered. But Jesus doesn't conclude there.  “You'll be scattered each to his own home and will leave me alone. Yet, I am not alone for the Father is with me. I have said these things to you that in me, you may have peace in the world. You will have tribulation, but take heart, I have overcome the world.” So Jesus here is concluding this farewell discourse and he does so by saying that I have given you these words, that in me, you may have peace. And this is where Christians are left. Christians are left with knowing that we are safe in Christ. Christ has given us all that we need to know. And what we don't know is safe in Christ. We can be scattered like sheep because the shepherd has been, but the shepherd will be resurrected. We can, we, we, we can be chased off. We can be persecuted by the world, which will hate us because the world hated him first. But it's all right, because we are his. The final words here are take heart, I have overcome the world. This is what's called a prolepsis. This is the future being declared. And the reason why Jesus can do this is because he is indeed the Son of the Father.  He is the one who will be given the title of Lord. He can say, because he is the Father's Son, that this has happened as if it has happened. It's just the same thing that you see in, in Romans chapter eight, where in the order of salutis, the order of salvation, it says we have been, and then it says, glorified. Well, we haven't been glorified yet, but the point is in Christ, it's already accomplished so that we will be glorified. There's not a question as to whether we would be glorified. We don't experience that glorification in this life, but we can already say that even as we have been predestined and we've been sanctified and justified, we can also say we have been glorified because it will happen because Christ has already accomplished all that is necessary for it. Similarly, he can say here to the Disciples, I have overcome the world. Now the world is about to arrest him. The world is about to try him. The world is about flog him and humiliate him. The world is about to kill him in the most excruciatingly, public humiliating, agonizing tortuous, form of death in crucifixion. But the world is about to discover that he has overcome the world.  We're now at that break between the end of the farewell discourse and the beginning of the high priestly prayer. I don't want to rush into the high priestly prayer of Jesus at this point, because I just want us to rest in where we are with this farewell discourse coming to an end. We also, I think, just in terms of our opportunity to learn, need to take the break here, because we need to keep in mind that the Disciples were very much a part of the conversation in the farewell discourse. They were listening to Jesus speak to them. They did not hear Jesus pray the prayer we know as the high priestly prayer beginning in verse, one of chapter 17, the Holy Spirit gives that through John to us, but they were not a part of this. The farewell discourse marks the last word of the last teaching of Christ before his arrest and crucifixion. There will be some teaching in the time that he was with them after the resurrection, before the ascension, but this ends, most of the teaching that Christ will give the disciples and the intimacy of that remarkable period of time for about three years in his earthly ministry, when he chose them, he called them, he taught them, corrected them. And through the testimony of Scripture teaches us as well. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2021/02/21/john-16-1-15/ Sun, 21 Feb 2021 12:00:58 +0000 Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series
February 21, 2021

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full https://albertmohler.com/?p=54088 Audio, Exposition, John, John Series noThird Avenue Baptist Church Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series February 21, 2021 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.Third Avenue Baptist Church Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series February 21, 2021 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2021/01/31/john-1518-27/ Sun, 31 Jan 2021 12:00:03 +0000 Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series
January 31, 2021

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 47:43 https://albertmohler.com/?p=54015 Audio, Exposition, John, John Series, Video noThird Avenue Baptist Church Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series January 31, 2021 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.Third Avenue Baptist Church Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series January 31, 2021 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2020/11/15/john-1512-17/ Sun, 15 Nov 2020 12:00:00 +0000 Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series
November 15, 2020
 
 
It was wonderful to see you this morning and wonderful to be able to turn to God's Word together, and we're continuing through our study in the Gospel of John. We're in John 15, and we are in the farewell discourse of Jesus and thus issues are intensifying, and we are also in, as we shall see, a passage of scripture in which Jesus is giving what amounts to a final briefing to his disciples. And we have the honor by the Holy Spirit of observing this. Over hearing it. Let's pray.
Father, we're just so thankful that you give us the opportunity to hear these words even as the disciples heard these words from Jesus. And Father, this means that you intended these words for us, even as Jesus intended these words for his disciples, and may they have the same effect on us as they had upon the disciples. May we receive these words with great joy because we receive your word with great joy. And may we live it faithfully. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, Amen.
So when we were together last, we worked our way to John chapter 15, verse 11, and you'll recall that in verse 11, Jesus said, “these things I spoke to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full.” Now, one of the challenges we face in John chapter 15 in this farewell discourse is that it is the Farewell Discourse. It is Jesus knowing that in a very short amount of time, he is going to be arrested and taken away from his disciples. Before his crucifixion these will be the final words. Now what we have are three chapters here, John chapter 15, which we will conclude shortly. John chapter 16 coming, and then of course the high priestly prayer in John chapter 17. But that last part is the prayer between Jesus and the Father and the disciples were not a part of that.
So the time with the disciples is getting very short. The intensity is very high. We're at a fever pitch. This is the greatest tension in the drama of what's taking place in the life and ministry of Jesus as he has headed for the cross. And thus, the words that he's speaking take on a particular poignancy. Now there's something else that takes place in this farewell discourse, and that is that all of this belongs together, but it is not just a matter of Jesus going through an outline. It's not like if you've ever been on a cruise ship and you have a briefing of what to do, if you have to go to the lifeboats and on every cruise, you've got to do this. You've got to go through the drill. It's an international maritime rule. And so when you're on the cruise ship, eventually like the second morning, you've got to meet out at your life boat posts and you have to put on the vest and you have to listen to what's being told.
And, and yet, you know, it's a beautiful sunny day. You're in the Caribbean, you're in the Mediterranean. No, one's thinking about the boat sinking. The Titanic's long in the past. And you know, you really do need to know this, but you really want it to be over. And it doesn't go too long, and besides that, the people doing it are reading off of a clipboard so that they can check off everything that they've done. I think of that when I see airline pilots doing this, when I get on an airplane. I look back in the cockpit, looking for a little reassurance that somebody in there looks like he's not 14, and that has some competence to fly this plane. And generally they're going through a checklist. And I'm just thinking,” you know, if I did that two or three times a day, I might get a little careless. I'm hoping you don't.”
This is not a checklist in the sense that it's just going through a sequential order. Jesus here, the authenticity of the conversation, this discourse Jesus is having with his disciples, a part of the authenticity is how Jesus goes back to an issue and circles back and will say, “this is why I told you.” Now in looking at that, I have to say that I look at this passage differently as both a father and a grandfather than I probably would have looked at this passage at an earlier point of life, or as a teacher, I look at this differently. And it's because when you are communicating the most massively important matters to people, you're also reading them. And you're looking at their faces. That's one of the reasons why, and you have all these teachers saying that even in person, education is much more difficult because with these children wearing masks, it's much harder to see, “do I have their attention? Do I not? What's going through their minds? Is anything going through their minds?” You know, just the act of watching as one as communicating. And so what happens here is as we come to the passage that begins in John chapter 15, verse 12 is that Jesus is actually repeating much of what he said, but he adds something.
So as we saw the last verse was “these things I've spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” And remember, Jesus has told them, he's getting ready to leave them in a little while. “You will not see me.” But now he says in verse 12, “this is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: Then someone lays down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I commanded you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you so that you will love one another.”
That's a very tight passage. And there are about four huge issues here each of which you could say would be deserving of a book unto itself, but because of the context and the fact that this is a temporal tension, the time is running out. Jesus gives the disciples these truths. And he does so in such a way that he obviously is not saying everything that he might say about them, but some of these things he's spoken of before. So for example, in verse 12, when he begins by saying, “this is my commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you,” this is the same Jesus who said, “if you love me, you'll keep my commandments.” If you love me, you will keep my commandments. If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And we saw the fact that this is not only the fact that Jesus has commandments, this is Old Testament biblical theology coming alive in the New Testament. Only God may give commandments. And so this is a clear assertion of the deity of Christ, as he is here speaking to his disciples, and he doesn't give them maxims and principles and rules and regulations, he gives them commandments. And that is as God the Father gave the commandments to Moses. And we know most famously is the 10 Commandments,
But what commandments has Jesus given? When we looked earlier, John 14 and 15, that Jesus has commandment, we saw that he'd given many. We think of the Great Commission, just to give an obvious one. But there are actually something like 400 commandments that Jesus gives, and they're not given in the same spirit of the law, they are instead indeed principles that he has commanded. They are attitudinal. They’re action. But he gets right to the heart. “This is my commandment.” So this is the summary. If you say,” this is the law.” If you have an attorney making a case before a jury or a lawyer making a case for the oral arguments before the United States Supreme court. And, there are two senses in which that lawyer may make reference to the law. He may make specific reference, as he may say, “as in US criminal code, you know, section two, paragraph three,” you know, he may make specific reference as to whether or not that law is actually in play in this. But even more often before the Supreme Court, you will hear attorneys make reference to “the law” as one body. As making basically one argument: it is the rule of law. And so you say, “as the law teaches us. As the law constrains us.” And the same thing is true in the Bible. You need to say, “well, this is the law of God.” Well, God gave laws and God gave commandments, but you can speak of the law and say, there's a distinction between the law and the gospel. Which law do you mean? You mean all of it. The body of the law. And that's exactly what Jesus is doing here.
He says, “I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what, everything I've taught you comes down to. It's not that I haven't given you other commandments. I've given you other commandments, but I mean,” and by the way, some of Jesus' commandments are attitudinal, “such as ``fear not,” but you'll notice here he says, “this is THE commandment.” In other words, you're going to summarize everything here. Now in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus summarizes all of the Old Testament law, the law and the prophets, when he was asked, “what is the most important of the commandments?” And he says that “you should love the Lord, your God with all your heart and soul and mind” going back to Deuteronomy. But then he goes to Leviticus and he says, the second is likened to it, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commands, hang all of the law and the profits.” So everything comes down to this, but now Jesus speaks of his own commandments. And he says, “it all comes down to this. My commandments, come down to this, that you love one another, as I have loved you.” Now, that's one of the sentences that rings in our ears with such familiarity. “You shall love one another as I have loved you,” because we know It's familiar to us and John will come back to this in his epistles, but what are we to do with this right now?
Well, we're to read it as an entire sentence. And that's where it gets dangerous, because he doesn't just say “you shall love one another.” The Bible has already told us that. His commandment is that we love one another as he has loved us. Now, things get dangerous.
This is a command that's far more revolutionary than we dare teach our children in Sunday School When they first learned it. If we say that Christ's commandment is that we love one another. Well, and that seems almost axiomatic, but Jesus taught us that we are to love one another. I think that is just about the second or third Bible verse I learned as a child. And God is love was the first. And then you just, you just think about the outworking of this. God loved us first now we're to love one another. What are the limitations upon loving one another? That's the key question. And the disciples were always concerned with what is the limitation upon this command? And look sometimes I can remember as a teenager, seeing the, you know, the disciples asked how many times must I forgive and you know, the answer to that's coming, and it's just embarrassing that the disciples would ask it. You know, you're going to look bad asking this question. Don't ask. And it's like, you know, you're 14, you're reading the Bible. And you think maybe if I opened the Bible next time they won't ask that stupid question. Oh, yes, they do.
But actually, it's a question that is necessary for us to ask. What is the extent of how we're to love one another? This could be very costly. It could be very inconvenient. So Jesus puts the restriction on it here. “This is my commandment that you love one another, as I have loved you. Well, it turns out there's no restriction on it. Jesus has loved us infinitely. And as the New Testament tells us, he loved us until the end. And, of course, he died for us.
So what Jesus is saying here is “I've got good news and bad news.” I've got good news: “The most important summary of all that I've taught you is this: You are to love one, one another.”
Here's the bad news: “As I have loved you.” So this is a manifesto for the Christian Church. The kind of love that should be present in the Christian Church is the kind of love in which believers love one another, as Christ has loved us. Now, we are incapable of loving, as faithfully, as Christ loved us. We are incapable of loving, as infinitely, as Christ loved us. But we are to love as intentionally. And as genuinely as Christ has loved us.
The disciples are about to be absent from Christ. They are going to face the hatred of the world. That has been made clear. Jesus is now going to make it far more clear in the passage that follows, the paragraph of our concern this morning. Jesus is going to tell them the world hates you. The world doesn't dislike you. The world's not irritated by you. The world hates you because the world hates it's me. But we are not there yet. But preparing them to hear of this message of the world's hatred, he reminds them it is to be contrasted with the picture of their love for one another.
And so just think of two different spheres. And we don't know about that second one yet, except we do. We know it's coming, the world's going to hate us, but in the church we find love. And as Christians, we've got to settle for that. As Christians, we have to understand that the repudiation of the gospel is to get those two spheres reversed: To live so that the world will love us, but the church may hate us.
And Jesus will be very clear. You're not going to be able to earn the love of both the church and the world. And that's a devastating realization. I think one of the greatest temptations to Christians is to want to be loved by both the church and the world. But in the end, that will turn out to be impossible.
So the first big thing for us to see here is the command of Christ and the lack of any limitation upon this: The example of his own love for the disciples as how the Christian is to love other fellow believers. The passage continues: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends.” So again, Jesus is calling us as friends. It's very sweet. He's about to make that clear what he's saying, but you'll notice that even as Jesus said “this is my command to that you love one another as I have loved you” and “greater love has no man would that he lay down his life for his friends.”
So it's not like we have to imagine where Jesus is going with this, because Jesus tells us explicitly the very next sentence. Jesus says, “oh, and by the way, I've told you that you're to love one another as I have loved you. And the love that I love you is taking me to the cross for you.” And there is no greater love.
So that's bracing. We are to love one another even unto death. Jesus says “you are my friends. If you do what I command you.” And he said that already. In at least two different sessions when we've been together, we've been looking at paragraphs from either the farewell discourse or the passage just before the farewell discourse. And we've seen Jesus say over and over again, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. He comes back to it this time. He says, “you are my friends if you do what I command you. Now that's the same thing. No, it's not. No, it's not the same thing at all.
If you look at the Old Testament and imagine Moses at Sinai. And imagine all the children of Israel gathered there--Sinai is often referred to as Mount Horeb--and you'll recall the theatrical of the occasion. The children of Israel and even their animals were told not to approach the mountain less they touch it and die. And the mountain itself is trembling with an earthquake. And it is surrounded by clouds and out of the clouds comes fire, and out of the clouds and the fire comes the very audible voice of God. And God spoke to the children of Israel and Moses will remind them they heard his voice. And then Moses is uniquely called upon the mountain where he goes to be with the Lord. And he comes down with the tablets. To actually follow through the passage closely, he comes down with the law, and another time he comes down with the tablets, it's kind of in our imagination, we put it together.
But nonetheless, the point is, God does not refer to Israel as his friend. He's commanding them because they are his subjects. They're his chosen people. They're his elect people, his elect nation. Yes, but he does not refer to them as his friends. You know, as a matter of fact in the Deuteronomic formula, it comes down to “I've set before you life and death, blessing and curse. So choose life and live, obey the law and you live, disobey the law and you die.” Jesus says, you are my friends. If you do what I command you. You're my friends. This is the second big thing in this little paragraph. “You're my friends.”
Once again, I think of being a child, you know, who, who are your friends? Well, you know, they're the people who are your little buddies and friends and acquaintances. And you're never sure exactly what a friend means when you're a little child, because you're told to be friendly to everybody and you're introduced to someone here's a new friend. Well, maybe, maybe not. We'll see. But that's the way you're kind of presenting it: Friendship is an obligation.
And then it is very interesting and kind of a developmental understanding of friendship, as one reaches the older elementary school ages, and personality develops, and social skills develop. Children begin to develop friendships that become genuine friendships. You're a friend with the little people when you're a little because you're put with them, and you're told these are your friends. And little children tend to be extremely friendly. But it is not as if they're deeply concerned with one another and it's not necessarily because they have any particularly important shared interests. I mean, if they put blocks in front of them, the interest is blocks. If you put something else in front of them, that interest is that.But older children can develop friendships based upon common interests. By the time early adolescence arrives, not to mention adolescence itself, it comes with an intense need for friendships. And those friendships become very, very, very intentional, and extremely important. And in some cases unhealthy.
But then as you go through life, you realize that friends are a matter of choice, really. We have lots of acquaintances, but being friends involves risk. Friend means investment and priority. If someone really is a friend, then that means that not only you think friendly thoughts about them, but that you would act on their behalf. You would take care of them. You are concerned for them. Shared interests? Yes, of course. But shared responsibility. Jesus here refers to the disciples as friends. Now, just to be honest, that's reassuring to hear, but that's not the first thing we would have thought of, is it, when thinking of Jesus and the disciples? I mean, after all, there's a very clear distinction. There's Jesus and his disciples. The disciples are the ones to whom the commandments were being given. Very interesting. Again, go back to Sinai, back to Horeb, go back to thunder on the mountain. Jesus has given these commands and this one commandment that he's just summarized here just as authoritatively as the Father gave the commandments to Israel through Moses.
So what does it mean that he calls us his friends - if we do what he says, if we do what he commands us? Well, it's a transformation of our understanding of God's love for us. It's a transformation of the relationship that we have with the Father by Christ. So here's something that we need to keep very much in mind: we are not the friend of God the Father by any right, except that we are the friends of the Son. And so this is an intensely Christological truth, Christological relationship here. We are at peace with God entirely because of the atoning work of the Son. Even right now, we are the privileged, elect, secure, blessed sons and daughters of God because Jesus Christ right now sits at the right hand of God the Father almighty as our mediator and intercessor. But we are the friends of the Father and considered as friends of the Father only because we are the friends of the Son. The Father receives the friends of the Son as his own. And that is incredibly powerful. It's just incredible that Jesus would refer to his disciples as friends, especially at this point, as he is speaking in commandments. You would think when you are given a commandment, that's when you are least likely to be defined as a friend. I mean friends don't give friends commandments, right? That's a strange friendship, you know. Instead there's equality there. Not equality here, but there is an intimacy here. We're invited to demonstrate ourselves to be the friends of Jesus, because the text actually says that you are my friends if you do this. So we show ourselves to be the friends of Jesus by the fact that we obey his command. In fact, involved in verse 14 is all that He’s commanded us.
In verse 15, Jesus says “No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.” I will tell you, honestly, this is one of the most revolutionary sentences in the New Testament. It also gets to a doctrinal, polemical and apologetic obsession of John, the apostle. The first and most pernicious heresy that threatened Christianity is known as the Gnostic heresy, G-n-o-s-t-i-c. And a Gnostic heresy has always hung around Christianity and in every generation it's there. It may be disguised as one thing or another, but it's there. It came very, very early in biblical Christianity, so early it shows up in the New Testament itself. The heresy of Gnosticism was based upon the idea that salvation comes through a knowledge, a gnosis, the Greek word for knowledge. It's an enlightenment. And we are surrounded by people who also believe that salvation comes by an enlightenment.
Without going into politics, it is at least interesting, just because this could be on the right or the left, right now the language is on the left. But you’ll notice that we're living in the midst of the “Great Awokening”. I mean the whole idea of woke means enlightenment. And now, in certain circles, you've got to give testimony of when you became woke. The Gnostic heresy was rooted in thought that came before the incarnation of Christ, but became extremely powerful in the time of Jesus in the first century, and then of course, powerfully attractive in a deadly sense to the Christian Church thereafter. The idea is that one became, basically, one of the enlightened and you're separated from all the rest because the rest are in ignorance, darkness, you are in the knowledge or the light. You have been now introduced into the secret mysteries. So Gnosticism had its own mystery cults. And one of the problems with the Romans trying to understand Christianity is that Christianity at times might appear like a form of Gnosticism or a mystery cult. Because it has an inside and an outside, you're either in or you're out. And not only that, but knowledge has a great deal to do with it. As Paul will say, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. But here’s another point, and this has relevance in a day of conspiracy theories and all the rest. The point of New Testament Christianity is that it is a knowledge that is necessary for salvation, but it is no secret knowledge, it is a public knowledge. And, so over and over and over again, and every opportunity in the New Testament, it is declared that this is public truth. This is not some mystery we are keeping unto ourselves. Christianity is not a mystery cult in which when you get in, you are told the truth that people outside don't know. That's completely alien to Christianity. Instead, the apostle Paul, for example, will over and over again in different contexts say this is the mystery that has in this age been revealed.
This is not a mystery that we keep unto ourselves. This is public truth. What we say here, we declare publicly to all men. Jesus didn't say, “Go into the world and form little batteries of little groupings of the mystery cult. No, He said “Go into the world and make disciples.” And over and over again, you had the apostle Paul who makes very clear - the opposite of a mystery cult is what Paul does in Acts chapter 17. He goes to Athens and said, “You are wondering what these mysterious teachers are teaching, here it is, and I'm saying it right here on the mountain of the philosophers in Athens, in public, here it is.” To Felix or to Festus, “You want to know what it is we believe? Here's what we believe, here it is.” It is a knowledge that was - and here's Paul in 2 Corinthians, sophisticated, sophisticated passage in 2 Corinthians, look at three and four, where Paul says - it was a hidden mystery, but it is not hidden now. It was veiled, but the veil has been removed. And that's pointing to the incarnation of Christ, and particularly to his death, burial, resurrection. The mystery is now publicly declared. Christianity is not a mystery cult.
Jesus says here, “You are my friends, if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants”. Why? It comes down to knowledge. It's stunning what Jesus says. Well, why does he call us friends? Why? Why does he not just say, “Hey, you're my disciples. You're my servants.” Why not go and use the New Testament word doulos, “You're my slaves. You are mine. You belong to me. Therefore, you're going to do what I command you. And if you don't do what I command you, then you're going to reveal yourself to be a false disciple, and we will kick you out.” By the way, the Bible does say that. But that's not what Jesus is saying here. Jesus is saying, “I call you friends because I'm telling you what these things mean. If you were merely my servants, I would just tell you what to do. I'm not just telling you what to do, I'm telling you why.”
It is one of the kindest sentences in the entire Bible. It is contrary to what we see in the Old Testament where God often conceals his will to Israel. There's not often an explanation of the why, but Jesus here in the greatest intensity of the teaching with his disciples says, “I’m calling you friends. Do you want to know why I'm calling you friends? It's because I am telling you why all these things happen and what they mean. I am telling you what the master is doing. I'm telling you exactly what's going to happen. I'm telling you why. I told you from the beginning that these things would happen. I told you that my hour is coming. I do not leave you in the dark. I want you to understand, not only what I'm doing, but what I know these things mean.”
It's such an incredible privilege. We're not just the recipients of the saving work of Christ. We are his friends, in which he explains these things to us. He tells us what the master is doing, speaking of himself. But of course, ultimately of the Father. “Here's what the Father is doing.” And then we will have, of course, even a greater explanation in detail, theologically, by the time we get to a passage like Romans 3:21 and following where the mystery of the cross is explained to us. And we're taken into the inner logic of the gospel and of the atonement. The inner logic, we're even given a glimpse of the inner Trinitarian relationship between the Father and the Son in a passage such as Philippians chapter two. You realize, when you look at the New Testament, it is a ‘friend book’. The New Testament, just as Jesus here is teaching his disciples, is what God gives his friends. If we were merely his servants, then all we would have is a to-do list. And, you know, sometimes you give friends a to do list, but you explain why. You say, “This is what this means. We're doing this great thing. We're about this great work - You are my friends and you understand what I am doing. You understand why I am going to the cross. You understand why it is that now that my hour has come, you now see me, but in a little while, you will not see me. You understand why all these things are happening.” It is such a beautiful, stunning passage because it comes in the very same context of this very clear assertion of Christ’s deity in which he, as the Father commands, but he doesn't merely command subjects or servants, he commands his friends.
Now again, the passage is so beautiful because then you think, well come to think of it, that redefines what we read in the very first verse. “This is my commandment that you love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends.” So the word friend is all of a sudden elevated in this massive way, almost infinite way, right before our eyes. It's elevated because it's demonstrated in the fact that Christ dies for us. God's own Son dies for us. And he dies for us, not merely as the passive subjects of his saving love, but as his friends. And this is another issue of biblical theology that we missed. When did we become the friends of Christ? When? Well, temporally, we become the friends of Christ when we hear him and believe him and obey him and follow him, that’s temporally when we become Christ’s friends. But beyond that, when did we become Christ’s friends? It has to be in eternity past. And that will also become very clear in this passage because we were Jesus's friends when we didn’t know it. When he died for us without our knowledge. When he came in order to save his friends, He knew who his friends were when He came.
How do we know this? Because He tells us. “No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, He may give it to you.” Okay, just less there be any misunderstanding, Jesus here is speaking to his disciples, at this point to the eleven. Judas is gone. Speaking to the eleven, he says, “you didn't choose me. I chose you.” But this is not just to the eleven. It is to the untold many who will come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, and be his disciples down through all the ages. In the same sense that they did not choose him, but he chose them, that has to be true of us because this is God's word for us. And furthermore, how could it be that he chose them, but we chose him. It's an illogic that is embarrassing. And of course, this is an underlining in the sovereignty of God. It's a very clear reference to the doctrine of election. It's very reassuring. If we're Christians simply because we chose him, then we can un-choose, but we didn't choose him. He chose us. And we will be told he chose us before the foundation of the world. So, Jesus here says, “I call you friends and not merely servants because I tell you these things.” A king just says to a servant, do this, do that. “But even as you're my disciples and you are my douloi, you're my friends, I tell you why. But even as I've told you that, just remember, you didn't choose me. I chose you.”
The passage concludes with Jesus saying, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide”. Again, we just had the passage about abiding in Christ. About Christ the vine and we the branches, and the purpose of the branches is to bear fruit. So again, as I said in the beginning of our time this morning, there's a circularity. Jesus comes back to that. “These things I command you, that you love one another." That's another one of those Bible verses I learned so early. We love one another, love one another. But “Love one another” is often an empty, vacuous term. If you just think of it in human, horizontal terms, it's pretty good thing for children to be taught, but it doesn't hold Christ’s church together because horizontal love, as important as it is, just is fairly fragile. But we are to love one another as Christ has loved us. And, “These things”, Jesus says, “I have commanded you, so that you will love one another.” Now again, what's the logic of this? I mean, how do we make sense of that last sentence actually, because we read the phrase as if it makes sense. But let me ask you, does it? “These things”. What would these things be? Everything that he said. “These things I command you.” Well, now he's back to commanding. So even as He is, as God the Father commanding, it's a clear statement of his deity. He's commanding, but He's not commanding mere servants and slaves. He's actually commanding us as His friends, but nonetheless, as the sovereign Lord of the universe, He is commanding His friends so that we will love one another. So explain this “so that”. Well, I think at least a part of this has to be that we love one another because He first loved us. And we will often have to tell ourselves that. It's a part of ecclesiology. We have to keep reminding ourselves we love each other because Christ first loved us, because I mean, frankly, sometimes our fellow church members are lovable and sometimes they're not. And it's also true that the longer you get to know people, even the people closest to you, the more irritating certain things become. The longer you know people, the more you think you're going to get over that first impression, and then 20 years later, you figure out, nope, that was pretty accurate.
We are going to let each other down. We're going to disappoint each other. But, we are to love one another as Christ has loved us. The mark of the church is love. Francis Schaffer, probably far better known for his apologetic writings, wrote a book entitled “The Mark of the Christian”, making very clear, it is love. And the absence of love means the absence of gospel. So as we think about these things, “These things I have commanded you, so that you'll love one another”, why is it that we love one another? It's not just because Christ has first loved us. We were told that, yes, but it's because Christ has also commanded us this multiplicity of commands and the doing of those commands means that we actually will love one another. It comes down to the minutiae of faithfulness. It comes down to the thinking of none of ourselves greater than the other. It comes down to seeing one another's needs as more important than our own. It comes down to common obedience in order to reach a community for Christ. It comes down to common obedience in order to reach a world for Christ. It comes down to the care of widows and orphans. It comes down to working in a nursery. You know what? You work in a nursery and you're taking care of someone's kids, you like the parents better. You understand them in a whole new way. You love their kids and love them. And you are on a committee with someone or you share a task with someone, or you share a pew with someone. And over time you realize “I'll be very disappointed if they're not in that pew this morning. If they're not there, I'm going to want to know why they're not there. If there's something wrong, I want to know how I can help.”
This is why we have the flurry of emails, knowing how we can help one another. And this is when Christians turn Jewish. I grew up with a friend in high school whose father was a rabbi and mother was the wife of the rabbi. And I got to be around them. It was an eye opening experience. They were very gracious to allow this little Gentile in their home. But, there was one response that was always axiomatic. Whenever there was tsurus, Yiddish for trouble, whenever there was trouble, the rabbi would be filled with consternation and his wife would say, “I'll make soup.” That’s what she did, you know, because whatever the trouble, somebody is going to need soup. This is what we do. We take care of one another. We take one another food, somebody needs soup. In fact, we just, we might as well be armed with soup, just keep the soup ready, somebody's going to need it. And you just look at this and you recognize this is this the way that we know how to love. If we had to come up with what it meant to love one another, it'd be a real awkward, geeky kind of thing, but we're actually shown how to love one another, because of all the commands Christ has given us. And if we obey those commands, guess what, we're going to love one another. It makes love tangible.
“These things I have commanded you, so that you will love one another.” Oh, and we're going to have to love one another because the world hates us. And that's the very next word Jesus is going to speak. It's not a word of warning. “Hey, you know what? You're going to face some opposition out there in the world because there are some people who aren't going to understand the message and they're going to be somewhat resistant.” No, it's Jesus saying, “If the world hated me, here's a clue boys and girls, the world's going to hate you.” The servant is not greater than his master. Oh, now we're back to servant and master. We're his friends, but this is not egalitarian discipleship. No servant is greater than his master. If the master is hated, the servant will be hated also. So how is it that we can withstand the hatred of the world? It is because first of all, the Lordship of Christ. It is because first of all, he is the vine and we are the branches. The branches, Jesus says, “No branch that bears fruit will be cut.” We're safe. But it's also because we need each other. And these things, Christ has commanded in order that we would love one another.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 47:00 https://albertmohler.com/?p=53268 Audio, Exposition, John, John Series, Video noThird Avenue Baptist Church Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series November 15, 2020     It was wonderful to see you this morning and wonderful to be able to turn to God's Word together, and we're continuing through our study in the Gospel of John. We're in John 15, and we are in the farewell discourse of Jesus and thus issues are intensifying, and we are also in, as we shall see, a passage of scripture in which Jesus is giving what amounts to a final briefing to his disciples. And we have the honor by the Holy Spirit of observing this. Over hearing it. Let's pray. Father, we're just so thankful that you give us the opportunity to hear these words even as the disciples heard these words from Jesus. And Father, this means that you intended these words for us, even as Jesus intended these words for his disciples, and may they have the same effect on us as they had upon the disciples. May we receive these words with great joy because we receive your word with great joy. And may we live it faithfully. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, Amen. So when we were together last, we worked our way to John chapter 15, verse 11, and you'll recall that in verse 11, Jesus said, “these things I spoke to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full.” Now, one of the challenges we face in John chapter 15 in this farewell discourse is that it is the Farewell Discourse. It is Jesus knowing that in a very short amount of time, he is going to be arrested and taken away from his disciples. Before his crucifixion these will be the final words. Now what we have are three chapters here, John chapter 15, which we will conclude shortly. John chapter 16 coming, and then of course the high priestly prayer in John chapter 17. But that last part is the prayer between Jesus and the Father and the disciples were not a part of that. So the time with the disciples is getting very short. The intensity is very high. We're at a fever pitch. This is the greatest tension in the drama of what's taking place in the life and ministry of Jesus as he has headed for the cross. And thus, the words that he's speaking take on a particular poignancy. Now there's something else that takes place in this farewell discourse, and that is that all of this belongs together, but it is not just a matter of Jesus going through an outline. It's not like if you've ever been on a cruise ship and you have a briefing of what to do, if you have to go to the lifeboats and on every cruise, you've got to do this. You've got to go through the drill. It's an international maritime rule. And so when you're on the cruise ship, eventually like the second morning, you've got to meet out at your life boat posts and you have to put on the vest and you have to listen to what's being told. And, and yet, you know, it's a beautiful sunny day. You're in the Caribbean, you're in the Mediterranean. No, one's thinking about the boat sinking. The Titanic's long in the past. And you know, you really do need to know this, but you really want it to be over. And it doesn't go too long, and besides that, the people doing it are reading off of a clipboard so that they can check off everything that they've done. I think of that when I see airline pilots doing this, when I get on an airplane. I look back in the cockpit, looking for a little reassurance that somebody in there looks like he's not 14, and that has some competence to fly this plane. And generally they're going through a checklist. And I'm just thinking,” you know, if I did that two or three times a day, I might get a little careless. I'm hoping you don't.” This is not a checklist in the sense that it's just going through a sequential order. Jesus here, the authenticity of the conversation, this discourse Jesus is having with his disciples, a part of the authenticity is how Jesus goes back to an issue and circles back and will say, “this is why I told you.” Now in looking at that, I have to say that I look at this passage differently as both a father and a grandfather than I probably would have looked at this passage at an earlier point of life, or as a teacher, I look at this differently. And it's because when you are communicating the most massively important matters to people, you're also reading them. And you're looking at their faces. That's one of the reasons why, and you have all these teachers saying that even in person, education is much more difficult because with these children wearing masks, it's much harder to see, “do I have their attention? Do I not? What's going through their minds? Is anything going through their minds?” You know, just the act of watching as one as communicating. And so what happens here is as we come to the passage that begins in John chapter 15, verse 12 is that Jesus is actually repeating much of what he said, but he adds something. So as we saw the last verse was “these things I've spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” And remember, Jesus has told them, he's getting ready to leave them in a little while. “You will not see me.” But now he says in verse 12, “this is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: Then someone lays down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I commanded you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you so that you will love one another.” That's a very tight passage. And there are about four huge issues here each of which you could say would be deserving of a book unto itself, but because of the context and the fact that this is a temporal tension, the time is running out. Jesus gives the disciples these truths. And he does so in such a way that he obviously is not saying everything that he might say about them, but some of these things he's spoken of before. So for example, in verse 12, when he begins by saying, “this is my commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you,” this is the same Jesus who said, “if you love me, you'll keep my commandments.” If you love me, you will keep my commandments. If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And we saw the fact that this is not only the fact that Jesus has commandments, this is Old Testament biblical theology coming alive in the New Testament. Only God may give commandments. And so this is a clear assertion of the deity of Christ, as he is here speaking to his disciples, and he doesn't give them maxims and principles and rules and regulations, he gives them commandments. And that is as God the Father gave the commandments to Moses. And we know most famously is the 10 Commandments, But what commandments has Jesus given? When we looked earlier, John 14 and 15, that Jesus has commandment, we saw that he'd given many. We think of the Great Commission, just to give an obvious one. But there are actually something like 400 commandments that Jesus gives, and they're not given in the same spirit of the law, they are instead indeed principles that he has commanded. They are attitudinal. They’re action. But he gets right to the heart. “This is my commandment.” So this is the summary. If you say,” this is the law.” If you have an attorney making a case before a jury or a lawyer making a case for the oral arguments before the United States Supreme court. And, there are two senses in which that lawyer may make reference to the law. He may make specific reference, as he may say, “as in US criminal code, you know, section two, paragraph three,” you know, he may make specific reference as to whether or not that law is actually in play in this. But even more often before the Supreme Court, you will hear attorneys make reference to “the law” as one body. As making basically one argument: it is the rule of law. And so you say, “as the law teaches us. As the law constrains us.” And the same thing is true in the Bible. You need to say, “well, this is the law of God.” Well, God gave laws and God gave commandments, but you can speak of the law and say, there's a distinction between the law and the gospel. Which law do you mean? You mean all of it. The body of the law. And that's exactly what Jesus is doing here. He says, “I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what, everything I've taught you comes down to. It's not that I haven't given you other commandments. I've given you other commandments, but I mean,” and by the way, some of Jesus' commandments are attitudinal, “such as ``fear not,” but you'll notice here he says, “this is THE commandment.” In other words, you're going to summarize everything here. Now in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus summarizes all of the Old Testament law, the law and the prophets, when he was asked, “what is the most important of the commandments?” And he says that “you should love the Lord, your God with all your heart and soul and mind” going back to Deuteronomy. But then he goes to Leviticus and he says, the second is likened to it, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commands, hang all of the law and the profits.” So everything comes down to this, but now Jesus speaks of his own commandments. And he says, “it all comes down to this. My commandments, come down to this, that you love one another, as I have loved you.” Now, that's one of the sentences that rings in our ears with such familiarity. “You shall love one another as I have loved you,” because we know It's familiar to us and John will come back to this in his epistles, but what are we to do with this right now? Well, we're to read it as an entire sentence. And that's where it gets dangerous, because he doesn't just say “you shall love one another.” The Bible has already told us that. His commandment is that we love one another as he has loved us. Now, things get dangerous. This is a command that's far more revolutionary than we dare teach our children in Sunday School When they first learned it. If we say that Christ's commandment is that we love one another. Well, and that seems almost axiomatic, but Jesus taught us that we are to love one another. I think that is just about the second or third Bible verse I learned as a child. And God is love was the first. And then you just, you just think about the outworking of this. God loved us first now we're to love one another. What are the limitations upon loving one another? That's the key question. And the disciples were always concerned with what is the limitation upon this command? And look sometimes I can remember as a teenager, seeing the, you know, the disciples asked how many times must I forgive and you know, the answer to that's coming, and it's just embarrassing that the disciples would ask it. You know, you're going to look bad asking this question. Don't ask. And it's like, you know, you're 14, you're reading the Bible. And you think maybe if I opened the Bible next time they won't ask that stupid question. Oh, yes, they do. But actually, it's a question that is necessary for us to ask. What is the extent of how we're to love one another? This could be very costly. It could be very inconvenient. So Jesus puts the restriction on it here. “This is my commandment that you love one another, as I have loved you. Well, it turns out there's no restriction on it. Jesus has loved us infinitely. And as the New Testament tells us, he loved us until the end. And, of course, he died for us. So what Jesus is saying here is “I've got good news and bad news.” I've got good news: “The most important summary of all that I've taught you is this: You are to love one, one another.” Here's the bad news: “As I have loved you.” So this is a manifesto for the Christian Church. The kind of love that should be present in the Christian Church is the kind of love in which believers love one another, as Christ has loved us. Now, we are incapable of loving, as faithfully, as Christ loved us. We are incapable of loving, as infinitely, as Christ loved us. But we are to love as intentionally. And as genuinely as Christ has loved us. The disciples are about to be absent from Christ. They are going to face the hatred of the world. That has been made clear. Jesus is now going to make it far more clear in the passage that follows, the paragraph of our concern this morning. Jesus is going to tell them the world hates you. The world doesn't dislike you. The world's not irritated by you. The world hates you because the world hates it's me. But we are not there yet. But preparing them to hear of this message of the world's hatred, he reminds them it is to be contrasted with the picture of their love for one another. And so just think of two different spheres. And we don't know about that second one yet, except we do. We know it's coming, the world's going to hate us, but in the church we find love. And as Christians, we've got to settle for that. As Christians, we have to understand that the repudiation of the gospel is to get those two spheres reversed: To live so that the world will love us, but the church may hate us. And Jesus will be very clear. You're not going to be able to earn the love of both the church and the world. And that's a devastating realization. I think one of the greatest temptations to Christians is to want to be loved by both the church and the world. But in the end, that will turn out to be impossible. So the first big thing for us to see here is the command of Christ and the lack of any limitation upon this: The example of his own love for the disciples as how the Christian is to love other fellow believers. The passage continues: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends.” So again, Jesus is calling us as friends. It's very sweet. He's about to make that clear what he's saying, but you'll notice that even as Jesus said “this is my command to that you love one another as I have loved you” and “greater love has no man would that he lay down his life for his friends.” So it's not like we have to imagine where Jesus is going with this, because Jesus tells us explicitly the very next sentence. Jesus says, “oh, and by the way, I've told you that you're to love one another as I have loved you. And the love that I love you is taking me to the cross for you.” And there is no greater love. So that's bracing. We are to love one another even unto death. Jesus says “you are my friends. If you do what I command you.” And he said that already. In at least two different sessions when we've been together, we've been looking at paragraphs from either the farewell discourse or the passage just before the farewell discourse. And we've seen Jesus say over and over again, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. He comes back to it this time. He says, “you are my friends if you do what I command you. Now that's the same thing. No, it's not. No, it's not the same thing at all. If you look at the Old Testament and imagine Moses at Sinai. And imagine all the children of Israel gathered there--Sinai is often referred to as Mount Horeb--and you'll recall the theatrical of the occasion. The children of Israel and even their animals were told not to approach the mountain less they touch it and die. And the mountain itself is trembling with an earthquake. And it is surrounded by clouds and out of the clouds comes fire, and out of the clouds and the fire comes the very audible voice of God. And God spoke to the children of Israel and Moses will remind them they heard his voice. And then Moses is uniquely called upon the mountain where he goes to be with the Lord. And he comes down with the tablets. To actually follow through the passage closely, he comes down with the law, and another time he comes down with the tablets, it's kind of in our imagination, we put it together. But nonetheless, the point is, God does not refer to Israel as his friend. He's commanding them because they are his subjects. They're his chosen people. They're his elect people, his elect nation. Yes, but he does not refer to them as his friends. You know, as a matter of fact in the Deuteronomic formula, it comes down to “I've set before you life and death, blessing and curse. So choose life and live, obey the law and you live, disobey the law and you die.” Jesus says, you are my friends. If you do what I command you. You're my friends. This is the second big thing in this little paragraph. “You're my friends.” Once again, I think of being a child, you know, who, who are your friends? Well, you know, they're the people who are your little buddies and friends and acquaintances. And you're never sure exactly what a friend means when you're a little child, because you're told to be friendly to everybody and you're introduced to someone here's a new friend. Well, maybe, maybe not. We'll see. But that's the way you're kind of presenting it: Friendship is an obligation. And then it is very interesting and kind of a developmental understanding of friendship, as one reaches the older elementary school ages, and personality develops, and social skills develop. Children begin to develop friendships that become genuine friendships. You're a friend with the little people when you're a little because you're put with them, and you're told these are your friends. And little children tend to be extremely friendly. But it is not as if they're deeply concerned with one another and it's not necessarily because they have any particularly important shared interests. I mean, if they put blocks in front of them, the interest is blocks. If you put something else in front of them, that interest is that.But older children can develop friendships based upon common interests. By the time early adolescence arrives, not to mention adolescence itself, it comes with an intense need for friendships. And those friendships become very, very, very intentional, and extremely important. And in some cases unhealthy. But then as you go through life, you realize that friends are a matter of choice, really. We have lots of acquaintances, but being friends involves risk. Friend means investment and priority. If someone really is a friend, then that means that not only you think friendly thoughts about them, but that you would act on their behalf. You would take care of them. You are concerned for them. Shared interests? Yes, of course. But shared responsibility. Jesus here refers to the disciples as friends. Now, just to be honest, that's reassuring to hear, but that's not the first thing we would have thought of, is it, when thinking of Jesus and the disciples? I mean, after all, there's a very clear distinction. There's Jesus and his disciples. The disciples are the ones to whom the commandments were being given. Very interesting. Again, go back to Sinai, back to Horeb, go back to thunder on the mountain. Jesus has given these commands and this one commandment that he's just summarized here just as authoritatively as the Father gave the commandments to Israel through Moses. So what does it mean that he calls us his friends - if we do what he says, if we do what he commands us? Well, it's a transformation of our understanding of God's love for us. It's a transformation of the relationship that we have with the Father by Christ. So here's something that we need to keep very much in mind: we are not the friend of God the Father by any right, except that we are the friends of the Son. And so this is an intensely Christological truth, Christological relationship here. We are at peace with God entirely because of the atoning work of the Son. Even right now, we are the privileged, elect, secure, blessed sons and daughters of God because Jesus Christ right now sits at the right hand of God the Father almighty as our mediator and intercessor. But we are the friends of the Father and considered as friends of the Father only because we are the friends of the Son. The Father receives the friends of the Son as his own. And that is incredibly powerful. It's just incredible that Jesus would refer to his disciples as friends, especially at this point, as he is speaking in commandments. You would think when you are given a commandment, that's when you are least likely to be defined as a friend. I mean friends don't give friends commandments, right? That's a strange friendship, you know. Instead there's equality there. Not equality here, but there is an intimacy here. We're invited to demonstrate ourselves to be the friends of Jesus, because the text actually says that you are my friends if you do this. So we show ourselves to be the friends of Jesus by the fact that we obey his command. In fact, involved in verse 14 is all that He’s commanded us. In verse 15, Jesus says “No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.” I will tell you, honestly, this is one of the most revolutionary sentences in the New Testament. It also gets to a doctrinal, polemical and apologetic obsession of John, the apostle. The first and most pernicious heresy that threatened Christianity is known as the Gnostic heresy, G-n-o-s-t-i-c. And a Gnostic heresy has always hung around Christianity and in every generation it's there. It may be disguised as one thing or another, but it's there. It came very, very early in biblical Christianity, so early it shows up in the New Testament itself. The heresy of Gnosticism was based upon the idea that salvation comes through a knowledge, a gnosis, the Greek word for knowledge. It's an enlightenment. And we are surrounded by people who also believe that salvation comes by an enlightenment. Without going into politics, it is at least interesting, just because this could be on the right or the left, right now the language is on the left. But you’ll notice that we're living in the midst of the “Great Awokening”. I mean the whole idea of woke means enlightenment. And now, in certain circles, you've got to give testimony of when you became woke. The Gnostic heresy was rooted in thought that came before the incarnation of Christ, but became extremely powerful in the time of Jesus in the first century, and then of course, powerfully attractive in a deadly sense to the Christian Church thereafter. The idea is that one became, basically, one of the enlightened and you're separated from all the rest because the rest are in ignorance, darkness, you are in the knowledge or the light. You have been now introduced into the secret mysteries. So Gnosticism had its own mystery cults. And one of the problems with the Romans trying to understand Christianity is that Christianity at times might appear like a form of Gnosticism or a mystery cult. Because it has an inside and an outside, you're either in or you're out. And not only that, but knowledge has a great deal to do with it. As Paul will say, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. But here’s another point, and this has relevance in a day of conspiracy theories and all the rest. The point of New Testament Christianity is that it is a knowledge that is necessary for salvation, but it is no secret knowledge, it is a public knowledge. And, so over and over and over again, and every opportunity in the New Testament, it is declared that this is public truth. This is not some mystery we are keeping unto ourselves. Christianity is not a mystery cult in which when you get in, you are told the truth that people outside don't know. That's completely alien to Christianity. Instead, the apostle Paul, for example, will over and over again in different contexts say this is the mystery that has in this age been revealed. This is not a mystery that we keep unto ourselves. This is public truth. What we say here, we declare publicly to all men. Jesus didn't say, “Go into the world and form little batteries of little groupings of the mystery cult. No, He said “Go into the world and make disciples.” And over and over again, you had the apostle Paul who makes very clear - the opposite of a mystery cult is what Paul does in Acts chapter 17. He goes to Athens and said, “You are wondering what these mysterious teachers are teaching, here it is, and I'm saying it right here on the mountain of the philosophers in Athens, in public, here it is.” To Felix or to Festus, “You want to know what it is we believe? Here's what we believe, here it is.” It is a knowledge that was - and here's Paul in 2 Corinthians, sophisticated, sophisticated passage in 2 Corinthians, look at three and four, where Paul says - it was a hidden mystery, but it is not hidden now. It was veiled, but the veil has been removed. And that's pointing to the incarnation of Christ, and particularly to his death, burial, resurrection. The mystery is now publicly declared. Christianity is not a mystery cult. Jesus says here, “You are my friends, if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants”. Why? It comes down to knowledge. It's stunning what Jesus says. Well, why does he call us friends? Why? Why does he not just say, “Hey, you're my disciples. You're my servants.” Why not go and use the New Testament word doulos, “You're my slaves. You are mine. You belong to me. Therefore, you're going to do what I command you. And if you don't do what I command you, then you're going to reveal yourself to be a false disciple, and we will kick you out.” By the way, the Bible does say that. But that's not what Jesus is saying here. Jesus is saying, “I call you friends because I'm telling you what these things mean. If you were merely my servants, I would just tell you what to do. I'm not just telling you what to do, I'm telling you why.” It is one of the kindest sentences in the entire Bible. It is contrary to what we see in the Old Testament where God often conceals his will to Israel. There's not often an explanation of the why, but Jesus here in the greatest intensity of the teaching with his disciples says, “I’m calling you friends. Do you want to know why I'm calling you friends? It's because I am telling you why all these things happen and what they mean. I am telling you what the master is doing. I'm telling you exactly what's going to happen. I'm telling you why. I told you from the beginning that these things would happen. I told you that my hour is coming. I do not leave you in the dark. I want you to understand, not only what I'm doing, but what I know these things mean.” It's such an incredible privilege. We're not just the recipients of the saving work of Christ. We are his friends, in which he explains these things to us. He tells us what the master is doing, speaking of himself. But of course, ultimately of the Father. “Here's what the Father is doing.” And then we will have, of course, even a greater explanation in detail, theologically, by the time we get to a passage like Romans 3:21 and following where the mystery of the cross is explained to us. And we're taken into the inner logic of the gospel and of the atonement. The inner logic, we're even given a glimpse of the inner Trinitarian relationship between the Father and the Son in a passage such as Philippians chapter two. You realize, when you look at the New Testament, it is a ‘friend book’. The New Testament, just as Jesus here is teaching his disciples, is what God gives his friends. If we were merely his servants, then all we would have is a to-do list. And, you know, sometimes you give friends a to do list, but you explain why. You say, “This is what this means. We're doing this great thing. We're about this great work - You are my friends and you understand what I am doing. You understand why I am going to the cross. You understand why it is that now that my hour has come, you now see me, but in a little while, you will not see me. You understand why all these things are happening.” It is such a beautiful, stunning passage because it comes in the very same context of this very clear assertion of Christ’s deity in which he, as the Father commands, but he doesn't merely command subjects or servants, he commands his friends. Now again, the passage is so beautiful because then you think, well come to think of it, that redefines what we read in the very first verse. “This is my commandment that you love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends.” So the word friend is all of a sudden elevated in this massive way, almost infinite way, right before our eyes. It's elevated because it's demonstrated in the fact that Christ dies for us. God's own Son dies for us. And he dies for us, not merely as the passive subjects of his saving love, but as his friends. And this is another issue of biblical theology that we missed. When did we become the friends of Christ? When? Well, temporally, we become the friends of Christ when we hear him and believe him and obey him and follow him, that’s temporally when we become Christ’s friends. But beyond that, when did we become Christ’s friends? It has to be in eternity past. And that will also become very clear in this passage because we were Jesus's friends when we didn’t know it. When he died for us without our knowledge. When he came in order to save his friends, He knew who his friends were when He came. How do we know this? Because He tells us. “No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, He may give it to you.” Okay, just less there be any misunderstanding, Jesus here is speaking to his disciples, at this point to the eleven. Judas is gone. Speaking to the eleven, he says, “you didn't choose me. I chose you.” But this is not just to the eleven. It is to the untold many who will come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, and be his disciples down through all the ages. In the same sense that they did not choose him, but he chose them, that has to be true of us because this is God's word for us. And furthermore, how could it be that he chose them, but we chose him. It's an illogic that is embarrassing. And of course, this is an underlining in the sovereignty of God. It's a very clear reference to the doctrine of election. It's very reassuring. If we're Christians simply because we chose him, then we can un-choose, but we didn't choose him. He chose us. And we will be told he chose us before the foundation of the world. So, Jesus here says, “I call you friends and not merely servants because I tell you these things.” A king just says to a servant, do this, do that. “But even as you're my disciples and you are my douloi, you're my friends, I tell you why. But even as I've told you that, just remember, you didn't choose me. I chose you.” The passage concludes with Jesus saying, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide”. Again, we just had the passage about abiding in Christ. About Christ the vine and we the branches, and the purpose of the branches is to bear fruit. So again, as I said in the beginning of our time this morning, there's a circularity. Jesus comes back to that. “These things I command you, that you love one another." That's another one of those Bible verses I learned so early. We love one another, love one another. But “Love one another” is often an empty, vacuous term. If you just think of it in human, horizontal terms, it's pretty good thing for children to be taught, but it doesn't hold Christ’s church together because horizontal love, as important as it is, just is fairly fragile. But we are to love one another as Christ has loved us. And, “These things”, Jesus says, “I have commanded you, so that you will love one another.” Now again, what's the logic of this? I mean, how do we make sense of that last sentence actually, because we read the phrase as if it makes sense. But let me ask you, does it? “These things”. What would these things be? Everything that he said. “These things I command you.” Well, now he's back to commanding. So even as He is, as God the Father commanding, it's a clear statement of his deity. He's commanding, but He's not commanding mere servants and slaves. He's actually commanding us as His friends, but nonetheless, as the sovereign Lord of the universe, He is commanding His friends so that we will love one another. So explain this “so that”. Well, I think at least a part of this has to be that we love one another because He first loved us. And we will often have to tell ourselves that. It's a part of ecclesiology. We have to keep reminding ourselves we love each other because Christ first loved us, because I mean, frankly, sometimes our fellow church members are lovable and sometimes they're not. And it's also true that the longer you get to know people, even the people closest to you, the more irritating certain things become. The longer you know people, the more you think you're going to get over that first impression, and then 20 years later, you figure out, nope, that was pretty accurate. We are going to let each other down. We're going to disappoint each other. But, we are to love one another as Christ has loved us. The mark of the church is love. Francis Schaffer, probably far better known for his apologetic writings, wrote a book entitled “The Mark of the Christian”, making very clear, it is love. And the absence of love means the absence of gospel. So as we think about these things, “These things I have commanded you, so that you'll love one another”, why is it that we love one another? It's not just because Christ has first loved us. We were told that, yes, but it's because Christ has also commanded us this multiplicity of commands and the doing of those commands means that we actually will love one another. It comes down to the minutiae of faithfulness. It comes down to the thinking of none of ourselves greater than the other. It comes down to seeing one another's needs as more important than our own. It comes down to common obedience in order to reach a community for Christ. It comes down to common obedience in order to reach a world for Christ. It comes down to the care of widows and orphans. It comes down to working in a nursery. You know what? You work in a nursery and you're taking care of someone's kids, you like the parents better. You understand them in a whole new way. You love their kids and love them. And you are on a committee with someone or you share a task with someone, or you share a pew with someone. And over time you realize “I'll be very disappointed if they're not in that pew this morning. If they're not there, I'm going to want to know why they're not there. If there's something wrong, I want to know how I can help.” This is why we have the flurry of emails, knowing how we can help one another. And this is when Christians turn Jewish. I grew up with a friend in high school whose father was a rabbi and mother was the wife of the rabbi. And I got to be around them. It was an eye opening experience. They were very gracious to allow this little Gentile in their home. But, there was one response that was always axiomatic. Whenever there was tsurus, Yiddish for trouble, whenever there was trouble, the rabbi would be filled with consternation and his wife would say, “I'll make soup.” That’s what she did, you know, because whatever the trouble, somebody is going to need soup. This is what we do. We take care of one another. We take one another food, somebody needs soup. In fact, we just, we might as well be armed with soup, just keep the soup ready, somebody's going to need it. And you just look at this and you recognize this is this the way that we know how to love. If we had to come up with what it meant to love one another, it'd be a real awkward, geeky kind of thing, but we're actually shown how to love one another, because of all the commands Christ has given us. And if we obey those commands, guess what, we're going to love one another. It makes love tangible. “These things I have commanded you, so that you will love one another.” Oh, and we're going to have to love one another because the world hates us. And that's the very next word Jesus is going to speak. It's not a word of warning. “Hey, you know what? You're going to face some opposition out there in the world because there are some people who aren't going to understand the message and they're going to be somewhat resistant.” No, it's Jesus saying, “If the world hated me, here's a clue boys and girls, the world's going to hate you.” The servant is not greater than his master. Oh, now we're back to servant and master. We're his friends, but this is not egalitarian discipleship. No servant is greater than his master. If the master is hated, the servant will be hated also. So how is it that we can withstand the hatred of the world? It is because first of all, the Lordship of Christ. It is because first of all, he is the vine and we are the branches. The branches, Jesus says, “No branch that bears fruit will be cut.” We're safe. But it's also because we need each other. And these things, Christ has commanded in order that we would love one another. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.Third Avenue Baptist Church Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series November 15, 2020     It was wonderful to see you this morning and wonderful to be able to turn to God's Word together, and we're continuing through our study in the Gospel of John. We're in John 15, and we are in the farewell discourse of Jesus and thus issues are intensifying, and we are also in, as we shall see, a passage of scripture in which Jesus is giving what amounts to a final briefing to his disciples. And we have the honor by the Holy Spirit of observing this. Over hearing it. Let's pray. Father, we're just so thankful that you give us the opportunity to hear these words even as the disciples heard these words from Jesus. And Father, this means that you intended these words for us, even as Jesus intended these words for his disciples, and may they have the same effect on us as they had upon the disciples. May we receive these words with great joy because we receive your word with great joy. And may we live it faithfully. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, Amen. So when we were together last, we worked our way to John chapter 15, verse 11, and you'll recall that in verse 11, Jesus said, “these things I spoke to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full.” Now, one of the challenges we face in John chapter 15 in this farewell discourse is that it is the Farewell Discourse. It is Jesus knowing that in a very short amount of time, he is going to be arrested and taken away from his disciples. Before his crucifixion these will be the final words. Now what we have are three chapters here, John chapter 15, which we will conclude shortly. John chapter 16 coming, and then of course the high priestly prayer in John chapter 17. But that last part is the prayer between Jesus and the Father and the disciples were not a part of that. So the time with the disciples is getting very short. The intensity is very high. We're at a fever pitch. This is the greatest tension in the drama of what's taking place in the life and ministry of Jesus as he has headed for the cross. And thus, the words that he's speaking take on a particular poignancy. Now there's something else that takes place in this farewell discourse, and that is that all of this belongs together, but it is not just a matter of Jesus going through an outline. It's not like if you've ever been on a cruise ship and you have a briefing of what to do, if you have to go to the lifeboats and on every cruise, you've got to do this. You've got to go through the drill. It's an international maritime rule. And so when you're on the cruise ship, eventually like the second morning, you've got to meet out at your life boat posts and you have to put on the vest and you have to listen to what's being told. And, and yet, you know, it's a beautiful sunny day. You're in the Caribbean, you're in the Mediterranean. No, one's thinking about the boat sinking. The Titanic's long in the past. And you know, you really do need to know this, but you really want it to be over. And it doesn't go too long, and besides that, the people doing it are reading off of a clipboard so that they can check off everything that they've done. I think of that when I see airline pilots doing this, when I get on an airplane. I look back in the cockpit, looking for a little reassurance that somebody in there looks like he's not 14, and that has some competence to fly this plane. And generally they're going through a checklist. And I'm just thinking,” you know, if I did that two or three times a day, I might get a little careless. I'm hoping you don't.” This is not a checklist in the sense that it's just going through a sequential order. Jesus here, the authenticity of the conversation, this discourse Jesus is having with his disciples, a part of the authenticity is how Jesus goes back to an issue and circles back and will say, “this is why I told you.” Now in looking at that, I have to say that I look at this passage differently as both a father and a grandfather than I probably would have looked at this passage at an earlier point of life, or as a teacher, I look at this differently. And it's because when you are communicating the most massively important matters to people, you're also reading them. And you're looking at their faces. That's one of the reasons why, and you have all these teachers saying that even in person, education is much more difficult because with these children wearing masks, it's much harder to see, “do I have their attention? Do I not? What's going through their minds? Is anything going through their minds?” You know, just the act of watching as one as communicating. And so what happens here is as we come to the passage that begins in John chapter 15, verse 12 is that Jesus is actually repeating much of what he said, but he adds something. So as we saw the last verse was “these things I've spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” And remember, Jesus has told them, he's getting ready to leave them in a little while. “You will not see me.” But now he says in verse 12, “this is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: Then someone lays down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I commanded you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you so that you will love one another.” That's a very tight passage. And there are about four huge issues here each of which you could say would be deserving of a book unto itself, but because of the context and the fact that this is a temporal tension, the time is running out. Jesus gives the disciples these truths. And he does so in such a way that he obviously is not saying everything that he might say about them, but some of these things he's spoken of before. So for example, in verse 12, when he begins by saying, “this is my commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you,” this is the same Jesus who said, “if you love me, you'll keep my commandments.” If you love me, you will keep my commandments. If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And we saw the fact that this is not only the fact that Jesus has commandments, this is Old Testament biblical theology coming alive in the New Testament. Only God may give commandments. And so this is a clear assertion of the deity of Christ, as he is here speaking to his disciples, and he doesn't give them maxims and principles and rules and regulations, he gives them commandments. And that is as God the Father gave the commandments to Moses. And we know most famously is the 10 Commandments, But what commandments has Jesus given? When we looked earlier, John 14 and 15, that Jesus has commandment, we saw that he'd given many. We think of the Great Commission, just to give an obvious one. But there are actually something like 400 commandments that Jesus gives, and they're not given in the same spirit of the law, they are instead indeed principles that he has commanded. They are attitudinal. They’re action. But he gets right to the heart. “This is my commandment.” So this is the summary. If you say,” this is the law.” If you have an attorney making a case before a jury or a lawyer making a case for the oral arguments before the United States Supreme court. And, there are two senses in which that lawyer may make reference to the law. He may make specific reference, as he may say, “as in US criminal code, you know, section two, paragraph three,” you know, he may make specific reference as to whether or not that law is actually in play in this. But even more often before the Supreme Court, you will hear attorneys make reference to “the law” as one body. As making basically one argument: it is the rule of law. And so you say, “as the law teaches us. As the law constrains us.” And the same thing is true in the Bible. You need to say, “well, this is the law of God.” Well, God gave laws and God gave commandments, but you can speak of the law and say, there's a distinction between the law and the gospel. Which law do you mean? You mean all of it. The body of the law. And that's exactly what Jesus is doing here. He says, “I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what, everything I've taught you comes down to. It's not that I haven't given you other commandments. I've given you other commandments, but I mean,” and by the way, some of Jesus' commandments are attitudinal, “such as ``fear not,” but you'll notice here he says, “this is THE commandment.” In other words, you're going to summarize everything here. Now in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus summarizes all of the Old Testament law, the law and the prophets, when he was asked, “what is the most important of the commandments?” And he says that “you should love the Lord, your God with all your heart and soul and mind” going back to Deuteronomy. But then he goes to Leviticus and he says, the second is likened to it, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commands, hang all of the law and the profits.” So everything comes down to this, but now Jesus speaks of his own commandments. And he says, “it all comes down to this. My commandments, come down to this, that you love one another, as I have loved you.” Now, that's one of the sentences that rings in our ears with such familiarity. “You shall love one another as I have loved you,” because we know It's familiar to us and John will come back to this in his epistles, but what are we to do with this right now? Well, we're to read it as an entire sentence. And that's where it gets dangerous, because he doesn't just say “you shall love one another.” The Bible has already told us that. His commandment is that we love one another as he has loved us. Now, things get dangerous. This is a command that's far more revolutionary than we dare teach our children in Sunday School When they first learned it. If we say that Christ's commandment is that we love one another. Well, and that seems almost axiomatic, but Jesus taught us that we are to love one another. I think that is just about the second or third Bible verse I learned as a child. And God is love was the first. And then you just, you just think about the outworking of this. God loved us first now we're to love one another. What are the limitations upon loving one another? That's the key question. And the disciples were always concerned with what is the limitation upon this command? And look sometimes I can remember as a teenager, seeing the, you know, the disciples asked how many times must I forgive and you know, the answer to that's coming, and it's just embarrassing that the disciples would ask it. You know, you're going to look bad asking this question. Don't ask. And it's like, you know, you're 14, you're reading the Bible. And you think maybe if I opened the Bible next time they won't ask that stupid question. Oh, yes, they do. But actually, it's a question that is necessary for us to ask. What is the extent of how we're to love one another? This could be very costly. It could be very inconvenient. So Jesus puts the restriction on it here. “This is my commandment that you love one another, as I have loved you. Well, it turns out there's no restriction on it. Jesus has loved us infinitely. And as the New Testament tells us, he loved us until the end. And, of course, he died for us. So what Jesus is saying here is “I've got good news and bad news.” I've got good news: “The most important summary of all that I've taught you is this: You are to love one, one another.” Here's the bad news: “As I have loved you.” So this is a manifesto for the Christian Church. The kind of love that should be present in the Christian Church is the kind of love in which believers love one another, as Christ has loved us. Now, we are incapable of loving, as faithfully, as Christ loved us. We are incapable of loving, as infinitely, as Christ loved us. But we are to love as intentionally. And as genuinely as Christ has loved us. The disciples are about to be absent from Christ. They are going to face the hatred of the world. That has been made clear. Jesus is now going to make it far more clear in the passage that follows, the paragraph of our concern this morning. Jesus is going to tell them the world hates you. The world doesn't dislike you. The world's not irritated by you. The world hates you because the world hates it's me. But we are not there yet. But preparing them to hear of this message of the world's hatred, he reminds them it is to be contrasted with the picture of their love for one another. And so just think of two different spheres. And we don't know about that second one yet, except we do. We know it's coming, the world's going to hate us, but in the church we find love. And as Christians, we've got to settle for that. As Christians, we have to understand that the repudiation of the gospel is to get those two spheres reversed: To live so that the world will love us, but the church may hate us. And Jesus will be very clear. You're not going to be able to earn the love of both the church and the world. And that's a devastating realization. I think one of the greatest temptations to Christians is to want to be loved by both the church and the world. But in the end, that will turn out to be impossible. So the first big thing for us to see here is the command of Christ and the lack of any limitation upon this: The example of his own love for the disciples as how the Christian is to love other fellow believers. The passage continues: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends.” So again, Jesus is calling us as friends. It's very sweet. He's about to make that clear what he's saying, but you'll notice that even as Jesus said “this is my command to that you love one another as I have loved you” and “greater love has no man would that he lay down his life for his friends.” So it's not like we have to imagine where Jesus is going with this, because Jesus tells us explicitly the very next sentence. Jesus says, “oh, and by the way, I've told you that you're to love one another as I have loved you. And the love that I love you is taking me to the cross for you.” And there is no greater love. So that's bracing. We are to love one another even unto death. Jesus says “you are my friends. If you do what I command you.” And he said that already. In at least two different sessions when we've been together, we've been looking at paragraphs from either the farewell discourse or the passage just before the farewell discourse. And we've seen Jesus say over and over again, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. He comes back to it this time. He says, “you are my friends if you do what I command you. Now that's the same thing. No, it's not. No, it's not the same thing at all. If you look at the Old Testament and imagine Moses at Sinai. And imagine all the children of Israel gathered there--Sinai is often referred to as Mount Horeb--and you'll recall the theatrical of the occasion. The children of Israel and even their animals were told not to approach the mountain less they touch it and die. And the mountain itself is trembling with an earthquake. And it is surrounded by clouds and out of the clouds comes fire, and out of the clouds and the fire comes the very audible voice of God. And God spoke to the children of Israel and Moses will remind them they heard his voice. And then Moses is uniquely called upon the mountain where he goes to be with the Lord. And he comes down with the tablets. To actually follow through the passage closely, he comes down with the law, and another time he comes down with the tablets, it's kind of in our imagination, we put it together. But nonetheless, the point is, God does not refer to Israel as his friend. He's commanding them because they are his subjects. They're his chosen people. They're his elect people, his elect nation. Yes, but he does not refer to them as his friends. You know, as a matter of fact in the Deuteronomic formula, it comes down to “I've set before you life and death, blessing and curse. So choose life and live, obey the law and you live, disobey the law and you die.” Jesus says, you are my friends. If you do what I command you. You're my friends. This is the second big thing in this little paragraph. “You're my friends.” Once again, I think of being a child, you know, who, who are your friends? Well, you know, they're the people who are your little buddies and friends and acquaintances. And you're never sure exactly what a friend means when you're a little child, because you're told to be friendly to everybody and you're introduced to someone here's a new friend. Well, maybe, maybe not. We'll see. But that's the way you're kind of presenting it: Friendship is an obligation. And then it is very interesting and kind of a developmental understanding of friendship, as one reaches the older elementary school ages, and personality develops, and social skills develop. Children begin to develop friendships that become genuine friendships. You're a friend with the little people when you're a little because you're put with them, and you're told these are your friends. And little children tend to be extremely friendly. But it is not as if they're deeply concerned with one another and it's not necessarily because they have any particularly important shared interests. I mean, if they put blocks in front of them, the interest is blocks. If you put something else in front of them, that interest is that.But older children can develop friendships based upon common interests. By the time early adolescence arrives, not to mention adolescence itself, it comes with an intense need for friendships. And those friendships become very, very, very intentional, and extremely important. And in some cases unhealthy. But then as you go through life, you realize that friends are a matter of choice, really. We have lots of acquaintances, but being friends involves risk. Friend means investment and priority. If someone really is a friend, then that means that not only you think friendly thoughts about them, but that you would act on their behalf. You would take care of them. You are concerned for them. Shared interests? Yes, of course. But shared responsibility. Jesus here refers to the disciples as friends. Now, just to be honest, that's reassuring to hear, but that's not the first thing we would have thought of, is it, when thinking of Jesus and the disciples? I mean, after all, there's a very clear distinction. There's Jesus and his disciples. The disciples are the ones to whom the commandments were being given. Very interesting. Again, go back to Sinai, back to Horeb, go back to thunder on the mountain. Jesus has given these commands and this one commandment that he's just summarized here just as authoritatively as the Father gave the commandments to Israel through Moses. So what does it mean that he calls us his friends - if we do what he says, if we do what he commands us? Well, it's a transformation of our understanding of God's love for us. It's a transformation of the relationship that we have with the Father by Christ. So here's something that we need to keep very much in mind: we are not the friend of God the Father by any right, except that we are the friends of the Son. And so this is an intensely Christological truth, Christological relationship here. We are at peace with God entirely because of the atoning work of the Son. Even right now, we are the privileged, elect, secure, blessed sons and daughters of God because Jesus Christ right now sits at the right hand of God the Father almighty as our mediator and intercessor. But we are the friends of the Father and considered as friends of the Father only because we are the friends of the Son. The Father receives the friends of the Son as his own. And that is incredibly powerful. It's just incredible that Jesus would refer to his disciples as friends, especially at this point, as he is speaking in commandments. You would think when you are given a commandment, that's when you are least likely to be defined as a friend. I mean friends don't give friends commandments, right? That's a strange friendship, you know. Instead there's equality there. Not equality here, but there is an intimacy here. We're invited to demonstrate ourselves to be the friends of Jesus, because the text actually says that you are my friends if you do this. So we show ourselves to be the friends of Jesus by the fact that we obey his command. In fact, involved in verse 14 is all that He’s commanded us. In verse 15, Jesus says “No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.” I will tell you, honestly, this is one of the most revolutionary sentences in the New Testament. It also gets to a doctrinal, polemical and apologetic obsession of John, the apostle. The first and most pernicious heresy that threatened Christianity is known as the Gnostic heresy, G-n-o-s-t-i-c. And a Gnostic heresy has always hung around Christianity and in every generation it's there. It may be disguised as one thing or another, but it's there. It came very, very early in biblical Christianity, so early it shows up in the New Testament itself. The heresy of Gnosticism was based upon the idea that salvation comes through a knowledge, a gnosis, the Greek word for knowledge. It's an enlightenment. And we are surrounded by people who also believe that salvation comes by an enlightenment. Without going into politics, it is at least interesting, just because this could be on the right or the left, right now the language is on the left. But you’ll notice that we're living in the midst of the “Great Awokening”. I mean the whole idea of woke means enlightenment. And now, in certain circles, you've got to give testimony of when you became woke. The Gnostic heresy was rooted in thought that came before the incarnation of Christ, but became extremely powerful in the time of Jesus in the first century, and then of course, powerfully attractive in a deadly sense to the Christian Church thereafter. The idea is that one became, basically, one of the enlightened and you're separated from all the rest because the rest are in ignorance, darkness, you are in the knowledge or the light. You have been now introduced into the secret mysteries. So Gnosticism had its own mystery cults. And one of the problems with the Romans trying to understand Christianity is that Christianity at times might appear like a form of Gnosticism or a mystery cult. Because it has an inside and an outside, you're either in or you're out. And not only that, but knowledge has a great deal to do with it. As Paul will say, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. But here’s another point, and this has relevance in a day of conspiracy theories and all the rest. The point of New Testament Christianity is that it is a knowledge that is necessary for salvation, but it is no secret knowledge, it is a public knowledge. And, so over and over and over again, and every opportunity in the New Testament, it is declared that this is public truth. This is not some mystery we are keeping unto ourselves. Christianity is not a mystery cult in which when you get in, you are told the truth that people outside don't know. That's completely alien to Christianity. Instead, the apostle Paul, for example, will over and over again in different contexts say this is the mystery that has in this age been revealed. This is not a mystery that we keep unto ourselves. This is public truth. What we say here, we declare publicly to all men. Jesus didn't say, “Go into the world and form little batteries of little groupings of the mystery cult. No, He said “Go into the world and make disciples.” And over and over again, you had the apostle Paul who makes very clear - the opposite of a mystery cult is what Paul does in Acts chapter 17. He goes to Athens and said, “You are wondering what these mysterious teachers are teaching, here it is, and I'm saying it right here on the mountain of the philosophers in Athens, in public, here it is.” To Felix or to Festus, “You want to know what it is we believe? Here's what we believe, here it is.” It is a knowledge that was - and here's Paul in 2 Corinthians, sophisticated, sophisticated passage in 2 Corinthians, look at three and four, where Paul says - it was a hidden mystery, but it is not hidden now. It was veiled, but the veil has been removed. And that's pointing to the incarnation of Christ, and particularly to his death, burial, resurrection. The mystery is now publicly declared. Christianity is not a mystery cult. Jesus says here, “You are my friends, if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants”. Why? It comes down to knowledge. It's stunning what Jesus says. Well, why does he call us friends? Why? Why does he not just say, “Hey, you're my disciples. You're my servants.” Why not go and use the New Testament word doulos, “You're my slaves. You are mine. You belong to me. Therefore, you're going to do what I command you. And if you don't do what I command you, then you're going to reveal yourself to be a false disciple, and we will kick you out.” By the way, the Bible does say that. But that's not what Jesus is saying here. Jesus is saying, “I call you friends because I'm telling you what these things mean. If you were merely my servants, I would just tell you what to do. I'm not just telling you what to do, I'm telling you why.” It is one of the kindest sentences in the entire Bible. It is contrary to what we see in the Old Testament where God often conceals his will to Israel. There's not often an explanation of the why, but Jesus here in the greatest intensity of the teaching with his disciples says, “I’m calling you friends. Do you want to know why I'm calling you friends? It's because I am telling you why all these things happen and what they mean. I am telling you what the master is doing. I'm telling you exactly what's going to happen. I'm telling you why. I told you from the beginning that these things would happen. I told you that my hour is coming. I do not leave you in the dark. I want you to understand, not only what I'm doing, but what I know these things mean.” It's such an incredible privilege. We're not just the recipients of the saving work of Christ. We are his friends, in which he explains these things to us. He tells us what the master is doing, speaking of himself. But of course, ultimately of the Father. “Here's what the Father is doing.” And then we will have, of course, even a greater explanation in detail, theologically, by the time we get to a passage like Romans 3:21 and following where the mystery of the cross is explained to us. And we're taken into the inner logic of the gospel and of the atonement. The inner logic, we're even given a glimpse of the inner Trinitarian relationship between the Father and the Son in a passage such as Philippians chapter two. You realize, when you look at the New Testament, it is a ‘friend book’. The New Testament, just as Jesus here is teaching his disciples, is what God gives his friends. If we were merely his servants, then all we would have is a to-do list. And, you know, sometimes you give friends a to do list, but you explain why. You say, “This is what this means. We're doing this great thing. We're about this great work - You are my friends and you understand what I am doing. You understand why I am going to the cross. You understand why it is that now that my hour has come, you now see me, but in a little while, you will not see me. You understand why all these things are happening.” It is such a beautiful, stunning passage because it comes in the very same context of this very clear assertion of Christ’s deity in which he, as the Father commands, but he doesn't merely command subjects or servants, he commands his friends. Now again, the passage is so beautiful because then you think, well come to think of it, that redefines what we read in the very first verse. “This is my commandment that you love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends.” So the word friend is all of a sudden elevated in this massive way, almost infinite way, right before our eyes. It's elevated because it's demonstrated in the fact that Christ dies for us. God's own Son dies for us. And he dies for us, not merely as the passive subjects of his saving love, but as his friends. And this is another issue of biblical theology that we missed. When did we become the friends of Christ? When? Well, temporally, we become the friends of Christ when we hear him and believe him and obey him and follow him, that’s temporally when we become Christ’s friends. But beyond that, when did we become Christ’s friends? It has to be in eternity past. And that will also become very clear in this passage because we were Jesus's friends when we didn’t know it. When he died for us without our knowledge. When he came in order to save his friends, He knew who his friends were when He came. How do we know this? Because He tells us. “No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, He may give it to you.” Okay, just less there be any misunderstanding, Jesus here is speaking to his disciples, at this point to the eleven. Judas is gone. Speaking to the eleven, he says, “you didn't choose me. I chose you.” But this is not just to the eleven. It is to the untold many who will come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, and be his disciples down through all the ages. In the same sense that they did not choose him, but he chose them, that has to be true of us because this is God's word for us. And furthermore, how could it be that he chose them, but we chose him. It's an illogic that is embarrassing. And of course, this is an underlining in the sovereignty of God. It's a very clear reference to the doctrine of election. It's very reassuring. If we're Christians simply because we chose him, then we can un-choose, but we didn't choose him. He chose us. And we will be told he chose us before the foundation of the world. So, Jesus here says, “I call you friends and not merely servants because I tell you these things.” A king just says to a servant, do this, do that. “But even as you're my disciples and you are my douloi, you're my friends, I tell you why. But even as I've told you that, just remember, you didn't choose me. I chose you.” The passage concludes with Jesus saying, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide”. Again, we just had the passage about abiding in Christ. About Christ the vine and we the branches, and the purpose of the branches is to bear fruit. So again, as I said in the beginning of our time this morning, there's a circularity. Jesus comes back to that. “These things I command you, that you love one another." That's another one of those Bible verses I learned so early. We love one another, love one another. But “Love one another” is often an empty, vacuous term. If you just think of it in human, horizontal terms, it's pretty good thing for children to be taught, but it doesn't hold Christ’s church together because horizontal love, as important as it is, just is fairly fragile. But we are to love one another as Christ has loved us. And, “These things”, Jesus says, “I have commanded you, so that you will love one another.” Now again, what's the logic of this? I mean, how do we make sense of that last sentence actually, because we read the phrase as if it makes sense. But let me ask you, does it? “These things”. What would these things be? Everything that he said. “These things I command you.” Well, now he's back to commanding. So even as He is, as God the Father commanding, it's a clear statement of his deity. He's commanding, but He's not commanding mere servants and slaves. He's actually commanding us as His friends, but nonetheless, as the sovereign Lord of the universe, He is commanding His friends so that we will love one another. So explain this “so that”. Well, I think at least a part of this has to be that we love one another because He first loved us. And we will often have to tell ourselves that. It's a part of ecclesiology. We have to keep reminding ourselves we love each other because Christ first loved us, because I mean, frankly, sometimes our fellow church members are lovable and sometimes they're not. And it's also true that the longer you get to know people, even the people closest to you, the more irritating certain things become. The longer you know people, the more you think you're going to get over that first impression, and then 20 years later, you figure out, nope, that was pretty accurate. We are going to let each other down. We're going to disappoint each other. But, we are to love one another as Christ has loved us. The mark of the church is love. Francis Schaffer, probably far better known for his apologetic writings, wrote a book entitled “The Mark of the Christian”, making very clear, it is love. And the absence of love means the absence of gospel. So as we think about these things, “These things I have commanded you, so that you'll love one another”, why is it that we love one another? It's not just because Christ has first loved us. We were told that, yes, but it's because Christ has also commanded us this multiplicity of commands and the doing of those commands means that we actually will love one another. It comes down to the minutiae of faithfulness. It comes down to the thinking of none of ourselves greater than the other. It comes down to seeing one another's needs as more important than our own. It comes down to common obedience in order to reach a community for Christ. It comes down to common obedience in order to reach a world for Christ. It comes down to the care of widows and orphans. It comes down to working in a nursery. You know what? You work in a nursery and you're taking care of someone's kids, you like the parents better. You understand them in a whole new way. You love their kids and love them. And you are on a committee with someone or you share a task with someone, or you share a pew with someone. And over time you realize “I'll be very disappointed if they're not in that pew this morning. If they're not there, I'm going to want to know why they're not there. If there's something wrong, I want to know how I can help.” This is why we have the flurry of emails, knowing how we can help one another. And this is when Christians turn Jewish. I grew up with a friend in high school whose father was a rabbi and mother was the wife of the rabbi. And I got to be around them. It was an eye opening experience. They were very gracious to allow this little Gentile in their home. But, there was one response that was always axiomatic. Whenever there was tsurus, Yiddish for trouble, whenever there was trouble, the rabbi would be filled with consternation and his wife would say, “I'll make soup.” That’s what she did, you know, because whatever the trouble, somebody is going to need soup. This is what we do. We take care of one another. We take one another food, somebody needs soup. In fact, we just, we might as well be armed with soup, just keep the soup ready, somebody's going to need it. And you just look at this and you recognize this is this the way that we know how to love. If we had to come up with what it meant to love one another, it'd be a real awkward, geeky kind of thing, but we're actually shown how to love one another, because of all the commands Christ has given us. And if we obey those commands, guess what, we're going to love one another. It makes love tangible. “These things I have commanded you, so that you will love one another.” Oh, and we're going to have to love one another because the world hates us. And that's the very next word Jesus is going to speak. It's not a word of warning. “Hey, you know what? You're going to face some opposition out there in the world because there are some people who aren't going to understand the message and they're going to be somewhat resistant.” No, it's Jesus saying, “If the world hated me, here's a clue boys and girls, the world's going to hate you.” The servant is not greater than his master. Oh, now we're back to servant and master. We're his friends, but this is not egalitarian discipleship. No servant is greater than his master. If the master is hated, the servant will be hated also. So how is it that we can withstand the hatred of the world? It is because first of all, the Lordship of Christ. It is because first of all, he is the vine and we are the branches. The branches, Jesus says, “No branch that bears fruit will be cut.” We're safe. But it's also because we need each other. And these things, Christ has commanded in order that we would love one another. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2020/11/01/john-1428-1511/ Sun, 01 Nov 2020 15:25:27 +0000 Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series
November 1, 2020

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 47:53 https://albertmohler.com/?p=53131 Audio, Exposition, John, John Series, Video noThird Avenue Baptist Church Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series November 1, 2020 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.Third Avenue Baptist Church Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series November 1, 2020 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2020/10/25/john-1418-27/ Sun, 25 Oct 2020 15:00:16 +0000 Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series
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September 8, 2019

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June 30, 2019
Father, we thank you that you give us this unspeakable privilege, opening your book, reading it aloud, and then going back to understand it. Father, we pray that you will give us that understanding even as you gave us your Word. We pray this in the name of the incarnate Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. 
When we arrive at John chapter nine, we arrive at one of the pivotal chapters, I think in all of Scripture. I will say that this is one of those chapters that reveals whether or not we are prepared to read the Bible as Christians. You say, isn't that true of every text? Yes, it's true of every chapter and every verse, but there are some particular chapters that present particular issues. The issue of belief and unbelief are just thrown into dramatic contrast and in ways that will often shock many believers. There are some explosive moments in this passage. John nine is a big chapter. I'm gonna do what might appear to be a little unpredictable here in the beginning. I have a particular purpose in reading the entire chapter aloud together before making a single comment about the text.
One of my purposes in doing this is to reveal one of the attributes of scripture as God's Word, which is the fact that it is self explaining. If you read the text carefully, reading the text as the text is written, there is an absolutely astounding self-explanatory character to the text. But I'm talking about the text rather than reading the text, so let's turn to the Word of God, John chapter nine and read the text together. 
“As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ Jesus answered, ‘It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.’ Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud and said to him, ‘Go, wash in the pool of Siloam’ (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.
The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar were saying, ‘Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?’ Some said, ‘It is he.’ Others said, ‘No, but he is like him.’ He kept saying, ‘I am the man.’ So they said to him, ‘Then how were your eyes opened?’ [11] He answered, ‘The man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed and received my sight.’ They said to him, ‘Where is he?’ He said, ‘I do not know.’
They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. So the Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight. And he said to them, ‘He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.’ Some of the Pharisees said, ‘This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.’ But others said, ‘How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?’ And there was a division among them.  So they said again to the blind man, ‘What do you say about him, since he has opened your eyes?’ He said, ‘He is a prophet.’
The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight, until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, ‘Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How does he now see?’ His parents answered, ‘We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. But how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.’ (His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.) Therefore his parents said, He is of age; ask him.’
So for the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, ‘Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.’ He answered, ‘Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.’ They said to him, ‘What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?’ He answered them, ‘I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?’ And they reviled him, saying, ‘You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.’ The man answered, ‘Why, this is an amazing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.’ They answered him, ‘You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?’ And they cast him out.
Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, ‘Do you believe in the Son of Man?’ He answered, ‘And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?’ Jesus said to him, ‘You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.’ He said, ‘Lord, I believe,’ and he worshiped him. Jesus said, ‘For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.’ Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, ‘Are we also blind?’ Jesus said to them, ‘If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.’”
Boom. Wow. Here's this passage in which all of John's characteristic irony, in contrast to the other gospels, comes through in one grand narrative. Irony is powerfully disclosive. John is the master of irony in all of the New Testament. He demonstrates, as the Holy Spirit inspired him to write this Gospel, that Jesus used irony in teaching. You think the story's supposed to go this way, but it swerves this way.
Irony is sometimes described as two things put together in unresolvable tension. You see that here. Irony will make you smile. That's the reason why irony is the most sophisticated form of humor. This is the distinction between slapstick humor and the master of irony in contemporary American culture, who would be Seinfeld. It's a humor that you get, rarely by laughing out loud with a soundtrack. It's more the wry smile. Irony means there's an inside and an outside. If you get it, you're on the inside. If you don't get it, you're on the outside, which is exactly the point of the passage.
The stunning irony in the passage is that the people who think they're on the inside are actually on the outside. The people who think they're seeing are the people who don't see and the people who don't see actually do see. And then it's in the play of the word, ‘know’ in John chapter nine, the word ‘know’ plays this hugely ironic thing. They go to the man who was born blind and they said, ‘What do you know?’ He says, ‘I don't know what I know.’ ‘Well, who healed you?’ ‘I actually don't know.’ ‘Well then what do you know?’ ‘Oh, I know I was blind. And now I see.’ ‘Well, how do you know that?’ Then they begin to suspect that he wasn't even actually blind. He'd been playing blind for his entire life, just to show up the Pharisees at this moment. It's an astounding passage. But even as it's an astounding passage in its irony, it's astounding in its testimony to the sovereignty of God and the purpose of life. 
Look at the beginning verses, “As he passed by,” and this is Jesus passing by, presumably on the way to the temple, “As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth.” It's just a fact here. This is not someone who became blind by accident or illness. This is a man who was born blind and in the first century to be born blind was a horrifying reality because being blind, one could not care for oneself. The assumption in the twisted theology of the time was that this was the curse of God. Being blind meant you could not work. You were reduced to begging. Blind beggars lined the way to the temple, hoping for alms, so that the Jews going to give alms as a part or their religious duty would see the blind and give to them. 
He was a beggar. It's a very low state. The assumption in a bad theology, we have to watch this, a conventionally minded theology in contrast to a Christian theology says, “If someone is in this state, then they deserve it. If someone is born with this deformity, God must not like them as much as God likes me.” It is such a thing that in much of the world today, and in particular in Asia, there is a theological avoidance of people who have deformities. It is bad karma even to be in their presence. Throughout much of the middle east, as in the time of Jesus, babies who were marked by these afflictions might just be set out. Of course, the ancient Greeks and Romans did the same thing, just as infanticide. Babies just abandoned and allowed to die. But this man's parents did not do that. Thus, he survived. But notice what happens. His disciples ask him, “Rabbi who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” There's that conventional theology. It's a bad theology. It's a very bad theology. Sometimes, here's what we have to watch, inside God's people who operate out of what they think is a basic Biblical theism, bad theology can infect invisibly until it comes out just as it comes out here. So the disciples ask the question. They're not embarrassed to ask the question. They assume it's kind of an obvious question. Who sinned that this man was born blind. Was it he? Or was it his parents?
Their assumption is that where there is a man born blind, there was a sin, someone's sin who is behind this. That's insidious. Notice how deadly that is. That means that in this case, if someone is blind, then you can blame him for the blindness. This must be God's judgment upon his sin. Well, especially if someone's born blind, then that's really tough. This must be some kind of family heritage sin, or even some kind of prenatal sin. Who sinned, this man or his parents? Maybe his parents sinned and God's judgment upon their sin was to strike their son blind. It's an insidious, corrupted theology, but it’s easy to see how this sneaks in. It's easy to see how we would ask such questions. Cause and effect in the universe, how are we to understand this? 
By the way, who sinned that this man was born blind? There is a right answer to that question, that is Adam. To be even more correct, we sinned in Adam. The Fall brings blindness, deformity, deafness, everything bad into the world with the effects of sin. There is no rhyme or rhythm. There is no theological guide to why there is this kind of birth defect of blindness. 
Sometimes there is a cause and effect in sin. Someone gets drunk, causes an accident, and there's an injury; you can draw that. Someone climbs a tree and falls out of it; you can draw that. But someone born blind? You can't. 
The text not only raises this, it puts it very clearly that the disciples are holding to this theology. It's the conventional theology of the time. It's rancid but it's conventional. So, they ask who sinned, this man or his parents? Jesus's answer is astounding. He says, “It was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.” I said, this is one of those passages that reveals whether you read the Bible as a Christian or not. If you read and understand what Jesus just said, it throws the entire world upside down. Jesus says straightforwardly that this man was born blind for this moment. It either is or isn't true. If it isn't true then we're stuck with that conventional theology. If it is true then God's sovereignty extended in this case to understanding that before the creation of the cosmos, before the incarnation of the Son, the Father arranged that this man who was born blind would be in this place, at this time, therefore Jesus to heal him, that the works of God might be revealed in him. 
That's exactly what Jesus says. Jesus says, “It was neither this man nor his parents who sinned but that the works of God might be revealed in him.” It is an astounding statement of divine purposeness. This tells us bluntly that there are no accidents in the universe. There are no accidents. There's no, “Oh, that just happened in the universe.” Everything is tied to the sovereignty of God, the meticulous Providence of God and there is purpose that we don't get to see into everything. Jesus says, “I'm gonna tell you the purpose in this case. This man exists and he was born blind because I am about to do something in him to reveal the glory of God.” That's why. We're either gonna read that as Christians or not, because that is a real demand on the reader. You either believe this or not, because Jesus says it straightforwardly. You can try to come up with all kinds of theological ways to define away the Providence of God, or to try to throw in contingency or chance or to say, “There is no ultimate meaning to these things,” but Jesus says, “Oh yeah, there's an ultimate meaning to everything. There's an ultimate meaning to every atom and molecule. You may not know it. You may not see it. In this case, I’m going to tell you what it is, because I'm about to do something.”
It's an astounding statement of the sovereignty of God. Jesus said, “It was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.” Now, hold on a minute. In verse four, he speaks of the works of God. He says, “We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work.” John 9:4 is one of the theme verses of my life. I think of it every single day. It is a statement of our purpose and the stewardship of our time in this life. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work. In this life, we are given day to work, but night is coming when no one can work.
The Quaker theologian, Elton Trueblood, on whom I wrote my honors thesis at Sanford many years ago, a man who I got to meet, one of the American figures of the 20th century, he wrote his memoir and entitled it, “While it is Day”. I thought, “If the Lord gives me the opportunity to write a memoir, I’ll be very tempted from this very same verse to use that title ‘While it is Day’.” That is our purpose. That is our assignment. We work while it is day. Night is coming when no man can work, but it is not here yet. Until it is night, we've got work to do. 
We work while it is day. Jesus says something else here. We must work the works of God. Now you may remember that in John chapter six, Jesus warned people about using this language. This very same language is what the people who went across the sea to find Jesus the next day, after the feeding of the 5,000, and they said, “What must we do to work the works of God?”Jesus makes very clear, you can't, but here he's talking to his disciples. They can. Okay, so that's fantastic. It turns out that now there's an outside. Outside Christ, you can't work the works of God, but inside Christ, you can. These are Christ’s disciples. He says, “We must,” not I, it's we, “must work the works of him who sent me well to this day.” 
Then he says, “As long as I'm in the world, I am the light of the world.” Now he's already said that he's the light of the world and he says that again. In the gospel of John, Jesus often does not repeat these ‘I am’ statements, but he does so here. Why? Because he's about to shine light. As long as he's in the world, he's the light of the world. Notice what he does. There's no break in the text. He doesn't say, “I'm going to explain this by showing you something, boys.” Instead the text tells us, that “having said these things, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s…”, hold on the man’s?
Now he's not the blind man. He says “the man”. “He anointed the man's eyes with the mud and said to him, ‘Go wash in the pool of Siloam’, which means ‘sent’.” He's a blind man. All the disciples see is the blind man. Jesus sees a man. He doesn't see a blind man, but he sees an opportunity for the light of the world to bring light into this man's eyes as a sign. That is John's word for the miracles, a sign. It is always a sign of something more than just healing. That is exactly what happens here. Jesus spits into the ground and makes mud. This is gross. It is disgusting, which is the point, it turns out. Jesus takes mud and spittle and he makes a paste and he puts it on the man's eyes. Now what was the man made of? Dust. Jesus made him. The one who made him out of dust now takes dust and spits on it and puts dust on the dust he made, called a man, and tells him to go wash. John helps us to see that Jesus' miracles or signs of healing are reversals of the curse.
We have Genesis one, Genesis two, we have the Edenic garden. We have humanity in the garden before the Fall. After the Fall, things go badly. Before the Fall, there would have been no blindness. Before the Fall, there would have been no lameness. There would have been no deafness. There would have been no death, no injury. But on the other side of the Fall, horror. But Jesus is the Lord of all, the Lord of creation, the Word through whom the worlds were made, John has already told us. He takes the very stuff he made, dust, and spits on it and puts it on the one he made, the man. Then he tells him to go do something, to go and wash. Washing is a very important metaphor. There's a before and after washing. That is what he does. 
Notice the structure of the text. The structure of the text here in John chapter nine is so sophisticated. John writes with such elegance under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. There is a triple form that turns into poetry in this text. You are going to hear it again and again and again, and you are going to start to recognize it. You'll notice that we are told what the man did. What did he do?
Notice in verse seven, “So he went and washed and came back seeing.” He went and he washed and he came back seeing. He went in obedience and he washed in obedience and he came back seeing. Now, if someone was given sight having been born blind, how would you describe that he has been given the gift of sight? John says he came back, seeing. He left blind, but he came back, seeing. It's a present participle. It doesn't say, “He started to see”, or “He had been given the gift of sight”. It just says he came back seeing. So, present participle, he's now a ‘See-er’.The man who was blind from birth is now seeing, he came back seeing. 
If the text ended there, how magnificent would that be? But it doesn't end there. Instead it turns to the context. Jesus is now gone. Jesus was evidently gone when he came back seeing. Jesus having seen the man and having anointed his eyes and telling him to go and wash, the man went and he washed and he came back seeing, Jesus isn't there, but the neighbors are. Now remember, he's seeing everything for the first time. They've seen him his entire life, but he's never seen them before. He came back seeing and it turns out that's going to be a powerful metaphor because he's seeing not only with his eyes, he is seeing theologically what he never saw before and what the people who have perfectly good eyes obviously cannot see. It starts with his neighbors.
“The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar were saying, ‘Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?’” Okay, so here's John's irony which is not hilarious, but it is intentionally humorous. One of the classic structures of humor is to reveal human foolishness, human foibles, and that is what is going on here. Remember that this man was born blind but everyone else could see. They had seen this man their entire lives. They have seen him enough to think, “This looks like the guy who was blind”, but they didn't pay enough attention to him, those who had eyes, to actually be sure this is actually the guy. “‘Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?’ Some said, ‘It is he.’ Others said, ‘No, but he is like him.’” 
How many ‘like him’ are there? How plausible is ‘like him’? This an evasive answer, kind of like you get from a defendant under cross-examination in court. “Is this the man you saw coming out of the bank with a bag of cash?” “Oh, it looks like him.” “Can you state as a matter of fact, that you're certain it is that man?” “Well, he is my brother-in-law. It looks like him.” I mean, it is just evasion. “What do you mean, looks like him?” But it gets even worse. 
“He kept saying, ‘I am the man.’” So it's like, “I did it. It's me. Hello there. I never saw you before, but I'm the guy you saw or I think you saw because I thought you were seeing.” It goes on and on like this. “So they said to him,” this is verse 10, “‘Then how were your eyes opened?’” “We demand an answer. You can't just show up here seeing”. Remember it was a present participle. “I came back seeing.” You can't do that. You can't do that. That breaks all the rules. Blind people are supposed to stay blind. “How are you gonna explain the fact that you came back seeing? We demand an answer!”
They, by the way, had ignored him. Given that theology of avoiding people with infirmities, this is the first conversation the man probably ever had with these folks. And so how then were your eyes open? “He said, ‘The man called Jesus made mud,’” he's so specific. Notice under cross examination here, he's so specific. “The man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed and received my sight.” There's that triple poetic form again. He went and he washed and came back seeing. “I went and washed and received my sight.” 
Here he makes himself, very clearly, the passive. He is the one who was given sight. This was something that was done to him. “I went and I washed and received my sight.” “Then they said to him, ‘Where is he?’” meaning Jesus. “He said, ‘I do not know.’” Watch carefully how with his eye to irony, John picks up on the, ‘who knows and who doesn't know’. Who knows that he doesn't know and who doesn't know that he doesn't know and who should know, but doesn't know. And who, maybe should not know, but actually does know. ‘Know’ turns out to be a key, and this is where it shows up. He says, “I don't know.” Now, is it right or wrong of him to not know? He is not responsible to know. “Where is Jesus? I don't know.” 
“They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind.” Now here, just a couple of powerful things in those verses. The neighbors tried their own kind of theological interrogation, but they don't know enough to get anywhere. So now they call in the big guns, they call in the Pharisees. “We got to call in some experts to come help us figure this thing out. Blind men don't come back seeing we don't like this. We don't have an explanation for it.” You call the Pharisees and the next thing is, it says, “the man who had formerly been blind”. It is like a business card. “Hi, my name's Ralph, formerly blind, born that way.” That is all they can say about this guy, but he will pick up on this many verses later. Don't forget, this is the man who had formerly been blind. Hold that thought. 
“Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes.” Oh boy. The Pharisees, the scrupulous guardians of the Sabbath. Remember, Jesus had already made clear in Capernaum when he healed a man's hand, when the Pharisees tried to set him up saying, “Is it right to do good on the Lord's day?” And Jesus said, “You know if a man has an animal fall into a pit on the Sabbath day, who would not lift out his animal? If you would do that then of how much more value is a man than an animal? So it's right to do good on the Sabbath.” And they had a man with a withered hand, Jesus said, “Stretch out your hand,” and so Jesus healed the hand. Then the Pharisees, Matthew tells us, “Went out, seeking how they might destroy him.” 
It is the Sabbath Day, so that just raises the anxiety for the Pharisees. “So the Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight.” Here's the blind man, the man who was formerly blind, “How did this happen?” “And he said to them, ‘He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.” Notice in triple, triple, triple. This is poetry. John is sticking this so that we see it and we can't miss it. It comes up again, “He went and he washed and he came back seeing”, “I went and I washed and I received my sight.”, and now he says, “He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see. Some of the Pharisees said, ‘This man,’ now speaking of Jesus, ‘this man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.’” In other words, Jesus cannot be divinely sent because he doesn't keep the Sabbath.
Their whole theology was so corrupted, they saw everything backwards. “But others said,” this is obvious, “How can a man who is a sinner,” that means facing God's displeasure, do such things, in this case, “do such signs?” Even the word sign there is in the words of one of the Pharisees. “And there was a division among them.” Look at verse 17. This is like the Keystone Kops. “So they said again to the blind man.” What is wrong with that? He is not blind now! He was the man who was formerly born blind earlier. “So they said again to the blind man,” but he's not blind, “‘What do you say about him since he has opened your eyes?’”
This is like being under cross examination. First of all, you say you were blind. Then you say this guy put spit on your eyes and told you to go wash, and so up you went and you washed and came back seeing? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yada yada. Okay. How do you explain this? Give an account for this. And he says of Jesus, “He is a prophet.” Again, a bomb goes off, less so in our ears than in theirs, but that is our problem. In this context in first century Judaism, to say that man is a prophet means God sent him and speaks and works through him. Remember there had not been a prophet in Israel for centuries. That looks like a little statement, but in this context, it's messianic. There is a prophet who is expected and he said, “He is a prophet.” He is truly sent by God. God, after centuries of sending no prophets, has sent us a prophet. How do I know this? Because I was blind. Now I see. 
The Jews understand this. They understand the audacity of what he said. In verse 18, “The Jews did not believe that he had been born blind and received a sight.” In other words, how do you deal with a miracle if you don't want it to have happened? You tried to deny that it actually happened, so how do you do it in this case? You deny that the man had really been born blind. Now the credulity in that is so lacking, it is ludicrous. Yes, this guy has been playing blind for his entire life into adulthood. He has been living this life of being despised and unrecognized. He has lived this life of horror and deprivation and it was just an act to frustrate you Pharisees on this Sabbath day. That's what it was. That t doesn't even hold water. 
“They didn't believe he had been born blind and received sight, until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them.” His parents turn out to be the two most spineless human beings imaginable. His parents throw their own son under the bus. “Is this your son who you say was born blind?” Remember what the disciples ask when they saw the man, “Who sinned, this man or his parents?” The assumption was it had to have been the parents. How could he have sinned prenatally? This must be something the parents did. They had borne the theological burden for this man's entire life until now of being the parents whom God has punished by giving them a blind son. No one would claim that their son is blind if their son had sight. It is ludicrous. It just shows you the powerful nature of unbelief in this case. It is so self deceptive. And he said, “They called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, ‘Is this your son who you say was born blind?’” Verse 19, “How then does he now see?” Explain this. We demand an answer! 
“His parents answered,” Now, remember I told you, watch out for ‘know’. Watch out for the word ‘know’. It shows up in this passage. Here is what his parents say. “We know that this is our son,” Check. “And that he was born blind,” check. “But how he now sees we do not know.” They knew. “Nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” Well, God save us from parents like this. His parents said, “He is on his own now. We will testify to the fact that he is our son. He was born blind, we know that. But how he sees? No, we don't know. Who did it? No, we don't know. Ask him; he is of age.” 
His parents said these things, we’re told, because the Jews had threatened to cast them out of the synagogue. That's not just being cast out of the synagogue, that is being basically cast out of the society. “They had already agreed that if anyone should confess that Jesus is the Christ,” The Messiah, that prophet, “he was to be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, ‘He is of age, ask him. So for the second time, they called the man who had been blind and said to him, ‘Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.’” By this man, again, they meant Jesus. This is a second interrogation. They did not get anything and it is really the second Pharisee interrogation. It is his third interrogation. The neighbors interrogated them then the Pharisees had round one. This is actually Pharisees round two. When they say, ‘Give glory to God,’ that is pompous. They are trying to amplify their own importance. “‘Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.’ He answered, ‘Whether he is a sinner I do not know.’” Remember, know, know, know. You know, I know, I don't know, we don't know. Here he says, “whether he is a sinner,” which means under God's curse, “I don't know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now. I see.” 
That is the hinge of the entire passage. “Whether he is a sinner, I don't know, but this thing I do know, I was blind and now I see.” What is going to happen from here on out is that the man who was born blind who now sees, from this point on in the passage knows, and no one else knows. The people who thought they knew are revealed to know nothing. And this man who says, “I don't know,” here for the last time, won't say, “I don't know,” again. Why? Because in the context of the verses that follow, he begins to know. The dots are connected. He begins to see, not only physically, but more importantly, he sees spiritually. 
They said to him, “‘What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?’ He answered them. ‘I have told you already and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” This guy not only now knows, he is mad. He is being interrogated rather than the community celebrating the fact that God has worked this work in him as a testimony to God's grace and glory and sovereignty. Rather than the entire people of God rejoicing, as you would think they would do in the reversal of the curse and the gift of sight, instead they see it as a theological problem. He is now refusing to be seen as a theological problem. Basically he responds to them by saying, “I have figured you idiots out.”
He taunts them. “Do you also want to become his disciples?” “And they reviled him saying, ‘You are his disciple.” Well, is he or isn't he? He wasn't, now he is. He actually is. A disciple is one who follows Jesus. He's doing it now. He wasn't doing it just a few verses ago, but he's figured it out. “We are the disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man,” notice the ‘know’ and the ‘don't know’. Notice the contrast. You have the Pharisees, they're supposed to know it all. “We do not know where he comes from.” By the way, that's where the entire gospel begins, “In the beginning,” but they don't know. “The man answered, ‘Why, this is an amazing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes.” Why should I care about you idiots at all? “We know,” notice the ‘know’, now he's preaching! A few minutes ago he was a blind guy who didn't know Jesus. Now he knows Jesus and is actually called by the Pharisees, ‘one of his disciples.’ Now he is a preacher!
He is preaching now. In verse 31, “We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him.” This is a man who was not even allowed in the temple because of his deformity and now he is preaching. “Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” It is an amazing sermon coming from this man, and you'll notice how he throws it back to them. You don’t know? You see the anger of their response in verse 34. “They answered him, ‘You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?’ And they cast him out.” They just won’t have it. They won't have the gospel. They won't have Jesus. They won't have the miracle. They won't have bind men seeing. They just won't have it. But the text isn’t over. 
“Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him,” remember this man has never seen Jesus. He heard Jesus and Jesus gave him a sight, but he left to go obey Jesus by washing in the pool of Siloam and he came back seeing. He went, and he washed, and he came back seeing. When he came back, Jesus wasn't there. The first thing they asked him was, “where is he?” And he says, “I don't know.” But hearing what had happened, Jesus finds him. He said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” ‘Son of man’ is the main title in the gospel of John. You'll see in the other gospels as well that Jesus uses this self-designation. This is why we sing in ‘Fairest Lord Jesus’, “Lord Jesus, Son of God and Son of Man.” This title, Son of Man, means “that appointed one whom God has sent.” 
“Do you believe in the Son of Man,” in verse 36, “He answered, ‘and who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?’” What is happening? At this point, the man who is blind and now sees, believes that Jesus is a prophet. He might suspect that Jesus is more because he goes on to say, “Never in the history of the world has it been heard that a man who was born blind was given his sight.” Now Jesus stands before him and says, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” His answer is, “‘Who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?,” Jesus said to him,” notice his words, “You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.” He hadn't seen him, but he did see him. 
Jesus here reveals that there are two kinds of blindness. There is a physical blindness and there is a spiritual blindness. Even though this man was physically blind, when Jesus put the spittle on his eyes, somewhere between when he was anointed with that mud, he saw. It becomes a metaphor for our salvation, our regeneration. We see. We didn't see before, but now we see. Now we can't not see. And Jesus said, you have seen him and the one who is speaking is he. “He said, ‘Lord, I believe.’” That is just a short statement of faith, “Lord, I believe.” It is a complete honest, unevasive, straightforward statement of belief. “‘Lord, I believe,’ and he worshiped him.” That is bowing down to him. He recognized him. He is the very son of God. Remember the irony in which John has written this passage. Now Jesus speaks in these horrible, ironic words of judgment. “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.”
When I began, I said this is going to test whether you are willing to read the Scripture as a Christian or not. It is because Jesus says that he came in the world, not only so that the blind might see, but so that those who think they see are blinded. It is another statement of the judgment and the sovereignty of God. It is tough. No one is going to put this into a trite, little worship expression. No one is going to tell the congregation before he preaches, “Look, brothers and sisters, I am preaching so that those who do not see may see, and that those who won’t see but think they see, will be struck blind. That is what I'm doing this morning.” That is what Jesus said. It shows you that the great division in humanity is between those who see and those who will not see. 
It is not over. “Some of the Pharisees,” verse 40, “near him heard these things, and said to him, ‘Are we also blind?’” It is a pathetic moment. This passage ends with a fizzle. It ends with this Pharisee stupidity. It is a strong judgment from God. “‘Are we also blind?’ Jesus said to them, ‘If you were blind,’” meaning physically blind, “‘you'd have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.’” 
“I see right through you,” Jesus said. “I have come into the world so that those who are blind may see, and that those who think they see may be blinded.” The average Christian does not have a clue that is in the Bible. The average church is never going to preach this text like it demands to be preached. This is not happy-clappy Christianity. It begins with the sovereignty of God and a man born blind in order that the works of God might be performed in him. And it ends with Jesus saying, “By the way, that's why I came. So those who are blind may see. Oh, and so those who think they see may become blind.”
Let's pray. Father, we pray with all our hearts for the gratitude of the fact that you have allowed us to see. Otherwise, we would not see. And you have given us the gift of sight and the gift of salvation, no less than if you had put spittle on our eyes and sent us to the pool of Siloam and said, “Go wash,” and we went, and we washed, and we came back seeing. Father, we hear the judgment in this text. We pray that you will use this in our hearts, to call us to Christ and keep us to Christ. Father, may we see and through us, may there be others who also though blind, will see. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 51:26 https://albertmohler.com/?p=47641 Audio, Exposition, John, John Series noThird Avenue Baptist Church Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series June 30, 2019 Father, we thank you that you give us this unspeakable privilege, opening your book, reading it aloud, and then going back to understand it. Father, we pray that you will give us that understanding even as you gave us your Word. We pray this in the name of the incarnate Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.  When we arrive at John chapter nine, we arrive at one of the pivotal chapters, I think in all of Scripture. I will say that this is one of those chapters that reveals whether or not we are prepared to read the Bible as Christians. You say, isn't that true of every text? Yes, it's true of every chapter and every verse, but there are some particular chapters that present particular issues. The issue of belief and unbelief are just thrown into dramatic contrast and in ways that will often shock many believers. There are some explosive moments in this passage. John nine is a big chapter. I'm gonna do what might appear to be a little unpredictable here in the beginning. I have a particular purpose in reading the entire chapter aloud together before making a single comment about the text. One of my purposes in doing this is to reveal one of the attributes of scripture as God's Word, which is the fact that it is self explaining. If you read the text carefully, reading the text as the text is written, there is an absolutely astounding self-explanatory character to the text. But I'm talking about the text rather than reading the text, so let's turn to the Word of God, John chapter nine and read the text together.  “As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ Jesus answered, ‘It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.’ Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud and said to him, ‘Go, wash in the pool of Siloam’ (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar were saying, ‘Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?’ Some said, ‘It is he.’ Others said, ‘No, but he is like him.’ He kept saying, ‘I am the man.’ So they said to him, ‘Then how were your eyes opened?’ [11] He answered, ‘The man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed and received my sight.’ They said to him, ‘Where is he?’ He said, ‘I do not know.’ They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. So the Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight. And he said to them, ‘He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.’ Some of the Pharisees said, ‘This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.’ But others said, ‘How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?’ And there was a division among them.  So they said again to the blind man, ‘What do you say about him, since he has opened your eyes?’ He said, ‘He is a prophet.’ The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight, until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, ‘Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How does he now see?’ His parents answered, ‘We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. But how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.’ (His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.) Therefore his parents said, He is of age; ask him.’ So for the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, ‘Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.’ He answered, ‘Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.’ They said to him, ‘What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?’ He answered them, ‘I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?’ And they reviled him, saying, ‘You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.’ The man answered, ‘Why, this is an amazing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.’ They answered him, ‘You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?’ And they cast him out. Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, ‘Do you believe in the Son of Man?’ He answered, ‘And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?’ Jesus said to him, ‘You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.’ He said, ‘Lord, I believe,’ and he worshiped him. Jesus said, ‘For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.’ Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, ‘Are we also blind?’ Jesus said to them, ‘If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.’” Boom. Wow. Here's this passage in which all of John's characteristic irony, in contrast to the other gospels, comes through in one grand narrative. Irony is powerfully disclosive. John is the master of irony in all of the New Testament. He demonstrates, as the Holy Spirit inspired him to write this Gospel, that Jesus used irony in teaching. You think the story's supposed to go this way, but it swerves this way. Irony is sometimes described as two things put together in unresolvable tension. You see that here. Irony will make you smile. That's the reason why irony is the most sophisticated form of humor. This is the distinction between slapstick humor and the master of irony in contemporary American culture, who would be Seinfeld. It's a humor that you get, rarely by laughing out loud with a soundtrack. It's more the wry smile. Irony means there's an inside and an outside. If you get it, you're on the inside. If you don't get it, you're on the outside, which is exactly the point of the passage. The stunning irony in the passage is that the people who think they're on the inside are actually on the outside. The people who think they're seeing are the people who don't see and the people who don't see actually do see. And then it's in the play of the word, ‘know’ in John chapter nine, the word ‘know’ plays this hugely ironic thing. They go to the man who was born blind and they said, ‘What do you know?’ He says, ‘I don't know what I know.’ ‘Well, who healed you?’ ‘I actually don't know.’ ‘Well then what do you know?’ ‘Oh, I know I was blind. And now I see.’ ‘Well, how do you know that?’ Then they begin to suspect that he wasn't even actually blind. He'd been playing blind for his entire life, just to show up the Pharisees at this moment. It's an astounding passage. But even as it's an astounding passage in its irony, it's astounding in its testimony to the sovereignty of God and the purpose of life.  Look at the beginning verses, “As he passed by,” and this is Jesus passing by, presumably on the way to the temple, “As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth.” It's just a fact here. This is not someone who became blind by accident or illness. This is a man who was born blind and in the first century to be born blind was a horrifying reality because being blind, one could not care for oneself. The assumption in the twisted theology of the time was that this was the curse of God. Being blind meant you could not work. You were reduced to begging. Blind beggars lined the way to the temple, hoping for alms, so that the Jews going to give alms as a part or their religious duty would see the blind and give to them.  He was a beggar. It's a very low state. The assumption in a bad theology, we have to watch this, a conventionally minded theology in contrast to a Christian theology says, “If someone is in this state, then they deserve it. If someone is born with this deformity, God must not like them as much as God likes me.” It is such a thing that in much of the world today, and in particular in Asia, there is a theological avoidance of people who have deformities. It is bad karma even to be in their presence. Throughout much of the middle east, as in the time of Jesus, babies who were marked by these afflictions might just be set out. Of course, the ancient Greeks and Romans did the same thing, just as infanticide. Babies just abandoned and allowed to die. But this man's parents did not do that. Thus, he survived. But notice what happens. His disciples ask him, “Rabbi who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” There's that conventional theology. It's a bad theology. It's a very bad theology. Sometimes, here's what we have to watch, inside God's people who operate out of what they think is a basic Biblical theism, bad theology can infect invisibly until it comes out just as it comes out here. So the disciples ask the question. They're not embarrassed to ask the question. They assume it's kind of an obvious question. Who sinned that this man was born blind. Was it he? Or was it his parents? Their assumption is that where there is a man born blind, there was a sin, someone's sin who is behind this. That's insidious. Notice how deadly that is. That means that in this case, if someone is blind, then you can blame him for the blindness. This must be God's judgment upon his sin. Well, especially if someone's born blind, then that's really tough. This must be some kind of family heritage sin, or even some kind of prenatal sin. Who sinned, this man or his parents? Maybe his parents sinned and God's judgment upon their sin was to strike their son blind. It's an insidious, corrupted theology, but it’s easy to see how this sneaks in. It's easy to see how we would ask such questions. Cause and effect in the universe, how are we to understand this?  By the way, who sinned that this man was born blind? There is a right answer to that question, that is Adam. To be even more correct, we sinned in Adam. The Fall brings blindness, deformity, deafness, everything bad into the world with the effects of sin. There is no rhyme or rhythm. There is no theological guide to why there is this kind of birth defect of blindness.  Sometimes there is a cause and effect in sin. Someone gets drunk, causes an accident, and there's an injury; you can draw that. Someone climbs a tree and falls out of it; you can draw that. But someone born blind? You can't.  The text not only raises this, it puts it very clearly that the disciples are holding to this theology. It's the conventional theology of the time. It's rancid but it's conventional. So, they ask who sinned, this man or his parents? Jesus's answer is astounding. He says, “It was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.” I said, this is one of those passages that reveals whether you read the Bible as a Christian or not. If you read and understand what Jesus just said, it throws the entire world upside down. Jesus says straightforwardly that this man was born blind for this moment. It either is or isn't true. If it isn't true then we're stuck with that conventional theology. If it is true then God's sovereignty extended in this case to understanding that before the creation of the cosmos, before the incarnation of the Son, the Father arranged that this man who was born blind would be in this place, at this time, therefore Jesus to heal him, that the works of God might be revealed in him.  That's exactly what Jesus says. Jesus says, “It was neither this man nor his parents who sinned but that the works of God might be revealed in him.” It is an astounding statement of divine purposeness. This tells us bluntly that there are no accidents in the universe. There are no accidents. There's no, “Oh, that just happened in the universe.” Everything is tied to the sovereignty of God, the meticulous Providence of God and there is purpose that we don't get to see into everything. Jesus says, “I'm gonna tell you the purpose in this case. This man exists and he was born blind because I am about to do something in him to reveal the glory of God.” That's why. We're either gonna read that as Christians or not, because that is a real demand on the reader. You either believe this or not, because Jesus says it straightforwardly. You can try to come up with all kinds of theological ways to define away the Providence of God, or to try to throw in contingency or chance or to say, “There is no ultimate meaning to these things,” but Jesus says, “Oh yeah, there's an ultimate meaning to everything. There's an ultimate meaning to every atom and molecule. You may not know it. You may not see it. In this case, I’m going to tell you what it is, because I'm about to do something.” It's an astounding statement of the sovereignty of God. Jesus said, “It was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.” Now, hold on a minute. In verse four, he speaks of the works of God. He says, “We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work.” John 9:4 is one of the theme verses of my life. I think of it every single day. It is a statement of our purpose and the stewardship of our time in this life. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work. In this life, we are given day to work, but night is coming when no one can work. The Quaker theologian, Elton Trueblood, on whom I wrote my honors thesis at Sanford many years ago, a man who I got to meet, one of the American figures of the 20th century, he wrote his memoir and entitled it, “While it is Day”. I thought, “If the Lord gives me the opportunity to write a memoir, I’ll be very tempted from this very same verse to use that title ‘While it is Day’.” That is our purpose. That is our assignment. We work while it is day. Night is coming when no man can work, but it is not here yet. Until it is night, we've got work to do.  We work while it is day. Jesus says something else here. We must work the works of God. Now you may remember that in John chapter six, Jesus warned people about using this language. This very same language is what the people who went across the sea to find Jesus the next day, after the feeding of the 5,000, and they said, “What must we do to work the works of God?”Jesus makes very clear, you can't, but here he's talking to his disciples. They can. Okay, so that's fantastic. It turns out that now there's an outside. Outside Christ, you can't work the works of God, but inside Christ, you can. These are Christ’s disciples. He says, “We must,” not I, it's we, “must work the works of him who sent me well to this day.”  Then he says, “As long as I'm in the world, I am the light of the world.” Now he's already said that he's the light of the world and he says that again. In the gospel of John, Jesus often does not repeat these ‘I am’ statements, but he does so here. Why? Because he's about to shine light. As long as he's in the world, he's the light of the world. Notice what he does. There's no break in the text. He doesn't say, “I'm going to explain this by showing you something, boys.” Instead the text tells us, that “having said these things, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s…”, hold on the man’s? Now he's not the blind man. He says “the man”. “He anointed the man's eyes with the mud and said to him, ‘Go wash in the pool of Siloam’, which means ‘sent’.” He's a blind man. All the disciples see is the blind man. Jesus sees a man. He doesn't see a blind man, but he sees an opportunity for the light of the world to bring light into this man's eyes as a sign. That is John's word for the miracles, a sign. It is always a sign of something more than just healing. That is exactly what happens here. Jesus spits into the ground and makes mud. This is gross. It is disgusting, which is the point, it turns out. Jesus takes mud and spittle and he makes a paste and he puts it on the man's eyes. Now what was the man made of? Dust. Jesus made him. The one who made him out of dust now takes dust and spits on it and puts dust on the dust he made, called a man, and tells him to go wash. John helps us to see that Jesus' miracles or signs of healing are reversals of the curse. We have Genesis one, Genesis two, we have the Edenic garden. We have humanity in the garden before the Fall. After the Fall, things go badly. Before the Fall, there would have been no blindness. Before the Fall, there would have been no lameness. There would have been no deafness. There would have been no death, no injury. But on the other side of the Fall, horror. But Jesus is the Lord of all, the Lord of creation, the Word through whom the worlds were made, John has already told us. He takes the very stuff he made, dust, and spits on it and puts it on the one he made, the man. Then he tells him to go do something, to go and wash. Washing is a very important metaphor. There's a before and after washing. That is what he does.  Notice the structure of the text. The structure of the text here in John chapter nine is so sophisticated. John writes with such elegance under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. There is a triple form that turns into poetry in this text. You are going to hear it again and again and again, and you are going to start to recognize it. You'll notice that we are told what the man did. What did he do? Notice in verse seven, “So he went and washed and came back seeing.” He went and he washed and he came back seeing. He went in obedience and he washed in obedience and he came back seeing. Now, if someone was given sight having been born blind, how would you describe that he has been given the gift of sight? John says he came back, seeing. He left blind, but he came back, seeing. It's a present participle. It doesn't say, “He started to see”, or “He had been given the gift of sight”. It just says he came back seeing. So, present participle, he's now a ‘See-er’.The man who was blind from birth is now seeing, he came back seeing.  If the text ended there, how magnificent would that be? But it doesn't end there. Instead it turns to the context. Jesus is now gone. Jesus was evidently gone when he came back seeing. Jesus having seen the man and having anointed his eyes and telling him to go and wash, the man went and he washed and he came back seeing, Jesus isn't there, but the neighbors are. Now remember, he's seeing everything for the first time. They've seen him his entire life, but he's never seen them before. He came back seeing and it turns out that's going to be a powerful metaphor because he's seeing not only with his eyes, he is seeing theologically what he never saw before and what the people who have perfectly good eyes obviously cannot see. It starts with his neighbors. “The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar were saying, ‘Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?’” Okay, so here's John's irony which is not hilarious, but it is intentionally humorous. One of the classic structures of humor is to reveal human foolishness, human foibles, and that is what is going on here. Remember that this man was born blind but everyone else could see. They had seen this man their entire lives. They have seen him enough to think, “This looks like the guy who was blind”, but they didn't pay enough attention to him, those who had eyes, to actually be sure this is actually the guy. “‘Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?’ Some said, ‘It is he.’ Others said, ‘No, but he is like him.’”  How many ‘like him’ are there? How plausible is ‘like him’? This an evasive answer, kind of like you get from a defendant under cross-examination in court. “Is this the man you saw coming out of the bank with a bag of cash?” “Oh, it looks like him.” “Can you state as a matter of fact, that you're certain it is that man?” “Well, he is my brother-in-law. It looks like him.” I mean, it is just evasion. “What do you mean, looks like him?” But it gets even worse.  “He kept saying, ‘I am the man.’” So it's like, “I did it. It's me. Hello there. I never saw you before, but I'm the guy you saw or I think you saw because I thought you were seeing.” It goes on and on like this. “So they said to him,” this is verse 10, “‘Then how were your eyes opened?’” “We demand an answer. You can't just show up here seeing”. Remember it was a present participle. “I came back seeing.” You can't do that. You can't do that. That breaks all the rules. Blind people are supposed to stay blind. “How are you gonna explain the fact that you came back seeing? We demand an answer!” They, by the way, had ignored him. Given that theology of avoiding people with infirmities, this is the first conversation the man probably ever had with these folks. And so how then were your eyes open? “He said, ‘The man called Jesus made mud,’” he's so specific. Notice under cross examination here, he's so specific. “The man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed and received my sight.” There's that triple poetic form again. He went and he washed and came back seeing. “I went and washed and received my sight.”  Here he makes himself, very clearly, the passive. He is the one who was given sight. This was something that was done to him. “I went and I washed and received my sight.” “Then they said to him, ‘Where is he?’” meaning Jesus. “He said, ‘I do not know.’” Watch carefully how with his eye to irony, John picks up on the, ‘who knows and who doesn't know’. Who knows that he doesn't know and who doesn't know that he doesn't know and who should know, but doesn't know. And who, maybe should not know, but actually does know. ‘Know’ turns out to be a key, and this is where it shows up. He says, “I don't know.” Now, is it right or wrong of him to not know? He is not responsible to know. “Where is Jesus? I don't know.”  “They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind.” Now here, just a couple of powerful things in those verses. The neighbors tried their own kind of theological interrogation, but they don't know enough to get anywhere. So now they call in the big guns, they call in the Pharisees. “We got to call in some experts to come help us figure this thing out. Blind men don't come back seeing we don't like this. We don't have an explanation for it.” You call the Pharisees and the next thing is, it says, “the man who had formerly been blind”. It is like a business card. “Hi, my name's Ralph, formerly blind, born that way.” That is all they can say about this guy, but he will pick up on this many verses later. Don't forget, this is the man who had formerly been blind. Hold that thought.  “Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes.” Oh boy. The Pharisees, the scrupulous guardians of the Sabbath. Remember, Jesus had already made clear in Capernaum when he healed a man's hand, when the Pharisees tried to set him up saying, “Is it right to do good on the Lord's day?” And Jesus said, “You know if a man has an animal fall into a pit on the Sabbath day, who would not lift out his animal? If you would do that then of how much more value is a man than an animal? So it's right to do good on the Sabbath.” And they had a man with a withered hand, Jesus said, “Stretch out your hand,” and so Jesus healed the hand. Then the Pharisees, Matthew tells us, “Went out, seeking how they might destroy him.”  It is the Sabbath Day, so that just raises the anxiety for the Pharisees. “So the Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight.” Here's the blind man, the man who was formerly blind, “How did this happen?” “And he said to them, ‘He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.” Notice in triple, triple, triple. This is poetry. John is sticking this so that we see it and we can't miss it. It comes up again, “He went and he washed and he came back seeing”, “I went and I washed and I received my sight.”, and now he says, “He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see. Some of the Pharisees said, ‘This man,’ now speaking of Jesus, ‘this man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.’” In other words, Jesus cannot be divinely sent because he doesn't keep the Sabbath. Their whole theology was so corrupted, they saw everything backwards. “But others said,” this is obvious, “How can a man who is a sinner,” that means facing God's displeasure, do such things, in this case, “do such signs?” Even the word sign there is in the words of one of the Pharisees. “And there was a division among them.” Look at verse 17. This is like the Keystone Kops. “So they said again to the blind man.” What is wrong with that? He is not blind now! He was the man who was formerly born blind earlier. “So they said again to the blind man,” but he's not blind, “‘What do you say about him since he has opened your eyes?’” This is like being under cross examination. First of all, you say you were blind. Then you say this guy put spit on your eyes and told you to go wash, and so up you went and you washed and came back seeing? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yada yada. Okay. How do you explain this? Give an account for this. And he says of Jesus, “He is a prophet.” Again, a bomb goes off, less so in our ears than in theirs, but that is our problem. In this context in first century Judaism, to say that man is a prophet means God sent him and speaks and works through him. Remember there had not been a prophet in Israel for centuries. That looks like a little statement, but in this context, it's messianic. There is a prophet who is expected and he said, “He is a prophet.” He is truly sent by God. God, after centuries of sending no prophets, has sent us a prophet. How do I know this? Because I was blind. Now I see.  The Jews understand this. They understand the audacity of what he said. In verse 18, “The Jews did not believe that he had been born blind and received a sight.” In other words, how do you deal with a miracle if you don't want it to have happened? You tried to deny that it actually happened, so how do you do it in this case? You deny that the man had really been born blind. Now the credulity in that is so lacking, it is ludicrous. Yes, this guy has been playing blind for his entire life into adulthood. He has been living this life of being despised and unrecognized. He has lived this life of horror and deprivation and it was just an act to frustrate you Pharisees on this Sabbath day. That's what it was. That t doesn't even hold water.  “They didn't believe he had been born blind and received sight, until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them.” His parents turn out to be the two most spineless human beings imaginable. His parents throw their own son under the bus. “Is this your son who you say was born blind?” Remember what the disciples ask when they saw the man, “Who sinned, this man or his parents?” The assumption was it had to have been the parents. How could he have sinned prenatally? This must be something the parents did. They had borne the theological burden for this man's entire life until now of being the parents whom God has punished by giving them a blind son. No one would claim that their son is blind if their son had sight. It is ludicrous. It just shows you the powerful nature of unbelief in this case. It is so self deceptive. And he said, “They called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, ‘Is this your son who you say was born blind?’” Verse 19, “How then does he now see?” Explain this. We demand an answer!  “His parents answered,” Now, remember I told you, watch out for ‘know’. Watch out for the word ‘know’. It shows up in this passage. Here is what his parents say. “We know that this is our son,” Check. “And that he was born blind,” check. “But how he now sees we do not know.” They knew. “Nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” Well, God save us from parents like this. His parents said, “He is on his own now. We will testify to the fact that he is our son. He was born blind, we know that. But how he sees? No, we don't know. Who did it? No, we don't know. Ask him; he is of age.”  His parents said these things, we’re told, because the Jews had threatened to cast them out of the synagogue. That's not just being cast out of the synagogue, that is being basically cast out of the society. “They had already agreed that if anyone should confess that Jesus is the Christ,” The Messiah, that prophet, “he was to be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, ‘He is of age, ask him. So for the second time, they called the man who had been blind and said to him, ‘Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.’” By this man, again, they meant Jesus. This is a second interrogation. They did not get anything and it is really the second Pharisee interrogation. It is his third interrogation. The neighbors interrogated them then the Pharisees had round one. This is actually Pharisees round two. When they say, ‘Give glory to God,’ that is pompous. They are trying to amplify their own importance. “‘Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.’ He answered, ‘Whether he is a sinner I do not know.’” Remember, know, know, know. You know, I know, I don't know, we don't know. Here he says, “whether he is a sinner,” which means under God's curse, “I don't know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now. I see.”  That is the hinge of the entire passage. “Whether he is a sinner, I don't know, but this thing I do know, I was blind and now I see.” What is going to happen from here on out is that the man who was born blind who now sees, from this point on in the passage knows, and no one else knows. The people who thought they knew are revealed to know nothing. And this man who says, “I don't know,” here for the last time, won't say, “I don't know,” again. Why? Because in the context of the verses that follow, he begins to know. The dots are connected. He begins to see, not only physically, but more importantly, he sees spiritually.  They said to him, “‘What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?’ He answered them. ‘I have told you already and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” This guy not only now knows, he is mad. He is being interrogated rather than the community celebrating the fact that God has worked this work in him as a testimony to God's grace and glory and sovereignty. Rather than the entire people of God rejoicing, as you would think they would do in the reversal of the curse and the gift of sight, instead they see it as a theological problem. He is now refusing to be seen as a theological problem. Basically he responds to them by saying, “I have figured you idiots out.” He taunts them. “Do you also want to become his disciples?” “And they reviled him saying, ‘You are his disciple.” Well, is he or isn't he? He wasn't, now he is. He actually is. A disciple is one who follows Jesus. He's doing it now. He wasn't doing it just a few verses ago, but he's figured it out. “We are the disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man,” notice the ‘know’ and the ‘don't know’. Notice the contrast. You have the Pharisees, they're supposed to know it all. “We do not know where he comes from.” By the way, that's where the entire gospel begins, “In the beginning,” but they don't know. “The man answered, ‘Why, this is an amazing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes.” Why should I care about you idiots at all? “We know,” notice the ‘know’, now he's preaching! A few minutes ago he was a blind guy who didn't know Jesus. Now he knows Jesus and is actually called by the Pharisees, ‘one of his disciples.’ Now he is a preacher! He is preaching now. In verse 31, “We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him.” This is a man who was not even allowed in the temple because of his deformity and now he is preaching. “Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” It is an amazing sermon coming from this man, and you'll notice how he throws it back to them. You don’t know? You see the anger of their response in verse 34. “They answered him, ‘You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?’ And they cast him out.” They just won’t have it. They won't have the gospel. They won't have Jesus. They won't have the miracle. They won't have bind men seeing. They just won't have it. But the text isn’t over.  “Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him,” remember this man has never seen Jesus. He heard Jesus and Jesus gave him a sight, but he left to go obey Jesus by washing in the pool of Siloam and he came back seeing. He went, and he washed, and he came back seeing. When he came back, Jesus wasn't there. The first thing they asked him was, “where is he?” And he says, “I don't know.” But hearing what had happened, Jesus finds him. He said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” ‘Son of man’ is the main title in the gospel of John. You'll see in the other gospels as well that Jesus uses this self-designation. This is why we sing in ‘Fairest Lord Jesus’, “Lord Jesus, Son of God and Son of Man.” This title, Son of Man, means “that appointed one whom God has sent.”  “Do you believe in the Son of Man,” in verse 36, “He answered, ‘and who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?’” What is happening? At this point, the man who is blind and now sees, believes that Jesus is a prophet. He might suspect that Jesus is more because he goes on to say, “Never in the history of the world has it been heard that a man who was born blind was given his sight.” Now Jesus stands before him and says, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” His answer is, “‘Who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?,” Jesus said to him,” notice his words, “You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.” He hadn't seen him, but he did see him.  Jesus here reveals that there are two kinds of blindness. There is a physical blindness and there is a spiritual blindness. Even though this man was physically blind, when Jesus put the spittle on his eyes, somewhere between when he was anointed with that mud, he saw. It becomes a metaphor for our salvation, our regeneration. We see. We didn't see before, but now we see. Now we can't not see. And Jesus said, you have seen him and the one who is speaking is he. “He said, ‘Lord, I believe.’” That is just a short statement of faith, “Lord, I believe.” It is a complete honest, unevasive, straightforward statement of belief. “‘Lord, I believe,’ and he worshiped him.” That is bowing down to him. He recognized him. He is the very son of God. Remember the irony in which John has written this passage. Now Jesus speaks in these horrible, ironic words of judgment. “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” When I began, I said this is going to test whether you are willing to read the Scripture as a Christian or not. It is because Jesus says that he came in the world, not only so that the blind might see, but so that those who think they see are blinded. It is another statement of the judgment and the sovereignty of God. It is tough. No one is going to put this into a trite, little worship expression. No one is going to tell the congregation before he preaches, “Look, brothers and sisters, I am preaching so that those who do not see may see, and that those who won’t see but think they see, will be struck blind. That is what I'm doing this morning.” That is what Jesus said. It shows you that the great division in humanity is between those who see and those who will not see.  It is not over. “Some of the Pharisees,” verse 40, “near him heard these things, and said to him, ‘Are we also blind?’” It is a pathetic moment. This passage ends with a fizzle. It ends with this Pharisee stupidity. It is a strong judgment from God. “‘Are we also blind?’ Jesus said to them, ‘If you were blind,’” meaning physically blind, “‘you'd have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.’”  “I see right through you,” Jesus said. “I have come into the world so that those who are blind may see, and that those who think they see may be blinded.” The average Christian does not have a clue that is in the Bible. The average church is never going to preach this text like it demands to be preached. This is not happy-clappy Christianity. It begins with the sovereignty of God and a man born blind in order that the works of God might be performed in him. And it ends with Jesus saying, “By the way, that's why I came. So those who are blind may see. Oh, and so those who think they see may become blind.” Let's pray. Father, we pray with all our hearts for the gratitude of the fact that you have allowed us to see. Otherwise, we would not see. And you have given us the gift of sight and the gift of salvation, no less than if you had put spittle on our eyes and sent us to the pool of Siloam and said, “Go wash,” and we went, and we washed, and we came back seeing. Father, we hear the judgment in this text. We pray that you will use this in our hearts, to call us to Christ and keep us to Christ. Father, may we see and through us, may there be others who also though blind, will see. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.Third Avenue Baptist Church Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series June 30, 2019 Father, we thank you that you give us this unspeakable privilege, opening your book, reading it aloud, and then going back to understand it. Father, we pray that you will give us that understanding even as you gave us your Word. We pray this in the name of the incarnate Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.  When we arrive at John chapter nine, we arrive at one of the pivotal chapters, I think in all of Scripture. I will say that this is one of those chapters that reveals whether or not we are prepared to read the Bible as Christians. You say, isn't that true of every text? Yes, it's true of every chapter and every verse, but there are some particular chapters that present particular issues. The issue of belief and unbelief are just thrown into dramatic contrast and in ways that will often shock many believers. There are some explosive moments in this passage. John nine is a big chapter. I'm gonna do what might appear to be a little unpredictable here in the beginning. I have a particular purpose in reading the entire chapter aloud together before making a single comment about the text. One of my purposes in doing this is to reveal one of the attributes of scripture as God's Word, which is the fact that it is self explaining. If you read the text carefully, reading the text as the text is written, there is an absolutely astounding self-explanatory character to the text. But I'm talking about the text rather than reading the text, so let's turn to the Word of God, John chapter nine and read the text together.  “As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ Jesus answered, ‘It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.’ Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud and said to him, ‘Go, wash in the pool of Siloam’ (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar were saying, ‘Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?’ Some said, ‘It is he.’ Others said, ‘No, but he is like him.’ He kept saying, ‘I am the man.’ So they said to him, ‘Then how were your eyes opened?’ [11] He answered, ‘The man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed and received my sight.’ They said to him, ‘Where is he?’ He said, ‘I do not know.’ They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. So the Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight. And he said to them, ‘He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.’ Some of the Pharisees said, ‘This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.’ But others said, ‘How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?’ And there was a division among them.  So they said again to the blind man, ‘What do you say about him, since he has opened your eyes?’ He said, ‘He is a prophet.’ The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight, until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, ‘Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How does he now see?’ His parents answered, ‘We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. But how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.’ (His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.) Therefore his parents said, He is of age; ask him.’ So for the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, ‘Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.’ He answered, ‘Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.’ They said to him, ‘What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?’ He answered them, ‘I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?’ And they reviled him, saying, ‘You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.’ The man answered, ‘Why, this is an amazing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.’ They answered him, ‘You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?’ And they cast him out. Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, ‘Do you believe in the Son of Man?’ He answered, ‘And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?’ Jesus said to him, ‘You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.’ He said, ‘Lord, I believe,’ and he worshiped him. Jesus said, ‘For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.’ Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, ‘Are we also blind?’ Jesus said to them, ‘If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.’” Boom. Wow. Here's this passage in which all of John's characteristic irony, in contrast to the other gospels, comes through in one grand narrative. Irony is powerfully disclosive. John is the master of irony in all of the New Testament. He demonstrates, as the Holy Spirit inspired him to write this Gospel, that Jesus used irony in teaching. You think the story's supposed to go this way, but it swerves this way. Irony is sometimes described as two things put together in unresolvable tension. You see that here. Irony will make you smile. That's the reason why irony is the most sophisticated form of humor. This is the distinction between slapstick humor and the master of irony in contemporary American culture, who would be Seinfeld. It's a humor that you get, rarely by laughing out loud with a soundtrack. It's more the wry smile. Irony means there's an inside and an outside. If you get it, you're on the inside. If you don't get it, you're on the outside, which is exactly the point of the passage. The stunning irony in the passage is that the people who think they're on the inside are actually on the outside. The people who think they're seeing are the people who don't see and the people who don't see actually do see. And then it's in the play of the word, ‘know’ in John chapter nine, the word ‘know’ plays this hugely ironic thing. They go to the man who was born blind and they said, ‘What do you know?’ He says, ‘I don't know what I know.’ ‘Well, who healed you?’ ‘I actually don't know.’ ‘Well then what do you know?’ ‘Oh, I know I was blind. And now I see.’ ‘Well, how do you know that?’ Then they begin to suspect that he wasn't even actually blind. He'd been playing blind for his entire life, just to show up the Pharisees at this moment. It's an astounding passage. But even as it's an astounding passage in its irony, it's astounding in its testimony to the sovereignty of God and the purpose of life.  Look at the beginning verses, “As he passed by,” and this is Jesus passing by, presumably on the way to the temple, “As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth.” It's just a fact here. This is not someone who became blind by accident or illness. This is a man who was born blind and in the first century to be born blind was a horrifying reality because being blind, one could not care for oneself. The assumption in the twisted theology of the time was that this was the curse of God. Being blind meant you could not work. You were reduced to begging. Blind beggars lined the way to the temple, hoping for alms, so that the Jews going to give alms as a part or their religious duty would see the blind and give to them.  He was a beggar. It's a very low state. The assumption in a bad theology, we have to watch this, a conventionally minded theology in contrast to a Christian theology says, “If someone is in this state, then they deserve it. If someone is born with this deformity, God must not like them as much as God likes me.” It is such a thing that in much of the world today, and in particular in Asia, there is a theological avoidance of people who have deformities. It is bad karma even to be in their presence. Throughout much of the middle east, as in the time of Jesus, babies who were marked by these afflictions might just be set out. Of course, the ancient Greeks and Romans did the same thing, just as infanticide. Babies just abandoned and allowed to die. But this man's parents did not do that. Thus, he survived. But notice what happens. His disciples ask him, “Rabbi who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” There's that conventional theology. It's a bad theology. It's a very bad theology. Sometimes, here's what we have to watch, inside God's people who operate out of what they think is a basic Biblical theism, bad theology can infect invisibly until it comes out just as it comes out here. So the disciples ask the question. They're not embarrassed to ask the question. They assume it's kind of an obvious question. Who sinned that this man was born blind. Was it he? Or was it his parents? Their assumption is that where there is a man born blind, there was a sin, someone's sin who is behind this. That's insidious. Notice how deadly that is. That means that in this case, if someone is blind, then you can blame him for the blindness. This must be God's judgment upon his sin. Well, especially if someone's born blind, then that's really tough. This must be some kind of family heritage sin, or even some kind of prenatal sin. Who sinned, this man or his parents? Maybe his parents sinned and God's judgment upon their sin was to strike their son blind. It's an insidious, corrupted theology, but it’s easy to see how this sneaks in. It's easy to see how we would ask such questions. Cause and effect in the universe, how are we to understand this?  By the way, who sinned that this man was born blind? There is a right answer to that question, that is Adam. To be even more correct, we sinned in Adam. The Fall brings blindness, deformity, deafness, everything bad into the world with the effects of sin. There is no rhyme or rhythm. There is no theological guide to why there is this kind of birth defect of blindness.  Sometimes there is a cause and effect in sin. Someone gets drunk, causes an accident, and there's an injury; you can draw that. Someone climbs a tree and falls out of it; you can draw that. But someone born blind? You can't.  The text not only raises this, it puts it very clearly that the disciples are holding to this theology. It's the conventional theology of the time. It's rancid but it's conventional. So, they ask who sinned, this man or his parents? Jesus's answer is astounding. He says, “It was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.” I said, this is one of those passages that reveals whether you read the Bible as a Christian or not. If you read and understand what Jesus just said, it throws the entire world upside down. Jesus says straightforwardly that this man was born blind for this moment. It either is or isn't true. If it isn't true then we're stuck with that conventional theology. If it is true then God's sovereignty extended in this case to understanding that before the creation of the cosmos, before the incarnation of the Son, the Father arranged that this man who was born blind would be in this place, at this time, therefore Jesus to heal him, that the works of God might be revealed in him.  That's exactly what Jesus says. Jesus says, “It was neither this man nor his parents who sinned but that the works of God might be revealed in him.” It is an astounding statement of divine purposeness. This tells us bluntly that there are no accidents in the universe. There are no accidents. There's no, “Oh, that just happened in the universe.” Everything is tied to the sovereignty of God, the meticulous Providence of God and there is purpose that we don't get to see into everything. Jesus says, “I'm gonna tell you the purpose in this case. This man exists and he was born blind because I am about to do something in him to reveal the glory of God.” That's why. We're either gonna read that as Christians or not, because that is a real demand on the reader. You either believe this or not, because Jesus says it straightforwardly. You can try to come up with all kinds of theological ways to define away the Providence of God, or to try to throw in contingency or chance or to say, “There is no ultimate meaning to these things,” but Jesus says, “Oh yeah, there's an ultimate meaning to everything. There's an ultimate meaning to every atom and molecule. You may not know it. You may not see it. In this case, I’m going to tell you what it is, because I'm about to do something.” It's an astounding statement of the sovereignty of God. Jesus said, “It was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.” Now, hold on a minute. In verse four, he speaks of the works of God. He says, “We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work.” John 9:4 is one of the theme verses of my life. I think of it every single day. It is a statement of our purpose and the stewardship of our time in this life. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work. In this life, we are given day to work, but night is coming when no one can work. The Quaker theologian, Elton Trueblood, on whom I wrote my honors thesis at Sanford many years ago, a man who I got to meet, one of the American figures of the 20th century, he wrote his memoir and entitled it, “While it is Day”. I thought, “If the Lord gives me the opportunity to write a memoir, I’ll be very tempted from this very same verse to use that title ‘While it is Day’.” That is our purpose. That is our assignment. We work while it is day. Night is coming when no man can work, but it is not here yet. Until it is night, we've got work to do.  We work while it is day. Jesus says something else here. We must work the works of God. Now you may remember that in John chapter six, Jesus warned people about using this language. This very same language is what the people who went across the sea to find Jesus the next day, after the feeding of the 5,000, and they said, “What must we do to work the works of God?”Jesus makes very clear, you can't, but here he's talking to his disciples. They can. Okay, so that's fantastic. It turns out that now there's an outside. Outside Christ, you can't work the works of God, but inside Christ, you can. These are Christ’s disciples. He says, “We must,” not I, it's we, “must work the works of him who sent me well to this day.”  Then he says, “As long as I'm in the world, I am the light of the world.” Now he's already said that he's the light of the world and he says that again. In the gospel of John, Jesus often does not repeat these ‘I am’ statements, but he does so here. Why? Because he's about to shine light. As long as he's in the world, he's the light of the world. Notice what he does. There's no break in the text. He doesn't say, “I'm going to explain this by showing you something, boys.” Instead the text tells us, that “having said these things, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s…”, hold on the man’s? Now he's not the blind man. He says “the man”. “He anointed the man's eyes with the mud and said to him, ‘Go wash in the pool of Siloam’, which means ‘sent’.” He's a blind man. All the disciples see is the blind man. Jesus sees a man. He doesn't see a blind man, but he sees an opportunity for the light of the world to bring light into this man's eyes as a sign. That is John's word for the miracles, a sign. It is always a sign of something more than just healing. That is exactly what happens here. Jesus spits into the ground and makes mud. This is gross. It is disgusting, which is the point, it turns out. Jesus takes mud and spittle and he makes a paste and he puts it on the man's eyes. Now what was the man made of? Dust. Jesus made him. The one who made him out of dust now takes dust and spits on it and puts dust on the dust he made, called a man, and tells him to go wash. John helps us to see that Jesus' miracles or signs of healing are reversals of the curse. We have Genesis one, Genesis two, we have the Edenic garden. We have humanity in the garden before the Fall. After the Fall, things go badly. Before the Fall, there would have been no blindness. Before the Fall, there would have been no lameness. There would have been no deafness. There would have been no death, no injury. But on the other side of the Fall, horror. But Jesus is the Lord of all, the Lord of creation, the Word through whom the worlds were made, John has already told us. He takes the very stuff he made, dust, and spits on it and puts it on the one he made, the man. Then he tells him to go do something, to go and wash. Washing is a very important metaphor. There's a before and after washing. That is what he does.  Notice the structure of the text. The structure of the text here in John chapter nine is so sophisticated. John writes with such elegance under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. There is a triple form that turns into poetry in this text. You are going to hear it again and again and again, and you are going to start to recognize it. You'll notice that we are told what the man did. What did he do? Notice in verse seven, “So he went and washed and came back seeing.” He went and he washed and he came back seeing. He went in obedience and he washed in obedience and he came back seeing. Now, if someone was given sight having been born blind, how would you describe that he has been given the gift of sight? John says he came back, seeing. He left blind, but he came back, seeing. It's a present participle. It doesn't say, “He started to see”, or “He had been given the gift of sight”. It just says he came back seeing. So, present participle, he's now a ‘See-er’.The man who was blind from birth is now seeing, he came back seeing.  If the text ended there, how magnificent would that be? But it doesn't end there. Instead it turns to the context. Jesus is now gone. Jesus was evidently gone when he came back seeing. Jesus having seen the man and having anointed his eyes and telling him to go and wash, the man went and he washed and he came back seeing, Jesus isn't there, but the neighbors are. Now remember, he's seeing everything for the first time. They've seen him his entire life, but he's never seen them before. He came back seeing and it turns out that's going to be a powerful metaphor because he's seeing not only with his eyes, he is seeing theologically what he never saw before and what the people who have perfectly good eyes obviously cannot see. It starts with his neighbors. “The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar were saying, ‘Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?’” Okay, so here's John's irony which is not hilarious, but it is intentionally humorous. One of the classic structures of humor is to reveal human foolishness, human foibles, and that is what is going on here. Remember that this man was born blind but everyone else could see. They had seen this man their entire lives. They have seen him enough to think, “This looks like the guy who was blind”, but they didn't pay enough attention to him, those who had eyes, to actually be sure this is actually the guy. “‘Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?’ Some said, ‘It is he.’ Others said, ‘No, but he is like him.’”  How many ‘like him’ are there? How plausible is ‘like him’? This an evasive answer, kind of like you get from a defendant under cross-examination in court. “Is this the man you saw coming out of the bank with a bag of cash?” “Oh, it looks like him.” “Can you state as a matter of fact, that you're certain it is that man?” “Well, he is my brother-in-law. It looks like him.” I mean, it is just evasion. “What do you mean, looks like him?” But it gets even worse.  “He kept saying, ‘I am the man.’” So it's like, “I did it. It's me. Hello there. I never saw you before, but I'm the guy you saw or I think you saw because I thought you were seeing.” It goes on and on like this. “So they said to him,” this is verse 10, “‘Then how were your eyes opened?’” “We demand an answer. You can't just show up here seeing”. Remember it was a present participle. “I came back seeing.” You can't do that. You can't do that. That breaks all the rules. Blind people are supposed to stay blind. “How are you gonna explain the fact that you came back seeing? We demand an answer!” They, by the way, had ignored him. Given that theology of avoiding people with infirmities, this is the first conversation the man probably ever had with these folks. And so how then were your eyes open? “He said, ‘The man called Jesus made mud,’” he's so specific. Notice under cross examination here, he's so specific. “The man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed and received my sight.” There's that triple poetic form again. He went and he washed and came back seeing. “I went and washed and received my sight.”  Here he makes himself, very clearly, the passive. He is the one who was given sight. This was something that was done to him. “I went and I washed and received my sight.” “Then they said to him, ‘Where is he?’” meaning Jesus. “He said, ‘I do not know.’” Watch carefully how with his eye to irony, John picks up on the, ‘who knows and who doesn't know’. Who knows that he doesn't know and who doesn't know that he doesn't know and who should know, but doesn't know. And who, maybe should not know, but actually does know. ‘Know’ turns out to be a key, and this is where it shows up. He says, “I don't know.” Now, is it right or wrong of him to not know? He is not responsible to know. “Where is Jesus? I don't know.”  “They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind.” Now here, just a couple of powerful things in those verses. The neighbors tried their own kind of theological interrogation, but they don't know enough to get anywhere. So now they call in the big guns, they call in the Pharisees. “We got to call in some experts to come help us figure this thing out. Blind men don't come back seeing we don't like this. We don't have an explanation for it.” You call the Pharisees and the next thing is, it says, “the man who had formerly been blind”. It is like a business card. “Hi, my name's Ralph, formerly blind, born that way.” That is all they can say about this guy, but he will pick up on this many verses later. Don't forget, this is the man who had formerly been blind. Hold that thought.  “Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes.” Oh boy. The Pharisees, the scrupulous guardians of the Sabbath. Remember, Jesus had already made clear in Capernaum when he healed a man's hand, when the Pharisees tried to set him up saying, “Is it right to do good on the Lord's day?” And Jesus said, “You know if a man has an animal fall into a pit on the Sabbath day, who would not lift out his animal? If you would do that then of how much more value is a man than an animal? So it's right to do good on the Sabbath.” And they had a man with a withered hand, Jesus said, “Stretch out your hand,” and so Jesus healed the hand. Then the Pharisees, Matthew tells us, “Went out, seeking how they might destroy him.”  It is the Sabbath Day, so that just raises the anxiety for the Pharisees. “So the Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight.” Here's the blind man, the man who was formerly blind, “How did this happen?” “And he said to them, ‘He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.” Notice in triple, triple, triple. This is poetry. John is sticking this so that we see it and we can't miss it. It comes up again, “He went and he washed and he came back seeing”, “I went and I washed and I received my sight.”, and now he says, “He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see. Some of the Pharisees said, ‘This man,’ now speaking of Jesus, ‘this man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.’” In other words, Jesus cannot be divinely sent because he doesn't keep the Sabbath. Their whole theology was so corrupted, they saw everything backwards. “But others said,” this is obvious, “How can a man who is a sinner,” that means facing God's displeasure, do such things, in this case, “do such signs?” Even the word sign there is in the words of one of the Pharisees. “And there was a division among them.” Look at verse 17. This is like the Keystone Kops. “So they said again to the blind man.” What is wrong with that? He is not blind now! He was the man who was formerly born blind earlier. “So they said again to the blind man,” but he's not blind, “‘What do you say about him since he has opened your eyes?’” This is like being under cross examination. First of all, you say you were blind. Then you say this guy put spit on your eyes and told you to go wash, and so up you went and you washed and came back seeing? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yada yada. Okay. How do you explain this? Give an account for this. And he says of Jesus, “He is a prophet.” Again, a bomb goes off, less so in our ears than in theirs, but that is our problem. In this context in first century Judaism, to say that man is a prophet means God sent him and speaks and works through him. Remember there had not been a prophet in Israel for centuries. That looks like a little statement, but in this context, it's messianic. There is a prophet who is expected and he said, “He is a prophet.” He is truly sent by God. God, after centuries of sending no prophets, has sent us a prophet. How do I know this? Because I was blind. Now I see.  The Jews understand this. They understand the audacity of what he said. In verse 18, “The Jews did not believe that he had been born blind and received a sight.” In other words, how do you deal with a miracle if you don't want it to have happened? You tried to deny that it actually happened, so how do you do it in this case? You deny that the man had really been born blind. Now the credulity in that is so lacking, it is ludicrous. Yes, this guy has been playing blind for his entire life into adulthood. He has been living this life of being despised and unrecognized. He has lived this life of horror and deprivation and it was just an act to frustrate you Pharisees on this Sabbath day. That's what it was. That t doesn't even hold water.  “They didn't believe he had been born blind and received sight, until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them.” His parents turn out to be the two most spineless human beings imaginable. His parents throw their own son under the bus. “Is this your son who you say was born blind?” Remember what the disciples ask when they saw the man, “Who sinned, this man or his parents?” The assumption was it had to have been the parents. How could he have sinned prenatally? This must be something the parents did. They had borne the theological burden for this man's entire life until now of being the parents whom God has punished by giving them a blind son. No one would claim that their son is blind if their son had sight. It is ludicrous. It just shows you the powerful nature of unbelief in this case. It is so self deceptive. And he said, “They called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, ‘Is this your son who you say was born blind?’” Verse 19, “How then does he now see?” Explain this. We demand an answer!  “His parents answered,” Now, remember I told you, watch out for ‘know’. Watch out for the word ‘know’. It shows up in this passage. Here is what his parents say. “We know that this is our son,” Check. “And that he was born blind,” check. “But how he now sees we do not know.” They knew. “Nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” Well, God save us from parents like this. His parents said, “He is on his own now. We will testify to the fact that he is our son. He was born blind, we know that. But how he sees? No, we don't know. Who did it? No, we don't know. Ask him; he is of age.”  His parents said these things, we’re told, because the Jews had threatened to cast them out of the synagogue. That's not just being cast out of the synagogue, that is being basically cast out of the society. “They had already agreed that if anyone should confess that Jesus is the Christ,” The Messiah, that prophet, “he was to be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, ‘He is of age, ask him. So for the second time, they called the man who had been blind and said to him, ‘Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.’” By this man, again, they meant Jesus. This is a second interrogation. They did not get anything and it is really the second Pharisee interrogation. It is his third interrogation. The neighbors interrogated them then the Pharisees had round one. This is actually Pharisees round two. When they say, ‘Give glory to God,’ that is pompous. They are trying to amplify their own importance. “‘Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.’ He answered, ‘Whether he is a sinner I do not know.’” Remember, know, know, know. You know, I know, I don't know, we don't know. Here he says, “whether he is a sinner,” which means under God's curse, “I don't know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now. I see.”  That is the hinge of the entire passage. “Whether he is a sinner, I don't know, but this thing I do know, I was blind and now I see.” What is going to happen from here on out is that the man who was born blind who now sees, from this point on in the passage knows, and no one else knows. The people who thought they knew are revealed to know nothing. And this man who says, “I don't know,” here for the last time, won't say, “I don't know,” again. Why? Because in the context of the verses that follow, he begins to know. The dots are connected. He begins to see, not only physically, but more importantly, he sees spiritually.  They said to him, “‘What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?’ He answered them. ‘I have told you already and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” This guy not only now knows, he is mad. He is being interrogated rather than the community celebrating the fact that God has worked this work in him as a testimony to God's grace and glory and sovereignty. Rather than the entire people of God rejoicing, as you would think they would do in the reversal of the curse and the gift of sight, instead they see it as a theological problem. He is now refusing to be seen as a theological problem. Basically he responds to them by saying, “I have figured you idiots out.” He taunts them. “Do you also want to become his disciples?” “And they reviled him saying, ‘You are his disciple.” Well, is he or isn't he? He wasn't, now he is. He actually is. A disciple is one who follows Jesus. He's doing it now. He wasn't doing it just a few verses ago, but he's figured it out. “We are the disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man,” notice the ‘know’ and the ‘don't know’. Notice the contrast. You have the Pharisees, they're supposed to know it all. “We do not know where he comes from.” By the way, that's where the entire gospel begins, “In the beginning,” but they don't know. “The man answered, ‘Why, this is an amazing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes.” Why should I care about you idiots at all? “We know,” notice the ‘know’, now he's preaching! A few minutes ago he was a blind guy who didn't know Jesus. Now he knows Jesus and is actually called by the Pharisees, ‘one of his disciples.’ Now he is a preacher! He is preaching now. In verse 31, “We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him.” This is a man who was not even allowed in the temple because of his deformity and now he is preaching. “Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” It is an amazing sermon coming from this man, and you'll notice how he throws it back to them. You don’t know? You see the anger of their response in verse 34. “They answered him, ‘You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?’ And they cast him out.” They just won’t have it. They won't have the gospel. They won't have Jesus. They won't have the miracle. They won't have bind men seeing. They just won't have it. But the text isn’t over.  “Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him,” remember this man has never seen Jesus. He heard Jesus and Jesus gave him a sight, but he left to go obey Jesus by washing in the pool of Siloam and he came back seeing. He went, and he washed, and he came back seeing. When he came back, Jesus wasn't there. The first thing they asked him was, “where is he?” And he says, “I don't know.” But hearing what had happened, Jesus finds him. He said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” ‘Son of man’ is the main title in the gospel of John. You'll see in the other gospels as well that Jesus uses this self-designation. This is why we sing in ‘Fairest Lord Jesus’, “Lord Jesus, Son of God and Son of Man.” This title, Son of Man, means “that appointed one whom God has sent.”  “Do you believe in the Son of Man,” in verse 36, “He answered, ‘and who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?’” What is happening? At this point, the man who is blind and now sees, believes that Jesus is a prophet. He might suspect that Jesus is more because he goes on to say, “Never in the history of the world has it been heard that a man who was born blind was given his sight.” Now Jesus stands before him and says, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” His answer is, “‘Who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?,” Jesus said to him,” notice his words, “You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.” He hadn't seen him, but he did see him.  Jesus here reveals that there are two kinds of blindness. There is a physical blindness and there is a spiritual blindness. Even though this man was physically blind, when Jesus put the spittle on his eyes, somewhere between when he was anointed with that mud, he saw. It becomes a metaphor for our salvation, our regeneration. We see. We didn't see before, but now we see. Now we can't not see. And Jesus said, you have seen him and the one who is speaking is he. “He said, ‘Lord, I believe.’” That is just a short statement of faith, “Lord, I believe.” It is a complete honest, unevasive, straightforward statement of belief. “‘Lord, I believe,’ and he worshiped him.” That is bowing down to him. He recognized him. He is the very son of God. Remember the irony in which John has written this passage. Now Jesus speaks in these horrible, ironic words of judgment. “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” When I began, I said this is going to test whether you are willing to read the Scripture as a Christian or not. It is because Jesus says that he came in the world, not only so that the blind might see, but so that those who think they see are blinded. It is another statement of the judgment and the sovereignty of God. It is tough. No one is going to put this into a trite, little worship expression. No one is going to tell the congregation before he preaches, “Look, brothers and sisters, I am preaching so that those who do not see may see, and that those who won’t see but think they see, will be struck blind. That is what I'm doing this morning.” That is what Jesus said. It shows you that the great division in humanity is between those who see and those who will not see.  It is not over. “Some of the Pharisees,” verse 40, “near him heard these things, and said to him, ‘Are we also blind?’” It is a pathetic moment. This passage ends with a fizzle. It ends with this Pharisee stupidity. It is a strong judgment from God. “‘Are we also blind?’ Jesus said to them, ‘If you were blind,’” meaning physically blind, “‘you'd have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.’”  “I see right through you,” Jesus said. “I have come into the world so that those who are blind may see, and that those who think they see may be blinded.” The average Christian does not have a clue that is in the Bible. The average church is never going to preach this text like it demands to be preached. This is not happy-clappy Christianity. It begins with the sovereignty of God and a man born blind in order that the works of God might be performed in him. And it ends with Jesus saying, “By the way, that's why I came. So those who are blind may see. Oh, and so those who think they see may become blind.” Let's pray. Father, we pray with all our hearts for the gratitude of the fact that you have allowed us to see. Otherwise, we would not see. And you have given us the gift of sight and the gift of salvation, no less than if you had put spittle on our eyes and sent us to the pool of Siloam and said, “Go wash,” and we went, and we washed, and we came back seeing. Father, we hear the judgment in this text. We pray that you will use this in our hearts, to call us to Christ and keep us to Christ. Father, may we see and through us, may there be others who also though blind, will see. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2019/05/19/john-831-59/ Sun, 19 May 2019 10:00:58 +0000 Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series
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September 9, 2018
 
 
We'll be turning to the continuation of our verse by verse study through John. And we arrived this morning at John chapter two, verse 13. The passage that we'll be considering this morning is commonly known as the passage in which Jesus cleanses the temple. And I'm really looking forward to this time together this morning.
Let's pray together.
Our Father, we are, first of all, thankful that you are and that you speak and that you save and that you teach. This morning, we are thankful that, as you are, and as you have spoken, you've given us your word. And as you redeem and save and teach, you reveal all things in your word. Father, we pray to be not only knowers of the word but doers of the word. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
As we're following in the Gospel of John, we come this morning to John chapter two beginning in verse 13. As a boy raised in the nurture and admonition of the Lord by Christian parents who had me in a Christian church, I was in every dimension of church activity a child could conceivably be involved in. And that, of course, meant Sunday school. And back when I was a boy, it also meant the equivalent of Sunday school at night called training union. And then there was vacation Bible school. And as I tell people, I grew up in a Southern town, in a Baptist family in the 1960s, which meant that you did not merely attend your church's vacation Bible school; you attended every church's vacation Bible school. And so by the time you reached a junior high, you were quite Bible-schooled.
But some of you will remember the numbers of those who are included in these memories (I recognize will recede year by year). But some of you will remember the art that the Baptist Sunday school board used to provide for children's Sunday school. These were color pictures, about 16 by 20, that were done by an enormous team of illustrators for the Sunday school board. This was a very important role. And actually those who are interested in American art look to the biblical representations of these stories and to what's called Protestant Sunday school art as a particular genre of realism in art in the 19th and 20th centuries. With the 20th century, of course, you have full color plates. And so it was in living color that we saw these pictures of biblical themes, and most of them were quite Pacific. They were quite calm and quiet peaceful.
But the picture that I can remember, and this tells you something about the power of memory, I can remember the picture of Jesus cleansing the temple, and what stood out to us as children, preschoolers, and then school-aged children was, this was a scene you could only describe as violent.
There's no other way around it. The Protestant reduction of Jesus to the sweet Jesus system, cinnamon tablets, doesn't fit this biblical passage. This biblical passage is … Well it's more Clint Eastwood in one sense than what you see from other respects and other biblical accounts and other art representing those biblical accounts. Now that doesn't mean that those artistic representations were entirely helpful, but it does mean that even those who had to depict this passage in art understood this was going to be a different kind of picture than Jesus calmly teaching in Galilee. Or Jesus saying, “Let the little children come unto me.” It's a different picture.
We look to the text of Scripture in order to remind ourselves of the texts and to read it word by word and line by line, beginning in verse 13. “The Passover of the Jews was at hand and Jesus went up to Jerusalem and the temple. He found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. And making a whip of cords he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, ‘Take these things away, do not make my father's house a house of trade.’ His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’ So the Jews said to him, ‘What sign do you show us for doing these things?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ The Jews then said, ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?’ But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.”
Now this is where Christians have often failed to recognize something that every first-century Christian, either Jew or Gentile, could not fail to recognize. I'm just going to assume that most of us in this room would be classified as Gentiles rather than as Jews, and thus, there is a huge question for us that we often don't ask, but we have to ask it in this passage. Over the course of the past several years, I've taught many of you in this room, verse by verse and word by word, through Genesis and Exodus for, not weeks or months, but years. Why would Gentiles spend so much time studying the books of the Jews? That's their story. Is it our story?
Of course, this raises a host of issues, but think of it this way: we don't understand what's going on in this passage unless we understand the centrality of the temple to Judaism, and the fact that we are not a part of that picture as Gentiles. This is a much bigger issue than most Christians tend to think about.
Recently, there was a controversy within evangelicalism (to which I responded) in which a prominent preacher has suggested we need to unhitch the church from the Old Testament. And I sought to identify the massive errors in that statement or in that argument. But why? Well, first of all, because Jesus represented, interpreted and taught about who he was entirely in terms of continuity of the Old Testament, that the pattern is, promised and fulfillment. We put “Old” and “New” because there is an old and a new, but Jesus made very clear that the church that he was establishing would be established upon a continuity between Israel and his church, a continuity between the old covenant (and covenants) and the new. And the New Testament tells us how we are to interpret all of this. First of all, in the words of Jesus himself, who teaches us by his own references to himself and to his work by Old Testament reference. And he helps us to understand by going all the way back to Abraham. I think of the ram hidden in the thicket and then follow through the entire sacrificial system and through the prophets. And Jesus clearly identifies himself as the one who was promised. Matthew makes this point in his Gospel by saying. “These things occurred in order that the Scriptures might be fulfilled.” The apostle Paul gives us the example of how to make Christian gospel arguments in 1 Corinthians 15, when he said for, “I delivered unto you what I also received as a first importance, that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures and that God raised him from the dead according to the Scriptures.” And when Paul was using that phrase, “according to the Scriptures,” in 1 Corinthians 15, he was speaking of the Old Testament Scriptures. And of course we have the entire New Testament presentation of what it means for us to be included as Gentiles right down to the fact that the wall of hostility has been removed.
The temple of which we are reading in John chapter two is the temple in Jerusalem known as the second temple in Judaism of this era and thus second temple Judaism. We would be allowed only into the court of the Gentiles, the outermost court. It's really outside the temple, but it’s part of the temple mount. And we would be allowed there. We would be allowed no further if as Gentiles, we will be allowed to get close to the temple proper, but we're not included. We're not inside. We're included now. By God's grace, we're included now, because everything that went on in this temple reached its fulfillment in the life, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. The rending of the veil in the temple was the end of the entire cult, the entire practice, the entire faithful act of Judaism in the sacrifice of animals. It all came to an end and its fulfillment in the sacrifice of the sinless Son of God. But that hasn't happened yet, but it's happening in the near horizon. And the action that takes place this day takes place in the court of the Gentiles.
The text begins by telling us that it was during the Passover. The Passover of the Jews was at hand in the Gospel of John. As you follow the cycle of the Gospel, there are three different Passovers that are mentioned. There’s the Passover in general, which all Jews would have understood, but there are three specific annual observances. The Passover that occurred in John's Gospel, the Passover of the Jews, was at hand and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now, what does that tell us? Well, it tells us that Jesus was, as it is consistently demonstrated throughout the Gospels, living as a faithful Jew in obedience to the law. Now, again, that's important for our salvation because both in his active and in his passive obedience, Christ perfectly fulfilled the law in all its respects.
It's important for us to notice this. This is an act of faithfulness on Jesus's part. As a son of Israel, he is doing exactly what he should do in going to the temple. So he goes to the temple. It's up, given the temple mount to Jerusalem in the temple. “He found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons and the money-changers sitting there.” Now let's just ask a question, because the general impression that I gained as a child was that these people were engaged in illicit activity, predatory business practices. That's not the main offense that we should see here. There are two basic forms of business that are going on here in the court of the Gentiles. One was the selling of animals for sacrifice. Now you have to understand that this was a matter of some convenience and sometimes necessity. You would travel the requirement to go to the temple. And of course there are different sacrifices to be made. According to the Old Testament, if you're a husband and a wife with children, and one of those children is a boy, then you have a presentation at the temple. You have a sacrifice to be made. You have annual sacrifices to be made. You have the Passover. That's a lot of animals to carry all over Israel and Judea.
So it was a matter of convenience, sometimes a matter of necessity. If you would need an animal for the proper animal for sacrifice, you need to buy it somewhere. And so it's really not a surprise that there were those who came close to the temple right into the quarter of the Gentiles in order to make those sales possible.
There's one another business going on here, and that's money changing. That’s changing into the currency necessary for the temple contracts. These were the money changers. That too was not only generally a matter of convenience, but something of necessity. So what's the problem here? This is not really illicit business. So what's the problem?
The problem is that they had filled the court of the Gentiles. Jesus will elsewhere say, “My Father’s house is to be a house of prayer.” This is where the Gentiles should be allowed to come in order to pray. And you have to realize what this means. What would it mean that a Gentile would show up in the court of the Gentiles in the temple, in Jerusalem? What does that mean? It means that the Gentile knows that the God of Israel, he is God. And so this is a Gentile getting as close as a Gentile can get to the worship of the One he knows as the true and living God. But he is the God of the Jews, and the sacrifice and atonement being made inside that temple is not for him. It's not for us. It's for the Jews.
That's the shocking realization. I think that does not come to most Christians. I think most Christians reading a passage like this don't pause to think for a minute that we're out of this picture. We're completely out of this picture. We’re those waiting somewhere trying to get into the court of the Gentiles. We can't get into the court of Gentiles because of the money changers and the sellers of animals. Even if we got into the court of the Gentiles, that's as far as we can go. This is not about us. Of course it is about us, but that's the very point. We only know it is about us because Jesus is there. That's the only way we know that this is about us, because otherwise this wouldn't be about us at all. And the sacrifices that are going on inside the temple, that sacrificial system that goes on over and over and over and over again, that sacrificial system is about an atonement being made for sins, but not ours. We’re out of the picture. But here we are only in the second chapter of the Gospel, that is, the Christian Good news of John. And we're being told of Jesus cleansing the temple.
Have you ever thought about the fact that if this temple still existed and if Jesus hadn't come, we'd be in the very same predicament right now? Atonement would be being made for sin, but not ours.
The animal sacrifices would continue there in the temple. Even the temple, described here, if it were to exist right now, those sacrifices would be going on. And if Jesus had not come, we would just not be included. Part of this is physicality, isn't it? Because the sacrificial system, as God made very clear in the Scripture, requires a place. The sacrifices were to take place in one place in this place, in the holy of Holies, the Most Holy Place inside the temple. When we were studying word by word through Exodus, we saw the tabernacle and how it was established by God in order to create a tent in which he would meet with Israel. And there the sacrifices took place on that bronze altar. And that was a picture of what would happen in the temple, but in the temple itself, there's now a permanent place, a most holy place where the sacrifices are made. In the case of the Most Holy Place, it's on the day of atonement. And otherwise in other places in the temple, the sacrifices are being made in order that sins might be forgiven. But not ours. The place is very important. The responsibilities here of the sacrificial system meant that only a relatively small fraction, a tiny fraction of humanity, can be included in this.
Anyway, there's an astounding kind of realization. If you're dealing with a spot one place Jerusalem, you're dealing with one temple on one mount, and you're talking about one cycle of annual sacrifices. And if you're talking about all the necessity of coming to Jerusalem, and the responsibility of, for instance, as you saw with Jesus, when you have a firstborn son, you go to make a particular sacrifice. That cannot be the world's population. That there can be only a relatively limited number of people in the world has to be a small, shall we say, national or tribal identity. It's just Israel.
The Lord says, “I didn't choose you because you're the most numerous of all the peoples of the earth but because you're not.” This is like what we read in 1 Corinthians 1 where God says, “I chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.” Israel was not chosen because it was the mega power, the one true and only superpower of the age. No one would have considered Israel such. That was God's purpose. That was his point. But the point I want us to think about is that when you're looking at the temple, it includes only a very few of all the world's population. Only a very few. And they're identified by the fact that they are Jews, and their fulfillment of their responsibility is physical and having to get to the temple in order to fulfill this responsibility. This is really radically different than most of us think about.
The New York Times just a few days ago ran an article on the overwhelmingly daunting math of Islam. This shows you how big things go on in the world that we don't think about. Usually in Mecca was the annual observance of the Hajj, one of the seven pillars of Islam where faithful Muslims are to go and make the pilgrimage to Mecca. At one point last week, there were 1.7 million Muslims there in Mecca and a total of maybe 3.3 million who would be there in the course of the time. About a quarter are just from Saudi Arabia with others coming from all parts of the earth. But it is considered to be as one of the seven pillars of Islam a responsibility, a sacred responsibility, to make this pilgrimage. This is what faithfulness depends upon according to Islamic theology and according to the Koran. What's the problem? Math. That's the problem.
So it is the monarchy of Saudi Arabia, the house of Saud, that claims and has been recognized as having stewardship of the two holy sites of Mecca and Medina for quite a long time now. They're daunted by the math. Here's the New York times description of the math: “But even at a rate of 3 million people per Hajj, it would be impossible for all the world's 1.8 billion Muslims to perform the Islamic duty of the pilgrimage in their lifetimes. In fact, for all the Muslims who are alive today to perform Hajj, it would take at least 581 years.”
I found that really interesting. 581 years, just for all of the Muslims living today, to make the Hajj. Now that's just Islam. That's the Hajj. Let's take it back to Israel. Not that many people can be involved in this temple worship. That’s the math. That's the math of the temple. You cannot include very many people in this. We're out …except for Jesus. And this is Jesus in the Gospel of John, in his public ministry, showing up at the temple. How does he appear in the temple?
“He found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, ‘Take these things away; do not make my Father's house a house of trade.’”
This is what we remember. Jesus cleanses the temple. “Cleansing” is an interesting word there. Jesus is saying, “Get out of here, take your pigeons and go.” There’s a cleansing to its purpose, which was the main concern of Jesus. The main concern of Jesus was not that someone was selling these things that had been going on for as long as anyone could remember. It was a matter of convenience, sometimes a matter of necessity. But what had happened is that it had moved inside of the temple precincts. And this business had now moved inside, crowding out the Gentiles from the court of the Gentiles. It was turning the house of God into a house of trade, not into a house of prayer.
Imagine you’re a first-century Jewish man, and you see what has happened here. You are filled with outrage because you know what the court of the Gentiles is for you. You know it is to be a place of prayer. You know it's a sign of God's intention for what is happening inside the temple to be beyond Israel. It's because the court of the Gentiles is a sign of the promise that God gave to Abraham. “And you, and in your seed, all the nations of the earth will be blessed.” So the court of the Gentiles is a sign that God has a saving purpose that is actually beyond Israel and what is taking place inside that temple right now. There's a promise that something bigger is promised.
So you're a first century Jewish man, and you're filled with umbrage, but hey, you're just a man.The temple is not your authority. You go there, but you're not in charge there. It is an entire structure of Jewish authority that is in charge. And by the time you get to this passage in this period of second temple Judaism, you've got an entire authority structure of priests and, of course, organized into the Sanhedrin as a ruling council.
So if you're outraged, what would you do for redress of grievances? Well, you'd have to go to the priest, you'd have to go to the Sanhedrin and I guess try to make your best argument. That's what Jesus doesn't do. Jesus doesn't do that. Instead, he forms a whip of cords and he starts driving them out. And then he refers to the temple in a way we must not miss: “Take these things away. Do not make my father's house a house of trade.”
The act itself certainly catches our attention. And that's one of the problems with the way we might read this passage is that we would look at the action because the action is really dramatic. Going back, even to those Sunday school paintings, this act generally is dramatic. This is a violent scene. This is not Jesus saying, “You know, guys, I think this is not the proper use of the court of Gentiles. I'd really like to suggest you move your business outside.” No, this is outrage. This is an act of violent outrage. This is not the Jesus of liberal Protestantism who is always sweet. This is not the Jesus of reductionistic Christian sentimentality. This is the Jesus who is the outraged Son of the holy father. “This is the father's house, my father's house. And it is being abused.” He goes back. He goes back to the founding purpose of the temple. “This is not its purpose.” And he drives them out.
And the violence is not hidden in the passage. “He found those who are selling oxen and sheep and pigeons and the money changers sitting there, and making a whip of cords he drove them all out of the temple with the sheep and the oxen.” Wouldn't you like to see that? I'll admit I would. I would. I would like to have been there. Jesus, using a whip of cords to drive out.
This is one man, one whip. But look at all that He accomplished. He drove them all out. And not only that, he drove the animals out. Biblical commentators, by the way, are divided over trying to make the argument that the whip was simply intended for the animals, or the whip was intended for all. I'll just say it appears to be rather indiscriminate. It appears to have been a quite effective instrument of divine wrath.
And then just to make the point about the money, he pours it all out. Now this has got to be one of those dramatic scenes you just imagine because those who love money, love money. And we know that one of the greatest temptations that falls to humanity is to love money. And the one thing we can't stand is to see money wasted or just cast about. Especially when the coinage then was the value itself. And there it goes.
“He overturned their tables….” Something else you have to keep in mind is that what Jesus is doing here would not necessarily have been understood, even the way we're describing it here, by those who observed it. We’re reading John chapter 2, verses 13ff. So we're following in a sequence, and we know who Jesus is as Jesus enters the temple precincts and the court of the Gentiles and does this. But let's just imagine you are merely an observer, and you see this man go in, make a whip of cords, and then create absolute mayhem.
The thing to keep in mind is this was what was going on there authorized by those inside the temple. This was authorized by those who were performing the sacrifices. This is authorized by those who were the rulers of Israel. And so this is not only just the scene of one man entering into the picture and creating a whip and overturning tables and chasing both the people of business and their animals out and turning over the money. This appears to be a solitary act by an unauthorized agent. That's the point isn't it? This could only be authorized and could only be right if the one who is here is an infinitely higher authority than the ones who were inside the temple.
It is he who can use the first person possessive singular speaking of the father. “My Father's house….” This is one of those astounding revelations where all of a sudden you realize he is either mad, insane, or he is the Son of God.
The options are so few. We're only a few verses into the second chapter of John and you're going to have to decide who this is. Is this an unauthorized interloper? Is this a lone religious zealot? He would be claiming heresy, blasphemy, if he speaks of God in this way. And he would not be the Son of God.
This becomes really, really, really important in what follows, because here you see the insanity of people who are trying to figure this out. And here's the real insanity: it's missing what this means. Missing what is taking place here. Who missed it and who got it? Well, let's look at the passage. In verse 17, we read, “His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’” Wait just a minute. Who's “me”? Who's “me” here? Well, this is Psalm 69:9. “For zeal for your house has consumed me,” writes David. “And the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me. Zeal for your house has consumed me.” This is David. So when the disciples remember that the scripture said “zeal for your house shall consume me,” they remembered that statement from David in the Psalms. And they realized this is what's happening before our eyes.
What is the connection with David? Messiah. The one who is promised, who would come, who would reign on David's throne. You realize what's taking place here? It is as if the disciples recognized, “Oh, I get it now. If David were here in the flesh, he would do this.” Isn't that interesting? If King David were here and he saw this mess, King David would know what to do. He'd do something like creating a whip out of cords and chasing all these people away because zeal for the father's house has consumed him.
By the way, when did the disciples remember this? This is interesting. John doesn't specify when the disciples remembered. Did they remember it right then? Maybe they remembered it right then that would be nice. That would be good if the disciples remembered it right then. But John doesn't tell us they remembered it right then, only that they remembered it. And this is just a good affirmation to us that it took the disciples a while to figure these things out.
But isn't it also an encouragement that in figuring them out, they figured them out from the scriptures? And by the way, this whole idea about unhitching the Bible from the old Testament, had the disciples done that, they wouldn't have even known to make the connection between David and Jesus, between David and David's successor, Messiah, anointed one, Christ.
Well, it gets even more interesting. The scene shifts just a bit in verse 19. Let's actually look beginning of verse 18. “So the Jews said to him, ‘What sign do you show us for doing these things?’” Let's just stop there for a moment. The four Gospels together, present human beings asking some of the most stupid questions imaginable. And there's something very reassuring about the fact that human stupid questions are so accurately represented.
And here's the important part of the preceding verse. The disciples remembered Psalm 69:9. So when they remembered Psalm 69:9, and they saw what had just happened, they made the connection. We don't know exactly when they made the connection. It might've been right, then it might've been later, but they made the connection. “Zeal for the father's house has consumed him.” Okay. The Jewish authority, because that's what it means here when it says the Jews, the Jewish authorities clearly have not made that connection. The connection that the disciples made, they have not made. Hold that in mind. So what do they see?
Well, they don't appear to be, first of all, offended by what happened. They appear to be offended by who did it. What sign do you give in order to validate what you just did? Over and over again in the Gospel of John, of course, as we have already seen as in the first sign that that Jesus gave, it was the changing of water into wine at the wedding in Cana of Galilee. That was a sign. What is a sign? It's John's word for miracle. It’s a better word than miracle for us. It's a better word because sign is exactly what's most important. The miraculous act, the supernatural act performed by Jesus, is in its essence and in substance a sign. That's what it is. It is itself what cries out for attention and explanation and belief. That's it. Because when it happens, you're going to have to come up with some explanation for how it happens. And the only rational explanation is he did this because he is the very son of God. That's the sign. Every single one of the signs points to the fact that no human being can do this, save the one who is Lord over creation. And who could be Lord over creation except the one who is the very son of God? Colossians, for instance, will make this exceedingly clear.
But the amazing thing that is repeated over and over again is just how often the sign will take place. And then the people who will come next come up and say, “What's the sign that proves that sign?” Just think of the feeding of the 5,000, as we shall see when you get to John chapter five and John chapter six. And so what happens the day after? “What sign are you're going to give us?” “Wait, I just fed yesterday 5,000 men and not numbered women and children. That’s the sign. And of course, in other places, it becomes clear that Jesus himself is just the sign.
But now they show up and they demand a sign. You got to love this. We're only two chapters into John and already the great human experience is divided between those who saw what happened and remembered the scriptures, and those who saw what happened and demand a sign. Those are the two basic human responses. They're they are. Notice what Jesus says, “Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.’” Now, this is shocking. It's not perhaps shocking to us because we're familiar with biblical language, but we need to unfamiliar ourselves as best we can for a moment and just thinking about what Jesus is saying. Because he doesn't say, “I'm not going to give you a sign, you morons.” Instead, he says, “Okay, you asked for a sign. Well, here's a sign. You destroy this temple and I will build it back in three days.” Well, that's, that's astounding. It's astounding because this is the second great temple. Sometimes it's called the Herodian temple. You'll recall that the temple had been built by Solomon, but it was destroyed by invaders. And it has taken Israel generation after generation after generation to be able to have the political stability and the wealth to be able to rebuild this temple. And they did rebuild that temple. And as they remind us here in this passage, it took 46 years to build that temple. It takes a very long time to build a temple like this. And if you've been there, you would understand why, because it's not just a little hut on the top of a hill. It's this massive plaza, this massive court. You've got to build up the hill itself. You've got to make the way possible. You've got to level the ground for the perfect symmetry of the temple. It’s as if you're dealing with hand tools and giant stones. It took 46 years. Jesus said, “okay, okay. You asked me for a sign. I'm going to give you a sign. You tear this temple down and I will build it back in three days.” In missing the point entirely, the Jews then said, “It's taken 46 years to build this temple and you will raise it up in three days?” But verse 21 says, “He was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this. And they believed the scripture, and the word that Jesus had spoken.”
Again, there's more here than a fast reading of scripture would reveal. The Jews said it’s taken 46 years to build this temple. And you have to understand what this temple represented for Judaism. What did this temple represent? It represented the reestablishment of the cultists of the sacrificial system. It represented the reestablishment of the place where on the Holy of Holies, that most holy day, the priest, the high priest would enter into the most holy place with that blood that he took necessary for the forgiveness of sins and the atonement and the delay of God's judgment and wrath for the entire nation of Israel. If that doesn't happen, Israel bears the wrath of God. The idea of that temple being destroyed is the worst nightmare of the Jews in the first century. And of course it will be destroyed in AD 70. It's a real threat. It's the greatest threat to Israel. Israel's greatest fear is that something will happen to this temple. That's the greatest fear. And we can understand why in a sacrificial system, just read the logic of the Old Testament. If this temple isn't here, it is not just a matter of the fact that we can't go to church.
And so it's a matter of the reality that our sins will remain upon us. And Jesus says, “Well, I'll give you a sign. Tear this temple down, and I'll build it back in three days.” The horror of this is beyond what we would read as Gentile Christians reading this. This is horror to those who heard Jesus speaking. And so when they speak back and say, “It's taken 46 years to build this temple, and you will raise it up in three days,” it's like panic, panic in the heart, even to envision this temple might be destroyed.
But then notice the turn. “But he was speaking about the temple of his body. You don't pass that quickly. “The temple of his body”? So let's put ourselves in the position of the disciples now in this passage. What sense does that make? You'll notice that here John tells us helpfully, this is very helpful, that it was later. It was after the cross and the resurrection that they remembered that Jesus had said this. And then they understood it. Because they didn't understand it when Jesus said it. They didn't. They understood it later. Because what did it mean on this day when Jesus spoke of the temple of my body? Put yourself sympathetically in the place of the disciples for a moment, that had to be one of those things that you hear, and you say, “I'm going to have to think about that. I cannot comprehend it right now.”
We're told that Mary, you'll recall, pondered these things in her heart, even as the angel had spoken to her in Luke. We understand that isn't that the way it is with us sometimes with scripture? Let's just be honest. Sometimes we read a passage of scripture and we go, “I don't understand that. It's bigger. I can tell it's bigger than what I'm getting. I'm going to have to work on this. I'm going to have to ponder this.” Jesus said, “Then he was speaking about the temple of his body.” But Jesus doesn't explain that, John does. He was speaking about the temple of his body. What would happen in his body? Well, on that night he was betrayed in that Supper, he passed the bread and then he said, “This is my body broken for you.” And when he passed the cup, “This is the blood, my blood, which I will shed for the remission of sins.” He was saying, “This is the sacrifice. This is it. Everything the temple, everything the tabernacle, everything the Tent of Meeting had pointed to, all the covenants, all the promises, they've all been pointing to this. The act of atonement is not going to take place in the temple. The act of atonement is going to take place in my body, in the temple of my body. So Christ's body is the temple of our atonement. It was in that body that our atonement was achieved. Full atonement for sin, full substitution. It was in his body that propitiation was accomplished.
Now, fast forward, just a moment to where we are told that our bodies are to be the temples of the Holy Spirit. So even as we are Christ’s because of the atonement accomplished in the temple of his body. O body is not a body of atonement. It's a body of glory that redefines what it means to be redeemed humanity as we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. We are the one in whom the holy spirit is present.
His disciples remembered that he had said this “when therefore he was raised from the dead. And they believed the scripture, and the word that Jesus had spoken.” So that's how we end. So what was the response of the disciples? When they connected the dots, they believed the scriptures. So that's the model for us. This is what we do. Right now, we're not with Jesus as he cleanses the temple. We're not with Jesus as the disciples were after the crucifixion and resurrection, when they are looking back to when Jesus said this and they understand that's what he was talking about. Here we are in 2018. But the question is, what is our proper response? And it is exactly the response the disciples gave here. “His disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture, and the word that Jesus had spoken.”
It's only because Jesus, in his body, was the temple that accomplished salvation that explains how we are included in this at all. We are included as Gentiles who were far off, who've been now brought near, and our access was not gained by Jesus, merely that we could get into the Court of the Gentiles. But the act that took place in the Holy of Holies never did atone for our sins. It wasn't that Jesus made it possible for us to get from the Holy of Holies into the court of Israel. It’s that in his body he accomplished full atonement in the temple, not in Jerusalem, this temple of stone, but in the temple of his body.
Let’s pray.
Our Father, we are just so thankful for every word you give us. And Father, we’re so thankful for this word, from the Gospel of John today. We pray that in the temple of our bodies, the temple of the Holy Spirit, we may glorify you as redeemed people. We believe the scriptures and everything Jesus has said. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:49:57 /?p=45135 Audio, Exposition, John, John Series noThird Avenue Baptist Church Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series September 9, 2018     We'll be turning to the continuation of our verse by verse study through John. And we arrived this morning at John chapter two, verse 13. The passage that we'll be considering this morning is commonly known as the passage in which Jesus cleanses the temple. And I'm really looking forward to this time together this morning. Let's pray together. Our Father, we are, first of all, thankful that you are and that you speak and that you save and that you teach. This morning, we are thankful that, as you are, and as you have spoken, you've given us your word. And as you redeem and save and teach, you reveal all things in your word. Father, we pray to be not only knowers of the word but doers of the word. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. As we're following in the Gospel of John, we come this morning to John chapter two beginning in verse 13. As a boy raised in the nurture and admonition of the Lord by Christian parents who had me in a Christian church, I was in every dimension of church activity a child could conceivably be involved in. And that, of course, meant Sunday school. And back when I was a boy, it also meant the equivalent of Sunday school at night called training union. And then there was vacation Bible school. And as I tell people, I grew up in a Southern town, in a Baptist family in the 1960s, which meant that you did not merely attend your church's vacation Bible school; you attended every church's vacation Bible school. And so by the time you reached a junior high, you were quite Bible-schooled. But some of you will remember the numbers of those who are included in these memories (I recognize will recede year by year). But some of you will remember the art that the Baptist Sunday school board used to provide for children's Sunday school. These were color pictures, about 16 by 20, that were done by an enormous team of illustrators for the Sunday school board. This was a very important role. And actually those who are interested in American art look to the biblical representations of these stories and to what's called Protestant Sunday school art as a particular genre of realism in art in the 19th and 20th centuries. With the 20th century, of course, you have full color plates. And so it was in living color that we saw these pictures of biblical themes, and most of them were quite Pacific. They were quite calm and quiet peaceful. But the picture that I can remember, and this tells you something about the power of memory, I can remember the picture of Jesus cleansing the temple, and what stood out to us as children, preschoolers, and then school-aged children was, this was a scene you could only describe as violent. There's no other way around it. The Protestant reduction of Jesus to the sweet Jesus system, cinnamon tablets, doesn't fit this biblical passage. This biblical passage is … Well it's more Clint Eastwood in one sense than what you see from other respects and other biblical accounts and other art representing those biblical accounts. Now that doesn't mean that those artistic representations were entirely helpful, but it does mean that even those who had to depict this passage in art understood this was going to be a different kind of picture than Jesus calmly teaching in Galilee. Or Jesus saying, “Let the little children come unto me.” It's a different picture. We look to the text of Scripture in order to remind ourselves of the texts and to read it word by word and line by line, beginning in verse 13. “The Passover of the Jews was at hand and Jesus went up to Jerusalem and the temple. He found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. And making a whip of cords he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, ‘Take these things away, do not make my father's house a house of trade.’ His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’ So the Jews said to him, ‘What sign do you show us for doing these things?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ The Jews then said, ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?’ But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.” Now this is where Christians have often failed to recognize something that every first-century Christian, either Jew or Gentile, could not fail to recognize. I'm just going to assume that most of us in this room would be classified as Gentiles rather than as Jews, and thus, there is a huge question for us that we often don't ask, but we have to ask it in this passage. Over the course of the past several years, I've taught many of you in this room, verse by verse and word by word, through Genesis and Exodus for, not weeks or months, but years. Why would Gentiles spend so much time studying the books of the Jews? That's their story. Is it our story? Of course, this raises a host of issues, but think of it this way: we don't understand what's going on in this passage unless we understand the centrality of the temple to Judaism, and the fact that we are not a part of that picture as Gentiles. This is a much bigger issue than most Christians tend to think about. Recently, there was a controversy within evangelicalism (to which I responded) in which a prominent preacher has suggested we need to unhitch the church from the Old Testament. And I sought to identify the massive errors in that statement or in that argument. But why? Well, first of all, because Jesus represented, interpreted and taught about who he was entirely in terms of continuity of the Old Testament, that the pattern is, promised and fulfillment. We put “Old” and “New” because there is an old and a new, but Jesus made very clear that the church that he was establishing would be established upon a continuity between Israel and his church, a continuity between the old covenant (and covenants) and the new. And the New Testament tells us how we are to interpret all of this. First of all, in the words of Jesus himself, who teaches us by his own references to himself and to his work by Old Testament reference. And he helps us to understand by going all the way back to Abraham. I think of the ram hidden in the thicket and then follow through the entire sacrificial system and through the prophets. And Jesus clearly identifies himself as the one who was promised. Matthew makes this point in his Gospel by saying. “These things occurred in order that the Scriptures might be fulfilled.” The apostle Paul gives us the example of how to make Christian gospel arguments in 1 Corinthians 15, when he said for, “I delivered unto you what I also received as a first importance, that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures and that God raised him from the dead according to the Scriptures.” And when Paul was using that phrase, “according to the Scriptures,” in 1 Corinthians 15, he was speaking of the Old Testament Scriptures. And of course we have the entire New Testament presentation of what it means for us to be included as Gentiles right down to the fact that the wall of hostility has been removed. The temple of which we are reading in John chapter two is the temple in Jerusalem known as the second temple in Judaism of this era and thus second temple Judaism. We would be allowed only into the court of the Gentiles, the outermost court. It's really outside the temple, but it’s part of the temple mount. And we would be allowed there. We would be allowed no further if as Gentiles, we will be allowed to get close to the temple proper, but we're not included. We're not inside. We're included now. By God's grace, we're included now, because everything that went on in this temple reached its fulfillment in the life, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. The rending of the veil in the temple was the end of the entire cult, the entire practice, the entire faithful act of Judaism in the sacrifice of animals. It all came to an end and its fulfillment in the sacrifice of the sinless Son of God. But that hasn't happened yet, but it's happening in the near horizon. And the action that takes place this day takes place in the court of the Gentiles. The text begins by telling us that it was during the Passover. The Passover of the Jews was at hand in the Gospel of John. As you follow the cycle of the Gospel, there are three different Passovers that are mentioned. There’s the Passover in general, which all Jews would have understood, but there are three specific annual observances. The Passover that occurred in John's Gospel, the Passover of the Jews, was at hand and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now, what does that tell us? Well, it tells us that Jesus was, as it is consistently demonstrated throughout the Gospels, living as a faithful Jew in obedience to the law. Now, again, that's important for our salvation because both in his active and in his passive obedience, Christ perfectly fulfilled the law in all its respects. It's important for us to notice this. This is an act of faithfulness on Jesus's part. As a son of Israel, he is doing exactly what he should do in going to the temple. So he goes to the temple. It's up, given the temple mount to Jerusalem in the temple. “He found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons and the money-changers sitting there.” Now let's just ask a question, because the general impression that I gained as a child was that these people were engaged in illicit activity, predatory business practices. That's not the main offense that we should see here. There are two basic forms of business that are going on here in the court of the Gentiles. One was the selling of animals for sacrifice. Now you have to understand that this was a matter of some convenience and sometimes necessity. You would travel the requirement to go to the temple. And of course there are different sacrifices to be made. According to the Old Testament, if you're a husband and a wife with children, and one of those children is a boy, then you have a presentation at the temple. You have a sacrifice to be made. You have annual sacrifices to be made. You have the Passover. That's a lot of animals to carry all over Israel and Judea. So it was a matter of convenience, sometimes a matter of necessity. If you would need an animal for the proper animal for sacrifice, you need to buy it somewhere. And so it's really not a surprise that there were those who came close to the temple right into the quarter of the Gentiles in order to make those sales possible. There's one another business going on here, and that's money changing. That’s changing into the currency necessary for the temple contracts. These were the money changers. That too was not only generally a matter of convenience, but something of necessity. So what's the problem here? This is not really illicit business. So what's the problem? The problem is that they had filled the court of the Gentiles. Jesus will elsewhere say, “My Father’s house is to be a house of prayer.” This is where the Gentiles should be allowed to come in order to pray. And you have to realize what this means. What would it mean that a Gentile would show up in the court of the Gentiles in the temple, in Jerusalem? What does that mean? It means that the Gentile knows that the God of Israel, he is God. And so this is a Gentile getting as close as a Gentile can get to the worship of the One he knows as the true and living God. But he is the God of the Jews, and the sacrifice and atonement being made inside that temple is not for him. It's not for us. It's for the Jews. That's the shocking realization. I think that does not come to most Christians. I think most Christians reading a passage like this don't pause to think for a minute that we're out of this picture. We're completely out of this picture. We’re those waiting somewhere trying to get into the court of the Gentiles. We can't get into the court of Gentiles because of the money changers and the sellers of animals. Even if we got into the court of the Gentiles, that's as far as we can go. This is not about us. Of course it is about us, but that's the very point. We only know it is about us because Jesus is there. That's the only way we know that this is about us, because otherwise this wouldn't be about us at all. And the sacrifices that are going on inside the temple, that sacrificial system that goes on over and over and over and over again, that sacrificial system is about an atonement being made for sins, but not ours. We’re out of the picture. But here we are only in the second chapter of the Gospel, that is, the Christian Good news of John. And we're being told of Jesus cleansing the temple. Have you ever thought about the fact that if this temple still existed and if Jesus hadn't come, we'd be in the very same predicament right now? Atonement would be being made for sin, but not ours. The animal sacrifices would continue there in the temple. Even the temple, described here, if it were to exist right now, those sacrifices would be going on. And if Jesus had not come, we would just not be included. Part of this is physicality, isn't it? Because the sacrificial system, as God made very clear in the Scripture, requires a place. The sacrifices were to take place in one place in this place, in the holy of Holies, the Most Holy Place inside the temple. When we were studying word by word through Exodus, we saw the tabernacle and how it was established by God in order to create a tent in which he would meet with Israel. And there the sacrifices took place on that bronze altar. And that was a picture of what would happen in the temple, but in the temple itself, there's now a permanent place, a most holy place where the sacrifices are made. In the case of the Most Holy Place, it's on the day of atonement. And otherwise in other places in the temple, the sacrifices are being made in order that sins might be forgiven. But not ours. The place is very important. The responsibilities here of the sacrificial system meant that only a relatively small fraction, a tiny fraction of humanity, can be included in this. Anyway, there's an astounding kind of realization. If you're dealing with a spot one place Jerusalem, you're dealing with one temple on one mount, and you're talking about one cycle of annual sacrifices. And if you're talking about all the necessity of coming to Jerusalem, and the responsibility of, for instance, as you saw with Jesus, when you have a firstborn son, you go to make a particular sacrifice. That cannot be the world's population. That there can be only a relatively limited number of people in the world has to be a small, shall we say, national or tribal identity. It's just Israel. The Lord says, “I didn't choose you because you're the most numerous of all the peoples of the earth but because you're not.” This is like what we read in 1 Corinthians 1 where God says, “I chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.” Israel was not chosen because it was the mega power, the one true and only superpower of the age. No one would have considered Israel such. That was God's purpose. That was his point. But the point I want us to think about is that when you're looking at the temple, it includes only a very few of all the world's population. Only a very few. And they're identified by the fact that they are Jews, and their fulfillment of their responsibility is physical and having to get to the temple in order to fulfill this responsibility. This is really radically different than most of us think about. The New York Times just a few days ago ran an article on the overwhelmingly daunting math of Islam. This shows you how big things go on in the world that we don't think about. Usually in Mecca was the annual observance of the Hajj, one of the seven pillars of Islam where faithful Muslims are to go and make the pilgrimage to Mecca. At one point last week, there were 1.7 million Muslims there in Mecca and a total of maybe 3.3 million who would be there in the course of the time. About a quarter are just from Saudi Arabia with others coming from all parts of the earth. But it is considered to be as one of the seven pillars of Islam a responsibility, a sacred responsibility, to make this pilgrimage. This is what faithfulness depends upon according to Islamic theology and according to the Koran. What's the problem? Math. That's the problem. So it is the monarchy of Saudi Arabia, the house of Saud, that claims and has been recognized as having stewardship of the two holy sites of Mecca and Medina for quite a long time now. They're daunted by the math. Here's the New York times description of the math: “But even at a rate of 3 million people per Hajj, it would be impossible for all the world's 1.8 billion Muslims to perform the Islamic duty of the pilgrimage in their lifetimes. In fact, for all the Muslims who are alive today to perform Hajj, it would take at least 581 years.” I found that really interesting. 581 years, just for all of the Muslims living today, to make the Hajj. Now that's just Islam. That's the Hajj. Let's take it back to Israel. Not that many people can be involved in this temple worship. That’s the math. That's the math of the temple. You cannot include very many people in this. We're out …except for Jesus. And this is Jesus in the Gospel of John, in his public ministry, showing up at the temple. How does he appear in the temple? “He found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, ‘Take these things away; do not make my Father's house a house of trade.’” This is what we remember. Jesus cleanses the temple. “Cleansing” is an interesting word there. Jesus is saying, “Get out of here, take your pigeons and go.” There’s a cleansing to its purpose, which was the main concern of Jesus. The main concern of Jesus was not that someone was selling these things that had been going on for as long as anyone could remember. It was a matter of convenience, sometimes a matter of necessity. But what had happened is that it had moved inside of the temple precincts. And this business had now moved inside, crowding out the Gentiles from the court of the Gentiles. It was turning the house of God into a house of trade, not into a house of prayer. Imagine you’re a first-century Jewish man, and you see what has happened here. You are filled with outrage because you know what the court of the Gentiles is for you. You know it is to be a place of prayer. You know it's a sign of God's intention for what is happening inside the temple to be beyond Israel. It's because the court of the Gentiles is a sign of the promise that God gave to Abraham. “And you, and in your seed, all the nations of the earth will be blessed.” So the court of the Gentiles is a sign that God has a saving purpose that is actually beyond Israel and what is taking place inside that temple right now. There's a promise that something bigger is promised. So you're a first century Jewish man, and you're filled with umbrage, but hey, you're just a man.The temple is not your authority. You go there, but you're not in charge there. It is an entire structure of Jewish authority that is in charge. And by the time you get to this passage in this period of second temple Judaism, you've got an entire authority structure of priests and, of course, organized into the Sanhedrin as a ruling council. So if you're outraged, what would you do for redress of grievances? Well, you'd have to go to the priest, you'd have to go to the Sanhedrin and I guess try to make your best argument. That's what Jesus doesn't do. Jesus doesn't do that. Instead, he forms a whip of cords and he starts driving them out. And then he refers to the temple in a way we must not miss: “Take these things away. Do not make my father's house a house of trade.” The act itself certainly catches our attention. And that's one of the problems with the way we might read this passage is that we would look at the action because the action is really dramatic. Going back, even to those Sunday school paintings, this act generally is dramatic. This is a violent scene. This is not Jesus saying, “You know, guys, I think this is not the proper use of the court of Gentiles. I'd really like to suggest you move your business outside.” No, this is outrage. This is an act of violent outrage. This is not the Jesus of liberal Protestantism who is always sweet. This is not the Jesus of reductionistic Christian sentimentality. This is the Jesus who is the outraged Son of the holy father. “This is the father's house, my father's house. And it is being abused.” He goes back. He goes back to the founding purpose of the temple. “This is not its purpose.” And he drives them out. And the violence is not hidden in the passage. “He found those who are selling oxen and sheep and pigeons and the money changers sitting there, and making a whip of cords he drove them all out of the temple with the sheep and the oxen.” Wouldn't you like to see that? I'll admit I would. I would. I would like to have been there. Jesus, using a whip of cords to drive out. This is one man, one whip. But look at all that He accomplished. He drove them all out. And not only that, he drove the animals out. Biblical commentators, by the way, are divided over trying to make the argument that the whip was simply intended for the animals, or the whip was intended for all. I'll just say it appears to be rather indiscriminate. It appears to have been a quite effective instrument of divine wrath. And then just to make the point about the money, he pours it all out. Now this has got to be one of those dramatic scenes you just imagine because those who love money, love money. And we know that one of the greatest temptations that falls to humanity is to love money. And the one thing we can't stand is to see money wasted or just cast about. Especially when the coinage then was the value itself. And there it goes. “He overturned their tables….” Something else you have to keep in mind is that what Jesus is doing here would not necessarily have been understood, even the way we're describing it here, by those who observed it. We’re reading John chapter 2, verses 13ff. So we're following in a sequence, and we know who Jesus is as Jesus enters the temple precincts and the court of the Gentiles and does this. But let's just imagine you are merely an observer, and you see this man go in, make a whip of cords, and then create absolute mayhem. The thing to keep in mind is this was what was going on there authorized by those inside the temple. This was authorized by those who were performing the sacrifices. This is authorized by those who were the rulers of Israel. And so this is not only just the scene of one man entering into the picture and creating a whip and overturning tables and chasing both the people of business and their animals out and turning over the money. This appears to be a solitary act by an unauthorized agent. That's the point isn't it? This could only be authorized and could only be right if the one who is here is an infinitely higher authority than the ones who were inside the temple. It is he who can use the first person possessive singular speaking of the father. “My Father's house….” This is one of those astounding revelations where all of a sudden you realize he is either mad, insane, or he is the Son of God. The options are so few. We're only a few verses into the second chapter of John and you're going to have to decide who this is. Is this an unauthorized interloper? Is this a lone religious zealot? He would be claiming heresy, blasphemy, if he speaks of God in this way. And he would not be the Son of God. This becomes really, really, really important in what follows, because here you see the insanity of people who are trying to figure this out. And here's the real insanity: it's missing what this means. Missing what is taking place here. Who missed it and who got it? Well, let's look at the passage. In verse 17, we read, “His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’” Wait just a minute. Who's “me”? Who's “me” here? Well, this is Psalm 69:9. “For zeal for your house has consumed me,” writes David. “And the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me. Zeal for your house has consumed me.” This is David. So when the disciples remember that the scripture said “zeal for your house shall consume me,” they remembered that statement from David in the Psalms. And they realized this is what's happening before our eyes. What is the connection with David? Messiah. The one who is promised, who would come, who would reign on David's throne. You realize what's taking place here? It is as if the disciples recognized, “Oh, I get it now. If David were here in the flesh, he would do this.” Isn't that interesting? If King David were here and he saw this mess, King David would know what to do. He'd do something like creating a whip out of cords and chasing all these people away because zeal for the father's house has consumed him. By the way, when did the disciples remember this? This is interesting. John doesn't specify when the disciples remembered. Did they remember it right then? Maybe they remembered it right then that would be nice. That would be good if the disciples remembered it right then. But John doesn't tell us they remembered it right then, only that they remembered it. And this is just a good affirmation to us that it took the disciples a while to figure these things out. But isn't it also an encouragement that in figuring them out, they figured them out from the scriptures? And by the way, this whole idea about unhitching the Bible from the old Testament, had the disciples done that, they wouldn't have even known to make the connection between David and Jesus, between David and David's successor, Messiah, anointed one, Christ. Well, it gets even more interesting. The scene shifts just a bit in verse 19. Let's actually look beginning of verse 18. “So the Jews said to him, ‘What sign do you show us for doing these things?’” Let's just stop there for a moment. The four Gospels together, present human beings asking some of the most stupid questions imaginable. And there's something very reassuring about the fact that human stupid questions are so accurately represented. And here's the important part of the preceding verse. The disciples remembered Psalm 69:9. So when they remembered Psalm 69:9, and they saw what had just happened, they made the connection. We don't know exactly when they made the connection. It might've been right, then it might've been later, but they made the connection. “Zeal for the father's house has consumed him.” Okay. The Jewish authority, because that's what it means here when it says the Jews, the Jewish authorities clearly have not made that connection. The connection that the disciples made, they have not made. Hold that in mind. So what do they see? Well, they don't appear to be, first of all, offended by what happened. They appear to be offended by who did it. What sign do you give in order to validate what you just did? Over and over again in the Gospel of John, of course, as we have already seen as in the first sign that that Jesus gave, it was the changing of water into wine at the wedding in Cana of Galilee. That was a sign. What is a sign? It's John's word for miracle. It’s a better word than miracle for us. It's a better word because sign is exactly what's most important. The miraculous act, the supernatural act performed by Jesus, is in its essence and in substance a sign. That's what it is. It is itself what cries out for attention and explanation and belief. That's it. Because when it happens, you're going to have to come up with some explanation for how it happens. And the only rational explanation is he did this because he is the very son of God. That's the sign. Every single one of the signs points to the fact that no human being can do this, save the one who is Lord over creation. And who could be Lord over creation except the one who is the very son of God? Colossians, for instance, will make this exceedingly clear. But the amazing thing that is repeated over and over again is just how often the sign will take place. And then the people who will come next come up and say, “What's the sign that proves that sign?” Just think of the feeding of the 5,000, as we shall see when you get to John chapter five and John chapter six. And so what happens the day after? “What sign are you're going to give us?” “Wait, I just fed yesterday 5,000 men and not numbered women and children. That’s the sign. And of course, in other places, it becomes clear that Jesus himself is just the sign. But now they show up and they demand a sign. You got to love this. We're only two chapters into John and already the great human experience is divided between those who saw what happened and remembered the scriptures, and those who saw what happened and demand a sign. Those are the two basic human responses. They're they are. Notice what Jesus says, “Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.’” Now, this is shocking. It's not perhaps shocking to us because we're familiar with biblical language, but we need to unfamiliar ourselves as best we can for a moment and just thinking about what Jesus is saying. Because he doesn't say, “I'm not going to give you a sign, you morons.” Instead, he says, “Okay, you asked for a sign. Well, here's a sign. You destroy this temple and I will build it back in three days.” Well, that's, that's astounding. It's astounding because this is the second great temple. Sometimes it's called the Herodian temple. You'll recall that the temple had been built by Solomon, but it was destroyed by invaders. And it has taken Israel generation after generation after generation to be able to have the political stability and the wealth to be able to rebuild this temple. And they did rebuild that temple. And as they remind us here in this passage, it took 46 years to build that temple. It takes a very long time to build a temple like this. And if you've been there, you would understand why, because it's not just a little hut on the top of a hill. It's this massive plaza, this massive court. You've got to build up the hill itself. You've got to make the way possible. You've got to level the ground for the perfect symmetry of the temple. It’s as if you're dealing with hand tools and giant stones. It took 46 years. Jesus said, “okay, okay. You asked me for a sign. I'm going to give you a sign. You tear this temple down and I will build it back in three days.” In missing the point entirely, the Jews then said, “It's taken 46 years to build this temple and you will raise it up in three days?” But verse 21 says, “He was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this. And they believed the scripture, and the word that Jesus had spoken.” Again, there's more here than a fast reading of scripture would reveal. The Jews said it’s taken 46 years to build this temple. And you have to understand what this temple represented for Judaism. What did this temple represent? It represented the reestablishment of the cultists of the sacrificial system. It represented the reestablishment of the place where on the Holy of Holies, that most holy day, the priest, the high priest would enter into the most holy place with that blood that he took necessary for the forgiveness of sins and the atonement and the delay of God's judgment and wrath for the entire nation of Israel. If that doesn't happen, Israel bears the wrath of God. The idea of that temple being destroyed is the worst nightmare of the Jews in the first century. And of course it will be destroyed in AD 70. It's a real threat. It's the greatest threat to Israel. Israel's greatest fear is that something will happen to this temple. That's the greatest fear. And we can understand why in a sacrificial system, just read the logic of the Old Testament. If this temple isn't here, it is not just a matter of the fact that we can't go to church. And so it's a matter of the reality that our sins will remain upon us. And Jesus says, “Well, I'll give you a sign. Tear this temple down, and I'll build it back in three days.” The horror of this is beyond what we would read as Gentile Christians reading this. This is horror to those who heard Jesus speaking. And so when they speak back and say, “It's taken 46 years to build this temple, and you will raise it up in three days,” it's like panic, panic in the heart, even to envision this temple might be destroyed. But then notice the turn. “But he was speaking about the temple of his body. You don't pass that quickly. “The temple of his body”? So let's put ourselves in the position of the disciples now in this passage. What sense does that make? You'll notice that here John tells us helpfully, this is very helpful, that it was later. It was after the cross and the resurrection that they remembered that Jesus had said this. And then they understood it. Because they didn't understand it when Jesus said it. They didn't. They understood it later. Because what did it mean on this day when Jesus spoke of the temple of my body? Put yourself sympathetically in the place of the disciples for a moment, that had to be one of those things that you hear, and you say, “I'm going to have to think about that. I cannot comprehend it right now.” We're told that Mary, you'll recall, pondered these things in her heart, even as the angel had spoken to her in Luke. We understand that isn't that the way it is with us sometimes with scripture? Let's just be honest. Sometimes we read a passage of scripture and we go, “I don't understand that. It's bigger. I can tell it's bigger than what I'm getting. I'm going to have to work on this. I'm going to have to ponder this.” Jesus said, “Then he was speaking about the temple of his body.” But Jesus doesn't explain that, John does. He was speaking about the temple of his body. What would happen in his body? Well, on that night he was betrayed in that Supper, he passed the bread and then he said, “This is my body broken for you.” And when he passed the cup, “This is the blood, my blood, which I will shed for the remission of sins.” He was saying, “This is the sacrifice. This is it. Everything the temple, everything the tabernacle, everything the Tent of Meeting had pointed to, all the covenants, all the promises, they've all been pointing to this. The act of atonement is not going to take place in the temple. The act of atonement is going to take place in my body, in the temple of my body. So Christ's body is the temple of our atonement. It was in that body that our atonement was achieved. Full atonement for sin, full substitution. It was in his body that propitiation was accomplished. Now, fast forward, just a moment to where we are told that our bodies are to be the temples of the Holy Spirit. So even as we are Christ’s because of the atonement accomplished in the temple of his body. O body is not a body of atonement. It's a body of glory that redefines what it means to be redeemed humanity as we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. We are the one in whom the holy spirit is present. His disciples remembered that he had said this “when therefore he was raised from the dead. And they believed the scripture, and the word that Jesus had spoken.” So that's how we end. So what was the response of the disciples? When they connected the dots, they believed the scriptures. So that's the model for us. This is what we do. Right now, we're not with Jesus as he cleanses the temple. We're not with Jesus as the disciples were after the crucifixion and resurrection, when they are looking back to when Jesus said this and they understand that's what he was talking about. Here we are in 2018. But the question is, what is our proper response? And it is exactly the response the disciples gave here. “His disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture, and the word that Jesus had spoken.” It's only because Jesus, in his body, was the temple that accomplished salvation that explains how we are included in this at all. We are included as Gentiles who were far off, who've been now brought near, and our access was not gained by Jesus, merely that we could get into the Court of the Gentiles. But the act that took place in the Holy of Holies never did atone for our sins. It wasn't that Jesus made it possible for us to get from the Holy of Holies into the court of Israel. It’s that in his body he accomplished full atonement in the temple, not in Jerusalem, this temple of stone, but in the temple of his body. Let’s pray. Our Father, we are just so thankful for every word you give us. And Father, we’re so thankful for this word, from the Gospel of John today. We pray that in the temple of our bodies, the temple of the Holy Spirit, we may glorify you as redeemed people. We believe the scriptures and everything Jesus has said. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.Third Avenue Baptist Church Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series September 9, 2018     We'll be turning to the continuation of our verse by verse study through John. And we arrived this morning at John chapter two, verse 13. The passage that we'll be considering this morning is commonly known as the passage in which Jesus cleanses the temple. And I'm really looking forward to this time together this morning. Let's pray together. Our Father, we are, first of all, thankful that you are and that you speak and that you save and that you teach. This morning, we are thankful that, as you are, and as you have spoken, you've given us your word. And as you redeem and save and teach, you reveal all things in your word. Father, we pray to be not only knowers of the word but doers of the word. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. As we're following in the Gospel of John, we come this morning to John chapter two beginning in verse 13. As a boy raised in the nurture and admonition of the Lord by Christian parents who had me in a Christian church, I was in every dimension of church activity a child could conceivably be involved in. And that, of course, meant Sunday school. And back when I was a boy, it also meant the equivalent of Sunday school at night called training union. And then there was vacation Bible school. And as I tell people, I grew up in a Southern town, in a Baptist family in the 1960s, which meant that you did not merely attend your church's vacation Bible school; you attended every church's vacation Bible school. And so by the time you reached a junior high, you were quite Bible-schooled. But some of you will remember the numbers of those who are included in these memories (I recognize will recede year by year). But some of you will remember the art that the Baptist Sunday school board used to provide for children's Sunday school. These were color pictures, about 16 by 20, that were done by an enormous team of illustrators for the Sunday school board. This was a very important role. And actually those who are interested in American art look to the biblical representations of these stories and to what's called Protestant Sunday school art as a particular genre of realism in art in the 19th and 20th centuries. With the 20th century, of course, you have full color plates. And so it was in living color that we saw these pictures of biblical themes, and most of them were quite Pacific. They were quite calm and quiet peaceful. But the picture that I can remember, and this tells you something about the power of memory, I can remember the picture of Jesus cleansing the temple, and what stood out to us as children, preschoolers, and then school-aged children was, this was a scene you could only describe as violent. There's no other way around it. The Protestant reduction of Jesus to the sweet Jesus system, cinnamon tablets, doesn't fit this biblical passage. This biblical passage is … Well it's more Clint Eastwood in one sense than what you see from other respects and other biblical accounts and other art representing those biblical accounts. Now that doesn't mean that those artistic representations were entirely helpful, but it does mean that even those who had to depict this passage in art understood this was going to be a different kind of picture than Jesus calmly teaching in Galilee. Or Jesus saying, “Let the little children come unto me.” It's a different picture. We look to the text of Scripture in order to remind ourselves of the texts and to read it word by word and line by line, beginning in verse 13. “The Passover of the Jews was at hand and Jesus went up to Jerusalem and the temple. He found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. And making a whip of cords he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, ‘Take these things away, do not make my father's house a house of trade.’ His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’ So the Jews said to him, ‘What sign do you show us for doing these things?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ The Jews then said, ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?’ But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.” Now this is where Christians have often failed to recognize something that every first-century Christian, either Jew or Gentile, could not fail to recognize. I'm just going to assume that most of us in this room would be classified as Gentiles rather than as Jews, and thus, there is a huge question for us that we often don't ask, but we have to ask it in this passage. Over the course of the past several years, I've taught many of you in this room, verse by verse and word by word, through Genesis and Exodus for, not weeks or months, but years. Why would Gentiles spend so much time studying the books of the Jews? That's their story. Is it our story? Of course, this raises a host of issues, but think of it this way: we don't understand what's going on in this passage unless we understand the centrality of the temple to Judaism, and the fact that we are not a part of that picture as Gentiles. This is a much bigger issue than most Christians tend to think about. Recently, there was a controversy within evangelicalism (to which I responded) in which a prominent preacher has suggested we need to unhitch the church from the Old Testament. And I sought to identify the massive errors in that statement or in that argument. But why? Well, first of all, because Jesus represented, interpreted and taught about who he was entirely in terms of continuity of the Old Testament, that the pattern is, promised and fulfillment. We put “Old” and “New” because there is an old and a new, but Jesus made very clear that the church that he was establishing would be established upon a continuity between Israel and his church, a continuity between the old covenant (and covenants) and the new. And the New Testament tells us how we are to interpret all of this. First of all, in the words of Jesus himself, who teaches us by his own references to himself and to his work by Old Testament reference. And he helps us to understand by going all the way back to Abraham. I think of the ram hidden in the thicket and then follow through the entire sacrificial system and through the prophets. And Jesus clearly identifies himself as the one who was promised. Matthew makes this point in his Gospel by saying. “These things occurred in order that the Scriptures might be fulfilled.” The apostle Paul gives us the example of how to make Christian gospel arguments in 1 Corinthians 15, when he said for, “I delivered unto you what I also received as a first importance, that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures and that God raised him from the dead according to the Scriptures.” And when Paul was using that phrase, “according to the Scriptures,” in 1 Corinthians 15, he was speaking of the Old Testament Scriptures. And of course we have the entire New Testament presentation of what it means for us to be included as Gentiles right down to the fact that the wall of hostility has been removed. The temple of which we are reading in John chapter two is the temple in Jerusalem known as the second temple in Judaism of this era and thus second temple Judaism. We would be allowed only into the court of the Gentiles, the outermost court. It's really outside the temple, but it’s part of the temple mount. And we would be allowed there. We would be allowed no further if as Gentiles, we will be allowed to get close to the temple proper, but we're not included. We're not inside. We're included now. By God's grace, we're included now, because everything that went on in this temple reached its fulfillment in the life, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. The rending of the veil in the temple was the end of the entire cult, the entire practice, the entire faithful act of Judaism in the sacrifice of animals. It all came to an end and its fulfillment in the sacrifice of the sinless Son of God. But that hasn't happened yet, but it's happening in the near horizon. And the action that takes place this day takes place in the court of the Gentiles. The text begins by telling us that it was during the Passover. The Passover of the Jews was at hand in the Gospel of John. As you follow the cycle of the Gospel, there are three different Passovers that are mentioned. There’s the Passover in general, which all Jews would have understood, but there are three specific annual observances. The Passover that occurred in John's Gospel, the Passover of the Jews, was at hand and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now, what does that tell us? Well, it tells us that Jesus was, as it is consistently demonstrated throughout the Gospels, living as a faithful Jew in obedience to the law. Now, again, that's important for our salvation because both in his active and in his passive obedience, Christ perfectly fulfilled the law in all its respects. It's important for us to notice this. This is an act of faithfulness on Jesus's part. As a son of Israel, he is doing exactly what he should do in going to the temple. So he goes to the temple. It's up, given the temple mount to Jerusalem in the temple. “He found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons and the money-changers sitting there.” Now let's just ask a question, because the general impression that I gained as a child was that these people were engaged in illicit activity, predatory business practices. That's not the main offense that we should see here. There are two basic forms of business that are going on here in the court of the Gentiles. One was the selling of animals for sacrifice. Now you have to understand that this was a matter of some convenience and sometimes necessity. You would travel the requirement to go to the temple. And of course there are different sacrifices to be made. According to the Old Testament, if you're a husband and a wife with children, and one of those children is a boy, then you have a presentation at the temple. You have a sacrifice to be made. You have annual sacrifices to be made. You have the Passover. That's a lot of animals to carry all over Israel and Judea. So it was a matter of convenience, sometimes a matter of necessity. If you would need an animal for the proper animal for sacrifice, you need to buy it somewhere. And so it's really not a surprise that there were those who came close to the temple right into the quarter of the Gentiles in order to make those sales possible. There's one another business going on here, and that's money changing. That’s changing into the currency necessary for the temple contracts. These were the money changers. That too was not only generally a matter of convenience, but something of necessity. So what's the problem here? This is not really illicit business. So what's the problem? The problem is that they had filled the court of the Gentiles. Jesus will elsewhere say, “My Father’s house is to be a house of prayer.” This is where the Gentiles should be allowed to come in order to pray. And you have to realize what this means. What would it mean that a Gentile would show up in the court of the Gentiles in the temple, in Jerusalem? What does that mean? It means that the Gentile knows that the God of Israel, he is God. And so this is a Gentile getting as close as a Gentile can get to the worship of the One he knows as the true and living God. But he is the God of the Jews, and the sacrifice and atonement being made inside that temple is not for him. It's not for us. It's for the Jews. That's the shocking realization. I think that does not come to most Christians. I think most Christians reading a passage like this don't pause to think for a minute that we're out of this picture. We're completely out of this picture. We’re those waiting somewhere trying to get into the court of the Gentiles. We can't get into the court of Gentiles because of the money changers and the sellers of animals. Even if we got into the court of the Gentiles, that's as far as we can go. This is not about us. Of course it is about us, but that's the very point. We only know it is about us because Jesus is there. That's the only way we know that this is about us, because otherwise this wouldn't be about us at all. And the sacrifices that are going on inside the temple, that sacrificial system that goes on over and over and over and over again, that sacrificial system is about an atonement being made for sins, but not ours. We’re out of the picture. But here we are only in the second chapter of the Gospel, that is, the Christian Good news of John. And we're being told of Jesus cleansing the temple. Have you ever thought about the fact that if this temple still existed and if Jesus hadn't come, we'd be in the very same predicament right now? Atonement would be being made for sin, but not ours. The animal sacrifices would continue there in the temple. Even the temple, described here, if it were to exist right now, those sacrifices would be going on. And if Jesus had not come, we would just not be included. Part of this is physicality, isn't it? Because the sacrificial system, as God made very clear in the Scripture, requires a place. The sacrifices were to take place in one place in this place, in the holy of Holies, the Most Holy Place inside the temple. When we were studying word by word through Exodus, we saw the tabernacle and how it was established by God in order to create a tent in which he would meet with Israel. And there the sacrifices took place on that bronze altar. And that was a picture of what would happen in the temple, but in the temple itself, there's now a permanent place, a most holy place where the sacrifices are made. In the case of the Most Holy Place, it's on the day of atonement. And otherwise in other places in the temple, the sacrifices are being made in order that sins might be forgiven. But not ours. The place is very important. The responsibilities here of the sacrificial system meant that only a relatively small fraction, a tiny fraction of humanity, can be included in this. Anyway, there's an astounding kind of realization. If you're dealing with a spot one place Jerusalem, you're dealing with one temple on one mount, and you're talking about one cycle of annual sacrifices. And if you're talking about all the necessity of coming to Jerusalem, and the responsibility of, for instance, as you saw with Jesus, when you have a firstborn son, you go to make a particular sacrifice. That cannot be the world's population. That there can be only a relatively limited number of people in the world has to be a small, shall we say, national or tribal identity. It's just Israel. The Lord says, “I didn't choose you because you're the most numerous of all the peoples of the earth but because you're not.” This is like what we read in 1 Corinthians 1 where God says, “I chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.” Israel was not chosen because it was the mega power, the one true and only superpower of the age. No one would have considered Israel such. That was God's purpose. That was his point. But the point I want us to think about is that when you're looking at the temple, it includes only a very few of all the world's population. Only a very few. And they're identified by the fact that they are Jews, and their fulfillment of their responsibility is physical and having to get to the temple in order to fulfill this responsibility. This is really radically different than most of us think about. The New York Times just a few days ago ran an article on the overwhelmingly daunting math of Islam. This shows you how big things go on in the world that we don't think about. Usually in Mecca was the annual observance of the Hajj, one of the seven pillars of Islam where faithful Muslims are to go and make the pilgrimage to Mecca. At one point last week, there were 1.7 million Muslims there in Mecca and a total of maybe 3.3 million who would be there in the course of the time. About a quarter are just from Saudi Arabia with others coming from all parts of the earth. But it is considered to be as one of the seven pillars of Islam a responsibility, a sacred responsibility, to make this pilgrimage. This is what faithfulness depends upon according to Islamic theology and according to the Koran. What's the problem? Math. That's the problem. So it is the monarchy of Saudi Arabia, the house of Saud, that claims and has been recognized as having stewardship of the two holy sites of Mecca and Medina for quite a long time now. They're daunted by the math. Here's the New York times description of the math: “But even at a rate of 3 million people per Hajj, it would be impossible for all the world's 1.8 billion Muslims to perform the Islamic duty of the pilgrimage in their lifetimes. In fact, for all the Muslims who are alive today to perform Hajj, it would take at least 581 years.” I found that really interesting. 581 years, just for all of the Muslims living today, to make the Hajj. Now that's just Islam. That's the Hajj. Let's take it back to Israel. Not that many people can be involved in this temple worship. That’s the math. That's the math of the temple. You cannot include very many people in this. We're out …except for Jesus. And this is Jesus in the Gospel of John, in his public ministry, showing up at the temple. How does he appear in the temple? “He found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, ‘Take these things away; do not make my Father's house a house of trade.’” This is what we remember. Jesus cleanses the temple. “Cleansing” is an interesting word there. Jesus is saying, “Get out of here, take your pigeons and go.” There’s a cleansing to its purpose, which was the main concern of Jesus. The main concern of Jesus was not that someone was selling these things that had been going on for as long as anyone could remember. It was a matter of convenience, sometimes a matter of necessity. But what had happened is that it had moved inside of the temple precincts. And this business had now moved inside, crowding out the Gentiles from the court of the Gentiles. It was turning the house of God into a house of trade, not into a house of prayer. Imagine you’re a first-century Jewish man, and you see what has happened here. You are filled with outrage because you know what the court of the Gentiles is for you. You know it is to be a place of prayer. You know it's a sign of God's intention for what is happening inside the temple to be beyond Israel. It's because the court of the Gentiles is a sign of the promise that God gave to Abraham. “And you, and in your seed, all the nations of the earth will be blessed.” So the court of the Gentiles is a sign that God has a saving purpose that is actually beyond Israel and what is taking place inside that temple right now. There's a promise that something bigger is promised. So you're a first century Jewish man, and you're filled with umbrage, but hey, you're just a man.The temple is not your authority. You go there, but you're not in charge there. It is an entire structure of Jewish authority that is in charge. And by the time you get to this passage in this period of second temple Judaism, you've got an entire authority structure of priests and, of course, organized into the Sanhedrin as a ruling council. So if you're outraged, what would you do for redress of grievances? Well, you'd have to go to the priest, you'd have to go to the Sanhedrin and I guess try to make your best argument. That's what Jesus doesn't do. Jesus doesn't do that. Instead, he forms a whip of cords and he starts driving them out. And then he refers to the temple in a way we must not miss: “Take these things away. Do not make my father's house a house of trade.” The act itself certainly catches our attention. And that's one of the problems with the way we might read this passage is that we would look at the action because the action is really dramatic. Going back, even to those Sunday school paintings, this act generally is dramatic. This is a violent scene. This is not Jesus saying, “You know, guys, I think this is not the proper use of the court of Gentiles. I'd really like to suggest you move your business outside.” No, this is outrage. This is an act of violent outrage. This is not the Jesus of liberal Protestantism who is always sweet. This is not the Jesus of reductionistic Christian sentimentality. This is the Jesus who is the outraged Son of the holy father. “This is the father's house, my father's house. And it is being abused.” He goes back. He goes back to the founding purpose of the temple. “This is not its purpose.” And he drives them out. And the violence is not hidden in the passage. “He found those who are selling oxen and sheep and pigeons and the money changers sitting there, and making a whip of cords he drove them all out of the temple with the sheep and the oxen.” Wouldn't you like to see that? I'll admit I would. I would. I would like to have been there. Jesus, using a whip of cords to drive out. This is one man, one whip. But look at all that He accomplished. He drove them all out. And not only that, he drove the animals out. Biblical commentators, by the way, are divided over trying to make the argument that the whip was simply intended for the animals, or the whip was intended for all. I'll just say it appears to be rather indiscriminate. It appears to have been a quite effective instrument of divine wrath. And then just to make the point about the money, he pours it all out. Now this has got to be one of those dramatic scenes you just imagine because those who love money, love money. And we know that one of the greatest temptations that falls to humanity is to love money. And the one thing we can't stand is to see money wasted or just cast about. Especially when the coinage then was the value itself. And there it goes. “He overturned their tables….” Something else you have to keep in mind is that what Jesus is doing here would not necessarily have been understood, even the way we're describing it here, by those who observed it. We’re reading John chapter 2, verses 13ff. So we're following in a sequence, and we know who Jesus is as Jesus enters the temple precincts and the court of the Gentiles and does this. But let's just imagine you are merely an observer, and you see this man go in, make a whip of cords, and then create absolute mayhem. The thing to keep in mind is this was what was going on there authorized by those inside the temple. This was authorized by those who were performing the sacrifices. This is authorized by those who were the rulers of Israel. And so this is not only just the scene of one man entering into the picture and creating a whip and overturning tables and chasing both the people of business and their animals out and turning over the money. This appears to be a solitary act by an unauthorized agent. That's the point isn't it? This could only be authorized and could only be right if the one who is here is an infinitely higher authority than the ones who were inside the temple. It is he who can use the first person possessive singular speaking of the father. “My Father's house….” This is one of those astounding revelations where all of a sudden you realize he is either mad, insane, or he is the Son of God. The options are so few. We're only a few verses into the second chapter of John and you're going to have to decide who this is. Is this an unauthorized interloper? Is this a lone religious zealot? He would be claiming heresy, blasphemy, if he speaks of God in this way. And he would not be the Son of God. This becomes really, really, really important in what follows, because here you see the insanity of people who are trying to figure this out. And here's the real insanity: it's missing what this means. Missing what is taking place here. Who missed it and who got it? Well, let's look at the passage. In verse 17, we read, “His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’” Wait just a minute. Who's “me”? Who's “me” here? Well, this is Psalm 69:9. “For zeal for your house has consumed me,” writes David. “And the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me. Zeal for your house has consumed me.” This is David. So when the disciples remember that the scripture said “zeal for your house shall consume me,” they remembered that statement from David in the Psalms. And they realized this is what's happening before our eyes. What is the connection with David? Messiah. The one who is promised, who would come, who would reign on David's throne. You realize what's taking place here? It is as if the disciples recognized, “Oh, I get it now. If David were here in the flesh, he would do this.” Isn't that interesting? If King David were here and he saw this mess, King David would know what to do. He'd do something like creating a whip out of cords and chasing all these people away because zeal for the father's house has consumed him. By the way, when did the disciples remember this? This is interesting. John doesn't specify when the disciples remembered. Did they remember it right then? Maybe they remembered it right then that would be nice. That would be good if the disciples remembered it right then. But John doesn't tell us they remembered it right then, only that they remembered it. And this is just a good affirmation to us that it took the disciples a while to figure these things out. But isn't it also an encouragement that in figuring them out, they figured them out from the scriptures? And by the way, this whole idea about unhitching the Bible from the old Testament, had the disciples done that, they wouldn't have even known to make the connection between David and Jesus, between David and David's successor, Messiah, anointed one, Christ. Well, it gets even more interesting. The scene shifts just a bit in verse 19. Let's actually look beginning of verse 18. “So the Jews said to him, ‘What sign do you show us for doing these things?’” Let's just stop there for a moment. The four Gospels together, present human beings asking some of the most stupid questions imaginable. And there's something very reassuring about the fact that human stupid questions are so accurately represented. And here's the important part of the preceding verse. The disciples remembered Psalm 69:9. So when they remembered Psalm 69:9, and they saw what had just happened, they made the connection. We don't know exactly when they made the connection. It might've been right, then it might've been later, but they made the connection. “Zeal for the father's house has consumed him.” Okay. The Jewish authority, because that's what it means here when it says the Jews, the Jewish authorities clearly have not made that connection. The connection that the disciples made, they have not made. Hold that in mind. So what do they see? Well, they don't appear to be, first of all, offended by what happened. They appear to be offended by who did it. What sign do you give in order to validate what you just did? Over and over again in the Gospel of John, of course, as we have already seen as in the first sign that that Jesus gave, it was the changing of water into wine at the wedding in Cana of Galilee. That was a sign. What is a sign? It's John's word for miracle. It’s a better word than miracle for us. It's a better word because sign is exactly what's most important. The miraculous act, the supernatural act performed by Jesus, is in its essence and in substance a sign. That's what it is. It is itself what cries out for attention and explanation and belief. That's it. Because when it happens, you're going to have to come up with some explanation for how it happens. And the only rational explanation is he did this because he is the very son of God. That's the sign. Every single one of the signs points to the fact that no human being can do this, save the one who is Lord over creation. And who could be Lord over creation except the one who is the very son of God? Colossians, for instance, will make this exceedingly clear. But the amazing thing that is repeated over and over again is just how often the sign will take place. And then the people who will come next come up and say, “What's the sign that proves that sign?” Just think of the feeding of the 5,000, as we shall see when you get to John chapter five and John chapter six. And so what happens the day after? “What sign are you're going to give us?” “Wait, I just fed yesterday 5,000 men and not numbered women and children. That’s the sign. And of course, in other places, it becomes clear that Jesus himself is just the sign. But now they show up and they demand a sign. You got to love this. We're only two chapters into John and already the great human experience is divided between those who saw what happened and remembered the scriptures, and those who saw what happened and demand a sign. Those are the two basic human responses. They're they are. Notice what Jesus says, “Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.’” Now, this is shocking. It's not perhaps shocking to us because we're familiar with biblical language, but we need to unfamiliar ourselves as best we can for a moment and just thinking about what Jesus is saying. Because he doesn't say, “I'm not going to give you a sign, you morons.” Instead, he says, “Okay, you asked for a sign. Well, here's a sign. You destroy this temple and I will build it back in three days.” Well, that's, that's astounding. It's astounding because this is the second great temple. Sometimes it's called the Herodian temple. You'll recall that the temple had been built by Solomon, but it was destroyed by invaders. And it has taken Israel generation after generation after generation to be able to have the political stability and the wealth to be able to rebuild this temple. And they did rebuild that temple. And as they remind us here in this passage, it took 46 years to build that temple. It takes a very long time to build a temple like this. And if you've been there, you would understand why, because it's not just a little hut on the top of a hill. It's this massive plaza, this massive court. You've got to build up the hill itself. You've got to make the way possible. You've got to level the ground for the perfect symmetry of the temple. It’s as if you're dealing with hand tools and giant stones. It took 46 years. Jesus said, “okay, okay. You asked me for a sign. I'm going to give you a sign. You tear this temple down and I will build it back in three days.” In missing the point entirely, the Jews then said, “It's taken 46 years to build this temple and you will raise it up in three days?” But verse 21 says, “He was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this. And they believed the scripture, and the word that Jesus had spoken.” Again, there's more here than a fast reading of scripture would reveal. The Jews said it’s taken 46 years to build this temple. And you have to understand what this temple represented for Judaism. What did this temple represent? It represented the reestablishment of the cultists of the sacrificial system. It represented the reestablishment of the place where on the Holy of Holies, that most holy day, the priest, the high priest would enter into the most holy place with that blood that he took necessary for the forgiveness of sins and the atonement and the delay of God's judgment and wrath for the entire nation of Israel. If that doesn't happen, Israel bears the wrath of God. The idea of that temple being destroyed is the worst nightmare of the Jews in the first century. And of course it will be destroyed in AD 70. It's a real threat. It's the greatest threat to Israel. Israel's greatest fear is that something will happen to this temple. That's the greatest fear. And we can understand why in a sacrificial system, just read the logic of the Old Testament. If this temple isn't here, it is not just a matter of the fact that we can't go to church. And so it's a matter of the reality that our sins will remain upon us. And Jesus says, “Well, I'll give you a sign. Tear this temple down, and I'll build it back in three days.” The horror of this is beyond what we would read as Gentile Christians reading this. This is horror to those who heard Jesus speaking. And so when they speak back and say, “It's taken 46 years to build this temple, and you will raise it up in three days,” it's like panic, panic in the heart, even to envision this temple might be destroyed. But then notice the turn. “But he was speaking about the temple of his body. You don't pass that quickly. “The temple of his body”? So let's put ourselves in the position of the disciples now in this passage. What sense does that make? You'll notice that here John tells us helpfully, this is very helpful, that it was later. It was after the cross and the resurrection that they remembered that Jesus had said this. And then they understood it. Because they didn't understand it when Jesus said it. They didn't. They understood it later. Because what did it mean on this day when Jesus spoke of the temple of my body? Put yourself sympathetically in the place of the disciples for a moment, that had to be one of those things that you hear, and you say, “I'm going to have to think about that. I cannot comprehend it right now.” We're told that Mary, you'll recall, pondered these things in her heart, even as the angel had spoken to her in Luke. We understand that isn't that the way it is with us sometimes with scripture? Let's just be honest. Sometimes we read a passage of scripture and we go, “I don't understand that. It's bigger. I can tell it's bigger than what I'm getting. I'm going to have to work on this. I'm going to have to ponder this.” Jesus said, “Then he was speaking about the temple of his body.” But Jesus doesn't explain that, John does. He was speaking about the temple of his body. What would happen in his body? Well, on that night he was betrayed in that Supper, he passed the bread and then he said, “This is my body broken for you.” And when he passed the cup, “This is the blood, my blood, which I will shed for the remission of sins.” He was saying, “This is the sacrifice. This is it. Everything the temple, everything the tabernacle, everything the Tent of Meeting had pointed to, all the covenants, all the promises, they've all been pointing to this. The act of atonement is not going to take place in the temple. The act of atonement is going to take place in my body, in the temple of my body. So Christ's body is the temple of our atonement. It was in that body that our atonement was achieved. Full atonement for sin, full substitution. It was in his body that propitiation was accomplished. Now, fast forward, just a moment to where we are told that our bodies are to be the temples of the Holy Spirit. So even as we are Christ’s because of the atonement accomplished in the temple of his body. O body is not a body of atonement. It's a body of glory that redefines what it means to be redeemed humanity as we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. We are the one in whom the holy spirit is present. His disciples remembered that he had said this “when therefore he was raised from the dead. And they believed the scripture, and the word that Jesus had spoken.” So that's how we end. So what was the response of the disciples? When they connected the dots, they believed the scriptures. So that's the model for us. This is what we do. Right now, we're not with Jesus as he cleanses the temple. We're not with Jesus as the disciples were after the crucifixion and resurrection, when they are looking back to when Jesus said this and they understand that's what he was talking about. Here we are in 2018. But the question is, what is our proper response? And it is exactly the response the disciples gave here. “His disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture, and the word that Jesus had spoken.” It's only because Jesus, in his body, was the temple that accomplished salvation that explains how we are included in this at all. We are included as Gentiles who were far off, who've been now brought near, and our access was not gained by Jesus, merely that we could get into the Court of the Gentiles. But the act that took place in the Holy of Holies never did atone for our sins. It wasn't that Jesus made it possible for us to get from the Holy of Holies into the court of Israel. It’s that in his body he accomplished full atonement in the temple, not in Jerusalem, this temple of stone, but in the temple of his body. Let’s pray. Our Father, we are just so thankful for every word you give us. And Father, we’re so thankful for this word, from the Gospel of John today. We pray that in the temple of our bodies, the temple of the Holy Spirit, we may glorify you as redeemed people. We believe the scriptures and everything Jesus has said. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2018/06/24/john-21-12/ Sun, 24 Jun 2018 10:00:41 +0000 Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series
June 24, 2018

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June 3, 2018

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May 20, 2018

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May 13, 2018

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May 6, 2018

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April 29, 2018

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April 22, 2018

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April 15, 2018

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:45:24 /?p=43096 Apologetics Series, Atheism, Audio, Chapel, Exposition, Islam, Pluralism, Speaking and Teaching, Spirituality, Theology, Video noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2017/10/08/exodus-301-38/ Sun, 08 Oct 2017 10:00:40 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:00:08 /?p=42003 Audio, Bible, Childhood, Church & Ministry, Exodus, Exodus Series, Exposition, Family, History, Jesus & the Gospel, Law & Justice, Romans, Theology noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2017/04/09/exodus-2013-15/ Sun, 09 Apr 2017 10:00:51 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:00:08 /?p=41755 Audio, Exodus, Exodus Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2017/03/12/exodus-201-11-part-2/ Sun, 12 Mar 2017 10:00:05 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:00:08 /?p=41505 Audio, Exodus, Exodus Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2017/02/05/exodus-201-11/ Sun, 05 Feb 2017 10:00:17 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:00:08 /?p=41171 Audio, Exodus, Exodus Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2017/01/22/exodus-1921-2021/ Sun, 22 Jan 2017 10:00:59 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:00:08 /?p=39563 Audio, Exodus, Exodus Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2016/08/21/exodus-111-1223/ Sun, 21 Aug 2016 10:00:02 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:00:10 /?p=39365 Audio, Exodus, Exodus Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2016/06/26/exodus-816-1029/ Sun, 26 Jun 2016 10:00:26 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:00:08 /?p=39024 Audio, Exodus, Exodus Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2016/05/22/exodus-714-815/ Sun, 22 May 2016 14:13:13 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:00:08 /?p=39012 Audio, Exodus, Exodus Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2016/05/01/exodus-71-13/ Sun, 01 May 2016 10:00:06 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:00:08 /?p=38586 Audio, Exodus, Exodus Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2016/04/17/exodus-61-27/ Sun, 17 Apr 2016 10:00:44 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:00:08 /?p=38465 Audio, Exodus, Exodus Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2016/03/27/1-corinthians-151-58/ Sun, 27 Mar 2016 10:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:00:08 /?p=38243 1 Corinthians, Audio, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2016/03/20/exodus-51-23/ Sun, 20 Mar 2016 10:00:20 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:00:08 /?p=38104 Audio, Exodus, Exodus Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2016/03/06/exodus-41-31/ Sun, 06 Mar 2016 10:00:54 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:00:09 /?p=38011 Audio, Exodus, Exodus Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2016/02/28/exodus-313-22/ Sun, 28 Feb 2016 10:00:40 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:00:09 /?p=37967 Audio, Exodus, Exodus Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2016/02/21/exodus-31-12/ Sun, 21 Feb 2016 10:00:46 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:00:08 /?p=37899 Audio, Exodus, Exodus Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2016/02/14/exodus-21-25/ Sun, 14 Feb 2016 10:00:35 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full /?p=37842 Audio, Exodus, Exodus Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2016/01/24/exodus-11-22/ Sun, 24 Jan 2016 10:00:34 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:00:08 /?p=37659 Audio, Exodus, Exodus Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2015/12/07/genesis-501-26/ Mon, 07 Dec 2015 10:30:14 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:00:08 /?p=37311 Audio, Exposition, Genesis, Genesis Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2015/11/29/genesis-4820-4933/ Sun, 29 Nov 2015 09:30:38 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:00:08 /?p=37189 Audio, Exposition, Genesis, Genesis Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2015/10/18/genesis-4628-4819/ Sun, 18 Oct 2015 10:30:15 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:00:09 /?p=36448 Audio, Exposition, Genesis, Genesis Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2015/10/04/genesis-4510-4627/ Sun, 04 Oct 2015 10:30:17 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:00:08 /?p=36326 Audio, Exposition, Genesis, Genesis Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2015/09/21/genesis-421-459/ Mon, 21 Sep 2015 10:30:26 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:00:09 /?p=36258 Audio, Exposition, Genesis, Genesis Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2015/09/13/genesis-401-4157/ Sun, 13 Sep 2015 10:00:24 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:00:08 /?p=36183 Audio, Exposition, Genesis, Genesis Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2015/08/23/genesis-391-23/ Sun, 23 Aug 2015 10:00:08 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full /?p=35971 Audio, Exposition, Genesis, Genesis Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2015/06/30/genesis-3729-3830/ Tue, 30 Jun 2015 09:52:49 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full /?p=35243 Audio, Exposition, Genesis, Genesis Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2015/06/21/genesis-375-28/ Sun, 21 Jun 2015 10:01:12 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full /?p=35173 Audio, Exposition, Genesis, Genesis Series, Speaking and Teaching noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2015/06/14/genesis-361-374/ Sun, 14 Jun 2015 09:45:50 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full /?p=35170 Audio, Exposition, Genesis, Genesis Series, Speaking and Teaching noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2015/06/07/genesis-351-29/ Sun, 07 Jun 2015 10:00:36 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full /?p=35036 Audio, Exposition, Genesis, Genesis Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2015/05/17/genesis-341-31/ Sun, 17 May 2015 10:00:28 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full /?p=35033 Audio, Exposition, Genesis, Genesis Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2015/05/10/genesis-321-3320/ Sun, 10 May 2015 16:44:36 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:46:39 /?p=34838 Audio, Exposition, Genesis, Genesis Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2015/04/26/genesis-3025-3155/ Sun, 26 Apr 2015 10:00:05 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:47:16 /?p=34630 Audio, Exposition, Genesis, Genesis Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2015/04/19/genesis-291-3024/ Sun, 19 Apr 2015 10:00:19 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full /?p=34626 Audio, Exposition, Genesis, Genesis Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2015/03/30/genesis-281-22/ Mon, 30 Mar 2015 16:36:36 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:00:13 /?p=34374 Audio, Exposition, Genesis, Genesis Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2015/03/22/genesis-271-46/ Sun, 22 Mar 2015 10:00:11 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:00:12 /?p=34346 Audio, Exposition, Genesis, Genesis Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2015/03/17/genesis-261-35/ Tue, 17 Mar 2015 10:31:16 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:00:08 /?p=34262 Audio, Exposition, Genesis, Genesis Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2015/03/02/genesis2461-2534/ Mon, 02 Mar 2015 13:42:40 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:00:12 /?p=34128 Audio, Exposition, Genesis, Genesis Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2015/03/02/genesis-241-61/ Mon, 02 Mar 2015 13:35:23 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:00:13 /?p=34125 Audio, Exposition, Genesis, Genesis Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2015/02/22/genesis-11-22/ Sun, 22 Feb 2015 10:00:43 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:00:12 /?p=34040 Audio, Exposition, Genesis, Genesis Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2015/02/15/genesis-4-11/ Sun, 15 Feb 2015 10:00:27 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:00:12 /?p=34037 Audio, Exposition, Genesis, Genesis Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2015/02/02/genesis-1-3/ Mon, 02 Feb 2015 10:08:59 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:52:27 /?p=33886 Audio, Exposition, Genesis, Genesis Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2014/11/10/genesis-231-20/ Mon, 10 Nov 2014 14:36:45 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 39:57 /?p=28003 Audio, Exposition, Genesis, Genesis Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2013/08/05/genesis-24-25/ Mon, 05 Aug 2013 08:54:57 +0000 "So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it, God rested from all his work that he had done in creation."
The institution of the Sabbath is in the very structure of creation, with God himself resting on the seventh day. But that is really the introduction to what then follows in Genesis chapter two as a theological commentary that gives this additional detail in terms of what happened in Genesis chapter one.
Looking back to Genesis chapter one in the creation of humankind we have, in verse 27, "So God created man in his own image in the image of God, he created him," and the next few words are crucial, "Male and female He created them."
So, from the beginning, it was intended that human beings be binary and that the relationship of the man to the woman be the very picture of the perfection of God's creation. The pinnacle of the complexity of God's creation, and the mandated context for what will be one of God's greatest gifts to humanity, which would be marriage. Then there is the command. The command that follows along with the parallel commands that are found elsewhere in scripture have to do with multiplying. We read in verse 28, "And God blessed them. And God said to them, ``Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth."
This new week's issue of Time magazine was released on Friday. It will be on the newsstand this week. The cover story in the current new issue of Time magazine is on couples who decide not to have children. On how increasingly married couples are deciding not to have children. Even as marriage has been transformed into a lifestyle option by our society, now, also parenthood is being defined in that same way. I'll have some articles up this week about that. I created enormous controversy, not intending to, in about 2003. I published an article on the sin of deliberate childlessness. One of the most basic biblical principles is that you do not divide the goods that God has given. That by the way is exactly what comes down at the end of the book of Common Prayer in the marriage ceremony, "What God has put together. No let no man put asunder. God's goods are not to be divisible.
When God gives us a good thing, it has multiple good aspects. We're not to say I want that one and not this one. For instance, God gives us food for our nourishment. It is also for our enjoyment and in the wholeness of God's creation, the goodness, the enjoyment, and the nutrition should all come together. As God created, marriage and God gave us the gift of family—s even in the Bible family meals are well recognized as is the communal aspect of food. Even in something like the last supper, not to mention the Lord's Supper. So, you have not only nutrition, but you also have enjoyment and you have the communal or relational aspect of eating.
An article that recently appeared in Great Britain, indicated that people who eat alone, eat more poorly and eat more calories. That's just a little indication that when you divide all the goods— a family meal, for instance— everyone's healthier. The dynamics in a family when you have dinner together are remarkably different than when people eat standing up individually at different times in the kitchen. It's a different kind of experience. That's what you might call a rather daily, low-level example of the fact that when God gives us something, it is best when it is undivided. When all the good aspects of it are kept together rather than torn asunder— marriage comes with procreation.
Now, obviously there are exceptions. Two 90-year-old's getting married would not be expected to have children. It wouldn't be because they wouldn't want children, but because they're past the time of having children. The norm is for people to have children who are married. Marriage
isn't just about the husband and then the wife. The very clear implication of the scripture as a whole, and even something as specific as the 10 Commandments, is that what is represented by the husband and the wife coming together is the promise of generations yet to come. In our secular age we're not only dividing the goods, we're denying the goodness of some of the goods that God has given us. That's exactly what this cover story indicates.
What we have in Genesis chapter one is the creation of humankind as man and woman. Again, one of the great confusions of our day is the fact that gender is increasingly seen as something that is perceived rather than real. As much as, we would benefit by talking about that, and will later, at this point, it's just very important for us to recognize that gender—and by the way, if we use the word gender 50 years ago, people would think we're talking about nouns, not about people— but that word is now well understood as the replacement for the two sexes. We need to realize that gender that is being a man or a woman by God's design and decision, is a part of the goodness of God's creation. Again, you divide the goods, great moral risk, great moral injury.
Now, we have more information, in chapter two, beginning in verse four. We begin reading, "These are the generations of heaven and the earth when they were created on the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens."
Well, there you have a very clear indication that what's going to follow is going to be more information than we had in chapter one. " When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground." What in the world was that about? You have plants, but they're not growing. You have bushes that are not in the land. No small plant of the land had yet sprung up. Everything's ready, but it hasn't quite happened yet. What is it waiting for? In other words, it's as if your lawn is there, but it's never growing. It's waiting for something. Was it waiting for the arrival of man and woman. The arrival of the one who is going to have the responsibility for the stewardship and dominion of this creation. The one who is going to till the ground and the one who is going to receive the gifts. And that's a very interesting picture.
In other words, what we have right here in Genesis chapter two in verse four, and following, is a clear indication that humanity is not only not an accident, not only not an imposition on the planet, the planet was made for human habitation. The planet itself, and even the rest of creation is waiting for the arrival of the human being in order for it to flourish. "Then God formed," in verse seven, "Then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature."
The Lord God forms the man out of dust. What is the importance of that? Well, from dust we came, to dust we will return. This is a very interesting, interesting point that might not seem to be any more than perhaps some accessory poetry if we're reading too casually. What does it mean that we're made out of dust? It means we are actual stuff.
We are not Gnostics. The Gnostic temptation that's—G N O S T I C— the Gnostics were identifiable groups, especially in the transition of the time, from what we would see as the Old Testament to the New Testament in the first century. In the ancient world, the Gnostics were groups that were unified by the fact that they believed in a secret knowledge. That illumination, and salvation, and meaning in life would come by being a part of their secret group with their secret gnosis or their secret knowledge. But they also had a very strong prejudice against material things, including the body. They believed that the mind was what was superior. The body was a problem. The mind, the human mind, is trapped within a body.
Now, why would they think that way? Well, you might think that way, if you recognize that your brain would do things, your body is not up to doing. If you think that the moral problem of humanity is a lack of self-discipline. This is one of the major problems. In other words, if you don't have the biblical metanarrative and you don't know the Fall, and the Christian account of why we sin, then you might think we sin simply because we're trapped in a body. Because this body wants to do bad things.
The Bible will have nothing of that. The Bible tells us that we are made out of stuff by God's intention. In other words, he didn't just say, "Presto, there's a man." He made man out of dirt, out of earth.
The other day, I saw a cartoon, showed a couple moms with little boys playing in the playground. They little boys are covered with dirt. The one mom said to the other, "Why does this happen?" And the other one said "From dusty came to dusty will return." That's very biblical; we're made out of this stuff and we will become this stuff once again. If we die and we wait for that day of resurrection, we are real. There is no ‘unreal’ to us. God took dust and he animated it. According to what we read here, he breathed into nostrils, the breath, the nefesh, the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. We are the product of God's divine, creative and sovereign act. He did make us entirely by his sovereignty and authority, but he made us out of the stuff he had already made: out of dust.
"And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil."
 Well, here you have a sequence again, that tells us something that many people who've read the Bible and read many parts of the Bible and think they know about creation that they don't know. You don't know it if you don't read chapter two. Chapter two is this theological commentary on chapter one. Here we are told that creation, the growth of vegetation, the thriving of vegetation waited for the arrival of humanity. You had creation, you had vegetation, but until you have the arrival of humanity, you do not have a garden. God created the garden, not for the plants, but for the human creatures, he would put within the garden. Very clear distinction here we also need to keep in mind.
What's the difference between a garden and a wilderness? Well, you look at the garden, you recognize somebody, some somebody arranged this. Nature does not naturally plant itself in rose. One of the wonderful things about being out in the country, we're surrounded by all these farms, many of the Amish farms. We were there long enough to see the second corn crop largely grow. They were seedlings when we got there within a month. It's amazing. Of course, the weather was spectacular, but it was amazing to see how fast this corn grew.
This was the second crop of the season. And I tried to estimate how many stalks of corn were in this farm. I gave up because I know it's possible, but by the time they get large enough, you can't even distinguish the individual stalks. Walking down the row and it's as long as a football field and several times as wide. You start to look at it and you realize, "Look at all these neat rows, they're perfect rows. Anyone you would think looking at this would know someone did this, corn doesn't reproduce itself in rows."
The difference between a garden and a wilderness is design and intentionality, purpose, Also aesthetics. There's something beautiful about rows of corn. You go to a major garden and, you say, one of these gardens might attract a lot of people. You go to one of the cemeteries here in Louisville, something like one of the landscapes designed by Frederick law, Olmstead, such as Cave Hill Cemetery. You look at it, and you know, that intelligence did this.
That's the difference between wilderness and the garden. According to the biblical worldview, one of the purposes of humanity is to create and to tend a garden, not merely to appreciate wilderness. That's one of the reasons why a major worldview conflicts in our age, between those who think that the wilderness ought to reign, and those who think that the garden ought to reign. There are those amongst us—I don't mean here in this class, I mean in our culture— who clearly believe human beings need just to leave everything as it is. Nature should be left unto its own unto itself, unto its own natural processes. But the Bible says that the actual pinnacle creation is not the wilderness. It's the garden. We don't apologize for that.
" A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates."
Well, almost anyone who listens to the news immediately knows the Tigris and the Euphrates, both of which are found in the nation of Iraq. So, we do have some geographic placement here in terms of knowing where this is. Even we know where the headwaters might be. But there is no way in terms of our current geography to know exactly by reading Genesis two, 10 and following, what spot on earth the garden was in. Even finding the headwaters, you recognize that it's flowing out of the garden. In verse 15, "The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it." Not merely to observe, not merely to say, look at wilderness at how beautiful it is.
Wilderness is beautiful. I just spent a good deal of the last month enjoying and looking at what is nothing but wilderness. But the gardens are even better. " The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, 'You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.'"
So there we have the garden, the garden built by God's design and God's intentionality. The garden is an indication, not only that human beings are now to arrive, but that human beings have a purpose, a viceregency. That is to say, we are to reign with God in this garden. We are to be the keeper of the garden, the tender of the garden. We are even to be the expander of the garden. We are to be also, as we are made in God's image, using the capacity God gave us, which is a small picture of himself in which we create. We don't create, as God created ex nihilo, we create out of the stuff he's given us.
But there is something that glorifies God, every time a garden is planted. Every time this mandate is fulfilled in terms of the purpose for which humanity was created, God receives glory. And the Lord, God put Adam in the garden. And he said, all of it is for you. All of it. Every herb, every plant, every, every vegetable, every fruit, all of it is for you. You are not for the vegetation. The vegetation is for you— except for one.
Now this is a very interesting point again, in the Talmudic literature of Judaism. There's some real wisdom here in looking at this. And it comes down to this. Let's say that you are a parent. Let's say that you're a parent, and you create a playroom for your children. In it you put many good things. The ultimate test would be if you put one thing in that room, and you said to the child, "you can have all these toys. You can play with all of them, but not that one." The ultimate test of the child would not be the child's willingness to play with all the toys he's permitted to play with. But his willingness to accept the parent's authority, not to play with the one that is forbidden. And we can immediately identify with that.
There is something about us that makes us want the one thing we shouldn't have. One of the things we need to keep in mind, however, is that we're understanding this at the wrong time. In other words, that Talmudic story makes perfect sense. After Genesis three. It's not supposed to make perfect sense now.
You see right now, if we created a playroom for our children and put in many toys and said, you can play with all of them, but not that one. We would know that the little five-year-old is now going to be more concentrated on the one he can't have, rather than all the rest of them that are there. And why? It's because he's of Adam's seed. It's because he is a sinner. In our sinful state we are going to be inclined to want the one thing we're not supposed to have rather than to enjoy the array of things that are presented to us lawfully. But that wasn't a problem for Adam. You need to hold that thought. I'll just give you a little clue.
It takes a snake to make that point. It takes a serpent to make that point. There is no reason to believe at this point in the narrative that Adam would've done anything, but to have joyfully accepted the restriction, the Lord has given. That he is to enjoy everything, but the fruit of this one tree. One of our problems—and that's why I hope we are benefiting so much by moving word, by word and verse by verse through Genesis— one of our problems, even as Christians, even as biblically literate, growing knowledgeable Christians, is that we tend to collapse the narratives. We, we, we tend to think of Genesis as one chapter, or especially of creation. We've put it all together and, and we forget there is a sequence here that is of incredible importance. But only now at this point, as we enter back into the narrative of chapter two only now at verse 18 does the Lord God say it is not good for the man to be alone.
So if we had only Genesis one, we would know that God created man in his image. "Male and female, he created them," but we would not know there was a sequence to that. God created the man first. According to Genesis chapter two, the garden is awaiting the creation of humanity. And the one who enters is Adam, out of the dust he made Adam; this is going to be very crucial. Out of the dust, the Lord, God took the stuff he had made, and he formed out that stuff and he breathed life into him. But now in verse 18 of chapter two, the Lord God declares, "It is not good for man to be alone."
Now God has already created all of the other living creatures. He has given them the mandate to multiply and fill the earth. So, we can rightly understand that when God made the rabbit, he made a male rabbit and a female rabbit. When God made the giraffe, He made a male giraffe and female giraffe. Go on down through all the species. But when he made man, he made only Adam, out of the dust. And he places Adam in the garden. But it is not good for a man to be alone.
There's something about Adam that's distinct from a male rabbit. Actually, there are many things, but in this case, there's one thing that is crucial. The rabbit would have no consciousness of being alone, but Adam will. How's God going to make this point to Adam?
Again, we tend to conflate the narrative. We tend to have our Reader's Digest, condensed version. I realize that's an anachronism, many people in those rooms don't have an idea what Reader's Digest, condensed books were. My grandmother had the whole set. About once a month, you got a bound volume with about four novels or nonfiction works in them. They condensed them all down. Instead of reading a 400-page book here, you had an 80-page condensation of the book. Historians now say that was kind of the apex of the middle class, literary culture in America. In the 20th century, people didn't have time to read novels. They read condensations and novels. No kidding, in the 1980s, Reader's Digest decided to condense the Bible.
So they came up with a condensed version of the Bible. A Christian satire magazine did a satire on the Reader's Digest, condensed Bible, and they put it all on one page, and it's hilarious. I wish I had it with me, I'd read it to you. But the funny thing about it is you look at it and it turns out not just funny, but tragic because there are many Christians who actually almost think of the Bible in this condensed way. Which is why we need not to condense it. The very purpose of expositional Bible study is not to condense it, but to take it in its fullness.
One of the ways we condense it even in chapter two, is by saying, "God said, it's not good for man to be alone. And then he created out of man, the woman." That's not how the narrative proceeds. Instead, after verse 18, the Lord God declares, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him." You'll notice the word helper. You don't describe a female rabbit as a helper to the male rabbit. That didn't really fit. But the rabbit is not given a creation mandate to create and to tend and to till, nor to rule and to reign and to have dominion. But the human is, the man was. This word 'Helper' is rightly thought of as a compliment. She is what he needs. She is the completion of him.
Now here's where biblical honesty is very important. This is not any kind of salacious, Biblical reference. It's just the obvious so that we can understand why God created us as he created us, and what it is to mean. Adam is in the garden fully equipped as a man. He has all the physical equipment a man needs, but you realize without a woman, much of this is nonsensical. There is even an Adam's physical constitution in the physical constitution of a man there is the declaration. There is a purpose for this that requires a woman to explain. One of the most interesting things for us to note is that Adam does not make the self-declaration, "It is not good for me to be alone." Adam, doesn't complain to God saying I'm alone. I shouldn't be alone. I'm lonely. He doesn't make a declaration. What's all this for? He appears to be just waiting.
God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him." It is right for him. Nothing else is right for him, nothing else. Only what God creates is right for him. Then in verse 19, "Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name."
So according to Genesis chapter one, the creation of these critters was on the day before. Now these critters are brought individually as species before Adam and he names them. Why didn't God name them? God doesn't have any reluctance to name certain things such as rivers. We just saw that God names what he wants to name. He doesn't name all the critters. He doesn't name all the creatures. Instead, he delegates that to Adam. What's that a picture of? It's a picture of delegated authority. It's a picture of what it means for Adam to be a co-regent with God. For Adam to exercise dominion. The rabbit doesn't name the human, the human name is the rabbit. The animals don't classify us. We classify them. They don't rule over us, We rule over them.
Years ago, I heard the story of a Quaker that had an obstinate mule, which I guess is a redundancy. He was trying to coax the mule into doing what the mule needed to do. The mule wouldn't do it. The Quaker believing in peace couldn't strike the animal. All he could do was try to persuade it, which wasn't working. So finally, in exasperation, he went to the face of the mule and he said, you will do what I tell you to do, or I will give you to a Baptist.
We are to rule over these creatures. And a part of that rule is even to name them. The nomenclature is itself a demonstration of dominion. " Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was no helper fit for him." Nothing is right for him. Now this is interesting, was he looking for something that was right for him? No. Is this a warning against bestiality? Well, no. It's a portrait of the fact that bestiality wouldn't even make sense. Bestiality would be irrational.
Adam can look at them and know they're not for him. He can just observe them as he is demonstrating his delegated authority by naming every one of these critters, he can also see at the same time, there's nothing here for me. Keep going, move along, move along, move along, keep going. And at the end of this process, when all the creatures have been named, Adam now knows there is nothing fit for him.
And then verse 21. "So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”
Some crucial distinctions here. First of all, do all of the creating. It's all God's creative act. Adam, doesn't say, "Let me say you, what I want. I want a woman. Here's what she needs to look like. Here's the equipment she needs to have." None of that. The God who created Adam will create the compliment to Adam.
But the second distinction is that when God created the woman, he did not go back to the dust. He doesn't go back to the dust. He goes to Adam and it is a very important distinction with immense theological and spiritual significance. The woman is not a different creature made out of the dust. According to the scripture, the woman doesn't have an independent status from the man so there could be any confusion about the fact that we are for each other. Instead, rather than making her out of the dust and breathing into her nostrils, the breath of life, he causes deep sleep to fall upon the man. And when he slept, he took, it says, one of his ribs. It's the stuff on his side. When I was a little boy, I can remember reading this, I can remember one time wondering if my little sister had more ribs than I had because maybe all males at this point were short a rib. Well, that's a little too concrete. That's stretching the Hebrew, or pointing it a little too much. No, this is, this is not just a rib it's out of the side, the thorax. It's right out of the center part of Adam. It's Adam's stuff. It's Adam's flesh. It's Adam's bone.
The word rib there, the most important part is this is all the stuff, Bone, sinew, flesh. He took up one of his ribs and he closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman. He doesn't make the woman out of the dust. He makes the woman out of the man. And then he brings her to the man. What in the world is Adam going to say?
Well, let's ask the question, "Why does Adam need to say anything?" Well, he needs to say something because as you see in the preceding verses, God said to Adam, you named the creatures. It was an exercise. Not only in Adam's co-regency, in his delegated authority, it was also a lesson to Adam of his responsibility to recognize which creature is which. He still has that responsibility. And now the Lord God presents the woman to the man. In the same way that the Lord presented every living creature to the man that he would name it. He now brings the woman to the man. And now what will Adam say? Look at verse 23. "Then the man said this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called ‘woman’ because she was taken out of man." He names her. The woman doesn't name the man; the man names the woman in the sequence. And what does he name her? He names her me, but not me. If I'm a man, then she is a woman. She's me, but not me. She's the compliment to me. She is not a rabbit. She's not a giraffe. She's not different from me. She is exactly me, but she's not exactly me. She is the completion. She is what I need. She is made for me. "This, at last, is bone of my bones, flesh of flesh; She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man." End of chapter.
Creation of man and woman, enormous theological significance, enormous spiritual importance. The very foundation of our worldview of understanding reality. Not only in the creation of the world and the cosmos and the universe, but the creation of the creatures; but not only the creatures, the creation of the human being; and not only the creation human being, but the creation human being as male and as female. As a man and as a woman. But that isn't the end of the chapter.
Immediately in distinction to the animals In distinction, even to those animals, which multiply by means of heterosexual reproduction. Indistinct to all the rest of creation, now that there is man and woman, what immediately follows is a 'therefore.' Therefore found in verse 24, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed." Very interesting.
Before we leave this, even for a few days to ponder it in order to come back to it, we need to see this: marriage isn't something that comes later. Marriage comes now. Human beings were made for marriage and marriage is made for human beings. God's intention that, human beings as man and woman, pair off in the faithful monogamy of heterosexual marriage is not something that is a process and product of social theological evolution. It is a structure of creation. It is in creation itself. It is so much in creation itself that human beings have lived for thousands of years and every single society, until the last decade., has found its way to the normativity of heterosexual marriage. Even in, in our sexually confused times with now 13 states having legalized same sex marriage, the vast majority of people, even in those states and in these confused times still find themselves to heterosexual marriage. In spite of the fact that the world is going to try to marginalize it and make it merely a lifestyle option still by its very existence, it judges all other relationships as inferior.
I spoke of the division of the goods, Heterosexual marriage in creation, which comes before the fall, is where the goods are undivided. It's where being male and female makes perfect sense. It's where the words 'husbands' and 'wives' make perfect sense. A husband and a wife in this union that makes perfect sense. It is where children naturally follow. It is where all the gifts of sex and of sexuality can be enjoyed without restriction or embarrassment. They're naked in the garden and they are unashamed. There's no division. They enjoy each other. They need each other. They are for each other.
The unitive principle of marriage is there, and the Bible is not shy to say there is something deeply sexual about this. That's why Adam knew he needed a wife. It was never God's creation purpose that he be alone. It was the Lord God who declared it is not good that the man should be alone. And it's God who provides the woman. "I will make him a helper fit for him."
Genesis chapter one tells us that men and women are equally made in the image of God. In the image of God, he created them, male and female; He created them. The distinction between the man and the woman is not one of status. It is not one of theological identities. We are both made in God's image. It is of purpose and pattern in creation. And in creation before the fall, there is already a pattern. The pattern is that the woman is made as a compliment to the man. The word helper here is true. That's true. But the word helper there is not as in slave or servant, it is in helper, as in coworker in the garden.
There's a pattern of authority that is here. There's a pattern of origin that is here. The man comes before the woman and the woman comes out of the man, not out of the dust. But the completion is what you find in the final verse in verse 25. "And the man and his wife were both naked and not ashamed." There's only one way to end up with a man and a woman naked and unashamed. And this is it.
When we come back, we'll pick up with some additional thoughts on what we learn in verses 24 and 25, and then comes immediately the fall. Adam and Eve are not in the garden long in this picture where they're naked and unashamed. Within the sequence of just a few verses, they're going to be clothed awkwardly. And very much ashamed, but it won't be because they're men and women. And it won't be because they are married. It will be because they sin. Let's pray.
Our father, we come before you so thankful that you give us so much in your word. So much that we can never plumb the depths of it or wring out all the meaning of it. But far more than most of us ever know, unless we go word by word and sentence by sentence and verse by verse. Father, thank you for giving us this privilege and for guiding our thoughts and minds. Father, we pray that you will, by your Holy Spirit, impress these words on our hearts. That we would lose none of it and ponder all of it and grow to be more Christlike as we do. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus Christ. Our Lord, amen.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 41:58 /?p=27898 Audio, Exposition, Genesis, Genesis Series noThis morning, we turned to Genesis chapter two. We begin in verse three. We left off in verse three at the end of the introduction to chapter two. Thus, we will begin anew in chapter two, verse four and verse three, we read. "So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it, God rested from all his work that he had done in creation." The institution of the Sabbath is in the very structure of creation, with God himself resting on the seventh day. But that is really the introduction to what then follows in Genesis chapter two as a theological commentary that gives this additional detail in terms of what happened in Genesis chapter one. Looking back to Genesis chapter one in the creation of humankind we have, in verse 27, "So God created man in his own image in the image of God, he created him," and the next few words are crucial, "Male and female He created them." So, from the beginning, it was intended that human beings be binary and that the relationship of the man to the woman be the very picture of the perfection of God's creation. The pinnacle of the complexity of God's creation, and the mandated context for what will be one of God's greatest gifts to humanity, which would be marriage. Then there is the command. The command that follows along with the parallel commands that are found elsewhere in scripture have to do with multiplying. We read in verse 28, "And God blessed them. And God said to them, ``Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth." This new week's issue of Time magazine was released on Friday. It will be on the newsstand this week. The cover story in the current new issue of Time magazine is on couples who decide not to have children. On how increasingly married couples are deciding not to have children. Even as marriage has been transformed into a lifestyle option by our society, now, also parenthood is being defined in that same way. I'll have some articles up this week about that. I created enormous controversy, not intending to, in about 2003. I published an article on the sin of deliberate childlessness. One of the most basic biblical principles is that you do not divide the goods that God has given. That by the way is exactly what comes down at the end of the book of Common Prayer in the marriage ceremony, "What God has put together. No let no man put asunder. God's goods are not to be divisible. When God gives us a good thing, it has multiple good aspects. We're not to say I want that one and not this one. For instance, God gives us food for our nourishment. It is also for our enjoyment and in the wholeness of God's creation, the goodness, the enjoyment, and the nutrition should all come together. As God created, marriage and God gave us the gift of family—s even in the Bible family meals are well recognized as is the communal aspect of food. Even in something like the last supper, not to mention the Lord's Supper. So, you have not only nutrition, but you also have enjoyment and you have the communal or relational aspect of eating. An article that recently appeared in Great Britain, indicated that people who eat alone, eat more poorly and eat more calories. That's just a little indication that when you divide all the goods— a family meal, for instance— everyone's healthier. The dynamics in a family when you have dinner together are remarkably different than when people eat standing up individually at different times in the kitchen. It's a different kind of experience. That's what you might call a rather daily, low-level example of the fact that when God gives us something, it is best when it is undivided. When all the good aspects of it are kept together rather than torn asunder— marriage comes with procreation. Now, obviously there are exceptions. Two 90-year-old's getting married would not be expected to have children. It wouldn't be because they wouldn't want children, but because they're past the time of having children. The norm is for people to have children who are married. Marriage isn't just about the husband and then the wife. The very clear implication of the scripture as a whole, and even something as specific as the 10 Commandments, is that what is represented by the husband and the wife coming together is the promise of generations yet to come. In our secular age we're not only dividing the goods, we're denying the goodness of some of the goods that God has given us. That's exactly what this cover story indicates. What we have in Genesis chapter one is the creation of humankind as man and woman. Again, one of the great confusions of our day is the fact that gender is increasingly seen as something that is perceived rather than real. As much as, we would benefit by talking about that, and will later, at this point, it's just very important for us to recognize that gender—and by the way, if we use the word gender 50 years ago, people would think we're talking about nouns, not about people— but that word is now well understood as the replacement for the two sexes. We need to realize that gender that is being a man or a woman by God's design and decision, is a part of the goodness of God's creation. Again, you divide the goods, great moral risk, great moral injury. Now, we have more information, in chapter two, beginning in verse four. We begin reading, "These are the generations of heaven and the earth when they were created on the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens." Well, there you have a very clear indication that what's going to follow is going to be more information than we had in chapter one. " When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground." What in the world was that about? You have plants, but they're not growing. You have bushes that are not in the land. No small plant of the land had yet sprung up. Everything's ready, but it hasn't quite happened yet. What is it waiting for? In other words, it's as if your lawn is there, but it's never growing. It's waiting for something. Was it waiting for the arrival of man and woman. The arrival of the one who is going to have the responsibility for the stewardship and dominion of this creation. The one who is going to till the ground and the one who is going to receive the gifts. And that's a very interesting picture. In other words, what we have right here in Genesis chapter two in verse four, and following, is a clear indication that humanity is not only not an accident, not only not an imposition on the planet, the planet was made for human habitation. The planet itself, and even the rest of creation is waiting for the arrival of the human being in order for it to flourish. "Then God formed," in verse seven, "Then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature." The Lord God forms the man out of dust. What is the importance of that? Well, from dust we came, to dust we will return. This is a very interesting, interesting point that might not seem to be any more than perhaps some accessory poetry if we're reading too casually. What does it mean that we're made out of dust? It means we are actual stuff. We are not Gnostics. The Gnostic temptation that's—G N O S T I C— the Gnostics were identifiable groups, especially in the transition of the time, from what we would see as the Old Testament to the New Testament in the first century. In the ancient world, the Gnostics were groups that were unified by the fact that they believed in a secret knowledge. That illumination, and salvation, and meaning in life would come by being a part of their secret group with their secret gnosis or their secret knowledge. But they also had a very strong prejudice against material things, including the body. They believed that the mind was what was superior. The body was a problem. The mind, the human mind, is trapped within a body. Now, why would they think that way? Well, you might think that way, if you recognize that your brain would do things, your body is not up to doing. If you think that the moral problem of humanity is a lack of self-discipline. This is one of the major problems. In other words, if you don't have the biblical metanarrative and you don't know the Fall, and the Christian account of why we sin, then you might think we sin simply because we're trapped in a body. Because this body wants to do bad things. The Bible will have nothing of that. The Bible tells us that we are made out of stuff by God's intention. In other words, he didn't just say, "Presto, there's a man." He made man out of dirt, out of earth. The other day, I saw a cartoon, showed a couple moms with little boys playing in the playground. They little boys are covered with dirt. The one mom said to the other, "Why does this happen?" And the other one said "From dusty came to dusty will return." That's very biblical; we're made out of this stuff and we will become this stuff once again. If we die and we wait for that day of resurrection, we are real. There is no ‘unreal’ to us. God took dust and he animated it. According to what we read here, he breathed into nostrils, the breath, the nefesh, the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. We are the product of God's divine, creative and sovereign act. He did make us entirely by his sovereignty and authority, but he made us out of the stuff he had already made: out of dust. "And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil."  Well, here you have a sequence again, that tells us something that many people who've read the Bible and read many parts of the Bible and think they know about creation that they don't know. You don't know it if you don't read chapter two. Chapter two is this theological commentary on chapter one. Here we are told that creation, the growth of vegetation, the thriving of vegetation waited for the arrival of humanity. You had creation, you had vegetation, but until you have the arrival of humanity, you do not have a garden. God created the garden, not for the plants, but for the human creatures, he would put within the garden. Very clear distinction here we also need to keep in mind. What's the difference between a garden and a wilderness? Well, you look at the garden, you recognize somebody, some somebody arranged this. Nature does not naturally plant itself in rose. One of the wonderful things about being out in the country, we're surrounded by all these farms, many of the Amish farms. We were there long enough to see the second corn crop largely grow. They were seedlings when we got there within a month. It's amazing. Of course, the weather was spectacular, but it was amazing to see how fast this corn grew. This was the second crop of the season. And I tried to estimate how many stalks of corn were in this farm. I gave up because I know it's possible, but by the time they get large enough, you can't even distinguish the individual stalks. Walking down the row and it's as long as a football field and several times as wide. You start to look at it and you realize, "Look at all these neat rows, they're perfect rows. Anyone you would think looking at this would know someone did this, corn doesn't reproduce itself in rows." The difference between a garden and a wilderness is design and intentionality, purpose, Also aesthetics. There's something beautiful about rows of corn. You go to a major garden and, you say, one of these gardens might attract a lot of people. You go to one of the cemeteries here in Louisville, something like one of the landscapes designed by Frederick law, Olmstead, such as Cave Hill Cemetery. You look at it, and you know, that intelligence did this. That's the difference between wilderness and the garden. According to the biblical worldview, one of the purposes of humanity is to create and to tend a garden, not merely to appreciate wilderness. That's one of the reasons why a major worldview conflicts in our age, between those who think that the wilderness ought to reign, and those who think that the garden ought to reign. There are those amongst us—I don't mean here in this class, I mean in our culture— who clearly believe human beings need just to leave everything as it is. Nature should be left unto its own unto itself, unto its own natural processes. But the Bible says that the actual pinnacle creation is not the wilderness. It's the garden. We don't apologize for that. " A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates." Well, almost anyone who listens to the news immediately knows the Tigris and the Euphrates, both of which are found in the nation of Iraq. So, we do have some geographic placement here in terms of knowing where this is. Even we know where the headwaters might be. But there is no way in terms of our current geography to know exactly by reading Genesis two, 10 and following, what spot on earth the garden was in. Even finding the headwaters, you recognize that it's flowing out of the garden. In verse 15, "The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it." Not merely to observe, not merely to say, look at wilderness at how beautiful it is. Wilderness is beautiful. I just spent a good deal of the last month enjoying and looking at what is nothing but wilderness. But the gardens are even better. " The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, 'You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.'" So there we have the garden, the garden built by God's design and God's intentionality. The garden is an indication, not only that human beings are now to arrive, but that human beings have a purpose, a viceregency. That is to say, we are to reign with God in this garden. We are to be the keeper of the garden, the tender of the garden. We are even to be the expander of the garden. We are to be also, as we are made in God's image, using the capacity God gave us, which is a small picture of himself in which we create. We don't create, as God created ex nihilo, we create out of the stuff he's given us. But there is something that glorifies God, every time a garden is planted. Every time this mandate is fulfilled in terms of the purpose for which humanity was created, God receives glory. And the Lord, God put Adam in the garden. And he said, all of it is for you. All of it. Every herb, every plant, every, every vegetable, every fruit, all of it is for you. You are not for the vegetation. The vegetation is for you— except for one. Now this is a very interesting point again, in the Talmudic literature of Judaism. There's some real wisdom here in looking at this. And it comes down to this. Let's say that you are a parent. Let's say that you're a parent, and you create a playroom for your children. In it you put many good things. The ultimate test would be if you put one thing in that room, and you said to the child, "you can have all these toys. You can play with all of them, but not that one." The ultimate test of the child would not be the child's willingness to play with all the toys he's permitted to play with. But his willingness to accept the parent's authority, not to play with the one that is forbidden. And we can immediately identify with that. There is something about us that makes us want the one thing we shouldn't have. One of the things we need to keep in mind, however, is that we're understanding this at the wrong time. In other words, that Talmudic story makes perfect sense. After Genesis three. It's not supposed to make perfect sense now. You see right now, if we created a playroom for our children and put in many toys and said, you can play with all of them, but not that one. We would know that the little five-year-old is now going to be more concentrated on the one he can't have, rather than all the rest of them that are there. And why? It's because he's of Adam's seed. It's because he is a sinner. In our sinful state we are going to be inclined to want the one thing we're not supposed to have rather than to enjoy the array of things that are presented to us lawfully. But that wasn't a problem for Adam. You need to hold that thought. I'll just give you a little clue. It takes a snake to make that point. It takes a serpent to make that point. There is no reason to believe at this point in the narrative that Adam would've done anything, but to have joyfully accepted the restriction, the Lord has given. That he is to enjoy everything, but the fruit of this one tree. One of our problems—and that's why I hope we are benefiting so much by moving word, by word and verse by verse through Genesis— one of our problems, even as Christians, even as biblically literate, growing knowledgeable Christians, is that we tend to collapse the narratives. We, we, we tend to think of Genesis as one chapter, or especially of creation. We've put it all together and, and we forget there is a sequence here that is of incredible importance. But only now at this point, as we enter back into the narrative of chapter two only now at verse 18 does the Lord God say it is not good for the man to be alone. So if we had only Genesis one, we would know that God created man in his image. "Male and female, he created them," but we would not know there was a sequence to that. God created the man first. According to Genesis chapter two, the garden is awaiting the creation of humanity. And the one who enters is Adam, out of the dust he made Adam; this is going to be very crucial. Out of the dust, the Lord, God took the stuff he had made, and he formed out that stuff and he breathed life into him. But now in verse 18 of chapter two, the Lord God declares, "It is not good for man to be alone." Now God has already created all of the other living creatures. He has given them the mandate to multiply and fill the earth. So, we can rightly understand that when God made the rabbit, he made a male rabbit and a female rabbit. When God made the giraffe, He made a male giraffe and female giraffe. Go on down through all the species. But when he made man, he made only Adam, out of the dust. And he places Adam in the garden. But it is not good for a man to be alone. There's something about Adam that's distinct from a male rabbit. Actually, there are many things, but in this case, there's one thing that is crucial. The rabbit would have no consciousness of being alone, but Adam will. How's God going to make this point to Adam? Again, we tend to conflate the narrative. We tend to have our Reader's Digest, condensed version. I realize that's an anachronism, many people in those rooms don't have an idea what Reader's Digest, condensed books were. My grandmother had the whole set. About once a month, you got a bound volume with about four novels or nonfiction works in them. They condensed them all down. Instead of reading a 400-page book here, you had an 80-page condensation of the book. Historians now say that was kind of the apex of the middle class, literary culture in America. In the 20th century, people didn't have time to read novels. They read condensations and novels. No kidding, in the 1980s, Reader's Digest decided to condense the Bible. So they came up with a condensed version of the Bible. A Christian satire magazine did a satire on the Reader's Digest, condensed Bible, and they put it all on one page, and it's hilarious. I wish I had it with me, I'd read it to you. But the funny thing about it is you look at it and it turns out not just funny, but tragic because there are many Christians who actually almost think of the Bible in this condensed way. Which is why we need not to condense it. The very purpose of expositional Bible study is not to condense it, but to take it in its fullness. One of the ways we condense it even in chapter two, is by saying, "God said, it's not good for man to be alone. And then he created out of man, the woman." That's not how the narrative proceeds. Instead, after verse 18, the Lord God declares, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him." You'll notice the word helper. You don't describe a female rabbit as a helper to the male rabbit. That didn't really fit. But the rabbit is not given a creation mandate to create and to tend and to till, nor to rule and to reign and to have dominion. But the human is, the man was. This word 'Helper' is rightly thought of as a compliment. She is what he needs. She is the completion of him. Now here's where biblical honesty is very important. This is not any kind of salacious, Biblical reference. It's just the obvious so that we can understand why God created us as he created us, and what it is to mean. Adam is in the garden fully equipped as a man. He has all the physical equipment a man needs, but you realize without a woman, much of this is nonsensical. There is even an Adam's physical constitution in the physical constitution of a man there is the declaration. There is a purpose for this that requires a woman to explain. One of the most interesting things for us to note is that Adam does not make the self-declaration, "It is not good for me to be alone." Adam, doesn't complain to God saying I'm alone. I shouldn't be alone. I'm lonely. He doesn't make a declaration. What's all this for? He appears to be just waiting. God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him." It is right for him. Nothing else is right for him, nothing else. Only what God creates is right for him. Then in verse 19, "Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name." So according to Genesis chapter one, the creation of these critters was on the day before. Now these critters are brought individually as species before Adam and he names them. Why didn't God name them? God doesn't have any reluctance to name certain things such as rivers. We just saw that God names what he wants to name. He doesn't name all the critters. He doesn't name all the creatures. Instead, he delegates that to Adam. What's that a picture of? It's a picture of delegated authority. It's a picture of what it means for Adam to be a co-regent with God. For Adam to exercise dominion. The rabbit doesn't name the human, the human name is the rabbit. The animals don't classify us. We classify them. They don't rule over us, We rule over them. Years ago, I heard the story of a Quaker that had an obstinate mule, which I guess is a redundancy. He was trying to coax the mule into doing what the mule needed to do. The mule wouldn't do it. The Quaker believing in peace couldn't strike the animal. All he could do was try to persuade it, which wasn't working. So finally, in exasperation, he went to the face of the mule and he said, you will do what I tell you to do, or I will give you to a Baptist. We are to rule over these creatures. And a part of that rule is even to name them. The nomenclature is itself a demonstration of dominion. " Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was no helper fit for him." Nothing is right for him. Now this is interesting, was he looking for something that was right for him? No. Is this a warning against bestiality? Well, no. It's a portrait of the fact that bestiality wouldn't even make sense. Bestiality would be irrational. Adam can look at them and know they're not for him. He can just observe them as he is demonstrating his delegated authority by naming every one of these critters, he can also see at the same time, there's nothing here for me. Keep going, move along, move along, move along, keep going. And at the end of this process, when all the creatures have been named, Adam now knows there is nothing fit for him. And then verse 21. "So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Some crucial distinctions here. First of all, do all of the creating. It's all God's creative act. Adam, doesn't say, "Let me say you, what I want. I want a woman. Here's what she needs to look like. Here's the equipment she needs to have." None of that. The God who created Adam will create the compliment to Adam. But the second distinction is that when God created the woman, he did not go back to the dust. He doesn't go back to the dust. He goes to Adam and it is a very important distinction with immense theological and spiritual significance. The woman is not a different creature made out of the dust. According to the scripture, the woman doesn't have an independent status from the man so there could be any confusion about the fact that we are for each other. Instead, rather than making her out of the dust and breathing into her nostrils, the breath of life, he causes deep sleep to fall upon the man. And when he slept, he took, it says, one of his ribs. It's the stuff on his side. When I was a little boy, I can remember reading this, I can remember one time wondering if my little sister had more ribs than I had because maybe all males at this point were short a rib. Well, that's a little too concrete. That's stretching the Hebrew, or pointing it a little too much. No, this is, this is not just a rib it's out of the side, the thorax. It's right out of the center part of Adam. It's Adam's stuff. It's Adam's flesh. It's Adam's bone. The word rib there, the most important part is this is all the stuff, Bone, sinew, flesh. He took up one of his ribs and he closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman. He doesn't make the woman out of the dust. He makes the woman out of the man. And then he brings her to the man. What in the world is Adam going to say? Well, let's ask the question, "Why does Adam need to say anything?" Well, he needs to say something because as you see in the preceding verses, God said to Adam, you named the creatures. It was an exercise. Not only in Adam's co-regency, in his delegated authority, it was also a lesson to Adam of his responsibility to recognize which creature is which. He still has that responsibility. And now the Lord God presents the woman to the man. In the same way that the Lord presented every living creature to the man that he would name it. He now brings the woman to the man. And now what will Adam say? Look at verse 23. "Then the man said this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called ‘woman’ because she was taken out of man." He names her. The woman doesn't name the man; the man names the woman in the sequence. And what does he name her? He names her me, but not me. If I'm a man, then she is a woman. She's me, but not me. She's the compliment to me. She is not a rabbit. She's not a giraffe. She's not different from me. She is exactly me, but she's not exactly me. She is the completion. She is what I need. She is made for me. "This, at last, is bone of my bones, flesh of flesh; She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man." End of chapter. Creation of man and woman, enormous theological significance, enormous spiritual importance. The very foundation of our worldview of understanding reality. Not only in the creation of the world and the cosmos and the universe, but the creation of the creatures; but not only the creatures, the creation of the human being; and not only the creation human being, but the creation human being as male and as female. As a man and as a woman. But that isn't the end of the chapter. Immediately in distinction to the animals In distinction, even to those animals, which multiply by means of heterosexual reproduction. Indistinct to all the rest of creation, now that there is man and woman, what immediately follows is a 'therefore.' Therefore found in verse 24, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed." Very interesting. Before we leave this, even for a few days to ponder it in order to come back to it, we need to see this: marriage isn't something that comes later. Marriage comes now. Human beings were made for marriage and marriage is made for human beings. God's intention that, human beings as man and woman, pair off in the faithful monogamy of heterosexual marriage is not something that is a process and product of social theological evolution. It is a structure of creation. It is in creation itself. It is so much in creation itself that human beings have lived for thousands of years and every single society, until the last decade., has found its way to the normativity of heterosexual marriage. Even in, in our sexually confused times with now 13 states having legalized same sex marriage, the vast majority of people, even in those states and in these confused times still find themselves to heterosexual marriage. In spite of the fact that the world is going to try to marginalize it and make it merely a lifestyle option still by its very existence, it judges all other relationships as inferior. I spoke of the division of the goods, Heterosexual marriage in creation, which comes before the fall, is where the goods are undivided. It's where being male and female makes perfect sense. It's where the words 'husbands' and 'wives' make perfect sense. A husband and a wife in this union that makes perfect sense. It is where children naturally follow. It is where all the gifts of sex and of sexuality can be enjoyed without restriction or embarrassment. They're naked in the garden and they are unashamed. There's no division. They enjoy each other. They need each other. They are for each other. The unitive principle of marriage is there, and the Bible is not shy to say there is something deeply sexual about this. That's why Adam knew he needed a wife. It was never God's creation purpose that he be alone. It was the Lord God who declared it is not good that the man should be alone. And it's God who provides the woman. "I will make him a helper fit for him." Genesis chapter one tells us that men and women are equally made in the image of God. In the image of God, he created them, male and female; He created them. The distinction between the man and the woman is not one of status. It is not one of theological identities. We are both made in God's image. It is of purpose and pattern in creation. And in creation before the fall, there is already a pattern. The pattern is that the woman is made as a compliment to the man. The word helper here is true. That's true. But the word helper there is not as in slave or servant, it is in helper, as in coworker in the garden. There's a pattern of authority that is here. There's a pattern of origin that is here. The man comes before the woman and the woman comes out of the man, not out of the dust. But the completion is what you find in the final verse in verse 25. "And the man and his wife were both naked and not ashamed." There's only one way to end up with a man and a woman naked and unashamed. And this is it. When we come back, we'll pick up with some additional thoughts on what we learn in verses 24 and 25, and then comes immediately the fall. Adam and Eve are not in the garden long in this picture where they're naked and unashamed. Within the sequence of just a few verses, they're going to be clothed awkwardly. And very much ashamed, but it won't be because they're men and women. And it won't be because they are married. It will be because they sin. Let's pray. Our father, we come before you so thankful that you give us so much in your word. So much that we can never plumb the depths of it or wring out all the meaning of it. But far more than most of us ever know, unless we go word by word and sentence by sentence and verse by verse. Father, thank you for giving us this privilege and for guiding our thoughts and minds. Father, we pray that you will, by your Holy Spirit, impress these words on our hearts. That we would lose none of it and ponder all of it and grow to be more Christlike as we do. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus Christ. Our Lord, amen. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.This morning, we turned to Genesis chapter two. We begin in verse three. We left off in verse three at the end of the introduction to chapter two. Thus, we will begin anew in chapter two, verse four and verse three, we read. "So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it, God rested from all his work that he had done in creation." The institution of the Sabbath is in the very structure of creation, with God himself resting on the seventh day. But that is really the introduction to what then follows in Genesis chapter two as a theological commentary that gives this additional detail in terms of what happened in Genesis chapter one. Looking back to Genesis chapter one in the creation of humankind we have, in verse 27, "So God created man in his own image in the image of God, he created him," and the next few words are crucial, "Male and female He created them." So, from the beginning, it was intended that human beings be binary and that the relationship of the man to the woman be the very picture of the perfection of God's creation. The pinnacle of the complexity of God's creation, and the mandated context for what will be one of God's greatest gifts to humanity, which would be marriage. Then there is the command. The command that follows along with the parallel commands that are found elsewhere in scripture have to do with multiplying. We read in verse 28, "And God blessed them. And God said to them, ``Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth." This new week's issue of Time magazine was released on Friday. It will be on the newsstand this week. The cover story in the current new issue of Time magazine is on couples who decide not to have children. On how increasingly married couples are deciding not to have children. Even as marriage has been transformed into a lifestyle option by our society, now, also parenthood is being defined in that same way. I'll have some articles up this week about that. I created enormous controversy, not intending to, in about 2003. I published an article on the sin of deliberate childlessness. One of the most basic biblical principles is that you do not divide the goods that God has given. That by the way is exactly what comes down at the end of the book of Common Prayer in the marriage ceremony, "What God has put together. No let no man put asunder. God's goods are not to be divisible. When God gives us a good thing, it has multiple good aspects. We're not to say I want that one and not this one. For instance, God gives us food for our nourishment. It is also for our enjoyment and in the wholeness of God's creation, the goodness, the enjoyment, and the nutrition should all come together. As God created, marriage and God gave us the gift of family—s even in the Bible family meals are well recognized as is the communal aspect of food. Even in something like the last supper, not to mention the Lord's Supper. So, you have not only nutrition, but you also have enjoyment and you have the communal or relational aspect of eating. An article that recently appeared in Great Britain, indicated that people who eat alone, eat more poorly and eat more calories. That's just a little indication that when you divide all the goods— a family meal, for instance— everyone's healthier. The dynamics in a family when you have dinner together are remarkably different than when people eat standing up individually at different times in the kitchen. It's a different kind of experience. That's what you might call a rather daily, low-level example of the fact that when God gives us something, it is best when it is undivided. When all the good aspects of it are kept together rather than torn asunder— marriage comes with procreation. Now, obviously there are exceptions. Two 90-year-old's getting married would not be expected to have children. It wouldn't be because they wouldn't want children, but because they're past the time of having children. The norm is for people to have children who are married. Marriage isn't just about the husband and then the wife. The very clear implication of the scripture as a whole, and even something as specific as the 10 Commandments, is that what is represented by the husband and the wife coming together is the promise of generations yet to come. In our secular age we're not only dividing the goods, we're denying the goodness of some of the goods that God has given us. That's exactly what this cover story indicates. What we have in Genesis chapter one is the creation of humankind as man and woman. Again, one of the great confusions of our day is the fact that gender is increasingly seen as something that is perceived rather than real. As much as, we would benefit by talking about that, and will later, at this point, it's just very important for us to recognize that gender—and by the way, if we use the word gender 50 years ago, people would think we're talking about nouns, not about people— but that word is now well understood as the replacement for the two sexes. We need to realize that gender that is being a man or a woman by God's design and decision, is a part of the goodness of God's creation. Again, you divide the goods, great moral risk, great moral injury. Now, we have more information, in chapter two, beginning in verse four. We begin reading, "These are the generations of heaven and the earth when they were created on the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens." Well, there you have a very clear indication that what's going to follow is going to be more information than we had in chapter one. " When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground." What in the world was that about? You have plants, but they're not growing. You have bushes that are not in the land. No small plant of the land had yet sprung up. Everything's ready, but it hasn't quite happened yet. What is it waiting for? In other words, it's as if your lawn is there, but it's never growing. It's waiting for something. Was it waiting for the arrival of man and woman. The arrival of the one who is going to have the responsibility for the stewardship and dominion of this creation. The one who is going to till the ground and the one who is going to receive the gifts. And that's a very interesting picture. In other words, what we have right here in Genesis chapter two in verse four, and following, is a clear indication that humanity is not only not an accident, not only not an imposition on the planet, the planet was made for human habitation. The planet itself, and even the rest of creation is waiting for the arrival of the human being in order for it to flourish. "Then God formed," in verse seven, "Then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature." The Lord God forms the man out of dust. What is the importance of that? Well, from dust we came, to dust we will return. This is a very interesting, interesting point that might not seem to be any more than perhaps some accessory poetry if we're reading too casually. What does it mean that we're made out of dust? It means we are actual stuff. We are not Gnostics. The Gnostic temptation that's—G N O S T I C— the Gnostics were identifiable groups, especially in the transition of the time, from what we would see as the Old Testament to the New Testament in the first century. In the ancient world, the Gnostics were groups that were unified by the fact that they believed in a secret knowledge. That illumination, and salvation, and meaning in life would come by being a part of their secret group with their secret gnosis or their secret knowledge. But they also had a very strong prejudice against material things, including the body. They believed that the mind was what was superior. The body was a problem. The mind, the human mind, is trapped within a body. Now, why would they think that way? Well, you might think that way, if you recognize that your brain would do things, your body is not up to doing. If you think that the moral problem of humanity is a lack of self-discipline. This is one of the major problems. In other words, if you don't have the biblical metanarrative and you don't know the Fall, and the Christian account of why we sin, then you might think we sin simply because we're trapped in a body. Because this body wants to do bad things. The Bible will have nothing of that. The Bible tells us that we are made out of stuff by God's intention. In other words, he didn't just say, "Presto, there's a man." He made man out of dirt, out of earth. The other day, I saw a cartoon, showed a couple moms with little boys playing in the playground. They little boys are covered with dirt. The one mom said to the other, "Why does this happen?" And the other one said "From dusty came to dusty will return." That's very biblical; we're made out of this stuff and we will become this stuff once again. If we die and we wait for that day of resurrection, we are real. There is no ‘unreal’ to us. God took dust and he animated it. According to what we read here, he breathed into nostrils, the breath, the nefesh, the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. We are the product of God's divine, creative and sovereign act. He did make us entirely by his sovereignty and authority, but he made us out of the stuff he had already made: out of dust. "And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil."  Well, here you have a sequence again, that tells us something that many people who've read the Bible and read many parts of the Bible and think they know about creation that they don't know. You don't know it if you don't read chapter two. Chapter two is this theological commentary on chapter one. Here we are told that creation, the growth of vegetation, the thriving of vegetation waited for the arrival of humanity. You had creation, you had vegetation, but until you have the arrival of humanity, you do not have a garden. God created the garden, not for the plants, but for the human creatures, he would put within the garden. Very clear distinction here we also need to keep in mind. What's the difference between a garden and a wilderness? Well, you look at the garden, you recognize somebody, some somebody arranged this. Nature does not naturally plant itself in rose. One of the wonderful things about being out in the country, we're surrounded by all these farms, many of the Amish farms. We were there long enough to see the second corn crop largely grow. They were seedlings when we got there within a month. It's amazing. Of course, the weather was spectacular, but it was amazing to see how fast this corn grew. This was the second crop of the season. And I tried to estimate how many stalks of corn were in this farm. I gave up because I know it's possible, but by the time they get large enough, you can't even distinguish the individual stalks. Walking down the row and it's as long as a football field and several times as wide. You start to look at it and you realize, "Look at all these neat rows, they're perfect rows. Anyone you would think looking at this would know someone did this, corn doesn't reproduce itself in rows." The difference between a garden and a wilderness is design and intentionality, purpose, Also aesthetics. There's something beautiful about rows of corn. You go to a major garden and, you say, one of these gardens might attract a lot of people. You go to one of the cemeteries here in Louisville, something like one of the landscapes designed by Frederick law, Olmstead, such as Cave Hill Cemetery. You look at it, and you know, that intelligence did this. That's the difference between wilderness and the garden. According to the biblical worldview, one of the purposes of humanity is to create and to tend a garden, not merely to appreciate wilderness. That's one of the reasons why a major worldview conflicts in our age, between those who think that the wilderness ought to reign, and those who think that the garden ought to reign. There are those amongst us—I don't mean here in this class, I mean in our culture— who clearly believe human beings need just to leave everything as it is. Nature should be left unto its own unto itself, unto its own natural processes. But the Bible says that the actual pinnacle creation is not the wilderness. It's the garden. We don't apologize for that. " A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates." Well, almost anyone who listens to the news immediately knows the Tigris and the Euphrates, both of which are found in the nation of Iraq. So, we do have some geographic placement here in terms of knowing where this is. Even we know where the headwaters might be. But there is no way in terms of our current geography to know exactly by reading Genesis two, 10 and following, what spot on earth the garden was in. Even finding the headwaters, you recognize that it's flowing out of the garden. In verse 15, "The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it." Not merely to observe, not merely to say, look at wilderness at how beautiful it is. Wilderness is beautiful. I just spent a good deal of the last month enjoying and looking at what is nothing but wilderness. But the gardens are even better. " The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, 'You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.'" So there we have the garden, the garden built by God's design and God's intentionality. The garden is an indication, not only that human beings are now to arrive, but that human beings have a purpose, a viceregency. That is to say, we are to reign with God in this garden. We are to be the keeper of the garden, the tender of the garden. We are even to be the expander of the garden. We are to be also, as we are made in God's image, using the capacity God gave us, which is a small picture of himself in which we create. We don't create, as God created ex nihilo, we create out of the stuff he's given us. But there is something that glorifies God, every time a garden is planted. Every time this mandate is fulfilled in terms of the purpose for which humanity was created, God receives glory. And the Lord, God put Adam in the garden. And he said, all of it is for you. All of it. Every herb, every plant, every, every vegetable, every fruit, all of it is for you. You are not for the vegetation. The vegetation is for you— except for one. Now this is a very interesting point again, in the Talmudic literature of Judaism. There's some real wisdom here in looking at this. And it comes down to this. Let's say that you are a parent. Let's say that you're a parent, and you create a playroom for your children. In it you put many good things. The ultimate test would be if you put one thing in that room, and you said to the child, "you can have all these toys. You can play with all of them, but not that one." The ultimate test of the child would not be the child's willingness to play with all the toys he's permitted to play with. But his willingness to accept the parent's authority, not to play with the one that is forbidden. And we can immediately identify with that. There is something about us that makes us want the one thing we shouldn't have. One of the things we need to keep in mind, however, is that we're understanding this at the wrong time. In other words, that Talmudic story makes perfect sense. After Genesis three. It's not supposed to make perfect sense now. You see right now, if we created a playroom for our children and put in many toys and said, you can play with all of them, but not that one. We would know that the little five-year-old is now going to be more concentrated on the one he can't have, rather than all the rest of them that are there. And why? It's because he's of Adam's seed. It's because he is a sinner. In our sinful state we are going to be inclined to want the one thing we're not supposed to have rather than to enjoy the array of things that are presented to us lawfully. But that wasn't a problem for Adam. You need to hold that thought. I'll just give you a little clue. It takes a snake to make that point. It takes a serpent to make that point. There is no reason to believe at this point in the narrative that Adam would've done anything, but to have joyfully accepted the restriction, the Lord has given. That he is to enjoy everything, but the fruit of this one tree. One of our problems—and that's why I hope we are benefiting so much by moving word, by word and verse by verse through Genesis— one of our problems, even as Christians, even as biblically literate, growing knowledgeable Christians, is that we tend to collapse the narratives. We, we, we tend to think of Genesis as one chapter, or especially of creation. We've put it all together and, and we forget there is a sequence here that is of incredible importance. But only now at this point, as we enter back into the narrative of chapter two only now at verse 18 does the Lord God say it is not good for the man to be alone. So if we had only Genesis one, we would know that God created man in his image. "Male and female, he created them," but we would not know there was a sequence to that. God created the man first. According to Genesis chapter two, the garden is awaiting the creation of humanity. And the one who enters is Adam, out of the dust he made Adam; this is going to be very crucial. Out of the dust, the Lord, God took the stuff he had made, and he formed out that stuff and he breathed life into him. But now in verse 18 of chapter two, the Lord God declares, "It is not good for man to be alone." Now God has already created all of the other living creatures. He has given them the mandate to multiply and fill the earth. So, we can rightly understand that when God made the rabbit, he made a male rabbit and a female rabbit. When God made the giraffe, He made a male giraffe and female giraffe. Go on down through all the species. But when he made man, he made only Adam, out of the dust. And he places Adam in the garden. But it is not good for a man to be alone. There's something about Adam that's distinct from a male rabbit. Actually, there are many things, but in this case, there's one thing that is crucial. The rabbit would have no consciousness of being alone, but Adam will. How's God going to make this point to Adam? Again, we tend to conflate the narrative. We tend to have our Reader's Digest, condensed version. I realize that's an anachronism, many people in those rooms don't have an idea what Reader's Digest, condensed books were. My grandmother had the whole set. About once a month, you got a bound volume with about four novels or nonfiction works in them. They condensed them all down. Instead of reading a 400-page book here, you had an 80-page condensation of the book. Historians now say that was kind of the apex of the middle class, literary culture in America. In the 20th century, people didn't have time to read novels. They read condensations and novels. No kidding, in the 1980s, Reader's Digest decided to condense the Bible. So they came up with a condensed version of the Bible. A Christian satire magazine did a satire on the Reader's Digest, condensed Bible, and they put it all on one page, and it's hilarious. I wish I had it with me, I'd read it to you. But the funny thing about it is you look at it and it turns out not just funny, but tragic because there are many Christians who actually almost think of the Bible in this condensed way. Which is why we need not to condense it. The very purpose of expositional Bible study is not to condense it, but to take it in its fullness. One of the ways we condense it even in chapter two, is by saying, "God said, it's not good for man to be alone. And then he created out of man, the woman." That's not how the narrative proceeds. Instead, after verse 18, the Lord God declares, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him." You'll notice the word helper. You don't describe a female rabbit as a helper to the male rabbit. That didn't really fit. But the rabbit is not given a creation mandate to create and to tend and to till, nor to rule and to reign and to have dominion. But the human is, the man was. This word 'Helper' is rightly thought of as a compliment. She is what he needs. She is the completion of him. Now here's where biblical honesty is very important. This is not any kind of salacious, Biblical reference. It's just the obvious so that we can understand why God created us as he created us, and what it is to mean. Adam is in the garden fully equipped as a man. He has all the physical equipment a man needs, but you realize without a woman, much of this is nonsensical. There is even an Adam's physical constitution in the physical constitution of a man there is the declaration. There is a purpose for this that requires a woman to explain. One of the most interesting things for us to note is that Adam does not make the self-declaration, "It is not good for me to be alone." Adam, doesn't complain to God saying I'm alone. I shouldn't be alone. I'm lonely. He doesn't make a declaration. What's all this for? He appears to be just waiting. God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him." It is right for him. Nothing else is right for him, nothing else. Only what God creates is right for him. Then in verse 19, "Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name." So according to Genesis chapter one, the creation of these critters was on the day before. Now these critters are brought individually as species before Adam and he names them. Why didn't God name them? God doesn't have any reluctance to name certain things such as rivers. We just saw that God names what he wants to name. He doesn't name all the critters. He doesn't name all the creatures. Instead, he delegates that to Adam. What's that a picture of? It's a picture of delegated authority. It's a picture of what it means for Adam to be a co-regent with God. For Adam to exercise dominion. The rabbit doesn't name the human, the human name is the rabbit. The animals don't classify us. We classify them. They don't rule over us, We rule over them. Years ago, I heard the story of a Quaker that had an obstinate mule, which I guess is a redundancy. He was trying to coax the mule into doing what the mule needed to do. The mule wouldn't do it. The Quaker believing in peace couldn't strike the animal. All he could do was try to persuade it, which wasn't working. So finally, in exasperation, he went to the face of the mule and he said, you will do what I tell you to do, or I will give you to a Baptist. We are to rule over these creatures. And a part of that rule is even to name them. The nomenclature is itself a demonstration of dominion. " Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was no helper fit for him." Nothing is right for him. Now this is interesting, was he looking for something that was right for him? No. Is this a warning against bestiality? Well, no. It's a portrait of the fact that bestiality wouldn't even make sense. Bestiality would be irrational. Adam can look at them and know they're not for him. He can just observe them as he is demonstrating his delegated authority by naming every one of these critters, he can also see at the same time, there's nothing here for me. Keep going, move along, move along, move along, keep going. And at the end of this process, when all the creatures have been named, Adam now knows there is nothing fit for him. And then verse 21. "So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Some crucial distinctions here. First of all, do all of the creating. It's all God's creative act. Adam, doesn't say, "Let me say you, what I want. I want a woman. Here's what she needs to look like. Here's the equipment she needs to have." None of that. The God who created Adam will create the compliment to Adam. But the second distinction is that when God created the woman, he did not go back to the dust. He doesn't go back to the dust. He goes to Adam and it is a very important distinction with immense theological and spiritual significance. The woman is not a different creature made out of the dust. According to the scripture, the woman doesn't have an independent status from the man so there could be any confusion about the fact that we are for each other. Instead, rather than making her out of the dust and breathing into her nostrils, the breath of life, he causes deep sleep to fall upon the man. And when he slept, he took, it says, one of his ribs. It's the stuff on his side. When I was a little boy, I can remember reading this, I can remember one time wondering if my little sister had more ribs than I had because maybe all males at this point were short a rib. Well, that's a little too concrete. That's stretching the Hebrew, or pointing it a little too much. No, this is, this is not just a rib it's out of the side, the thorax. It's right out of the center part of Adam. It's Adam's stuff. It's Adam's flesh. It's Adam's bone. The word rib there, the most important part is this is all the stuff, Bone, sinew, flesh. He took up one of his ribs and he closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman. He doesn't make the woman out of the dust. He makes the woman out of the man. And then he brings her to the man. What in the world is Adam going to say? Well, let's ask the question, "Why does Adam need to say anything?" Well, he needs to say something because as you see in the preceding verses, God said to Adam, you named the creatures. It was an exercise. Not only in Adam's co-regency, in his delegated authority, it was also a lesson to Adam of his responsibility to recognize which creature is which. He still has that responsibility. And now the Lord God presents the woman to the man. In the same way that the Lord presented every living creature to the man that he would name it. He now brings the woman to the man. And now what will Adam say? Look at verse 23. "Then the man said this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called ‘woman’ because she was taken out of man." He names her. The woman doesn't name the man; the man names the woman in the sequence. And what does he name her? He names her me, but not me. If I'm a man, then she is a woman. She's me, but not me. She's the compliment to me. She is not a rabbit. She's not a giraffe. She's not different from me. She is exactly me, but she's not exactly me. She is the completion. She is what I need. She is made for me. "This, at last, is bone of my bones, flesh of flesh; She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man." End of chapter. Creation of man and woman, enormous theological significance, enormous spiritual importance. The very foundation of our worldview of understanding reality. Not only in the creation of the world and the cosmos and the universe, but the creation of the creatures; but not only the creatures, the creation of the human being; and not only the creation human being, but the creation human being as male and as female. As a man and as a woman. But that isn't the end of the chapter. Immediately in distinction to the animals In distinction, even to those animals, which multiply by means of heterosexual reproduction. Indistinct to all the rest of creation, now that there is man and woman, what immediately follows is a 'therefore.' Therefore found in verse 24, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed." Very interesting. Before we leave this, even for a few days to ponder it in order to come back to it, we need to see this: marriage isn't something that comes later. Marriage comes now. Human beings were made for marriage and marriage is made for human beings. God's intention that, human beings as man and woman, pair off in the faithful monogamy of heterosexual marriage is not something that is a process and product of social theological evolution. It is a structure of creation. It is in creation itself. It is so much in creation itself that human beings have lived for thousands of years and every single society, until the last decade., has found its way to the normativity of heterosexual marriage. Even in, in our sexually confused times with now 13 states having legalized same sex marriage, the vast majority of people, even in those states and in these confused times still find themselves to heterosexual marriage. In spite of the fact that the world is going to try to marginalize it and make it merely a lifestyle option still by its very existence, it judges all other relationships as inferior. I spoke of the division of the goods, Heterosexual marriage in creation, which comes before the fall, is where the goods are undivided. It's where being male and female makes perfect sense. It's where the words 'husbands' and 'wives' make perfect sense. A husband and a wife in this union that makes perfect sense. It is where children naturally follow. It is where all the gifts of sex and of sexuality can be enjoyed without restriction or embarrassment. They're naked in the garden and they are unashamed. There's no division. They enjoy each other. They need each other. They are for each other. The unitive principle of marriage is there, and the Bible is not shy to say there is something deeply sexual about this. That's why Adam knew he needed a wife. It was never God's creation purpose that he be alone. It was the Lord God who declared it is not good that the man should be alone. And it's God who provides the woman. "I will make him a helper fit for him." Genesis chapter one tells us that men and women are equally made in the image of God. In the image of God, he created them, male and female; He created them. The distinction between the man and the woman is not one of status. It is not one of theological identities. We are both made in God's image. It is of purpose and pattern in creation. And in creation before the fall, there is already a pattern. The pattern is that the woman is made as a compliment to the man. The word helper here is true. That's true. But the word helper there is not as in slave or servant, it is in helper, as in coworker in the garden. There's a pattern of authority that is here. There's a pattern of origin that is here. The man comes before the woman and the woman comes out of the man, not out of the dust. But the completion is what you find in the final verse in verse 25. "And the man and his wife were both naked and not ashamed." There's only one way to end up with a man and a woman naked and unashamed. And this is it. When we come back, we'll pick up with some additional thoughts on what we learn in verses 24 and 25, and then comes immediately the fall. Adam and Eve are not in the garden long in this picture where they're naked and unashamed. Within the sequence of just a few verses, they're going to be clothed awkwardly. And very much ashamed, but it won't be because they're men and women. And it won't be because they are married. It will be because they sin. Let's pray. Our father, we come before you so thankful that you give us so much in your word. So much that we can never plumb the depths of it or wring out all the meaning of it. But far more than most of us ever know, unless we go word by word and sentence by sentence and verse by verse. Father, thank you for giving us this privilege and for guiding our thoughts and minds. Father, we pray that you will, by your Holy Spirit, impress these words on our hearts. That we would lose none of it and ponder all of it and grow to be more Christlike as we do. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus Christ. Our Lord, amen. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2013/06/16/genesis-21-3/ Sun, 16 Jun 2013 13:45:09 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 34:47 /?p=27586 Audio, Exposition, Genesis, Genesis Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2013/05/26/genesis-128-31/ Sun, 26 May 2013 09:30:40 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 33:53 /?p=27227 Audio, Exposition, Genesis, Genesis Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2013/05/05/genesis-127-29/ Sun, 05 May 2013 09:30:42 +0000 What we saw in those verses here in the beginning of the sixth day is a change in how God addresses those whom he has created. We saw that when he created the things previous, including vegetation and things in the sea and the birds of the air, he said, “let them be fruitful and multiply.” But when he created these creatures identified as livestock and creeping things in beasts of the earth, God said that “they should bring forth each according to its kind. God saw that it was good.” Then God said, “let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing, the creeps on the earth.” Now we saw in looking at verse 20, that when we have the text here, say, “then God said” it's falling in the sequence, obviously. 
But notice that then he speaks in the plural of majesty, which is also an indication of the Trinity. “Let us make man in our image after our likeness.” Now, the language of majesty is that which is used by royalty, such as the reigning queen of England. The Monarch of England never uses the first person singular, but also always uses the plural. “We are not amused” as Queen Victoria famously used to say. We do this. We do that. And it is because the Royal person is considered to be too magnificent to be contained within the first person singular. So many readers of the text here have insisted that what we have here is simply a Hebraic form of the plural of majesty. The problem with that is that we already have a Trinitarian indication in the text, and it comes very early because we are told that the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters as we saw beginning in the text, even in verse two. 
We later find out, of course, that it is the Son, the Incarnate Word, the Logos, who is the agent of creation itself. So that creation is a Trinitarian act. Now, in all fairness, we do not know that from a plain reading of the book of Genesis without the revelation given to us in the New Testament, but we are not reading Genesis as if we do not have the gospel. We're not reading Genesis as if we are not Christians. And we are not reading Genesis as if we do not have the gospel of John that tells us “in the beginning was the Word. And the word was with God. And the word was, God, all things were made through him. And without him, nothing that was made was made.” So when we see, “let us make man in our image,” we have to see not only the plural of majesty, but an indication of the Trinity. But what is God here determined to do? 
“Let us make man in our image.” So, the distinction that comes immediately in terms of the creation of the human creature is that this creature is going to be distinct from everything else to form the earth and everything else that filled the earth by the fact that this being this creature is to bear God's own image, to be made in the image of God. Now, the first thing we learned about human beings here is that we are a creature. That's a very important first Axiom of understanding what the Bible has to say about what it means to be human. We are not self-existent. We are not some kind of cosmic accident. We are a creature. What makes a creature distinct from something that just happens is intentionality and ownership. You make it, you own it. If you create it, it is yours. God created all things. 
We understand that everything that exists, exists precisely because God created it. And the everything that God created, the everything that exists, finds its culmination in the creation of the human creature, who is owned by God, made by God. And yet fashioned by God. Made by God, not just as the other things he has made, even the other living creatures, but this creature is made in his image. We must remember however that there remains always an infinite distinction between the creator and the creature, even as the creature is made in God's own image. The creature is not God. The distinction between the creator and the creature is enduring. It is eternal and it is singularly important, but this creature is made in a different way, according to a different purpose than everything that has come before. “Let us make man in our image after our likeness.” 
Now, some very interesting questions appear so early here in the text. “In our image, according to our likeness.” What in the world does that mean? Do we look like God? That's a fundamental theological mistake. It is the mistake that is at the very heart of idolatry. The assumption that God is like us in terms of a form just perfected. Now we know that this is idolatry by any reading of the scripture, but specifically in Romans chapter one. If you look over at Romans chapter one, you will see the indictment of this kind of confusion. And we should be so thankful again, that we're reading Genesis as Christians armed with all that God has given us in the New Testament. We read beginning in verse 18 “for the wrath of God has revealed from heaven against all in godliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” 
It's this suppression of the truth, that is, seemed to be the first evidence of human sinfulness and all humanities involved in this conspiracy to suppress the truth. “For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them for his invisible attributes.” Not ours, his invisible attributes, “namely his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” Here's where it gets very important for us. “Although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened claiming to be wise. They became fools and exchange the glory of the immortal God for images, resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.” 
If you look at the idolatry of the ancient world, in particular for instance, if you even look in many of the Eastern religions, you see images of human beings. Images of human beings, often in an idealized or gigantic frame of reference or dimension. So, if you look at some of the Buddha statues from the east, you'll notice some of them are absolutely huge. They are humanity blown up big. In other cases, the idols are not so physically large as they are physically perfected. And so there has always been the temptation to idealize the human form and to worship that in some idolatrous way. But that is precisely not what it means for us to be made in God's likeness, because God, we are told, does not have a body. He will insist on the fact that he does not have a bodily form. 
He will tell us, even as Jesus told the woman at the well that God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. The human desire to try to create an image, whether it's of a human being or, as Romans one tells us, or of any kind of thing, any kind of creature or created being or created thing is a form of perverted religion, otherwise known as idolatry. The ambition to do that is to cast a lie about God. Armed with that knowledge then, when God says, “let us make man in our image, after our likeness,” we know that that is not a physical capacity, but as we follow through biblical theology, our physical form does imply certain things that the image of God makes clear. It isn't that God has a body that we are a lesser copy of, it is that God possesses certain functions in a perfected and omnipotent way that he shares with his human creatures. The most important issue of the image of God is going to be the fact that we, of all the creatures alone have two capacities. First, the capacity to know him. And secondly, the capacity to rule. To exercise dominion. 
Now first, what it means to be made in God's image is that of all the creatures, we are the only creature able to know God. Consciously to know him. Now God's glory is in all creation. God said, “it's good.” He declared the goodness of all creation. So there's not something the dog is supposed to have that the dog doesn't have. The dog did not lose the ability consciously to know the creator as a result of the fall. The dog was not meant to have this capacity. It doesn't have the capacity. We have a dog, as you know, Baxter, the Wonder Beagle, and Baxter is a very friendly, wonderful dog. He is kind of the prototype of dog. He is well of a certain kind of dog. Not a guard dog. Baxter would be completely incompetent at guarding anything because he likes everybody. 
He likes crooks as well as honest people. He would be the welcoming committee for…although he believes he has a guard dog function because when UPS drops off something and rings the doorbell, he goes as if he's on the attack mode, but his tails wagging. Baxter's not a highly intelligent creature, even by dog standards. You know, there are dogs that can be trained to do all kinds of things. Baxter's not even impressed by that. He doesn’t even think he should aspire to that. But what he is, is absolute loyalty, absolute happiness, and absolute nose. Every once in a while, we will be walking along and he's just sniffing something and he looks up to me as if to say, “you have no idea what you're missing.” I'll just go on record of saying, I think I'm thankful I'm missing it, but nonetheless, he's got capacities I don't have, but he has no capacity consciously to know his creator. 
Now God is glorified in that dog. God's glorified. And that dog does exactly what God intended that dog to do. And doesn't it say something about the joy of the creator in his creation? When you think about how he made all these creatures and decided that each should have this particular shape and form and this particular function, and then you look at some of these animals and you go, okay, if I'm an evolutionist, if I'm operating of a materialistic naturalistic worldview, I'm gonna say evolution did that strange thing. However, if I'm a human being, looking at that who is not an evolutionist, but rather is a believer in divine creation, I look at that and say, God has a sense of humor, a sense of delight in his creation. But in his, as human creatures, he built in, created the capacity consciously to know him. 
The lion and the tiger, they show the glory of God, but they have no idea. The same things true, of course, of the plants and the trees. They're showing the glory of God, but they have no consciousness that they're doing so. Human beings do. From the moment of our awareness, we are aware that we are created. And that means that there is a creator. And the knowledge of that creator is that with which we all have to do. I was reading last night Nietzsche the famous nihilist at the end of the 19th century, in the beginning of the 20th century. The man who defined the argument that God is dead and that we have killed him. And he made a very interesting statement. He said, and I I'll have to paraphrase here, but he said, as much as we have killed, God, God keeps coming back in the grammar, which is an amazing statement for Nietzsche to have made. The very, that we have the capacity to use language. And there are regular rules of grammar. It means somehow, at least by intuition, that there is a creator, we kill him. And he comes back in the grammar. 
I mentioned to you some weeks ago, as we were beginning our study in the book of Genesis, this book recently written by an evolutionary scientist trying to explain to other evolutionary scientists why it is that they're making so little headway getting children to accept the theory of evolution. And you'll recall that she has a very brilliant argument. It took a lot of her for her to come up with this. She said that it seems that children reason from form to maker that children learn. They learned it from their parents. You know, how do we get this house? Well, somebody built this house. You know, how do we get this car? Somebody made that car. You look at a little girl walks in and finds her brother on the floor, having made something with blocks. Well, he made that. She knows that. Well, then they look at each other and they say, where do we come from? Well, the very fact that we exist implies that someone made us. And so this evolutionary scientist said, we're up against a big challenge here, because it seems like, and this is the way she put it, It seems that evolution has encoded even children not to believe in evolution, which is a pretty tough thing to come to terms with. If you're an evolutionist, well being made in God's image means we do know. And this is why also we speak of the kind conscience is a part of the Imago Dei is a part of the awareness of the creator. This is why Adam and Eve, when they sin, hid themselves, and that's why your three-year-old does the same thing. It is because that conscience cries out. 
Even when mom and dad aren't in the room, somebody saw me do that. But there is a second dimension. And that is the rule, the dominion that is given, and that comes so early in the text. “Let us make man and our image after our likeness.” And the very next statement is, “and let them have dominion,” that's Lordship, “over all the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over livestock and over the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” Dominion. We sing about dominion, we sing about God's Lordship, his dominion. We don't use that word much for instance, in our maps. Although if you go back a hundred years and you can actually say that precisely, you go back to 1912 and you look at a map, you will see any map in the English language that will use the word dominion in a map of the world, because it's the age of empire. 
And so you have Russia, but you also have Russian dominions. And especially with the British empire, you have Britain, but then you have the dominions and those are the lands over which Britain ruled, even though they were not properly Britain. England had dominion over India, over Malaysia, over Singapore, over about a third of the Earth's surface. The word dominion is now sometimes even used with reference, for instance, especially in historical reference to Canada.  But let's just say we've kind of defined dominion down. I don't think Ottawa worries a great deal about what London thinks anymore. But back during the age of empire, I guarantee they did. The United States was once considered a dominion of Great Britain. Took a war or two to end that claim. But the word dominion is one that we are not able to do without, as human beings with reference, even to how we see the affairs of nations. But here in the very beginning, and it's very important that we remember that we're in Genesis one, the fall is not yet on the horizon. There is no sin, and there is no effective sin. God did not give dominion to the human creature because of the result of sin. He gave dominion to the human creature in the very perfect design of creation. “Let us make in our image, after our likeness and let them,” we went over them. 
So this is to be a multiple creation. This is to be a plural creature. This is not just to be one man. This is to be humankind. The implication that as with the other creatures, this creature is to fill the earth, but that comes later as an order. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. Then verse 27, “so God created man in his own image, in the image of God, he created him, male and female He created them.” Oh, now we have them. We had let them before, but we didn't know who they were gonna be, but now we have them. And the essential new information that comes in verse 27 is male and female He created them 
Now that’s very interesting because in all the previous acts of filling, there was no reference to what we now call gender. To what, in the English language, we would previously call the sexes. It wasn’t necessary, but we do know that even in the world of vegetation, their gender still plays a role. You still have pollen, and you have pollination. You still have seeds, and the things that that imply gender, even in the world of vegetation. It would take a botanist, an agronomist to explain that fully, but somewhere in elementary school or junior high school, we learned that even most trees and most vegetation has a gendered identity. We just can't recognize them very readily. Sometimes they exist in the same plant in one way or another, but when it comes to the, the living creatures, that is the creatures that fill the seas and that fill the skies, and that of course fill the earth in terms of the livestock and the beast of the field and the creeping things, they’re gendered. There's a male rabbit and a female rabbit. There's a male grouper and a female grouper. The animal world is filled with that gendered reality. 
So are human beings, but human beings are named in terms of this gendered reality in the image of God who created him. That is humankind, man, male and female He created them. Now, before we go on at all, we should quickly note here that gender is thus a part of the goodness of God's creation. This is not a result of the fall. This is God's purpose in perfection from the beginning, male and female. You'll notice that there is a listing of two. There's a dichotomy. There is a, there's a bifurcation of humankind, a differentiation, a specialization that comes down to male and female. In order for human beings to be able to fulfill the mandate God give in terms of filling the earth, it's going to take the male and the female. This is a part of the goodness of God's creation. God could have by his sovereign power as creator, he could have assigned asexual reproduction to the things he has made. 
He could have done that for the fish of the sea. He could have done that for the birds of the air. He could have done that for human beings. He did not. A couple things we learned from that before we even rush on from this text. The first thing is that human beings were never made as individual reference. We were never meant to be alone. Now that's going to be declared in chapter two. It is not good for man to be alone, but the reason we know that it isn't good for us to be alone is that it's going to take at least two in order for the human species to survive. It is going to take at least two for the process of filling the earth to continue. It's going to take at least two, because without both, there is no wholeness. 
There is no picture of the species intact, flourishing, and functioning. It's going to take both a male and a female. And that's why in the second chapter of Genesis, we will be told so quickly here in that theological commentary, we're gonna find in chapter two, on the progression of the days that we are encountering here in chapter one, we're going to be told that it isn't good for human beings to be alone. Therefore, we are given the institution of marriage. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife. And they shall be one flesh, husband and wife, not just male and female, but before creation is finished, husband and wife. There are two and only two sexes mentioned here. 
And, and in creation is important that we recognize that it was so. There is no confusion. There is no sin here. Sin manifesting itself later in human experience in grotesque confusions over that, which is so clear here in creation, male and female, it's very clear. The female is made in the image of God. The male is made in the image of God. More commentary on that will come in chapter two, but equally made in God's image. They're not only made for God. They are made for each other. There is a complementarian structure that is built into creation, and there's no confusion here. Now, after the fall, there will be all kinds of confusion here, never more than in our own day. And the confusions that fill our headlines today are confusions that would've astounded people even 20 or 30 years ago. We are living in what in human history must assuredly be the most grotesque and intense period of confusion over that which is so clear here in Genesis chapter one. 
And to that, we will return When we look at the commentary on this text, we find in chapter two. but before leaving the creation of the human creature of man and woman we read, “and God blessed them, and God said to them,” so God is going to speak to his human and creatures. The creature made in his image, the creature consciously able to hear him. And to know that we are being spoken to, he says, “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” That's reproduction. That's what that's about now. It's probably more than that. It's about filling the earth, not only with babies and with progeny, but filling the earth with cities and buildings, and filling the earth with the things that by human industry is we're made in God's image we're able to do. 
I said that even as we have a body that does not mean that God has a big body. It isn't that God is a perfected body. He doesn't have a body, but we actually need a body to be able to fulfill the functions that he has given us. God creates with a word. He says, let there be. And there is, he says, let there be light. And there's light. God doesn't need a hand. God doesn't need an arm. We need them. And we need that even to understand. That's why that when Israel tells the story of how God brought them out of bondage to Pharaoh in Egypt, he'll say he brought us out by his mighty hand and his outstretched arm. Well he doesn't have an arm. And, and that doesn't mean physically that some giant arm scooped up Israel in captivity. No, it's metaphorical language. Israel knew it. And we know it because God doesn't have a hand. God doesn't have an arm. God doesn't actually need a hand or an arm to accomplish what he does, but we do. So even though our body is not rich, small, a picture of what God looks like, our body is what our creator gave us to facilitate what he told us to do. 
I was talking to a dad the other day who told me that he was in a little bit of trouble with his wife, and I could tell this was lighthearted. And I said, what? And he said, well, our five-year-old had a birthday, little boy, and I got him not some play tools, but I got him some real tools. Now, it wasn't a giant toolbox. It was his size, and it was a hammer. And he said now daddy's gonna teach you how to use this hammer. He said I wanted him to have, even at age five, the feeling of a hammer in his hand. I wanted him to feel the satisfaction in that. And he said, unfortunately, he felt the satisfaction in that in ways that were not fully pleasing to mom, leading to a couple of marks on some furniture, which he declared, he was fixing. When you look at that, and you say it comes real early to us, doesn't it? The desire to move things around. 
When I was a little boy, my favorite toys were tonka trucks and that was back when they were made outta metal. And I had a complete construction set. I had drag lines and bulldozers and dump trucks, by the way, I still have them. I don't play with 'em anymore. Let me be that clear. But I still have them. But you know what? I can still remember sitting there in the dirt and making things and just imagining, seeing big people make things. And that was during the time when especially during the space race and then the postwar building boom, you could look everywhere and construction's taking place. We build things. We make things. There's an urge within us to do it. And we are told here that that comes right from the order given to us in creation, to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the, of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. 
There's gonna be more to this of course, but I want to conclude by mentioning to you a story that I had to deal with about two years ago, in terms of some media attention. Had to do with the fact that the zoo and Berlin had decided to make the point, the human beings are just like any other animal, just like any other animal. So, the zoo in Berlin put up a special exhibit and they put human beings behind the cage and they identified the creature as homo sapiens. Man. So the people going through the zoo would walk through the zoo and see those human beings here in this cage, over here, you have orangutans and over here you have tigers. And over here you have lemurs and whatever else. And then the reptile house, you have the reptiles, and then the aviary, you have the birds and here you have human beings, but what made that ludicrous and why did that exhibit fail? 
Not because we're not interesting to look at. It's because we know we have to put ourselves in the cage and the zebras did not put human beings in the cage and hammer a sign up front homo sapians Now we're the only creature who can build the cage and put ourselves in it, which just points to the fact that we really aren't just like all the rest of the animals after all. And we know it. Genesis one tells us why and shows us God's glory in it. And there is yet more, a whole lot more to come. Let's pray. Our Father, we are so thankful that you've given us so much in your word, this word, that arrests us and surprises us and tells us what we desperately need to know. Father, our familiarity with this text can sometimes Rob us of the absolute joy of finding in your word that, which is more profound, more clear, more present than many of us would ever have imagined. That's why we thank you for the privilege of going through this text word by word verse by verse, in order that we would gain from it, what we desperately need to know, not only for our understanding of things past, but our hope of things to come and our responsibility in the future. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 32:48 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=26807 Audio, Exposition, Genesis, Genesis Series noWe are continuing our study verse by verse through the book of Genesis. And as we arrive today at the text, we arrive at verse 27 and we've been following through Genesis chapter one, not only verse by, but word by word. And as we have been working our way through the progression of the days first, in terms of the first three days of creation with God forming the earth. And then the second three days of God filling the earth, on the sixth day, we saw that in the beginning of the day, God created the creatures. And in verse 24, we saw, “and God said that the earth bring forth living creatures, according to their kinds lives talk and creeping things and beasts of the earth, according to their kinds. And it was so, and God made the beast of the earth, according to their kinds and the livestock, according to their kinds and everything that creeps on the ground, according to its kind, and God said, God saw that it was good.” What we saw in those verses here in the beginning of the sixth day is a change in how God addresses those whom he has created. We saw that when he created the things previous, including vegetation and things in the sea and the birds of the air, he said, “let them be fruitful and multiply.” But when he created these creatures identified as livestock and creeping things in beasts of the earth, God said that “they should bring forth each according to its kind. God saw that it was good.” Then God said, “let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing, the creeps on the earth.” Now we saw in looking at verse 20, that when we have the text here, say, “then God said” it's falling in the sequence, obviously.  But notice that then he speaks in the plural of majesty, which is also an indication of the Trinity. “Let us make man in our image after our likeness.” Now, the language of majesty is that which is used by royalty, such as the reigning queen of England. The Monarch of England never uses the first person singular, but also always uses the plural. “We are not amused” as Queen Victoria famously used to say. We do this. We do that. And it is because the Royal person is considered to be too magnificent to be contained within the first person singular. So many readers of the text here have insisted that what we have here is simply a Hebraic form of the plural of majesty. The problem with that is that we already have a Trinitarian indication in the text, and it comes very early because we are told that the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters as we saw beginning in the text, even in verse two.  We later find out, of course, that it is the Son, the Incarnate Word, the Logos, who is the agent of creation itself. So that creation is a Trinitarian act. Now, in all fairness, we do not know that from a plain reading of the book of Genesis without the revelation given to us in the New Testament, but we are not reading Genesis as if we do not have the gospel. We're not reading Genesis as if we are not Christians. And we are not reading Genesis as if we do not have the gospel of John that tells us “in the beginning was the Word. And the word was with God. And the word was, God, all things were made through him. And without him, nothing that was made was made.” So when we see, “let us make man in our image,” we have to see not only the plural of majesty, but an indication of the Trinity. But what is God here determined to do?  “Let us make man in our image.” So, the distinction that comes immediately in terms of the creation of the human creature is that this creature is going to be distinct from everything else to form the earth and everything else that filled the earth by the fact that this being this creature is to bear God's own image, to be made in the image of God. Now, the first thing we learned about human beings here is that we are a creature. That's a very important first Axiom of understanding what the Bible has to say about what it means to be human. We are not self-existent. We are not some kind of cosmic accident. We are a creature. What makes a creature distinct from something that just happens is intentionality and ownership. You make it, you own it. If you create it, it is yours. God created all things.  We understand that everything that exists, exists precisely because God created it. And the everything that God created, the everything that exists, finds its culmination in the creation of the human creature, who is owned by God, made by God. And yet fashioned by God. Made by God, not just as the other things he has made, even the other living creatures, but this creature is made in his image. We must remember however that there remains always an infinite distinction between the creator and the creature, even as the creature is made in God's own image. The creature is not God. The distinction between the creator and the creature is enduring. It is eternal and it is singularly important, but this creature is made in a different way, according to a different purpose than everything that has come before. “Let us make man in our image after our likeness.”  Now, some very interesting questions appear so early here in the text. “In our image, according to our likeness.” What in the world does that mean? Do we look like God? That's a fundamental theological mistake. It is the mistake that is at the very heart of idolatry. The assumption that God is like us in terms of a form just perfected. Now we know that this is idolatry by any reading of the scripture, but specifically in Romans chapter one. If you look over at Romans chapter one, you will see the indictment of this kind of confusion. And we should be so thankful again, that we're reading Genesis as Christians armed with all that God has given us in the New Testament. We read beginning in verse 18 “for the wrath of God has revealed from heaven against all in godliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.”  It's this suppression of the truth, that is, seemed to be the first evidence of human sinfulness and all humanities involved in this conspiracy to suppress the truth. “For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them for his invisible attributes.” Not ours, his invisible attributes, “namely his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” Here's where it gets very important for us. “Although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened claiming to be wise. They became fools and exchange the glory of the immortal God for images, resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.”  If you look at the idolatry of the ancient world, in particular for instance, if you even look in many of the Eastern religions, you see images of human beings. Images of human beings, often in an idealized or gigantic frame of reference or dimension. So, if you look at some of the Buddha statues from the east, you'll notice some of them are absolutely huge. They are humanity blown up big. In other cases, the idols are not so physically large as they are physically perfected. And so there has always been the temptation to idealize the human form and to worship that in some idolatrous way. But that is precisely not what it means for us to be made in God's likeness, because God, we are told, does not have a body. He will insist on the fact that he does not have a bodily form.  He will tell us, even as Jesus told the woman at the well that God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. The human desire to try to create an image, whether it's of a human being or, as Romans one tells us, or of any kind of thing, any kind of creature or created being or created thing is a form of perverted religion, otherwise known as idolatry. The ambition to do that is to cast a lie about God. Armed with that knowledge then, when God says, “let us make man in our image, after our likeness,” we know that that is not a physical capacity, but as we follow through biblical theology, our physical form does imply certain things that the image of God makes clear. It isn't that God has a body that we are a lesser copy of, it is that God possesses certain functions in a perfected and omnipotent way that he shares with his human creatures. The most important issue of the image of God is going to be the fact that we, of all the creatures alone have two capacities. First, the capacity to know him. And secondly, the capacity to rule. To exercise dominion.  Now first, what it means to be made in God's image is that of all the creatures, we are the only creature able to know God. Consciously to know him. Now God's glory is in all creation. God said, “it's good.” He declared the goodness of all creation. So there's not something the dog is supposed to have that the dog doesn't have. The dog did not lose the ability consciously to know the creator as a result of the fall. The dog was not meant to have this capacity. It doesn't have the capacity. We have a dog, as you know, Baxter, the Wonder Beagle, and Baxter is a very friendly, wonderful dog. He is kind of the prototype of dog. He is well of a certain kind of dog. Not a guard dog. Baxter would be completely incompetent at guarding anything because he likes everybody.  He likes crooks as well as honest people. He would be the welcoming committee for…although he believes he has a guard dog function because when UPS drops off something and rings the doorbell, he goes as if he's on the attack mode, but his tails wagging. Baxter's not a highly intelligent creature, even by dog standards. You know, there are dogs that can be trained to do all kinds of things. Baxter's not even impressed by that. He doesn’t even think he should aspire to that. But what he is, is absolute loyalty, absolute happiness, and absolute nose. Every once in a while, we will be walking along and he's just sniffing something and he looks up to me as if to say, “you have no idea what you're missing.” I'll just go on record of saying, I think I'm thankful I'm missing it, but nonetheless, he's got capacities I don't have, but he has no capacity consciously to know his creator.  Now God is glorified in that dog. God's glorified. And that dog does exactly what God intended that dog to do. And doesn't it say something about the joy of the creator in his creation? When you think about how he made all these creatures and decided that each should have this particular shape and form and this particular function, and then you look at some of these animals and you go, okay, if I'm an evolutionist, if I'm operating of a materialistic naturalistic worldview, I'm gonna say evolution did that strange thing. However, if I'm a human being, looking at that who is not an evolutionist, but rather is a believer in divine creation, I look at that and say, God has a sense of humor, a sense of delight in his creation. But in his, as human creatures, he built in, created the capacity consciously to know him.  The lion and the tiger, they show the glory of God, but they have no idea. The same things true, of course, of the plants and the trees. They're showing the glory of God, but they have no consciousness that they're doing so. Human beings do. From the moment of our awareness, we are aware that we are created. And that means that there is a creator. And the knowledge of that creator is that with which we all have to do. I was reading last night Nietzsche the famous nihilist at the end of the 19th century, in the beginning of the 20th century. The man who defined the argument that God is dead and that we have killed him. And he made a very interesting statement. He said, and I I'll have to paraphrase here, but he said, as much as we have killed, God, God keeps coming back in the grammar, which is an amazing statement for Nietzsche to have made. The very, that we have the capacity to use language. And there are regular rules of grammar. It means somehow, at least by intuition, that there is a creator, we kill him. And he comes back in the grammar.  I mentioned to you some weeks ago, as we were beginning our study in the book of Genesis, this book recently written by an evolutionary scientist trying to explain to other evolutionary scientists why it is that they're making so little headway getting children to accept the theory of evolution. And you'll recall that she has a very brilliant argument. It took a lot of her for her to come up with this. She said that it seems that children reason from form to maker that children learn. They learned it from their parents. You know, how do we get this house? Well, somebody built this house. You know, how do we get this car? Somebody made that car. You look at a little girl walks in and finds her brother on the floor, having made something with blocks. Well, he made that. She knows that. Well, then they look at each other and they say, where do we come from? Well, the very fact that we exist implies that someone made us. And so this evolutionary scientist said, we're up against a big challenge here, because it seems like, and this is the way she put it, It seems that evolution has encoded even children not to believe in evolution, which is a pretty tough thing to come to terms with. If you're an evolutionist, well being made in God's image means we do know. And this is why also we speak of the kind conscience is a part of the Imago Dei is a part of the awareness of the creator. This is why Adam and Eve, when they sin, hid themselves, and that's why your three-year-old does the same thing. It is because that conscience cries out.  Even when mom and dad aren't in the room, somebody saw me do that. But there is a second dimension. And that is the rule, the dominion that is given, and that comes so early in the text. “Let us make man and our image after our likeness.” And the very next statement is, “and let them have dominion,” that's Lordship, “over all the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over livestock and over the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” Dominion. We sing about dominion, we sing about God's Lordship, his dominion. We don't use that word much for instance, in our maps. Although if you go back a hundred years and you can actually say that precisely, you go back to 1912 and you look at a map, you will see any map in the English language that will use the word dominion in a map of the world, because it's the age of empire.  And so you have Russia, but you also have Russian dominions. And especially with the British empire, you have Britain, but then you have the dominions and those are the lands over which Britain ruled, even though they were not properly Britain. England had dominion over India, over Malaysia, over Singapore, over about a third of the Earth's surface. The word dominion is now sometimes even used with reference, for instance, especially in historical reference to Canada.  But let's just say we've kind of defined dominion down. I don't think Ottawa worries a great deal about what London thinks anymore. But back during the age of empire, I guarantee they did. The United States was once considered a dominion of Great Britain. Took a war or two to end that claim. But the word dominion is one that we are not able to do without, as human beings with reference, even to how we see the affairs of nations. But here in the very beginning, and it's very important that we remember that we're in Genesis one, the fall is not yet on the horizon. There is no sin, and there is no effective sin. God did not give dominion to the human creature because of the result of sin. He gave dominion to the human creature in the very perfect design of creation. “Let us make in our image, after our likeness and let them,” we went over them.  So this is to be a multiple creation. This is to be a plural creature. This is not just to be one man. This is to be humankind. The implication that as with the other creatures, this creature is to fill the earth, but that comes later as an order. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. Then verse 27, “so God created man in his own image, in the image of God, he created him, male and female He created them.” Oh, now we have them. We had let them before, but we didn't know who they were gonna be, but now we have them. And the essential new information that comes in verse 27 is male and female He created them  Now that’s very interesting because in all the previous acts of filling, there was no reference to what we now call gender. To what, in the English language, we would previously call the sexes. It wasn’t necessary, but we do know that even in the world of vegetation, their gender still plays a role. You still have pollen, and you have pollination. You still have seeds, and the things that that imply gender, even in the world of vegetation. It would take a botanist, an agronomist to explain that fully, but somewhere in elementary school or junior high school, we learned that even most trees and most vegetation has a gendered identity. We just can't recognize them very readily. Sometimes they exist in the same plant in one way or another, but when it comes to the, the living creatures, that is the creatures that fill the seas and that fill the skies, and that of course fill the earth in terms of the livestock and the beast of the field and the creeping things, they’re gendered. There's a male rabbit and a female rabbit. There's a male grouper and a female grouper. The animal world is filled with that gendered reality.  So are human beings, but human beings are named in terms of this gendered reality in the image of God who created him. That is humankind, man, male and female He created them. Now, before we go on at all, we should quickly note here that gender is thus a part of the goodness of God's creation. This is not a result of the fall. This is God's purpose in perfection from the beginning, male and female. You'll notice that there is a listing of two. There's a dichotomy. There is a, there's a bifurcation of humankind, a differentiation, a specialization that comes down to male and female. In order for human beings to be able to fulfill the mandate God give in terms of filling the earth, it's going to take the male and the female. This is a part of the goodness of God's creation. God could have by his sovereign power as creator, he could have assigned asexual reproduction to the things he has made.  He could have done that for the fish of the sea. He could have done that for the birds of the air. He could have done that for human beings. He did not. A couple things we learned from that before we even rush on from this text. The first thing is that human beings were never made as individual reference. We were never meant to be alone. Now that's going to be declared in chapter two. It is not good for man to be alone, but the reason we know that it isn't good for us to be alone is that it's going to take at least two in order for the human species to survive. It is going to take at least two for the process of filling the earth to continue. It's going to take at least two, because without both, there is no wholeness.  There is no picture of the species intact, flourishing, and functioning. It's going to take both a male and a female. And that's why in the second chapter of Genesis, we will be told so quickly here in that theological commentary, we're gonna find in chapter two, on the progression of the days that we are encountering here in chapter one, we're going to be told that it isn't good for human beings to be alone. Therefore, we are given the institution of marriage. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife. And they shall be one flesh, husband and wife, not just male and female, but before creation is finished, husband and wife. There are two and only two sexes mentioned here.  And, and in creation is important that we recognize that it was so. There is no confusion. There is no sin here. Sin manifesting itself later in human experience in grotesque confusions over that, which is so clear here in creation, male and female, it's very clear. The female is made in the image of God. The male is made in the image of God. More commentary on that will come in chapter two, but equally made in God's image. They're not only made for God. They are made for each other. There is a complementarian structure that is built into creation, and there's no confusion here. Now, after the fall, there will be all kinds of confusion here, never more than in our own day. And the confusions that fill our headlines today are confusions that would've astounded people even 20 or 30 years ago. We are living in what in human history must assuredly be the most grotesque and intense period of confusion over that which is so clear here in Genesis chapter one.  And to that, we will return When we look at the commentary on this text, we find in chapter two. but before leaving the creation of the human creature of man and woman we read, “and God blessed them, and God said to them,” so God is going to speak to his human and creatures. The creature made in his image, the creature consciously able to hear him. And to know that we are being spoken to, he says, “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” That's reproduction. That's what that's about now. It's probably more than that. It's about filling the earth, not only with babies and with progeny, but filling the earth with cities and buildings, and filling the earth with the things that by human industry is we're made in God's image we're able to do.  I said that even as we have a body that does not mean that God has a big body. It isn't that God is a perfected body. He doesn't have a body, but we actually need a body to be able to fulfill the functions that he has given us. God creates with a word. He says, let there be. And there is, he says, let there be light. And there's light. God doesn't need a hand. God doesn't need an arm. We need them. And we need that even to understand. That's why that when Israel tells the story of how God brought them out of bondage to Pharaoh in Egypt, he'll say he brought us out by his mighty hand and his outstretched arm. Well he doesn't have an arm. And, and that doesn't mean physically that some giant arm scooped up Israel in captivity. No, it's metaphorical language. Israel knew it. And we know it because God doesn't have a hand. God doesn't have an arm. God doesn't actually need a hand or an arm to accomplish what he does, but we do. So even though our body is not rich, small, a picture of what God looks like, our body is what our creator gave us to facilitate what he told us to do.  I was talking to a dad the other day who told me that he was in a little bit of trouble with his wife, and I could tell this was lighthearted. And I said, what? And he said, well, our five-year-old had a birthday, little boy, and I got him not some play tools, but I got him some real tools. Now, it wasn't a giant toolbox. It was his size, and it was a hammer. And he said now daddy's gonna teach you how to use this hammer. He said I wanted him to have, even at age five, the feeling of a hammer in his hand. I wanted him to feel the satisfaction in that. And he said, unfortunately, he felt the satisfaction in that in ways that were not fully pleasing to mom, leading to a couple of marks on some furniture, which he declared, he was fixing. When you look at that, and you say it comes real early to us, doesn't it? The desire to move things around.  When I was a little boy, my favorite toys were tonka trucks and that was back when they were made outta metal. And I had a complete construction set. I had drag lines and bulldozers and dump trucks, by the way, I still have them. I don't play with 'em anymore. Let me be that clear. But I still have them. But you know what? I can still remember sitting there in the dirt and making things and just imagining, seeing big people make things. And that was during the time when especially during the space race and then the postwar building boom, you could look everywhere and construction's taking place. We build things. We make things. There's an urge within us to do it. And we are told here that that comes right from the order given to us in creation, to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the, of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.  There's gonna be more to this of course, but I want to conclude by mentioning to you a story that I had to deal with about two years ago, in terms of some media attention. Had to do with the fact that the zoo and Berlin had decided to make the point, the human beings are just like any other animal, just like any other animal. So, the zoo in Berlin put up a special exhibit and they put human beings behind the cage and they identified the creature as homo sapiens. Man. So the people going through the zoo would walk through the zoo and see those human beings here in this cage, over here, you have orangutans and over here you have tigers. And over here you have lemurs and whatever else. And then the reptile house, you have the reptiles, and then the aviary, you have the birds and here you have human beings, but what made that ludicrous and why did that exhibit fail?  Not because we're not interesting to look at. It's because we know we have to put ourselves in the cage and the zebras did not put human beings in the cage and hammer a sign up front homo sapians Now we're the only creature who can build the cage and put ourselves in it, which just points to the fact that we really aren't just like all the rest of the animals after all. And we know it. Genesis one tells us why and shows us God's glory in it. And there is yet more, a whole lot more to come. Let's pray. Our Father, we are so thankful that you've given us so much in your word, this word, that arrests us and surprises us and tells us what we desperately need to know. Father, our familiarity with this text can sometimes Rob us of the absolute joy of finding in your word that, which is more profound, more clear, more present than many of us would ever have imagined. That's why we thank you for the privilege of going through this text word by word verse by verse, in order that we would gain from it, what we desperately need to know, not only for our understanding of things past, but our hope of things to come and our responsibility in the future. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.We are continuing our study verse by verse through the book of Genesis. And as we arrive today at the text, we arrive at verse 27 and we've been following through Genesis chapter one, not only verse by, but word by word. And as we have been working our way through the progression of the days first, in terms of the first three days of creation with God forming the earth. And then the second three days of God filling the earth, on the sixth day, we saw that in the beginning of the day, God created the creatures. And in verse 24, we saw, “and God said that the earth bring forth living creatures, according to their kinds lives talk and creeping things and beasts of the earth, according to their kinds. And it was so, and God made the beast of the earth, according to their kinds and the livestock, according to their kinds and everything that creeps on the ground, according to its kind, and God said, God saw that it was good.” What we saw in those verses here in the beginning of the sixth day is a change in how God addresses those whom he has created. We saw that when he created the things previous, including vegetation and things in the sea and the birds of the air, he said, “let them be fruitful and multiply.” But when he created these creatures identified as livestock and creeping things in beasts of the earth, God said that “they should bring forth each according to its kind. God saw that it was good.” Then God said, “let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing, the creeps on the earth.” Now we saw in looking at verse 20, that when we have the text here, say, “then God said” it's falling in the sequence, obviously.  But notice that then he speaks in the plural of majesty, which is also an indication of the Trinity. “Let us make man in our image after our likeness.” Now, the language of majesty is that which is used by royalty, such as the reigning queen of England. The Monarch of England never uses the first person singular, but also always uses the plural. “We are not amused” as Queen Victoria famously used to say. We do this. We do that. And it is because the Royal person is considered to be too magnificent to be contained within the first person singular. So many readers of the text here have insisted that what we have here is simply a Hebraic form of the plural of majesty. The problem with that is that we already have a Trinitarian indication in the text, and it comes very early because we are told that the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters as we saw beginning in the text, even in verse two.  We later find out, of course, that it is the Son, the Incarnate Word, the Logos, who is the agent of creation itself. So that creation is a Trinitarian act. Now, in all fairness, we do not know that from a plain reading of the book of Genesis without the revelation given to us in the New Testament, but we are not reading Genesis as if we do not have the gospel. We're not reading Genesis as if we are not Christians. And we are not reading Genesis as if we do not have the gospel of John that tells us “in the beginning was the Word. And the word was with God. And the word was, God, all things were made through him. And without him, nothing that was made was made.” So when we see, “let us make man in our image,” we have to see not only the plural of majesty, but an indication of the Trinity. But what is God here determined to do?  “Let us make man in our image.” So, the distinction that comes immediately in terms of the creation of the human creature is that this creature is going to be distinct from everything else to form the earth and everything else that filled the earth by the fact that this being this creature is to bear God's own image, to be made in the image of God. Now, the first thing we learned about human beings here is that we are a creature. That's a very important first Axiom of understanding what the Bible has to say about what it means to be human. We are not self-existent. We are not some kind of cosmic accident. We are a creature. What makes a creature distinct from something that just happens is intentionality and ownership. You make it, you own it. If you create it, it is yours. God created all things.  We understand that everything that exists, exists precisely because God created it. And the everything that God created, the everything that exists, finds its culmination in the creation of the human creature, who is owned by God, made by God. And yet fashioned by God. Made by God, not just as the other things he has made, even the other living creatures, but this creature is made in his image. We must remember however that there remains always an infinite distinction between the creator and the creature, even as the creature is made in God's own image. The creature is not God. The distinction between the creator and the creature is enduring. It is eternal and it is singularly important, but this creature is made in a different way, according to a different purpose than everything that has come before. “Let us make man in our image after our likeness.”  Now, some very interesting questions appear so early here in the text. “In our image, according to our likeness.” What in the world does that mean? Do we look like God? That's a fundamental theological mistake. It is the mistake that is at the very heart of idolatry. The assumption that God is like us in terms of a form just perfected. Now we know that this is idolatry by any reading of the scripture, but specifically in Romans chapter one. If you look over at Romans chapter one, you will see the indictment of this kind of confusion. And we should be so thankful again, that we're reading Genesis as Christians armed with all that God has given us in the New Testament. We read beginning in verse 18 “for the wrath of God has revealed from heaven against all in godliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.”  It's this suppression of the truth, that is, seemed to be the first evidence of human sinfulness and all humanities involved in this conspiracy to suppress the truth. “For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them for his invisible attributes.” Not ours, his invisible attributes, “namely his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” Here's where it gets very important for us. “Although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened claiming to be wise. They became fools and exchange the glory of the immortal God for images, resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.”  If you look at the idolatry of the ancient world, in particular for instance, if you even look in many of the Eastern religions, you see images of human beings. Images of human beings, often in an idealized or gigantic frame of reference or dimension. So, if you look at some of the Buddha statues from the east, you'll notice some of them are absolutely huge. They are humanity blown up big. In other cases, the idols are not so physically large as they are physically perfected. And so there has always been the temptation to idealize the human form and to worship that in some idolatrous way. But that is precisely not what it means for us to be made in God's likeness, because God, we are told, does not have a body. He will insist on the fact that he does not have a bodily form.  He will tell us, even as Jesus told the woman at the well that God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. The human desire to try to create an image, whether it's of a human being or, as Romans one tells us, or of any kind of thing, any kind of creature or created being or created thing is a form of perverted religion, otherwise known as idolatry. The ambition to do that is to cast a lie about God. Armed with that knowledge then, when God says, “let us make man in our image, after our likeness,” we know that that is not a physical capacity, but as we follow through biblical theology, our physical form does imply certain things that the image of God makes clear. It isn't that God has a body that we are a lesser copy of, it is that God possesses certain functions in a perfected and omnipotent way that he shares with his human creatures. The most important issue of the image of God is going to be the fact that we, of all the creatures alone have two capacities. First, the capacity to know him. And secondly, the capacity to rule. To exercise dominion.  Now first, what it means to be made in God's image is that of all the creatures, we are the only creature able to know God. Consciously to know him. Now God's glory is in all creation. God said, “it's good.” He declared the goodness of all creation. So there's not something the dog is supposed to have that the dog doesn't have. The dog did not lose the ability consciously to know the creator as a result of the fall. The dog was not meant to have this capacity. It doesn't have the capacity. We have a dog, as you know, Baxter, the Wonder Beagle, and Baxter is a very friendly, wonderful dog. He is kind of the prototype of dog. He is well of a certain kind of dog. Not a guard dog. Baxter would be completely incompetent at guarding anything because he likes everybody.  He likes crooks as well as honest people. He would be the welcoming committee for…although he believes he has a guard dog function because when UPS drops off something and rings the doorbell, he goes as if he's on the attack mode, but his tails wagging. Baxter's not a highly intelligent creature, even by dog standards. You know, there are dogs that can be trained to do all kinds of things. Baxter's not even impressed by that. He doesn’t even think he should aspire to that. But what he is, is absolute loyalty, absolute happiness, and absolute nose. Every once in a while, we will be walking along and he's just sniffing something and he looks up to me as if to say, “you have no idea what you're missing.” I'll just go on record of saying, I think I'm thankful I'm missing it, but nonetheless, he's got capacities I don't have, but he has no capacity consciously to know his creator.  Now God is glorified in that dog. God's glorified. And that dog does exactly what God intended that dog to do. And doesn't it say something about the joy of the creator in his creation? When you think about how he made all these creatures and decided that each should have this particular shape and form and this particular function, and then you look at some of these animals and you go, okay, if I'm an evolutionist, if I'm operating of a materialistic naturalistic worldview, I'm gonna say evolution did that strange thing. However, if I'm a human being, looking at that who is not an evolutionist, but rather is a believer in divine creation, I look at that and say, God has a sense of humor, a sense of delight in his creation. But in his, as human creatures, he built in, created the capacity consciously to know him.  The lion and the tiger, they show the glory of God, but they have no idea. The same things true, of course, of the plants and the trees. They're showing the glory of God, but they have no consciousness that they're doing so. Human beings do. From the moment of our awareness, we are aware that we are created. And that means that there is a creator. And the knowledge of that creator is that with which we all have to do. I was reading last night Nietzsche the famous nihilist at the end of the 19th century, in the beginning of the 20th century. The man who defined the argument that God is dead and that we have killed him. And he made a very interesting statement. He said, and I I'll have to paraphrase here, but he said, as much as we have killed, God, God keeps coming back in the grammar, which is an amazing statement for Nietzsche to have made. The very, that we have the capacity to use language. And there are regular rules of grammar. It means somehow, at least by intuition, that there is a creator, we kill him. And he comes back in the grammar.  I mentioned to you some weeks ago, as we were beginning our study in the book of Genesis, this book recently written by an evolutionary scientist trying to explain to other evolutionary scientists why it is that they're making so little headway getting children to accept the theory of evolution. And you'll recall that she has a very brilliant argument. It took a lot of her for her to come up with this. She said that it seems that children reason from form to maker that children learn. They learned it from their parents. You know, how do we get this house? Well, somebody built this house. You know, how do we get this car? Somebody made that car. You look at a little girl walks in and finds her brother on the floor, having made something with blocks. Well, he made that. She knows that. Well, then they look at each other and they say, where do we come from? Well, the very fact that we exist implies that someone made us. And so this evolutionary scientist said, we're up against a big challenge here, because it seems like, and this is the way she put it, It seems that evolution has encoded even children not to believe in evolution, which is a pretty tough thing to come to terms with. If you're an evolutionist, well being made in God's image means we do know. And this is why also we speak of the kind conscience is a part of the Imago Dei is a part of the awareness of the creator. This is why Adam and Eve, when they sin, hid themselves, and that's why your three-year-old does the same thing. It is because that conscience cries out.  Even when mom and dad aren't in the room, somebody saw me do that. But there is a second dimension. And that is the rule, the dominion that is given, and that comes so early in the text. “Let us make man and our image after our likeness.” And the very next statement is, “and let them have dominion,” that's Lordship, “over all the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over livestock and over the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” Dominion. We sing about dominion, we sing about God's Lordship, his dominion. We don't use that word much for instance, in our maps. Although if you go back a hundred years and you can actually say that precisely, you go back to 1912 and you look at a map, you will see any map in the English language that will use the word dominion in a map of the world, because it's the age of empire.  And so you have Russia, but you also have Russian dominions. And especially with the British empire, you have Britain, but then you have the dominions and those are the lands over which Britain ruled, even though they were not properly Britain. England had dominion over India, over Malaysia, over Singapore, over about a third of the Earth's surface. The word dominion is now sometimes even used with reference, for instance, especially in historical reference to Canada.  But let's just say we've kind of defined dominion down. I don't think Ottawa worries a great deal about what London thinks anymore. But back during the age of empire, I guarantee they did. The United States was once considered a dominion of Great Britain. Took a war or two to end that claim. But the word dominion is one that we are not able to do without, as human beings with reference, even to how we see the affairs of nations. But here in the very beginning, and it's very important that we remember that we're in Genesis one, the fall is not yet on the horizon. There is no sin, and there is no effective sin. God did not give dominion to the human creature because of the result of sin. He gave dominion to the human creature in the very perfect design of creation. “Let us make in our image, after our likeness and let them,” we went over them.  So this is to be a multiple creation. This is to be a plural creature. This is not just to be one man. This is to be humankind. The implication that as with the other creatures, this creature is to fill the earth, but that comes later as an order. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. Then verse 27, “so God created man in his own image, in the image of God, he created him, male and female He created them.” Oh, now we have them. We had let them before, but we didn't know who they were gonna be, but now we have them. And the essential new information that comes in verse 27 is male and female He created them  Now that’s very interesting because in all the previous acts of filling, there was no reference to what we now call gender. To what, in the English language, we would previously call the sexes. It wasn’t necessary, but we do know that even in the world of vegetation, their gender still plays a role. You still have pollen, and you have pollination. You still have seeds, and the things that that imply gender, even in the world of vegetation. It would take a botanist, an agronomist to explain that fully, but somewhere in elementary school or junior high school, we learned that even most trees and most vegetation has a gendered identity. We just can't recognize them very readily. Sometimes they exist in the same plant in one way or another, but when it comes to the, the living creatures, that is the creatures that fill the seas and that fill the skies, and that of course fill the earth in terms of the livestock and the beast of the field and the creeping things, they’re gendered. There's a male rabbit and a female rabbit. There's a male grouper and a female grouper. The animal world is filled with that gendered reality.  So are human beings, but human beings are named in terms of this gendered reality in the image of God who created him. That is humankind, man, male and female He created them. Now, before we go on at all, we should quickly note here that gender is thus a part of the goodness of God's creation. This is not a result of the fall. This is God's purpose in perfection from the beginning, male and female. You'll notice that there is a listing of two. There's a dichotomy. There is a, there's a bifurcation of humankind, a differentiation, a specialization that comes down to male and female. In order for human beings to be able to fulfill the mandate God give in terms of filling the earth, it's going to take the male and the female. This is a part of the goodness of God's creation. God could have by his sovereign power as creator, he could have assigned asexual reproduction to the things he has made.  He could have done that for the fish of the sea. He could have done that for the birds of the air. He could have done that for human beings. He did not. A couple things we learned from that before we even rush on from this text. The first thing is that human beings were never made as individual reference. We were never meant to be alone. Now that's going to be declared in chapter two. It is not good for man to be alone, but the reason we know that it isn't good for us to be alone is that it's going to take at least two in order for the human species to survive. It is going to take at least two for the process of filling the earth to continue. It's going to take at least two, because without both, there is no wholeness.  There is no picture of the species intact, flourishing, and functioning. It's going to take both a male and a female. And that's why in the second chapter of Genesis, we will be told so quickly here in that theological commentary, we're gonna find in chapter two, on the progression of the days that we are encountering here in chapter one, we're going to be told that it isn't good for human beings to be alone. Therefore, we are given the institution of marriage. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife. And they shall be one flesh, husband and wife, not just male and female, but before creation is finished, husband and wife. There are two and only two sexes mentioned here.  And, and in creation is important that we recognize that it was so. There is no confusion. There is no sin here. Sin manifesting itself later in human experience in grotesque confusions over that, which is so clear here in creation, male and female, it's very clear. The female is made in the image of God. The male is made in the image of God. More commentary on that will come in chapter two, but equally made in God's image. They're not only made for God. They are made for each other. There is a complementarian structure that is built into creation, and there's no confusion here. Now, after the fall, there will be all kinds of confusion here, never more than in our own day. And the confusions that fill our headlines today are confusions that would've astounded people even 20 or 30 years ago. We are living in what in human history must assuredly be the most grotesque and intense period of confusion over that which is so clear here in Genesis chapter one.  And to that, we will return When we look at the commentary on this text, we find in chapter two. but before leaving the creation of the human creature of man and woman we read, “and God blessed them, and God said to them,” so God is going to speak to his human and creatures. The creature made in his image, the creature consciously able to hear him. And to know that we are being spoken to, he says, “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” That's reproduction. That's what that's about now. It's probably more than that. It's about filling the earth, not only with babies and with progeny, but filling the earth with cities and buildings, and filling the earth with the things that by human industry is we're made in God's image we're able to do.  I said that even as we have a body that does not mean that God has a big body. It isn't that God is a perfected body. He doesn't have a body, but we actually need a body to be able to fulfill the functions that he has given us. God creates with a word. He says, let there be. And there is, he says, let there be light. And there's light. God doesn't need a hand. God doesn't need an arm. We need them. And we need that even to understand. That's why that when Israel tells the story of how God brought them out of bondage to Pharaoh in Egypt, he'll say he brought us out by his mighty hand and his outstretched arm. Well he doesn't have an arm. And, and that doesn't mean physically that some giant arm scooped up Israel in captivity. No, it's metaphorical language. Israel knew it. And we know it because God doesn't have a hand. God doesn't have an arm. God doesn't actually need a hand or an arm to accomplish what he does, but we do. So even though our body is not rich, small, a picture of what God looks like, our body is what our creator gave us to facilitate what he told us to do.  I was talking to a dad the other day who told me that he was in a little bit of trouble with his wife, and I could tell this was lighthearted. And I said, what? And he said, well, our five-year-old had a birthday, little boy, and I got him not some play tools, but I got him some real tools. Now, it wasn't a giant toolbox. It was his size, and it was a hammer. And he said now daddy's gonna teach you how to use this hammer. He said I wanted him to have, even at age five, the feeling of a hammer in his hand. I wanted him to feel the satisfaction in that. And he said, unfortunately, he felt the satisfaction in that in ways that were not fully pleasing to mom, leading to a couple of marks on some furniture, which he declared, he was fixing. When you look at that, and you say it comes real early to us, doesn't it? The desire to move things around.  When I was a little boy, my favorite toys were tonka trucks and that was back when they were made outta metal. And I had a complete construction set. I had drag lines and bulldozers and dump trucks, by the way, I still have them. I don't play with 'em anymore. Let me be that clear. But I still have them. But you know what? I can still remember sitting there in the dirt and making things and just imagining, seeing big people make things. And that was during the time when especially during the space race and then the postwar building boom, you could look everywhere and construction's taking place. We build things. We make things. There's an urge within us to do it. And we are told here that that comes right from the order given to us in creation, to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the, of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.  There's gonna be more to this of course, but I want to conclude by mentioning to you a story that I had to deal with about two years ago, in terms of some media attention. Had to do with the fact that the zoo and Berlin had decided to make the point, the human beings are just like any other animal, just like any other animal. So, the zoo in Berlin put up a special exhibit and they put human beings behind the cage and they identified the creature as homo sapiens. Man. So the people going through the zoo would walk through the zoo and see those human beings here in this cage, over here, you have orangutans and over here you have tigers. And over here you have lemurs and whatever else. And then the reptile house, you have the reptiles, and then the aviary, you have the birds and here you have human beings, but what made that ludicrous and why did that exhibit fail?  Not because we're not interesting to look at. It's because we know we have to put ourselves in the cage and the zebras did not put human beings in the cage and hammer a sign up front homo sapians Now we're the only creature who can build the cage and put ourselves in it, which just points to the fact that we really aren't just like all the rest of the animals after all. And we know it. Genesis one tells us why and shows us God's glory in it. And there is yet more, a whole lot more to come. Let's pray. Our Father, we are so thankful that you've given us so much in your word, this word, that arrests us and surprises us and tells us what we desperately need to know. Father, our familiarity with this text can sometimes Rob us of the absolute joy of finding in your word that, which is more profound, more clear, more present than many of us would ever have imagined. That's why we thank you for the privilege of going through this text word by word verse by verse, in order that we would gain from it, what we desperately need to know, not only for our understanding of things past, but our hope of things to come and our responsibility in the future. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2013/04/21/genesis-120-26/ Sun, 21 Apr 2013 09:30:40 +0000 In verse 20, we read, “And God said, ‘Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth, across the expanse of the heavens.’ So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them saying, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.’ And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.” (Genesis 1:20-23)
So on the fifth day of creation God, in this sequential, developmental understanding of the formation of the universe as we know it here on this planet, fills the seas and fills the air. Now, if you've ever been in a place where there is no life in the sea, you'll notice how troubling that is. If you go to the Dead Sea, for instance, which has such a high mineral content that there is no aquatic life in it. No one goes fishing in the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea has that name because its waters are death to live creatures. And it appears that it's just this sea of death. 
Meanwhile, you go to any living water and you'll notice very quickly that there are things in it and you don't have to be Henry David Thoreau on Walden's pond to have the experience of noticing that the water's alive, that there are things in that water. When you're a little child and in the shallows of a pond you play with tadpoles and little minnows. The little minnows come to surround you and you realize there are live things in this water. You’re there placidly and a fish breaks the surface of the water or a bird flies down and grabs a fish and goes off with it. Or you see other evidence of life in the water. I was just again down with some folks in salt water and you realize how alive it is. On the boat that I was on, there were two little boys and they were six and eight. And they yelled, “Shark!”, which turned out to be a false alarm. It wasn't a shark, there were two porpoises that were playing in the wake of the boat. Their eyes got so big as they realized these animals were there and behind them were many others. One eventually said, “How many are there?” Well, there's one, no, there's two, there's three, there was an entire pod of porpoises playing in the wake of the boat. And, uh, they were clearly having a blast. And you realize, yes, the seas are filled with all of these creatures filled with fish and crustaceans and plankton. And of course filled with sea mammals as well. 
God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures.” And you've seen these, for the first generation now, these massive pictures of these schools of fish in the depths of the sea. Now we have the ability to put these cameras down in the very deepest depths of the deepest part of the ocean, such as the Mariana Trench in the Pacific. There are creatures that are particularly created in order to withstand the almost unbelievable pressures of water at that depth. They are not handsome creatures, by our estimation, they are fearsome creatures. They look like something that could have been drawn by some kind of science fiction artist, but that's the point, isn't it? No science fiction, no imaginative depiction of what these creatures might look like is any stranger than how they actually look. By the way, one of the things that we've noted is that in ancient records, in ancient historians, there are records of creatures that people thought were invented. Yet now we know that some of them are simply these creatures in the great depth that sometimes get washed up on the shore or they get caught in a fishing net. All of a sudden you realize this thing's not mythological, it's altogether real and altogether is ugly as we were told. Fearsome sometimes. 
But what we have here are swarms. The point of verse 20 is God's creative intention that the waters would not just be alive here and there, sometimes under certain circumstances with life, but the life would simply swarm within the waters. And thus, he said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures and let birds fly above the earth in the expanse of the heavens.” So in the seas and in the skies, God designed and created swarms of creatures. Great flock of birds. Not only flocks of many birds, but flocks of many kinds of birds and many flocks of their kinds, and also there in the sea. So God created the great sea creatures. Now, what are these great sea creatures? Well, they are certainly the whales and there certainly are the other large fish. There are some incredibly large fish and not only the great sea creatures, but every living creature that moves with which the water's swarm. 
That word swarm comes again. In other words, it is indicating how fertile the earth is, how fecund the world is, how filled with life the world is. So having formed it, God now fills it. He doesn't fill it in a small way. He doesn't fill it with a sporadic evidence of his creative activity. He doesn't put these creatures just here and there. He puts them in the seas where they swarm. He puts them in the sky where they swarm, every living creature that moves with which the waters swarm according to their kinds and every winged bird, according to its kind. Now the word that's translated bird here really means anything with wings. Just like the fish commonly refer to everything that's in the sea, even though we know some of them are mammals, so also when it says birds it is speaking of all winged creatures. As you know, there are some winged creatures that buzz and hover as well as those who fly and glide. And God saw that it was good. 
Before we go on, we need to recognize there are a couple of other cues to God's glory in creation evident within these verses. For instance, it says, “God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds”. That word, according to their kinds, that phrase is very important. It is repeated, of course, with the winged birds, “and every winged bird, according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.” God creates creatures according to their kind. Now, this is an indication that God has created species. God has created categories of animals. God created horses and cattle, as we shall see in the next day. But at this point, he has created all kinds of things that fill the sea and all kinds of birds and winged creatures that fill the air. Every one of them is according to its kind. It will reproduce according to its kind. 
When God created the trees, he said, and looking back here at verse 11, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” Now the importance of this really can't be overstated because in confrontation with the dominant secular scientific worldview, that says that all life simply comes from one common source and developed along different trajectories and a different developmental patterns to the world that we know today filled with living creatures, animate and inanimate plants, vegetation, and then the animal kingdom and humans and all the rest, the scripture clearly says that God's intention was reflected in the specific, sovereign designation of what we might call species, kinds. That's evidenced in the fact that trees bear fruit in which is the seed so that what will reproduce will be its kind. So also is the seed in the animals that swarm in the sea and those that swarm in the air, such that you have reproduction according to kinds. 
There's several implications of this. First of all, again, God's creative glory is in the variety of the kinds and his delight in the kinds. It's not just our delight, observing them. We need to remember God's delight in creating them. That will become even more evident as we follow through, but at this point, just looking at the things that are in the waters and the things that are in the air, they just like the trees, are to reproduce according to its kind. There is a mandate for them to reproduce “And God blessed them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas and let the birds multiply on the earth.’” God's mandate to reproduce is another implication of each of these creatures according to its kind. Two things here, first of all, God blesses them and secondly, God commands them. God blessed them, commanding be fruitful and multiply and fill. Be fruitful, multiply fill. 
I want you to notice that God here is commanding creatures. At this point, he is commanding sea creatures, air creatures. He is commanding fish and birds and he is commanding them to multiply. Now he commanded the trees to multiply, but not by speaking to them in the same way, but rather, “Let this happen.” But you'll notice, to these creatures, he speaks directly, “Be fruitful and multiply.” God speaks to those that he's created and tells them to multiply. God plants within them a desire, even rightly described as an instinct, to multiply.
God's blessing is in the command to multiply, but it's also a command to fill. In other words, God's creatures by God's own creator assignment, bear responsibility to continue his work of filling. God forms in three days, God fills in three days. But God fills in the beginning by creating the species, the kinds, and then by commanding them to multiply. It will be a pattern we will recognize as we get to the creation of humankind on the sixth day. So the blessing is in the command to multiply, which is a command to fill. The earth as God has created it is intended to be filled. Filling is a blessing.
God continues his activity. As we follow along with verse 24, “And God said, let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds - livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds. And it was so.”
God says, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures.” Now these are gonna be on the earth, not in the sea, not in the sky, but walking upon the earth and as we shall sea creeping, as well as walking. “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds - livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” So, livestock. From the very beginning, God intended some animals to be domesticated. That's livestock. Livestock is differentiated here from the beasts of the field. Livestock are those animals that we have domesticated but God domesticated them first. In other words, God made certain animals to serve human beings rather directly. Livestock is a term that makes no sense in the wild. It only makes sense in civilization. Livestock is a sign that these animals are created in a particular way to serve the needs of humankind. 
“Livestock and creeping things.” Between livestock and beasts of the earth we've got creeping things. Creeping things are part of God's design as well. Now, at this point they creep, creeping things. The clearest meaning to this is low on the earth. They're creepy little things.
The word creepy to us is a negative word, unless you're a fifth grade boy. For most people, creepy is a designation of things you would rather not run into. Close to the earth. At this point they don't slither, they creep. Only after Genesis three do we have things that slither. No one ever uses the word slither positively. You never say, “Here's the queen, she just slithered into the throne room.” That just doesn't work. You don't say, “Here's grandma, she just slithered in the house.” That doesn't work. Slither is a negative word, traveling on one's belly, as the Scripture will say. At this point there are creeping things and the creepy things are necessary too. These creeping things are a part of the glory of God's creation. These things that are frogs and reptiles and lizards and all these things. Livestock and creepy things and beasts of the earth, these beasts - does it not interest us that God in his sovereign action in creation thrilled in the variety of the beast of the earth? 
One of my ambitions is to go on a safari. I would love to be there in Africa and see so many of these beasts that I grew up watching on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. That was one of those instances of child abuse in my childhood, because that came on at a time that often conflicted with evening church on Sunday night. One had to be very sick in my household to see Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom or the Wonderful World of Disney. The Wonderful World of Disney turned out to be for Methodists and other people who did not have Sunday night church. The wonderful world of Sunday night service is where I was as a son, but every once in a while we would get to see it. There were other times when we could see Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. You remember there was Marlin Perkins who was the kindly zoologist or least posing as the expert and he had on his safari jacket and he had his distinguished mustache and he had his very specific elocution as he spoke of each of the animals. Then there was Jim, the poor guy that actually had to go risk life and limb to show you these animals. And so Marlon Perkins would say, “While, I'm here safely in the studio,Jim will be down here with the boa constrictor.” You know what that’s like. You look at it and for most of us, it was an amazing thing to see. 
In the great age of exploration it was fascinating to people, especially in Great Britain and in the United States to come face to face with these things, even by means of a photograph. They had heard of them but they really didn't get to see them. In the age of exploration, they would bring back taxidermy models of these things. Sometimes they would fill zoos with them. The great day of the zoo was when all of a sudden in the age of exploration and as east India tea companies going to places they would, they would come across these things. You'd have Sumatran tigers brought to London and you would have polar bears brought to Berlin so that people could see these things face to face. Many children, as I did, had a great acquaintance with these animals by means of the National Geographic magazine. When you had these pictures that came, I devoured every single issue of National Geographic. Now we have Animal Planet. We have 24/7 wildlife shows. Why? Because we're fascinated with them. We're fascinated with the ones that are cute and cuddly, such as the koala bear, which turns out isn't even a bear. And we're interested in those that can kill us. There's a great fascination with the things that will eat us and do so evidently without any tinge of conscience. God made these beasts, these creeping things, and the livestock, each according to its kinds.
“And it was so. And God made the beast of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.” 
Now, when we began at verse 20, we saw when God created the fish and the swarms in the sea, the birds and the swarms in the air, he said, “It is good.” And God saw that it was good. Now he declares again, that it is good. On the fifth day of creation, we had the waters and the birds created. On the sixth day of creation we have the creation of the living creatures on the earth and eventually also the crowning glory of creation in terms of the creatures, the creation of men and women, of humankind. “And God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.’”
Now you need to notice as you look at the different commands, you'll notice that as you follow through the sequence, something now changes. God said in verse three, “Let there be light.” God says in verse six, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters.” God says in verse nine, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place and let the dry land appear.” God says in verse 11, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed.” God said in verse 14, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night.” God says in verse 20, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures.” And God says in verse 24, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures.” And then God says in verse 26, “Let us make man.” Do you notice the difference? There is a pronoun here that is nonexistent in the previous commands. The previous command just said, “Let there be, let there be, let there be, let there be.” And because God sovereignly said, “Let there be,” it was, just as he said. But now God says, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” 
Now, what is this pronoun to indicate to us? Would this indicate merely a linguistic convention known as the plural of majesty? It could be. The reigning Monarch of England never uses the first person singular because he or she represents the nation. So queen Victoria, for instance, famously said when she wasn't amused, “We are not amused.” She meant she, herself. That's a we. The rest of us are an I. “We do this.” “We do that.” That's the plural of majesty. Is that what's going on here? Is this throne language? Is this royal, majestic language? Well, it's certainly royal and it's certainly majestic, but that's not what is going on here. Or Is God referring back to all the things that he has made and including them in the plurality of this pronoun, us, let us make man? No, the animals aren't invited to help make man. The beasts of the field, the livestock, they're not invited to participate in this. So why the plural pronoun out of the sequence? It is because God here is about to create the only creature made in his image. And as he does so, he says, “Let us”.
There are clues already to the fact that there is a plural point of reference here. You don't find it in the sequence of the first five days. You don't even find it in the beginning of the sixth day with the creation of the livestock and the creeping things and the beasts. You find it in the first two verses. “In the beginning,” we read, “God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” From Genesis one on onward we will come to understand that the Spirit of God refers to God's active presence in his creation. God is transcendent so he is apart from his creation, but by his Spirit he is present in creation, though not part of it. And he is active. His spirit is never inactive. His spirit is never merely a witness. His spirit is never merely a presence. It is always an active presence. We will come later to know to name this Spirit, the Holy Spirit. We will come to understand in the New Testament, the ministry of this Spirit. We have here a Trinitarian reference, but if we were not Christians, we would not know how to understand this. You say Trinitarian, you just mentioned the Father, not yet named as Father, but we know this is the Father and the Spirit. That's two. Where is the third? Well, we come to know, by means of the New Testament, that Christ is here. And to that we will turn subsequently. But at this point with this strategic verse, it is important for us to recognize that God says, “Let us make man in our image.” In the New Testament, in the gospel of John, in the prologue to that Gospel, we read that Christ is the Logos, the Word through whom the Father created everything that is. We have here, the Spirit of God, his active presence in creation. We have the Creator, who will be designated as Father, and of course that designates relationship. He isn't a Father yet until he has created the human creatures who will know him as Heavenly Father. And we have Christ whom we know to be present here by means of the New Testament. 
Here we have a distinction in how God speaks, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Now the word likeness becomes important here. What kind of likeness will this be? Well, since there is no body, God does not have a form, this likeness is going to have to mean something else. But the important thing for us to recognize here in this sixth day of creation is that we have reached a climactic point. It is climactic in the sense that everything that has been created in terms of the forming and in terms of the filling has gotten us ready for this. This is something different than whatever has come before. What has come before is the creation of living things, including vegetation, trees that have seed in their fruit, according to their kinds. Then the swarming things of the sea, each reproducing according to its kind, the birds of the air, each reproducing according to its kind. Then we have the creation of the creatures on the sixth day, these who are livestock and creeping things and beasts and God speaks to them and says to them, “Reproduce.” And they do. And they will, according to their kinds.But there's more. 
God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our lightness.” And we shall see something that isn't said of any other creature, “And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” What we have here in the sequence of creation, by the time we arrive here in the highest point of the sixth day, is that it turns out that the forming and the filling was to come to a climactic conclusion in the creation of the one creature made in God's own image. He will not be, himself, imaged in creation by means of an idol. He will not, as we shall see, allow any idol even to be brought into his presence, but he stamps his likeness on this final creature he creates, when in this Trinitarian reference he says, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”. You'll notice that what is immediately said thereafter is, “Let them have dominion.” It's not said over anything else.
The fish aren't told to rule over the birds. The birds aren't told to rule over the giraffes. The beasts aren't told to rule over the livestock. The livestock aren't told to rule over the creeping things. They simply do what they do. They operate by what we will later call instinct. They have a very, very specific place within what we would call their habitat or their environment, and they stay there. They will act in ways that will sometimes seem very complex. Termites will build these massive termite mounds that you see in Africa. Bees will operate with what must be described as a bee civilization. Beavers build dams, they act in amazing ways, but they don't have dominion. Beavers build dams but they don't arrest cattle. Termites build these magnificent mounds but they don't hunt birds. In other words, each has its own slot. Each has its own role. Each lives out that role to the glory of God. The termite building its mound thinks it's merely building a mound because this is where they live, and this is where they reproduce, and this is where they colonize. He doesn't know he is doing it for the glory of God. He's not taking dominion, he's just operating by instinct.
You watch the beaver, he's doing the same thing. A farmer one time who told me that his land was being flooded because every time you turn around, the beavers would build a dam. And he said, “I would just go back and destroy the dam.” He said, “I know that sounds mean but it was my farm or the beavers. They can move somewhere else.” The problem is they wouldn't move anywhere else. Tear down the dam and a week later there'd be another dam. He'd tear down the dam and they would build another dam. And he said he'd actually look at the beavers and they would stare at him. He said, “I wasn’t gonna kill 'em, I just wanted them to stop flooding my land.” Well, they're not taking dominion. They're simply operating out of instinct. If they were smarter beavers, they would have moved down somewhere. And if they were beavers with dominion, they'd shoot the farmer. They'd tear down his house. That's not the way they operate. Each of these creatures, each of these living things before the creation of humanity, has a place where it displays the glory of God but does not do so by means of dominion and does not do so consciously. 
We have to pause here in order to say that when we come back to look at this sixth day of creation and its conclusion and the creation of the human creature, we're going to note that the storyline of the Bible now begins in terms of God’s dealing with humanity. In order to get that story right, we have to get it right from the very beginning, which means we have to understand everything that has been given us here in Genesis one, and later in Genesis two, to understand who is this creature we are. Why are we different than all of the other creatures? Why is God's glory in what he is assigned to us? And what purpose does all of this point toward in terms of the drama of redemption that will follow?
Forming and filling. There's so much here to recognize, so much here to ponder, but as we close at this point, we need to recognize that the verdict in all of this has been uniform. It's good. Everything is as God wants it to be but he isn't finished yet. 
Let's pray. “Father, we are so thankful for all that you give us in these verses in a sequential understanding of your creation, that fills less than a page of our text, but fills the earth with your glory. Father, we pray to keep these things alive in our minds as we ponder them in our hearts. We pray that your Holy Spirit will apply these truths to our hearts, to conform us to the image of Christ until we meet again. And we pray this in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 33:29 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=26715 Audio, Exposition, Genesis, Genesis Series noWe are continuing in our verse by verse study of the book of Genesis. We are arriving at verse 20 and it is the fifth day of creation. It has often been noted that of the six active days of creation, there are three days of forming the earth and there are three days of filling it. In three days God forms the earth and thus the earth is ready for habitation, but in the next three days, he fills it. Now he is going to fill it with living creatures. In verse 20, we read, “And God said, ‘Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth, across the expanse of the heavens.’ So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them saying, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.’ And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.” (Genesis 1:20-23) So on the fifth day of creation God, in this sequential, developmental understanding of the formation of the universe as we know it here on this planet, fills the seas and fills the air. Now, if you've ever been in a place where there is no life in the sea, you'll notice how troubling that is. If you go to the Dead Sea, for instance, which has such a high mineral content that there is no aquatic life in it. No one goes fishing in the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea has that name because its waters are death to live creatures. And it appears that it's just this sea of death.  Meanwhile, you go to any living water and you'll notice very quickly that there are things in it and you don't have to be Henry David Thoreau on Walden's pond to have the experience of noticing that the water's alive, that there are things in that water. When you're a little child and in the shallows of a pond you play with tadpoles and little minnows. The little minnows come to surround you and you realize there are live things in this water. You’re there placidly and a fish breaks the surface of the water or a bird flies down and grabs a fish and goes off with it. Or you see other evidence of life in the water. I was just again down with some folks in salt water and you realize how alive it is. On the boat that I was on, there were two little boys and they were six and eight. And they yelled, “Shark!”, which turned out to be a false alarm. It wasn't a shark, there were two porpoises that were playing in the wake of the boat. Their eyes got so big as they realized these animals were there and behind them were many others. One eventually said, “How many are there?” Well, there's one, no, there's two, there's three, there was an entire pod of porpoises playing in the wake of the boat. And, uh, they were clearly having a blast. And you realize, yes, the seas are filled with all of these creatures filled with fish and crustaceans and plankton. And of course filled with sea mammals as well.  God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures.” And you've seen these, for the first generation now, these massive pictures of these schools of fish in the depths of the sea. Now we have the ability to put these cameras down in the very deepest depths of the deepest part of the ocean, such as the Mariana Trench in the Pacific. There are creatures that are particularly created in order to withstand the almost unbelievable pressures of water at that depth. They are not handsome creatures, by our estimation, they are fearsome creatures. They look like something that could have been drawn by some kind of science fiction artist, but that's the point, isn't it? No science fiction, no imaginative depiction of what these creatures might look like is any stranger than how they actually look. By the way, one of the things that we've noted is that in ancient records, in ancient historians, there are records of creatures that people thought were invented. Yet now we know that some of them are simply these creatures in the great depth that sometimes get washed up on the shore or they get caught in a fishing net. All of a sudden you realize this thing's not mythological, it's altogether real and altogether is ugly as we were told. Fearsome sometimes.  But what we have here are swarms. The point of verse 20 is God's creative intention that the waters would not just be alive here and there, sometimes under certain circumstances with life, but the life would simply swarm within the waters. And thus, he said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures and let birds fly above the earth in the expanse of the heavens.” So in the seas and in the skies, God designed and created swarms of creatures. Great flock of birds. Not only flocks of many birds, but flocks of many kinds of birds and many flocks of their kinds, and also there in the sea. So God created the great sea creatures. Now, what are these great sea creatures? Well, they are certainly the whales and there certainly are the other large fish. There are some incredibly large fish and not only the great sea creatures, but every living creature that moves with which the water's swarm.  That word swarm comes again. In other words, it is indicating how fertile the earth is, how fecund the world is, how filled with life the world is. So having formed it, God now fills it. He doesn't fill it in a small way. He doesn't fill it with a sporadic evidence of his creative activity. He doesn't put these creatures just here and there. He puts them in the seas where they swarm. He puts them in the sky where they swarm, every living creature that moves with which the waters swarm according to their kinds and every winged bird, according to its kind. Now the word that's translated bird here really means anything with wings. Just like the fish commonly refer to everything that's in the sea, even though we know some of them are mammals, so also when it says birds it is speaking of all winged creatures. As you know, there are some winged creatures that buzz and hover as well as those who fly and glide. And God saw that it was good.  Before we go on, we need to recognize there are a couple of other cues to God's glory in creation evident within these verses. For instance, it says, “God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds”. That word, according to their kinds, that phrase is very important. It is repeated, of course, with the winged birds, “and every winged bird, according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.” God creates creatures according to their kind. Now, this is an indication that God has created species. God has created categories of animals. God created horses and cattle, as we shall see in the next day. But at this point, he has created all kinds of things that fill the sea and all kinds of birds and winged creatures that fill the air. Every one of them is according to its kind. It will reproduce according to its kind.  When God created the trees, he said, and looking back here at verse 11, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” Now the importance of this really can't be overstated because in confrontation with the dominant secular scientific worldview, that says that all life simply comes from one common source and developed along different trajectories and a different developmental patterns to the world that we know today filled with living creatures, animate and inanimate plants, vegetation, and then the animal kingdom and humans and all the rest, the scripture clearly says that God's intention was reflected in the specific, sovereign designation of what we might call species, kinds. That's evidenced in the fact that trees bear fruit in which is the seed so that what will reproduce will be its kind. So also is the seed in the animals that swarm in the sea and those that swarm in the air, such that you have reproduction according to kinds.  There's several implications of this. First of all, again, God's creative glory is in the variety of the kinds and his delight in the kinds. It's not just our delight, observing them. We need to remember God's delight in creating them. That will become even more evident as we follow through, but at this point, just looking at the things that are in the waters and the things that are in the air, they just like the trees, are to reproduce according to its kind. There is a mandate for them to reproduce “And God blessed them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas and let the birds multiply on the earth.’” God's mandate to reproduce is another implication of each of these creatures according to its kind. Two things here, first of all, God blesses them and secondly, God commands them. God blessed them, commanding be fruitful and multiply and fill. Be fruitful, multiply fill.  I want you to notice that God here is commanding creatures. At this point, he is commanding sea creatures, air creatures. He is commanding fish and birds and he is commanding them to multiply. Now he commanded the trees to multiply, but not by speaking to them in the same way, but rather, “Let this happen.” But you'll notice, to these creatures, he speaks directly, “Be fruitful and multiply.” God speaks to those that he's created and tells them to multiply. God plants within them a desire, even rightly described as an instinct, to multiply. God's blessing is in the command to multiply, but it's also a command to fill. In other words, God's creatures by God's own creator assignment, bear responsibility to continue his work of filling. God forms in three days, God fills in three days. But God fills in the beginning by creating the species, the kinds, and then by commanding them to multiply. It will be a pattern we will recognize as we get to the creation of humankind on the sixth day. So the blessing is in the command to multiply, which is a command to fill. The earth as God has created it is intended to be filled. Filling is a blessing. God continues his activity. As we follow along with verse 24, “And God said, let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds - livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds. And it was so.” God says, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures.” Now these are gonna be on the earth, not in the sea, not in the sky, but walking upon the earth and as we shall sea creeping, as well as walking. “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds - livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” So, livestock. From the very beginning, God intended some animals to be domesticated. That's livestock. Livestock is differentiated here from the beasts of the field. Livestock are those animals that we have domesticated but God domesticated them first. In other words, God made certain animals to serve human beings rather directly. Livestock is a term that makes no sense in the wild. It only makes sense in civilization. Livestock is a sign that these animals are created in a particular way to serve the needs of humankind.  “Livestock and creeping things.” Between livestock and beasts of the earth we've got creeping things. Creeping things are part of God's design as well. Now, at this point they creep, creeping things. The clearest meaning to this is low on the earth. They're creepy little things. The word creepy to us is a negative word, unless you're a fifth grade boy. For most people, creepy is a designation of things you would rather not run into. Close to the earth. At this point they don't slither, they creep. Only after Genesis three do we have things that slither. No one ever uses the word slither positively. You never say, “Here's the queen, she just slithered into the throne room.” That just doesn't work. You don't say, “Here's grandma, she just slithered in the house.” That doesn't work. Slither is a negative word, traveling on one's belly, as the Scripture will say. At this point there are creeping things and the creepy things are necessary too. These creeping things are a part of the glory of God's creation. These things that are frogs and reptiles and lizards and all these things. Livestock and creepy things and beasts of the earth, these beasts - does it not interest us that God in his sovereign action in creation thrilled in the variety of the beast of the earth?  One of my ambitions is to go on a safari. I would love to be there in Africa and see so many of these beasts that I grew up watching on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. That was one of those instances of child abuse in my childhood, because that came on at a time that often conflicted with evening church on Sunday night. One had to be very sick in my household to see Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom or the Wonderful World of Disney. The Wonderful World of Disney turned out to be for Methodists and other people who did not have Sunday night church. The wonderful world of Sunday night service is where I was as a son, but every once in a while we would get to see it. There were other times when we could see Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. You remember there was Marlin Perkins who was the kindly zoologist or least posing as the expert and he had on his safari jacket and he had his distinguished mustache and he had his very specific elocution as he spoke of each of the animals. Then there was Jim, the poor guy that actually had to go risk life and limb to show you these animals. And so Marlon Perkins would say, “While, I'm here safely in the studio,Jim will be down here with the boa constrictor.” You know what that’s like. You look at it and for most of us, it was an amazing thing to see.  In the great age of exploration it was fascinating to people, especially in Great Britain and in the United States to come face to face with these things, even by means of a photograph. They had heard of them but they really didn't get to see them. In the age of exploration, they would bring back taxidermy models of these things. Sometimes they would fill zoos with them. The great day of the zoo was when all of a sudden in the age of exploration and as east India tea companies going to places they would, they would come across these things. You'd have Sumatran tigers brought to London and you would have polar bears brought to Berlin so that people could see these things face to face. Many children, as I did, had a great acquaintance with these animals by means of the National Geographic magazine. When you had these pictures that came, I devoured every single issue of National Geographic. Now we have Animal Planet. We have 24/7 wildlife shows. Why? Because we're fascinated with them. We're fascinated with the ones that are cute and cuddly, such as the koala bear, which turns out isn't even a bear. And we're interested in those that can kill us. There's a great fascination with the things that will eat us and do so evidently without any tinge of conscience. God made these beasts, these creeping things, and the livestock, each according to its kinds. “And it was so. And God made the beast of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.”  Now, when we began at verse 20, we saw when God created the fish and the swarms in the sea, the birds and the swarms in the air, he said, “It is good.” And God saw that it was good. Now he declares again, that it is good. On the fifth day of creation, we had the waters and the birds created. On the sixth day of creation we have the creation of the living creatures on the earth and eventually also the crowning glory of creation in terms of the creatures, the creation of men and women, of humankind. “And God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.’” Now you need to notice as you look at the different commands, you'll notice that as you follow through the sequence, something now changes. God said in verse three, “Let there be light.” God says in verse six, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters.” God says in verse nine, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place and let the dry land appear.” God says in verse 11, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed.” God said in verse 14, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night.” God says in verse 20, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures.” And God says in verse 24, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures.” And then God says in verse 26, “Let us make man.” Do you notice the difference? There is a pronoun here that is nonexistent in the previous commands. The previous command just said, “Let there be, let there be, let there be, let there be.” And because God sovereignly said, “Let there be,” it was, just as he said. But now God says, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”  Now, what is this pronoun to indicate to us? Would this indicate merely a linguistic convention known as the plural of majesty? It could be. The reigning Monarch of England never uses the first person singular because he or she represents the nation. So queen Victoria, for instance, famously said when she wasn't amused, “We are not amused.” She meant she, herself. That's a we. The rest of us are an I. “We do this.” “We do that.” That's the plural of majesty. Is that what's going on here? Is this throne language? Is this royal, majestic language? Well, it's certainly royal and it's certainly majestic, but that's not what is going on here. Or Is God referring back to all the things that he has made and including them in the plurality of this pronoun, us, let us make man? No, the animals aren't invited to help make man. The beasts of the field, the livestock, they're not invited to participate in this. So why the plural pronoun out of the sequence? It is because God here is about to create the only creature made in his image. And as he does so, he says, “Let us”. There are clues already to the fact that there is a plural point of reference here. You don't find it in the sequence of the first five days. You don't even find it in the beginning of the sixth day with the creation of the livestock and the creeping things and the beasts. You find it in the first two verses. “In the beginning,” we read, “God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” From Genesis one on onward we will come to understand that the Spirit of God refers to God's active presence in his creation. God is transcendent so he is apart from his creation, but by his Spirit he is present in creation, though not part of it. And he is active. His spirit is never inactive. His spirit is never merely a witness. His spirit is never merely a presence. It is always an active presence. We will come later to know to name this Spirit, the Holy Spirit. We will come to understand in the New Testament, the ministry of this Spirit. We have here a Trinitarian reference, but if we were not Christians, we would not know how to understand this. You say Trinitarian, you just mentioned the Father, not yet named as Father, but we know this is the Father and the Spirit. That's two. Where is the third? Well, we come to know, by means of the New Testament, that Christ is here. And to that we will turn subsequently. But at this point with this strategic verse, it is important for us to recognize that God says, “Let us make man in our image.” In the New Testament, in the gospel of John, in the prologue to that Gospel, we read that Christ is the Logos, the Word through whom the Father created everything that is. We have here, the Spirit of God, his active presence in creation. We have the Creator, who will be designated as Father, and of course that designates relationship. He isn't a Father yet until he has created the human creatures who will know him as Heavenly Father. And we have Christ whom we know to be present here by means of the New Testament.  Here we have a distinction in how God speaks, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Now the word likeness becomes important here. What kind of likeness will this be? Well, since there is no body, God does not have a form, this likeness is going to have to mean something else. But the important thing for us to recognize here in this sixth day of creation is that we have reached a climactic point. It is climactic in the sense that everything that has been created in terms of the forming and in terms of the filling has gotten us ready for this. This is something different than whatever has come before. What has come before is the creation of living things, including vegetation, trees that have seed in their fruit, according to their kinds. Then the swarming things of the sea, each reproducing according to its kind, the birds of the air, each reproducing according to its kind. Then we have the creation of the creatures on the sixth day, these who are livestock and creeping things and beasts and God speaks to them and says to them, “Reproduce.” And they do. And they will, according to their kinds.But there's more.  God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our lightness.” And we shall see something that isn't said of any other creature, “And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” What we have here in the sequence of creation, by the time we arrive here in the highest point of the sixth day, is that it turns out that the forming and the filling was to come to a climactic conclusion in the creation of the one creature made in God's own image. He will not be, himself, imaged in creation by means of an idol. He will not, as we shall see, allow any idol even to be brought into his presence, but he stamps his likeness on this final creature he creates, when in this Trinitarian reference he says, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”. You'll notice that what is immediately said thereafter is, “Let them have dominion.” It's not said over anything else. The fish aren't told to rule over the birds. The birds aren't told to rule over the giraffes. The beasts aren't told to rule over the livestock. The livestock aren't told to rule over the creeping things. They simply do what they do. They operate by what we will later call instinct. They have a very, very specific place within what we would call their habitat or their environment, and they stay there. They will act in ways that will sometimes seem very complex. Termites will build these massive termite mounds that you see in Africa. Bees will operate with what must be described as a bee civilization. Beavers build dams, they act in amazing ways, but they don't have dominion. Beavers build dams but they don't arrest cattle. Termites build these magnificent mounds but they don't hunt birds. In other words, each has its own slot. Each has its own role. Each lives out that role to the glory of God. The termite building its mound thinks it's merely building a mound because this is where they live, and this is where they reproduce, and this is where they colonize. He doesn't know he is doing it for the glory of God. He's not taking dominion, he's just operating by instinct. You watch the beaver, he's doing the same thing. A farmer one time who told me that his land was being flooded because every time you turn around, the beavers would build a dam. And he said, “I would just go back and destroy the dam.” He said, “I know that sounds mean but it was my farm or the beavers. They can move somewhere else.” The problem is they wouldn't move anywhere else. Tear down the dam and a week later there'd be another dam. He'd tear down the dam and they would build another dam. And he said he'd actually look at the beavers and they would stare at him. He said, “I wasn’t gonna kill 'em, I just wanted them to stop flooding my land.” Well, they're not taking dominion. They're simply operating out of instinct. If they were smarter beavers, they would have moved down somewhere. And if they were beavers with dominion, they'd shoot the farmer. They'd tear down his house. That's not the way they operate. Each of these creatures, each of these living things before the creation of humanity, has a place where it displays the glory of God but does not do so by means of dominion and does not do so consciously.  We have to pause here in order to say that when we come back to look at this sixth day of creation and its conclusion and the creation of the human creature, we're going to note that the storyline of the Bible now begins in terms of God’s dealing with humanity. In order to get that story right, we have to get it right from the very beginning, which means we have to understand everything that has been given us here in Genesis one, and later in Genesis two, to understand who is this creature we are. Why are we different than all of the other creatures? Why is God's glory in what he is assigned to us? And what purpose does all of this point toward in terms of the drama of redemption that will follow? Forming and filling. There's so much here to recognize, so much here to ponder, but as we close at this point, we need to recognize that the verdict in all of this has been uniform. It's good. Everything is as God wants it to be but he isn't finished yet.  Let's pray. “Father, we are so thankful for all that you give us in these verses in a sequential understanding of your creation, that fills less than a page of our text, but fills the earth with your glory. Father, we pray to keep these things alive in our minds as we ponder them in our hearts. We pray that your Holy Spirit will apply these truths to our hearts, to conform us to the image of Christ until we meet again. And we pray this in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.We are continuing in our verse by verse study of the book of Genesis. We are arriving at verse 20 and it is the fifth day of creation. It has often been noted that of the six active days of creation, there are three days of forming the earth and there are three days of filling it. In three days God forms the earth and thus the earth is ready for habitation, but in the next three days, he fills it. Now he is going to fill it with living creatures. In verse 20, we read, “And God said, ‘Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth, across the expanse of the heavens.’ So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them saying, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.’ And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.” (Genesis 1:20-23) So on the fifth day of creation God, in this sequential, developmental understanding of the formation of the universe as we know it here on this planet, fills the seas and fills the air. Now, if you've ever been in a place where there is no life in the sea, you'll notice how troubling that is. If you go to the Dead Sea, for instance, which has such a high mineral content that there is no aquatic life in it. No one goes fishing in the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea has that name because its waters are death to live creatures. And it appears that it's just this sea of death.  Meanwhile, you go to any living water and you'll notice very quickly that there are things in it and you don't have to be Henry David Thoreau on Walden's pond to have the experience of noticing that the water's alive, that there are things in that water. When you're a little child and in the shallows of a pond you play with tadpoles and little minnows. The little minnows come to surround you and you realize there are live things in this water. You’re there placidly and a fish breaks the surface of the water or a bird flies down and grabs a fish and goes off with it. Or you see other evidence of life in the water. I was just again down with some folks in salt water and you realize how alive it is. On the boat that I was on, there were two little boys and they were six and eight. And they yelled, “Shark!”, which turned out to be a false alarm. It wasn't a shark, there were two porpoises that were playing in the wake of the boat. Their eyes got so big as they realized these animals were there and behind them were many others. One eventually said, “How many are there?” Well, there's one, no, there's two, there's three, there was an entire pod of porpoises playing in the wake of the boat. And, uh, they were clearly having a blast. And you realize, yes, the seas are filled with all of these creatures filled with fish and crustaceans and plankton. And of course filled with sea mammals as well.  God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures.” And you've seen these, for the first generation now, these massive pictures of these schools of fish in the depths of the sea. Now we have the ability to put these cameras down in the very deepest depths of the deepest part of the ocean, such as the Mariana Trench in the Pacific. There are creatures that are particularly created in order to withstand the almost unbelievable pressures of water at that depth. They are not handsome creatures, by our estimation, they are fearsome creatures. They look like something that could have been drawn by some kind of science fiction artist, but that's the point, isn't it? No science fiction, no imaginative depiction of what these creatures might look like is any stranger than how they actually look. By the way, one of the things that we've noted is that in ancient records, in ancient historians, there are records of creatures that people thought were invented. Yet now we know that some of them are simply these creatures in the great depth that sometimes get washed up on the shore or they get caught in a fishing net. All of a sudden you realize this thing's not mythological, it's altogether real and altogether is ugly as we were told. Fearsome sometimes.  But what we have here are swarms. The point of verse 20 is God's creative intention that the waters would not just be alive here and there, sometimes under certain circumstances with life, but the life would simply swarm within the waters. And thus, he said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures and let birds fly above the earth in the expanse of the heavens.” So in the seas and in the skies, God designed and created swarms of creatures. Great flock of birds. Not only flocks of many birds, but flocks of many kinds of birds and many flocks of their kinds, and also there in the sea. So God created the great sea creatures. Now, what are these great sea creatures? Well, they are certainly the whales and there certainly are the other large fish. There are some incredibly large fish and not only the great sea creatures, but every living creature that moves with which the water's swarm.  That word swarm comes again. In other words, it is indicating how fertile the earth is, how fecund the world is, how filled with life the world is. So having formed it, God now fills it. He doesn't fill it in a small way. He doesn't fill it with a sporadic evidence of his creative activity. He doesn't put these creatures just here and there. He puts them in the seas where they swarm. He puts them in the sky where they swarm, every living creature that moves with which the waters swarm according to their kinds and every winged bird, according to its kind. Now the word that's translated bird here really means anything with wings. Just like the fish commonly refer to everything that's in the sea, even though we know some of them are mammals, so also when it says birds it is speaking of all winged creatures. As you know, there are some winged creatures that buzz and hover as well as those who fly and glide. And God saw that it was good.  Before we go on, we need to recognize there are a couple of other cues to God's glory in creation evident within these verses. For instance, it says, “God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds”. That word, according to their kinds, that phrase is very important. It is repeated, of course, with the winged birds, “and every winged bird, according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.” God creates creatures according to their kind. Now, this is an indication that God has created species. God has created categories of animals. God created horses and cattle, as we shall see in the next day. But at this point, he has created all kinds of things that fill the sea and all kinds of birds and winged creatures that fill the air. Every one of them is according to its kind. It will reproduce according to its kind.  When God created the trees, he said, and looking back here at verse 11, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” Now the importance of this really can't be overstated because in confrontation with the dominant secular scientific worldview, that says that all life simply comes from one common source and developed along different trajectories and a different developmental patterns to the world that we know today filled with living creatures, animate and inanimate plants, vegetation, and then the animal kingdom and humans and all the rest, the scripture clearly says that God's intention was reflected in the specific, sovereign designation of what we might call species, kinds. That's evidenced in the fact that trees bear fruit in which is the seed so that what will reproduce will be its kind. So also is the seed in the animals that swarm in the sea and those that swarm in the air, such that you have reproduction according to kinds.  There's several implications of this. First of all, again, God's creative glory is in the variety of the kinds and his delight in the kinds. It's not just our delight, observing them. We need to remember God's delight in creating them. That will become even more evident as we follow through, but at this point, just looking at the things that are in the waters and the things that are in the air, they just like the trees, are to reproduce according to its kind. There is a mandate for them to reproduce “And God blessed them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas and let the birds multiply on the earth.’” God's mandate to reproduce is another implication of each of these creatures according to its kind. Two things here, first of all, God blesses them and secondly, God commands them. God blessed them, commanding be fruitful and multiply and fill. Be fruitful, multiply fill.  I want you to notice that God here is commanding creatures. At this point, he is commanding sea creatures, air creatures. He is commanding fish and birds and he is commanding them to multiply. Now he commanded the trees to multiply, but not by speaking to them in the same way, but rather, “Let this happen.” But you'll notice, to these creatures, he speaks directly, “Be fruitful and multiply.” God speaks to those that he's created and tells them to multiply. God plants within them a desire, even rightly described as an instinct, to multiply. God's blessing is in the command to multiply, but it's also a command to fill. In other words, God's creatures by God's own creator assignment, bear responsibility to continue his work of filling. God forms in three days, God fills in three days. But God fills in the beginning by creating the species, the kinds, and then by commanding them to multiply. It will be a pattern we will recognize as we get to the creation of humankind on the sixth day. So the blessing is in the command to multiply, which is a command to fill. The earth as God has created it is intended to be filled. Filling is a blessing. God continues his activity. As we follow along with verse 24, “And God said, let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds - livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds. And it was so.” God says, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures.” Now these are gonna be on the earth, not in the sea, not in the sky, but walking upon the earth and as we shall sea creeping, as well as walking. “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds - livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” So, livestock. From the very beginning, God intended some animals to be domesticated. That's livestock. Livestock is differentiated here from the beasts of the field. Livestock are those animals that we have domesticated but God domesticated them first. In other words, God made certain animals to serve human beings rather directly. Livestock is a term that makes no sense in the wild. It only makes sense in civilization. Livestock is a sign that these animals are created in a particular way to serve the needs of humankind.  “Livestock and creeping things.” Between livestock and beasts of the earth we've got creeping things. Creeping things are part of God's design as well. Now, at this point they creep, creeping things. The clearest meaning to this is low on the earth. They're creepy little things. The word creepy to us is a negative word, unless you're a fifth grade boy. For most people, creepy is a designation of things you would rather not run into. Close to the earth. At this point they don't slither, they creep. Only after Genesis three do we have things that slither. No one ever uses the word slither positively. You never say, “Here's the queen, she just slithered into the throne room.” That just doesn't work. You don't say, “Here's grandma, she just slithered in the house.” That doesn't work. Slither is a negative word, traveling on one's belly, as the Scripture will say. At this point there are creeping things and the creepy things are necessary too. These creeping things are a part of the glory of God's creation. These things that are frogs and reptiles and lizards and all these things. Livestock and creepy things and beasts of the earth, these beasts - does it not interest us that God in his sovereign action in creation thrilled in the variety of the beast of the earth?  One of my ambitions is to go on a safari. I would love to be there in Africa and see so many of these beasts that I grew up watching on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. That was one of those instances of child abuse in my childhood, because that came on at a time that often conflicted with evening church on Sunday night. One had to be very sick in my household to see Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom or the Wonderful World of Disney. The Wonderful World of Disney turned out to be for Methodists and other people who did not have Sunday night church. The wonderful world of Sunday night service is where I was as a son, but every once in a while we would get to see it. There were other times when we could see Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. You remember there was Marlin Perkins who was the kindly zoologist or least posing as the expert and he had on his safari jacket and he had his distinguished mustache and he had his very specific elocution as he spoke of each of the animals. Then there was Jim, the poor guy that actually had to go risk life and limb to show you these animals. And so Marlon Perkins would say, “While, I'm here safely in the studio,Jim will be down here with the boa constrictor.” You know what that’s like. You look at it and for most of us, it was an amazing thing to see.  In the great age of exploration it was fascinating to people, especially in Great Britain and in the United States to come face to face with these things, even by means of a photograph. They had heard of them but they really didn't get to see them. In the age of exploration, they would bring back taxidermy models of these things. Sometimes they would fill zoos with them. The great day of the zoo was when all of a sudden in the age of exploration and as east India tea companies going to places they would, they would come across these things. You'd have Sumatran tigers brought to London and you would have polar bears brought to Berlin so that people could see these things face to face. Many children, as I did, had a great acquaintance with these animals by means of the National Geographic magazine. When you had these pictures that came, I devoured every single issue of National Geographic. Now we have Animal Planet. We have 24/7 wildlife shows. Why? Because we're fascinated with them. We're fascinated with the ones that are cute and cuddly, such as the koala bear, which turns out isn't even a bear. And we're interested in those that can kill us. There's a great fascination with the things that will eat us and do so evidently without any tinge of conscience. God made these beasts, these creeping things, and the livestock, each according to its kinds. “And it was so. And God made the beast of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.”  Now, when we began at verse 20, we saw when God created the fish and the swarms in the sea, the birds and the swarms in the air, he said, “It is good.” And God saw that it was good. Now he declares again, that it is good. On the fifth day of creation, we had the waters and the birds created. On the sixth day of creation we have the creation of the living creatures on the earth and eventually also the crowning glory of creation in terms of the creatures, the creation of men and women, of humankind. “And God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.’” Now you need to notice as you look at the different commands, you'll notice that as you follow through the sequence, something now changes. God said in verse three, “Let there be light.” God says in verse six, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters.” God says in verse nine, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place and let the dry land appear.” God says in verse 11, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed.” God said in verse 14, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night.” God says in verse 20, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures.” And God says in verse 24, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures.” And then God says in verse 26, “Let us make man.” Do you notice the difference? There is a pronoun here that is nonexistent in the previous commands. The previous command just said, “Let there be, let there be, let there be, let there be.” And because God sovereignly said, “Let there be,” it was, just as he said. But now God says, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”  Now, what is this pronoun to indicate to us? Would this indicate merely a linguistic convention known as the plural of majesty? It could be. The reigning Monarch of England never uses the first person singular because he or she represents the nation. So queen Victoria, for instance, famously said when she wasn't amused, “We are not amused.” She meant she, herself. That's a we. The rest of us are an I. “We do this.” “We do that.” That's the plural of majesty. Is that what's going on here? Is this throne language? Is this royal, majestic language? Well, it's certainly royal and it's certainly majestic, but that's not what is going on here. Or Is God referring back to all the things that he has made and including them in the plurality of this pronoun, us, let us make man? No, the animals aren't invited to help make man. The beasts of the field, the livestock, they're not invited to participate in this. So why the plural pronoun out of the sequence? It is because God here is about to create the only creature made in his image. And as he does so, he says, “Let us”. There are clues already to the fact that there is a plural point of reference here. You don't find it in the sequence of the first five days. You don't even find it in the beginning of the sixth day with the creation of the livestock and the creeping things and the beasts. You find it in the first two verses. “In the beginning,” we read, “God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” From Genesis one on onward we will come to understand that the Spirit of God refers to God's active presence in his creation. God is transcendent so he is apart from his creation, but by his Spirit he is present in creation, though not part of it. And he is active. His spirit is never inactive. His spirit is never merely a witness. His spirit is never merely a presence. It is always an active presence. We will come later to know to name this Spirit, the Holy Spirit. We will come to understand in the New Testament, the ministry of this Spirit. We have here a Trinitarian reference, but if we were not Christians, we would not know how to understand this. You say Trinitarian, you just mentioned the Father, not yet named as Father, but we know this is the Father and the Spirit. That's two. Where is the third? Well, we come to know, by means of the New Testament, that Christ is here. And to that we will turn subsequently. But at this point with this strategic verse, it is important for us to recognize that God says, “Let us make man in our image.” In the New Testament, in the gospel of John, in the prologue to that Gospel, we read that Christ is the Logos, the Word through whom the Father created everything that is. We have here, the Spirit of God, his active presence in creation. We have the Creator, who will be designated as Father, and of course that designates relationship. He isn't a Father yet until he has created the human creatures who will know him as Heavenly Father. And we have Christ whom we know to be present here by means of the New Testament.  Here we have a distinction in how God speaks, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Now the word likeness becomes important here. What kind of likeness will this be? Well, since there is no body, God does not have a form, this likeness is going to have to mean something else. But the important thing for us to recognize here in this sixth day of creation is that we have reached a climactic point. It is climactic in the sense that everything that has been created in terms of the forming and in terms of the filling has gotten us ready for this. This is something different than whatever has come before. What has come before is the creation of living things, including vegetation, trees that have seed in their fruit, according to their kinds. Then the swarming things of the sea, each reproducing according to its kind, the birds of the air, each reproducing according to its kind. Then we have the creation of the creatures on the sixth day, these who are livestock and creeping things and beasts and God speaks to them and says to them, “Reproduce.” And they do. And they will, according to their kinds.But there's more.  God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our lightness.” And we shall see something that isn't said of any other creature, “And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” What we have here in the sequence of creation, by the time we arrive here in the highest point of the sixth day, is that it turns out that the forming and the filling was to come to a climactic conclusion in the creation of the one creature made in God's own image. He will not be, himself, imaged in creation by means of an idol. He will not, as we shall see, allow any idol even to be brought into his presence, but he stamps his likeness on this final creature he creates, when in this Trinitarian reference he says, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”. You'll notice that what is immediately said thereafter is, “Let them have dominion.” It's not said over anything else. The fish aren't told to rule over the birds. The birds aren't told to rule over the giraffes. The beasts aren't told to rule over the livestock. The livestock aren't told to rule over the creeping things. They simply do what they do. They operate by what we will later call instinct. They have a very, very specific place within what we would call their habitat or their environment, and they stay there. They will act in ways that will sometimes seem very complex. Termites will build these massive termite mounds that you see in Africa. Bees will operate with what must be described as a bee civilization. Beavers build dams, they act in amazing ways, but they don't have dominion. Beavers build dams but they don't arrest cattle. Termites build these magnificent mounds but they don't hunt birds. In other words, each has its own slot. Each has its own role. Each lives out that role to the glory of God. The termite building its mound thinks it's merely building a mound because this is where they live, and this is where they reproduce, and this is where they colonize. He doesn't know he is doing it for the glory of God. He's not taking dominion, he's just operating by instinct. You watch the beaver, he's doing the same thing. A farmer one time who told me that his land was being flooded because every time you turn around, the beavers would build a dam. And he said, “I would just go back and destroy the dam.” He said, “I know that sounds mean but it was my farm or the beavers. They can move somewhere else.” The problem is they wouldn't move anywhere else. Tear down the dam and a week later there'd be another dam. He'd tear down the dam and they would build another dam. And he said he'd actually look at the beavers and they would stare at him. He said, “I wasn’t gonna kill 'em, I just wanted them to stop flooding my land.” Well, they're not taking dominion. They're simply operating out of instinct. If they were smarter beavers, they would have moved down somewhere. And if they were beavers with dominion, they'd shoot the farmer. They'd tear down his house. That's not the way they operate. Each of these creatures, each of these living things before the creation of humanity, has a place where it displays the glory of God but does not do so by means of dominion and does not do so consciously.  We have to pause here in order to say that when we come back to look at this sixth day of creation and its conclusion and the creation of the human creature, we're going to note that the storyline of the Bible now begins in terms of God’s dealing with humanity. In order to get that story right, we have to get it right from the very beginning, which means we have to understand everything that has been given us here in Genesis one, and later in Genesis two, to understand who is this creature we are. Why are we different than all of the other creatures? Why is God's glory in what he is assigned to us? And what purpose does all of this point toward in terms of the drama of redemption that will follow? Forming and filling. There's so much here to recognize, so much here to ponder, but as we close at this point, we need to recognize that the verdict in all of this has been uniform. It's good. Everything is as God wants it to be but he isn't finished yet.  Let's pray. “Father, we are so thankful for all that you give us in these verses in a sequential understanding of your creation, that fills less than a page of our text, but fills the earth with your glory. Father, we pray to keep these things alive in our minds as we ponder them in our hearts. We pray that your Holy Spirit will apply these truths to our hearts, to conform us to the image of Christ until we meet again. And we pray this in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2013/04/14/genesis-13-19/ Sun, 14 Apr 2013 09:30:45 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 35:09 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=26640 Audio, Exposition, Genesis, Genesis Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2013/03/24/genesis-12/ Sun, 24 Mar 2013 09:30:39 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 36:07 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=26406 Audio, Exposition, Genesis, Genesis Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2013/03/17/introduction-to-genesis/ Sun, 17 Mar 2013 09:30:29 +0000 We are entering into the book of Genesis, and we are entering into 50 chapters of the book of Genesis. Children will be conceived and born, and may well enter into higher education, by the time we find ourselves at the end of this book. And we need to say right up front, that's the plan. To rush through Genesis would be to miss the point of going word by word and verse by verse through this book. As we consider what it means to begin in the beginning, we need to recognize that there is a hunger on the part of any thinking person to understand exactly what the book of Genesis will address for us. 
Every worldview has to have an account of how things came to be. This is one of the most fundamental human needs. This is something we're going to track as we follow along, not only in the doctrine of creation, but in the other absolutely fundamentally important truths that are revealed in the book of Genesis. Without the book of Genesis, we would not know the who in terms of creation. Without the book of Genesis, we would not know the how, but more importantly, we would not know the who and the why. We would not know for instance, what has happened to human beings without the account of the fall that we find in Genesis chapter three. We would not understand a great deal of the confusion that marks humanity without the account of the Tower of Babel. We would not understand God's covenantal promises to Israel without his doings with Abraham. And that is just what we might say comes in the first half or first third of the book of Genesis, with far more to come. Every worldview has to have an account of why there is something, rather than nothing. Every worldview, every thinking mind, has to rest upon some assumption, some revelation, some claim as to how things have come to be. And by the way, this starts very, very early. 
There was a book recently written by an evolutionary scientist who is trying to answer the question, why is it that very small children tend, by the very disposition of their minds, to disbelieve in evolution and to believe in intelligent creation. And this scientist thought, “well, we're gonna have to answer this question because it turns out that children are not blank slates when it comes to something like creation.” And this is true of children. Not only those who have Christian parents, and are raised in Christian homes, and are taught the book of Genesis. It is not just children who've been exposed to the storyline of scripture with creation, fall, redemption and recreation. It's children in general, it's children across cultures, it's children in secular homes and in Christian homes. Children are not naturally born evolutionists. So this evolutionary scientist, perplexed by this reality, did a study and discovered that, this is gonna be shocking to you, that when they see something, assume that someone made it. Now, how do they come to that conclusion? They come to that conclusion because just about everything they see is explained by the fact that someone made it. Who built the house, somebody built it. How did this building come to be? Somebody designed it, somebody built it, somebody furnished it. How did all this happen to be? How did the park come to be? How did my school come to be? How did all these things come to be? And then when they look at the world, they look at what we would call the created order. They see exactly the same thing. Nothing I know happened by accident. 
Not only that, children, and this is a very insightful point of her research, children very early assume that the greater the detail of the object, the greater the intelligence of the one who created it. Now, where in the world will they get that idea? Well, they know what they can build. You give them blocks, they'll build a house, but they're not gonna live in it. They'll look at the house in which they live, they're rational creatures, it's a lot more complex. It requires knowledge they don't have. It requires strength they don't have. Needless to say, it requires financial resources they don't have. They get to live in it. They know they didn't build it, but they trust that someone built it. When they look at the world, they come up with the same understanding. Every intelligent mind asks the question, as did the ancient philosopher: why is there something rather than nothing?
Genesis begins the biblical story at this point. As we look at the opening of the book of Genesis, we recognize that, as we are looking at the first words of the book of Genesis, we are looking at the first words of the Bible. Now, in what sense is that important to us? Well, it's important to us because we need to recognize that the Bible is not an accidental ordering of books. The canon of scripture, the 66 books of the Bible, the 39 books of the Old Testament, the 27 books of the New Testament, these are not randomly arranged. And when you think about it, each one of the testaments is arranged in the way that genuinely does make the most sense to us in terms of the storyline of the Bible. The New Testament, for example, does not begin with a book of Acts. It does not begin with the epistles of Paul. It begins with the four Gospels because we cannot understand what the New Testament is about unless we begin with the promise of Christ, the birth of Christ, and the earthly ministry of Christ. And only then are we able to turn to the birth of the Church in the book of Acts, and the spread of the gospel in that same book, and then the life of the churches, and instruction of the churches that follows, and all that continues. And of course, the book of Revelation at the end is the book that is most intensely, although not uniquely, but it is the most intensely focused upon those things yet to come. 
And as we come to understand the New Testament, we see that thus there is a natural order between the Gospels, and then history, and then pastoral exhortation, and finally the prophetic apocalyptic text that comes at the end of the book of Revelation. So also in the Old Testament, where would we begin? We divide the Old Testament into certain kinds of literature. First of all, the Pentateuch, the five books that are written by Moses, the five books of the law, that which is known primarily amongst the Jews as Torah. There the story begins. Then after that our historical books, beginning, of course, with Joshua and following through the historical books that deal with the monarchy of Israel, then there is the wisdom literature and that is the Psalter of Israel. And of course it includes also the book of Job and the Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes, the book of Proverbs, and most centrally the Psalms themselves. Then follow the prophetic literature, which is the rest of the Old Testament divided between the Major Prophets and the Minor Prophets. Now, when I heard that as a boy, I heard that like the major leagues and the minor leagues. That is not the case. We're not talking about the importance of the prophets. We're talking about the length of their books. The Major Prophets are named major simply because of the size of the books, and the Minor Prophets, known collectively as the book of the 12, are grouped together at the end. So what we have here is a natural way of beginning, and we're also dealing with those things that not only in terms of temporal priority, but of logical priority, come first. 
We can't imagine starting the New Testament with the book of Acts, because how can you begin, for instance, with the day of Pentecost when you don't know what has come before it? How in the world could we begin anywhere else in terms of the book of God in the Old Testament than with the book of Genesis? Because if we didn't begin here, we'd have to keep coming back to this over and over again, because it would be impossible to talk of anything that follows without making constant reference explaining questions that we should have explained before. That's why in the wisdom of the Scripture, we have Genesis up front. 
Genesis, of course, as we just said, is one of five books of the Pentateuch. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. These function much like the Gospels in the New Testament. They are the fundamental set of books that establish the storyline to which everything that follows is absolutely accountable. When you think about the five books of Moses, the five books of the Pentateuch, without them, you really don't know how in the world the storyline is going to work. You don't know what's come before, and you really don't even understand the promises that have been made that are yet to be fulfilled. As a matter of fact, if you just look at the number of words in the Old Testament that are invested in the Pentateuch, and then you think about the chronology of time that is invested in the Pentateuch, the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, then you'll recognize that so much of what we know, not only about the Old Testament, but of course about the entire Scripture is found right here in these books. And in particular, in the book of Genesis, the word Genesis comes from the Latin meaning origin, or it's literally in the beginning, the Genesis of all things. This is how it has to start. We have to begin in the beginning. 
When we look at the book of Genesis, we need to settle a couple of issues up front, including the issue of its authorship. Now here there are controversial issues that have only become controversial in the last 200 years. If you take 20 centuries of church history, if you go from the book of Acts until the time of the dawn of the 21st century, for 18 of those 20 centuries, no one seriously questioned that Moses was himself the human author of the first five books of the Bible. The rise of historical criticism, and especially of that which is known as higher criticism of liberal biblical criticism, an anti-supernaturalistic attempt to understand the Bible as a human historical artifact, about 200 years ago, there arose arguments that Moses didn't write the Pentateuch and that Moses couldn't have written the Pentateuch. Now, here we come across some arguments. So we're just gonna have to consider them head on. 
Now the main argument does not come from where the middle school class would go. I can remember knowing that it was believed that Moses wrote these books. And then the first time I read through the Bible cover to cover, and I did it from Genesis to Revelation, I just figured that's the way you're supposed to do it. I still think, by the way, that's a good way to do it. I was about 13 and I got to the end of Deuteronomy and it talks about the death of Moses. And I thought, how do you write about his own death? That is the middle school objection to the Mosaic authorship. And the simple answer to that is it was completed by someone who finished the work, documenting the death of Moses, and that that's not really a problem. That's a middle school problem. 
The larger problem is in the rise of historical criticism, there arose the theory that what we have in the Pentateuch, in the first five books of the Bible, is not the work of any single inspired author that was written contemporaneously with the time of Moses. But rather what we have is the work of four different historical sources each with his own political agenda. And what we have is an edited colation that is known as the Graf-Wellhausen theory of the Pentateuch, dividing the five books into four different strains: J, E, P, and D. And that's the Deuteronomist, the Priestly, the Elohist, and the Jahwehist. And suggesting that what you have here is an edited, politically motivated compilation of things that emerge, at least many of them, from far after the centuries after the time of Moses. Now, I say that just in order to say that if you were to go to any liberal, biblical seminary, anywhere in the modern world, they would tell you that that's exactly what the Pentateuch is. It is a human collection of different writings edited over time for different political purposes, some to support the monarchy, some to support the priestly class, the Deuteronomist limited to the purpose in Deuteronomy. And if you do that, and if you look at the Pentateuch in that way, and if you take that kind of approach, not only to the Pentateuch, but to the entire scripture as logically you must, then all you're gonna do when you read the Bible is read about the beliefs of ancient people. And all you're left with is an historical argument, that there were many people who lived thousands of years ago who actually believed things reflected in these texts. And what we would do is an archeological kind of study, a deconstructive literary exercise, in which we would try to say, alright, I think what they meant by this was they evidently believed that because of this reason, they wrote that for this purpose. But let me just remind you that if that's what you believe about the scripture, then all you're left with is the historical imagination and curiosity of what ancient people believed. 
We are not approaching the verse by verse, word by word, study of the book of Genesis because we are interested primarily in what ancient people believed. We are approaching this book because we believe that it is indeed the inerrant, infallible word of God that was indeed revealed by God to Moses.
Now, understand that when you're talking about authorship, in this case, that in the scriptures there are different ways that authorship is attributed. For instance, you have books in which authorship is clearly irrelevant such as the book of Hebrews. When we went through that book verse by verse, we were reminded of the fact that we don't know who wrote Hebrews and evidently, since the Bible is sufficient, we're not needful of knowing who wrote the book of Hebrews because evidently we're to read the book of Hebrews without reference to any particular congregational cause. Evidently the Holy Spirit would have us to read the book of Hebrews without trying to understand what was happening in the timeline of the human inspired author at that time. Contrast that with Paul. Paul's letters are clearly marked. Paul identifies himself: “Paul, an apostle of the Lord, Jesus Christ.” And it is important in our understanding of the Pauline epistles, the Pauline letters, to know that Paul did write this. Paul will tell accounts of his own personal life and of his own personal testimony in his letters. And furthermore, it's important for us to know in the flow of the letters what was going on. When he writes to the Romans in Romans chapter one, “I long to be with you, but I've been hindered from coming to you.” We understand that that fits where, in the book of Acts, it tells us that he received a vision of a man from Macedonia who called him to Greece, prevented him, delayed him at least, from getting to Rome. And you understand, while evidently there, the authorship by the epistles identified to Paul, the Pauline authorship then becomes very important. 
That's certainly true also in a letter like Second Peter because Second Peter is making the point that what he relates, the inspired author, the human author of Second Peter says that “it is important that you know that I am an eyewitness of these things.” And thus, it's not just church tradition that identifies Peter as the author of Second Peter, Peter identifies himself as the author of Second Peter, and says, “You need to know I was there when it happened.” If Peter thus is not the author of second Peter, then whoever did write Second Peter lied. 
There is another form, however, of attributed authorship. And that fits what we're talking about here. And that comes down to this. We know that the books of Moses are rightly associated with the Mosaic authorship, not mostly because of anything found within Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, or Deuteronomy. We come to understand that within both the Old and the New Testament, the authorship of Moses is so assumed that, referring to Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, the subsequent witnesses of scripture will refer to this as “Moses said.” So it's not there in the beginning. Genesis 1:1 does not begin “Moses, appointed by the one true and living God.” Rather, it simply begins, “In the beginning.” When we talk about the attribution of these five books of Moses, we know that this is clearly a link to Mosaic authorship and to Mosaic authority. This is our understanding of how to begin an understanding of the book of Genesis. 
Thus, we consider what we are about to confront in the text of the book of Genesis is that, which is the God inspired, word for word God-inspired text with which scripture, both in terms of the canon of scripture and the storyline of scripture begins. When you look at the actual text of Genesis, the first verse is one of the most familiar verses of all the scripture. It's short, it's poetic in its concision. It's not overly elaborate in terms of any use of words, and yet it encompasses the entire story. So in other words, it's almost as if the entire storyline of the Bible comes down to this first verse as being equivalent to getting the entire story underway with far more here than we might imagine in the economy of words. 
“In the beginning.” Where else would you start here? We have another problem: in the beginning of what? This isn't in the beginning of God. As we will learn in scripture, God doesn't have a beginning, but we have a beginning. Our story has a beginning. The story of the cosmos has a beginning. And isn't in the beginning God created himself. It's “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” The storyline begins chronologically just the way, in our hearts and in our imagination, we want it to start. We don't want it to start at some subsequent point that will only make reference back to what happened in the beginning. We need to start right in the beginning. And the first words of God's inspired word begin right there “in the beginning.” The beginning is an interesting word because when you think about how to start a story, you start with some beginning.
If you tell of who you are, if you start to tell your own autobiography, if you sit down next to someone on a plane and you just try to identify yourself, you have to start somewhere. And eventually, if you're gonna tell your story in any adequate way, you're gonna have to go back to your beginning. Well, where was your beginning? Well, I was born in Lakeland, Florida, October 19th, 1959. You've all been wondering about that. Lakeland, Florida, there in Polk County. And I was born. And that's the beginning of my story. 
By the way, even though I was there and I have paperwork to prove it, I have no living memory of the occasion. I'm dependent upon others to tell me in the beginning. However, you don't have to get very old until you realize that's not an adequate beginning because something happened before you. So as you're a child, you begin to push the beginning back. You discover that these huge people you know as your parents also had a beginning. Where were you born? And when? Prehistoric times it sounds like. But nonetheless you begin to understand, “My parents are both born in 1936 in Plan City, Florida. Just about 15 miles away. Seemed like a long time away when I was a little child. It's shorter than the distance between my home and Highview Baptist Church right now. But nonetheless, that's where they were born. I wasn't there. Then I have to take that on faith. They told me they were born in Plant City, Florida. 
Eventually, when doing a genealogical project, I saw their birth certificates. Low and behold, there is proof that they were born in Plant City, Florida, but I'm still taking it on faith. But then you come to understand that it doesn't go there. You go further and further and further and further back. I have a professional genealogical study of my paternal lineage going all the way back to the early 17th century in Basil, Switzerland, complete with marriage certificates and birth certificates and cemetery information and the ship's log of the ship thistle upon which my great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather came over from Switzerland and settled in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Amish family. I come to understand, at least that part of the family. But you know what? That's not even an adequate beginning because that only goes back to the early 17th century. That already implies there were 17 centuries prior to this. And not only that, there's time prior to that. So our beginning is problematic because we're never sure we can get far enough back. We just have to, at some point, trust there's enough beginning we can go forward. That's why if we had to have the genealogy traced for every one of us in every way we possibly could, in order to know who we are, most of us would never find out who we are. There's not enough documentation. 
Well, you think about the beginning of an organization, or you think about the beginning of a church. So someone says, “when was this church founded?” Well, it kind of depends on what you mean. This church was organized in Louisville, Kentucky to a certain date, but it was actually founded by the Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew chapter 16. It was actually inaugurated in the second chapter of the Book of Acts. So that's when this church was founded. It had a beginning. But the church as a story, before there was a church, in other words, the beginning's problematic for any of us. 
The beginning we're talking about here is not the beginning of God in which there's no beginning. It is rather the beginning of the cosmos, the storyline of creation. And here we find a very simple statement that the most important thing we come to understand is not a when, but a who. The central issue of Genesis 1:1 is who. “In the beginning,” introductory language, “God.” 
Now let's just assume that we're considering a condensed version of the scriptures. Back about 30 plus years ago, Reader's Digest, which was famous for condensing novels in other books, and putting them out in a very popular series of readers, a reader’s digest of condensed books, decided to condense the Bible. It was a rather controversial project as you might imagine. One Christian magazine lampooned it by condensing the Bible down to a hilarious paragraph. And you realize it really can't be done. And the Reader's Digest’s condensed Bible, despite the hopes of Reader’s Digest, did not become a bestselling book. It just resists that kind of condensation. But you know, if you were to consider how to condense the Bible down to just a few statements, you could certainly imagine condensing the Bible down to, if you just had to, if you were running out of time, and you had to say what the Bible's about, you might go first to John 3:16, “For God to love the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him might not perish, but have everlasting life.” It certainly condenses the storyline of Jesus, the account of Jesus and the Gospels and the teaching of Jesus concerning why he came, and the meaning of his life, death, and resurrection. It’s all right there. God's purpose in the incarnation is right there. 
But you know, you could say that everything in the Bible comes down actually to the first four words in the English translation of Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God.” Now the reason why that's important is this, not only is Genesis 1:1 primarily about the, who, the who explains everything that follows. Not everything that follows in Genesis, everything that follows, period. Because as the author, and as the originator, as the designer, and as the creator of all the cosmos, then, as BB Warfield, the famous Princeton theologian, said, “He by definition names it, claims it, and owns it, such that everything that follows follows from the fact that it's his.” He is the agent who creates in the beginning. God created the heavens and the earth.
 Now, another interesting thing here, of course, is if we were reading Genesis for the first time, if we don't know anything else about the storyline of scripture, and we don't know anything else about Christianity, or even if we didn't know anything about Judaism in terms of the Old Testament, and we just picked up this book and we read “In the beginning God created the heavens on the earth.” How would we know who this God is? Well, which God? Does it not strike you as something odd that it just says, “God.” By the time this was written, there were already various paganism and idolatries. There were already alternative accounts of creation and how the world came to be. The peoples around Israel had their own accounts. They had their own understanding. After all, we're talking about Moses here through whom this came to be written. And by the time you're talking about Moses, you're talking about the people of Israel in captivity to Pharaoh in Egypt, and the Egyptians had their own creation story. And they had their own collection of gods. And of course they're all around them, the Canaanite and all the others that as we shall see, Abraham certainly would have known. In fact, out of which Abraham himself came, they had their own creation stories. They had their own gods. 
Why the simplicity of this statement “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” God, is that enough? Well, here, we need to understand something else about the entire storyline of the Bible. The entire storyline of the Bible, beginning in Genesis 1:1, identifies the only God that matters as the God who created the heavens and the earth. As a matter of fact, what is going to distinguish Jehovah, YHWH, the God of Israel, is going to be that he actually did create all these things. He is the only uncreated being. Everything else is created. And when, last week, we were looking at Isaiah chapter 44 and the issue of idolatry, one of the things that became most clear, the folly of idolatry is in the fact that the idols are things that are made. God isn't made, He makes. So even though we have the simple statement “In the beginning God,” it's because the Holy Spirit would have us clearly to understand that the only God that is is the God who does this. And as more is revealed about him in his word that follows everything we will know then is tracked back to the fact that the God who exists, the one true God, is that God whom created the heavens and the earth.
 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Thus, the first thing we know about God is that he is the creator. And that is a title that he will retain throughout the entirety of the biblical canon. He is the one who creates. Remember your creator in the day of your youth. He again will claim of himself, “Did I not make you, Job?” at that great climactic conclusion to the book of Job. God will speak to Job and say, “Excuse me, let's remember the difference between us. Were you there when I created this? Were you there when I created that? Obviously, even Job is in the position of saying, “No, sir.” Which isn't even necessary. It's not even answered in scripture. It's so clear. But God says, “look, I was there. I did this. You look at that creature, I made that. You look at that artifact, that wonder of creation, I made that. Where were you? Which one of us is God? I'll tell you which one's God. It is the one who is creator, not the one who is created. 
“In the beginning God created.” You’ll notice the singularity of this. God creates alone. He doesn't require others to be about his task of creation. What we will learn as we move forward through Genesis chapter one, and also as we look at Genesis chapter two, is that God will create verbally. He will speak. And when he speaks, it is created. He doesn't have to have minions and workers. He doesn't have a construction crew. He simply speaks and it is.
“In the beginning God created.” Created is a verb. God is acting. One of the first things we learn about God is not only that he is the origin of all things, that he is the one who has created, and thus He is sovereign over all things. That establishes the fact that he owns all things, but it also makes very, very clear that he acts. God acts. God, not merely is, God acts. That becomes very important too. Because one of the things we will learn about his human creatures is that we are made in his image. And a part of what we're going to learn, that Genesis will reveal, is about human beings being made uniquely in God's image. We too, verb, we act. A part of what it means to be made in God's image is to be able to act. And by the way, also to create. We do create things. The problem is that we don't create in the same way that God creates. We create out of stuff. God creates the stuff. We're gonna learn, as we look through Genesis one, that it is essential to understand God's creation as ex nihilo. We'll talk about that. That is the Latin term, as the word “genesis” itself is a Latin term. That means out of nothing. He doesn't create out of stuff. He doesn't take preexisting stuff because nothing's preexisting except himself. He creates the stuff. 
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” In other words, the totality of all there is. In the ancient cosmology, limited as they were in their prehistoric ignorance, they assumed that everything that was was either seen by looking down or looking up. In our advanced sophistication, so much wiser and accumulated so much knowledge and wisdom, since then having gained so much in our understanding we're in a different position. Except we're not. We still know that everything that is to be known in terms of creation is by looking down or looking up. In other words, it's here on this earth or it's out there in the heavens. In other words, our world picture may be more sophisticated because of our astronomical and scientific knowledge, but we're stuck in the same human predicament. We're looking up and we're looking down. God created the heavens. We look up everything and we see God has created. You put the Hubble telescope up there, which Moses didn't know about, and the Hubble telescope can look millions of light years out into the future, or I guess actually into the past. And what does it see? It sees the heavens. That's what it’s looking at. In other words, there is no dimension other than this, the heavens and the earth. This is everything. He created everything that is. You look down, everything you see, God created. You look up, everything you see, God created. 
The distinction between the heavens and the earth is crucial here, but mostly because together they represent the totality of everything that is. The first verse of scripture tells us, most importantly, who: God. Which God? The God who does this, as we shall see. The only God who deserves to be called God. The God who will say, “bring no other gods before me.” The God who will say, “Where were you when I did this?” The God who will say, “Remember who I am. I am the creator of all things. I made it. I own it. I claim it. I rule it. It's mine.”In the beginning the God who already existed. In the beginning he created, he acted. He freely acted. Nothing was constraining him to have to create. No external force required him to create. He created because he freely willed to do so. And as we shall see, he tells us why he willed to do so. In the beginning, God created, he acted, he willed. He sovereignly created out of nothing, as we shall see, the heavens and the earth, everything that is. 
Now, just imagine where we would be if we did not have those few words. We wouldn't know the who. We wouldn't have a clue of how to know the why. We wouldn't know the what. We wouldn't know anything that is absolutely necessary to our understanding of the storyline of scripture. But now we know everything we need to know in the beginning. And now as we follow word by word, through the book of Genesis, we're gonna learn a great deal more. And we will be coming back time and time again, to Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
Let's pray. Our father, we are so thankful that you have given us not only in this passage, but in your word, access to your truth. And otherwise we would never know. Father you have to tell us these things because we have no access to them but by the free and merciful gift of your revelation. Father, thank you for giving us Genesis. Thank you for giving us the entirety of scripture. But thank you this day for giving us this one short verse with which the entire canon of your word begins. In order that we can understand where to begin in the beginning. And  father, we are so thankful to be reminded by this text, informed by this text, instructed by this text, that we begin not with a when, but, most importantly, with a who. And so father, we end by praising you as the one who created us and created all things and rules over us and rules over all things. Father we conclude by thanking you that we know you not only as creator, but as redeemer and thus in thankfulness. We come to you in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. Amen. Look forward to being back with you next Sunday for verse two.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 40:52 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=26379 Audio, Exposition, Genesis, Genesis Series, Message noThis morning we have the privilege of beginning a new book. In terms of ministries of expository preaching and teaching, it is often the case that time flows by teaching rather than by the chronology of the calendar. I was just recently in California with the ministry of Dr. John MacArthur who has preached through the course of 40 years through the entire New Testament, word by word. And when people talk about when they were born there, they will say I was born during the Gospel of John. And we got married during the epistle to the Romans. And our children went to high school during the Gospel of Luke. That's the way it works. In the ministry of Dr. WA Criswell, at the First Baptist Church of Dallas, people would say, “I joined the church during Exodus, and that my mom and dad came and joined the church during Isaiah. An expository ministry is measured by text more than by time. And I say that as a word of warning.  We are entering into the book of Genesis, and we are entering into 50 chapters of the book of Genesis. Children will be conceived and born, and may well enter into higher education, by the time we find ourselves at the end of this book. And we need to say right up front, that's the plan. To rush through Genesis would be to miss the point of going word by word and verse by verse through this book. As we consider what it means to begin in the beginning, we need to recognize that there is a hunger on the part of any thinking person to understand exactly what the book of Genesis will address for us.  Every worldview has to have an account of how things came to be. This is one of the most fundamental human needs. This is something we're going to track as we follow along, not only in the doctrine of creation, but in the other absolutely fundamentally important truths that are revealed in the book of Genesis. Without the book of Genesis, we would not know the who in terms of creation. Without the book of Genesis, we would not know the how, but more importantly, we would not know the who and the why. We would not know for instance, what has happened to human beings without the account of the fall that we find in Genesis chapter three. We would not understand a great deal of the confusion that marks humanity without the account of the Tower of Babel. We would not understand God's covenantal promises to Israel without his doings with Abraham. And that is just what we might say comes in the first half or first third of the book of Genesis, with far more to come. Every worldview has to have an account of why there is something, rather than nothing. Every worldview, every thinking mind, has to rest upon some assumption, some revelation, some claim as to how things have come to be. And by the way, this starts very, very early.  There was a book recently written by an evolutionary scientist who is trying to answer the question, why is it that very small children tend, by the very disposition of their minds, to disbelieve in evolution and to believe in intelligent creation. And this scientist thought, “well, we're gonna have to answer this question because it turns out that children are not blank slates when it comes to something like creation.” And this is true of children. Not only those who have Christian parents, and are raised in Christian homes, and are taught the book of Genesis. It is not just children who've been exposed to the storyline of scripture with creation, fall, redemption and recreation. It's children in general, it's children across cultures, it's children in secular homes and in Christian homes. Children are not naturally born evolutionists. So this evolutionary scientist, perplexed by this reality, did a study and discovered that, this is gonna be shocking to you, that when they see something, assume that someone made it. Now, how do they come to that conclusion? They come to that conclusion because just about everything they see is explained by the fact that someone made it. Who built the house, somebody built it. How did this building come to be? Somebody designed it, somebody built it, somebody furnished it. How did all this happen to be? How did the park come to be? How did my school come to be? How did all these things come to be? And then when they look at the world, they look at what we would call the created order. They see exactly the same thing. Nothing I know happened by accident.  Not only that, children, and this is a very insightful point of her research, children very early assume that the greater the detail of the object, the greater the intelligence of the one who created it. Now, where in the world will they get that idea? Well, they know what they can build. You give them blocks, they'll build a house, but they're not gonna live in it. They'll look at the house in which they live, they're rational creatures, it's a lot more complex. It requires knowledge they don't have. It requires strength they don't have. Needless to say, it requires financial resources they don't have. They get to live in it. They know they didn't build it, but they trust that someone built it. When they look at the world, they come up with the same understanding. Every intelligent mind asks the question, as did the ancient philosopher: why is there something rather than nothing? Genesis begins the biblical story at this point. As we look at the opening of the book of Genesis, we recognize that, as we are looking at the first words of the book of Genesis, we are looking at the first words of the Bible. Now, in what sense is that important to us? Well, it's important to us because we need to recognize that the Bible is not an accidental ordering of books. The canon of scripture, the 66 books of the Bible, the 39 books of the Old Testament, the 27 books of the New Testament, these are not randomly arranged. And when you think about it, each one of the testaments is arranged in the way that genuinely does make the most sense to us in terms of the storyline of the Bible. The New Testament, for example, does not begin with a book of Acts. It does not begin with the epistles of Paul. It begins with the four Gospels because we cannot understand what the New Testament is about unless we begin with the promise of Christ, the birth of Christ, and the earthly ministry of Christ. And only then are we able to turn to the birth of the Church in the book of Acts, and the spread of the gospel in that same book, and then the life of the churches, and instruction of the churches that follows, and all that continues. And of course, the book of Revelation at the end is the book that is most intensely, although not uniquely, but it is the most intensely focused upon those things yet to come.  And as we come to understand the New Testament, we see that thus there is a natural order between the Gospels, and then history, and then pastoral exhortation, and finally the prophetic apocalyptic text that comes at the end of the book of Revelation. So also in the Old Testament, where would we begin? We divide the Old Testament into certain kinds of literature. First of all, the Pentateuch, the five books that are written by Moses, the five books of the law, that which is known primarily amongst the Jews as Torah. There the story begins. Then after that our historical books, beginning, of course, with Joshua and following through the historical books that deal with the monarchy of Israel, then there is the wisdom literature and that is the Psalter of Israel. And of course it includes also the book of Job and the Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes, the book of Proverbs, and most centrally the Psalms themselves. Then follow the prophetic literature, which is the rest of the Old Testament divided between the Major Prophets and the Minor Prophets. Now, when I heard that as a boy, I heard that like the major leagues and the minor leagues. That is not the case. We're not talking about the importance of the prophets. We're talking about the length of their books. The Major Prophets are named major simply because of the size of the books, and the Minor Prophets, known collectively as the book of the 12, are grouped together at the end. So what we have here is a natural way of beginning, and we're also dealing with those things that not only in terms of temporal priority, but of logical priority, come first.  We can't imagine starting the New Testament with the book of Acts, because how can you begin, for instance, with the day of Pentecost when you don't know what has come before it? How in the world could we begin anywhere else in terms of the book of God in the Old Testament than with the book of Genesis? Because if we didn't begin here, we'd have to keep coming back to this over and over again, because it would be impossible to talk of anything that follows without making constant reference explaining questions that we should have explained before. That's why in the wisdom of the Scripture, we have Genesis up front.  Genesis, of course, as we just said, is one of five books of the Pentateuch. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. These function much like the Gospels in the New Testament. They are the fundamental set of books that establish the storyline to which everything that follows is absolutely accountable. When you think about the five books of Moses, the five books of the Pentateuch, without them, you really don't know how in the world the storyline is going to work. You don't know what's come before, and you really don't even understand the promises that have been made that are yet to be fulfilled. As a matter of fact, if you just look at the number of words in the Old Testament that are invested in the Pentateuch, and then you think about the chronology of time that is invested in the Pentateuch, the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, then you'll recognize that so much of what we know, not only about the Old Testament, but of course about the entire Scripture is found right here in these books. And in particular, in the book of Genesis, the word Genesis comes from the Latin meaning origin, or it's literally in the beginning, the Genesis of all things. This is how it has to start. We have to begin in the beginning.  When we look at the book of Genesis, we need to settle a couple of issues up front, including the issue of its authorship. Now here there are controversial issues that have only become controversial in the last 200 years. If you take 20 centuries of church history, if you go from the book of Acts until the time of the dawn of the 21st century, for 18 of those 20 centuries, no one seriously questioned that Moses was himself the human author of the first five books of the Bible. The rise of historical criticism, and especially of that which is known as higher criticism of liberal biblical criticism, an anti-supernaturalistic attempt to understand the Bible as a human historical artifact, about 200 years ago, there arose arguments that Moses didn't write the Pentateuch and that Moses couldn't have written the Pentateuch. Now, here we come across some arguments. So we're just gonna have to consider them head on.  Now the main argument does not come from where the middle school class would go. I can remember knowing that it was believed that Moses wrote these books. And then the first time I read through the Bible cover to cover, and I did it from Genesis to Revelation, I just figured that's the way you're supposed to do it. I still think, by the way, that's a good way to do it. I was about 13 and I got to the end of Deuteronomy and it talks about the death of Moses. And I thought, how do you write about his own death? That is the middle school objection to the Mosaic authorship. And the simple answer to that is it was completed by someone who finished the work, documenting the death of Moses, and that that's not really a problem. That's a middle school problem.  The larger problem is in the rise of historical criticism, there arose the theory that what we have in the Pentateuch, in the first five books of the Bible, is not the work of any single inspired author that was written contemporaneously with the time of Moses. But rather what we have is the work of four different historical sources each with his own political agenda. And what we have is an edited colation that is known as the Graf-Wellhausen theory of the Pentateuch, dividing the five books into four different strains: J, E, P, and D. And that's the Deuteronomist, the Priestly, the Elohist, and the Jahwehist. And suggesting that what you have here is an edited, politically motivated compilation of things that emerge, at least many of them, from far after the centuries after the time of Moses. Now, I say that just in order to say that if you were to go to any liberal, biblical seminary, anywhere in the modern world, they would tell you that that's exactly what the Pentateuch is. It is a human collection of different writings edited over time for different political purposes, some to support the monarchy, some to support the priestly class, the Deuteronomist limited to the purpose in Deuteronomy. And if you do that, and if you look at the Pentateuch in that way, and if you take that kind of approach, not only to the Pentateuch, but to the entire scripture as logically you must, then all you're gonna do when you read the Bible is read about the beliefs of ancient people. And all you're left with is an historical argument, that there were many people who lived thousands of years ago who actually believed things reflected in these texts. And what we would do is an archeological kind of study, a deconstructive literary exercise, in which we would try to say, alright, I think what they meant by this was they evidently believed that because of this reason, they wrote that for this purpose. But let me just remind you that if that's what you believe about the scripture, then all you're left with is the historical imagination and curiosity of what ancient people believed.  We are not approaching the verse by verse, word by word, study of the book of Genesis because we are interested primarily in what ancient people believed. We are approaching this book because we believe that it is indeed the inerrant, infallible word of God that was indeed revealed by God to Moses. Now, understand that when you're talking about authorship, in this case, that in the scriptures there are different ways that authorship is attributed. For instance, you have books in which authorship is clearly irrelevant such as the book of Hebrews. When we went through that book verse by verse, we were reminded of the fact that we don't know who wrote Hebrews and evidently, since the Bible is sufficient, we're not needful of knowing who wrote the book of Hebrews because evidently we're to read the book of Hebrews without reference to any particular congregational cause. Evidently the Holy Spirit would have us to read the book of Hebrews without trying to understand what was happening in the timeline of the human inspired author at that time. Contrast that with Paul. Paul's letters are clearly marked. Paul identifies himself: “Paul, an apostle of the Lord, Jesus Christ.” And it is important in our understanding of the Pauline epistles, the Pauline letters, to know that Paul did write this. Paul will tell accounts of his own personal life and of his own personal testimony in his letters. And furthermore, it's important for us to know in the flow of the letters what was going on. When he writes to the Romans in Romans chapter one, “I long to be with you, but I've been hindered from coming to you.” We understand that that fits where, in the book of Acts, it tells us that he received a vision of a man from Macedonia who called him to Greece, prevented him, delayed him at least, from getting to Rome. And you understand, while evidently there, the authorship by the epistles identified to Paul, the Pauline authorship then becomes very important.  That's certainly true also in a letter like Second Peter because Second Peter is making the point that what he relates, the inspired author, the human author of Second Peter says that “it is important that you know that I am an eyewitness of these things.” And thus, it's not just church tradition that identifies Peter as the author of Second Peter, Peter identifies himself as the author of Second Peter, and says, “You need to know I was there when it happened.” If Peter thus is not the author of second Peter, then whoever did write Second Peter lied.  There is another form, however, of attributed authorship. And that fits what we're talking about here. And that comes down to this. We know that the books of Moses are rightly associated with the Mosaic authorship, not mostly because of anything found within Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, or Deuteronomy. We come to understand that within both the Old and the New Testament, the authorship of Moses is so assumed that, referring to Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, the subsequent witnesses of scripture will refer to this as “Moses said.” So it's not there in the beginning. Genesis 1:1 does not begin “Moses, appointed by the one true and living God.” Rather, it simply begins, “In the beginning.” When we talk about the attribution of these five books of Moses, we know that this is clearly a link to Mosaic authorship and to Mosaic authority. This is our understanding of how to begin an understanding of the book of Genesis.  Thus, we consider what we are about to confront in the text of the book of Genesis is that, which is the God inspired, word for word God-inspired text with which scripture, both in terms of the canon of scripture and the storyline of scripture begins. When you look at the actual text of Genesis, the first verse is one of the most familiar verses of all the scripture. It's short, it's poetic in its concision. It's not overly elaborate in terms of any use of words, and yet it encompasses the entire story. So in other words, it's almost as if the entire storyline of the Bible comes down to this first verse as being equivalent to getting the entire story underway with far more here than we might imagine in the economy of words.  “In the beginning.” Where else would you start here? We have another problem: in the beginning of what? This isn't in the beginning of God. As we will learn in scripture, God doesn't have a beginning, but we have a beginning. Our story has a beginning. The story of the cosmos has a beginning. And isn't in the beginning God created himself. It's “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” The storyline begins chronologically just the way, in our hearts and in our imagination, we want it to start. We don't want it to start at some subsequent point that will only make reference back to what happened in the beginning. We need to start right in the beginning. And the first words of God's inspired word begin right there “in the beginning.” The beginning is an interesting word because when you think about how to start a story, you start with some beginning. If you tell of who you are, if you start to tell your own autobiography, if you sit down next to someone on a plane and you just try to identify yourself, you have to start somewhere. And eventually, if you're gonna tell your story in any adequate way, you're gonna have to go back to your beginning. Well, where was your beginning? Well, I was born in Lakeland, Florida, October 19th, 1959. You've all been wondering about that. Lakeland, Florida, there in Polk County. And I was born. And that's the beginning of my story.  By the way, even though I was there and I have paperwork to prove it, I have no living memory of the occasion. I'm dependent upon others to tell me in the beginning. However, you don't have to get very old until you realize that's not an adequate beginning because something happened before you. So as you're a child, you begin to push the beginning back. You discover that these huge people you know as your parents also had a beginning. Where were you born? And when? Prehistoric times it sounds like. But nonetheless you begin to understand, “My parents are both born in 1936 in Plan City, Florida. Just about 15 miles away. Seemed like a long time away when I was a little child. It's shorter than the distance between my home and Highview Baptist Church right now. But nonetheless, that's where they were born. I wasn't there. Then I have to take that on faith. They told me they were born in Plant City, Florida.  Eventually, when doing a genealogical project, I saw their birth certificates. Low and behold, there is proof that they were born in Plant City, Florida, but I'm still taking it on faith. But then you come to understand that it doesn't go there. You go further and further and further and further back. I have a professional genealogical study of my paternal lineage going all the way back to the early 17th century in Basil, Switzerland, complete with marriage certificates and birth certificates and cemetery information and the ship's log of the ship thistle upon which my great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather came over from Switzerland and settled in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Amish family. I come to understand, at least that part of the family. But you know what? That's not even an adequate beginning because that only goes back to the early 17th century. That already implies there were 17 centuries prior to this. And not only that, there's time prior to that. So our beginning is problematic because we're never sure we can get far enough back. We just have to, at some point, trust there's enough beginning we can go forward. That's why if we had to have the genealogy traced for every one of us in every way we possibly could, in order to know who we are, most of us would never find out who we are. There's not enough documentation.  Well, you think about the beginning of an organization, or you think about the beginning of a church. So someone says, “when was this church founded?” Well, it kind of depends on what you mean. This church was organized in Louisville, Kentucky to a certain date, but it was actually founded by the Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew chapter 16. It was actually inaugurated in the second chapter of the Book of Acts. So that's when this church was founded. It had a beginning. But the church as a story, before there was a church, in other words, the beginning's problematic for any of us.  The beginning we're talking about here is not the beginning of God in which there's no beginning. It is rather the beginning of the cosmos, the storyline of creation. And here we find a very simple statement that the most important thing we come to understand is not a when, but a who. The central issue of Genesis 1:1 is who. “In the beginning,” introductory language, “God.”  Now let's just assume that we're considering a condensed version of the scriptures. Back about 30 plus years ago, Reader's Digest, which was famous for condensing novels in other books, and putting them out in a very popular series of readers, a reader’s digest of condensed books, decided to condense the Bible. It was a rather controversial project as you might imagine. One Christian magazine lampooned it by condensing the Bible down to a hilarious paragraph. And you realize it really can't be done. And the Reader's Digest’s condensed Bible, despite the hopes of Reader’s Digest, did not become a bestselling book. It just resists that kind of condensation. But you know, if you were to consider how to condense the Bible down to just a few statements, you could certainly imagine condensing the Bible down to, if you just had to, if you were running out of time, and you had to say what the Bible's about, you might go first to John 3:16, “For God to love the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him might not perish, but have everlasting life.” It certainly condenses the storyline of Jesus, the account of Jesus and the Gospels and the teaching of Jesus concerning why he came, and the meaning of his life, death, and resurrection. It’s all right there. God's purpose in the incarnation is right there.  But you know, you could say that everything in the Bible comes down actually to the first four words in the English translation of Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God.” Now the reason why that's important is this, not only is Genesis 1:1 primarily about the, who, the who explains everything that follows. Not everything that follows in Genesis, everything that follows, period. Because as the author, and as the originator, as the designer, and as the creator of all the cosmos, then, as BB Warfield, the famous Princeton theologian, said, “He by definition names it, claims it, and owns it, such that everything that follows follows from the fact that it's his.” He is the agent who creates in the beginning. God created the heavens and the earth.  Now, another interesting thing here, of course, is if we were reading Genesis for the first time, if we don't know anything else about the storyline of scripture, and we don't know anything else about Christianity, or even if we didn't know anything about Judaism in terms of the Old Testament, and we just picked up this book and we read “In the beginning God created the heavens on the earth.” How would we know who this God is? Well, which God? Does it not strike you as something odd that it just says, “God.” By the time this was written, there were already various paganism and idolatries. There were already alternative accounts of creation and how the world came to be. The peoples around Israel had their own accounts. They had their own understanding. After all, we're talking about Moses here through whom this came to be written. And by the time you're talking about Moses, you're talking about the people of Israel in captivity to Pharaoh in Egypt, and the Egyptians had their own creation story. And they had their own collection of gods. And of course they're all around them, the Canaanite and all the others that as we shall see, Abraham certainly would have known. In fact, out of which Abraham himself came, they had their own creation stories. They had their own gods.  Why the simplicity of this statement “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” God, is that enough? Well, here, we need to understand something else about the entire storyline of the Bible. The entire storyline of the Bible, beginning in Genesis 1:1, identifies the only God that matters as the God who created the heavens and the earth. As a matter of fact, what is going to distinguish Jehovah, YHWH, the God of Israel, is going to be that he actually did create all these things. He is the only uncreated being. Everything else is created. And when, last week, we were looking at Isaiah chapter 44 and the issue of idolatry, one of the things that became most clear, the folly of idolatry is in the fact that the idols are things that are made. God isn't made, He makes. So even though we have the simple statement “In the beginning God,” it's because the Holy Spirit would have us clearly to understand that the only God that is is the God who does this. And as more is revealed about him in his word that follows everything we will know then is tracked back to the fact that the God who exists, the one true God, is that God whom created the heavens and the earth.  “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Thus, the first thing we know about God is that he is the creator. And that is a title that he will retain throughout the entirety of the biblical canon. He is the one who creates. Remember your creator in the day of your youth. He again will claim of himself, “Did I not make you, Job?” at that great climactic conclusion to the book of Job. God will speak to Job and say, “Excuse me, let's remember the difference between us. Were you there when I created this? Were you there when I created that? Obviously, even Job is in the position of saying, “No, sir.” Which isn't even necessary. It's not even answered in scripture. It's so clear. But God says, “look, I was there. I did this. You look at that creature, I made that. You look at that artifact, that wonder of creation, I made that. Where were you? Which one of us is God? I'll tell you which one's God. It is the one who is creator, not the one who is created.  “In the beginning God created.” You’ll notice the singularity of this. God creates alone. He doesn't require others to be about his task of creation. What we will learn as we move forward through Genesis chapter one, and also as we look at Genesis chapter two, is that God will create verbally. He will speak. And when he speaks, it is created. He doesn't have to have minions and workers. He doesn't have a construction crew. He simply speaks and it is. “In the beginning God created.” Created is a verb. God is acting. One of the first things we learn about God is not only that he is the origin of all things, that he is the one who has created, and thus He is sovereign over all things. That establishes the fact that he owns all things, but it also makes very, very clear that he acts. God acts. God, not merely is, God acts. That becomes very important too. Because one of the things we will learn about his human creatures is that we are made in his image. And a part of what we're going to learn, that Genesis will reveal, is about human beings being made uniquely in God's image. We too, verb, we act. A part of what it means to be made in God's image is to be able to act. And by the way, also to create. We do create things. The problem is that we don't create in the same way that God creates. We create out of stuff. God creates the stuff. We're gonna learn, as we look through Genesis one, that it is essential to understand God's creation as ex nihilo. We'll talk about that. That is the Latin term, as the word “genesis” itself is a Latin term. That means out of nothing. He doesn't create out of stuff. He doesn't take preexisting stuff because nothing's preexisting except himself. He creates the stuff.  “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” In other words, the totality of all there is. In the ancient cosmology, limited as they were in their prehistoric ignorance, they assumed that everything that was was either seen by looking down or looking up. In our advanced sophistication, so much wiser and accumulated so much knowledge and wisdom, since then having gained so much in our understanding we're in a different position. Except we're not. We still know that everything that is to be known in terms of creation is by looking down or looking up. In other words, it's here on this earth or it's out there in the heavens. In other words, our world picture may be more sophisticated because of our astronomical and scientific knowledge, but we're stuck in the same human predicament. We're looking up and we're looking down. God created the heavens. We look up everything and we see God has created. You put the Hubble telescope up there, which Moses didn't know about, and the Hubble telescope can look millions of light years out into the future, or I guess actually into the past. And what does it see? It sees the heavens. That's what it’s looking at. In other words, there is no dimension other than this, the heavens and the earth. This is everything. He created everything that is. You look down, everything you see, God created. You look up, everything you see, God created.  The distinction between the heavens and the earth is crucial here, but mostly because together they represent the totality of everything that is. The first verse of scripture tells us, most importantly, who: God. Which God? The God who does this, as we shall see. The only God who deserves to be called God. The God who will say, “bring no other gods before me.” The God who will say, “Where were you when I did this?” The God who will say, “Remember who I am. I am the creator of all things. I made it. I own it. I claim it. I rule it. It's mine.”In the beginning the God who already existed. In the beginning he created, he acted. He freely acted. Nothing was constraining him to have to create. No external force required him to create. He created because he freely willed to do so. And as we shall see, he tells us why he willed to do so. In the beginning, God created, he acted, he willed. He sovereignly created out of nothing, as we shall see, the heavens and the earth, everything that is.  Now, just imagine where we would be if we did not have those few words. We wouldn't know the who. We wouldn't have a clue of how to know the why. We wouldn't know the what. We wouldn't know anything that is absolutely necessary to our understanding of the storyline of scripture. But now we know everything we need to know in the beginning. And now as we follow word by word, through the book of Genesis, we're gonna learn a great deal more. And we will be coming back time and time again, to Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Let's pray. Our father, we are so thankful that you have given us not only in this passage, but in your word, access to your truth. And otherwise we would never know. Father you have to tell us these things because we have no access to them but by the free and merciful gift of your revelation. Father, thank you for giving us Genesis. Thank you for giving us the entirety of scripture. But thank you this day for giving us this one short verse with which the entire canon of your word begins. In order that we can understand where to begin in the beginning. And  father, we are so thankful to be reminded by this text, informed by this text, instructed by this text, that we begin not with a when, but, most importantly, with a who. And so father, we end by praising you as the one who created us and created all things and rules over us and rules over all things. Father we conclude by thanking you that we know you not only as creator, but as redeemer and thus in thankfulness. We come to you in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. Amen. Look forward to being back with you next Sunday for verse two. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.This morning we have the privilege of beginning a new book. In terms of ministries of expository preaching and teaching, it is often the case that time flows by teaching rather than by the chronology of the calendar. I was just recently in California with the ministry of Dr. John MacArthur who has preached through the course of 40 years through the entire New Testament, word by word. And when people talk about when they were born there, they will say I was born during the Gospel of John. And we got married during the epistle to the Romans. And our children went to high school during the Gospel of Luke. That's the way it works. In the ministry of Dr. WA Criswell, at the First Baptist Church of Dallas, people would say, “I joined the church during Exodus, and that my mom and dad came and joined the church during Isaiah. An expository ministry is measured by text more than by time. And I say that as a word of warning.  We are entering into the book of Genesis, and we are entering into 50 chapters of the book of Genesis. Children will be conceived and born, and may well enter into higher education, by the time we find ourselves at the end of this book. And we need to say right up front, that's the plan. To rush through Genesis would be to miss the point of going word by word and verse by verse through this book. As we consider what it means to begin in the beginning, we need to recognize that there is a hunger on the part of any thinking person to understand exactly what the book of Genesis will address for us.  Every worldview has to have an account of how things came to be. This is one of the most fundamental human needs. This is something we're going to track as we follow along, not only in the doctrine of creation, but in the other absolutely fundamentally important truths that are revealed in the book of Genesis. Without the book of Genesis, we would not know the who in terms of creation. Without the book of Genesis, we would not know the how, but more importantly, we would not know the who and the why. We would not know for instance, what has happened to human beings without the account of the fall that we find in Genesis chapter three. We would not understand a great deal of the confusion that marks humanity without the account of the Tower of Babel. We would not understand God's covenantal promises to Israel without his doings with Abraham. And that is just what we might say comes in the first half or first third of the book of Genesis, with far more to come. Every worldview has to have an account of why there is something, rather than nothing. Every worldview, every thinking mind, has to rest upon some assumption, some revelation, some claim as to how things have come to be. And by the way, this starts very, very early.  There was a book recently written by an evolutionary scientist who is trying to answer the question, why is it that very small children tend, by the very disposition of their minds, to disbelieve in evolution and to believe in intelligent creation. And this scientist thought, “well, we're gonna have to answer this question because it turns out that children are not blank slates when it comes to something like creation.” And this is true of children. Not only those who have Christian parents, and are raised in Christian homes, and are taught the book of Genesis. It is not just children who've been exposed to the storyline of scripture with creation, fall, redemption and recreation. It's children in general, it's children across cultures, it's children in secular homes and in Christian homes. Children are not naturally born evolutionists. So this evolutionary scientist, perplexed by this reality, did a study and discovered that, this is gonna be shocking to you, that when they see something, assume that someone made it. Now, how do they come to that conclusion? They come to that conclusion because just about everything they see is explained by the fact that someone made it. Who built the house, somebody built it. How did this building come to be? Somebody designed it, somebody built it, somebody furnished it. How did all this happen to be? How did the park come to be? How did my school come to be? How did all these things come to be? And then when they look at the world, they look at what we would call the created order. They see exactly the same thing. Nothing I know happened by accident.  Not only that, children, and this is a very insightful point of her research, children very early assume that the greater the detail of the object, the greater the intelligence of the one who created it. Now, where in the world will they get that idea? Well, they know what they can build. You give them blocks, they'll build a house, but they're not gonna live in it. They'll look at the house in which they live, they're rational creatures, it's a lot more complex. It requires knowledge they don't have. It requires strength they don't have. Needless to say, it requires financial resources they don't have. They get to live in it. They know they didn't build it, but they trust that someone built it. When they look at the world, they come up with the same understanding. Every intelligent mind asks the question, as did the ancient philosopher: why is there something rather than nothing? Genesis begins the biblical story at this point. As we look at the opening of the book of Genesis, we recognize that, as we are looking at the first words of the book of Genesis, we are looking at the first words of the Bible. Now, in what sense is that important to us? Well, it's important to us because we need to recognize that the Bible is not an accidental ordering of books. The canon of scripture, the 66 books of the Bible, the 39 books of the Old Testament, the 27 books of the New Testament, these are not randomly arranged. And when you think about it, each one of the testaments is arranged in the way that genuinely does make the most sense to us in terms of the storyline of the Bible. The New Testament, for example, does not begin with a book of Acts. It does not begin with the epistles of Paul. It begins with the four Gospels because we cannot understand what the New Testament is about unless we begin with the promise of Christ, the birth of Christ, and the earthly ministry of Christ. And only then are we able to turn to the birth of the Church in the book of Acts, and the spread of the gospel in that same book, and then the life of the churches, and instruction of the churches that follows, and all that continues. And of course, the book of Revelation at the end is the book that is most intensely, although not uniquely, but it is the most intensely focused upon those things yet to come.  And as we come to understand the New Testament, we see that thus there is a natural order between the Gospels, and then history, and then pastoral exhortation, and finally the prophetic apocalyptic text that comes at the end of the book of Revelation. So also in the Old Testament, where would we begin? We divide the Old Testament into certain kinds of literature. First of all, the Pentateuch, the five books that are written by Moses, the five books of the law, that which is known primarily amongst the Jews as Torah. There the story begins. Then after that our historical books, beginning, of course, with Joshua and following through the historical books that deal with the monarchy of Israel, then there is the wisdom literature and that is the Psalter of Israel. And of course it includes also the book of Job and the Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes, the book of Proverbs, and most centrally the Psalms themselves. Then follow the prophetic literature, which is the rest of the Old Testament divided between the Major Prophets and the Minor Prophets. Now, when I heard that as a boy, I heard that like the major leagues and the minor leagues. That is not the case. We're not talking about the importance of the prophets. We're talking about the length of their books. The Major Prophets are named major simply because of the size of the books, and the Minor Prophets, known collectively as the book of the 12, are grouped together at the end. So what we have here is a natural way of beginning, and we're also dealing with those things that not only in terms of temporal priority, but of logical priority, come first.  We can't imagine starting the New Testament with the book of Acts, because how can you begin, for instance, with the day of Pentecost when you don't know what has come before it? How in the world could we begin anywhere else in terms of the book of God in the Old Testament than with the book of Genesis? Because if we didn't begin here, we'd have to keep coming back to this over and over again, because it would be impossible to talk of anything that follows without making constant reference explaining questions that we should have explained before. That's why in the wisdom of the Scripture, we have Genesis up front.  Genesis, of course, as we just said, is one of five books of the Pentateuch. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. These function much like the Gospels in the New Testament. They are the fundamental set of books that establish the storyline to which everything that follows is absolutely accountable. When you think about the five books of Moses, the five books of the Pentateuch, without them, you really don't know how in the world the storyline is going to work. You don't know what's come before, and you really don't even understand the promises that have been made that are yet to be fulfilled. As a matter of fact, if you just look at the number of words in the Old Testament that are invested in the Pentateuch, and then you think about the chronology of time that is invested in the Pentateuch, the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, then you'll recognize that so much of what we know, not only about the Old Testament, but of course about the entire Scripture is found right here in these books. And in particular, in the book of Genesis, the word Genesis comes from the Latin meaning origin, or it's literally in the beginning, the Genesis of all things. This is how it has to start. We have to begin in the beginning.  When we look at the book of Genesis, we need to settle a couple of issues up front, including the issue of its authorship. Now here there are controversial issues that have only become controversial in the last 200 years. If you take 20 centuries of church history, if you go from the book of Acts until the time of the dawn of the 21st century, for 18 of those 20 centuries, no one seriously questioned that Moses was himself the human author of the first five books of the Bible. The rise of historical criticism, and especially of that which is known as higher criticism of liberal biblical criticism, an anti-supernaturalistic attempt to understand the Bible as a human historical artifact, about 200 years ago, there arose arguments that Moses didn't write the Pentateuch and that Moses couldn't have written the Pentateuch. Now, here we come across some arguments. So we're just gonna have to consider them head on.  Now the main argument does not come from where the middle school class would go. I can remember knowing that it was believed that Moses wrote these books. And then the first time I read through the Bible cover to cover, and I did it from Genesis to Revelation, I just figured that's the way you're supposed to do it. I still think, by the way, that's a good way to do it. I was about 13 and I got to the end of Deuteronomy and it talks about the death of Moses. And I thought, how do you write about his own death? That is the middle school objection to the Mosaic authorship. And the simple answer to that is it was completed by someone who finished the work, documenting the death of Moses, and that that's not really a problem. That's a middle school problem.  The larger problem is in the rise of historical criticism, there arose the theory that what we have in the Pentateuch, in the first five books of the Bible, is not the work of any single inspired author that was written contemporaneously with the time of Moses. But rather what we have is the work of four different historical sources each with his own political agenda. And what we have is an edited colation that is known as the Graf-Wellhausen theory of the Pentateuch, dividing the five books into four different strains: J, E, P, and D. And that's the Deuteronomist, the Priestly, the Elohist, and the Jahwehist. And suggesting that what you have here is an edited, politically motivated compilation of things that emerge, at least many of them, from far after the centuries after the time of Moses. Now, I say that just in order to say that if you were to go to any liberal, biblical seminary, anywhere in the modern world, they would tell you that that's exactly what the Pentateuch is. It is a human collection of different writings edited over time for different political purposes, some to support the monarchy, some to support the priestly class, the Deuteronomist limited to the purpose in Deuteronomy. And if you do that, and if you look at the Pentateuch in that way, and if you take that kind of approach, not only to the Pentateuch, but to the entire scripture as logically you must, then all you're gonna do when you read the Bible is read about the beliefs of ancient people. And all you're left with is an historical argument, that there were many people who lived thousands of years ago who actually believed things reflected in these texts. And what we would do is an archeological kind of study, a deconstructive literary exercise, in which we would try to say, alright, I think what they meant by this was they evidently believed that because of this reason, they wrote that for this purpose. But let me just remind you that if that's what you believe about the scripture, then all you're left with is the historical imagination and curiosity of what ancient people believed.  We are not approaching the verse by verse, word by word, study of the book of Genesis because we are interested primarily in what ancient people believed. We are approaching this book because we believe that it is indeed the inerrant, infallible word of God that was indeed revealed by God to Moses. Now, understand that when you're talking about authorship, in this case, that in the scriptures there are different ways that authorship is attributed. For instance, you have books in which authorship is clearly irrelevant such as the book of Hebrews. When we went through that book verse by verse, we were reminded of the fact that we don't know who wrote Hebrews and evidently, since the Bible is sufficient, we're not needful of knowing who wrote the book of Hebrews because evidently we're to read the book of Hebrews without reference to any particular congregational cause. Evidently the Holy Spirit would have us to read the book of Hebrews without trying to understand what was happening in the timeline of the human inspired author at that time. Contrast that with Paul. Paul's letters are clearly marked. Paul identifies himself: “Paul, an apostle of the Lord, Jesus Christ.” And it is important in our understanding of the Pauline epistles, the Pauline letters, to know that Paul did write this. Paul will tell accounts of his own personal life and of his own personal testimony in his letters. And furthermore, it's important for us to know in the flow of the letters what was going on. When he writes to the Romans in Romans chapter one, “I long to be with you, but I've been hindered from coming to you.” We understand that that fits where, in the book of Acts, it tells us that he received a vision of a man from Macedonia who called him to Greece, prevented him, delayed him at least, from getting to Rome. And you understand, while evidently there, the authorship by the epistles identified to Paul, the Pauline authorship then becomes very important.  That's certainly true also in a letter like Second Peter because Second Peter is making the point that what he relates, the inspired author, the human author of Second Peter says that “it is important that you know that I am an eyewitness of these things.” And thus, it's not just church tradition that identifies Peter as the author of Second Peter, Peter identifies himself as the author of Second Peter, and says, “You need to know I was there when it happened.” If Peter thus is not the author of second Peter, then whoever did write Second Peter lied.  There is another form, however, of attributed authorship. And that fits what we're talking about here. And that comes down to this. We know that the books of Moses are rightly associated with the Mosaic authorship, not mostly because of anything found within Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, or Deuteronomy. We come to understand that within both the Old and the New Testament, the authorship of Moses is so assumed that, referring to Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, the subsequent witnesses of scripture will refer to this as “Moses said.” So it's not there in the beginning. Genesis 1:1 does not begin “Moses, appointed by the one true and living God.” Rather, it simply begins, “In the beginning.” When we talk about the attribution of these five books of Moses, we know that this is clearly a link to Mosaic authorship and to Mosaic authority. This is our understanding of how to begin an understanding of the book of Genesis.  Thus, we consider what we are about to confront in the text of the book of Genesis is that, which is the God inspired, word for word God-inspired text with which scripture, both in terms of the canon of scripture and the storyline of scripture begins. When you look at the actual text of Genesis, the first verse is one of the most familiar verses of all the scripture. It's short, it's poetic in its concision. It's not overly elaborate in terms of any use of words, and yet it encompasses the entire story. So in other words, it's almost as if the entire storyline of the Bible comes down to this first verse as being equivalent to getting the entire story underway with far more here than we might imagine in the economy of words.  “In the beginning.” Where else would you start here? We have another problem: in the beginning of what? This isn't in the beginning of God. As we will learn in scripture, God doesn't have a beginning, but we have a beginning. Our story has a beginning. The story of the cosmos has a beginning. And isn't in the beginning God created himself. It's “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” The storyline begins chronologically just the way, in our hearts and in our imagination, we want it to start. We don't want it to start at some subsequent point that will only make reference back to what happened in the beginning. We need to start right in the beginning. And the first words of God's inspired word begin right there “in the beginning.” The beginning is an interesting word because when you think about how to start a story, you start with some beginning. If you tell of who you are, if you start to tell your own autobiography, if you sit down next to someone on a plane and you just try to identify yourself, you have to start somewhere. And eventually, if you're gonna tell your story in any adequate way, you're gonna have to go back to your beginning. Well, where was your beginning? Well, I was born in Lakeland, Florida, October 19th, 1959. You've all been wondering about that. Lakeland, Florida, there in Polk County. And I was born. And that's the beginning of my story.  By the way, even though I was there and I have paperwork to prove it, I have no living memory of the occasion. I'm dependent upon others to tell me in the beginning. However, you don't have to get very old until you realize that's not an adequate beginning because something happened before you. So as you're a child, you begin to push the beginning back. You discover that these huge people you know as your parents also had a beginning. Where were you born? And when? Prehistoric times it sounds like. But nonetheless you begin to understand, “My parents are both born in 1936 in Plan City, Florida. Just about 15 miles away. Seemed like a long time away when I was a little child. It's shorter than the distance between my home and Highview Baptist Church right now. But nonetheless, that's where they were born. I wasn't there. Then I have to take that on faith. They told me they were born in Plant City, Florida.  Eventually, when doing a genealogical project, I saw their birth certificates. Low and behold, there is proof that they were born in Plant City, Florida, but I'm still taking it on faith. But then you come to understand that it doesn't go there. You go further and further and further and further back. I have a professional genealogical study of my paternal lineage going all the way back to the early 17th century in Basil, Switzerland, complete with marriage certificates and birth certificates and cemetery information and the ship's log of the ship thistle upon which my great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather came over from Switzerland and settled in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Amish family. I come to understand, at least that part of the family. But you know what? That's not even an adequate beginning because that only goes back to the early 17th century. That already implies there were 17 centuries prior to this. And not only that, there's time prior to that. So our beginning is problematic because we're never sure we can get far enough back. We just have to, at some point, trust there's enough beginning we can go forward. That's why if we had to have the genealogy traced for every one of us in every way we possibly could, in order to know who we are, most of us would never find out who we are. There's not enough documentation.  Well, you think about the beginning of an organization, or you think about the beginning of a church. So someone says, “when was this church founded?” Well, it kind of depends on what you mean. This church was organized in Louisville, Kentucky to a certain date, but it was actually founded by the Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew chapter 16. It was actually inaugurated in the second chapter of the Book of Acts. So that's when this church was founded. It had a beginning. But the church as a story, before there was a church, in other words, the beginning's problematic for any of us.  The beginning we're talking about here is not the beginning of God in which there's no beginning. It is rather the beginning of the cosmos, the storyline of creation. And here we find a very simple statement that the most important thing we come to understand is not a when, but a who. The central issue of Genesis 1:1 is who. “In the beginning,” introductory language, “God.”  Now let's just assume that we're considering a condensed version of the scriptures. Back about 30 plus years ago, Reader's Digest, which was famous for condensing novels in other books, and putting them out in a very popular series of readers, a reader’s digest of condensed books, decided to condense the Bible. It was a rather controversial project as you might imagine. One Christian magazine lampooned it by condensing the Bible down to a hilarious paragraph. And you realize it really can't be done. And the Reader's Digest’s condensed Bible, despite the hopes of Reader’s Digest, did not become a bestselling book. It just resists that kind of condensation. But you know, if you were to consider how to condense the Bible down to just a few statements, you could certainly imagine condensing the Bible down to, if you just had to, if you were running out of time, and you had to say what the Bible's about, you might go first to John 3:16, “For God to love the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him might not perish, but have everlasting life.” It certainly condenses the storyline of Jesus, the account of Jesus and the Gospels and the teaching of Jesus concerning why he came, and the meaning of his life, death, and resurrection. It’s all right there. God's purpose in the incarnation is right there.  But you know, you could say that everything in the Bible comes down actually to the first four words in the English translation of Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God.” Now the reason why that's important is this, not only is Genesis 1:1 primarily about the, who, the who explains everything that follows. Not everything that follows in Genesis, everything that follows, period. Because as the author, and as the originator, as the designer, and as the creator of all the cosmos, then, as BB Warfield, the famous Princeton theologian, said, “He by definition names it, claims it, and owns it, such that everything that follows follows from the fact that it's his.” He is the agent who creates in the beginning. God created the heavens and the earth.  Now, another interesting thing here, of course, is if we were reading Genesis for the first time, if we don't know anything else about the storyline of scripture, and we don't know anything else about Christianity, or even if we didn't know anything about Judaism in terms of the Old Testament, and we just picked up this book and we read “In the beginning God created the heavens on the earth.” How would we know who this God is? Well, which God? Does it not strike you as something odd that it just says, “God.” By the time this was written, there were already various paganism and idolatries. There were already alternative accounts of creation and how the world came to be. The peoples around Israel had their own accounts. They had their own understanding. After all, we're talking about Moses here through whom this came to be written. And by the time you're talking about Moses, you're talking about the people of Israel in captivity to Pharaoh in Egypt, and the Egyptians had their own creation story. And they had their own collection of gods. And of course they're all around them, the Canaanite and all the others that as we shall see, Abraham certainly would have known. In fact, out of which Abraham himself came, they had their own creation stories. They had their own gods.  Why the simplicity of this statement “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” God, is that enough? Well, here, we need to understand something else about the entire storyline of the Bible. The entire storyline of the Bible, beginning in Genesis 1:1, identifies the only God that matters as the God who created the heavens and the earth. As a matter of fact, what is going to distinguish Jehovah, YHWH, the God of Israel, is going to be that he actually did create all these things. He is the only uncreated being. Everything else is created. And when, last week, we were looking at Isaiah chapter 44 and the issue of idolatry, one of the things that became most clear, the folly of idolatry is in the fact that the idols are things that are made. God isn't made, He makes. So even though we have the simple statement “In the beginning God,” it's because the Holy Spirit would have us clearly to understand that the only God that is is the God who does this. And as more is revealed about him in his word that follows everything we will know then is tracked back to the fact that the God who exists, the one true God, is that God whom created the heavens and the earth.  “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Thus, the first thing we know about God is that he is the creator. And that is a title that he will retain throughout the entirety of the biblical canon. He is the one who creates. Remember your creator in the day of your youth. He again will claim of himself, “Did I not make you, Job?” at that great climactic conclusion to the book of Job. God will speak to Job and say, “Excuse me, let's remember the difference between us. Were you there when I created this? Were you there when I created that? Obviously, even Job is in the position of saying, “No, sir.” Which isn't even necessary. It's not even answered in scripture. It's so clear. But God says, “look, I was there. I did this. You look at that creature, I made that. You look at that artifact, that wonder of creation, I made that. Where were you? Which one of us is God? I'll tell you which one's God. It is the one who is creator, not the one who is created.  “In the beginning God created.” You’ll notice the singularity of this. God creates alone. He doesn't require others to be about his task of creation. What we will learn as we move forward through Genesis chapter one, and also as we look at Genesis chapter two, is that God will create verbally. He will speak. And when he speaks, it is created. He doesn't have to have minions and workers. He doesn't have a construction crew. He simply speaks and it is. “In the beginning God created.” Created is a verb. God is acting. One of the first things we learn about God is not only that he is the origin of all things, that he is the one who has created, and thus He is sovereign over all things. That establishes the fact that he owns all things, but it also makes very, very clear that he acts. God acts. God, not merely is, God acts. That becomes very important too. Because one of the things we will learn about his human creatures is that we are made in his image. And a part of what we're going to learn, that Genesis will reveal, is about human beings being made uniquely in God's image. We too, verb, we act. A part of what it means to be made in God's image is to be able to act. And by the way, also to create. We do create things. The problem is that we don't create in the same way that God creates. We create out of stuff. God creates the stuff. We're gonna learn, as we look through Genesis one, that it is essential to understand God's creation as ex nihilo. We'll talk about that. That is the Latin term, as the word “genesis” itself is a Latin term. That means out of nothing. He doesn't create out of stuff. He doesn't take preexisting stuff because nothing's preexisting except himself. He creates the stuff.  “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” In other words, the totality of all there is. In the ancient cosmology, limited as they were in their prehistoric ignorance, they assumed that everything that was was either seen by looking down or looking up. In our advanced sophistication, so much wiser and accumulated so much knowledge and wisdom, since then having gained so much in our understanding we're in a different position. Except we're not. We still know that everything that is to be known in terms of creation is by looking down or looking up. In other words, it's here on this earth or it's out there in the heavens. In other words, our world picture may be more sophisticated because of our astronomical and scientific knowledge, but we're stuck in the same human predicament. We're looking up and we're looking down. God created the heavens. We look up everything and we see God has created. You put the Hubble telescope up there, which Moses didn't know about, and the Hubble telescope can look millions of light years out into the future, or I guess actually into the past. And what does it see? It sees the heavens. That's what it’s looking at. In other words, there is no dimension other than this, the heavens and the earth. This is everything. He created everything that is. You look down, everything you see, God created. You look up, everything you see, God created.  The distinction between the heavens and the earth is crucial here, but mostly because together they represent the totality of everything that is. The first verse of scripture tells us, most importantly, who: God. Which God? The God who does this, as we shall see. The only God who deserves to be called God. The God who will say, “bring no other gods before me.” The God who will say, “Where were you when I did this?” The God who will say, “Remember who I am. I am the creator of all things. I made it. I own it. I claim it. I rule it. It's mine.”In the beginning the God who already existed. In the beginning he created, he acted. He freely acted. Nothing was constraining him to have to create. No external force required him to create. He created because he freely willed to do so. And as we shall see, he tells us why he willed to do so. In the beginning, God created, he acted, he willed. He sovereignly created out of nothing, as we shall see, the heavens and the earth, everything that is.  Now, just imagine where we would be if we did not have those few words. We wouldn't know the who. We wouldn't have a clue of how to know the why. We wouldn't know the what. We wouldn't know anything that is absolutely necessary to our understanding of the storyline of scripture. But now we know everything we need to know in the beginning. And now as we follow word by word, through the book of Genesis, we're gonna learn a great deal more. And we will be coming back time and time again, to Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Let's pray. Our father, we are so thankful that you have given us not only in this passage, but in your word, access to your truth. And otherwise we would never know. Father you have to tell us these things because we have no access to them but by the free and merciful gift of your revelation. Father, thank you for giving us Genesis. Thank you for giving us the entirety of scripture. But thank you this day for giving us this one short verse with which the entire canon of your word begins. In order that we can understand where to begin in the beginning. And  father, we are so thankful to be reminded by this text, informed by this text, instructed by this text, that we begin not with a when, but, most importantly, with a who. And so father, we end by praising you as the one who created us and created all things and rules over us and rules over all things. Father we conclude by thanking you that we know you not only as creator, but as redeemer and thus in thankfulness. We come to you in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. Amen. Look forward to being back with you next Sunday for verse two. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2013/03/03/james-513-20/ Sun, 03 Mar 2013 09:30:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 39:55 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=26264 Audio, Exposition, James, James Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2013/02/24/james-57-12/ Sun, 24 Feb 2013 09:30:48 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 39:16 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=26200 Audio, Exposition, James, James Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2013/02/03/james-413-56/ Sun, 03 Feb 2013 09:30:54 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 35:57 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=25988 Audio, Exposition, James, James Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2013/01/20/james-45-10/ Sun, 20 Jan 2013 09:30:29 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 34:40 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=25976 Audio, Exposition, James, James Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2012/12/30/james-41-4/ Sun, 30 Dec 2012 09:30:47 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 34:32 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=25972 Audio, Exposition, James, James Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2012/12/16/james-35b-18/ Sun, 16 Dec 2012 09:30:43 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 43:20 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=25699 Audio, Exposition, James, James Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2012/12/09/james-31-5a/ Sun, 09 Dec 2012 09:30:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 37:11 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=25665 Audio, Exposition, James, James Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2012/12/02/james-218-26/ Sun, 02 Dec 2012 09:30:55 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 40:52 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=25561 Audio, Exposition, James, James Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2012/11/25/james-28-17/ Sun, 25 Nov 2012 09:30:36 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 39:42 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=25439 Audio, Exposition, James, James Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2012/11/11/james-21-7/ Sun, 11 Nov 2012 09:30:27 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 36:50 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=25265 Audio, Exposition, James, James Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2012/11/04/james-127-28/ Sun, 04 Nov 2012 09:30:03 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 39:24 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=25189 Audio, Exposition, James, James Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2012/10/28/james-122-25/ Sun, 28 Oct 2012 09:30:40 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 29:52 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=25096 Audio, Exposition, James, James Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2012/10/14/james-119-21/ Sun, 14 Oct 2012 09:30:24 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 40:57 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=24888 Audio, Exposition, James, James Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2012/10/07/james-116-18/ Sun, 07 Oct 2012 09:30:06 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 33:18 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=24829 Audio, Exposition, James, James Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2012/09/23/james-19-15/ Sun, 23 Sep 2012 09:30:04 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 37:59 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=24715 Audio, Exposition, James, James Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2012/09/16/james-15-8/ Sun, 16 Sep 2012 09:30:03 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 36:17 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=24667 Audio, Exposition, James, James Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2012/08/26/james-12-4/ Sun, 26 Aug 2012 09:30:20 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 33:29 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=24437 Audio, Exposition, James, James Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2012/08/12/james-11/ Sun, 12 Aug 2012 09:30:56 +0000 The title of the book is quite simple and straightforward: the letter of James. In many Bible translations and in its published format, you will see a reference to the epistle of James as one of the Catholic epistles. The Catholic epistles refer to the fact that even as many of the other epistles are addressed to a specific congregation, especially as you look for instance at the majority of the letters of Paul as you have the letter to the churches at Thessalonica and Corinth and Philippi and Ephesus, here you do not have a letter addressed in terms of its designation by the recipient but rather by the author.
In other words, there is a clue to us here at the very beginning of this study, that it is the identity and role of James as an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ that is going to be crucial to our understanding of this letter. This is a letter not written to a specific church that is then shared with the entire Christian Church, but rather this was addressed from the very beginning to all of the churches. The letter begins, as we are familiar with Greco-Roman letters beginning, with the identity, the sender: James. James identifies himself as “a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the 12 tribes in the Dispersion: Greetings.” (1:1)
As we begin our study, the book of James is going to be very interesting as we keep in mind that this has been one of the most controversial books in the entire New Testament. It was controversial from the start and became far more controversial in the 16th century and beyond. The reason for this is that if we are not careful, and if we do not practice a good process of interpreting the Scripture, a good discipline of interpreting the scripture, then we can fall into the trap of believing that there are certain texts that are at odds with other texts. In particular classically, it has been suggested that there is a conflict between the gospel as understood by the apostle Paul and the gospel as understood by James. 
I said the controversy was ignited in a big way in the 16th century, and of course you'll recognize that that is the century of the Reformation. In the Reformation, the gospel was recovered and it was asserted in terms of all of its Pauline and New Testament purity. There were many who were involved in the defense of the gospel at that time who were concerned that James appeared not to affirm many of the same things that Paul affirmed, but rather to be looking at the gospel from a very different direction. Luther himself, Martin Luther, the great magisterial reformer, referred to James quite infamously as “a right strawy epistle”. In other words, he saw it as “straw”, over and against the meat of Paul. 
There have been others who have suggested that the book of James is in many ways, a corrective to many misunderstandings of the gospel in the early church. As the most faithful Bible interpreters have understood from the very beginning, the Holy Spirit has given us not only individual books but the Canon of Scripture, that is the entire collection of scripture, in particular, the Canon of the New Testament. The Holy Spirit who inspired every single word of every one of these writings, superintended the fact that we need both of these witnesses, we need both Paul and James. Furthermore, even as we begin our study, we affirm our understanding that the authority and perfection of Scripture requires that we understand that there is a consistent understanding that if there appears to be some sort of contradiction or contrary word within the text, the problem is not in the text, but in our understanding. As the church has matured in its understanding of the book of James, it has come to the blessed realization that what we have in James is the gospel applied. Even as you have the recognition that the apostle Paul was inspired to define the gospel in such clear terms as being that our justification is by faith alone, along comes James to remind us that faith without works is dead.
When we see a book like this, not addressed to a specific congregation by which it is known, but rather designated by its author, then the question immediately comes to us, “Who is this author? Who is this James?” In the New Testament you already know of several James’. There were two who were with Jesus almost from the beginning. One was the brother of John, the son of Zebedee. There were other James’ also found within the New Testament, but from the very beginning of the Christian tradition, it has been understood that this particular James is James, the brother of Jesus Christ.
Now, when we think about the story of Jesus, the account of the life and ministry of Jesus, and then we think about the account of the earliest church in the book of Acts, and then we think about the continuation of the story of the church in the New Testament, we recognize that James plays a very, very important part. There is no reason internally or externally to believe that the author of this epistle is anyone other than James. As a matter of fact, there are both external and internal references and evidence to indicate that this is none other than James, the brother of Jesus. And of course, when we say the brother of Jesus, we mean the half brother of Jesus. The main opponent to the understanding that this James is James, the brother of Jesus, is the fact that the Roman Catholic church, teaching the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary, has argued for centuries that Jesus had no brothers. That indeed, when there are references to those who are the brothers of Christ in the New Testament, they're actually his cousins.
Well, let's just make a couple things clear as we begin. There is absolutely no claim in the New Testament nor implication, nor inference of any sort that Mary remained a virgin married to Joseph after the conception and birth of Christ. As a matter of fact, in the infancy narratives, you have a very clear reference to the fact that she kept herself a virgin until the birth of Christ. Not only that, there are internal references within the gospels to those who are the brothers of Christ and the word used there is brother in the sense that we would use the word brother. Not just in the generalized sense, in terms of fellowship, but in the familial sense of a blood relative. If this is indeed James, then as we know the New Testament, we know that there is a particular meaning here to the fact that this is written by the brother of Christ.
That means, before we get into the actual text of the letter, we need to consider just a few things about what the New Testament has told us already about the family of Jesus, including his brothers, in terms of his earthly ministry. We look to a text such as John 7:5, and here we read “for not even his brothers believed in him.” So John tells us in John 7:5 that there were many who heard Jesus were moved by him, were intrigued by him, who saw the signs and miracles. Even as many in the crowds believed in him, not even his brothers believed in him. It was a comprehensive statement, not one of Christ’s brothers believed in him at this point, as we read in John 7. We look at the gospel of Mark 3:21. There we read concerning the family of Jesus, “when his family heard it, they went out to seize him for they were saying ‘He is out of his mind.’” So in other words, the revolutionary message of Jesus so scandalized the family of Christ that they sought to do what families do when scandalized by one of their members, to take him away and to try to explain it away. Mark is very clear about this, “they went out to seize him for they were saying ‘He's out of his mind.’” So, from John 7 and Mark 3 we have the indication, not only that his brothers did not believe in him, an emphatic statement, but that not believing in him, they were scandalized by him. They sought even to explain him away by saying, “He's out of his mind.”
Now, there are many things we could trace out from this. One of them is that this is also one of the clear internal references to the fact that Jesus clearly claimed deity from the very beginning of his ministry. Liberal scholars throughout the last three or so centuries have tried to argue that it was the church's reinterpretation of the Scriptures, it was the apostles’ later revision of the gospel in which Christ claims divinity. But what you see here is one of the internal evidences, when it says in John 7, that even his brothers didn't believe. What was it they didn't believe? It was the claims he made concerning himself. When it says in Mark 3 that his family was scandalized by what he said and when they tried to seize him saying, “He's out of his mind”, why do they think he was out of his mind? It's because he was clearly claiming to be deity and acting as if he were. 
Thenhen you have a very remarkable transformation. It's a transformation that has to be found as you look closely at the New Testament. Because one of the things that we must always keep in mind when we're looking at a text like this, or at a question like this, is that we have the testimony of the Scriptures. As we look to the Scriptures, we have the evidence of what the Holy Spirit inspired that we are to receive. We do not have the totality of the experience of the early church, which means obviously, as John says at the end of his gospel, if you were to collect everything Jesus said and did into books, the world itself could not contain all of them. There are times where we see a reference in Scripture, and then we realize, this is absolutely astounding.
Something huge had to happen between point A and point B. Point A  in this case is the fact that not one of his family members believed in him, and that his brothers in particular are identified in John as not believing in him. Then you come to 1 Corinthians 15, the great passage in which Paul speaks to the priority of the gospel and of the power of the resurrection of Christ. He begins this way in 1 Corinthians 15:1, “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you - unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as a first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas,” that’s Peter, “then to the twelve.” (1 Cor. 15:1-5) Then notice carefully, “Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.” (1 Cor. 15:6-7)
James, simply mentioned here by name, because simply to mention his name is all that is necessary. This is clearly not one of the James who was in the original disciples of Christ. This is James, identified as one as an apostle who stands out simply by the reference to his name as being worthy and necessary of this inclusion. “Then he appeared to James.” 
James, the half brother of Jesus, as you know, becomes the central leader of the church in Jerusalem. The one who, along with his other brother, did not believe in Christ, who considered him insane and tried to explain that he's out of his mind. By the time you get to 1 Corinthians 15, we are told that Christ appeared to him, and then we understand the transformation. The central event, the transformation of James from one who thought that his half brother was insane to when he became the great pillar of the church, was his knowledge of the resurrected Christ. The resurrection changes everything. The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead changed everything in the life of James. When the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 recites how he became an apostle and the centrality of the resurrection of Christ to the gospel, he refers to the fact that as Christ made his series of appearances, he appeared to James and then to all the apostles. “Last of all,” Paul says, “as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.” (1 Cor. 15:8) We also have another very important reference to this James from Paul found in the book of Galatians. As you look at Galatians 1:19, there is no mystery whatsoever that Paul leaves concerning who James is. Galatians 1:19, “But I saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord's brother.”
Now it's very helpful to us because we would think that's who James is. We believe that's who James is, but we don't have to connect any dots here. The dots are all connected. This is Paul who says, now when I mention James you be very clear, this is James, the Lord's brother. James fulfills a very important role in the early church as is made clear in the book of Acts. And in particular, to make reference to the most important passage in the book of Acts, you look at Acts chapter 15. This passage is known as the ‘Jerusalem Council’. James plays a very important role and that very important role is underscored with some particular language that we will find when we look to this passage. 
This was the great question about how the Gentiles are to be incorporated into the church and in the dispensation of the gospel, how it is that the Gentiles are to be included. Must they become Jews in order to become followers of Christ, faithful Christian disciples? And of course the answer was no, but this council was necessary in order to determine that. To answer a basic question about circumcision, a basic question about the identity of the gospel, the leaders of the church are gathered here. What you find in the book of Acts chapter 15 is the chronology of this particular council. Now look at verse 13. As a matter of fact, look back at verse 12 first, “and all the assembly fell silent and they listened to Barnabas and Paul, as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles. After they finished speaking, James replied, ‘Brothers listen to me. Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles to take from them a people for his name. And with this, the words of the prophets agree just as it is written,’ ‘After this all will return, I will rebuild the tent of David that had fallen.I will rebuild its ruins. I will restore it, that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord. That all the Gentiles and all the Gentiles who are called by my name,’ says the Lord who makes these things known from of old.’” Then look very carefully at the first words of verse 19. “Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, but should write to them, to abstain from the things polluted by idols and from sexual immorality and from what has been strangled and from blood for, from ancient generations, Moses has had in every city, those who proclaim him for he was read every Sabbath in the synagogues.”
Now the conclusion of the Jerusalem council is so important to the history of the church and frankly, to our own inclusion in the gospel of Christ and how we understand that gospel: the new covenant over and against and as the fulfillment of the old covenant. For our purposes in this study, the most important words are those that begin verse 19, which in context are thunders in their implications. There James says, “Therefore, my judgment is”. In other words, the stature of James in the early church and in particular in the Jerusalem church and amongst the apostles was so massive that when James says, “Therefore, my judgment is,” that's a massive judgment, as is made clear as you see in verse 23.
Look at verse 22 first, “Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders with the whole church to choose men from among them and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas called Barsabbas and Silas, leading men among the brothers, with the following letter, ‘The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the brothers who are the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, Greetings.” And then they go on to relate the determinations of the Jerusalem council. So in other words, you put together verse 19 and verse 22. In verse 19, James says, “Therefore, my judgment is,” and then to verse 22, “then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders with the whole church.”
So what do we know about James? We know from seeking a comprehensive picture of him from the New Testament, before we get to the letter that bears his name, that this is the brother of Christ, specifically the half brother of Christ, the son of Joseph and Mary. And that he, along with his other brothers during their earthly ministry of Jesus, did not believe in him, but that after the resurrection of Christ from the dead, when Christ appeared to James, James not only believes in him, but becomes an apostle one who is sent out with the authority of Christ as a leader of the church. And he becomes the pillar of the church of Jerusalem, such that when the Jerusalem council is held, James says, “My judgment is,” and it becomes the judgment of the church.
We know something else about James, and there is of course, many other references to him in the book of Acts. But most importantly, what we know about James comes from the earliest historians of the Christian era, who tell us that during the governorship of Festus, James was martyred. The chronological year of that martyrdom would've been in AD 62. So the earthly life of James came to an end, according to the best historical sources, as he was martyred for his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the very Lord who was his brother, who in whom he did not believe until he saw him when raised from the dead and then gave his life to serve as an apostle.
The date of the letter of the book of James therefore is likely between that of 30 and 62 AD. It's a pretty wide span, but it is adequate for our understanding to date it in the earliest history of the early church. And thus, when James writes this letter, he writes it to a church that has experienced already, as we know from verse 1, a dispersion. “James, a servant of God, and of the Lord Jesus Christ.” James identifies himself, not as the brother of Christ. It's a very interesting thing here. Paul, as you saw in Galatians chapter 1, refers to James as the brother of Jesus, but otherwise he's referred to as James. And when he here, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, begins a letter written to the whole church, he identifies himself, not as James, the brother of Christ, but as, “James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ”. 
It is a stunningly powerful way of making a point.The most important thing about James is not that he was the brother of Christ, but the servant of Christ. The most important thing about James in his own self understanding is that he was a doulos, a servant or a slave of God and the Lord Jesus Christ. He here refers to the one who by the flesh is his half brother. And instead of saying, “I was the brother to Jesus,” he says, “I am the servant of God,” and notice the title, “the Lord Jesus Christ.” Again, the centrality of the resurrection is so important as Paul makes clear in Philippians chapter 2, on the basis of his obedience, even at death, God has highly exalted him in the resurrection and given him the name that is above every name. And that is the title of Lord, promising that one day, “every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ Lord to the glory of God the Father.” 
This James, who knows that the most important thing about himself is not whose brother he was, but whose servant he is, he writes to the entire church. Following the traditions of Greco-Roman letters, he begins by identifying himself. By the way, that would be very helpful. And as a matter of fact, when we receive letters today, you'll remember what those quaint things are. They're printed on paper, they begin “Dear somebody” and end “Sincerely” or something like that, you still want to know who the letter's from. You can't understand the letter until you know who it's from. So we look to the bottom of the letter, the Greeks had a better system. The Greco-Roman system began in their conventions of letter writing by beginning with the sender, “James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ”, and then the address, “to the church of the Lord, Jesus Christ”. To the church here, the church there? No. The language of James is “to the 12 tribes in the dispersion, Greetings”. As we will follow word by word and verse by verse through the book of James, we will discover it is in every syllable saturated with the gospel, saturated with Christian truth.
It is written to the church, not just to a specific congregation in a specific place in a specific time, but written to the church throughout all the ages everywhere it is found. He refers to the church as, “the twelve tribes in the dispersion”. Again, the meaning of this could be easily passed over, but it is thunderous and earth shaking. James was the leader of the church in Jerusalem. The church in Jerusalem was the congregation, of course, where the gospel was first preached, in terms of the congregation there formed in the aftermath of the resurrection and the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ, going all the way back to the day of Pentecost. The church in Jerusalem was made up of Jews who had come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and the Jerusalem church becomes the center of Jewish Christianity.
Thus, when the gospel is then shared with the Gentiles and the door is open to the Gentiles, even the discussion of how the early church is going to understand that, by the leadership of the Holy Spirit, comes to Jerusalem. It can't be settled anywhere but in Jerusalem. The council is held in Jerusalem and it is the leader of the church in Jerusalem, indeed, James, none other than the brother of Jesus, who says, “my judgment is”, and it became the judgment of the church. 
One of the hardest questions for the early church to figure out is, “What's the relationship between Israel and the church? What's the relationship between the Jews who come to know Christ and the Gentiles who come to know salvation in Christ? Are they one people or two people?” And of course you have in the New Testament a symphonic answer to that question. The summary of it is, that as Paul writes. It is the truth that the Gentiles have now been grafted on to the promises made to Israel.
There is no more powerful demonstration of that than when James begins his letter referring, not to Israel, the Israel of old, but rather the new Israel, the church. By referring to the church as the twelve tribes in the dispersion. James knows to whom he is writing. He's  writing to those who have come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He's not just writing to Jews who have come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He's not just writing to Gentiles who come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He has written to all those who by God's grace have come to know the gospel of Jesus Christ. And they are now the Israel of God.
That doesn't mean that God does not still have promises made to the nation of Israel under the covenant of old. It does mean that salvation belongs to the Israel of God. The new Israel, made up of all those who buy their confession of faith and belief in Christ now find themselves amongst the twelve tribes in the dispersion. It's incredible. James doesn't say, “I'm James, the brother of Jesus.” He says, “James, a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ.” He doesn't say, “I'm writing to the church.” He does say that, but in different words by saying, “to the twelve tribes in the dispersion”. The twelve tribes, the new Israel, the people of the new covenant and the dispersion, they're everywhere. 
Now the word dispersion is not an innocent word. It is a sinister word in the sense that it means that Christians have been scattered about. We know that even as the word dispersion was used in both the Old and the New Testaments, particularly in the New Testament, it refers to the fact that Christians have no homeland. Paul will say, our citizenship is in heaven. Peter will begin his letter by suggesting that we are aliens residing in places everywhere. So the church is not made up of a national people, not in terms of earthly kingdoms. The church is not geographically designated. The church is not locally limited in any way. The church is made up of the 12 tribes, the new Israel dispersed in the dispersion. In other words, James, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is saying, “I'm writing to Christians wherever they are found, to Christian churches, wherever they've been dispersed. I'm writing by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to all believers and to all churches everywhere at all times until Jesus, my brother, comes. Greetings.” Just a few words.
Most of the time when we begin a letter, we just begin it in order to get to where we want to go. We dispense with the niceties in order to get to the point. The formalities are just that. These are not formalities. These are not literary niceties. This is James, the brother of Jesus, who says, “The most important thing you need to know about me is that I am a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. To whom am I writing? The new Israel, the church dispersed wherever it's found, whenever it lives, Greetings.” 
Now don't you want to know what follows that? It will be our privilege to learn every word together. Let's pray:
Our Father, we are so thankful for the power of your Word. Every single word inspired by your Spirit and every single word is not only meaningful, but vital, essential in our understanding. Father, thank you for this which you have given us by the gift of our brother, James, the servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, we will wait expectantly to hear your Word as you speak by your Word, and we'll pray that in so doing, you will conform us to the image of Christ by the Spirit in the word. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen. 

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 31:24 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=24434 Audio, Exposition, James, James Series noWe are thrilled to be with you, beginning a new semester at Southern Seminary. Many of you have new fall schedules before you. Many of you have friends and loved ones, relatives who are beginning new academic terms. It's not always coincident with us beginning a new expositional study, but after about three years in the book of Hebrews, verse by verse, we turn this morning to begin in the book of James. If you find the book of James, which conveniently is the next book in our English Bible translations after the book of Hebrews, we’ll begin our study.  The title of the book is quite simple and straightforward: the letter of James. In many Bible translations and in its published format, you will see a reference to the epistle of James as one of the Catholic epistles. The Catholic epistles refer to the fact that even as many of the other epistles are addressed to a specific congregation, especially as you look for instance at the majority of the letters of Paul as you have the letter to the churches at Thessalonica and Corinth and Philippi and Ephesus, here you do not have a letter addressed in terms of its designation by the recipient but rather by the author. In other words, there is a clue to us here at the very beginning of this study, that it is the identity and role of James as an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ that is going to be crucial to our understanding of this letter. This is a letter not written to a specific church that is then shared with the entire Christian Church, but rather this was addressed from the very beginning to all of the churches. The letter begins, as we are familiar with Greco-Roman letters beginning, with the identity, the sender: James. James identifies himself as “a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the 12 tribes in the Dispersion: Greetings.” (1:1) As we begin our study, the book of James is going to be very interesting as we keep in mind that this has been one of the most controversial books in the entire New Testament. It was controversial from the start and became far more controversial in the 16th century and beyond. The reason for this is that if we are not careful, and if we do not practice a good process of interpreting the Scripture, a good discipline of interpreting the scripture, then we can fall into the trap of believing that there are certain texts that are at odds with other texts. In particular classically, it has been suggested that there is a conflict between the gospel as understood by the apostle Paul and the gospel as understood by James.  I said the controversy was ignited in a big way in the 16th century, and of course you'll recognize that that is the century of the Reformation. In the Reformation, the gospel was recovered and it was asserted in terms of all of its Pauline and New Testament purity. There were many who were involved in the defense of the gospel at that time who were concerned that James appeared not to affirm many of the same things that Paul affirmed, but rather to be looking at the gospel from a very different direction. Luther himself, Martin Luther, the great magisterial reformer, referred to James quite infamously as “a right strawy epistle”. In other words, he saw it as “straw”, over and against the meat of Paul.  There have been others who have suggested that the book of James is in many ways, a corrective to many misunderstandings of the gospel in the early church. As the most faithful Bible interpreters have understood from the very beginning, the Holy Spirit has given us not only individual books but the Canon of Scripture, that is the entire collection of scripture, in particular, the Canon of the New Testament. The Holy Spirit who inspired every single word of every one of these writings, superintended the fact that we need both of these witnesses, we need both Paul and James. Furthermore, even as we begin our study, we affirm our understanding that the authority and perfection of Scripture requires that we understand that there is a consistent understanding that if there appears to be some sort of contradiction or contrary word within the text, the problem is not in the text, but in our understanding. As the church has matured in its understanding of the book of James, it has come to the blessed realization that what we have in James is the gospel applied. Even as you have the recognition that the apostle Paul was inspired to define the gospel in such clear terms as being that our justification is by faith alone, along comes James to remind us that faith without works is dead. When we see a book like this, not addressed to a specific congregation by which it is known, but rather designated by its author, then the question immediately comes to us, “Who is this author? Who is this James?” In the New Testament you already know of several James’. There were two who were with Jesus almost from the beginning. One was the brother of John, the son of Zebedee. There were other James’ also found within the New Testament, but from the very beginning of the Christian tradition, it has been understood that this particular James is James, the brother of Jesus Christ. Now, when we think about the story of Jesus, the account of the life and ministry of Jesus, and then we think about the account of the earliest church in the book of Acts, and then we think about the continuation of the story of the church in the New Testament, we recognize that James plays a very, very important part. There is no reason internally or externally to believe that the author of this epistle is anyone other than James. As a matter of fact, there are both external and internal references and evidence to indicate that this is none other than James, the brother of Jesus. And of course, when we say the brother of Jesus, we mean the half brother of Jesus. The main opponent to the understanding that this James is James, the brother of Jesus, is the fact that the Roman Catholic church, teaching the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary, has argued for centuries that Jesus had no brothers. That indeed, when there are references to those who are the brothers of Christ in the New Testament, they're actually his cousins. Well, let's just make a couple things clear as we begin. There is absolutely no claim in the New Testament nor implication, nor inference of any sort that Mary remained a virgin married to Joseph after the conception and birth of Christ. As a matter of fact, in the infancy narratives, you have a very clear reference to the fact that she kept herself a virgin until the birth of Christ. Not only that, there are internal references within the gospels to those who are the brothers of Christ and the word used there is brother in the sense that we would use the word brother. Not just in the generalized sense, in terms of fellowship, but in the familial sense of a blood relative. If this is indeed James, then as we know the New Testament, we know that there is a particular meaning here to the fact that this is written by the brother of Christ. That means, before we get into the actual text of the letter, we need to consider just a few things about what the New Testament has told us already about the family of Jesus, including his brothers, in terms of his earthly ministry. We look to a text such as John 7:5, and here we read “for not even his brothers believed in him.” So John tells us in John 7:5 that there were many who heard Jesus were moved by him, were intrigued by him, who saw the signs and miracles. Even as many in the crowds believed in him, not even his brothers believed in him. It was a comprehensive statement, not one of Christ’s brothers believed in him at this point, as we read in John 7. We look at the gospel of Mark 3:21. There we read concerning the family of Jesus, “when his family heard it, they went out to seize him for they were saying ‘He is out of his mind.’” So in other words, the revolutionary message of Jesus so scandalized the family of Christ that they sought to do what families do when scandalized by one of their members, to take him away and to try to explain it away. Mark is very clear about this, “they went out to seize him for they were saying ‘He's out of his mind.’” So, from John 7 and Mark 3 we have the indication, not only that his brothers did not believe in him, an emphatic statement, but that not believing in him, they were scandalized by him. They sought even to explain him away by saying, “He's out of his mind.” Now, there are many things we could trace out from this. One of them is that this is also one of the clear internal references to the fact that Jesus clearly claimed deity from the very beginning of his ministry. Liberal scholars throughout the last three or so centuries have tried to argue that it was the church's reinterpretation of the Scriptures, it was the apostles’ later revision of the gospel in which Christ claims divinity. But what you see here is one of the internal evidences, when it says in John 7, that even his brothers didn't believe. What was it they didn't believe? It was the claims he made concerning himself. When it says in Mark 3 that his family was scandalized by what he said and when they tried to seize him saying, “He's out of his mind”, why do they think he was out of his mind? It's because he was clearly claiming to be deity and acting as if he were.  Thenhen you have a very remarkable transformation. It's a transformation that has to be found as you look closely at the New Testament. Because one of the things that we must always keep in mind when we're looking at a text like this, or at a question like this, is that we have the testimony of the Scriptures. As we look to the Scriptures, we have the evidence of what the Holy Spirit inspired that we are to receive. We do not have the totality of the experience of the early church, which means obviously, as John says at the end of his gospel, if you were to collect everything Jesus said and did into books, the world itself could not contain all of them. There are times where we see a reference in Scripture, and then we realize, this is absolutely astounding. Something huge had to happen between point A and point B. Point A  in this case is the fact that not one of his family members believed in him, and that his brothers in particular are identified in John as not believing in him. Then you come to 1 Corinthians 15, the great passage in which Paul speaks to the priority of the gospel and of the power of the resurrection of Christ. He begins this way in 1 Corinthians 15:1, “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you - unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as a first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas,” that’s Peter, “then to the twelve.” (1 Cor. 15:1-5) Then notice carefully, “Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.” (1 Cor. 15:6-7) James, simply mentioned here by name, because simply to mention his name is all that is necessary. This is clearly not one of the James who was in the original disciples of Christ. This is James, identified as one as an apostle who stands out simply by the reference to his name as being worthy and necessary of this inclusion. “Then he appeared to James.”  James, the half brother of Jesus, as you know, becomes the central leader of the church in Jerusalem. The one who, along with his other brother, did not believe in Christ, who considered him insane and tried to explain that he's out of his mind. By the time you get to 1 Corinthians 15, we are told that Christ appeared to him, and then we understand the transformation. The central event, the transformation of James from one who thought that his half brother was insane to when he became the great pillar of the church, was his knowledge of the resurrected Christ. The resurrection changes everything. The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead changed everything in the life of James. When the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 recites how he became an apostle and the centrality of the resurrection of Christ to the gospel, he refers to the fact that as Christ made his series of appearances, he appeared to James and then to all the apostles. “Last of all,” Paul says, “as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.” (1 Cor. 15:8) We also have another very important reference to this James from Paul found in the book of Galatians. As you look at Galatians 1:19, there is no mystery whatsoever that Paul leaves concerning who James is. Galatians 1:19, “But I saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord's brother.” Now it's very helpful to us because we would think that's who James is. We believe that's who James is, but we don't have to connect any dots here. The dots are all connected. This is Paul who says, now when I mention James you be very clear, this is James, the Lord's brother. James fulfills a very important role in the early church as is made clear in the book of Acts. And in particular, to make reference to the most important passage in the book of Acts, you look at Acts chapter 15. This passage is known as the ‘Jerusalem Council’. James plays a very important role and that very important role is underscored with some particular language that we will find when we look to this passage.  This was the great question about how the Gentiles are to be incorporated into the church and in the dispensation of the gospel, how it is that the Gentiles are to be included. Must they become Jews in order to become followers of Christ, faithful Christian disciples? And of course the answer was no, but this council was necessary in order to determine that. To answer a basic question about circumcision, a basic question about the identity of the gospel, the leaders of the church are gathered here. What you find in the book of Acts chapter 15 is the chronology of this particular council. Now look at verse 13. As a matter of fact, look back at verse 12 first, “and all the assembly fell silent and they listened to Barnabas and Paul, as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles. After they finished speaking, James replied, ‘Brothers listen to me. Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles to take from them a people for his name. And with this, the words of the prophets agree just as it is written,’ ‘After this all will return, I will rebuild the tent of David that had fallen.I will rebuild its ruins. I will restore it, that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord. That all the Gentiles and all the Gentiles who are called by my name,’ says the Lord who makes these things known from of old.’” Then look very carefully at the first words of verse 19. “Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, but should write to them, to abstain from the things polluted by idols and from sexual immorality and from what has been strangled and from blood for, from ancient generations, Moses has had in every city, those who proclaim him for he was read every Sabbath in the synagogues.” Now the conclusion of the Jerusalem council is so important to the history of the church and frankly, to our own inclusion in the gospel of Christ and how we understand that gospel: the new covenant over and against and as the fulfillment of the old covenant. For our purposes in this study, the most important words are those that begin verse 19, which in context are thunders in their implications. There James says, “Therefore, my judgment is”. In other words, the stature of James in the early church and in particular in the Jerusalem church and amongst the apostles was so massive that when James says, “Therefore, my judgment is,” that's a massive judgment, as is made clear as you see in verse 23. Look at verse 22 first, “Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders with the whole church to choose men from among them and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas called Barsabbas and Silas, leading men among the brothers, with the following letter, ‘The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the brothers who are the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, Greetings.” And then they go on to relate the determinations of the Jerusalem council. So in other words, you put together verse 19 and verse 22. In verse 19, James says, “Therefore, my judgment is,” and then to verse 22, “then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders with the whole church.” So what do we know about James? We know from seeking a comprehensive picture of him from the New Testament, before we get to the letter that bears his name, that this is the brother of Christ, specifically the half brother of Christ, the son of Joseph and Mary. And that he, along with his other brothers during their earthly ministry of Jesus, did not believe in him, but that after the resurrection of Christ from the dead, when Christ appeared to James, James not only believes in him, but becomes an apostle one who is sent out with the authority of Christ as a leader of the church. And he becomes the pillar of the church of Jerusalem, such that when the Jerusalem council is held, James says, “My judgment is,” and it becomes the judgment of the church. We know something else about James, and there is of course, many other references to him in the book of Acts. But most importantly, what we know about James comes from the earliest historians of the Christian era, who tell us that during the governorship of Festus, James was martyred. The chronological year of that martyrdom would've been in AD 62. So the earthly life of James came to an end, according to the best historical sources, as he was martyred for his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the very Lord who was his brother, who in whom he did not believe until he saw him when raised from the dead and then gave his life to serve as an apostle. The date of the letter of the book of James therefore is likely between that of 30 and 62 AD. It's a pretty wide span, but it is adequate for our understanding to date it in the earliest history of the early church. And thus, when James writes this letter, he writes it to a church that has experienced already, as we know from verse 1, a dispersion. “James, a servant of God, and of the Lord Jesus Christ.” James identifies himself, not as the brother of Christ. It's a very interesting thing here. Paul, as you saw in Galatians chapter 1, refers to James as the brother of Jesus, but otherwise he's referred to as James. And when he here, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, begins a letter written to the whole church, he identifies himself, not as James, the brother of Christ, but as, “James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ”.  It is a stunningly powerful way of making a point.The most important thing about James is not that he was the brother of Christ, but the servant of Christ. The most important thing about James in his own self understanding is that he was a doulos, a servant or a slave of God and the Lord Jesus Christ. He here refers to the one who by the flesh is his half brother. And instead of saying, “I was the brother to Jesus,” he says, “I am the servant of God,” and notice the title, “the Lord Jesus Christ.” Again, the centrality of the resurrection is so important as Paul makes clear in Philippians chapter 2, on the basis of his obedience, even at death, God has highly exalted him in the resurrection and given him the name that is above every name. And that is the title of Lord, promising that one day, “every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ Lord to the glory of God the Father.”  This James, who knows that the most important thing about himself is not whose brother he was, but whose servant he is, he writes to the entire church. Following the traditions of Greco-Roman letters, he begins by identifying himself. By the way, that would be very helpful. And as a matter of fact, when we receive letters today, you'll remember what those quaint things are. They're printed on paper, they begin “Dear somebody” and end “Sincerely” or something like that, you still want to know who the letter's from. You can't understand the letter until you know who it's from. So we look to the bottom of the letter, the Greeks had a better system. The Greco-Roman system began in their conventions of letter writing by beginning with the sender, “James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ”, and then the address, “to the church of the Lord, Jesus Christ”. To the church here, the church there? No. The language of James is “to the 12 tribes in the dispersion, Greetings”. As we will follow word by word and verse by verse through the book of James, we will discover it is in every syllable saturated with the gospel, saturated with Christian truth. It is written to the church, not just to a specific congregation in a specific place in a specific time, but written to the church throughout all the ages everywhere it is found. He refers to the church as, “the twelve tribes in the dispersion”. Again, the meaning of this could be easily passed over, but it is thunderous and earth shaking. James was the leader of the church in Jerusalem. The church in Jerusalem was the congregation, of course, where the gospel was first preached, in terms of the congregation there formed in the aftermath of the resurrection and the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ, going all the way back to the day of Pentecost. The church in Jerusalem was made up of Jews who had come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and the Jerusalem church becomes the center of Jewish Christianity. Thus, when the gospel is then shared with the Gentiles and the door is open to the Gentiles, even the discussion of how the early church is going to understand that, by the leadership of the Holy Spirit, comes to Jerusalem. It can't be settled anywhere but in Jerusalem. The council is held in Jerusalem and it is the leader of the church in Jerusalem, indeed, James, none other than the brother of Jesus, who says, “my judgment is”, and it became the judgment of the church.  One of the hardest questions for the early church to figure out is, “What's the relationship between Israel and the church? What's the relationship between the Jews who come to know Christ and the Gentiles who come to know salvation in Christ? Are they one people or two people?” And of course you have in the New Testament a symphonic answer to that question. The summary of it is, that as Paul writes. It is the truth that the Gentiles have now been grafted on to the promises made to Israel. There is no more powerful demonstration of that than when James begins his letter referring, not to Israel, the Israel of old, but rather the new Israel, the church. By referring to the church as the twelve tribes in the dispersion. James knows to whom he is writing. He's  writing to those who have come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He's not just writing to Jews who have come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He's not just writing to Gentiles who come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He has written to all those who by God's grace have come to know the gospel of Jesus Christ. And they are now the Israel of God. That doesn't mean that God does not still have promises made to the nation of Israel under the covenant of old. It does mean that salvation belongs to the Israel of God. The new Israel, made up of all those who buy their confession of faith and belief in Christ now find themselves amongst the twelve tribes in the dispersion. It's incredible. James doesn't say, “I'm James, the brother of Jesus.” He says, “James, a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ.” He doesn't say, “I'm writing to the church.” He does say that, but in different words by saying, “to the twelve tribes in the dispersion”. The twelve tribes, the new Israel, the people of the new covenant and the dispersion, they're everywhere.  Now the word dispersion is not an innocent word. It is a sinister word in the sense that it means that Christians have been scattered about. We know that even as the word dispersion was used in both the Old and the New Testaments, particularly in the New Testament, it refers to the fact that Christians have no homeland. Paul will say, our citizenship is in heaven. Peter will begin his letter by suggesting that we are aliens residing in places everywhere. So the church is not made up of a national people, not in terms of earthly kingdoms. The church is not geographically designated. The church is not locally limited in any way. The church is made up of the 12 tribes, the new Israel dispersed in the dispersion. In other words, James, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is saying, “I'm writing to Christians wherever they are found, to Christian churches, wherever they've been dispersed. I'm writing by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to all believers and to all churches everywhere at all times until Jesus, my brother, comes. Greetings.” Just a few words. Most of the time when we begin a letter, we just begin it in order to get to where we want to go. We dispense with the niceties in order to get to the point. The formalities are just that. These are not formalities. These are not literary niceties. This is James, the brother of Jesus, who says, “The most important thing you need to know about me is that I am a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. To whom am I writing? The new Israel, the church dispersed wherever it's found, whenever it lives, Greetings.”  Now don't you want to know what follows that? It will be our privilege to learn every word together. Let's pray: Our Father, we are so thankful for the power of your Word. Every single word inspired by your Spirit and every single word is not only meaningful, but vital, essential in our understanding. Father, thank you for this which you have given us by the gift of our brother, James, the servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, we will wait expectantly to hear your Word as you speak by your Word, and we'll pray that in so doing, you will conform us to the image of Christ by the Spirit in the word. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.  You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.We are thrilled to be with you, beginning a new semester at Southern Seminary. Many of you have new fall schedules before you. Many of you have friends and loved ones, relatives who are beginning new academic terms. It's not always coincident with us beginning a new expositional study, but after about three years in the book of Hebrews, verse by verse, we turn this morning to begin in the book of James. If you find the book of James, which conveniently is the next book in our English Bible translations after the book of Hebrews, we’ll begin our study.  The title of the book is quite simple and straightforward: the letter of James. In many Bible translations and in its published format, you will see a reference to the epistle of James as one of the Catholic epistles. The Catholic epistles refer to the fact that even as many of the other epistles are addressed to a specific congregation, especially as you look for instance at the majority of the letters of Paul as you have the letter to the churches at Thessalonica and Corinth and Philippi and Ephesus, here you do not have a letter addressed in terms of its designation by the recipient but rather by the author. In other words, there is a clue to us here at the very beginning of this study, that it is the identity and role of James as an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ that is going to be crucial to our understanding of this letter. This is a letter not written to a specific church that is then shared with the entire Christian Church, but rather this was addressed from the very beginning to all of the churches. The letter begins, as we are familiar with Greco-Roman letters beginning, with the identity, the sender: James. James identifies himself as “a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the 12 tribes in the Dispersion: Greetings.” (1:1) As we begin our study, the book of James is going to be very interesting as we keep in mind that this has been one of the most controversial books in the entire New Testament. It was controversial from the start and became far more controversial in the 16th century and beyond. The reason for this is that if we are not careful, and if we do not practice a good process of interpreting the Scripture, a good discipline of interpreting the scripture, then we can fall into the trap of believing that there are certain texts that are at odds with other texts. In particular classically, it has been suggested that there is a conflict between the gospel as understood by the apostle Paul and the gospel as understood by James.  I said the controversy was ignited in a big way in the 16th century, and of course you'll recognize that that is the century of the Reformation. In the Reformation, the gospel was recovered and it was asserted in terms of all of its Pauline and New Testament purity. There were many who were involved in the defense of the gospel at that time who were concerned that James appeared not to affirm many of the same things that Paul affirmed, but rather to be looking at the gospel from a very different direction. Luther himself, Martin Luther, the great magisterial reformer, referred to James quite infamously as “a right strawy epistle”. In other words, he saw it as “straw”, over and against the meat of Paul.  There have been others who have suggested that the book of James is in many ways, a corrective to many misunderstandings of the gospel in the early church. As the most faithful Bible interpreters have understood from the very beginning, the Holy Spirit has given us not only individual books but the Canon of Scripture, that is the entire collection of scripture, in particular, the Canon of the New Testament. The Holy Spirit who inspired every single word of every one of these writings, superintended the fact that we need both of these witnesses, we need both Paul and James. Furthermore, even as we begin our study, we affirm our understanding that the authority and perfection of Scripture requires that we understand that there is a consistent understanding that if there appears to be some sort of contradiction or contrary word within the text, the problem is not in the text, but in our understanding. As the church has matured in its understanding of the book of James, it has come to the blessed realization that what we have in James is the gospel applied. Even as you have the recognition that the apostle Paul was inspired to define the gospel in such clear terms as being that our justification is by faith alone, along comes James to remind us that faith without works is dead. When we see a book like this, not addressed to a specific congregation by which it is known, but rather designated by its author, then the question immediately comes to us, “Who is this author? Who is this James?” In the New Testament you already know of several James’. There were two who were with Jesus almost from the beginning. One was the brother of John, the son of Zebedee. There were other James’ also found within the New Testament, but from the very beginning of the Christian tradition, it has been understood that this particular James is James, the brother of Jesus Christ. Now, when we think about the story of Jesus, the account of the life and ministry of Jesus, and then we think about the account of the earliest church in the book of Acts, and then we think about the continuation of the story of the church in the New Testament, we recognize that James plays a very, very important part. There is no reason internally or externally to believe that the author of this epistle is anyone other than James. As a matter of fact, there are both external and internal references and evidence to indicate that this is none other than James, the brother of Jesus. And of course, when we say the brother of Jesus, we mean the half brother of Jesus. The main opponent to the understanding that this James is James, the brother of Jesus, is the fact that the Roman Catholic church, teaching the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary, has argued for centuries that Jesus had no brothers. That indeed, when there are references to those who are the brothers of Christ in the New Testament, they're actually his cousins. Well, let's just make a couple things clear as we begin. There is absolutely no claim in the New Testament nor implication, nor inference of any sort that Mary remained a virgin married to Joseph after the conception and birth of Christ. As a matter of fact, in the infancy narratives, you have a very clear reference to the fact that she kept herself a virgin until the birth of Christ. Not only that, there are internal references within the gospels to those who are the brothers of Christ and the word used there is brother in the sense that we would use the word brother. Not just in the generalized sense, in terms of fellowship, but in the familial sense of a blood relative. If this is indeed James, then as we know the New Testament, we know that there is a particular meaning here to the fact that this is written by the brother of Christ. That means, before we get into the actual text of the letter, we need to consider just a few things about what the New Testament has told us already about the family of Jesus, including his brothers, in terms of his earthly ministry. We look to a text such as John 7:5, and here we read “for not even his brothers believed in him.” So John tells us in John 7:5 that there were many who heard Jesus were moved by him, were intrigued by him, who saw the signs and miracles. Even as many in the crowds believed in him, not even his brothers believed in him. It was a comprehensive statement, not one of Christ’s brothers believed in him at this point, as we read in John 7. We look at the gospel of Mark 3:21. There we read concerning the family of Jesus, “when his family heard it, they went out to seize him for they were saying ‘He is out of his mind.’” So in other words, the revolutionary message of Jesus so scandalized the family of Christ that they sought to do what families do when scandalized by one of their members, to take him away and to try to explain it away. Mark is very clear about this, “they went out to seize him for they were saying ‘He's out of his mind.’” So, from John 7 and Mark 3 we have the indication, not only that his brothers did not believe in him, an emphatic statement, but that not believing in him, they were scandalized by him. They sought even to explain him away by saying, “He's out of his mind.” Now, there are many things we could trace out from this. One of them is that this is also one of the clear internal references to the fact that Jesus clearly claimed deity from the very beginning of his ministry. Liberal scholars throughout the last three or so centuries have tried to argue that it was the church's reinterpretation of the Scriptures, it was the apostles’ later revision of the gospel in which Christ claims divinity. But what you see here is one of the internal evidences, when it says in John 7, that even his brothers didn't believe. What was it they didn't believe? It was the claims he made concerning himself. When it says in Mark 3 that his family was scandalized by what he said and when they tried to seize him saying, “He's out of his mind”, why do they think he was out of his mind? It's because he was clearly claiming to be deity and acting as if he were.  Thenhen you have a very remarkable transformation. It's a transformation that has to be found as you look closely at the New Testament. Because one of the things that we must always keep in mind when we're looking at a text like this, or at a question like this, is that we have the testimony of the Scriptures. As we look to the Scriptures, we have the evidence of what the Holy Spirit inspired that we are to receive. We do not have the totality of the experience of the early church, which means obviously, as John says at the end of his gospel, if you were to collect everything Jesus said and did into books, the world itself could not contain all of them. There are times where we see a reference in Scripture, and then we realize, this is absolutely astounding. Something huge had to happen between point A and point B. Point A  in this case is the fact that not one of his family members believed in him, and that his brothers in particular are identified in John as not believing in him. Then you come to 1 Corinthians 15, the great passage in which Paul speaks to the priority of the gospel and of the power of the resurrection of Christ. He begins this way in 1 Corinthians 15:1, “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you - unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as a first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas,” that’s Peter, “then to the twelve.” (1 Cor. 15:1-5) Then notice carefully, “Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.” (1 Cor. 15:6-7) James, simply mentioned here by name, because simply to mention his name is all that is necessary. This is clearly not one of the James who was in the original disciples of Christ. This is James, identified as one as an apostle who stands out simply by the reference to his name as being worthy and necessary of this inclusion. “Then he appeared to James.”  James, the half brother of Jesus, as you know, becomes the central leader of the church in Jerusalem. The one who, along with his other brother, did not believe in Christ, who considered him insane and tried to explain that he's out of his mind. By the time you get to 1 Corinthians 15, we are told that Christ appeared to him, and then we understand the transformation. The central event, the transformation of James from one who thought that his half brother was insane to when he became the great pillar of the church, was his knowledge of the resurrected Christ. The resurrection changes everything. The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead changed everything in the life of James. When the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 recites how he became an apostle and the centrality of the resurrection of Christ to the gospel, he refers to the fact that as Christ made his series of appearances, he appeared to James and then to all the apostles. “Last of all,” Paul says, “as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.” (1 Cor. 15:8) We also have another very important reference to this James from Paul found in the book of Galatians. As you look at Galatians 1:19, there is no mystery whatsoever that Paul leaves concerning who James is. Galatians 1:19, “But I saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord's brother.” Now it's very helpful to us because we would think that's who James is. We believe that's who James is, but we don't have to connect any dots here. The dots are all connected. This is Paul who says, now when I mention James you be very clear, this is James, the Lord's brother. James fulfills a very important role in the early church as is made clear in the book of Acts. And in particular, to make reference to the most important passage in the book of Acts, you look at Acts chapter 15. This passage is known as the ‘Jerusalem Council’. James plays a very important role and that very important role is underscored with some particular language that we will find when we look to this passage.  This was the great question about how the Gentiles are to be incorporated into the church and in the dispensation of the gospel, how it is that the Gentiles are to be included. Must they become Jews in order to become followers of Christ, faithful Christian disciples? And of course the answer was no, but this council was necessary in order to determine that. To answer a basic question about circumcision, a basic question about the identity of the gospel, the leaders of the church are gathered here. What you find in the book of Acts chapter 15 is the chronology of this particular council. Now look at verse 13. As a matter of fact, look back at verse 12 first, “and all the assembly fell silent and they listened to Barnabas and Paul, as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles. After they finished speaking, James replied, ‘Brothers listen to me. Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles to take from them a people for his name. And with this, the words of the prophets agree just as it is written,’ ‘After this all will return, I will rebuild the tent of David that had fallen.I will rebuild its ruins. I will restore it, that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord. That all the Gentiles and all the Gentiles who are called by my name,’ says the Lord who makes these things known from of old.’” Then look very carefully at the first words of verse 19. “Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, but should write to them, to abstain from the things polluted by idols and from sexual immorality and from what has been strangled and from blood for, from ancient generations, Moses has had in every city, those who proclaim him for he was read every Sabbath in the synagogues.” Now the conclusion of the Jerusalem council is so important to the history of the church and frankly, to our own inclusion in the gospel of Christ and how we understand that gospel: the new covenant over and against and as the fulfillment of the old covenant. For our purposes in this study, the most important words are those that begin verse 19, which in context are thunders in their implications. There James says, “Therefore, my judgment is”. In other words, the stature of James in the early church and in particular in the Jerusalem church and amongst the apostles was so massive that when James says, “Therefore, my judgment is,” that's a massive judgment, as is made clear as you see in verse 23. Look at verse 22 first, “Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders with the whole church to choose men from among them and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas called Barsabbas and Silas, leading men among the brothers, with the following letter, ‘The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the brothers who are the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, Greetings.” And then they go on to relate the determinations of the Jerusalem council. So in other words, you put together verse 19 and verse 22. In verse 19, James says, “Therefore, my judgment is,” and then to verse 22, “then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders with the whole church.” So what do we know about James? We know from seeking a comprehensive picture of him from the New Testament, before we get to the letter that bears his name, that this is the brother of Christ, specifically the half brother of Christ, the son of Joseph and Mary. And that he, along with his other brothers during their earthly ministry of Jesus, did not believe in him, but that after the resurrection of Christ from the dead, when Christ appeared to James, James not only believes in him, but becomes an apostle one who is sent out with the authority of Christ as a leader of the church. And he becomes the pillar of the church of Jerusalem, such that when the Jerusalem council is held, James says, “My judgment is,” and it becomes the judgment of the church. We know something else about James, and there is of course, many other references to him in the book of Acts. But most importantly, what we know about James comes from the earliest historians of the Christian era, who tell us that during the governorship of Festus, James was martyred. The chronological year of that martyrdom would've been in AD 62. So the earthly life of James came to an end, according to the best historical sources, as he was martyred for his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the very Lord who was his brother, who in whom he did not believe until he saw him when raised from the dead and then gave his life to serve as an apostle. The date of the letter of the book of James therefore is likely between that of 30 and 62 AD. It's a pretty wide span, but it is adequate for our understanding to date it in the earliest history of the early church. And thus, when James writes this letter, he writes it to a church that has experienced already, as we know from verse 1, a dispersion. “James, a servant of God, and of the Lord Jesus Christ.” James identifies himself, not as the brother of Christ. It's a very interesting thing here. Paul, as you saw in Galatians chapter 1, refers to James as the brother of Jesus, but otherwise he's referred to as James. And when he here, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, begins a letter written to the whole church, he identifies himself, not as James, the brother of Christ, but as, “James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ”.  It is a stunningly powerful way of making a point.The most important thing about James is not that he was the brother of Christ, but the servant of Christ. The most important thing about James in his own self understanding is that he was a doulos, a servant or a slave of God and the Lord Jesus Christ. He here refers to the one who by the flesh is his half brother. And instead of saying, “I was the brother to Jesus,” he says, “I am the servant of God,” and notice the title, “the Lord Jesus Christ.” Again, the centrality of the resurrection is so important as Paul makes clear in Philippians chapter 2, on the basis of his obedience, even at death, God has highly exalted him in the resurrection and given him the name that is above every name. And that is the title of Lord, promising that one day, “every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ Lord to the glory of God the Father.”  This James, who knows that the most important thing about himself is not whose brother he was, but whose servant he is, he writes to the entire church. Following the traditions of Greco-Roman letters, he begins by identifying himself. By the way, that would be very helpful. And as a matter of fact, when we receive letters today, you'll remember what those quaint things are. They're printed on paper, they begin “Dear somebody” and end “Sincerely” or something like that, you still want to know who the letter's from. You can't understand the letter until you know who it's from. So we look to the bottom of the letter, the Greeks had a better system. The Greco-Roman system began in their conventions of letter writing by beginning with the sender, “James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ”, and then the address, “to the church of the Lord, Jesus Christ”. To the church here, the church there? No. The language of James is “to the 12 tribes in the dispersion, Greetings”. As we will follow word by word and verse by verse through the book of James, we will discover it is in every syllable saturated with the gospel, saturated with Christian truth. It is written to the church, not just to a specific congregation in a specific place in a specific time, but written to the church throughout all the ages everywhere it is found. He refers to the church as, “the twelve tribes in the dispersion”. Again, the meaning of this could be easily passed over, but it is thunderous and earth shaking. James was the leader of the church in Jerusalem. The church in Jerusalem was the congregation, of course, where the gospel was first preached, in terms of the congregation there formed in the aftermath of the resurrection and the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ, going all the way back to the day of Pentecost. The church in Jerusalem was made up of Jews who had come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and the Jerusalem church becomes the center of Jewish Christianity. Thus, when the gospel is then shared with the Gentiles and the door is open to the Gentiles, even the discussion of how the early church is going to understand that, by the leadership of the Holy Spirit, comes to Jerusalem. It can't be settled anywhere but in Jerusalem. The council is held in Jerusalem and it is the leader of the church in Jerusalem, indeed, James, none other than the brother of Jesus, who says, “my judgment is”, and it became the judgment of the church.  One of the hardest questions for the early church to figure out is, “What's the relationship between Israel and the church? What's the relationship between the Jews who come to know Christ and the Gentiles who come to know salvation in Christ? Are they one people or two people?” And of course you have in the New Testament a symphonic answer to that question. The summary of it is, that as Paul writes. It is the truth that the Gentiles have now been grafted on to the promises made to Israel. There is no more powerful demonstration of that than when James begins his letter referring, not to Israel, the Israel of old, but rather the new Israel, the church. By referring to the church as the twelve tribes in the dispersion. James knows to whom he is writing. He's  writing to those who have come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He's not just writing to Jews who have come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He's not just writing to Gentiles who come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He has written to all those who by God's grace have come to know the gospel of Jesus Christ. And they are now the Israel of God. That doesn't mean that God does not still have promises made to the nation of Israel under the covenant of old. It does mean that salvation belongs to the Israel of God. The new Israel, made up of all those who buy their confession of faith and belief in Christ now find themselves amongst the twelve tribes in the dispersion. It's incredible. James doesn't say, “I'm James, the brother of Jesus.” He says, “James, a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ.” He doesn't say, “I'm writing to the church.” He does say that, but in different words by saying, “to the twelve tribes in the dispersion”. The twelve tribes, the new Israel, the people of the new covenant and the dispersion, they're everywhere.  Now the word dispersion is not an innocent word. It is a sinister word in the sense that it means that Christians have been scattered about. We know that even as the word dispersion was used in both the Old and the New Testaments, particularly in the New Testament, it refers to the fact that Christians have no homeland. Paul will say, our citizenship is in heaven. Peter will begin his letter by suggesting that we are aliens residing in places everywhere. So the church is not made up of a national people, not in terms of earthly kingdoms. The church is not geographically designated. The church is not locally limited in any way. The church is made up of the 12 tribes, the new Israel dispersed in the dispersion. In other words, James, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is saying, “I'm writing to Christians wherever they are found, to Christian churches, wherever they've been dispersed. I'm writing by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to all believers and to all churches everywhere at all times until Jesus, my brother, comes. Greetings.” Just a few words. Most of the time when we begin a letter, we just begin it in order to get to where we want to go. We dispense with the niceties in order to get to the point. The formalities are just that. These are not formalities. These are not literary niceties. This is James, the brother of Jesus, who says, “The most important thing you need to know about me is that I am a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. To whom am I writing? The new Israel, the church dispersed wherever it's found, whenever it lives, Greetings.”  Now don't you want to know what follows that? It will be our privilege to learn every word together. Let's pray: Our Father, we are so thankful for the power of your Word. Every single word inspired by your Spirit and every single word is not only meaningful, but vital, essential in our understanding. Father, thank you for this which you have given us by the gift of our brother, James, the servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, we will wait expectantly to hear your Word as you speak by your Word, and we'll pray that in so doing, you will conform us to the image of Christ by the Spirit in the word. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.  You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2012/05/20/hebrews-1315-25/ Sun, 20 May 2012 09:30:37 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 44:20 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=24009 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2012/05/13/hebrews-137-14/ Sun, 13 May 2012 09:30:30 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 31:29 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=23945 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2012/04/22/hebrews-131-6/ Sun, 22 Apr 2012 09:30:02 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 38:10 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=23728 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2012/04/15/hebrews-1225-29/ Sun, 15 Apr 2012 09:30:03 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 35:30 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=23703 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2012/03/11/hebrews-1218-24/ Sun, 11 Mar 2012 09:30:24 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 35:57 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=23444 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2012/03/04/hebrews-1212-17/ Sun, 04 Mar 2012 09:30:18 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 29:45 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=23347 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2012/02/05/hebrews-121-2/ Sun, 05 Feb 2012 09:30:19 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 36:26 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=23192 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2012/01/01/ecclesiastes-31-8/ Sun, 01 Jan 2012 09:30:21 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:39:51 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=22908 Audio, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2011/12/18/philippians-21-11/ Sun, 18 Dec 2011 09:30:56 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:36:04 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=22894 Audio, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2011/12/11/hebrews-1132-40/ Sun, 11 Dec 2011 09:30:15 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 42:17 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=22857 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2011/12/04/hebrews-1131/ Sun, 04 Dec 2011 09:30:22 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 45:22 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=22817 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2011/11/27/hebrews-1120-31/ Sun, 27 Nov 2011 09:30:29 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 28:09 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=22776 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2011/11/13/hebrews-1113-19/ Sun, 13 Nov 2011 09:30:33 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 28:13 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=22670 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2011/11/06/hebrews-1111-13/ Sun, 06 Nov 2011 09:45:05 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 31:59 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=22610 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2011/10/23/hebrews-117-10/ Sun, 23 Oct 2011 09:30:17 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 34:45 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=22450 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2011/10/16/hebrews-111-6/ Sun, 16 Oct 2011 09:30:19 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 40:50 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=22400 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2011/09/18/hebrews-1026-39/ Sun, 18 Sep 2011 09:30:22 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 40:07 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=22161 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2011/09/11/hebrews-1019-25/ Sun, 11 Sep 2011 09:30:05 +0000 Now, one of the big issues in education these days is what is called ‘the tragedy of retention’. And it's not the retention that's the tragedy, it’s the lack of retention. As a matter of fact, you now have educators saying that they don't want kids to have summer break because they lose so much knowledge over summer break. Now, all I have to say to teachers is, if you think they're losing knowledge over the summer break, you better be hoping they're losing energy because they need that summer break. And those families need that time together. And education's important, but it's not ultimate.
And the reality is, if you have to go back and summarize for a while and catch up again at the opening of the fall semester of the new year, then just make that a part of what you do by intention. And understand that what you have with those third graders that memorize their multiplication tables, who arrive as fourth graders and have forgotten them, what you have is evidence of a fallen world, because those are the very same little boys that when they're married are going to have a hard time remembering their wedding anniversary and other things they're supposed to be remembering. Because as it is, human memory is a very frail thing. We need constant review. We need it. And especially when we're dealing with the deepest most transformative truths that God has revealed—the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
When the writer of the book of Hebrews is setting out the very structure and substance of the Gospel, it just makes sense. He's going to have to come back again and again and again and say, “This is what it means.” 
Now, one of the wonderful things about these repetition or review passages in the book of Hebrews is how he expresses the same thing slightly differently, and often beautifully and poetically in order to get our attention. So, let's go look back at where we were in the opening verses, Hebrews chapter 10. “For since the law has been a shadow of the good things to come…” So, there you have beautiful language. The past is “shadow”. The current, the “now in Christ” is the real. “The good things to come”. What precious way of describing the Gospel—"the good things to come”. There were good things of old, but they don't compare with the good things that are ours in Christ. 
Now that “the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near.” Our temptation is always to go back to legalism. That's going to be our constant temptation. We like the security of legalism because we think we can then justify ourselves. We think we can then earn righteousness. We like that. And yet, as Paul says, the law doesn't save us, it slays us. Now we should be thankful for it because without the law, we wouldn't know our need for a Savior. But here again, the writer of Hebrews is coming back saying, “Look, the old was blessed, but it was a shadow of the good things that were to come. So don't look back.” 
“Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins?” In other words, you had these sacrifices that took place over and over and over again. But if they really had amounted to the forgiveness of sins and they really had performed the forgiveness of sins, they wouldn’t have to be repeated over and over again. And furthermore, conscience would been cleared because the true sacrifice for sin cleanses not only the externals, as the writer of book of Hebrews has already told us, but internally. “But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is impossible for the blood of goats and bulls to take away sins.” That's really important to know. There it is impossible, impossible. 
It wasn't that the sacrificial system in the Old Testament failed. It did exactly what it was intended to do. It wasn't that the old covenant failed, it’s that the old covenant did exactly what God intended the covenant of old to do, and that is to make people yearn for the new covenant in Christ. 
“Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’”” There, again, looking back to Psalm 40. “When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He abolishes the first in order to establish the second. And by that we will have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” 
So you notice there, it’s very important, we're not only saved, we are sanctified by his atonement. Sanctification is not a separate work of God. It is the work of God in the atonement applied to us progressively. We are sanctified. The sacrifices of old couldn't sanctify us, but the sacrifice of Christ does. 
“And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.!” 
I wanted to go back over that because of our text this morning from John chapter 16. Here it is, the enemies are made a footstool. Until that time, we will have enemies. But when that time comes, enemies will be no more.
“For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying, “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law on their hearts, and write them on their minds,” then he adds, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.” Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.” 
Now there in 18 verses you have a magnificent recitation of the Gospel, not only in terms of what Christ has done for us, what God has done for us in Christ, but how this fits within the context of the covenant of old, how we are to understand the Old Testament, preparing us to understand what God has done for us in Christ. The big thing here is that this is once for all. Christ has accomplished all that is needful for our salvation, and he did it in one decisive act on the cross. Or, speaking more in terms of the Father initiating this, as is made clear, the Father in Christ has accomplished all things necessary for our salvation in the cross and resurrection of Christ. But also in His return, which he told us just a few verses back is the assurance of all things being made well. He's coming a second time, not with reference to sin, but rather for His church.
But now we arrive at chapter 10, verse 19, and there's another one of these ‘therefore’s’. And we're accustomed to these. It's a turning point in the argument. It's a very important turning point in the argument. You look back at, for instance, the book of Romans, and you have these great ‘therefore’ verses: 5:1; 8:1; 12:1, where the argument takes a very significant turn. On the basis of everything that has been said, then this is what follows. 
“Therefore brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” 
In every once in a while, as you're reading the Scripture devotionally, I'm sure you have the same experience I have. You've read a text you don't know how many times. You've read it from the time you were first able to read and someone gave you a Bible and it was there on your nightstand perhaps, or on your table in your room or your desk. And you had that time where your parents taught you how to read the Bible and you spent that time alone reading. And I can remember as a nine or ten year old boy trying to mouth out names—Mel-chis-e-dek—and trying to figure who these people were. Jehoshaphat.
I like some of these names. I would imagine that if I ever had a progeny of all these different boys, I would name them Jehoshaphat and Abimelech and all these different names, just so that I could say them. But I remember, even as a youngster, how you'd read something and then you come back a second time and read through it again and you would see things you hadn’t seen before. And the wonderful thing is that there are senior saints who are nearing a hundred years of life, who've been reading through the Bible since they were ten, and they'll tell you, they can read it through every year, all the way through, for 90 years and find something new every single morning. 
This particular passage is one of those that stands out. Even in my consideration of the book of Hebrews, it was a text that was neglected in terms of my own memory of this book, until I was recently, in preparing for the teaching of this book, reading through it again and again and again. And coming to chapter 10, verse 19, this ‘therefore’ stands out now in much sharper relief than it did before for some of the language that is here, that sounds like we've heard it before, but actually is put in a rather more straightforward way. “Therefore brothers…” Now notice these next words, “…since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus”. Now we can pass over that as if that is something that just should make sense to us and something that we already knew. And there's a sense in which we have already been told this, but we haven't been told it in exactly this way. We have confidence to enter the holy places. 
Now, remember, that's referring to the holy of holies. That is pointing back to the tabernacle. That's pointing back to the temple, and remember that no one was allowed to enter there. No one, except the high priest, one day of the year. Anyone who was raised in Judaism, anyone who had been raised in the context of the Jewish faith, anyone who had been raised knowing the tabernacle and the temple, knew that only the high priest went in that place and only one day a year. And now you're saying, “We can all go!” And not only that, with full confidence. 
Let me ask you, what was to happen to the one who entered the Holy of Holies without permission?  Killed! Dead! Now we’re told we can enter it with confidence and it's because of what Christ has done for us. It's an incredible passage. Remember this was written to Hebrew Christians. This was written to those whose first frame of theological reference is the old covenant, who had been raised and taught the Torah, who had been raised as the Children of Israel. They knew no one went into that place except the high priest once a year. And now they're being told, “It's open. Access to God is open to everyone, and you can enter with confidence.” That is nothing less than revolutionary. And then it continues, “by the new and living way that he opened for us”. How'd He do it? It is because we are now “have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus.” It’s that beautiful expression. 
For the last, at least 100 years, and probably more, but focus on the last 100 years, there have been those who have been more liberal and self-styled progressives, who tried to suggest that Christianity needs to get rid of this blood language. It's just grotesque. It looks like it's some form of animism, like a throwback to National Geographic or something like that. We need to speak about the love of Christ. We need to speak about the gift of Christ. We don't need to speak about the blood of Christ. And there are churches that never sing the blood hymns. There was a recent column written in a news site, a Christian news site, in which the pastor, and it was a female pastor, so you knew it was a liberal church, who was saying, “I am repulsed by the blood language, but the older people in my church love it. And I've discovered that we can sing it because it creates unity to sing it.” It doesn't create unity. The blood of Christ divides, but those who are saved by it are united in it.
And we understand we can't describe the Gospel, but by reference to the blood of Christ, and thus we sing, not because we worship blood, but because we worship the Christ who shed His blood, “There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins.” And we understand that when sinners do come to that flood, all their sins washed away. We sing this. We sing, “What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.” And we have full biblical warrant. Because in this summary, when here you have the writer of the book of Hebrews saying, “This is why we have access. This is why we can have access to God with full confidence. It is through the blood of Jesus Christ.” And that is because the sacrificial system of old was not wrong. It just was crying out for an ultimate sacrifice. And just as those sacrifices of old were sacrifices of blood, “and without the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sins,” so also we desperately needed the sacrifice that would truly wash away our sins, and that came through the blood of Jesus. 
Now we are told in verse 20, “by the new and living way that he opened for us”. There's this opening. So, Christ is the one who opened us the passage, “through the curtain”. Now, remember the curtain. This is the curtain that separated the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place. To get into the Most Holy Place, you had to go through the curtain inside the temple, the Holy of Holies, the same thing, just referring to it in different ways. The Holy of Holies was surrounded by this curtain.
Remember what happened on the cross? When Jesus said, “It is finished,” that curtain was torn in two. Jesus purchased and achieved our opening through that curtain. But the curtain, we are now told, was opened by His flesh and that is met with reference here to His body broken for us on the cross. 
“And since…” This goes back to the ‘Therefore…and since…,” continuing the argument. “And since we have a great priest over the house of God…” That again is so important. That's why we should call. No, it's not that we don't need a priest. We desperately do need a priest. But we don't need a human priest cause a human priest can't save us. We have a “great high priest over the house of God”. That great high priest is Jesus Christ Himself. He priests for us. He is the mediator between God and man. He is the only priest we need. That is why we don't refer to any human as a priest because I can't do anything to priest for you.
What I'm assigned to do is to preach the Word of God. So, we have preachers. We don't have priests, not humanly speaking, but it's because we have a great high priest who is the only priest we need. It's an argument that the writer of the book of Hebrews is building cumulatively. And since we have this great high priest over the house of God, beautiful expression, “let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith”. And we were told that we can draw with confidence to enter the Holy Place. When it says, “draw near” that doesn't mean near to each other. This isn't about Christian fellowship. That's true. It's just not what it’s talking about here. We do have a fellowship with each other. We draw near to each other. That's not what he's talking about here. He's talking about drawing near to the Father.
How is it that we can be drawn near to the Father? It is because we can do so with a true heart and full assurance. Just as we were told to have confidence in verse 19, here we are told in verse 22, we have “full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” Now this idea of the full assurance of faith is very important to us because this has been a matter of Christian turmoil and some controversy going back through the centuries of the church. Can you know you’re saved or not. Well, let's just be very clear. The New Testament tells us that we are to know that we are saved. It is an assurance that is given to us, not on the basis of our faith, but on the basis of Christ's faithfulness.
What we have in the New Testament is an exhortation that, for instance, comes to the apostle John, that these things are written in order that you may “know”. And over and over again, we have the repeated promise that the one who “calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.” We have Romans chapter 10, that makes very clear how faith becomes visible and verbal, and how indeed it is demonstrated, such that we know the one who is a believer. The believer is to have full confidence. 
Now at the same time, there are warnings. We saw these warnings in Hebrews chapter six. If you say you are a believer, but there is no fruit, then you better go back and check what kind of faith it is that you believe is the faith that would save you. There's only one faith that saves, and that's faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are justified by faith alone and we're not justified by faith in ourselves. We're justified by faith in Christ. Faith always has an object. If the object of our faith is anything other than Christ, then it's not going to save us. But if the object of that faith is Christ, then by His own declaration, we are saved. We are to have the “full assurance of faith”. 
Now there's a warning that will come, repeated warnings that will come. But that's in the context of the fact that we are to have this “full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean”. Now, remember the sprinkling here is a very important word. That word sprinkling goes back to the Hebrew in the Old Testament where the cognate word refers to what took place on the Day of Atonement in the Holy of Holies, when the blood of that animal was sprinkled on the mercy seat of God. And that is when we are told propitiation took place. And remember that big word propitiation means that is when, on the basis of that blood sprinkled on the mercy seat of the ark, God's disposition to His people was changed from wrath to acceptance.
Now, again, that had to be done over and over again in the sacrificial system of old. So long as you were taking the blood of a goat or the blood of a bull, you had to go in year after year on the Day of Atonement and sprinkle more blood. But once Christ shed His blood, definitively that once for all sacrifice, now that is not to be repeated. And our hearts have indeed now been sprinkled clean. It's a beautiful image. Not only have our sins been washed away, our hearts have been sprinkled, That word sprinkled again, going right back to the mercy seat, from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 
Now that is almost surely a reference to baptism as a picture of our salvation. “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.” By the way, going back to baptism there. That’s one of the things that's very important. Ritual washings were very important in terms of Israel, but elsewhere, the externals. Only Christ can cleanse on the inside. Baptism does not save. Baptism isn't something that can cleanse us on the inside, but it is a graphic, beautiful, poetic, powerful, in fact singular picture of the salvation that comes as we're buried with Christ, raised with Him in newness of life. It is a washing. It is a washing, but it's a picture of what only Christ can do internally.
Now we're told, “Let us hold fast”. So we had “have confidence”. We had “have full assurance”. Now we are told “hold fast” in verse 23, “the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.” Now we were told we would have full assurance of faith. Now that is to be demonstrated by means of the confession. We are indeed to “hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering”. What is the confession of our hope? Jesus is born. What is the confession of our hope? Jesus saves. What is the confession of our hope? Jesus has saved me. 
Now, when we talk about the confession of our faith, we can mean a large and very important doctrinal statement. That's important too. We need to declare and confess the whole counsel of God, but this is referring most specifically to that absolutely central confession that Jesus saves and that He saved even me. We’re to hold fast to that. We're to hold onto that. We’re not to waver in that. We are to hold fast on it and to it without wavering. Why? “For he who promised is faithful.” In other words, our holding fast to it isn't because we are faithful, but because He's faithful. The fact that we are kept by God to the end is not because we are tenacious and faithful. It is because He is faithful to keep that, which he has. The Lord Jesus Christ in John chapter six said that the one the Father gives Him will come to Him and He will by no means cast him out. You know, the one as Peter says. who comes to Christ can never be snatched out of His hand but, is rather, kept by the power of God. It is the power of God that keeps us—we cannot keep ourselves. But that is the ground of our full assurance. That's how we hold the confession without wavering. 
And then in verse 24, “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.” That's really important, isn't it? Now, all of a sudden, he does turn to Christian fellowship. Now, all of a sudden, it's not just a statement about what God has done in saving sinners individually. Now it's about the body of Christ. Now it's about holding tenaciously to the faith together. Now it's about having confidence in faith together. Now it's about having the full assurance of faith together. Christianity's not a lone ranger religion. It is not meant to be a solitary experience. We desperately need the body of believers. We need the church of the Lord, Jesus Christ, because we are meant to be together.
We need to encourage one another. How in the world are we going to have assurance if we're not in the fellowship of the saints where we remind each other of the assurance that is ours? How are we to have this full confidence, if we're not in the confidence of saints who are fellow worshipers and followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, who have the same testimony and who pray for each other? Here we are told that we are to stir amongst each other good gifts. That's an interesting way to stir up. We are to “stir up one another to love and good works”. That ought to be a picture of the church. What does the church do? Well, there many things, but right central in the job description of the church is “stir up one another to love and good works”.
I was one of four children. I am one of four children. And so my mother had four young children in the house at one time. And you know that moms with one, or two, or three, much less four, little kids in one room in one little house can have those moments when things just better get right. And I can just remember when she would say, “Why can't you bring out the best in each other rather than the worst?” Well, that's kind of in our job description as fallen depraved children—bring out the worst in each other. But I understand now exactly what she meant. Why can't you bring out the best in each other, rather than the worst?
You put a bunch of little boys in a room, they're not naturally going to bring out the best in each other. They are quite naturally, in the best use of the word natural, going to bring out the worst in each other. But here we are told that we are to bring out the best in each other. We’re to stir up. It's a beautiful verb. We're to make motion, we're to agitate. Okay, so we're supposed to agitate? That doesn't sound too good. We are to agitate to “love and good works”. We should be active and verbal, and we should be energized in order to stir up amongst the saints “love and good works”. That's a pretty encouraging job description. 
And it's a sign of a toxic church. When you have a church that isn't like this, it can get really bad. It can be like those little boys in a room. You put them together. There are some churches that bring out the worst in each other, rather than the best. And in so doing, they not only slander the name and reputation of the Lord Jesus Christ, they slander His Gospel. Here, in such a practical way, speaking to the church, the writer of the book Hebrew says we are to stir up amongst each other “love and good works, not neglecting to meet together”.
I can remember when this text was read in my church, Hebrews chapter 10, these very verses. It was read at the end of the Lord’s Supper service in my own church. And it’s a wonderful text to read to the church, to encourage the church after sharing the Lord’s Supper together. And then after this, we would sing the same hymn every single time. I thought that when Jesus had the disciples in the upper room, they must have left singing, “Blessed be the tie that binds”! Well, it's a hymn that reminds us of our fellowship that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ. And it was a part of the church tradition and many evangelical churches, and still is, to sing that hymn at the end of the communion service or the Lord Supper. But here we are told that we are not to neglect meeting together because there is a blessing in the tie that binds, there is the importance that we gather together, and this is referring to worship, but it's referring even more generally to the congregation meeting together “as is the habit of some,” it says here, to neglect. They’re not to do that. It's a strong word of judgment. We're not to be in the habit of neglecting this. We are to be regular in our attendance. We are to be regular in our participation. We are to be energized and active in our discipleship. We are to encourage one another “and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” 
You know, we, as Christians, are supposed to be the people who come every opportunity we have to the Lord's people in order to receive everything we can receive for the time we can't be together. We should be the people who are so dependent upon the teaching and preaching of the Word of God that we wouldn't miss it because we're going to need it to get through the next week. And we're going to need as much of it as we can get in order to drag ourselves back the next time, because we're going to need it even more desperately next time.  
Those who are in the habit of neglecting the assembling of ourselves together are cutting themselves off from the very means of grace, whereby Christ feeds His people, and assures His people, and gives His people confidence, and protects His people. And thus, we are defying the command of the Lord Jesus Christ, by saying, “I can do this alone.” I hear people every once in a while who say, “You know, I can get better preaching on the internet.” Or, “You know, I have all kinds of things to do. I have a very busy life and I just have to miss some Sundays because of X, or Y, or Z.” You see, that that's the kind of excuse that betrays the fact that the entire world's been turned upside down. We shouldn't be trying to find a way not to be here. We should be here unless there is some emergency that keeps us away, not because of compulsion and a feeling that we're going to feel guilty if we're not there. That's the old. But the new is we desperately know we need it and we wouldn't want to be without it.
And we find such joy in being with each other. I mean, who wouldn't want to be in the fellowship of people who are stirring up one another to love and good works. I need to be stirred up to love and good works. You folks look like you need to be stirred up to love and good works. This is how it's done. You put those little boys in a room and you close the door, they're going to bring out the worst in each other. You put Christ’s people in a room and close door, we're supposed to bring out the best in each other. We're supposed to be able to leave this place more faithfully than if we hadn't been here, living more true to Christ than if we hadn't been here together, knowing what we need to know in order to do what we need to do. Evidently all the way back to when this had to be written in the first century, the writer of Hebrews said, don't neglect this as is the habit of some, but encourage one another.
And then look at the closing words of verse 25, “and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” Now, most of your English translations, the word ‘Day’ there is going to be capitalized because it's not referring to a day. It's referring to the Day. It's referring to the day of Christ’s appearing. It's referring to that day that he made reference to when He said He's coming back. He's pointing to that day when He is going to affect God's judgment, and He’s going to call together his people. He's talking about that day. We are always to be living in anticipation of that day. And if we really are living in anticipation of that day, as we were told, as Jesus said, as we read earlier from John chapter 16, “a little while, a little while”. At the end of this little while He's coming and we need to be ready.
The writer of the book of Hebrew says, “Don't neglect the assembling of yourselves together.” Don't neglect coming together. Don't neglect stirring up together for love and good works. Don't neglect these things. Don't neglect the means of grace. Don't neglect the preaching and teaching of the Word of God. Don't neglect the assembling of yourselves together as is the habit of some, but rather encourage one another, bring out the best in each other, stir one another up to love and good works, and all the more, since the Day is appearing. That's the way we're supposed to live every single day. We don't know when that Day is coming, but we do know that we are living with the sure and certain knowledge that Day is near. Every generation of Christians has known that in the span of eternity that Day is near. 
That's why this passage with just a few verses here in Hebrews chapter 10 gives us so much. It gives us a review of the work of Christ that is so important to us. But now, when we have this, ‘Therefore’ at verse 19, we go into an argument that is now, it's current, it's practical. It's not just looking back to what Christ has done for us. It's looking to the present in terms of how Christ’s people are to live together and how we are to call out the best from each other in love and good works. We're to stir one another up to these things. But it also looks to the future, “and all the more so as you see the Day drawing near.”
Let’s pray together. Our Father, we are so thankful that You've given us this text. How it springs forth fresh, new, powerful, living among us. Father, it humbles us as we recognize that when this text speaks about those whose habit is to neglect the gathering of ourselves together, we have sometimes been that people and we know that people. And when it here says that the church should be the fellowship that encourages one another, stirring up one another to love and good works, Father, we lament if we have ever been a people who fail to do that. And we pray that this church, right now, will stand out as a church that stirs one another up for all the right things. And Father, may we hold with confidence, may we have full assurance, may we hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering. We pray these things in the name of He who alone is faithful and true, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 33:06 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=22075 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noHebrews chapter 10. When last we were together, we looked at the first 18 verses of this chapter, and there we had another summary. The writer of the book of Hebrews is a genius, inspired by the Holy Spirit, in terms of providing summaries.   Now, one of the big issues in education these days is what is called ‘the tragedy of retention’. And it's not the retention that's the tragedy, it’s the lack of retention. As a matter of fact, you now have educators saying that they don't want kids to have summer break because they lose so much knowledge over summer break. Now, all I have to say to teachers is, if you think they're losing knowledge over the summer break, you better be hoping they're losing energy because they need that summer break. And those families need that time together. And education's important, but it's not ultimate. And the reality is, if you have to go back and summarize for a while and catch up again at the opening of the fall semester of the new year, then just make that a part of what you do by intention. And understand that what you have with those third graders that memorize their multiplication tables, who arrive as fourth graders and have forgotten them, what you have is evidence of a fallen world, because those are the very same little boys that when they're married are going to have a hard time remembering their wedding anniversary and other things they're supposed to be remembering. Because as it is, human memory is a very frail thing. We need constant review. We need it. And especially when we're dealing with the deepest most transformative truths that God has revealed—the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.  When the writer of the book of Hebrews is setting out the very structure and substance of the Gospel, it just makes sense. He's going to have to come back again and again and again and say, “This is what it means.”  Now, one of the wonderful things about these repetition or review passages in the book of Hebrews is how he expresses the same thing slightly differently, and often beautifully and poetically in order to get our attention. So, let's go look back at where we were in the opening verses, Hebrews chapter 10. “For since the law has been a shadow of the good things to come…” So, there you have beautiful language. The past is “shadow”. The current, the “now in Christ” is the real. “The good things to come”. What precious way of describing the Gospel—"the good things to come”. There were good things of old, but they don't compare with the good things that are ours in Christ.  Now that “the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near.” Our temptation is always to go back to legalism. That's going to be our constant temptation. We like the security of legalism because we think we can then justify ourselves. We think we can then earn righteousness. We like that. And yet, as Paul says, the law doesn't save us, it slays us. Now we should be thankful for it because without the law, we wouldn't know our need for a Savior. But here again, the writer of Hebrews is coming back saying, “Look, the old was blessed, but it was a shadow of the good things that were to come. So don't look back.”  “Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins?” In other words, you had these sacrifices that took place over and over and over again. But if they really had amounted to the forgiveness of sins and they really had performed the forgiveness of sins, they wouldn’t have to be repeated over and over again. And furthermore, conscience would been cleared because the true sacrifice for sin cleanses not only the externals, as the writer of book of Hebrews has already told us, but internally. “But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is impossible for the blood of goats and bulls to take away sins.” That's really important to know. There it is impossible, impossible.  It wasn't that the sacrificial system in the Old Testament failed. It did exactly what it was intended to do. It wasn't that the old covenant failed, it’s that the old covenant did exactly what God intended the covenant of old to do, and that is to make people yearn for the new covenant in Christ.  “Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’”” There, again, looking back to Psalm 40. “When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He abolishes the first in order to establish the second. And by that we will have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”  So you notice there, it’s very important, we're not only saved, we are sanctified by his atonement. Sanctification is not a separate work of God. It is the work of God in the atonement applied to us progressively. We are sanctified. The sacrifices of old couldn't sanctify us, but the sacrifice of Christ does.  “And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.!”  I wanted to go back over that because of our text this morning from John chapter 16. Here it is, the enemies are made a footstool. Until that time, we will have enemies. But when that time comes, enemies will be no more. “For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying, “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law on their hearts, and write them on their minds,” then he adds, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.” Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.”  Now there in 18 verses you have a magnificent recitation of the Gospel, not only in terms of what Christ has done for us, what God has done for us in Christ, but how this fits within the context of the covenant of old, how we are to understand the Old Testament, preparing us to understand what God has done for us in Christ. The big thing here is that this is once for all. Christ has accomplished all that is needful for our salvation, and he did it in one decisive act on the cross. Or, speaking more in terms of the Father initiating this, as is made clear, the Father in Christ has accomplished all things necessary for our salvation in the cross and resurrection of Christ. But also in His return, which he told us just a few verses back is the assurance of all things being made well. He's coming a second time, not with reference to sin, but rather for His church. But now we arrive at chapter 10, verse 19, and there's another one of these ‘therefore’s’. And we're accustomed to these. It's a turning point in the argument. It's a very important turning point in the argument. You look back at, for instance, the book of Romans, and you have these great ‘therefore’ verses: 5:1; 8:1; 12:1, where the argument takes a very significant turn. On the basis of everything that has been said, then this is what follows.  “Therefore brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”  In every once in a while, as you're reading the Scripture devotionally, I'm sure you have the same experience I have. You've read a text you don't know how many times. You've read it from the time you were first able to read and someone gave you a Bible and it was there on your nightstand perhaps, or on your table in your room or your desk. And you had that time where your parents taught you how to read the Bible and you spent that time alone reading. And I can remember as a nine or ten year old boy trying to mouth out names—Mel-chis-e-dek—and trying to figure who these people were. Jehoshaphat. I like some of these names. I would imagine that if I ever had a progeny of all these different boys, I would name them Jehoshaphat and Abimelech and all these different names, just so that I could say them. But I remember, even as a youngster, how you'd read something and then you come back a second time and read through it again and you would see things you hadn’t seen before. And the wonderful thing is that there are senior saints who are nearing a hundred years of life, who've been reading through the Bible since they were ten, and they'll tell you, they can read it through every year, all the way through, for 90 years and find something new every single morning.  This particular passage is one of those that stands out. Even in my consideration of the book of Hebrews, it was a text that was neglected in terms of my own memory of this book, until I was recently, in preparing for the teaching of this book, reading through it again and again and again. And coming to chapter 10, verse 19, this ‘therefore’ stands out now in much sharper relief than it did before for some of the language that is here, that sounds like we've heard it before, but actually is put in a rather more straightforward way. “Therefore brothers…” Now notice these next words, “…since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus”. Now we can pass over that as if that is something that just should make sense to us and something that we already knew. And there's a sense in which we have already been told this, but we haven't been told it in exactly this way. We have confidence to enter the holy places.  Now, remember, that's referring to the holy of holies. That is pointing back to the tabernacle. That's pointing back to the temple, and remember that no one was allowed to enter there. No one, except the high priest, one day of the year. Anyone who was raised in Judaism, anyone who had been raised in the context of the Jewish faith, anyone who had been raised knowing the tabernacle and the temple, knew that only the high priest went in that place and only one day a year. And now you're saying, “We can all go!” And not only that, with full confidence.  Let me ask you, what was to happen to the one who entered the Holy of Holies without permission?  Killed! Dead! Now we’re told we can enter it with confidence and it's because of what Christ has done for us. It's an incredible passage. Remember this was written to Hebrew Christians. This was written to those whose first frame of theological reference is the old covenant, who had been raised and taught the Torah, who had been raised as the Children of Israel. They knew no one went into that place except the high priest once a year. And now they're being told, “It's open. Access to God is open to everyone, and you can enter with confidence.” That is nothing less than revolutionary. And then it continues, “by the new and living way that he opened for us”. How'd He do it? It is because we are now “have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus.” It’s that beautiful expression.  For the last, at least 100 years, and probably more, but focus on the last 100 years, there have been those who have been more liberal and self-styled progressives, who tried to suggest that Christianity needs to get rid of this blood language. It's just grotesque. It looks like it's some form of animism, like a throwback to National Geographic or something like that. We need to speak about the love of Christ. We need to speak about the gift of Christ. We don't need to speak about the blood of Christ. And there are churches that never sing the blood hymns. There was a recent column written in a news site, a Christian news site, in which the pastor, and it was a female pastor, so you knew it was a liberal church, who was saying, “I am repulsed by the blood language, but the older people in my church love it. And I've discovered that we can sing it because it creates unity to sing it.” It doesn't create unity. The blood of Christ divides, but those who are saved by it are united in it. And we understand we can't describe the Gospel, but by reference to the blood of Christ, and thus we sing, not because we worship blood, but because we worship the Christ who shed His blood, “There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins.” And we understand that when sinners do come to that flood, all their sins washed away. We sing this. We sing, “What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.” And we have full biblical warrant. Because in this summary, when here you have the writer of the book of Hebrews saying, “This is why we have access. This is why we can have access to God with full confidence. It is through the blood of Jesus Christ.” And that is because the sacrificial system of old was not wrong. It just was crying out for an ultimate sacrifice. And just as those sacrifices of old were sacrifices of blood, “and without the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sins,” so also we desperately needed the sacrifice that would truly wash away our sins, and that came through the blood of Jesus.  Now we are told in verse 20, “by the new and living way that he opened for us”. There's this opening. So, Christ is the one who opened us the passage, “through the curtain”. Now, remember the curtain. This is the curtain that separated the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place. To get into the Most Holy Place, you had to go through the curtain inside the temple, the Holy of Holies, the same thing, just referring to it in different ways. The Holy of Holies was surrounded by this curtain. Remember what happened on the cross? When Jesus said, “It is finished,” that curtain was torn in two. Jesus purchased and achieved our opening through that curtain. But the curtain, we are now told, was opened by His flesh and that is met with reference here to His body broken for us on the cross.  “And since…” This goes back to the ‘Therefore…and since…,” continuing the argument. “And since we have a great priest over the house of God…” That again is so important. That's why we should call. No, it's not that we don't need a priest. We desperately do need a priest. But we don't need a human priest cause a human priest can't save us. We have a “great high priest over the house of God”. That great high priest is Jesus Christ Himself. He priests for us. He is the mediator between God and man. He is the only priest we need. That is why we don't refer to any human as a priest because I can't do anything to priest for you. What I'm assigned to do is to preach the Word of God. So, we have preachers. We don't have priests, not humanly speaking, but it's because we have a great high priest who is the only priest we need. It's an argument that the writer of the book of Hebrews is building cumulatively. And since we have this great high priest over the house of God, beautiful expression, “let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith”. And we were told that we can draw with confidence to enter the Holy Place. When it says, “draw near” that doesn't mean near to each other. This isn't about Christian fellowship. That's true. It's just not what it’s talking about here. We do have a fellowship with each other. We draw near to each other. That's not what he's talking about here. He's talking about drawing near to the Father. How is it that we can be drawn near to the Father? It is because we can do so with a true heart and full assurance. Just as we were told to have confidence in verse 19, here we are told in verse 22, we have “full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” Now this idea of the full assurance of faith is very important to us because this has been a matter of Christian turmoil and some controversy going back through the centuries of the church. Can you know you’re saved or not. Well, let's just be very clear. The New Testament tells us that we are to know that we are saved. It is an assurance that is given to us, not on the basis of our faith, but on the basis of Christ's faithfulness. What we have in the New Testament is an exhortation that, for instance, comes to the apostle John, that these things are written in order that you may “know”. And over and over again, we have the repeated promise that the one who “calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.” We have Romans chapter 10, that makes very clear how faith becomes visible and verbal, and how indeed it is demonstrated, such that we know the one who is a believer. The believer is to have full confidence.  Now at the same time, there are warnings. We saw these warnings in Hebrews chapter six. If you say you are a believer, but there is no fruit, then you better go back and check what kind of faith it is that you believe is the faith that would save you. There's only one faith that saves, and that's faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are justified by faith alone and we're not justified by faith in ourselves. We're justified by faith in Christ. Faith always has an object. If the object of our faith is anything other than Christ, then it's not going to save us. But if the object of that faith is Christ, then by His own declaration, we are saved. We are to have the “full assurance of faith”.  Now there's a warning that will come, repeated warnings that will come. But that's in the context of the fact that we are to have this “full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean”. Now, remember the sprinkling here is a very important word. That word sprinkling goes back to the Hebrew in the Old Testament where the cognate word refers to what took place on the Day of Atonement in the Holy of Holies, when the blood of that animal was sprinkled on the mercy seat of God. And that is when we are told propitiation took place. And remember that big word propitiation means that is when, on the basis of that blood sprinkled on the mercy seat of the ark, God's disposition to His people was changed from wrath to acceptance. Now, again, that had to be done over and over again in the sacrificial system of old. So long as you were taking the blood of a goat or the blood of a bull, you had to go in year after year on the Day of Atonement and sprinkle more blood. But once Christ shed His blood, definitively that once for all sacrifice, now that is not to be repeated. And our hearts have indeed now been sprinkled clean. It's a beautiful image. Not only have our sins been washed away, our hearts have been sprinkled, That word sprinkled again, going right back to the mercy seat, from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.  Now that is almost surely a reference to baptism as a picture of our salvation. “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.” By the way, going back to baptism there. That’s one of the things that's very important. Ritual washings were very important in terms of Israel, but elsewhere, the externals. Only Christ can cleanse on the inside. Baptism does not save. Baptism isn't something that can cleanse us on the inside, but it is a graphic, beautiful, poetic, powerful, in fact singular picture of the salvation that comes as we're buried with Christ, raised with Him in newness of life. It is a washing. It is a washing, but it's a picture of what only Christ can do internally. Now we're told, “Let us hold fast”. So we had “have confidence”. We had “have full assurance”. Now we are told “hold fast” in verse 23, “the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.” Now we were told we would have full assurance of faith. Now that is to be demonstrated by means of the confession. We are indeed to “hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering”. What is the confession of our hope? Jesus is born. What is the confession of our hope? Jesus saves. What is the confession of our hope? Jesus has saved me.  Now, when we talk about the confession of our faith, we can mean a large and very important doctrinal statement. That's important too. We need to declare and confess the whole counsel of God, but this is referring most specifically to that absolutely central confession that Jesus saves and that He saved even me. We’re to hold fast to that. We're to hold onto that. We’re not to waver in that. We are to hold fast on it and to it without wavering. Why? “For he who promised is faithful.” In other words, our holding fast to it isn't because we are faithful, but because He's faithful. The fact that we are kept by God to the end is not because we are tenacious and faithful. It is because He is faithful to keep that, which he has. The Lord Jesus Christ in John chapter six said that the one the Father gives Him will come to Him and He will by no means cast him out. You know, the one as Peter says. who comes to Christ can never be snatched out of His hand but, is rather, kept by the power of God. It is the power of God that keeps us—we cannot keep ourselves. But that is the ground of our full assurance. That's how we hold the confession without wavering.  And then in verse 24, “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.” That's really important, isn't it? Now, all of a sudden, he does turn to Christian fellowship. Now, all of a sudden, it's not just a statement about what God has done in saving sinners individually. Now it's about the body of Christ. Now it's about holding tenaciously to the faith together. Now it's about having confidence in faith together. Now it's about having the full assurance of faith together. Christianity's not a lone ranger religion. It is not meant to be a solitary experience. We desperately need the body of believers. We need the church of the Lord, Jesus Christ, because we are meant to be together. We need to encourage one another. How in the world are we going to have assurance if we're not in the fellowship of the saints where we remind each other of the assurance that is ours? How are we to have this full confidence, if we're not in the confidence of saints who are fellow worshipers and followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, who have the same testimony and who pray for each other? Here we are told that we are to stir amongst each other good gifts. That's an interesting way to stir up. We are to “stir up one another to love and good works”. That ought to be a picture of the church. What does the church do? Well, there many things, but right central in the job description of the church is “stir up one another to love and good works”. I was one of four children. I am one of four children. And so my mother had four young children in the house at one time. And you know that moms with one, or two, or three, much less four, little kids in one room in one little house can have those moments when things just better get right. And I can just remember when she would say, “Why can't you bring out the best in each other rather than the worst?” Well, that's kind of in our job description as fallen depraved children—bring out the worst in each other. But I understand now exactly what she meant. Why can't you bring out the best in each other, rather than the worst? You put a bunch of little boys in a room, they're not naturally going to bring out the best in each other. They are quite naturally, in the best use of the word natural, going to bring out the worst in each other. But here we are told that we are to bring out the best in each other. We’re to stir up. It's a beautiful verb. We're to make motion, we're to agitate. Okay, so we're supposed to agitate? That doesn't sound too good. We are to agitate to “love and good works”. We should be active and verbal, and we should be energized in order to stir up amongst the saints “love and good works”. That's a pretty encouraging job description.  And it's a sign of a toxic church. When you have a church that isn't like this, it can get really bad. It can be like those little boys in a room. You put them together. There are some churches that bring out the worst in each other, rather than the best. And in so doing, they not only slander the name and reputation of the Lord Jesus Christ, they slander His Gospel. Here, in such a practical way, speaking to the church, the writer of the book Hebrew says we are to stir up amongst each other “love and good works, not neglecting to meet together”. I can remember when this text was read in my church, Hebrews chapter 10, these very verses. It was read at the end of the Lord’s Supper service in my own church. And it’s a wonderful text to read to the church, to encourage the church after sharing the Lord’s Supper together. And then after this, we would sing the same hymn every single time. I thought that when Jesus had the disciples in the upper room, they must have left singing, “Blessed be the tie that binds”! Well, it's a hymn that reminds us of our fellowship that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ. And it was a part of the church tradition and many evangelical churches, and still is, to sing that hymn at the end of the communion service or the Lord Supper. But here we are told that we are not to neglect meeting together because there is a blessing in the tie that binds, there is the importance that we gather together, and this is referring to worship, but it's referring even more generally to the congregation meeting together “as is the habit of some,” it says here, to neglect. They’re not to do that. It's a strong word of judgment. We're not to be in the habit of neglecting this. We are to be regular in our attendance. We are to be regular in our participation. We are to be energized and active in our discipleship. We are to encourage one another “and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”  You know, we, as Christians, are supposed to be the people who come every opportunity we have to the Lord's people in order to receive everything we can receive for the time we can't be together. We should be the people who are so dependent upon the teaching and preaching of the Word of God that we wouldn't miss it because we're going to need it to get through the next week. And we're going to need as much of it as we can get in order to drag ourselves back the next time, because we're going to need it even more desperately next time.   Those who are in the habit of neglecting the assembling of ourselves together are cutting themselves off from the very means of grace, whereby Christ feeds His people, and assures His people, and gives His people confidence, and protects His people. And thus, we are defying the command of the Lord Jesus Christ, by saying, “I can do this alone.” I hear people every once in a while who say, “You know, I can get better preaching on the internet.” Or, “You know, I have all kinds of things to do. I have a very busy life and I just have to miss some Sundays because of X, or Y, or Z.” You see, that that's the kind of excuse that betrays the fact that the entire world's been turned upside down. We shouldn't be trying to find a way not to be here. We should be here unless there is some emergency that keeps us away, not because of compulsion and a feeling that we're going to feel guilty if we're not there. That's the old. But the new is we desperately know we need it and we wouldn't want to be without it. And we find such joy in being with each other. I mean, who wouldn't want to be in the fellowship of people who are stirring up one another to love and good works. I need to be stirred up to love and good works. You folks look like you need to be stirred up to love and good works. This is how it's done. You put those little boys in a room and you close the door, they're going to bring out the worst in each other. You put Christ’s people in a room and close door, we're supposed to bring out the best in each other. We're supposed to be able to leave this place more faithfully than if we hadn't been here, living more true to Christ than if we hadn't been here together, knowing what we need to know in order to do what we need to do. Evidently all the way back to when this had to be written in the first century, the writer of Hebrews said, don't neglect this as is the habit of some, but encourage one another. And then look at the closing words of verse 25, “and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” Now, most of your English translations, the word ‘Day’ there is going to be capitalized because it's not referring to a day. It's referring to the Day. It's referring to the day of Christ’s appearing. It's referring to that day that he made reference to when He said He's coming back. He's pointing to that day when He is going to affect God's judgment, and He’s going to call together his people. He's talking about that day. We are always to be living in anticipation of that day. And if we really are living in anticipation of that day, as we were told, as Jesus said, as we read earlier from John chapter 16, “a little while, a little while”. At the end of this little while He's coming and we need to be ready. The writer of the book of Hebrew says, “Don't neglect the assembling of yourselves together.” Don't neglect coming together. Don't neglect stirring up together for love and good works. Don't neglect these things. Don't neglect the means of grace. Don't neglect the preaching and teaching of the Word of God. Don't neglect the assembling of yourselves together as is the habit of some, but rather encourage one another, bring out the best in each other, stir one another up to love and good works, and all the more, since the Day is appearing. That's the way we're supposed to live every single day. We don't know when that Day is coming, but we do know that we are living with the sure and certain knowledge that Day is near. Every generation of Christians has known that in the span of eternity that Day is near.  That's why this passage with just a few verses here in Hebrews chapter 10 gives us so much. It gives us a review of the work of Christ that is so important to us. But now, when we have this, ‘Therefore’ at verse 19, we go into an argument that is now, it's current, it's practical. It's not just looking back to what Christ has done for us. It's looking to the present in terms of how Christ’s people are to live together and how we are to call out the best from each other in love and good works. We're to stir one another up to these things. But it also looks to the future, “and all the more so as you see the Day drawing near.” Let’s pray together. Our Father, we are so thankful that You've given us this text. How it springs forth fresh, new, powerful, living among us. Father, it humbles us as we recognize that when this text speaks about those whose habit is to neglect the gathering of ourselves together, we have sometimes been that people and we know that people. And when it here says that the church should be the fellowship that encourages one another, stirring up one another to love and good works, Father, we lament if we have ever been a people who fail to do that. And we pray that this church, right now, will stand out as a church that stirs one another up for all the right things. And Father, may we hold with confidence, may we have full assurance, may we hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering. We pray these things in the name of He who alone is faithful and true, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.Hebrews chapter 10. When last we were together, we looked at the first 18 verses of this chapter, and there we had another summary. The writer of the book of Hebrews is a genius, inspired by the Holy Spirit, in terms of providing summaries.   Now, one of the big issues in education these days is what is called ‘the tragedy of retention’. And it's not the retention that's the tragedy, it’s the lack of retention. As a matter of fact, you now have educators saying that they don't want kids to have summer break because they lose so much knowledge over summer break. Now, all I have to say to teachers is, if you think they're losing knowledge over the summer break, you better be hoping they're losing energy because they need that summer break. And those families need that time together. And education's important, but it's not ultimate. And the reality is, if you have to go back and summarize for a while and catch up again at the opening of the fall semester of the new year, then just make that a part of what you do by intention. And understand that what you have with those third graders that memorize their multiplication tables, who arrive as fourth graders and have forgotten them, what you have is evidence of a fallen world, because those are the very same little boys that when they're married are going to have a hard time remembering their wedding anniversary and other things they're supposed to be remembering. Because as it is, human memory is a very frail thing. We need constant review. We need it. And especially when we're dealing with the deepest most transformative truths that God has revealed—the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.  When the writer of the book of Hebrews is setting out the very structure and substance of the Gospel, it just makes sense. He's going to have to come back again and again and again and say, “This is what it means.”  Now, one of the wonderful things about these repetition or review passages in the book of Hebrews is how he expresses the same thing slightly differently, and often beautifully and poetically in order to get our attention. So, let's go look back at where we were in the opening verses, Hebrews chapter 10. “For since the law has been a shadow of the good things to come…” So, there you have beautiful language. The past is “shadow”. The current, the “now in Christ” is the real. “The good things to come”. What precious way of describing the Gospel—"the good things to come”. There were good things of old, but they don't compare with the good things that are ours in Christ.  Now that “the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near.” Our temptation is always to go back to legalism. That's going to be our constant temptation. We like the security of legalism because we think we can then justify ourselves. We think we can then earn righteousness. We like that. And yet, as Paul says, the law doesn't save us, it slays us. Now we should be thankful for it because without the law, we wouldn't know our need for a Savior. But here again, the writer of Hebrews is coming back saying, “Look, the old was blessed, but it was a shadow of the good things that were to come. So don't look back.”  “Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins?” In other words, you had these sacrifices that took place over and over and over again. But if they really had amounted to the forgiveness of sins and they really had performed the forgiveness of sins, they wouldn’t have to be repeated over and over again. And furthermore, conscience would been cleared because the true sacrifice for sin cleanses not only the externals, as the writer of book of Hebrews has already told us, but internally. “But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is impossible for the blood of goats and bulls to take away sins.” That's really important to know. There it is impossible, impossible.  It wasn't that the sacrificial system in the Old Testament failed. It did exactly what it was intended to do. It wasn't that the old covenant failed, it’s that the old covenant did exactly what God intended the covenant of old to do, and that is to make people yearn for the new covenant in Christ.  “Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’”” There, again, looking back to Psalm 40. “When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He abolishes the first in order to establish the second. And by that we will have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”  So you notice there, it’s very important, we're not only saved, we are sanctified by his atonement. Sanctification is not a separate work of God. It is the work of God in the atonement applied to us progressively. We are sanctified. The sacrifices of old couldn't sanctify us, but the sacrifice of Christ does.  “And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.!”  I wanted to go back over that because of our text this morning from John chapter 16. Here it is, the enemies are made a footstool. Until that time, we will have enemies. But when that time comes, enemies will be no more. “For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying, “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law on their hearts, and write them on their minds,” then he adds, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.” Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.”  Now there in 18 verses you have a magnificent recitation of the Gospel, not only in terms of what Christ has done for us, what God has done for us in Christ, but how this fits within the context of the covenant of old, how we are to understand the Old Testament, preparing us to understand what God has done for us in Christ. The big thing here is that this is once for all. Christ has accomplished all that is needful for our salvation, and he did it in one decisive act on the cross. Or, speaking more in terms of the Father initiating this, as is made clear, the Father in Christ has accomplished all things necessary for our salvation in the cross and resurrection of Christ. But also in His return, which he told us just a few verses back is the assurance of all things being made well. He's coming a second time, not with reference to sin, but rather for His church. But now we arrive at chapter 10, verse 19, and there's another one of these ‘therefore’s’. And we're accustomed to these. It's a turning point in the argument. It's a very important turning point in the argument. You look back at, for instance, the book of Romans, and you have these great ‘therefore’ verses: 5:1; 8:1; 12:1, where the argument takes a very significant turn. On the basis of everything that has been said, then this is what follows.  “Therefore brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”  In every once in a while, as you're reading the Scripture devotionally, I'm sure you have the same experience I have. You've read a text you don't know how many times. You've read it from the time you were first able to read and someone gave you a Bible and it was there on your nightstand perhaps, or on your table in your room or your desk. And you had that time where your parents taught you how to read the Bible and you spent that time alone reading. And I can remember as a nine or ten year old boy trying to mouth out names—Mel-chis-e-dek—and trying to figure who these people were. Jehoshaphat. I like some of these names. I would imagine that if I ever had a progeny of all these different boys, I would name them Jehoshaphat and Abimelech and all these different names, just so that I could say them. But I remember, even as a youngster, how you'd read something and then you come back a second time and read through it again and you would see things you hadn’t seen before. And the wonderful thing is that there are senior saints who are nearing a hundred years of life, who've been reading through the Bible since they were ten, and they'll tell you, they can read it through every year, all the way through, for 90 years and find something new every single morning.  This particular passage is one of those that stands out. Even in my consideration of the book of Hebrews, it was a text that was neglected in terms of my own memory of this book, until I was recently, in preparing for the teaching of this book, reading through it again and again and again. And coming to chapter 10, verse 19, this ‘therefore’ stands out now in much sharper relief than it did before for some of the language that is here, that sounds like we've heard it before, but actually is put in a rather more straightforward way. “Therefore brothers…” Now notice these next words, “…since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus”. Now we can pass over that as if that is something that just should make sense to us and something that we already knew. And there's a sense in which we have already been told this, but we haven't been told it in exactly this way. We have confidence to enter the holy places.  Now, remember, that's referring to the holy of holies. That is pointing back to the tabernacle. That's pointing back to the temple, and remember that no one was allowed to enter there. No one, except the high priest, one day of the year. Anyone who was raised in Judaism, anyone who had been raised in the context of the Jewish faith, anyone who had been raised knowing the tabernacle and the temple, knew that only the high priest went in that place and only one day a year. And now you're saying, “We can all go!” And not only that, with full confidence.  Let me ask you, what was to happen to the one who entered the Holy of Holies without permission?  Killed! Dead! Now we’re told we can enter it with confidence and it's because of what Christ has done for us. It's an incredible passage. Remember this was written to Hebrew Christians. This was written to those whose first frame of theological reference is the old covenant, who had been raised and taught the Torah, who had been raised as the Children of Israel. They knew no one went into that place except the high priest once a year. And now they're being told, “It's open. Access to God is open to everyone, and you can enter with confidence.” That is nothing less than revolutionary. And then it continues, “by the new and living way that he opened for us”. How'd He do it? It is because we are now “have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus.” It’s that beautiful expression.  For the last, at least 100 years, and probably more, but focus on the last 100 years, there have been those who have been more liberal and self-styled progressives, who tried to suggest that Christianity needs to get rid of this blood language. It's just grotesque. It looks like it's some form of animism, like a throwback to National Geographic or something like that. We need to speak about the love of Christ. We need to speak about the gift of Christ. We don't need to speak about the blood of Christ. And there are churches that never sing the blood hymns. There was a recent column written in a news site, a Christian news site, in which the pastor, and it was a female pastor, so you knew it was a liberal church, who was saying, “I am repulsed by the blood language, but the older people in my church love it. And I've discovered that we can sing it because it creates unity to sing it.” It doesn't create unity. The blood of Christ divides, but those who are saved by it are united in it. And we understand we can't describe the Gospel, but by reference to the blood of Christ, and thus we sing, not because we worship blood, but because we worship the Christ who shed His blood, “There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins.” And we understand that when sinners do come to that flood, all their sins washed away. We sing this. We sing, “What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.” And we have full biblical warrant. Because in this summary, when here you have the writer of the book of Hebrews saying, “This is why we have access. This is why we can have access to God with full confidence. It is through the blood of Jesus Christ.” And that is because the sacrificial system of old was not wrong. It just was crying out for an ultimate sacrifice. And just as those sacrifices of old were sacrifices of blood, “and without the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sins,” so also we desperately needed the sacrifice that would truly wash away our sins, and that came through the blood of Jesus.  Now we are told in verse 20, “by the new and living way that he opened for us”. There's this opening. So, Christ is the one who opened us the passage, “through the curtain”. Now, remember the curtain. This is the curtain that separated the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place. To get into the Most Holy Place, you had to go through the curtain inside the temple, the Holy of Holies, the same thing, just referring to it in different ways. The Holy of Holies was surrounded by this curtain. Remember what happened on the cross? When Jesus said, “It is finished,” that curtain was torn in two. Jesus purchased and achieved our opening through that curtain. But the curtain, we are now told, was opened by His flesh and that is met with reference here to His body broken for us on the cross.  “And since…” This goes back to the ‘Therefore…and since…,” continuing the argument. “And since we have a great priest over the house of God…” That again is so important. That's why we should call. No, it's not that we don't need a priest. We desperately do need a priest. But we don't need a human priest cause a human priest can't save us. We have a “great high priest over the house of God”. That great high priest is Jesus Christ Himself. He priests for us. He is the mediator between God and man. He is the only priest we need. That is why we don't refer to any human as a priest because I can't do anything to priest for you. What I'm assigned to do is to preach the Word of God. So, we have preachers. We don't have priests, not humanly speaking, but it's because we have a great high priest who is the only priest we need. It's an argument that the writer of the book of Hebrews is building cumulatively. And since we have this great high priest over the house of God, beautiful expression, “let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith”. And we were told that we can draw with confidence to enter the Holy Place. When it says, “draw near” that doesn't mean near to each other. This isn't about Christian fellowship. That's true. It's just not what it’s talking about here. We do have a fellowship with each other. We draw near to each other. That's not what he's talking about here. He's talking about drawing near to the Father. How is it that we can be drawn near to the Father? It is because we can do so with a true heart and full assurance. Just as we were told to have confidence in verse 19, here we are told in verse 22, we have “full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” Now this idea of the full assurance of faith is very important to us because this has been a matter of Christian turmoil and some controversy going back through the centuries of the church. Can you know you’re saved or not. Well, let's just be very clear. The New Testament tells us that we are to know that we are saved. It is an assurance that is given to us, not on the basis of our faith, but on the basis of Christ's faithfulness. What we have in the New Testament is an exhortation that, for instance, comes to the apostle John, that these things are written in order that you may “know”. And over and over again, we have the repeated promise that the one who “calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.” We have Romans chapter 10, that makes very clear how faith becomes visible and verbal, and how indeed it is demonstrated, such that we know the one who is a believer. The believer is to have full confidence.  Now at the same time, there are warnings. We saw these warnings in Hebrews chapter six. If you say you are a believer, but there is no fruit, then you better go back and check what kind of faith it is that you believe is the faith that would save you. There's only one faith that saves, and that's faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are justified by faith alone and we're not justified by faith in ourselves. We're justified by faith in Christ. Faith always has an object. If the object of our faith is anything other than Christ, then it's not going to save us. But if the object of that faith is Christ, then by His own declaration, we are saved. We are to have the “full assurance of faith”.  Now there's a warning that will come, repeated warnings that will come. But that's in the context of the fact that we are to have this “full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean”. Now, remember the sprinkling here is a very important word. That word sprinkling goes back to the Hebrew in the Old Testament where the cognate word refers to what took place on the Day of Atonement in the Holy of Holies, when the blood of that animal was sprinkled on the mercy seat of God. And that is when we are told propitiation took place. And remember that big word propitiation means that is when, on the basis of that blood sprinkled on the mercy seat of the ark, God's disposition to His people was changed from wrath to acceptance. Now, again, that had to be done over and over again in the sacrificial system of old. So long as you were taking the blood of a goat or the blood of a bull, you had to go in year after year on the Day of Atonement and sprinkle more blood. But once Christ shed His blood, definitively that once for all sacrifice, now that is not to be repeated. And our hearts have indeed now been sprinkled clean. It's a beautiful image. Not only have our sins been washed away, our hearts have been sprinkled, That word sprinkled again, going right back to the mercy seat, from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.  Now that is almost surely a reference to baptism as a picture of our salvation. “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.” By the way, going back to baptism there. That’s one of the things that's very important. Ritual washings were very important in terms of Israel, but elsewhere, the externals. Only Christ can cleanse on the inside. Baptism does not save. Baptism isn't something that can cleanse us on the inside, but it is a graphic, beautiful, poetic, powerful, in fact singular picture of the salvation that comes as we're buried with Christ, raised with Him in newness of life. It is a washing. It is a washing, but it's a picture of what only Christ can do internally. Now we're told, “Let us hold fast”. So we had “have confidence”. We had “have full assurance”. Now we are told “hold fast” in verse 23, “the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.” Now we were told we would have full assurance of faith. Now that is to be demonstrated by means of the confession. We are indeed to “hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering”. What is the confession of our hope? Jesus is born. What is the confession of our hope? Jesus saves. What is the confession of our hope? Jesus has saved me.  Now, when we talk about the confession of our faith, we can mean a large and very important doctrinal statement. That's important too. We need to declare and confess the whole counsel of God, but this is referring most specifically to that absolutely central confession that Jesus saves and that He saved even me. We’re to hold fast to that. We're to hold onto that. We’re not to waver in that. We are to hold fast on it and to it without wavering. Why? “For he who promised is faithful.” In other words, our holding fast to it isn't because we are faithful, but because He's faithful. The fact that we are kept by God to the end is not because we are tenacious and faithful. It is because He is faithful to keep that, which he has. The Lord Jesus Christ in John chapter six said that the one the Father gives Him will come to Him and He will by no means cast him out. You know, the one as Peter says. who comes to Christ can never be snatched out of His hand but, is rather, kept by the power of God. It is the power of God that keeps us—we cannot keep ourselves. But that is the ground of our full assurance. That's how we hold the confession without wavering.  And then in verse 24, “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.” That's really important, isn't it? Now, all of a sudden, he does turn to Christian fellowship. Now, all of a sudden, it's not just a statement about what God has done in saving sinners individually. Now it's about the body of Christ. Now it's about holding tenaciously to the faith together. Now it's about having confidence in faith together. Now it's about having the full assurance of faith together. Christianity's not a lone ranger religion. It is not meant to be a solitary experience. We desperately need the body of believers. We need the church of the Lord, Jesus Christ, because we are meant to be together. We need to encourage one another. How in the world are we going to have assurance if we're not in the fellowship of the saints where we remind each other of the assurance that is ours? How are we to have this full confidence, if we're not in the confidence of saints who are fellow worshipers and followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, who have the same testimony and who pray for each other? Here we are told that we are to stir amongst each other good gifts. That's an interesting way to stir up. We are to “stir up one another to love and good works”. That ought to be a picture of the church. What does the church do? Well, there many things, but right central in the job description of the church is “stir up one another to love and good works”. I was one of four children. I am one of four children. And so my mother had four young children in the house at one time. And you know that moms with one, or two, or three, much less four, little kids in one room in one little house can have those moments when things just better get right. And I can just remember when she would say, “Why can't you bring out the best in each other rather than the worst?” Well, that's kind of in our job description as fallen depraved children—bring out the worst in each other. But I understand now exactly what she meant. Why can't you bring out the best in each other, rather than the worst? You put a bunch of little boys in a room, they're not naturally going to bring out the best in each other. They are quite naturally, in the best use of the word natural, going to bring out the worst in each other. But here we are told that we are to bring out the best in each other. We’re to stir up. It's a beautiful verb. We're to make motion, we're to agitate. Okay, so we're supposed to agitate? That doesn't sound too good. We are to agitate to “love and good works”. We should be active and verbal, and we should be energized in order to stir up amongst the saints “love and good works”. That's a pretty encouraging job description.  And it's a sign of a toxic church. When you have a church that isn't like this, it can get really bad. It can be like those little boys in a room. You put them together. There are some churches that bring out the worst in each other, rather than the best. And in so doing, they not only slander the name and reputation of the Lord Jesus Christ, they slander His Gospel. Here, in such a practical way, speaking to the church, the writer of the book Hebrew says we are to stir up amongst each other “love and good works, not neglecting to meet together”. I can remember when this text was read in my church, Hebrews chapter 10, these very verses. It was read at the end of the Lord’s Supper service in my own church. And it’s a wonderful text to read to the church, to encourage the church after sharing the Lord’s Supper together. And then after this, we would sing the same hymn every single time. I thought that when Jesus had the disciples in the upper room, they must have left singing, “Blessed be the tie that binds”! Well, it's a hymn that reminds us of our fellowship that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ. And it was a part of the church tradition and many evangelical churches, and still is, to sing that hymn at the end of the communion service or the Lord Supper. But here we are told that we are not to neglect meeting together because there is a blessing in the tie that binds, there is the importance that we gather together, and this is referring to worship, but it's referring even more generally to the congregation meeting together “as is the habit of some,” it says here, to neglect. They’re not to do that. It's a strong word of judgment. We're not to be in the habit of neglecting this. We are to be regular in our attendance. We are to be regular in our participation. We are to be energized and active in our discipleship. We are to encourage one another “and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”  You know, we, as Christians, are supposed to be the people who come every opportunity we have to the Lord's people in order to receive everything we can receive for the time we can't be together. We should be the people who are so dependent upon the teaching and preaching of the Word of God that we wouldn't miss it because we're going to need it to get through the next week. And we're going to need as much of it as we can get in order to drag ourselves back the next time, because we're going to need it even more desperately next time.   Those who are in the habit of neglecting the assembling of ourselves together are cutting themselves off from the very means of grace, whereby Christ feeds His people, and assures His people, and gives His people confidence, and protects His people. And thus, we are defying the command of the Lord Jesus Christ, by saying, “I can do this alone.” I hear people every once in a while who say, “You know, I can get better preaching on the internet.” Or, “You know, I have all kinds of things to do. I have a very busy life and I just have to miss some Sundays because of X, or Y, or Z.” You see, that that's the kind of excuse that betrays the fact that the entire world's been turned upside down. We shouldn't be trying to find a way not to be here. We should be here unless there is some emergency that keeps us away, not because of compulsion and a feeling that we're going to feel guilty if we're not there. That's the old. But the new is we desperately know we need it and we wouldn't want to be without it. And we find such joy in being with each other. I mean, who wouldn't want to be in the fellowship of people who are stirring up one another to love and good works. I need to be stirred up to love and good works. You folks look like you need to be stirred up to love and good works. This is how it's done. You put those little boys in a room and you close the door, they're going to bring out the worst in each other. You put Christ’s people in a room and close door, we're supposed to bring out the best in each other. We're supposed to be able to leave this place more faithfully than if we hadn't been here, living more true to Christ than if we hadn't been here together, knowing what we need to know in order to do what we need to do. Evidently all the way back to when this had to be written in the first century, the writer of Hebrews said, don't neglect this as is the habit of some, but encourage one another. And then look at the closing words of verse 25, “and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” Now, most of your English translations, the word ‘Day’ there is going to be capitalized because it's not referring to a day. It's referring to the Day. It's referring to the day of Christ’s appearing. It's referring to that day that he made reference to when He said He's coming back. He's pointing to that day when He is going to affect God's judgment, and He’s going to call together his people. He's talking about that day. We are always to be living in anticipation of that day. And if we really are living in anticipation of that day, as we were told, as Jesus said, as we read earlier from John chapter 16, “a little while, a little while”. At the end of this little while He's coming and we need to be ready. The writer of the book of Hebrew says, “Don't neglect the assembling of yourselves together.” Don't neglect coming together. Don't neglect stirring up together for love and good works. Don't neglect these things. Don't neglect the means of grace. Don't neglect the preaching and teaching of the Word of God. Don't neglect the assembling of yourselves together as is the habit of some, but rather encourage one another, bring out the best in each other, stir one another up to love and good works, and all the more, since the Day is appearing. That's the way we're supposed to live every single day. We don't know when that Day is coming, but we do know that we are living with the sure and certain knowledge that Day is near. Every generation of Christians has known that in the span of eternity that Day is near.  That's why this passage with just a few verses here in Hebrews chapter 10 gives us so much. It gives us a review of the work of Christ that is so important to us. But now, when we have this, ‘Therefore’ at verse 19, we go into an argument that is now, it's current, it's practical. It's not just looking back to what Christ has done for us. It's looking to the present in terms of how Christ’s people are to live together and how we are to call out the best from each other in love and good works. We're to stir one another up to these things. But it also looks to the future, “and all the more so as you see the Day drawing near.” Let’s pray together. Our Father, we are so thankful that You've given us this text. How it springs forth fresh, new, powerful, living among us. Father, it humbles us as we recognize that when this text speaks about those whose habit is to neglect the gathering of ourselves together, we have sometimes been that people and we know that people. And when it here says that the church should be the fellowship that encourages one another, stirring up one another to love and good works, Father, we lament if we have ever been a people who fail to do that. And we pray that this church, right now, will stand out as a church that stirs one another up for all the right things. And Father, may we hold with confidence, may we have full assurance, may we hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering. We pray these things in the name of He who alone is faithful and true, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2011/08/21/hebrews-101-18/ Sun, 21 Aug 2011 09:30:42 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 35:09 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=21933 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2011/08/07/how-should-one-read-the-bible/ Sun, 07 Aug 2011 09:30:20 +0000
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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:30:04 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=21789 Audio, Exposition noGenesis 1:1-2, Revelation 22:20-21 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.Genesis 1:1-2, Revelation 22:20-21 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2011/05/15/hebrews-923-28/ Sun, 15 May 2011 09:30:09 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 34:20 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=21342 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2011/05/08/hebrews-911-22/ Sun, 08 May 2011 09:30:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 33:57 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=21258 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2011/04/17/hebrews-915-22/ Sun, 17 Apr 2011 09:30:56 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 28:04 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=21269 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2011/04/10/hebrews-910-14/ Sun, 10 Apr 2011 09:30:29 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 35:49 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=21265 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2011/04/03/hebrews-91-10/ Sun, 03 Apr 2011 09:30:36 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 44:15 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=20796 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2011/03/20/hebrews-88-13-2/ Sun, 20 Mar 2011 09:30:04 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 33:29 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=20666 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2011/03/13/hebrews-81-5/ Sun, 13 Mar 2011 09:30:41 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 37:33 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=20605 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2011/03/06/hebrews-723-28/ Sun, 06 Mar 2011 09:30:18 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 31:59 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=20506 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2011/02/27/hebrews-711-22/ Sun, 27 Feb 2011 09:30:29 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:33:40 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=20441 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2011/02/13/hebrews-71-10/ Sun, 13 Feb 2011 09:30:31 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 36:47 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=20225 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2011/02/06/hebrews-67-20/ Sun, 06 Feb 2011 09:30:51 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 35:34 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=20129 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2011/01/16/hebrews-61-8/ Sun, 16 Jan 2011 09:30:22 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 50:14 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=19847 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2011/01/09/hebrews-511-14/ Sun, 09 Jan 2011 09:30:10 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 35:56 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=19801 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2011/01/02/hebrews-51-10/ Sun, 02 Jan 2011 09:30:25 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:32:11 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=19652 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2010/12/12/matthew-21-12-2/ Sun, 12 Dec 2010 09:30:37 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 43:47 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=19518 Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2010/12/05/hebrews-414-16/ Sun, 05 Dec 2010 10:45:50 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 38:58 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=19311 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2010/11/28/hebrews-412-13/ Sun, 28 Nov 2010 10:45:43 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 36:59 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=19217 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2010/11/14/hebrews-41-11/ Sun, 14 Nov 2010 09:30:26 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 37:59 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=19142 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2010/11/07/hebrews-37-19/ Sun, 07 Nov 2010 09:30:52 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 33:33 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=19092 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2010/10/17/hebrews-31-6/ Sun, 17 Oct 2010 09:30:32 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 38:18 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=18821 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2010/10/10/hebrews-210-18/ Sun, 10 Oct 2010 09:30:49 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 35:47 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=18771 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2010/09/19/hebrews-21-12/ Sun, 19 Sep 2010 09:30:48 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 33:01 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=18490 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2010/09/12/hebrews-21-3/ Sun, 12 Sep 2010 09:30:37 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 35:28 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=18318 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2010/08/29/hebrews-15-14/ Sun, 29 Aug 2010 09:30:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 40:35 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=18134 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2010/08/22/hebrews-11-4/ Sun, 22 Aug 2010 09:45:03 +0000 But now we're going to go back to the very first verse. And as we go through the book verse by verse, we're reminded that we do that because we don't want to miss anything. Now, when we say don't want to miss anything, that doesn't mean that any study or any teacher can plum the infinite depths of this book. It does mean that we want to encounter every word, we want to take seriously every verse, we want to put it in its context and we want to take a section of Scripture every time we are together, that allows us to walk through the book in such a way that we are reminded that it has a beginning and an end, even as one book, that it fits within the total context of the New Testament, the total context of Scripture, so that we put each verse, indeed, each word, in its proper biblical context. 
We begin reading in Hebrews chapter 1 verse 1. “Long ago...” That's interesting. You know, some of the books of the Bible begin with ways we can easily understand chronologically, “In the beginning”—Genesis, John. And you understand that a Gospel like Matthew begins with a very important chronological beginning. So does, after a greeting, the Gospel of Luke. But what we have here in the book of Hebrews is a reminder from the very first verse that the writer of the book of Hebrews, inspired by the Holy Spirit, is going to put this story, the truth about Jesus Christ, in a context. It’s going to begin somewhere, and it doesn't begin in Bethlehem. Not yet. It doesn't begin in Jerusalem. Not yet. It begins long ago. “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets”. 
Now immediately, this puts the context in a very interesting light. The writer of the book of Hebrew says, if you're going to understand the story of Jesus, if you're going to understand the meaning of the cross of Christ, if you're going to understand the Gospel, you're going to have to understand that it comes in a context of God having spoken and now speaking. This is not God's first word. The Gospel does not come in a vacuum. It doesn't come out of the blue. The Gospel has a history. The Gospel has a period of preparation. The Gospel is God speaking, after He has already been speaking. What we now have in Christ, we're going to come to understand, is the definitive final word, but God has spoken before. 
Now, we were reminded as we began our study of the book of Hebrews, and we looked at the context, that the book Hebrews has the name Hebrews for more than one reason. One reason is that it is at great pains to help Christians to understand the relationship between the Gospel and the Old Testament. How do we understand the relationship between Christ and the prophets? How do we understand the relationship between the Gospel and the law? How do we understand what is new without understanding it terms of what was old, long ago? It's an indefinite chronological reference here. It is pointing backwards and it's pointing backwards a long way, centuries. Where? To win, and “many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets.” 
Now here, the writer of the book of Hebrews does something very subtle and we need to catch it very quickly. He uses two terms here that to the Jewish mind are absolutely essential, absolutely essential—the fathers and the prophets. If you were in Judaism in the first century, and you were going to make any kind of argument that was theological in any way, your point of reference, your authority, those whom you would cite by individual reference, by specific text, and by general authority, would be the fathers and the prophets.
Now the prepositions here are important. God spoke “to our fathers by the prophets”. Well, the first thing we have here encountered face to face directly in this text is the God who speaks. And again and again, we come back to the fact that this is also God's grace to us. When we are asked as Christians, what does the grace of God mean, we immediately go to Christ. We immediately go to salvation. We immediately go to the grace, the unmarried favor that is extended to us in Christ, by the Father. And that, of course, is quintessentially right. But we need to remember that there was grace before Christ, that is before the incarnation. There was grace before the actualization of the Gospel. There was grace in God speaking.  
You'll remember, my favorite definition of revelation comes from Carl Henry, my late mentor in theology, who always said, “Remember, that revelation is God's gracious”, there’s the word, grace, “self-disclosure whereby He forfeits His own personal privacy that we might know Him.” It's an act of generosity that God speaks. It's an act of grace that God speaks. If God did not speak, we could not find Him, we could not know Him. If God did not speak, we would be in darkness rather than light. If God did not speak, we would be left in ignorance rather than knowledge. If God did not speak, we would be absolutely hopeless. 
And God spoke “Long ago”, as the writer of the book of Hebrews begins, “at many times”, not just one time, “at many times and in many ways”. And there were lots of ways. The forms of God's revelation are many, as Paul makes very clear in Romans chapter 1. Before you even get to God speaking, in terms of special revelation or direct revelation, you have God's disclosure of Himself, even in what we would call general revelation or in nature, God speaks even in nature. But as Paul makes very clear, even though in nature, He has revealed even His invisible attributes, because of our sinfulness we cannot see it. We'll distort it. We are natural born idolators. We’ll take that knowledge that God gave us in creation, and we'll turn it into a form of, as Paul says, worshiping the creature rather than the Creator. That’s not just about someone else, that's about all of us. We are natural born idolators. That is what we see in the mirror—a would be idolator, but for the grace of God.
But the speaking that the writer book of Hebrews is talking about here is not in nature. This is special revelation he's talking about. This is direct revelation. This is verbal revelation. This is God speaking to the fathers, as to the patriarchs. God spoke to the patriarchs, “to the fathers by the prophets”. The prophets were those to whom God spoke. The prophets were those who were the human vessels of God's self-revelation. God spoke in many ways. As we recall, He spoke through Balaam’s donkey. He spoke through a bush that burned and was not consumed. He spoke through a mountain that shook with fire and was surrounded by smoke. He spoke through words, written on tablets of stone. But quintessentially He spoke through the prophets. And in Israel, in Judaism, in the first century, the authority of the law and the prophets, these were absolute. 
The writer of the book of Hebrews authorizes, immediately confirms, God's revelation through the prophets. It was a true revelation. It was an authentic revelation. It was an inerrant and totally true and trustworthy revelation. But, as consummate as is the authority of the prophets, as clear as was their message, as authoritative as was this revelation, it was not the final word. It was pointing—all prophecy was pointing, all the prophets were pointing towards the definitive word. And thus, you have the turn, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.” 
Now, in one sense, what we have here, much like in Genesis 1:1, or in John 1:1, here in Hebrews 1:1 we have an entire biblical theology. It's all right here. Did you notice how much is in there? We have incarnation, we have revelation, we have beginning, we have the creation, as we shall see, that Christ is the one through whom the world was created. He is now the heir of all things. But the crucial turn comes with the word “but”—“But in these last days”. So you have two different periods of time contrasted here. You have the long ago, and in these last days. 
“Long ago…” We wouldn't know how to tell the story of Jesus without long ago. We wouldn't know where to start. It wouldn't make a whole lot of sense, would it, if we just pointed to Bethlehem and said, “That's where it started.” We don't know how the world came to be. We don't have a clue how all this happened. We don't even why He needed to come, but He came. That's good news. Well, it would be good news, but we would not understand the good news. We understand the Gospel in the context of what came before. We understand God speaking through Christ, the Son, in the context of how God spoke through the prophets. 
The biblical theology that we need to always have in mind is very, very simple. It's promise and fulfillment. You have two words. If you understand those two words, you really have a very important and substantial biblical theology. The two words are simply promise and fulfillment. The Old Testament promise, the New Testament fulfillment. The prophets’ promise, Christ fulfillment. The law promise, Gospel fulfillment. These things happened, says Matthew, in order that the Scriptures might be fulfilled—promise and fulfillment. “These are they,” said Christ “that testify of Me.” Promise and fulfillment. 
And here you have it in Hebrews chapter 1 verse 1, “Long ago,” there’s one time, “but in these last days”, this is the new time. There's a new age, a decisive break in history. It's the dividing line between what was promised and now what is realized. The interesting phrase “in these last days” comes about in Scripture again and again. There's a sense in which we are all Latter-day Saints, in the sense that we are living in these last days, these latter days, these recent days, these new days. There's a quickening of history now with the incarnation, We're rooted in the old, we are the inheritors of the old. As Paul says in Romans, we are the branch, we Gentiles, who are grafted onto this tree. But we are in the new. 
One of the tensions of the Christian life is understanding what it means to live out of the context of the old, but in the context of the new, to live in the context of promise that is now fulfilled. We don't live in the law, but the Gospel comes only in the context of fulfilling the law. We don't live only by the prophets, but we're instructed by the prophets even to understand how we are to understand Christ. 
“In these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.” This is a decisive difference. This is quintessential. This is the writer of the book of Hebrew saying, “Yes, absolutely. God spoke through the prophets. He spoke through the prophets in many ways, at many times, to our fathers.” This is the complete legitimation of the Old Testament. This is the complete authorization, the recognition of the authority of the prophets and of the patriarchs. This is the writer of the book of Hebrews saying, “This is our story. This is Christ’s story.” Christ's story is not new as in having no connection to the old, but at the same time, it is absolutely new.
“In these last days.” God is not speaking merely through the prophets, He’s speaking through a Son. Now that phrase “a Son”, with the singular, is to set the category difference. It’s not to imply there is more than one Son—that's definitively answered in Scripture. It’s just to say, there's a difference between a prophet and a Son. It's a qualitative difference that we can immediately understand. And in this case, what we're going to find in the first few verses of Hebrews chapter one, is that this Son is defined in a way no human son can be defined, in reference to the Father. It's a categorical change. He is no longer... The Father is no longer merely speaking through the prophets in many times and in many ways, He is now speaking through a son, His Son, the Son. As John says, μονογενής, the only one of His kind, the only Son. You know, speaking through a Son. 
Of course, Jesus tells a parable about a distant landowner who sends emissaries to those who are keeping his vineyard. And then finally he sends his son. And, of course, the wicked vineyard workers kill him. It's a categorical difference between a servant and a son. It's a categorical difference between a prophet and a son. “He has spoken to us by his Son.” 
Now look at these next phrases, “whom he appointed the heir of all things”. Now that's important. The relationship between a father and a son is one of the most easily understandable relationships. The son's identity is derived from his father. It is from the father that the son receives his name. He is, and always ever will be, his father's son. But one of the blessings of sonship is being the heir of the father. And in this case, this infinite Father has one Son. He is “the heir of all things”. And this is very important because the writer of the book of Hebrews, at the very beginning, is using traditional understandings that his primarily Hebrew Jewish first audience would easily understand. This Son is invested with everything. He is invested with full authority. 
This is where the singular is very important too—a Son. This is not a Father with many sons of this category. Only one, the only one of His kind. If you're going to do business with this Father, you're going to do business with this Son. And indeed, as we come to understand, if you're going to know this Father, you're going to know this Father through His Son. “In these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things.”
The next phrase, “through whom also he created the world.” Now this is something again, that would come… It comes familiar to us because we're so familiar with this. It comes with the ring of what we expect. We know that “In the beginning was the Word … and the Word was God.” We know the full text. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” We come to understand from John chapter one, verse one, as it ties back to Genesis one, verse one, that He is the one who created all things, nothing that came to be came to be except by His creation. 
You know, one of the most essential parts of promise and fulfillment, we have to keep in mind, essential to a biblical theology, and that is why the doctrine of creation is so important. Hear me on this. If we do not have the right doctrine of creation, we will not have the right doctrine of redemption. Creation and Gospel are inextricably linked. The God who creates is the God who redeems. They aren't two different gods—they are one God.
The Son who redeems is also the Son who creates. The world is His. “He came unto his own,” says John. This is His world. He was the agent of creation. We are told in Genesis that God spoke and it happened—verbal creation. And then we have in John one, the recognition that Christ is the Logos. He is the speech of God. And what we have here, He is the Word. He is the agent through whom the world was made. Not only is He the heir of all things, it is through the Son that the Father created the cosmos, the world. Now, again, there's an entire biblical theology there. You talk about a promise and fulfillment. Now you have creation and redemption in one agent who is the Son of the Father, the heir of all things. 
But not only that, what we have as we begin verse three, is an exposition of what this Son, who this Son, how this Son, is all that the Father has for us. “He is the radiance of the glory of God”. Now this idea of radiance, it goes back to the very idea, the shekinah glory of God. God's glory is both visible and invisible, but the visible expression of God's glory is that which burst forth in creation. The creation cannot help but declare the glory of God, even the heavens are telling the glory of God. It is a glory that shines forth and quintessentially it shines forth in special revelations of God, in theophanies, where the brilliance of the glory of God, this blinding brilliance, is just a reminder to us, a sign unto us, of the infinite glory of God, of what it means for God to be absolute light. Radiance is one of those words that then becomes a picture to us. Looking to Christ is to see the radiance of the glory of God. 
But more than that, He is “the exact imprint of his nature”. You know, if you're talking to someone and you have a pretty good idea that they misunderstand, you're going to be at pains to choose your words very carefully. The writer of the book of Hebrews is aware that as many Hebrews, many Jews, in particular Hellenistic Jews in the first century, are trying to understand the Gospel, they're trying to understand Christ. Well, you can read these opening verses to the book of Hebrews and see there are some misunderstandings that are being corrected here. And you know, one of the things that is sobering to us is that almost every ancient heresy emerges in every generation. Almost every ancient misunderstanding of the Gospel emerges in our own times. 
Jesus isn't like God. He doesn't merely in some indirect, but helpful way, show us God. When we see Christ, we do not see, please hear me. Evangelical preachers and evangelical Christians often misspake, misspeak—how’s that for parable! Evangelical preachers and Christians often misspeak by saying something that sounds almost right. When you see Christ, you see what the Father is like. Fail! The Scripture does not say that. Scripture says, when you see the Son, you see the Father. It is not merely what the Father is like. We do not look to Christ and then draw an inference the Father must be like that. And here is where this divine Son is different than a human son. No human son is the exact representation of his father. Trust me on this. I can prove this as both father and son. No son, no human son, is the exact representation of his father. He's his father's son, but not the exact representation. Christ is the exact representation. 
A little footnote here. The essential function of the virgin conception of Christ is multiple. But a part of it is in explaining how the Son, this Son, is the exact representation of His Father. He is exactly the Father. You look to Him, you see the Father. Like the opening to Colossians and it's great Christological hymn, He is the Icon, and we don't believe in icons you hang on the wall. We believe in one Icon who was hung on a cross. You look to the Son, you see the Father. 
Now this must, it indeed must have been stated to make clear where there had been a lack of clarity. Like in Paul's letters, you don't have to scratch very hard on the surface to see where clarification is being made. And we know from both Paul's letters and the general epistles in the context of the New Testament, and from the ministry of Christ Himself was reflected in the Gospels, that there were many people who got pretty close to knowing who Christ was. They had a Christology, they had an understanding of Christ that got them into the neighborhood of who He is. In the neighborhood's not good enough. And almost Orthodox Christology isn't good enough. Believing that Christ is in some way divine, isn't good enough. Believing that He shows us what the Father is like, isn't good enough. No, the Gospel hangs on the fact that He is the Son who is “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint” of the Father's nature. 
And He's powerful—“he upholds the universe by the word of His power.” Now again, most Christians, most believers, I think, never really come to terms with this. It is repeated in Scripture over and over and over again. The total context of the Bible and the Old and New Testaments is that it is God who brought all things into being, and He is the power who holds all things together. You know, the great holy grail, so to speak, in physics is a unified field theory, a complete theory of how all the forces and energies in the cosmos actually work to hold all things together. Well, here is the short and definitive version of the universal field theory: “In the beginning, God…” He holds all things together by the power of His hand. If God ever ceased to will, that the universe would exist, it would cease to exist. It is He who holds all things together. The power to create is also the power to preserve, the power to control, the power to bring it to its end.
But even as we are told, not only in this text, but again, definitively in this text that it is through Christ the world was created, we are also now told that it is Christ who holds all things together. He is the power who holds all things together. “He upholds the universe by the word of his power.” Martin Luther, the great reformer in the 16th century, was once asked a question, and we have so much of this because of his table talk. He was once asked a question by a young theology student and Luther said, “I think an angel would be scared to ask that question, which means you certainly better be!” 
There's certain questions and we don't ask. There are questions in the inner Trinitarian relationship between the Son and the Father, we don't dare to ask. Even the angels wouldn't dare to ask. It's in that privacy of God is not revealed to us. But what is revealed to us, is that the Father, through the Son, exercises creation and the upholding of the world, By the way, and you've heard me say this before, but as a seminary president, I just have to love it, and as a former seminary student. Luther was once asked by a seminary student, as they were sharing a meal, “Father Martin, what was God doing before He created the heavens and the earth?” And you gotta give Luther credit. He never missed a beat. He said, “I do know He was creating Hell for impetuous theology students!” All right, you gotta love Luther. 
Christ “is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins…” Isn’t that a summary of the Gospel that just comes now out of the blue? Creation, all power, now making purification. Again, a Jewish context—purification is the issue here. That might not be the first word we would think of, but it is the word that fits the Jewish context in terms of promise and fulfillment. Quintessentially here, He has made purification for sins. That is atonement. 
After making atonement, and much about that is going to be the exposition of the book of Hebrews. “After making purification for sins”—so here you have a timeline—"he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.” As the Apostles Creed said, “He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God. the Father almighty…” The place of power, the place of privilege, the place of authority. 
“…having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.” This is interesting. When you read the prologue to the Gospel of John, you're not really dealing with this. You read the prologue to the Scripture and the doctrine of creation and the story of the Bible and Genesis 1, you're not dealing with this. What are we dealing with here? We're dealing here with a theological context that is specifically addressed by the book of Hebrews in a way that is extremely helpful to us. 
In first entry Judaism, especially in Hellenistic Judaism, there was a huge interest in angels. There was the recognition that angels were messengers of God. There was incredible speculation about how to authorize understanding if it was, indeed, an angel who spoke. There was an incredible attentiveness to what messages might come by an angel. Angels were a focus of such speculation that It was considered that to be an angel, was to have the privilege of reflecting this shekinah glory of God in an infinite and eternal way. There's an understanding that angels were created beings, but they were created beings of incredible spiritual privilege.
The angels spend all their time reflecting the glory of God among the bene-Elohim in the throne room of God. They're deputized at times to arrive as God's messenger, and they play, and have played, an essential role. So in first entry Judaism there's a lot of attention to angels.
There's a sense in which the angel must be the greatest spiritual being. To be an angel, to be the privileged messenger of God, to be the one who bathes in the glory of God—that must be a special privilege. And yes, it must be. But, as we shall see when we continue this study next time, the writer of the book of Hebrews is at tremendous pains. He goes to extraordinary links to say, “God never said of any angel, what he says of His Son.” The angels do reveal, even as the prophets revealed, but they don't redeem. The Father never said of an angel, “You are my Son.” 
So, as we begin the study of the book of Hebrews verse by verse and word by word, we come at the end of the first four verses to be told that Christ has inherited, that is He has been given a name, that's “more excellent than theirs,” because He is much superior to angels.
It was certainly the case, and we know this from sources outside the book of Hebrews and outside the New Testament, that first century Judaism was focused on the superiority of angels. And along comes the one who is not an angel, but the one whom the angels announce, the one whose birth the angels attend. He is not merely an angel. 
The difference between getting the identity of Christ right, and almost right, is actually infinite. The writer of the book of Hebrews, inspired by the Holy Spirit, has given us this incredible Christological hymn that begins this book, which is so rich in theological content, lest we misunderstand who Christ is. In our own day, in our own times, there are multiple misunderstandings of who Christ is. 
And as we come to the end of these first four verses, we are reminded that to get this wrong is to get everything wrong. He is the exact “radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature”. He “upholds the universe by the word of his power.” He has made “purification for sins”. He now sits down “at the right hand of the Majesty on high”. And we know this because “Long ago … God spoke to the fathers by the prophets” many times in many ways, but he's now spoken to us by a Son.
Let's pray. Our Father, we are so thankful that we can pray this prayer in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son. Father, we're so thankful for this introduction to the book of Hebrews, these first four verses. And as it sets the stage for everything that will follow, Father, we pray that Your Holy Spirit will apply these words to our heart, that we be conformed to the image of your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, the exact representation of Your nature and the radiance of Your glory. Father, may we live in that glory, to Your glory, this week. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 35:12 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=18045 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noWe are in the second week of our study of the book of Hebrews. And last week we looked at the beginning of the book and at the end of the book to get an understanding of what exactly this book is and why it plays such a strategic role in biblical theology, in the structure and in the layout of the New Testament, in the context of Scripture. And we looked at the beginning and the end, looking at this incredible Christological, doxological, theological way the book begins and then its pastoral application at the end.  But now we're going to go back to the very first verse. And as we go through the book verse by verse, we're reminded that we do that because we don't want to miss anything. Now, when we say don't want to miss anything, that doesn't mean that any study or any teacher can plum the infinite depths of this book. It does mean that we want to encounter every word, we want to take seriously every verse, we want to put it in its context and we want to take a section of Scripture every time we are together, that allows us to walk through the book in such a way that we are reminded that it has a beginning and an end, even as one book, that it fits within the total context of the New Testament, the total context of Scripture, so that we put each verse, indeed, each word, in its proper biblical context.  We begin reading in Hebrews chapter 1 verse 1. “Long ago...” That's interesting. You know, some of the books of the Bible begin with ways we can easily understand chronologically, “In the beginning”—Genesis, John. And you understand that a Gospel like Matthew begins with a very important chronological beginning. So does, after a greeting, the Gospel of Luke. But what we have here in the book of Hebrews is a reminder from the very first verse that the writer of the book of Hebrews, inspired by the Holy Spirit, is going to put this story, the truth about Jesus Christ, in a context. It’s going to begin somewhere, and it doesn't begin in Bethlehem. Not yet. It doesn't begin in Jerusalem. Not yet. It begins long ago. “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets”.  Now immediately, this puts the context in a very interesting light. The writer of the book of Hebrew says, if you're going to understand the story of Jesus, if you're going to understand the meaning of the cross of Christ, if you're going to understand the Gospel, you're going to have to understand that it comes in a context of God having spoken and now speaking. This is not God's first word. The Gospel does not come in a vacuum. It doesn't come out of the blue. The Gospel has a history. The Gospel has a period of preparation. The Gospel is God speaking, after He has already been speaking. What we now have in Christ, we're going to come to understand, is the definitive final word, but God has spoken before.  Now, we were reminded as we began our study of the book of Hebrews, and we looked at the context, that the book Hebrews has the name Hebrews for more than one reason. One reason is that it is at great pains to help Christians to understand the relationship between the Gospel and the Old Testament. How do we understand the relationship between Christ and the prophets? How do we understand the relationship between the Gospel and the law? How do we understand what is new without understanding it terms of what was old, long ago? It's an indefinite chronological reference here. It is pointing backwards and it's pointing backwards a long way, centuries. Where? To win, and “many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets.”  Now here, the writer of the book of Hebrews does something very subtle and we need to catch it very quickly. He uses two terms here that to the Jewish mind are absolutely essential, absolutely essential—the fathers and the prophets. If you were in Judaism in the first century, and you were going to make any kind of argument that was theological in any way, your point of reference, your authority, those whom you would cite by individual reference, by specific text, and by general authority, would be the fathers and the prophets. Now the prepositions here are important. God spoke “to our fathers by the prophets”. Well, the first thing we have here encountered face to face directly in this text is the God who speaks. And again and again, we come back to the fact that this is also God's grace to us. When we are asked as Christians, what does the grace of God mean, we immediately go to Christ. We immediately go to salvation. We immediately go to the grace, the unmarried favor that is extended to us in Christ, by the Father. And that, of course, is quintessentially right. But we need to remember that there was grace before Christ, that is before the incarnation. There was grace before the actualization of the Gospel. There was grace in God speaking.   You'll remember, my favorite definition of revelation comes from Carl Henry, my late mentor in theology, who always said, “Remember, that revelation is God's gracious”, there’s the word, grace, “self-disclosure whereby He forfeits His own personal privacy that we might know Him.” It's an act of generosity that God speaks. It's an act of grace that God speaks. If God did not speak, we could not find Him, we could not know Him. If God did not speak, we would be in darkness rather than light. If God did not speak, we would be left in ignorance rather than knowledge. If God did not speak, we would be absolutely hopeless.  And God spoke “Long ago”, as the writer of the book of Hebrews begins, “at many times”, not just one time, “at many times and in many ways”. And there were lots of ways. The forms of God's revelation are many, as Paul makes very clear in Romans chapter 1. Before you even get to God speaking, in terms of special revelation or direct revelation, you have God's disclosure of Himself, even in what we would call general revelation or in nature, God speaks even in nature. But as Paul makes very clear, even though in nature, He has revealed even His invisible attributes, because of our sinfulness we cannot see it. We'll distort it. We are natural born idolators. We’ll take that knowledge that God gave us in creation, and we'll turn it into a form of, as Paul says, worshiping the creature rather than the Creator. That’s not just about someone else, that's about all of us. We are natural born idolators. That is what we see in the mirror—a would be idolator, but for the grace of God. But the speaking that the writer book of Hebrews is talking about here is not in nature. This is special revelation he's talking about. This is direct revelation. This is verbal revelation. This is God speaking to the fathers, as to the patriarchs. God spoke to the patriarchs, “to the fathers by the prophets”. The prophets were those to whom God spoke. The prophets were those who were the human vessels of God's self-revelation. God spoke in many ways. As we recall, He spoke through Balaam’s donkey. He spoke through a bush that burned and was not consumed. He spoke through a mountain that shook with fire and was surrounded by smoke. He spoke through words, written on tablets of stone. But quintessentially He spoke through the prophets. And in Israel, in Judaism, in the first century, the authority of the law and the prophets, these were absolute.  The writer of the book of Hebrews authorizes, immediately confirms, God's revelation through the prophets. It was a true revelation. It was an authentic revelation. It was an inerrant and totally true and trustworthy revelation. But, as consummate as is the authority of the prophets, as clear as was their message, as authoritative as was this revelation, it was not the final word. It was pointing—all prophecy was pointing, all the prophets were pointing towards the definitive word. And thus, you have the turn, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.”  Now, in one sense, what we have here, much like in Genesis 1:1, or in John 1:1, here in Hebrews 1:1 we have an entire biblical theology. It's all right here. Did you notice how much is in there? We have incarnation, we have revelation, we have beginning, we have the creation, as we shall see, that Christ is the one through whom the world was created. He is now the heir of all things. But the crucial turn comes with the word “but”—“But in these last days”. So you have two different periods of time contrasted here. You have the long ago, and in these last days.  “Long ago…” We wouldn't know how to tell the story of Jesus without long ago. We wouldn't know where to start. It wouldn't make a whole lot of sense, would it, if we just pointed to Bethlehem and said, “That's where it started.” We don't know how the world came to be. We don't have a clue how all this happened. We don't even why He needed to come, but He came. That's good news. Well, it would be good news, but we would not understand the good news. We understand the Gospel in the context of what came before. We understand God speaking through Christ, the Son, in the context of how God spoke through the prophets.  The biblical theology that we need to always have in mind is very, very simple. It's promise and fulfillment. You have two words. If you understand those two words, you really have a very important and substantial biblical theology. The two words are simply promise and fulfillment. The Old Testament promise, the New Testament fulfillment. The prophets’ promise, Christ fulfillment. The law promise, Gospel fulfillment. These things happened, says Matthew, in order that the Scriptures might be fulfilled—promise and fulfillment. “These are they,” said Christ “that testify of Me.” Promise and fulfillment.  And here you have it in Hebrews chapter 1 verse 1, “Long ago,” there’s one time, “but in these last days”, this is the new time. There's a new age, a decisive break in history. It's the dividing line between what was promised and now what is realized. The interesting phrase “in these last days” comes about in Scripture again and again. There's a sense in which we are all Latter-day Saints, in the sense that we are living in these last days, these latter days, these recent days, these new days. There's a quickening of history now with the incarnation, We're rooted in the old, we are the inheritors of the old. As Paul says in Romans, we are the branch, we Gentiles, who are grafted onto this tree. But we are in the new.  One of the tensions of the Christian life is understanding what it means to live out of the context of the old, but in the context of the new, to live in the context of promise that is now fulfilled. We don't live in the law, but the Gospel comes only in the context of fulfilling the law. We don't live only by the prophets, but we're instructed by the prophets even to understand how we are to understand Christ.  “In these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.” This is a decisive difference. This is quintessential. This is the writer of the book of Hebrew saying, “Yes, absolutely. God spoke through the prophets. He spoke through the prophets in many ways, at many times, to our fathers.” This is the complete legitimation of the Old Testament. This is the complete authorization, the recognition of the authority of the prophets and of the patriarchs. This is the writer of the book of Hebrews saying, “This is our story. This is Christ’s story.” Christ's story is not new as in having no connection to the old, but at the same time, it is absolutely new. “In these last days.” God is not speaking merely through the prophets, He’s speaking through a Son. Now that phrase “a Son”, with the singular, is to set the category difference. It’s not to imply there is more than one Son—that's definitively answered in Scripture. It’s just to say, there's a difference between a prophet and a Son. It's a qualitative difference that we can immediately understand. And in this case, what we're going to find in the first few verses of Hebrews chapter one, is that this Son is defined in a way no human son can be defined, in reference to the Father. It's a categorical change. He is no longer... The Father is no longer merely speaking through the prophets in many times and in many ways, He is now speaking through a son, His Son, the Son. As John says, μονογενής, the only one of His kind, the only Son. You know, speaking through a Son.  Of course, Jesus tells a parable about a distant landowner who sends emissaries to those who are keeping his vineyard. And then finally he sends his son. And, of course, the wicked vineyard workers kill him. It's a categorical difference between a servant and a son. It's a categorical difference between a prophet and a son. “He has spoken to us by his Son.”  Now look at these next phrases, “whom he appointed the heir of all things”. Now that's important. The relationship between a father and a son is one of the most easily understandable relationships. The son's identity is derived from his father. It is from the father that the son receives his name. He is, and always ever will be, his father's son. But one of the blessings of sonship is being the heir of the father. And in this case, this infinite Father has one Son. He is “the heir of all things”. And this is very important because the writer of the book of Hebrews, at the very beginning, is using traditional understandings that his primarily Hebrew Jewish first audience would easily understand. This Son is invested with everything. He is invested with full authority.  This is where the singular is very important too—a Son. This is not a Father with many sons of this category. Only one, the only one of His kind. If you're going to do business with this Father, you're going to do business with this Son. And indeed, as we come to understand, if you're going to know this Father, you're going to know this Father through His Son. “In these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things.” The next phrase, “through whom also he created the world.” Now this is something again, that would come… It comes familiar to us because we're so familiar with this. It comes with the ring of what we expect. We know that “In the beginning was the Word … and the Word was God.” We know the full text. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” We come to understand from John chapter one, verse one, as it ties back to Genesis one, verse one, that He is the one who created all things, nothing that came to be came to be except by His creation.  You know, one of the most essential parts of promise and fulfillment, we have to keep in mind, essential to a biblical theology, and that is why the doctrine of creation is so important. Hear me on this. If we do not have the right doctrine of creation, we will not have the right doctrine of redemption. Creation and Gospel are inextricably linked. The God who creates is the God who redeems. They aren't two different gods—they are one God. The Son who redeems is also the Son who creates. The world is His. “He came unto his own,” says John. This is His world. He was the agent of creation. We are told in Genesis that God spoke and it happened—verbal creation. And then we have in John one, the recognition that Christ is the Logos. He is the speech of God. And what we have here, He is the Word. He is the agent through whom the world was made. Not only is He the heir of all things, it is through the Son that the Father created the cosmos, the world. Now, again, there's an entire biblical theology there. You talk about a promise and fulfillment. Now you have creation and redemption in one agent who is the Son of the Father, the heir of all things.  But not only that, what we have as we begin verse three, is an exposition of what this Son, who this Son, how this Son, is all that the Father has for us. “He is the radiance of the glory of God”. Now this idea of radiance, it goes back to the very idea, the shekinah glory of God. God's glory is both visible and invisible, but the visible expression of God's glory is that which burst forth in creation. The creation cannot help but declare the glory of God, even the heavens are telling the glory of God. It is a glory that shines forth and quintessentially it shines forth in special revelations of God, in theophanies, where the brilliance of the glory of God, this blinding brilliance, is just a reminder to us, a sign unto us, of the infinite glory of God, of what it means for God to be absolute light. Radiance is one of those words that then becomes a picture to us. Looking to Christ is to see the radiance of the glory of God.  But more than that, He is “the exact imprint of his nature”. You know, if you're talking to someone and you have a pretty good idea that they misunderstand, you're going to be at pains to choose your words very carefully. The writer of the book of Hebrews is aware that as many Hebrews, many Jews, in particular Hellenistic Jews in the first century, are trying to understand the Gospel, they're trying to understand Christ. Well, you can read these opening verses to the book of Hebrews and see there are some misunderstandings that are being corrected here. And you know, one of the things that is sobering to us is that almost every ancient heresy emerges in every generation. Almost every ancient misunderstanding of the Gospel emerges in our own times.  Jesus isn't like God. He doesn't merely in some indirect, but helpful way, show us God. When we see Christ, we do not see, please hear me. Evangelical preachers and evangelical Christians often misspake, misspeak—how’s that for parable! Evangelical preachers and Christians often misspeak by saying something that sounds almost right. When you see Christ, you see what the Father is like. Fail! The Scripture does not say that. Scripture says, when you see the Son, you see the Father. It is not merely what the Father is like. We do not look to Christ and then draw an inference the Father must be like that. And here is where this divine Son is different than a human son. No human son is the exact representation of his father. Trust me on this. I can prove this as both father and son. No son, no human son, is the exact representation of his father. He's his father's son, but not the exact representation. Christ is the exact representation.  A little footnote here. The essential function of the virgin conception of Christ is multiple. But a part of it is in explaining how the Son, this Son, is the exact representation of His Father. He is exactly the Father. You look to Him, you see the Father. Like the opening to Colossians and it's great Christological hymn, He is the Icon, and we don't believe in icons you hang on the wall. We believe in one Icon who was hung on a cross. You look to the Son, you see the Father.  Now this must, it indeed must have been stated to make clear where there had been a lack of clarity. Like in Paul's letters, you don't have to scratch very hard on the surface to see where clarification is being made. And we know from both Paul's letters and the general epistles in the context of the New Testament, and from the ministry of Christ Himself was reflected in the Gospels, that there were many people who got pretty close to knowing who Christ was. They had a Christology, they had an understanding of Christ that got them into the neighborhood of who He is. In the neighborhood's not good enough. And almost Orthodox Christology isn't good enough. Believing that Christ is in some way divine, isn't good enough. Believing that He shows us what the Father is like, isn't good enough. No, the Gospel hangs on the fact that He is the Son who is “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint” of the Father's nature.  And He's powerful—“he upholds the universe by the word of His power.” Now again, most Christians, most believers, I think, never really come to terms with this. It is repeated in Scripture over and over and over again. The total context of the Bible and the Old and New Testaments is that it is God who brought all things into being, and He is the power who holds all things together. You know, the great holy grail, so to speak, in physics is a unified field theory, a complete theory of how all the forces and energies in the cosmos actually work to hold all things together. Well, here is the short and definitive version of the universal field theory: “In the beginning, God…” He holds all things together by the power of His hand. If God ever ceased to will, that the universe would exist, it would cease to exist. It is He who holds all things together. The power to create is also the power to preserve, the power to control, the power to bring it to its end. But even as we are told, not only in this text, but again, definitively in this text that it is through Christ the world was created, we are also now told that it is Christ who holds all things together. He is the power who holds all things together. “He upholds the universe by the word of his power.” Martin Luther, the great reformer in the 16th century, was once asked a question, and we have so much of this because of his table talk. He was once asked a question by a young theology student and Luther said, “I think an angel would be scared to ask that question, which means you certainly better be!”  There's certain questions and we don't ask. There are questions in the inner Trinitarian relationship between the Son and the Father, we don't dare to ask. Even the angels wouldn't dare to ask. It's in that privacy of God is not revealed to us. But what is revealed to us, is that the Father, through the Son, exercises creation and the upholding of the world, By the way, and you've heard me say this before, but as a seminary president, I just have to love it, and as a former seminary student. Luther was once asked by a seminary student, as they were sharing a meal, “Father Martin, what was God doing before He created the heavens and the earth?” And you gotta give Luther credit. He never missed a beat. He said, “I do know He was creating Hell for impetuous theology students!” All right, you gotta love Luther.  Christ “is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins…” Isn’t that a summary of the Gospel that just comes now out of the blue? Creation, all power, now making purification. Again, a Jewish context—purification is the issue here. That might not be the first word we would think of, but it is the word that fits the Jewish context in terms of promise and fulfillment. Quintessentially here, He has made purification for sins. That is atonement.  After making atonement, and much about that is going to be the exposition of the book of Hebrews. “After making purification for sins”—so here you have a timeline—"he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.” As the Apostles Creed said, “He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God. the Father almighty…” The place of power, the place of privilege, the place of authority.  “…having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.” This is interesting. When you read the prologue to the Gospel of John, you're not really dealing with this. You read the prologue to the Scripture and the doctrine of creation and the story of the Bible and Genesis 1, you're not dealing with this. What are we dealing with here? We're dealing here with a theological context that is specifically addressed by the book of Hebrews in a way that is extremely helpful to us.  In first entry Judaism, especially in Hellenistic Judaism, there was a huge interest in angels. There was the recognition that angels were messengers of God. There was incredible speculation about how to authorize understanding if it was, indeed, an angel who spoke. There was an incredible attentiveness to what messages might come by an angel. Angels were a focus of such speculation that It was considered that to be an angel, was to have the privilege of reflecting this shekinah glory of God in an infinite and eternal way. There's an understanding that angels were created beings, but they were created beings of incredible spiritual privilege. The angels spend all their time reflecting the glory of God among the bene-Elohim in the throne room of God. They're deputized at times to arrive as God's messenger, and they play, and have played, an essential role. So in first entry Judaism there's a lot of attention to angels. There's a sense in which the angel must be the greatest spiritual being. To be an angel, to be the privileged messenger of God, to be the one who bathes in the glory of God—that must be a special privilege. And yes, it must be. But, as we shall see when we continue this study next time, the writer of the book of Hebrews is at tremendous pains. He goes to extraordinary links to say, “God never said of any angel, what he says of His Son.” The angels do reveal, even as the prophets revealed, but they don't redeem. The Father never said of an angel, “You are my Son.”  So, as we begin the study of the book of Hebrews verse by verse and word by word, we come at the end of the first four verses to be told that Christ has inherited, that is He has been given a name, that's “more excellent than theirs,” because He is much superior to angels. It was certainly the case, and we know this from sources outside the book of Hebrews and outside the New Testament, that first century Judaism was focused on the superiority of angels. And along comes the one who is not an angel, but the one whom the angels announce, the one whose birth the angels attend. He is not merely an angel.  The difference between getting the identity of Christ right, and almost right, is actually infinite. The writer of the book of Hebrews, inspired by the Holy Spirit, has given us this incredible Christological hymn that begins this book, which is so rich in theological content, lest we misunderstand who Christ is. In our own day, in our own times, there are multiple misunderstandings of who Christ is.  And as we come to the end of these first four verses, we are reminded that to get this wrong is to get everything wrong. He is the exact “radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature”. He “upholds the universe by the word of his power.” He has made “purification for sins”. He now sits down “at the right hand of the Majesty on high”. And we know this because “Long ago … God spoke to the fathers by the prophets” many times in many ways, but he's now spoken to us by a Son. Let's pray. Our Father, we are so thankful that we can pray this prayer in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son. Father, we're so thankful for this introduction to the book of Hebrews, these first four verses. And as it sets the stage for everything that will follow, Father, we pray that Your Holy Spirit will apply these words to our heart, that we be conformed to the image of your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, the exact representation of Your nature and the radiance of Your glory. Father, may we live in that glory, to Your glory, this week. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.We are in the second week of our study of the book of Hebrews. And last week we looked at the beginning of the book and at the end of the book to get an understanding of what exactly this book is and why it plays such a strategic role in biblical theology, in the structure and in the layout of the New Testament, in the context of Scripture. And we looked at the beginning and the end, looking at this incredible Christological, doxological, theological way the book begins and then its pastoral application at the end.  But now we're going to go back to the very first verse. And as we go through the book verse by verse, we're reminded that we do that because we don't want to miss anything. Now, when we say don't want to miss anything, that doesn't mean that any study or any teacher can plum the infinite depths of this book. It does mean that we want to encounter every word, we want to take seriously every verse, we want to put it in its context and we want to take a section of Scripture every time we are together, that allows us to walk through the book in such a way that we are reminded that it has a beginning and an end, even as one book, that it fits within the total context of the New Testament, the total context of Scripture, so that we put each verse, indeed, each word, in its proper biblical context.  We begin reading in Hebrews chapter 1 verse 1. “Long ago...” That's interesting. You know, some of the books of the Bible begin with ways we can easily understand chronologically, “In the beginning”—Genesis, John. And you understand that a Gospel like Matthew begins with a very important chronological beginning. So does, after a greeting, the Gospel of Luke. But what we have here in the book of Hebrews is a reminder from the very first verse that the writer of the book of Hebrews, inspired by the Holy Spirit, is going to put this story, the truth about Jesus Christ, in a context. It’s going to begin somewhere, and it doesn't begin in Bethlehem. Not yet. It doesn't begin in Jerusalem. Not yet. It begins long ago. “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets”.  Now immediately, this puts the context in a very interesting light. The writer of the book of Hebrew says, if you're going to understand the story of Jesus, if you're going to understand the meaning of the cross of Christ, if you're going to understand the Gospel, you're going to have to understand that it comes in a context of God having spoken and now speaking. This is not God's first word. The Gospel does not come in a vacuum. It doesn't come out of the blue. The Gospel has a history. The Gospel has a period of preparation. The Gospel is God speaking, after He has already been speaking. What we now have in Christ, we're going to come to understand, is the definitive final word, but God has spoken before.  Now, we were reminded as we began our study of the book of Hebrews, and we looked at the context, that the book Hebrews has the name Hebrews for more than one reason. One reason is that it is at great pains to help Christians to understand the relationship between the Gospel and the Old Testament. How do we understand the relationship between Christ and the prophets? How do we understand the relationship between the Gospel and the law? How do we understand what is new without understanding it terms of what was old, long ago? It's an indefinite chronological reference here. It is pointing backwards and it's pointing backwards a long way, centuries. Where? To win, and “many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets.”  Now here, the writer of the book of Hebrews does something very subtle and we need to catch it very quickly. He uses two terms here that to the Jewish mind are absolutely essential, absolutely essential—the fathers and the prophets. If you were in Judaism in the first century, and you were going to make any kind of argument that was theological in any way, your point of reference, your authority, those whom you would cite by individual reference, by specific text, and by general authority, would be the fathers and the prophets. Now the prepositions here are important. God spoke “to our fathers by the prophets”. Well, the first thing we have here encountered face to face directly in this text is the God who speaks. And again and again, we come back to the fact that this is also God's grace to us. When we are asked as Christians, what does the grace of God mean, we immediately go to Christ. We immediately go to salvation. We immediately go to the grace, the unmarried favor that is extended to us in Christ, by the Father. And that, of course, is quintessentially right. But we need to remember that there was grace before Christ, that is before the incarnation. There was grace before the actualization of the Gospel. There was grace in God speaking.   You'll remember, my favorite definition of revelation comes from Carl Henry, my late mentor in theology, who always said, “Remember, that revelation is God's gracious”, there’s the word, grace, “self-disclosure whereby He forfeits His own personal privacy that we might know Him.” It's an act of generosity that God speaks. It's an act of grace that God speaks. If God did not speak, we could not find Him, we could not know Him. If God did not speak, we would be in darkness rather than light. If God did not speak, we would be left in ignorance rather than knowledge. If God did not speak, we would be absolutely hopeless.  And God spoke “Long ago”, as the writer of the book of Hebrews begins, “at many times”, not just one time, “at many times and in many ways”. And there were lots of ways. The forms of God's revelation are many, as Paul makes very clear in Romans chapter 1. Before you even get to God speaking, in terms of special revelation or direct revelation, you have God's disclosure of Himself, even in what we would call general revelation or in nature, God speaks even in nature. But as Paul makes very clear, even though in nature, He has revealed even His invisible attributes, because of our sinfulness we cannot see it. We'll distort it. We are natural born idolators. We’ll take that knowledge that God gave us in creation, and we'll turn it into a form of, as Paul says, worshiping the creature rather than the Creator. That’s not just about someone else, that's about all of us. We are natural born idolators. That is what we see in the mirror—a would be idolator, but for the grace of God. But the speaking that the writer book of Hebrews is talking about here is not in nature. This is special revelation he's talking about. This is direct revelation. This is verbal revelation. This is God speaking to the fathers, as to the patriarchs. God spoke to the patriarchs, “to the fathers by the prophets”. The prophets were those to whom God spoke. The prophets were those who were the human vessels of God's self-revelation. God spoke in many ways. As we recall, He spoke through Balaam’s donkey. He spoke through a bush that burned and was not consumed. He spoke through a mountain that shook with fire and was surrounded by smoke. He spoke through words, written on tablets of stone. But quintessentially He spoke through the prophets. And in Israel, in Judaism, in the first century, the authority of the law and the prophets, these were absolute.  The writer of the book of Hebrews authorizes, immediately confirms, God's revelation through the prophets. It was a true revelation. It was an authentic revelation. It was an inerrant and totally true and trustworthy revelation. But, as consummate as is the authority of the prophets, as clear as was their message, as authoritative as was this revelation, it was not the final word. It was pointing—all prophecy was pointing, all the prophets were pointing towards the definitive word. And thus, you have the turn, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.”  Now, in one sense, what we have here, much like in Genesis 1:1, or in John 1:1, here in Hebrews 1:1 we have an entire biblical theology. It's all right here. Did you notice how much is in there? We have incarnation, we have revelation, we have beginning, we have the creation, as we shall see, that Christ is the one through whom the world was created. He is now the heir of all things. But the crucial turn comes with the word “but”—“But in these last days”. So you have two different periods of time contrasted here. You have the long ago, and in these last days.  “Long ago…” We wouldn't know how to tell the story of Jesus without long ago. We wouldn't know where to start. It wouldn't make a whole lot of sense, would it, if we just pointed to Bethlehem and said, “That's where it started.” We don't know how the world came to be. We don't have a clue how all this happened. We don't even why He needed to come, but He came. That's good news. Well, it would be good news, but we would not understand the good news. We understand the Gospel in the context of what came before. We understand God speaking through Christ, the Son, in the context of how God spoke through the prophets.  The biblical theology that we need to always have in mind is very, very simple. It's promise and fulfillment. You have two words. If you understand those two words, you really have a very important and substantial biblical theology. The two words are simply promise and fulfillment. The Old Testament promise, the New Testament fulfillment. The prophets’ promise, Christ fulfillment. The law promise, Gospel fulfillment. These things happened, says Matthew, in order that the Scriptures might be fulfilled—promise and fulfillment. “These are they,” said Christ “that testify of Me.” Promise and fulfillment.  And here you have it in Hebrews chapter 1 verse 1, “Long ago,” there’s one time, “but in these last days”, this is the new time. There's a new age, a decisive break in history. It's the dividing line between what was promised and now what is realized. The interesting phrase “in these last days” comes about in Scripture again and again. There's a sense in which we are all Latter-day Saints, in the sense that we are living in these last days, these latter days, these recent days, these new days. There's a quickening of history now with the incarnation, We're rooted in the old, we are the inheritors of the old. As Paul says in Romans, we are the branch, we Gentiles, who are grafted onto this tree. But we are in the new.  One of the tensions of the Christian life is understanding what it means to live out of the context of the old, but in the context of the new, to live in the context of promise that is now fulfilled. We don't live in the law, but the Gospel comes only in the context of fulfilling the law. We don't live only by the prophets, but we're instructed by the prophets even to understand how we are to understand Christ.  “In these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.” This is a decisive difference. This is quintessential. This is the writer of the book of Hebrew saying, “Yes, absolutely. God spoke through the prophets. He spoke through the prophets in many ways, at many times, to our fathers.” This is the complete legitimation of the Old Testament. This is the complete authorization, the recognition of the authority of the prophets and of the patriarchs. This is the writer of the book of Hebrews saying, “This is our story. This is Christ’s story.” Christ's story is not new as in having no connection to the old, but at the same time, it is absolutely new. “In these last days.” God is not speaking merely through the prophets, He’s speaking through a Son. Now that phrase “a Son”, with the singular, is to set the category difference. It’s not to imply there is more than one Son—that's definitively answered in Scripture. It’s just to say, there's a difference between a prophet and a Son. It's a qualitative difference that we can immediately understand. And in this case, what we're going to find in the first few verses of Hebrews chapter one, is that this Son is defined in a way no human son can be defined, in reference to the Father. It's a categorical change. He is no longer... The Father is no longer merely speaking through the prophets in many times and in many ways, He is now speaking through a son, His Son, the Son. As John says, μονογενής, the only one of His kind, the only Son. You know, speaking through a Son.  Of course, Jesus tells a parable about a distant landowner who sends emissaries to those who are keeping his vineyard. And then finally he sends his son. And, of course, the wicked vineyard workers kill him. It's a categorical difference between a servant and a son. It's a categorical difference between a prophet and a son. “He has spoken to us by his Son.”  Now look at these next phrases, “whom he appointed the heir of all things”. Now that's important. The relationship between a father and a son is one of the most easily understandable relationships. The son's identity is derived from his father. It is from the father that the son receives his name. He is, and always ever will be, his father's son. But one of the blessings of sonship is being the heir of the father. And in this case, this infinite Father has one Son. He is “the heir of all things”. And this is very important because the writer of the book of Hebrews, at the very beginning, is using traditional understandings that his primarily Hebrew Jewish first audience would easily understand. This Son is invested with everything. He is invested with full authority.  This is where the singular is very important too—a Son. This is not a Father with many sons of this category. Only one, the only one of His kind. If you're going to do business with this Father, you're going to do business with this Son. And indeed, as we come to understand, if you're going to know this Father, you're going to know this Father through His Son. “In these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things.” The next phrase, “through whom also he created the world.” Now this is something again, that would come… It comes familiar to us because we're so familiar with this. It comes with the ring of what we expect. We know that “In the beginning was the Word … and the Word was God.” We know the full text. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” We come to understand from John chapter one, verse one, as it ties back to Genesis one, verse one, that He is the one who created all things, nothing that came to be came to be except by His creation.  You know, one of the most essential parts of promise and fulfillment, we have to keep in mind, essential to a biblical theology, and that is why the doctrine of creation is so important. Hear me on this. If we do not have the right doctrine of creation, we will not have the right doctrine of redemption. Creation and Gospel are inextricably linked. The God who creates is the God who redeems. They aren't two different gods—they are one God. The Son who redeems is also the Son who creates. The world is His. “He came unto his own,” says John. This is His world. He was the agent of creation. We are told in Genesis that God spoke and it happened—verbal creation. And then we have in John one, the recognition that Christ is the Logos. He is the speech of God. And what we have here, He is the Word. He is the agent through whom the world was made. Not only is He the heir of all things, it is through the Son that the Father created the cosmos, the world. Now, again, there's an entire biblical theology there. You talk about a promise and fulfillment. Now you have creation and redemption in one agent who is the Son of the Father, the heir of all things.  But not only that, what we have as we begin verse three, is an exposition of what this Son, who this Son, how this Son, is all that the Father has for us. “He is the radiance of the glory of God”. Now this idea of radiance, it goes back to the very idea, the shekinah glory of God. God's glory is both visible and invisible, but the visible expression of God's glory is that which burst forth in creation. The creation cannot help but declare the glory of God, even the heavens are telling the glory of God. It is a glory that shines forth and quintessentially it shines forth in special revelations of God, in theophanies, where the brilliance of the glory of God, this blinding brilliance, is just a reminder to us, a sign unto us, of the infinite glory of God, of what it means for God to be absolute light. Radiance is one of those words that then becomes a picture to us. Looking to Christ is to see the radiance of the glory of God.  But more than that, He is “the exact imprint of his nature”. You know, if you're talking to someone and you have a pretty good idea that they misunderstand, you're going to be at pains to choose your words very carefully. The writer of the book of Hebrews is aware that as many Hebrews, many Jews, in particular Hellenistic Jews in the first century, are trying to understand the Gospel, they're trying to understand Christ. Well, you can read these opening verses to the book of Hebrews and see there are some misunderstandings that are being corrected here. And you know, one of the things that is sobering to us is that almost every ancient heresy emerges in every generation. Almost every ancient misunderstanding of the Gospel emerges in our own times.  Jesus isn't like God. He doesn't merely in some indirect, but helpful way, show us God. When we see Christ, we do not see, please hear me. Evangelical preachers and evangelical Christians often misspake, misspeak—how’s that for parable! Evangelical preachers and Christians often misspeak by saying something that sounds almost right. When you see Christ, you see what the Father is like. Fail! The Scripture does not say that. Scripture says, when you see the Son, you see the Father. It is not merely what the Father is like. We do not look to Christ and then draw an inference the Father must be like that. And here is where this divine Son is different than a human son. No human son is the exact representation of his father. Trust me on this. I can prove this as both father and son. No son, no human son, is the exact representation of his father. He's his father's son, but not the exact representation. Christ is the exact representation.  A little footnote here. The essential function of the virgin conception of Christ is multiple. But a part of it is in explaining how the Son, this Son, is the exact representation of His Father. He is exactly the Father. You look to Him, you see the Father. Like the opening to Colossians and it's great Christological hymn, He is the Icon, and we don't believe in icons you hang on the wall. We believe in one Icon who was hung on a cross. You look to the Son, you see the Father.  Now this must, it indeed must have been stated to make clear where there had been a lack of clarity. Like in Paul's letters, you don't have to scratch very hard on the surface to see where clarification is being made. And we know from both Paul's letters and the general epistles in the context of the New Testament, and from the ministry of Christ Himself was reflected in the Gospels, that there were many people who got pretty close to knowing who Christ was. They had a Christology, they had an understanding of Christ that got them into the neighborhood of who He is. In the neighborhood's not good enough. And almost Orthodox Christology isn't good enough. Believing that Christ is in some way divine, isn't good enough. Believing that He shows us what the Father is like, isn't good enough. No, the Gospel hangs on the fact that He is the Son who is “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint” of the Father's nature.  And He's powerful—“he upholds the universe by the word of His power.” Now again, most Christians, most believers, I think, never really come to terms with this. It is repeated in Scripture over and over and over again. The total context of the Bible and the Old and New Testaments is that it is God who brought all things into being, and He is the power who holds all things together. You know, the great holy grail, so to speak, in physics is a unified field theory, a complete theory of how all the forces and energies in the cosmos actually work to hold all things together. Well, here is the short and definitive version of the universal field theory: “In the beginning, God…” He holds all things together by the power of His hand. If God ever ceased to will, that the universe would exist, it would cease to exist. It is He who holds all things together. The power to create is also the power to preserve, the power to control, the power to bring it to its end. But even as we are told, not only in this text, but again, definitively in this text that it is through Christ the world was created, we are also now told that it is Christ who holds all things together. He is the power who holds all things together. “He upholds the universe by the word of his power.” Martin Luther, the great reformer in the 16th century, was once asked a question, and we have so much of this because of his table talk. He was once asked a question by a young theology student and Luther said, “I think an angel would be scared to ask that question, which means you certainly better be!”  There's certain questions and we don't ask. There are questions in the inner Trinitarian relationship between the Son and the Father, we don't dare to ask. Even the angels wouldn't dare to ask. It's in that privacy of God is not revealed to us. But what is revealed to us, is that the Father, through the Son, exercises creation and the upholding of the world, By the way, and you've heard me say this before, but as a seminary president, I just have to love it, and as a former seminary student. Luther was once asked by a seminary student, as they were sharing a meal, “Father Martin, what was God doing before He created the heavens and the earth?” And you gotta give Luther credit. He never missed a beat. He said, “I do know He was creating Hell for impetuous theology students!” All right, you gotta love Luther.  Christ “is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins…” Isn’t that a summary of the Gospel that just comes now out of the blue? Creation, all power, now making purification. Again, a Jewish context—purification is the issue here. That might not be the first word we would think of, but it is the word that fits the Jewish context in terms of promise and fulfillment. Quintessentially here, He has made purification for sins. That is atonement.  After making atonement, and much about that is going to be the exposition of the book of Hebrews. “After making purification for sins”—so here you have a timeline—"he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.” As the Apostles Creed said, “He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God. the Father almighty…” The place of power, the place of privilege, the place of authority.  “…having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.” This is interesting. When you read the prologue to the Gospel of John, you're not really dealing with this. You read the prologue to the Scripture and the doctrine of creation and the story of the Bible and Genesis 1, you're not dealing with this. What are we dealing with here? We're dealing here with a theological context that is specifically addressed by the book of Hebrews in a way that is extremely helpful to us.  In first entry Judaism, especially in Hellenistic Judaism, there was a huge interest in angels. There was the recognition that angels were messengers of God. There was incredible speculation about how to authorize understanding if it was, indeed, an angel who spoke. There was an incredible attentiveness to what messages might come by an angel. Angels were a focus of such speculation that It was considered that to be an angel, was to have the privilege of reflecting this shekinah glory of God in an infinite and eternal way. There's an understanding that angels were created beings, but they were created beings of incredible spiritual privilege. The angels spend all their time reflecting the glory of God among the bene-Elohim in the throne room of God. They're deputized at times to arrive as God's messenger, and they play, and have played, an essential role. So in first entry Judaism there's a lot of attention to angels. There's a sense in which the angel must be the greatest spiritual being. To be an angel, to be the privileged messenger of God, to be the one who bathes in the glory of God—that must be a special privilege. And yes, it must be. But, as we shall see when we continue this study next time, the writer of the book of Hebrews is at tremendous pains. He goes to extraordinary links to say, “God never said of any angel, what he says of His Son.” The angels do reveal, even as the prophets revealed, but they don't redeem. The Father never said of an angel, “You are my Son.”  So, as we begin the study of the book of Hebrews verse by verse and word by word, we come at the end of the first four verses to be told that Christ has inherited, that is He has been given a name, that's “more excellent than theirs,” because He is much superior to angels. It was certainly the case, and we know this from sources outside the book of Hebrews and outside the New Testament, that first century Judaism was focused on the superiority of angels. And along comes the one who is not an angel, but the one whom the angels announce, the one whose birth the angels attend. He is not merely an angel.  The difference between getting the identity of Christ right, and almost right, is actually infinite. The writer of the book of Hebrews, inspired by the Holy Spirit, has given us this incredible Christological hymn that begins this book, which is so rich in theological content, lest we misunderstand who Christ is. In our own day, in our own times, there are multiple misunderstandings of who Christ is.  And as we come to the end of these first four verses, we are reminded that to get this wrong is to get everything wrong. He is the exact “radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature”. He “upholds the universe by the word of his power.” He has made “purification for sins”. He now sits down “at the right hand of the Majesty on high”. And we know this because “Long ago … God spoke to the fathers by the prophets” many times in many ways, but he's now spoken to us by a Son. Let's pray. Our Father, we are so thankful that we can pray this prayer in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son. Father, we're so thankful for this introduction to the book of Hebrews, these first four verses. And as it sets the stage for everything that will follow, Father, we pray that Your Holy Spirit will apply these words to our heart, that we be conformed to the image of your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, the exact representation of Your nature and the radiance of Your glory. Father, may we live in that glory, to Your glory, this week. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2010/08/15/introduction-to-hebrews/ Sun, 15 Aug 2010 09:30:14 +0000 When we read the gospels, similarly, there is a context. There are Authorial issues. There is the issue of the original audience. We understand this, in the book of Acts, similarly. Certainly, the book of Revelation is used in such a powerful way by John, the apostle, and the vision that he received on the island of Patmos. But in the book of Hebrews, we encounter a book that is so rich with necessary theological biblical data for us, a book that gives us so much of our understanding of the gospel. And we know very little about the book, we know very little about who wrote it or to whom it was first written, or the context of its writing in order to get into those questions. I want us actually to read from the text. This morning, as we begin our study in the book of Hebrews, we're going to do something a bit unusual, and that is we're going to begin and end it in the compress of just a few moments.
Actually, I'm sure there are many Sundays out before us in the book of Hebrews. But I want us both to look at the beginning and the end of this book together. So, we'll begin in Hebrews 1:1-4. “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.”
Those of course are just the first four verses of chapter one of the book of Hebrews. And what we notice immediately is that in the book of Hebrews, we dove right into the deep end of the doctrinal pool. Whereas with Paul's letters we have, in general, as the norm, a greeting, a salutation, some words of encouragement and exhortation, perhaps even an early word of correction. But in the book of Hebrews, we have this immediacy of going into the deepest issues of the Christian faith.
As a matter of fact, we are given a clue about the importance of the book of Hebrews in terms of how it begins. We read, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers.” There's an immediate recognition here that the church has fathers. There is a patrimony here. There is ancestry to the Christian faith. That ancestry is Jewish.
We have to look back to Israel and we look back to the Old Testament in order to understand the necessary context for the gospel of the Lord, Jesus Christ. And yet one of the greatest difficulties for the church, one of the greatest difficulties for Christians throughout the ages has been to look to the entirety of scripture. From the Old Testament to the New Testament, Christians look to discover an adequate and faithful understanding of how they are to read and understand the Old Testament.
Now, the book is entitled Hebrews, or to the Hebrews. It is identified as a letter in the subscript to the title as is found in the most ancient documents. So, it is an epistle or a letter. It's a letter much like what we would find from the apostle Paul. Although, as we said, it doesn't have the same kind of structure.
Well, at least it doesn't have the same kind of structure at the beginning. It does have a very similar structure as we shall see at the end. But at the beginning, there is this dive into the deep, into the pool. When I read the opening verses to the book of Hebrews, my mind immediately goes to two very different books. The first of these is Genesis. We have a chronological reference in Hebrews, “Long ago and many times, and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers.” It's the kind of declaration we find in the very first verse of scripture. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Did you ever notice that the Bible doesn't have a lengthy preface or introduction? That in the book of Genesis we're right into it immediately? Here's the entirety of the truth claim of theism, right here at the very beginning, Genesis 1:1 establishes the truth claims. And the very first few words of the scriptures, that there is a God and that He has created all. That idea is similar to the Prologue of John’s Gospel. My mind goes there immediately. John is in many ways, the New Testament twin verse to Genesis 1:1. When we come to John 1:1, we are told, “In the beginning was the Word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.”
We are also told that he was the Creator, the agent of creation. “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.”
Now we come to Hebrews 1:1. “Long ago, at many times. And in many ways, God spoke to our fathers.” What are we to do with the Old Testament? Christians have struggled with this. We know that there are at least two disastrously wrong ways of understanding how Christians are to read the Old Testament.
The first, disastrously wrong way for Christians to read the Old Testament, is to read it as if it's someone else's book. There is the temptation that comes to the church. And as a matter of fact, it sometimes reflects the way we describe ourselves when we describe a Baptist church. When we say, “What are you?” We seek to be a New Testament church. What we mean by that of course, is that we are grounded upon the gospel of Jesus Christ as is revealed in the New Testament. It also means that we're seeking to be a church that is ordered in accordance with the pattern for the church, for our ecclesiology that is set forth in the New Testament. But there's a danger. Anytime we say, “We're a new Testament church,” that can insinuate, that our Bible is the New Testament. It begins with Matthew. But our Bible is not just the New Testament. It begins with Genesis.
At the end of the book of Romans in the final chapters, Paul tells us that the Old Testament was given to the church for our encouragement. In our knowledge, there is no way you can understand the gospel of Jesus Christ if you don't understand the Old Testament. There is no way we can come to understand the new covenant unless we understand the old covenant. The first disastrously wrong way, the church has looked at the Old Testament is to dismiss it. To say, “It's not for us. It's not to us. It's not binding upon us. This is a book, a collection of books that is Jewish.”
Marcian, one of the most famous heretics of the church said that the God of the Old Testament is not the God of the New Testament. Very early on in the Christian Church, there arose the heresy that the Old Testament isn't addressed to us. That is, it's not our story. And the suggestion is even that there is a severe theological distinction in the presentation of God between the Old Testament and the New Testament. The early church very quickly came to smell the sniff of heresy. This is the aroma of deadly error. But that very idea has come back.
You will find theologians today, routinely on the liberal side, dismiss the Old Testament as presenting a crude and rudimentary understanding of God and theology. That’s disastrous. Equally disastrous, although less ideological, as the approach taken by many Christians who simply say, “I don't understand the Old Testament. It seems alien to me. I don't know what to do with the old Testament. So, I'll just lean into the New Testament.” That is the first disastrous way Christians look to the Old Testament.
There is a Second disastrous way that Christians look to the Old Testament and it's equal and opposite. That is, we assume that we find our primary grounding in the Old Testament. And that is not. So that is the sense in which it's healthy to say, we're a new Testament church. We are New Testament people. We are a new covenant people, but when we look back to the covenant of old, we do not look back with resentment or with a dismissive attitude, but rather we are to look back with gratitude to the realization that the old covenant was a necessary context for the new. As Jesus himself made very clear, our Lord did not repudiate the Old Testament nor the old covenant. Rather he, by his perfect obedience, perfectly fulfilled the old covenant. He perfectly fulfilled the Old Testament and it still speaks to us.
So, who were the original recipients of this letter? It's addressed to Hebrews. So, our first thought is it'd be addressed to Jewish people. That doesn't exactly fit the letter. This assumption doesn't exactly fit for a couple of reasons that I will demonstrate as we'll go verse by verse through the book.
Early in the church, the suggestion that this might be a letter addressed to those who formerly had been Jewish priests. The audience may have converted as priests from Judaism to Christianity. There were those who were of the tribe of Levi. They were priests. They had their identity and their function in the time of the old covenant as the priests of Israel. So how are they to understand the gospel? Well, what we have in the book of Hebrew is a massive, symphonic display of the fulfillment of the Levitical priesthood in and by Christ. But, you know, as tempting as it is to think, maybe in terms of some of the technicalities, what we have here is a letter to Jewish priests who have now become believers. That's just too unique, and particularly for the audience to fit the totality of this book.
There are some interesting clues in this book. It's written obviously to people who have a knowledge of the Old Testament. Not just a little bit of knowledge, but a great deal of knowledge of the Old Testament. These persons have a knowledge of what is called “Hellenistic Judaism”. The references within the book of Hebrews are to the Septuagint, rather than to the Hebrew Old Testament. So, it's likely that this was written to a cosmopolitan audience made up, at least in part, of Jews who were Hellenized, when they were Hellenized. That meant that they had become a part of their Greco-Roman empire. Indeed, Greek was their primary language. And there are only two cities that fit that category. Those two cities are Alexandria in Egypt and Rome.
From the very beginning, the church’s encounter with the book of Hebrews, the suggestions have come that this was written to Christians living in Alexandria, or in Rome. And one of the clues internally to Alexandria, is that the most famous Hellenized Jew of Alexandria, was a man by the name of Philo. There are unsighted references to Philo within the book of Hebrews. But there are equally valid arguments for why it may well be this addressed to Hellenized Jews who were part of the Christian Church in Rome. The bottom line, however, is that it's given to the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's addressed to all of us.
It's not just written in order that those who had been Jewish priests can now find their understanding of how the political priesthood is fulfilled, in Christ and by Christ. It's not even just to early Christians who may have had the background of Hellenistic Judaism. Hebrews is given to all of us because it is incumbent upon all of us as Christians to come to an understanding of how we are to read the Old Testament; To understand the Old Testament and the old covenant, and who wrote it.
Well, we don't know biblical author. The inerrancy of scripture requires that we affirm the authorship of every book as is attributed within the scriptures. So, we're right to contend for the fact that, for instance, Peter wrote second Peter. The claim is made within the text itself. Similarly, evidence we find in the epistles of the apostle Paul. We see him as the author. Or we find very good reason to understand from the text that it was Luke who wrote both Luke and Acts. We could go book by book. The only book that would lead us to this particular quandary in the entire New Testament, the book of Hebrews, because there is absolutely no claim of authorship.
Now, when I am teaching and preaching the book of Hebrews, that there is an inclination, it's kind of just right there. It happened to me before. I know it, I will often accidentally say, “As Paul says here,” but there is no reference to Paul being the author of this letter. As a matter of fact, the Greek structure of grammar and syntax and the expression that's found in the book of Hebrews is not really characteristic of Paul. And I'll tell you, what is characteristic of Paul? Every time Paul wrote something, he made it clear that he wrote it. I is because he was writing on apostolic authority. There's another reason to believe that, almost certainly, Paul is not the writer of the book of Hebrews. That is because the writer of the book of Hebrews assumes second-hand knowledge.
In other words, this is what was revealed to the church that the author of Hebrews now affirms as true. The apostle Paul spoke of direct revelation, something very different. The apostle Paul spoke of his apostolic authority. He cites his apostolic authority. He bases his authority to instruct the church on that apostolic authority, which is completely missing here.
Other suggestions as to who wrote the book and the history of the church have included Apollos or Barnabas. Now those two men are interesting proposals. Luke also has been offered as a potential author of the books of Hebrews and Luke. However, he comes from a Gentile background. That's a key to understanding both the Gospel of Luke and the book of acts. And so, it doesn't seem natural that Luke would be the author of Hebrews. At the end of the book, there is a reference to Timothy. Which could well be that Luke was one of the reasons why we often, in the history of the church, see references, if not to Paul, then to Barnabas or Apollos or Luke.
So clearly, there are links to the Pauline circle, and whoever wrote this knew Timothy intimately and makes reference to him. But, you know, this is where we need to limit our imagination and trust that the Holy Spirit has given us all that we need.
Let me give you, a contrasting example. It's important to understand that Paul wrote the book of Romans. It's key to understanding some passages in the book of Romans because it is tied so closely to Paul's spiritual autobiography. If you take Paul out of the book of Romans, it's far more difficult to understand some of what the Holy spirit has revealed to us in the book. Since the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write that letter to the church in Rome, and Paul wrote it with references to his own experience, his authorship provides necessary background.
It follows a certain chronology. Paul refers in the opening chapter of the book of Romans that he has been delayed. He has been prevented from arriving in Rome, even though he intended to go there. This explains the reference to the Macedonian vision in the book of Acts. It all fits together. We understand the context that helps us to understand the book of Romans. We do not have that here. We do not know the original date, although it's clear we believe before the destruction of the temple in 70 AD since there is no reference to it.
We don't know the author. We don't know specifically, or for sure, the original recipients, evidently because we are not meant to know. We are not given that data in this book, because if we had that data, presumably we might read the book differently than the Holy Spirit intends for us to read it. The Holy Spirit intends for us to read this book as written to the church. As written to all of us with no general reference to any specific time, any specific author, or any specific context. And that's how we are to read the book of Hebrews; understanding that it is our responsibility to come to terms and to come to a knowledge of how we as Christians are to read the Old Testament.
The affirmation we find here at the very beginning of the introduction is poetic. It's beautiful. It's soaring. It gets right to the incredibly high Christology the book of Hebrews contains. We encounter what we do not find in this form elsewhere in the New Testament. This is the symphonic, comprehensive presentation of what it means for Jesus to be the mediator of a new covenant. For Jesus to be our great high priest. Earlier this summer, in the hottest place— I'll say on the record, I think I have ever been to— Palm Springs, California, I spoke to a large Resolved conference. This conference of college students, several thousand of them. It was so hot; my eyeballs were hot.
And these college students that come from all over the country to be here for hours and hours and hours of expository preaching, that defies the wisdom of the age. I preached one of my messages on Jesus, the great high priest. I began by saying it to these college students. “I know what you think and what you're thinking is partly right, but it's also very wrong. You think you don't need a priest. When, if we do not have a priest, we are not saved. The reality is we do not believe in an ongoing human priesthood. But, if Jesus is not our great high priest, we have not been cleansed of our sins. The Old Testament has not been fulfilled. The old covenant has not been fulfilled and our sin is still upon us. Oh, we need a priest. And we need a priest, not only because of what Christ did on the cross, but we also need a priest who intercedes for us, right now; who intercedes for us at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty. We need, we are desperately dependent at every single moment in our lives on Jesus. Our great high priest, who is for us, right now. The mediator of a new and better covenant as the writer of the book of Hebrews will make very clear. This is our priest who in the incarnation became so much like us, that he understands us. He was tempted in every way as we are, yet, without sin. The writer of the Hebrews will make clear. This is a priest. Yes, a priest who fulfilled the Levitical priesthood because he entered a tabernacle, not made with human hands. But rather, on the cross he entered the heavenly tabernacle. And when our great high priest performed atonement for us, he did atone as the priests of old, with the blood of a heifer or a lamb. Rather, he shed his blood.”
Thus, he has become for us the mediator of a new covenant. Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers,” right here at the beginning of Hebrews. We had this absolute affirmation that God did speak through the Old Testament. That was his revelation that he spoke through the prophets that he spoke through the entirety of the Old Testament that he spoke through the sacrifices of old. That he spoke through the priestly ritual of Israel. That he spoke in the tabernacle. That he spoke in the temple. He did speak. He spoke it many times. He spoke in many ways, even a passing familiarity. The Old Testament reminds us of many times and many ways that God spoke.
My book on preaching is entitled He is not silent, a title I borrowed from Francis Schaeffer. That is the crucial fact for us; God is, and he speaks. Schaeffer’s book was entitled He is there, and He is Not Silent, and it had a such a massive impact on my life, back in the 1970s. I was a teenager. He said, “You see, if there were a God, a silent God, we wouldn't know him. We have no ability to seek him out. We have no ability to come to terms with him. The only way we can know God is because he speaks to us. And this is grace and mercy.” Carl Henry, in so many ways, my theological mentor, a man not given to expression, was an absolute poet when it came to defining revelation. When he defined it this way, he said “That revelation is God's gracious act whereby he forfeits his personal privacy so that his sinful creatures might know him.” Time and time again, various times, and in various ways, the one true and living God forfeited his privacy, that his sinful creatures might know him.
He spoke through a bush that burned. It was not consumed. He spoke through prophets. He spoke on a mountain that shook with fire. He spoke through tablets of stone inscribed with these 10 words. He spoke through the graphe, through the writings, the scriptures of the Old Testament. At one point he spoke through Balaam's donkey. He's a speaking God. He spoke to him many times and in many ways, “but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son…”
So the writer of the book of Hebrews, at the very beginning tells, us that the definitive revelation of the speaking God is in his Son. Now, again, we go immediately back to John 1:1. “In the beginning, was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God, Logos. Then, the Son is the Logos who created the world. And through the Logos, whom we come to know. Now we are told that God, having spoken to our fathers by the prophets many times, and in many ways in these last days, here's the conclusion. In other words, there is not something else that is coming. That will become very clear through the book of Hebrews, as it lays out symphonically and comprehensively, the deep truths of the gospel. This is it. It is finished.
There is no mediation in terms of atonement for sin that is left to be done. There is no sacrifice to be repeated. This is conclusive in these last days; he's spoken to us of whom he appointed him heir of all things.
The next time we are together, we'll be following through these verses and looking at the Christology of the book of Hebrews. At the very beginning, we'll come to understand what it means for him to be the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of his nature.
God did not send the son in order to show us what he's like. God sent the son in order to show us himself. Jesus isn't like God, he is God. He isn't merely a picture of what God is like. He is the exact representation of his nature. Hebrews chapter one is so rich with Christology. And we will see, verse by verse, word by word, what the writer of the book of Hebrews, inspired by the Holy Spirit, is telling us that we are to know about Christ, before he actually goes back to the Old Testament. Which is another reminder to us that we have to get our Christology right before we can get our Old Testament theology right. And, obviously, it has to be in the conversation because much of what we come to know of who Christ is and what Christ has done for us is revealed against the backdrop of the Old Testament. Christ's fulfillment of the Old Testament. But we come to understand that we now read the Old Testament as Christians. But, we do not read the Old Testament as if we do not have the New Testament. We're not reading the Old Testament as if we do not know how Christ has fulfilled these things. We are reading the Old Testament as believers in the Lord, Jesus Christ. And without apology, we have a Christological interpretation of the scriptures.
That's why it's so appropriate that we are now in Hebrews. After having concluded Matthew, of the four gospels, it is Matthew’s Gospel, that makes much this same point: placing the life ministry of Jesus within the context of Old Testament prophecy. Matthew writes, “These things happened in order that the scriptures might be fulfilled,” over and over again. We have in the gospel of Matthew, pointed reminders and very clear displays of how Christ has fulfilled the law, the Old Testament, and the prophets. Now we find the same in the book of Hebrews. But as we begin our study, of the book of Hebrews, I want us to look not only at the first four verses but also to look at the last chapter.
The book of Hebrews begins with this incredible Christology. This testimony to who Christ is, as we've said. It begins by diving into the deep end of the pool. We're completely wet. There’s no introduction to get us ready for the deep stuff. We're in it. But notice how it ends. In particular, look at verses 20 and 21, the benediction to the letter. Thirteen chapters later reads, “Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the Great Shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.”
If that doesn’t stir your soul, you’re untirable. We have the testimony to God who brought from the dead, our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep.
So, we go from Christ, being the exact representation of the nature of God, to Christ being the great Shepherd of the sheep. We have a reference here to the blood of the eternal covenant by which we've been saved. But the prayer is that God through Christ will equip believers with everything good. Why? That we may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
I think it's important to begin at the beginning and then to move very quickly to the end. Remember, as we are beginning our study of the book of Hebrews, to be recognize that we are studying the book of Hebrews not merely that we would come to a deeper understanding of the things of God. Not merely so that we can have in our minds a better intellectual doctrinal and theological framework for understanding the New Testament and the fulfillment of the Old Testament in Christ. Not merely so that we would be better armed, better equipped to understand the gospel. But, our study book of Hebrews should be in the background of the prayer that God will use this study in order that we may be equipped for every good thing. To do his will, which is pleasing in his sight.
This is rich theological material; incredible biblical material. It's exhilarating. The study of the book of Hebrews is like looking through lenses, a set of binoculars, and realize when you put it into focus, things are a lot clearer.
But the ultimate reason we study not only the book of Hebrews, but scripture is in order that the Holy Spirit will work within us. That which is pleasing to the Father, and to the great shepherd of the sheep. in order that we would work his will.
Let's pray together. Our Father, we are so thankful that you have given us this book. We're thankful that you have given it to us just as you've given it to us without reference to place, without reference to context, without reference to the author, without reference to date. Father, may the absence of those things remind us emphatically that this is for your whole church throughout all the ages. It is to be read as addressed to all of us from the beginning until now. And Father, we pray that by our study of this book, we will indeed be able in a way we otherwise would not be able, by your grace and to your glory, to do your will. That which is pleasing in your sight. And we pray this as we begin this study in the name of the great Shepherd of the sheep, even Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 35:35 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=18019 Audio, Exposition, Hebrews, Hebrews Series noWell, this morning, we're beginning our study in the book of Hebrews. And as we begin our study, of the book of Hebrews, some intriguing questions will come immediately to mind. Questions that are unique to this book, and that are different than any set of questions that we address in any other book in the New Testament. There are peculiarities about the book of Hebrews that immediately come to our mind when we ask some basic questions about: for whom it was written, who were the first readers, who wrote it, when exactly was it written, and what was the context of its writing? When you read the letters of the apostle Paul, for example, there's a unique context. There's a discerned audience. There is a clear understanding of how this letter came to be in the life and ministry of the apostle Paul. When we read the gospels, similarly, there is a context. There are Authorial issues. There is the issue of the original audience. We understand this, in the book of Acts, similarly. Certainly, the book of Revelation is used in such a powerful way by John, the apostle, and the vision that he received on the island of Patmos. But in the book of Hebrews, we encounter a book that is so rich with necessary theological biblical data for us, a book that gives us so much of our understanding of the gospel. And we know very little about the book, we know very little about who wrote it or to whom it was first written, or the context of its writing in order to get into those questions. I want us actually to read from the text. This morning, as we begin our study in the book of Hebrews, we're going to do something a bit unusual, and that is we're going to begin and end it in the compress of just a few moments. Actually, I'm sure there are many Sundays out before us in the book of Hebrews. But I want us both to look at the beginning and the end of this book together. So, we'll begin in Hebrews 1:1-4. “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.” Those of course are just the first four verses of chapter one of the book of Hebrews. And what we notice immediately is that in the book of Hebrews, we dove right into the deep end of the doctrinal pool. Whereas with Paul's letters we have, in general, as the norm, a greeting, a salutation, some words of encouragement and exhortation, perhaps even an early word of correction. But in the book of Hebrews, we have this immediacy of going into the deepest issues of the Christian faith. As a matter of fact, we are given a clue about the importance of the book of Hebrews in terms of how it begins. We read, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers.” There's an immediate recognition here that the church has fathers. There is a patrimony here. There is ancestry to the Christian faith. That ancestry is Jewish. We have to look back to Israel and we look back to the Old Testament in order to understand the necessary context for the gospel of the Lord, Jesus Christ. And yet one of the greatest difficulties for the church, one of the greatest difficulties for Christians throughout the ages has been to look to the entirety of scripture. From the Old Testament to the New Testament, Christians look to discover an adequate and faithful understanding of how they are to read and understand the Old Testament. Now, the book is entitled Hebrews, or to the Hebrews. It is identified as a letter in the subscript to the title as is found in the most ancient documents. So, it is an epistle or a letter. It's a letter much like what we would find from the apostle Paul. Although, as we said, it doesn't have the same kind of structure. Well, at least it doesn't have the same kind of structure at the beginning. It does have a very similar structure as we shall see at the end. But at the beginning, there is this dive into the deep, into the pool. When I read the opening verses to the book of Hebrews, my mind immediately goes to two very different books. The first of these is Genesis. We have a chronological reference in Hebrews, “Long ago and many times, and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers.” It's the kind of declaration we find in the very first verse of scripture. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Did you ever notice that the Bible doesn't have a lengthy preface or introduction? That in the book of Genesis we're right into it immediately? Here's the entirety of the truth claim of theism, right here at the very beginning, Genesis 1:1 establishes the truth claims. And the very first few words of the scriptures, that there is a God and that He has created all. That idea is similar to the Prologue of John’s Gospel. My mind goes there immediately. John is in many ways, the New Testament twin verse to Genesis 1:1. When we come to John 1:1, we are told, “In the beginning was the Word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.” We are also told that he was the Creator, the agent of creation. “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” Now we come to Hebrews 1:1. “Long ago, at many times. And in many ways, God spoke to our fathers.” What are we to do with the Old Testament? Christians have struggled with this. We know that there are at least two disastrously wrong ways of understanding how Christians are to read the Old Testament. The first, disastrously wrong way for Christians to read the Old Testament, is to read it as if it's someone else's book. There is the temptation that comes to the church. And as a matter of fact, it sometimes reflects the way we describe ourselves when we describe a Baptist church. When we say, “What are you?” We seek to be a New Testament church. What we mean by that of course, is that we are grounded upon the gospel of Jesus Christ as is revealed in the New Testament. It also means that we're seeking to be a church that is ordered in accordance with the pattern for the church, for our ecclesiology that is set forth in the New Testament. But there's a danger. Anytime we say, “We're a new Testament church,” that can insinuate, that our Bible is the New Testament. It begins with Matthew. But our Bible is not just the New Testament. It begins with Genesis. At the end of the book of Romans in the final chapters, Paul tells us that the Old Testament was given to the church for our encouragement. In our knowledge, there is no way you can understand the gospel of Jesus Christ if you don't understand the Old Testament. There is no way we can come to understand the new covenant unless we understand the old covenant. The first disastrously wrong way, the church has looked at the Old Testament is to dismiss it. To say, “It's not for us. It's not to us. It's not binding upon us. This is a book, a collection of books that is Jewish.” Marcian, one of the most famous heretics of the church said that the God of the Old Testament is not the God of the New Testament. Very early on in the Christian Church, there arose the heresy that the Old Testament isn't addressed to us. That is, it's not our story. And the suggestion is even that there is a severe theological distinction in the presentation of God between the Old Testament and the New Testament. The early church very quickly came to smell the sniff of heresy. This is the aroma of deadly error. But that very idea has come back. You will find theologians today, routinely on the liberal side, dismiss the Old Testament as presenting a crude and rudimentary understanding of God and theology. That’s disastrous. Equally disastrous, although less ideological, as the approach taken by many Christians who simply say, “I don't understand the Old Testament. It seems alien to me. I don't know what to do with the old Testament. So, I'll just lean into the New Testament.” That is the first disastrous way Christians look to the Old Testament. There is a Second disastrous way that Christians look to the Old Testament and it's equal and opposite. That is, we assume that we find our primary grounding in the Old Testament. And that is not. So that is the sense in which it's healthy to say, we're a new Testament church. We are New Testament people. We are a new covenant people, but when we look back to the covenant of old, we do not look back with resentment or with a dismissive attitude, but rather we are to look back with gratitude to the realization that the old covenant was a necessary context for the new. As Jesus himself made very clear, our Lord did not repudiate the Old Testament nor the old covenant. Rather he, by his perfect obedience, perfectly fulfilled the old covenant. He perfectly fulfilled the Old Testament and it still speaks to us. So, who were the original recipients of this letter? It's addressed to Hebrews. So, our first thought is it'd be addressed to Jewish people. That doesn't exactly fit the letter. This assumption doesn't exactly fit for a couple of reasons that I will demonstrate as we'll go verse by verse through the book. Early in the church, the suggestion that this might be a letter addressed to those who formerly had been Jewish priests. The audience may have converted as priests from Judaism to Christianity. There were those who were of the tribe of Levi. They were priests. They had their identity and their function in the time of the old covenant as the priests of Israel. So how are they to understand the gospel? Well, what we have in the book of Hebrew is a massive, symphonic display of the fulfillment of the Levitical priesthood in and by Christ. But, you know, as tempting as it is to think, maybe in terms of some of the technicalities, what we have here is a letter to Jewish priests who have now become believers. That's just too unique, and particularly for the audience to fit the totality of this book. There are some interesting clues in this book. It's written obviously to people who have a knowledge of the Old Testament. Not just a little bit of knowledge, but a great deal of knowledge of the Old Testament. These persons have a knowledge of what is called “Hellenistic Judaism”. The references within the book of Hebrews are to the Septuagint, rather than to the Hebrew Old Testament. So, it's likely that this was written to a cosmopolitan audience made up, at least in part, of Jews who were Hellenized, when they were Hellenized. That meant that they had become a part of their Greco-Roman empire. Indeed, Greek was their primary language. And there are only two cities that fit that category. Those two cities are Alexandria in Egypt and Rome. From the very beginning, the church’s encounter with the book of Hebrews, the suggestions have come that this was written to Christians living in Alexandria, or in Rome. And one of the clues internally to Alexandria, is that the most famous Hellenized Jew of Alexandria, was a man by the name of Philo. There are unsighted references to Philo within the book of Hebrews. But there are equally valid arguments for why it may well be this addressed to Hellenized Jews who were part of the Christian Church in Rome. The bottom line, however, is that it's given to the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's addressed to all of us. It's not just written in order that those who had been Jewish priests can now find their understanding of how the political priesthood is fulfilled, in Christ and by Christ. It's not even just to early Christians who may have had the background of Hellenistic Judaism. Hebrews is given to all of us because it is incumbent upon all of us as Christians to come to an understanding of how we are to read the Old Testament; To understand the Old Testament and the old covenant, and who wrote it. Well, we don't know biblical author. The inerrancy of scripture requires that we affirm the authorship of every book as is attributed within the scriptures. So, we're right to contend for the fact that, for instance, Peter wrote second Peter. The claim is made within the text itself. Similarly, evidence we find in the epistles of the apostle Paul. We see him as the author. Or we find very good reason to understand from the text that it was Luke who wrote both Luke and Acts. We could go book by book. The only book that would lead us to this particular quandary in the entire New Testament, the book of Hebrews, because there is absolutely no claim of authorship. Now, when I am teaching and preaching the book of Hebrews, that there is an inclination, it's kind of just right there. It happened to me before. I know it, I will often accidentally say, “As Paul says here,” but there is no reference to Paul being the author of this letter. As a matter of fact, the Greek structure of grammar and syntax and the expression that's found in the book of Hebrews is not really characteristic of Paul. And I'll tell you, what is characteristic of Paul? Every time Paul wrote something, he made it clear that he wrote it. I is because he was writing on apostolic authority. There's another reason to believe that, almost certainly, Paul is not the writer of the book of Hebrews. That is because the writer of the book of Hebrews assumes second-hand knowledge. In other words, this is what was revealed to the church that the author of Hebrews now affirms as true. The apostle Paul spoke of direct revelation, something very different. The apostle Paul spoke of his apostolic authority. He cites his apostolic authority. He bases his authority to instruct the church on that apostolic authority, which is completely missing here. Other suggestions as to who wrote the book and the history of the church have included Apollos or Barnabas. Now those two men are interesting proposals. Luke also has been offered as a potential author of the books of Hebrews and Luke. However, he comes from a Gentile background. That's a key to understanding both the Gospel of Luke and the book of acts. And so, it doesn't seem natural that Luke would be the author of Hebrews. At the end of the book, there is a reference to Timothy. Which could well be that Luke was one of the reasons why we often, in the history of the church, see references, if not to Paul, then to Barnabas or Apollos or Luke. So clearly, there are links to the Pauline circle, and whoever wrote this knew Timothy intimately and makes reference to him. But, you know, this is where we need to limit our imagination and trust that the Holy Spirit has given us all that we need. Let me give you, a contrasting example. It's important to understand that Paul wrote the book of Romans. It's key to understanding some passages in the book of Romans because it is tied so closely to Paul's spiritual autobiography. If you take Paul out of the book of Romans, it's far more difficult to understand some of what the Holy spirit has revealed to us in the book. Since the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write that letter to the church in Rome, and Paul wrote it with references to his own experience, his authorship provides necessary background. It follows a certain chronology. Paul refers in the opening chapter of the book of Romans that he has been delayed. He has been prevented from arriving in Rome, even though he intended to go there. This explains the reference to the Macedonian vision in the book of Acts. It all fits together. We understand the context that helps us to understand the book of Romans. We do not have that here. We do not know the original date, although it's clear we believe before the destruction of the temple in 70 AD since there is no reference to it. We don't know the author. We don't know specifically, or for sure, the original recipients, evidently because we are not meant to know. We are not given that data in this book, because if we had that data, presumably we might read the book differently than the Holy Spirit intends for us to read it. The Holy Spirit intends for us to read this book as written to the church. As written to all of us with no general reference to any specific time, any specific author, or any specific context. And that's how we are to read the book of Hebrews; understanding that it is our responsibility to come to terms and to come to a knowledge of how we as Christians are to read the Old Testament. The affirmation we find here at the very beginning of the introduction is poetic. It's beautiful. It's soaring. It gets right to the incredibly high Christology the book of Hebrews contains. We encounter what we do not find in this form elsewhere in the New Testament. This is the symphonic, comprehensive presentation of what it means for Jesus to be the mediator of a new covenant. For Jesus to be our great high priest. Earlier this summer, in the hottest place— I'll say on the record, I think I have ever been to— Palm Springs, California, I spoke to a large Resolved conference. This conference of college students, several thousand of them. It was so hot; my eyeballs were hot. And these college students that come from all over the country to be here for hours and hours and hours of expository preaching, that defies the wisdom of the age. I preached one of my messages on Jesus, the great high priest. I began by saying it to these college students. “I know what you think and what you're thinking is partly right, but it's also very wrong. You think you don't need a priest. When, if we do not have a priest, we are not saved. The reality is we do not believe in an ongoing human priesthood. But, if Jesus is not our great high priest, we have not been cleansed of our sins. The Old Testament has not been fulfilled. The old covenant has not been fulfilled and our sin is still upon us. Oh, we need a priest. And we need a priest, not only because of what Christ did on the cross, but we also need a priest who intercedes for us, right now; who intercedes for us at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty. We need, we are desperately dependent at every single moment in our lives on Jesus. Our great high priest, who is for us, right now. The mediator of a new and better covenant as the writer of the book of Hebrews will make very clear. This is our priest who in the incarnation became so much like us, that he understands us. He was tempted in every way as we are, yet, without sin. The writer of the Hebrews will make clear. This is a priest. Yes, a priest who fulfilled the Levitical priesthood because he entered a tabernacle, not made with human hands. But rather, on the cross he entered the heavenly tabernacle. And when our great high priest performed atonement for us, he did atone as the priests of old, with the blood of a heifer or a lamb. Rather, he shed his blood.” Thus, he has become for us the mediator of a new covenant. Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers,” right here at the beginning of Hebrews. We had this absolute affirmation that God did speak through the Old Testament. That was his revelation that he spoke through the prophets that he spoke through the entirety of the Old Testament that he spoke through the sacrifices of old. That he spoke through the priestly ritual of Israel. That he spoke in the tabernacle. That he spoke in the temple. He did speak. He spoke it many times. He spoke in many ways, even a passing familiarity. The Old Testament reminds us of many times and many ways that God spoke. My book on preaching is entitled He is not silent, a title I borrowed from Francis Schaeffer. That is the crucial fact for us; God is, and he speaks. Schaeffer’s book was entitled He is there, and He is Not Silent, and it had a such a massive impact on my life, back in the 1970s. I was a teenager. He said, “You see, if there were a God, a silent God, we wouldn't know him. We have no ability to seek him out. We have no ability to come to terms with him. The only way we can know God is because he speaks to us. And this is grace and mercy.” Carl Henry, in so many ways, my theological mentor, a man not given to expression, was an absolute poet when it came to defining revelation. When he defined it this way, he said “That revelation is God's gracious act whereby he forfeits his personal privacy so that his sinful creatures might know him.” Time and time again, various times, and in various ways, the one true and living God forfeited his privacy, that his sinful creatures might know him. He spoke through a bush that burned. It was not consumed. He spoke through prophets. He spoke on a mountain that shook with fire. He spoke through tablets of stone inscribed with these 10 words. He spoke through the graphe, through the writings, the scriptures of the Old Testament. At one point he spoke through Balaam's donkey. He's a speaking God. He spoke to him many times and in many ways, “but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son…” So the writer of the book of Hebrews, at the very beginning tells, us that the definitive revelation of the speaking God is in his Son. Now, again, we go immediately back to John 1:1. “In the beginning, was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God, Logos. Then, the Son is the Logos who created the world. And through the Logos, whom we come to know. Now we are told that God, having spoken to our fathers by the prophets many times, and in many ways in these last days, here's the conclusion. In other words, there is not something else that is coming. That will become very clear through the book of Hebrews, as it lays out symphonically and comprehensively, the deep truths of the gospel. This is it. It is finished. There is no mediation in terms of atonement for sin that is left to be done. There is no sacrifice to be repeated. This is conclusive in these last days; he's spoken to us of whom he appointed him heir of all things. The next time we are together, we'll be following through these verses and looking at the Christology of the book of Hebrews. At the very beginning, we'll come to understand what it means for him to be the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of his nature. God did not send the son in order to show us what he's like. God sent the son in order to show us himself. Jesus isn't like God, he is God. He isn't merely a picture of what God is like. He is the exact representation of his nature. Hebrews chapter one is so rich with Christology. And we will see, verse by verse, word by word, what the writer of the book of Hebrews, inspired by the Holy Spirit, is telling us that we are to know about Christ, before he actually goes back to the Old Testament. Which is another reminder to us that we have to get our Christology right before we can get our Old Testament theology right. And, obviously, it has to be in the conversation because much of what we come to know of who Christ is and what Christ has done for us is revealed against the backdrop of the Old Testament. Christ's fulfillment of the Old Testament. But we come to understand that we now read the Old Testament as Christians. But, we do not read the Old Testament as if we do not have the New Testament. We're not reading the Old Testament as if we do not know how Christ has fulfilled these things. We are reading the Old Testament as believers in the Lord, Jesus Christ. And without apology, we have a Christological interpretation of the scriptures. That's why it's so appropriate that we are now in Hebrews. After having concluded Matthew, of the four gospels, it is Matthew’s Gospel, that makes much this same point: placing the life ministry of Jesus within the context of Old Testament prophecy. Matthew writes, “These things happened in order that the scriptures might be fulfilled,” over and over again. We have in the gospel of Matthew, pointed reminders and very clear displays of how Christ has fulfilled the law, the Old Testament, and the prophets. Now we find the same in the book of Hebrews. But as we begin our study, of the book of Hebrews, I want us to look not only at the first four verses but also to look at the last chapter. The book of Hebrews begins with this incredible Christology. This testimony to who Christ is, as we've said. It begins by diving into the deep end of the pool. We're completely wet. There’s no introduction to get us ready for the deep stuff. We're in it. But notice how it ends. In particular, look at verses 20 and 21, the benediction to the letter. Thirteen chapters later reads, “Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the Great Shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.” If that doesn’t stir your soul, you’re untirable. We have the testimony to God who brought from the dead, our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep. So, we go from Christ, being the exact representation of the nature of God, to Christ being the great Shepherd of the sheep. We have a reference here to the blood of the eternal covenant by which we've been saved. But the prayer is that God through Christ will equip believers with everything good. Why? That we may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. I think it's important to begin at the beginning and then to move very quickly to the end. Remember, as we are beginning our study of the book of Hebrews, to be recognize that we are studying the book of Hebrews not merely that we would come to a deeper understanding of the things of God. Not merely so that we can have in our minds a better intellectual doctrinal and theological framework for understanding the New Testament and the fulfillment of the Old Testament in Christ. Not merely so that we would be better armed, better equipped to understand the gospel. But, our study book of Hebrews should be in the background of the prayer that God will use this study in order that we may be equipped for every good thing. To do his will, which is pleasing in his sight. This is rich theological material; incredible biblical material. It's exhilarating. The study of the book of Hebrews is like looking through lenses, a set of binoculars, and realize when you put it into focus, things are a lot clearer. But the ultimate reason we study not only the book of Hebrews, but scripture is in order that the Holy Spirit will work within us. That which is pleasing to the Father, and to the great shepherd of the sheep. in order that we would work his will. Let's pray together. Our Father, we are so thankful that you have given us this book. We're thankful that you have given it to us just as you've given it to us without reference to place, without reference to context, without reference to the author, without reference to date. Father, may the absence of those things remind us emphatically that this is for your whole church throughout all the ages. It is to be read as addressed to all of us from the beginning until now. And Father, we pray that by our study of this book, we will indeed be able in a way we otherwise would not be able, by your grace and to your glory, to do your will. That which is pleasing in your sight. And we pray this as we begin this study in the name of the great Shepherd of the sheep, even Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.Well, this morning, we're beginning our study in the book of Hebrews. And as we begin our study, of the book of Hebrews, some intriguing questions will come immediately to mind. Questions that are unique to this book, and that are different than any set of questions that we address in any other book in the New Testament. There are peculiarities about the book of Hebrews that immediately come to our mind when we ask some basic questions about: for whom it was written, who were the first readers, who wrote it, when exactly was it written, and what was the context of its writing? When you read the letters of the apostle Paul, for example, there's a unique context. There's a discerned audience. There is a clear understanding of how this letter came to be in the life and ministry of the apostle Paul. When we read the gospels, similarly, there is a context. There are Authorial issues. There is the issue of the original audience. We understand this, in the book of Acts, similarly. Certainly, the book of Revelation is used in such a powerful way by John, the apostle, and the vision that he received on the island of Patmos. But in the book of Hebrews, we encounter a book that is so rich with necessary theological biblical data for us, a book that gives us so much of our understanding of the gospel. And we know very little about the book, we know very little about who wrote it or to whom it was first written, or the context of its writing in order to get into those questions. I want us actually to read from the text. This morning, as we begin our study in the book of Hebrews, we're going to do something a bit unusual, and that is we're going to begin and end it in the compress of just a few moments. Actually, I'm sure there are many Sundays out before us in the book of Hebrews. But I want us both to look at the beginning and the end of this book together. So, we'll begin in Hebrews 1:1-4. “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.” Those of course are just the first four verses of chapter one of the book of Hebrews. And what we notice immediately is that in the book of Hebrews, we dove right into the deep end of the doctrinal pool. Whereas with Paul's letters we have, in general, as the norm, a greeting, a salutation, some words of encouragement and exhortation, perhaps even an early word of correction. But in the book of Hebrews, we have this immediacy of going into the deepest issues of the Christian faith. As a matter of fact, we are given a clue about the importance of the book of Hebrews in terms of how it begins. We read, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers.” There's an immediate recognition here that the church has fathers. There is a patrimony here. There is ancestry to the Christian faith. That ancestry is Jewish. We have to look back to Israel and we look back to the Old Testament in order to understand the necessary context for the gospel of the Lord, Jesus Christ. And yet one of the greatest difficulties for the church, one of the greatest difficulties for Christians throughout the ages has been to look to the entirety of scripture. From the Old Testament to the New Testament, Christians look to discover an adequate and faithful understanding of how they are to read and understand the Old Testament. Now, the book is entitled Hebrews, or to the Hebrews. It is identified as a letter in the subscript to the title as is found in the most ancient documents. So, it is an epistle or a letter. It's a letter much like what we would find from the apostle Paul. Although, as we said, it doesn't have the same kind of structure. Well, at least it doesn't have the same kind of structure at the beginning. It does have a very similar structure as we shall see at the end. But at the beginning, there is this dive into the deep, into the pool. When I read the opening verses to the book of Hebrews, my mind immediately goes to two very different books. The first of these is Genesis. We have a chronological reference in Hebrews, “Long ago and many times, and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers.” It's the kind of declaration we find in the very first verse of scripture. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Did you ever notice that the Bible doesn't have a lengthy preface or introduction? That in the book of Genesis we're right into it immediately? Here's the entirety of the truth claim of theism, right here at the very beginning, Genesis 1:1 establishes the truth claims. And the very first few words of the scriptures, that there is a God and that He has created all. That idea is similar to the Prologue of John’s Gospel. My mind goes there immediately. John is in many ways, the New Testament twin verse to Genesis 1:1. When we come to John 1:1, we are told, “In the beginning was the Word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.” We are also told that he was the Creator, the agent of creation. “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” Now we come to Hebrews 1:1. “Long ago, at many times. And in many ways, God spoke to our fathers.” What are we to do with the Old Testament? Christians have struggled with this. We know that there are at least two disastrously wrong ways of understanding how Christians are to read the Old Testament. The first, disastrously wrong way for Christians to read the Old Testament, is to read it as if it's someone else's book. There is the temptation that comes to the church. And as a matter of fact, it sometimes reflects the way we describe ourselves when we describe a Baptist church. When we say, “What are you?” We seek to be a New Testament church. What we mean by that of course, is that we are grounded upon the gospel of Jesus Christ as is revealed in the New Testament. It also means that we're seeking to be a church that is ordered in accordance with the pattern for the church, for our ecclesiology that is set forth in the New Testament. But there's a danger. Anytime we say, “We're a new Testament church,” that can insinuate, that our Bible is the New Testament. It begins with Matthew. But our Bible is not just the New Testament. It begins with Genesis. At the end of the book of Romans in the final chapters, Paul tells us that the Old Testament was given to the church for our encouragement. In our knowledge, there is no way you can understand the gospel of Jesus Christ if you don't understand the Old Testament. There is no way we can come to understand the new covenant unless we understand the old covenant. The first disastrously wrong way, the church has looked at the Old Testament is to dismiss it. To say, “It's not for us. It's not to us. It's not binding upon us. This is a book, a collection of books that is Jewish.” Marcian, one of the most famous heretics of the church said that the God of the Old Testament is not the God of the New Testament. Very early on in the Christian Church, there arose the heresy that the Old Testament isn't addressed to us. That is, it's not our story. And the suggestion is even that there is a severe theological distinction in the presentation of God between the Old Testament and the New Testament. The early church very quickly came to smell the sniff of heresy. This is the aroma of deadly error. But that very idea has come back. You will find theologians today, routinely on the liberal side, dismiss the Old Testament as presenting a crude and rudimentary understanding of God and theology. That’s disastrous. Equally disastrous, although less ideological, as the approach taken by many Christians who simply say, “I don't understand the Old Testament. It seems alien to me. I don't know what to do with the old Testament. So, I'll just lean into the New Testament.” That is the first disastrous way Christians look to the Old Testament. There is a Second disastrous way that Christians look to the Old Testament and it's equal and opposite. That is, we assume that we find our primary grounding in the Old Testament. And that is not. So that is the sense in which it's healthy to say, we're a new Testament church. We are New Testament people. We are a new covenant people, but when we look back to the covenant of old, we do not look back with resentment or with a dismissive attitude, but rather we are to look back with gratitude to the realization that the old covenant was a necessary context for the new. As Jesus himself made very clear, our Lord did not repudiate the Old Testament nor the old covenant. Rather he, by his perfect obedience, perfectly fulfilled the old covenant. He perfectly fulfilled the Old Testament and it still speaks to us. So, who were the original recipients of this letter? It's addressed to Hebrews. So, our first thought is it'd be addressed to Jewish people. That doesn't exactly fit the letter. This assumption doesn't exactly fit for a couple of reasons that I will demonstrate as we'll go verse by verse through the book. Early in the church, the suggestion that this might be a letter addressed to those who formerly had been Jewish priests. The audience may have converted as priests from Judaism to Christianity. There were those who were of the tribe of Levi. They were priests. They had their identity and their function in the time of the old covenant as the priests of Israel. So how are they to understand the gospel? Well, what we have in the book of Hebrew is a massive, symphonic display of the fulfillment of the Levitical priesthood in and by Christ. But, you know, as tempting as it is to think, maybe in terms of some of the technicalities, what we have here is a letter to Jewish priests who have now become believers. That's just too unique, and particularly for the audience to fit the totality of this book. There are some interesting clues in this book. It's written obviously to people who have a knowledge of the Old Testament. Not just a little bit of knowledge, but a great deal of knowledge of the Old Testament. These persons have a knowledge of what is called “Hellenistic Judaism”. The references within the book of Hebrews are to the Septuagint, rather than to the Hebrew Old Testament. So, it's likely that this was written to a cosmopolitan audience made up, at least in part, of Jews who were Hellenized, when they were Hellenized. That meant that they had become a part of their Greco-Roman empire. Indeed, Greek was their primary language. And there are only two cities that fit that category. Those two cities are Alexandria in Egypt and Rome. From the very beginning, the church’s encounter with the book of Hebrews, the suggestions have come that this was written to Christians living in Alexandria, or in Rome. And one of the clues internally to Alexandria, is that the most famous Hellenized Jew of Alexandria, was a man by the name of Philo. There are unsighted references to Philo within the book of Hebrews. But there are equally valid arguments for why it may well be this addressed to Hellenized Jews who were part of the Christian Church in Rome. The bottom line, however, is that it's given to the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's addressed to all of us. It's not just written in order that those who had been Jewish priests can now find their understanding of how the political priesthood is fulfilled, in Christ and by Christ. It's not even just to early Christians who may have had the background of Hellenistic Judaism. Hebrews is given to all of us because it is incumbent upon all of us as Christians to come to an understanding of how we are to read the Old Testament; To understand the Old Testament and the old covenant, and who wrote it. Well, we don't know biblical author. The inerrancy of scripture requires that we affirm the authorship of every book as is attributed within the scriptures. So, we're right to contend for the fact that, for instance, Peter wrote second Peter. The claim is made within the text itself. Similarly, evidence we find in the epistles of the apostle Paul. We see him as the author. Or we find very good reason to understand from the text that it was Luke who wrote both Luke and Acts. We could go book by book. The only book that would lead us to this particular quandary in the entire New Testament, the book of Hebrews, because there is absolutely no claim of authorship. Now, when I am teaching and preaching the book of Hebrews, that there is an inclination, it's kind of just right there. It happened to me before. I know it, I will often accidentally say, “As Paul says here,” but there is no reference to Paul being the author of this letter. As a matter of fact, the Greek structure of grammar and syntax and the expression that's found in the book of Hebrews is not really characteristic of Paul. And I'll tell you, what is characteristic of Paul? Every time Paul wrote something, he made it clear that he wrote it. I is because he was writing on apostolic authority. There's another reason to believe that, almost certainly, Paul is not the writer of the book of Hebrews. That is because the writer of the book of Hebrews assumes second-hand knowledge. In other words, this is what was revealed to the church that the author of Hebrews now affirms as true. The apostle Paul spoke of direct revelation, something very different. The apostle Paul spoke of his apostolic authority. He cites his apostolic authority. He bases his authority to instruct the church on that apostolic authority, which is completely missing here. Other suggestions as to who wrote the book and the history of the church have included Apollos or Barnabas. Now those two men are interesting proposals. Luke also has been offered as a potential author of the books of Hebrews and Luke. However, he comes from a Gentile background. That's a key to understanding both the Gospel of Luke and the book of acts. And so, it doesn't seem natural that Luke would be the author of Hebrews. At the end of the book, there is a reference to Timothy. Which could well be that Luke was one of the reasons why we often, in the history of the church, see references, if not to Paul, then to Barnabas or Apollos or Luke. So clearly, there are links to the Pauline circle, and whoever wrote this knew Timothy intimately and makes reference to him. But, you know, this is where we need to limit our imagination and trust that the Holy Spirit has given us all that we need. Let me give you, a contrasting example. It's important to understand that Paul wrote the book of Romans. It's key to understanding some passages in the book of Romans because it is tied so closely to Paul's spiritual autobiography. If you take Paul out of the book of Romans, it's far more difficult to understand some of what the Holy spirit has revealed to us in the book. Since the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write that letter to the church in Rome, and Paul wrote it with references to his own experience, his authorship provides necessary background. It follows a certain chronology. Paul refers in the opening chapter of the book of Romans that he has been delayed. He has been prevented from arriving in Rome, even though he intended to go there. This explains the reference to the Macedonian vision in the book of Acts. It all fits together. We understand the context that helps us to understand the book of Romans. We do not have that here. We do not know the original date, although it's clear we believe before the destruction of the temple in 70 AD since there is no reference to it. We don't know the author. We don't know specifically, or for sure, the original recipients, evidently because we are not meant to know. We are not given that data in this book, because if we had that data, presumably we might read the book differently than the Holy Spirit intends for us to read it. The Holy Spirit intends for us to read this book as written to the church. As written to all of us with no general reference to any specific time, any specific author, or any specific context. And that's how we are to read the book of Hebrews; understanding that it is our responsibility to come to terms and to come to a knowledge of how we as Christians are to read the Old Testament. The affirmation we find here at the very beginning of the introduction is poetic. It's beautiful. It's soaring. It gets right to the incredibly high Christology the book of Hebrews contains. We encounter what we do not find in this form elsewhere in the New Testament. This is the symphonic, comprehensive presentation of what it means for Jesus to be the mediator of a new covenant. For Jesus to be our great high priest. Earlier this summer, in the hottest place— I'll say on the record, I think I have ever been to— Palm Springs, California, I spoke to a large Resolved conference. This conference of college students, several thousand of them. It was so hot; my eyeballs were hot. And these college students that come from all over the country to be here for hours and hours and hours of expository preaching, that defies the wisdom of the age. I preached one of my messages on Jesus, the great high priest. I began by saying it to these college students. “I know what you think and what you're thinking is partly right, but it's also very wrong. You think you don't need a priest. When, if we do not have a priest, we are not saved. The reality is we do not believe in an ongoing human priesthood. But, if Jesus is not our great high priest, we have not been cleansed of our sins. The Old Testament has not been fulfilled. The old covenant has not been fulfilled and our sin is still upon us. Oh, we need a priest. And we need a priest, not only because of what Christ did on the cross, but we also need a priest who intercedes for us, right now; who intercedes for us at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty. We need, we are desperately dependent at every single moment in our lives on Jesus. Our great high priest, who is for us, right now. The mediator of a new and better covenant as the writer of the book of Hebrews will make very clear. This is our priest who in the incarnation became so much like us, that he understands us. He was tempted in every way as we are, yet, without sin. The writer of the Hebrews will make clear. This is a priest. Yes, a priest who fulfilled the Levitical priesthood because he entered a tabernacle, not made with human hands. But rather, on the cross he entered the heavenly tabernacle. And when our great high priest performed atonement for us, he did atone as the priests of old, with the blood of a heifer or a lamb. Rather, he shed his blood.” Thus, he has become for us the mediator of a new covenant. Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers,” right here at the beginning of Hebrews. We had this absolute affirmation that God did speak through the Old Testament. That was his revelation that he spoke through the prophets that he spoke through the entirety of the Old Testament that he spoke through the sacrifices of old. That he spoke through the priestly ritual of Israel. That he spoke in the tabernacle. That he spoke in the temple. He did speak. He spoke it many times. He spoke in many ways, even a passing familiarity. The Old Testament reminds us of many times and many ways that God spoke. My book on preaching is entitled He is not silent, a title I borrowed from Francis Schaeffer. That is the crucial fact for us; God is, and he speaks. Schaeffer’s book was entitled He is there, and He is Not Silent, and it had a such a massive impact on my life, back in the 1970s. I was a teenager. He said, “You see, if there were a God, a silent God, we wouldn't know him. We have no ability to seek him out. We have no ability to come to terms with him. The only way we can know God is because he speaks to us. And this is grace and mercy.” Carl Henry, in so many ways, my theological mentor, a man not given to expression, was an absolute poet when it came to defining revelation. When he defined it this way, he said “That revelation is God's gracious act whereby he forfeits his personal privacy so that his sinful creatures might know him.” Time and time again, various times, and in various ways, the one true and living God forfeited his privacy, that his sinful creatures might know him. He spoke through a bush that burned. It was not consumed. He spoke through prophets. He spoke on a mountain that shook with fire. He spoke through tablets of stone inscribed with these 10 words. He spoke through the graphe, through the writings, the scriptures of the Old Testament. At one point he spoke through Balaam's donkey. He's a speaking God. He spoke to him many times and in many ways, “but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son…” So the writer of the book of Hebrews, at the very beginning tells, us that the definitive revelation of the speaking God is in his Son. Now, again, we go immediately back to John 1:1. “In the beginning, was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God, Logos. Then, the Son is the Logos who created the world. And through the Logos, whom we come to know. Now we are told that God, having spoken to our fathers by the prophets many times, and in many ways in these last days, here's the conclusion. In other words, there is not something else that is coming. That will become very clear through the book of Hebrews, as it lays out symphonically and comprehensively, the deep truths of the gospel. This is it. It is finished. There is no mediation in terms of atonement for sin that is left to be done. There is no sacrifice to be repeated. This is conclusive in these last days; he's spoken to us of whom he appointed him heir of all things. The next time we are together, we'll be following through these verses and looking at the Christology of the book of Hebrews. At the very beginning, we'll come to understand what it means for him to be the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of his nature. God did not send the son in order to show us what he's like. God sent the son in order to show us himself. Jesus isn't like God, he is God. He isn't merely a picture of what God is like. He is the exact representation of his nature. Hebrews chapter one is so rich with Christology. And we will see, verse by verse, word by word, what the writer of the book of Hebrews, inspired by the Holy Spirit, is telling us that we are to know about Christ, before he actually goes back to the Old Testament. Which is another reminder to us that we have to get our Christology right before we can get our Old Testament theology right. And, obviously, it has to be in the conversation because much of what we come to know of who Christ is and what Christ has done for us is revealed against the backdrop of the Old Testament. Christ's fulfillment of the Old Testament. But we come to understand that we now read the Old Testament as Christians. But, we do not read the Old Testament as if we do not have the New Testament. We're not reading the Old Testament as if we do not know how Christ has fulfilled these things. We are reading the Old Testament as believers in the Lord, Jesus Christ. And without apology, we have a Christological interpretation of the scriptures. That's why it's so appropriate that we are now in Hebrews. After having concluded Matthew, of the four gospels, it is Matthew’s Gospel, that makes much this same point: placing the life ministry of Jesus within the context of Old Testament prophecy. Matthew writes, “These things happened in order that the scriptures might be fulfilled,” over and over again. We have in the gospel of Matthew, pointed reminders and very clear displays of how Christ has fulfilled the law, the Old Testament, and the prophets. Now we find the same in the book of Hebrews. But as we begin our study, of the book of Hebrews, I want us to look not only at the first four verses but also to look at the last chapter. The book of Hebrews begins with this incredible Christology. This testimony to who Christ is, as we've said. It begins by diving into the deep end of the pool. We're completely wet. There’s no introduction to get us ready for the deep stuff. We're in it. But notice how it ends. In particular, look at verses 20 and 21, the benediction to the letter. Thirteen chapters later reads, “Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the Great Shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.” If that doesn’t stir your soul, you’re untirable. We have the testimony to God who brought from the dead, our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep. So, we go from Christ, being the exact representation of the nature of God, to Christ being the great Shepherd of the sheep. We have a reference here to the blood of the eternal covenant by which we've been saved. But the prayer is that God through Christ will equip believers with everything good. Why? That we may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. I think it's important to begin at the beginning and then to move very quickly to the end. Remember, as we are beginning our study of the book of Hebrews, to be recognize that we are studying the book of Hebrews not merely that we would come to a deeper understanding of the things of God. Not merely so that we can have in our minds a better intellectual doctrinal and theological framework for understanding the New Testament and the fulfillment of the Old Testament in Christ. Not merely so that we would be better armed, better equipped to understand the gospel. But, our study book of Hebrews should be in the background of the prayer that God will use this study in order that we may be equipped for every good thing. To do his will, which is pleasing in his sight. This is rich theological material; incredible biblical material. It's exhilarating. The study of the book of Hebrews is like looking through lenses, a set of binoculars, and realize when you put it into focus, things are a lot clearer. But the ultimate reason we study not only the book of Hebrews, but scripture is in order that the Holy Spirit will work within us. That which is pleasing to the Father, and to the great shepherd of the sheep. in order that we would work his will. Let's pray together. Our Father, we are so thankful that you have given us this book. We're thankful that you have given it to us just as you've given it to us without reference to place, without reference to context, without reference to the author, without reference to date. Father, may the absence of those things remind us emphatically that this is for your whole church throughout all the ages. It is to be read as addressed to all of us from the beginning until now. And Father, we pray that by our study of this book, we will indeed be able in a way we otherwise would not be able, by your grace and to your glory, to do your will. That which is pleasing in your sight. And we pray this as we begin this study in the name of the great Shepherd of the sheep, even Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2010/05/30/matthew-2818-20/ Sun, 30 May 2010 09:30:05 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 39:26 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=17495 Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2010/05/09/matthew-281-15/ Sun, 09 May 2010 09:30:19 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 35:24 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=17006 Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2010/05/02/matthew-2757-66/ Sun, 02 May 2010 09:30:15 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 35:59 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=16905 Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2010/04/25/matthew-2738-56/ Sun, 25 Apr 2010 09:30:16 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:43:30 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=16813 Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2010/04/18/matthew-2727-37/ Sun, 18 Apr 2010 09:30:46 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 34:35 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=16721 Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2010/04/11/matthew-2711-26/ Sun, 11 Apr 2010 09:30:03 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 42:01 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=16646 Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2010/03/21/matthew-2669-2710/ Sun, 21 Mar 2010 10:00:37 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 42:04 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=16403 Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2010/03/14/matthew-2657-68/ Sun, 14 Mar 2010 10:00:23 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 39:10 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=13878 Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2010/03/07/matthew-2647-56/ Sun, 07 Mar 2010 10:00:30 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:33:19 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=11948 Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2010/02/21/matthew-2636-46/ Sun, 21 Feb 2010 10:00:50 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 34:49 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=11685 Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2010/02/17/matthew-2626-35/ Wed, 17 Feb 2010 10:00:56 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 40:39 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=11639 Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2010/02/07/matthew-2614-25/ Sun, 07 Feb 2010 10:00:47 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 42:37 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=11472 Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2010/01/24/matthew-261-13/ Sun, 24 Jan 2010 10:30:36 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 35:53 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=11273 Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2010/01/17/matthew-2531-46/ Sun, 17 Jan 2010 10:30:16 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:32:23 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=11120 Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2009/11/15/matthew-251-30/ Sun, 15 Nov 2009 10:30:08 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 43:10 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=11269 Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2009/11/01/matthew-241-51/ Sun, 01 Nov 2009 17:29:13 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 45:26 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=10238 Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2009/10/25/matthew-2337-39/ Sun, 25 Oct 2009 17:39:27 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 53:32 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=10241 Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2009/10/18/matthew-231-37/ Sun, 18 Oct 2009 20:44:21 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 42:56 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=10163 Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2009/10/11/matthew-2234-44/ Sun, 11 Oct 2009 20:42:40 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 40:25 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=10161 Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2009/09/27/matthew-2223-33/ Sun, 27 Sep 2009 13:09:33 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 22:11 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=10105 Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2009/08/30/matthew-2215-22/ Sun, 30 Aug 2009 12:20:08 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 38:06 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=9714 Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2009/08/23/matthew-221-14/ Sun, 23 Aug 2009 10:34:37 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 37:33 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=19395 Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2009/08/16/matthew-2133-46/ Sun, 16 Aug 2009 12:20:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 45:23 http://www.albertmohler.com/2009/08/16/matthew-2133-46/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2009/08/02/matthew-2123-32/ Sun, 02 Aug 2009 12:20:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:39:32 http://www.albertmohler.com/2009/08/02/matthew-2123-32/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2009/06/28/matthew-2112-21/ Sun, 28 Jun 2009 12:20:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 41:07 http://www.albertmohler.com/2009/06/28/matthew-2112-21/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2009/06/14/matthew-211-11/ Sun, 14 Jun 2009 12:20:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 43:36 http://www.albertmohler.com/2009/06/14/matthew-211-11/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2009/06/07/matthew-2029-217/ Sun, 07 Jun 2009 12:20:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 39:09 http://www.albertmohler.com/2009/06/07/matthew-2029-217/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2009/05/31/matthew-2017-28/ Sun, 31 May 2009 12:20:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 42:51 http://www.albertmohler.com/2009/05/31/matthew-2017-28/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2009/05/17/matthew-1927-30-201-16/ Sun, 17 May 2009 12:20:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:45:56 http://www.albertmohler.com/2009/05/17/matthew-1927-30-201-16/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2009/05/10/matthew-1913-26/ Sun, 10 May 2009 12:20:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 49:25 http://www.albertmohler.com/2009/05/10/matthew-1913-26/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2009/04/19/matthew-191-12/ Sun, 19 Apr 2009 12:20:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 47:30 http://www.albertmohler.com/2009/04/19/matthew-191-12/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2009/04/05/matthew-1821-35/ Sun, 05 Apr 2009 12:20:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 49:35 http://www.albertmohler.com/2009/04/05/matthew-1821-35/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2009/03/22/matthew-1812-20/ Sun, 22 Mar 2009 12:20:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 48:11 http://www.albertmohler.com/2009/03/22/matthew-1812-20/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2009/03/15/matthew-187-11/ Sun, 15 Mar 2009 12:20:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 41:16 http://www.albertmohler.com/2009/03/15/matthew-187-11/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2009/02/22/matthew-181-6/ Sun, 22 Feb 2009 11:20:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 45:24 http://www.albertmohler.com/2009/02/22/matthew-181-6/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2009/02/15/matthew-1722-27/ Sun, 15 Feb 2009 11:20:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 40:47 http://www.albertmohler.com/2009/02/15/matthew-1722-27/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2009/02/01/matthew-1714-21/ Sun, 01 Feb 2009 11:20:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 35:37 http://www.albertmohler.com/2009/02/01/matthew-1714-21/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2009/01/11/matthew-1710-13/ Sun, 11 Jan 2009 11:20:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 35:41 http://www.albertmohler.com/2009/01/11/matthew-1710-13/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2009/01/04/matthew-171-9/ Sun, 04 Jan 2009 11:20:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 43:59 http://www.albertmohler.com/2009/01/04/matthew-171-9/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2008/12/07/matthew-1621-28/ Sun, 07 Dec 2008 11:20:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 47:08 http://www.albertmohler.com/2008/12/07/matthew-1621-28/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2008/11/30/matthew-1618-20/ Sun, 30 Nov 2008 11:20:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 40:45 http://www.albertmohler.com/2008/11/30/matthew-1618-20/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2008/11/09/matthew-1613-17/ Sun, 09 Nov 2008 11:20:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 44:51 http://www.albertmohler.com/2008/11/09/matthew-1613-17/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2008/10/26/matthew-161-12/ Sun, 26 Oct 2008 12:20:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 29:47 http://www.albertmohler.com/2008/10/26/matthew-161-12/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2008/10/19/matthew-1521-32/ Sun, 19 Oct 2008 12:20:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:41:28 http://www.albertmohler.com/2008/10/19/matthew-1521-32/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2008/09/14/matthew-151-20/ Sun, 14 Sep 2008 12:20:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 37:22 http://www.albertmohler.com/2008/09/14/matthew-151-20/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2008/09/07/matthew-1422-36/ Sun, 07 Sep 2008 12:20:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 44:50 http://www.albertmohler.com/2008/09/07/matthew-1422-36/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2008/08/24/matthew-1414-21/ Sun, 24 Aug 2008 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 41:28 http://www.albertmohler.com/2008/08/24/matthew-1414-21/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2008/08/17/matthew-141-13/ Sun, 17 Aug 2008 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 41:01 http://www.albertmohler.com/2008/08/17/matthew-141-13/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2008/08/10/matthew-1336-43-47-58/ Sun, 10 Aug 2008 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:47:53 http://www.albertmohler.com/2008/08/10/matthew-1336-43-47-58/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2008/08/03/matthew-1331-35-44-46/ Sun, 03 Aug 2008 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 37:15 http://www.albertmohler.com/2008/08/03/matthew-1331-35-44-46/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2008/06/22/matthew-1324-30/ Sun, 22 Jun 2008 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 39:32 http://www.albertmohler.com/2008/06/22/matthew-1324-30/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2008/06/15/matthew-1310-23/ Sun, 15 Jun 2008 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 47:05 http://www.albertmohler.com/2008/06/15/matthew-1310-23/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2008/06/01/matthew-131-10/ Sun, 01 Jun 2008 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 36:19 http://www.albertmohler.com/2008/06/01/matthew-131-10/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2008/05/25/matthew-1238-50/ Sun, 25 May 2008 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 39:35 http://www.albertmohler.com/2008/05/25/matthew-1238-50/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2008/05/11/matthew-1233-37/ Sun, 11 May 2008 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 32:21 http://www.albertmohler.com/2008/05/11/matthew-1233-37/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2008/04/27/matthew-1222-32/ Sun, 27 Apr 2008 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 42:10 http://www.albertmohler.com/2008/04/27/matthew-1222-32/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2008/04/20/matthew-129-21/ Sun, 20 Apr 2008 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 41:40 http://www.albertmohler.com/2008/04/20/matthew-129-21/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2008/04/13/matthew-1128-128/ Sun, 13 Apr 2008 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 38:22 http://www.albertmohler.com/2008/04/13/matthew-1128-128/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2008/04/06/matthew-1125-27/ Sun, 06 Apr 2008 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 37:17 http://www.albertmohler.com/2008/04/06/matthew-1125-27/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2008/03/16/matthew-1120-26/ Sun, 16 Mar 2008 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 39:19 http://www.albertmohler.com/2008/03/16/matthew-1120-26/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2008/03/02/matthew-1111-19/ Sun, 02 Mar 2008 10:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 39:44 http://www.albertmohler.com/2008/03/02/matthew-1111-19/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2008/02/24/matthew-111-10/ Sun, 24 Feb 2008 10:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 36:33 http://www.albertmohler.com/2008/02/24/matthew-111-10/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2008/02/17/matthew-1024-42/ Sun, 17 Feb 2008 10:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 37:11 http://www.albertmohler.com/2008/02/17/matthew-1024-42/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2008/02/10/matthew-1016-23/ Sun, 10 Feb 2008 10:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 39:18 http://www.albertmohler.com/2008/02/10/matthew-1016-23/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2008/01/20/matthew-101-15/ Sun, 20 Jan 2008 10:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 43:30 http://www.albertmohler.com/2008/01/20/matthew-101-15/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2008/01/13/matthew-927-38/ Sun, 13 Jan 2008 10:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 35:41 http://www.albertmohler.com/2008/01/13/matthew-927-38/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2008/01/06/matthew-914-26/ Sun, 06 Jan 2008 10:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 43:38 http://www.albertmohler.com/2008/01/06/matthew-914-26/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2007/12/30/matthew-99-13/ Sun, 30 Dec 2007 10:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 37:49 http://www.albertmohler.com/2007/12/30/matthew-99-13/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2007/12/09/matthew-91-8/ Sun, 09 Dec 2007 10:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 38:20 http://www.albertmohler.com/2007/12/09/matthew-91-8/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2007/12/02/matthew-828-34/ Sun, 02 Dec 2007 10:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 34:45 http://www.albertmohler.com/2007/12/02/matthew-828-34/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2007/11/25/matthew-814-27/ Sun, 25 Nov 2007 10:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 45:27 http://www.albertmohler.com/2007/11/25/matthew-814-27/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2007/11/04/matthew-81-13/ Sun, 04 Nov 2007 10:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:43:54 http://www.albertmohler.com/2007/11/04/matthew-81-13/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2007/10/21/matthew-724-29/ Sun, 21 Oct 2007 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 39:53 http://www.albertmohler.com/2007/10/21/matthew-724-29/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2007/10/07/matthew-715-23/ Sun, 07 Oct 2007 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 38:31 http://www.albertmohler.com/2007/10/07/matthew-715-23/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2007/09/23/matthew-77-12/ Sun, 23 Sep 2007 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 43:59 http://www.albertmohler.com/2007/09/23/matthew-77-12/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2007/08/19/matthew-71-5/ Sun, 19 Aug 2007 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 46:41 http://www.albertmohler.com/2007/08/19/matthew-71-5/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2007/08/12/matthew-625-34/ Sun, 12 Aug 2007 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:43:29 http://www.albertmohler.com/2007/08/12/matthew-625-34/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2007/08/05/matthew-616-24/ Sun, 05 Aug 2007 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 40:32 http://www.albertmohler.com/2007/08/05/matthew-616-24/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2007/06/24/matthew-613/ Sun, 24 Jun 2007 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 46:05 http://www.albertmohler.com/2007/06/24/matthew-613/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2007/06/03/matthew-612/ Sun, 03 Jun 2007 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 52:32 http://www.albertmohler.com/2007/06/03/matthew-612/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2007/05/27/matthew-611/ Sun, 27 May 2007 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 43:49 http://www.albertmohler.com/2007/05/27/matthew-611/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2007/05/20/matthew-610b/ Sun, 20 May 2007 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 45:20 http://www.albertmohler.com/2007/05/20/matthew-610b/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2007/05/13/matthew-610a/ Sun, 13 May 2007 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 46:08 http://www.albertmohler.com/2007/05/13/matthew-610a/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2007/05/06/matthew-69/ Sun, 06 May 2007 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:39:19 http://www.albertmohler.com/2007/05/06/matthew-69/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2007/04/29/matthew-68-9/ Sun, 29 Apr 2007 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 39:04 http://www.albertmohler.com/2007/04/29/matthew-68-9/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2007/04/15/matthew-61-8/ Sun, 15 Apr 2007 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 45:38 http://www.albertmohler.com/2007/04/15/matthew-61-8/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2007/03/25/matthew-538-48/ Sun, 25 Mar 2007 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 48:45 http://www.albertmohler.com/2007/03/25/matthew-538-48/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2007/03/04/matthew-533-39/ Sun, 04 Mar 2007 10:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 41:30 http://www.albertmohler.com/2007/03/04/matthew-533-39/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2007/02/25/matthew-531-32/ Sun, 25 Feb 2007 10:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 39:08 http://www.albertmohler.com/2007/02/25/matthew-531-32/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2007/02/11/matthew-523-30/ Sun, 11 Feb 2007 10:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 40:35 http://www.albertmohler.com/2007/02/11/matthew-523-30/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2006/12/10/matthew-521-26/ Sun, 10 Dec 2006 10:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 43:43 http://www.albertmohler.com/2006/12/10/matthew-521-26/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2006/11/26/matthew-519-20/ Sun, 26 Nov 2006 10:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 38:14 http://www.albertmohler.com/2006/11/26/matthew-519-20/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2006/11/05/matthew-517-18/ Sun, 05 Nov 2006 10:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 41:03 http://www.albertmohler.com/2006/11/05/matthew-517-18/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2006/10/29/matthew-513-16/ Sun, 29 Oct 2006 10:00:00 +0000 Now we need to remember the historical occasion of the delivery of the sermon on the Mount. When Jesus, we are told in John chapter five, had gathered together the crowds. They had gathered unto him and he went up on the mountain and sat down. His disciples came to him. He opened his mouth and began to teach them. So, Jesus gathers his disciples, but we also know that there was a larger crowd that had come to the end of chapter four. We're told that large crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis and Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan. And so we should expect that there are really two audiences for the Sermon on the Mount. There is the audience of the disciples whom Jesus has called. He has called them together. And there are those who are gathered in the crowd who have also come because they are the overhears of what Jesus is saying primarily to his disciples.
That's a very important thing for us to recognize. There's a sense in which there are those who are overhearing what Jesus speaks to his disciples, because Jesus here is speaking of his own. He's speaking of those who will come to faith in him. He's speaking of those who will be in his church, his body and his bride. He's speaking specifically to his own, but there are others who are assuredly overhearing. The “you” is addressed to those who come to him by faith, to those who are in what we shall come to know as the church, those who are his own. We do not expect that the world will live by the Sermon on the Mount. We do not expect that the world will have its conscience shaped by the Sermon on the Mount. We do not expect that the world will have a, an immediate intellectual understanding of the Sermon on the Mount.
But we do expect that God's people, Christ's people, are to see this sermon as a sermon directed to us, a sermon directed to us in the present. Yes, very, very clear in the passage we begin today. This is a sermon addressed to us in the present, but it's also in its entirety an eschatological passage showing us as it were a vision from the future, from God's future, from the completion, the consummation of how things will be seen in terms of what should have been and for what God's people should be. But in Matthew chapter five, we pick up in verse 13. Very familiar language. Jesus says, “You are the salt of the earth. B ut if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty? Again, it is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.”
Now, one of the dangers of the Sermon on the Mount is that we tend to take these familiar verses out of context. We take them out of the context of the Sermon itself. And we take the Sermon out of the context of the gospel of Matthew. We take the gospel of Matthew out of its context within the New Testament. And we take the New Testament out of its context in terms of the entire canonical shape of Scripture. And that is always dangerous. We need to take the big view and then zero in on the precise understanding of this passage. One of the ways we injure the interpretation of the Sermon is by breaking it into separate components and saying, “Well, now, here's one section. And here's another section in particular.” One of the things we are wanting to do is to treat the beatitudes as separate from the rest of the Sermon.
And that’s a problem because what we find in Matthew chapter five beginning at verse 13, builds on the beatitudes. In other words, what begins here is an indictment of Christ’s people if they fail to demonstrate the kind of Christ-likeness that should be the hallmark of his disciples. Jesus is saying, “Your following of me, your coming-to-me-by-faith, and the transformation that comes into your life must be evident.” There must be a demonstration of Christianity in our lives. This is to be a faith that is demonstrated in the evidence of the transformed life. And this is clearly the expectation of the Lord himself. He follows the beatitudes with this very strong statement: “You are the salt of the earth.” Now we know what salt is. And we understand it because it's necessary to life. We understand the chemical structure of salt is one of the first things you learn in chemistry class.
And you understand that salt is one of the most common compounds found throughout all of creation. That life itself, biosis, seems to require salt. And of course, the human body requires salt. Certainly very interesting is something that just a couple of weeks ago showed up on YouTube and some of the other internet things. It was a 14 year old boy who was trying to run cross country when all of a sudden he realizes something is running behind him. And he looks over his shoulder and here comes a deer. It was caught by a photographer. And the deer is chasing this boy.
He tries to lose the deer. The deer will not be lost. The deer finally comes up behind him and he stops and just tries to cover his head. He's laughing. He doesn't know whether he's supposed to be scared. “What is this deer going to do?” The deer puts her front legs over his shoulders and starts licking his neck. Now, one thing that a 14 year old boy is not ready for is a female deer running him down and putting her legs over his shoulder and starting to lick his neck. He's laughing. And finally someone comes and shoos the deer way. And the wildlife people determined that the deer was starved for salt.
And that deer actually have the ability to smell salt. And they smelled it on the perspiration of this boy running cross country. And he ended up a love interest that he wasn't expecting, a deer who was actually after nothing more than salt. We have to have salt. And by the way, those of us who live in this part of the country have to understand this. One of the perplexing things to newcomers to Kentucky is how many little towns, villages and hamlets are named something “lick.” There's Buffalo lick and deer lick and doe lick. It’s the same thing. It's because there are salt deposits where these animals come in order to lick the salt. It’s necessary. There is an instinct in them to go after this salt. And we understand the necessity of it. We understand that this chemical compound is incredibly powerful.
Now, one of the things that we could do with this passage is try to enumerate all the different ways that salt has been used and try to apply those metaphorically to say, “Well, this includes the church, the churches to do this.” And we can play with this. We can say that the one thing salt is a preservative. And, and we know that it is. And again, living here in Kentucky, anyone who's ever had Kentucky country ham knows that salt is a preservative, because that is all that you basically have: ham and brine and time equals a country ham. And sometimes you just need to realize this is not an elegant thing to see. As a matter of fact, every once in a while, someone has given a country ham, especially those who have pastorates in the country.
I was given a country ham from time to time. I preached down in Glasgow a few years ago and was given a country ham. And, you know, that's a wonderful thing to be given. It’s a wonderful gift. It's a gift of love, especially when it's a home-cooked country ham. Someone has done this himself or herself. But I have to tell you, it is an awkward thing to receive in public. It stinks. It is ugly. It is beautiful only to those who have eyes to see. There’s the old story of a seminary student who happened to come from another part of the country, went out to preach and was given one of these country hams. He opened it up when it was in the trunk of his car, because it was stinky.
He opened it up and saw it covered with all kinds of mold and stuff. And he threw it away on the side of the road thinking that it was rotten. He got back to the dormitory and told the other students what had happened. And they got in their car and tried to chase it down to find out exactly where he had discarded it. Because of course it isn't spoiled. That's the way it's supposed to be. You eat only what's inside. Salt is a preservative. There’s bacon. Other forms of meats have been salted. And by the way, if you lived as most persons lived throughout human history, the only meat you're likely to have is meat that is immediately fresh or that is desiccated and cured by salt. That's about all there was. If, for instance, you were headed on a sea voyage or on a trip of anything, you took the equivalent of meat jerky, because it was salted and preserved and dried out.
That was the only way you could take it. It was the only way it could be preserved. Is the church to be a preservative? Well, you could take that metaphor and say, “The church is to preserve those things, which ought to be preserved where the church has found.” There ought to be that preservation of the enduring things, the eternal things of God's truth. You could also speak of salt as something of an antiseptic. And it seems to work that way as well. And one of the things that sometimes happens is how salt stings in a wound, but it also seems to cleanse a wound. Salt does all kinds of things, but I'm going to suggest to you that that kind of preaching on this passage is not very helpful. Delineating the different purposes of the chemical compounds of salt and suggesting that, metaphorically, those should be extended to the church really doesn't help much here, because the point is more direct than that. Jesus appears to be using salt as a metaphor for this one point: that salt that has lost its savor or has become tasteless is worthless. In other words, the simplicity of this point seems to be that a disciple who doesn't look like a disciple, a disciple who isn't living like a disciple, a disciple who isn't speaking and talking and behaving like a disciple, is worthless to the kingdom.
And we probably need no extended points beyond that, because following the beatitudes, that seems to be the essential point that Jesus is making here. He doesn't extend this out with different points about salt. He simply says, “If salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It's no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.” Now, the salt that was found and used in the ancient near east came from two basic sources. One was the dead sea, or the ocean itself, where by allowing the evaporation of the water, one would end up with the salt. But you did not use the salt from the dead sea, because it was so contaminated by other chemical compounds and heavy metals and all the rest that it was absolutely worthless. And it was also tasteless. Now was Jesus making a direct reference to this? We do not know, although that would have been very common to the understanding of the day. There is salt. That is absolutely worthless. Salt, once it has been used in the curing of meat or that is excess and not absorbed by the flesh, is salt that is useless. It's taste and usefulness has been destroyed and it is simply thrown out.
So the idea that salt could become useless is probably not an impossibility to the understanding. We understand that it can become contaminated. What it means exactly for the salt to lose its savor is a little difficult perhaps to understand. It will always remain somewhat salty, but Jesus appears to be using something that by its very, well, awkwardness points to the issue: salt that is no longer salty is useless. So what do you do with it? It can't be made salty again. It's not good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. We read this passage with great danger if we do not recognize the warning that is in it. It's a warning against easy-believism. It's a warning against just some kind of tacit statement of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ without a genuine reception of Christ by faith. Without a genuine discipleship that follows. It is a severe word of indictment against nominal Christianity. It is against those who simply say, “Yes, I'm a Christian! But it's a matter of some kind of tag of some kind of membership.” It’s not of a life transforming experience in coming under the sovereignty of the Lord Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
And there are those of course who are nominal Christians. And of course you understand that that is only possible if one allows yourself to be the oxymoron of nominal and Christian, because in the New Testament, those two do not go together. That's not to say they are not found. They are found. For instance, they're found in the parable of the sower and the soils. Whereas, you know, Jesus says there are four different kinds of soil reflecting four different kinds of hearts. There is the one that is the asphalted heart. The gospel does not even penetrate. And then there is the heart of the shallow soil, the superficial who gives the appearance of life. But when the full noonday sun comes out, this Christian withers and just disappears. Dies. And then there is the thorny soil. And in that soil, the seed is struggling because this is a heart that is contaminated with mixed motivations and allegiances.
And then there is the good soil that yields a crop, some 30, some 60, some a hundred fold. “He who has ears,” Jesus said, “let him hear.” We should not be surprised that there are those who are superficial in their response to the faith. In their response to the gospel. In their response to Christ. But their superficiality shows. That's the point. Eventually those who have eyes to see and ears to hear understand that that kind of superficiality shows in the parable. It shows when the full noon sun comes out as a metaphor of persecution. And when that sun bears its heat down upon that young seedling that is in that shallow soil, it withers and dies.
This is a warning in Matthew chapter five in the Sermon on the Mount against nominal Christianity. “You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty? Again, it is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.” Now, as we have said, this is building upon the beatitudes. This is an indictment. It is a challenge. It's a test. We should read this passage the way the disciples would have heard it: “Are we really the followers of Christ?” But there is also a different and an additional meaning to this verse. And it has to do with the impact of Christ’s people in the society. Now, we would not know that merely from Matthew 5:13. We know that from what follows in this passage. In verses 14 and following, after Jesus spoke to his people and said, “You are the salt of the earth,” in verse 14, he says, “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket but on the lampstand. And it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”
Now again, one of the dangers of any Bible study is that we'll take a verse out of context, and this is perhaps particularly dangerous and seductive when the verses are very familiar to us. And this verse is familiar to us. “You are the light of the world” is familiar to us by its use. And it's familiar to us by its misuse. Just to be very clear: this is not talking about the United States of America. This is talking about the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. One of the earliest of the Pilgrim fathers, John Winthrop, speaking of their ambition to establish a Christian community in which the pilgrims came, after all, to establish. He said, “This shall be as a city upon a hill.” C-I-T-E is the way he spelled it. In other words, this city, which is to be established on gospel principles, shall be a light unto the nations.
That metaphor was left with the pilgrims, by and large, until president Ronald Reagan picked that up and applied it to the United States. He spoke of the United States as a city upon a hill. We understand what he meant by that, that the United States was to be an example to other nations. But in fairness to the Sermon on the Mount, this is not talking about any nation. Not even the United States of America. It’s speaking of Christ people. It’s speaking of the church. The church is the light of the world. And the church is to be, as it were, the city that is set upon a hill. In order to understand this passage, we need to understand something that comes along before this. This has to do with the fact that one of the primary points of identity for Israel as God's covenant people is that Israel was to be the light to the nations.
This is familiar language. The Jewish people hearing Jesus speak of this would have understood that this was what was assigned to Israel. We can find this, for instance, in the prophet, Isaiah. In Isaiah chapter 42 and verse six, the Lord speaks to Isaiah to say, “I am the Lord and I have called you in righteousness. I will also hold you by the hand and watch over you. And I will appoint you as a covenant to the people, as a light to the nations, to open blind eyes, to being prisoners from the dungeon. And those who dwell in darkness from the prison.” That’s verses six and seven of Isaiah via chapter 42. Here, Israel is told, “You are to be as my people, a light to the nations.” This is in fulfillment of what was given as a witness unto Abraham and the Abrahamic covenant when we were told, “Through you and your seed, all the peoples of the earth shall be blessed.”
They are blessed by the fact that Israel was to be a light to the nations. Not just to bear testimony to Israel's faith in the one true and living God, but to be a light unto others, that they too would come to know Yahweh, Jehovah, the one true and living God. We find that in Isaiah 42:6 and also in Isaiah 49, verse six, just a few pages over. The Lord speaking through Isaiah chapter 49 verse six, he says, “It is too small a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel. I will also make you a light to the nations so that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” In other words, here, Israel is told, “It's not just about you. It's about the fact that I will raise you up. I will preserve the tribes of Jacob and I will restore the preserved ones, the remnant of Israel, in order that my covenant people will be a light of the nations. Why? So that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” And how would this be accomplished?
Well, Isaiah also speaks of that in a messianic prophecy that is very familiar to us in Isaiah chapter nine verse two. Very, very familiar language to us. “The people who walk in darkness will see a great light. Those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them.” So how does Israel become a light to the nations? Well, even in Isaiah, we are told that this is a messianic vision. This is a messianic promise. Through the Messiah the people who have dwelled in darkness will see a great light. In covenantal history, God's faithfulness to his promises to Israel are a demonstration of this light. The fact that God preserved his covenant people from their exile and brought them back and restored them is a testimony to this light. But in reality, it was only in the coming of the Messiah that the light was truly seen. The light was truly evident. The light was truly so present and undeniable that it became as a light unto the nations. Israel never fulfilled its universal purpose in itself. Its universal call and universal mission is fulfilled only in Christ.
When Jesus says, “You are the light of the world,” therefore, he is picking up one of the most powerful metaphors. One of those powerful messages is identifying Israel. And he says, “It's fulfilled in you, in those who are my own.” But we also know it is fulfilled in Christ. Just think of the prologue to John's gospel. John chapter one. What do we read here? “In him was life. And the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it.” This is another very clear statement of the fact that it is in the Messiah that the light has come.
Just for instance, in the prologue to John's gospel, when he shifts from speaking of Jesus to speaking of John the Baptist, he said, “There came a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify about the light so that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but he came to testify about the light. There was the true light, which coming into the world, enlightens every man. He was in the world and the world was made through him and the world did not know him. He came into his own and those who were his own did not receive him. But as many as received him to them gave he the right to become the children of God. Even to those who believe in his name, who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God.”
Light becomes a powerful metaphor for our own salvation. We are enlightened by the gospel, and we are enlightened in order to see the gospel. Peter, writing to the church, in I Peter chapter two verse nine says this: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession.” Now, again, that is picking up the language very much like on the Sermon on the Mount. That is picking up the language of the Old Testament address to Israel. And now Peter says to the church, “You are the fulfillment of this. You are the recipient of these promises, and you in this present age are the demonstration of what God had promised to do through Israel so that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”
So our salvation here is pictured as being taken from darkness to light. A little footnote: Does that mean that God is finished with Israel? By no means. Paul addresses this in the center of the book of Romans, where he makes very clear that there will be an outpouring of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ in the latter days, so that Israel will respond to Christ by faith. And thus the light will shine through them to the nations. But Jesus in Matthew chapter five is speaking to his own disciples and to those who are overhearing him and he says, “You are the light of the world.” This takes on a great deal of meaning. We need to understand that Jesus does not say that these are the marks of the church's aspiration. He doesn't say “You should try to be the salt of the earth.”
He doesn't say, “You should try to be the light of the world.” He doesn't say, “If you're really faithful, if you're really true, you will be salty and you will be illuminating.” He says, “My people are these things, essentially. If you are my people, then you are salty and you are enlightening. If you are my people, you are the salt of the earth and you are the light of the world.” This is not something Jesus holds out as an aspiration. It's an established reality. It’s an objective reality. “If you are my people, this is who you are: salt of the earth and the light of the world.” Jesus presses this metaphor. He says, “A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.”
I don't know if you've seen one of these maps, but the maps are absolutely fascinating. They are maps of the world at night taken by satellite. National Geographic published several of these. You can find them at the National Geographic website. If you haven't seen them, you need to see them because it tells you so much about the world. Because what you see is, is where light is found at night, and where the light is found, two other things are found. Human beings and modernity. Human beings and electricity. You find concentrations of human beings in a display of electricity at night in these incredible satellite maps. And where do you see illumination? Let's just say you take the east coast and the west coast of America, and you go about a hundred or 200 miles in. And there are bands of light all around. It's like the borders where the ocean hits are just illuminated with light. And as you come further into the country, there are now more sporadic groupings of light. You can identify cities. You don't even have to have place names. You can see Pittsburgh and Louisville and Cincinnati, and you can see Dallas and Houston and Chicago, and you can just travel. You can see these cities, but then the further west you go, the more darkness there appears. Why? Because the population density is going way down.
Now, there are people there. And there is electricity there, but they're spread out in such a way that they're not concentrated. So they're not caught on the satellite image in the same way. You can certainly see why Canada is so affected by the United States. All you have to do is see one of these maps of North America at night, because what you see is that virtually the entire Canadian population in terms of its density is right along the American border. The further north you go, it’s dark. The rest of the world is very interesting because the rest of the world is relatively dark. Now, of course, in Europe, you have a great deal of light. And then also now in the Pacific rim, you have a great deal of light, in places like Australia. Where there are concentrations of population, you see the light, but you see that a great deal of the world is in darkness.
What's very interesting about that kind of map is that it tells you where electricity is found, and it tells you where human beings are found in density. But where there is darkness, even though there is no electricity, it actually doesn't mean there are no human beings, because some of the largest cities in the world - and remember that the largest cities in the world are now in what we would call the third world or the two-thirds world or the developing world, or the global south, depending on what terminology you want to use - do not show up like the major cities of the north. But they are teaming with millions and millions and millions of persons. What do they lack? Well, according to this map, what they lack is access to electricity. But of course from a gospel perspective, it will be fascinating to see where light would show up in terms of the presence of gospel congregations.
That would be interesting, wouldn’t it? If we had some kind of satellite image where all of a sudden, we could see the population of the world, and we could see not light bulbs being reflected in terms of the satellite perception, but what if we could see the gospel? What if we get to see gospel preaching? What if we could see evangelism as illuminated in that way? I think we would be embarrassed to see the disparity between, for instance, North America, where we would have a lot of light, thankfully of gospel churches, and where the rest of the world would be so hungry for the same. That's not to say that our task in this country is complete. It's not to say this country is a Christian country. If anything, the passage we're reading right now should be an indictment of American Christianity because of its nominalism and because of its superficiality. There is not enough light there nor enough demonstration of the transforming power of the gospel. But a city set upon a hill cannot be hidden any more than on one of these satellite maps. A city that has electricity, that has the lights on, cannot be hidden. It cannot happen. The satellite will find that light and will display it on the image. And again, I would just suggest you go and look at it, because it's just a matter of sheer fascination. “A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.” Christ’s people will become evident. Christ’s people will be evident in the world by the saltiness that is the proof of the gospel. And by the light, the illuminating power of the gospel, that is our assignment. “A city set on a hill cannot be hidden,” Christ says, “nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand.”
And it gives light to all who are in the house. Now, one of the other things we have to keep in mind about this is that we have this ability to walk into a room and flip on a switch, and there is light. And I really like that. But you realize how much that becomes ingrained within us, and you know, to your own embarrassment, as I share that embarrassment with you, how that training and patterning comes out. Because what happens when the electricity goes out? You still turn on the switches. When you go in the room, it's just human nature. We're so well-trained in that way. There's no electricity, but you enter a room. What do you do? You turn on the light. And when you turn on the light, you're shocked when nothing happens, because it's supposed to come on. That light is supposed to illuminate the room. But we have light bulbs all over. I can't imagine how many light bulbs are in the house in which we live. I don't want to ever have to count them.
It takes a lot of light, and we use light in so many different kinds of ways. Just think of all the light bulbs in this building. They're there for a purpose. It would be ridiculous to go to the trouble to light a lamp only to cover it up. That's insane. It is likewise insane for a Christian to claim to follow Christ and to give no demonstration of it. And furthermore, it defies the very purpose of God in bringing enlightenment to us if we are not a light unto others. No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bushel or under a basket, but puts it on a lampstand. Now, another one of the ways that we can be fooled and, perhaps, made more complacent in understanding this passage is that light for us is such an easy thing.
It is a matter of flipping a switch or plugging in a lamp and putting in a light bulb. We have very powerful little lights that can now be carried on a key chain. There's no excuse for us not to have light. We have energy. We have power, and we have access to light. We live in multi-room houses in which every room has its own illumination, but the vast majority, if not all of them, of those hearing Jesus speak would almost assuredly be living in homes that would have been one room in terms of a living area. And they did the most amazing thing back during this time: when it was dark, they slept. Because it was relatively difficult to do much of anything else. Because even when we think about lamps and candles, we need to realize that in the first century, those are still very, very dim in terms of the light that they put out.
I have in my library a lamp from the time of Jesus. It's a beautiful little thing. You would have poured a little oil into it. You would have put a little cotton wick into it and you would have lit it. And it would have put off a very, very dim glow, perhaps enough just to take care of some of the necessities of life. But it would not light so that you could read very well. It would not light so that you could do the cooking. It would light just enough so that you would be able to do the necessary things at night: get ready to go to bed and to sleep. Jesus said it would be foolish for someone to go to all that trouble, to light a lamp, and then put a basket over it.
You wouldn't do that. Instead, you'd put it on a lampstand, because the whole purpose of having it is to maximize the light. And so in a house, you would put it on a lampstand so that there would be some glow in the entire room. So also God's people are not to hide their witness. Christ’s people are not to be an invisible people, but are to be evident by the illumination that comes through us, through Christ’s disciples to the world. Lest we would miss the point, verse 16 makes it emphatically clear: “Let your light shine before men.” So Jesus here is very clear in increasing the specificity. He increases the sharpness of his point by making this now an imperative, because the verses of 13 and 14 and then 14, continuing into 15, were descriptive. Now, of course, since they're in the Sermon, we know they’re also in the context as words of encouragement and, indeed, admonition, but they are descriptive. “You are the salt of the earth.” “You are the light of the world.” But in verse 16, it becomes a command and an imperative. “Let your light shine before men.” Why? How? “In such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your father who isn't heaven.”
So Jesus here says to his own people, “It’s not just that you are the salt of the earth. And it's not just that you are the light of the world. It is that my purpose in you is that you would let your light shine before the world, before humanity, before men, in such a way that they would see your good works.” There is no message more clear in the New Testament than salvation by grace through faith. There is no message more repugnant to the New Testament than works-righteousness, but there is no point more easily missed than the fact that the salvation which comes to us by grace through faith is to become evident in good works, which are done to the glory of God. There is no tension between Paul and James. There is no confusion between grace and works. The New Testament is clear. Salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone.
[inaudible]
There is no question that in the new Testament works-righteousness is described as an anti-gospel. It is a fatal misconstrual of the gospel. It is the opposite of the logic of the gospel. It is a denial of grace, and it is a repudiation of faith. It leads not to life but to death. But is a fatal misunderstanding of the gospel of grace if we think that grace never becomes evident. Because the New Testament is clear here. Jesus is clear. Grace does become evident. Grace becomes evident in the life of the one who has been saved by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone. There's the evidence of good works. There's the evidence of the transforming power of Christ in the life. There's the evidence that old things are now gone. Behold, all things have become new. There is the evidence of the fact that the things we once hated, we now love, and the things we once loved, we now hated. The things which we once could not do and would not do, we now find ourselves doing, and we find Christ’s pleasure in doing them. But our good works are not to draw attention to the works nor to the worker. Our good works are not to draw attention to ourselves in terms of our goodness. That's the temptation, isn't it? We all want to have the merit badge of good works. But what we are told here is that these works are to be done. “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they would see your good works” and then do what? “and glorify your father, who is in heaven.”
I met a parent, a mother actually, of one of our students. A couple of years ago, I happened to be preaching in a church. And I did not know that this was a home church and one of our students. And, and yet I was thrilled. And then his mother came up to me and she said, “I want to tell you why I believe in the gospel.” She said, “Now, I always believed in it. But I want to tell you why I believe in it in a whole new way now.” She said, “Because I know my son and I know who he was, and I know who he is. And I know there can be only one explanation for that. And that is the power of God and Jesus Christ.” She said, “I have never known anyone who was headed in so many wrong directions simultaneously as he was.”
I never knew that a mother could find such shame in a son and such fear in what might happen next. And she said, “But when he came to faith in Christ, everything changed.” And she said, “You know, I doubted it, because he had tried every scheme imaginable. He tried this and that, and he'd come home with plan A and plan B. But none of them worked.” And she said, “So I was somewhat skeptical.” Then she said, “But I have seen the proof positive because of the change that's coming to his life.” She said, “Nothing explains this except Jesus. Nothing possibly could explain this.” She said, “You know, everything, he once loved, he just left. And now he's doing this stuff he used to make fun of.” And she said, “You know, the strangest thing is I'm embarrassed, because as a mother, I was praying for him this way, but I was praying but not believing that I would ever see this.” She said, “But the weirdest thing is his former friends find him such a puzzle.” She said, “They still come around to ask about him thinking that he's going to fall back into their ways. And yet, he doesn't. But he does see them and he just keeps witnessing to them.” And she said, “The amazing thing is they keep coming back.”
Well, that was one mother's testimony, a testimony of what she has seen happened in her own son, the son who had gone in every bad direction imaginable and is now called as a minister of the gospel of Christ. Not in some flash and immediate thing that in which he just showed up at the seminary right after having a conversion experience. No, this was after some time when this that is commanded in the Sermon on the Mount had been demonstrated in his life. The demonstration had been there. And on the basis of that, the church celebrated this call in his life. One of the things I said to her is, “Look, you know, there isn't a student at the seminary who doesn't have this kind of story. It's not always as graphic. It's not always as dramatic as the story you have told, but this is the story of every sinner transformed by grace.”
This is the apostle Paul's testimony. This is Romans chapter seven that leads into Romans chapter eight. This is a story of what happens in the life of one whose heart despises the things of God and is now transformed to the love of the things of God. A heart that is entirely self-centered in animosity towards God, an egocentrism as the very root of its operation that is transformed. And only the grace of God in Christ can explain this. And God is glorified. “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works.” And they better be there. That's the demonstration. That's the indictment of easy-believism and nominal Christianity. This is the passage that follows the beatitudes and says, “Look, those are not sweet little sayings that are to be written just like their little pithy maxims be found in a greeting card or printed on a calendar somewhere and hung on a wall. This has to be the defining mark of my people. And my people will show themselves, as my people, the same way that salt is undeniably salty and light is undeniably bright. My people will make themselves evident. Let your light so shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who was in heaven.” When this is true, when this happens, then God is glorified through the power of the display of the gospel of Christ. This passage is not first and foremost about the church in the world but about the church before her Lord. But it is also about the church in the world. And it’s not about political influence. It's not about cultural influence. It's about gospel influence: the salt of the earth.
And the light of the world.
We are to let our light shine before men in such a way that they may see our good works and glorify our Father, who is in heaven. And when that happens, we bring a focus on the gospel. We demonstrate the preeminence of Christ and we show the power of the gospel and transformed the lives. And the end result of that is that God is glorified. Again, it comes back to the fact that what we believe is that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone.
Let's pray together.
Father, we are so thankful for this passage. Thank you for setting these words in such an order that we understand how one point leads to another, how one theme leads to another, how one verse blends into another, how your consistent and progressive revelation in Scripture helps us to see all that we need to see in order to be your disciples in this generation. Father, thank you for informing us through Christ that we are, as his people, salt and light, the salt of the earth, the light of the world. Father, may we live by the power of the gospel and the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit in us. Maybe we live as Christ’s people under the authority of Scripture in such a way that people may see our good works and glorify you. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. God bless you. We'll see you next Sunday. And we'll pick up when Jesus says that he came not to abolish the Law or the Prophets, but to fulfill.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 47:11 http://www.albertmohler.com/2006/10/29/matthew-513-16/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noGood morning. It's wonderful to see you again on this Lord's Day as we continue our study of the sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter five. When we were together last Lord's Day, we completed the study of the beatitudes, the introductory section to the Sermon on the Mount. And now as we turn to resume the Sermon beginning in chapter five, verse 13, we enter a section that is, at least in its symbolism and language, almost surely to be rooted in our memory. Very, very familiar language. “You are the salt of the earth,” Jesus says. “You are the light of the world.” These two very powerful metaphors have been used and misused throughout Christian history. And now we confront these right in the text as Jesus is delivering the sermon on the Mount. Now, when we ended the beatitudes, we ended a distinct section of the Sermon on the Mount, but it's all part of one literary unit. Now we need to remember the historical occasion of the delivery of the sermon on the Mount. When Jesus, we are told in John chapter five, had gathered together the crowds. They had gathered unto him and he went up on the mountain and sat down. His disciples came to him. He opened his mouth and began to teach them. So, Jesus gathers his disciples, but we also know that there was a larger crowd that had come to the end of chapter four. We're told that large crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis and Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan. And so we should expect that there are really two audiences for the Sermon on the Mount. There is the audience of the disciples whom Jesus has called. He has called them together. And there are those who are gathered in the crowd who have also come because they are the overhears of what Jesus is saying primarily to his disciples. That's a very important thing for us to recognize. There's a sense in which there are those who are overhearing what Jesus speaks to his disciples, because Jesus here is speaking of his own. He's speaking of those who will come to faith in him. He's speaking of those who will be in his church, his body and his bride. He's speaking specifically to his own, but there are others who are assuredly overhearing. The “you” is addressed to those who come to him by faith, to those who are in what we shall come to know as the church, those who are his own. We do not expect that the world will live by the Sermon on the Mount. We do not expect that the world will have its conscience shaped by the Sermon on the Mount. We do not expect that the world will have a, an immediate intellectual understanding of the Sermon on the Mount. But we do expect that God's people, Christ's people, are to see this sermon as a sermon directed to us, a sermon directed to us in the present. Yes, very, very clear in the passage we begin today. This is a sermon addressed to us in the present, but it's also in its entirety an eschatological passage showing us as it were a vision from the future, from God's future, from the completion, the consummation of how things will be seen in terms of what should have been and for what God's people should be. But in Matthew chapter five, we pick up in verse 13. Very familiar language. Jesus says, “You are the salt of the earth. B ut if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty? Again, it is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.” Now, one of the dangers of the Sermon on the Mount is that we tend to take these familiar verses out of context. We take them out of the context of the Sermon itself. And we take the Sermon out of the context of the gospel of Matthew. We take the gospel of Matthew out of its context within the New Testament. And we take the New Testament out of its context in terms of the entire canonical shape of Scripture. And that is always dangerous. We need to take the big view and then zero in on the precise understanding of this passage. One of the ways we injure the interpretation of the Sermon is by breaking it into separate components and saying, “Well, now, here's one section. And here's another section in particular.” One of the things we are wanting to do is to treat the beatitudes as separate from the rest of the Sermon. And that’s a problem because what we find in Matthew chapter five beginning at verse 13, builds on the beatitudes. In other words, what begins here is an indictment of Christ’s people if they fail to demonstrate the kind of Christ-likeness that should be the hallmark of his disciples. Jesus is saying, “Your following of me, your coming-to-me-by-faith, and the transformation that comes into your life must be evident.” There must be a demonstration of Christianity in our lives. This is to be a faith that is demonstrated in the evidence of the transformed life. And this is clearly the expectation of the Lord himself. He follows the beatitudes with this very strong statement: “You are the salt of the earth.” Now we know what salt is. And we understand it because it's necessary to life. We understand the chemical structure of salt is one of the first things you learn in chemistry class. And you understand that salt is one of the most common compounds found throughout all of creation. That life itself, biosis, seems to require salt. And of course, the human body requires salt. Certainly very interesting is something that just a couple of weeks ago showed up on YouTube and some of the other internet things. It was a 14 year old boy who was trying to run cross country when all of a sudden he realizes something is running behind him. And he looks over his shoulder and here comes a deer. It was caught by a photographer. And the deer is chasing this boy. He tries to lose the deer. The deer will not be lost. The deer finally comes up behind him and he stops and just tries to cover his head. He's laughing. He doesn't know whether he's supposed to be scared. “What is this deer going to do?” The deer puts her front legs over his shoulders and starts licking his neck. Now, one thing that a 14 year old boy is not ready for is a female deer running him down and putting her legs over his shoulder and starting to lick his neck. He's laughing. And finally someone comes and shoos the deer way. And the wildlife people determined that the deer was starved for salt. And that deer actually have the ability to smell salt. And they smelled it on the perspiration of this boy running cross country. And he ended up a love interest that he wasn't expecting, a deer who was actually after nothing more than salt. We have to have salt. And by the way, those of us who live in this part of the country have to understand this. One of the perplexing things to newcomers to Kentucky is how many little towns, villages and hamlets are named something “lick.” There's Buffalo lick and deer lick and doe lick. It’s the same thing. It's because there are salt deposits where these animals come in order to lick the salt. It’s necessary. There is an instinct in them to go after this salt. And we understand the necessity of it. We understand that this chemical compound is incredibly powerful. Now, one of the things that we could do with this passage is try to enumerate all the different ways that salt has been used and try to apply those metaphorically to say, “Well, this includes the church, the churches to do this.” And we can play with this. We can say that the one thing salt is a preservative. And, and we know that it is. And again, living here in Kentucky, anyone who's ever had Kentucky country ham knows that salt is a preservative, because that is all that you basically have: ham and brine and time equals a country ham. And sometimes you just need to realize this is not an elegant thing to see. As a matter of fact, every once in a while, someone has given a country ham, especially those who have pastorates in the country. I was given a country ham from time to time. I preached down in Glasgow a few years ago and was given a country ham. And, you know, that's a wonderful thing to be given. It’s a wonderful gift. It's a gift of love, especially when it's a home-cooked country ham. Someone has done this himself or herself. But I have to tell you, it is an awkward thing to receive in public. It stinks. It is ugly. It is beautiful only to those who have eyes to see. There’s the old story of a seminary student who happened to come from another part of the country, went out to preach and was given one of these country hams. He opened it up when it was in the trunk of his car, because it was stinky. He opened it up and saw it covered with all kinds of mold and stuff. And he threw it away on the side of the road thinking that it was rotten. He got back to the dormitory and told the other students what had happened. And they got in their car and tried to chase it down to find out exactly where he had discarded it. Because of course it isn't spoiled. That's the way it's supposed to be. You eat only what's inside. Salt is a preservative. There’s bacon. Other forms of meats have been salted. And by the way, if you lived as most persons lived throughout human history, the only meat you're likely to have is meat that is immediately fresh or that is desiccated and cured by salt. That's about all there was. If, for instance, you were headed on a sea voyage or on a trip of anything, you took the equivalent of meat jerky, because it was salted and preserved and dried out. That was the only way you could take it. It was the only way it could be preserved. Is the church to be a preservative? Well, you could take that metaphor and say, “The church is to preserve those things, which ought to be preserved where the church has found.” There ought to be that preservation of the enduring things, the eternal things of God's truth. You could also speak of salt as something of an antiseptic. And it seems to work that way as well. And one of the things that sometimes happens is how salt stings in a wound, but it also seems to cleanse a wound. Salt does all kinds of things, but I'm going to suggest to you that that kind of preaching on this passage is not very helpful. Delineating the different purposes of the chemical compounds of salt and suggesting that, metaphorically, those should be extended to the church really doesn't help much here, because the point is more direct than that. Jesus appears to be using salt as a metaphor for this one point: that salt that has lost its savor or has become tasteless is worthless. In other words, the simplicity of this point seems to be that a disciple who doesn't look like a disciple, a disciple who isn't living like a disciple, a disciple who isn't speaking and talking and behaving like a disciple, is worthless to the kingdom. And we probably need no extended points beyond that, because following the beatitudes, that seems to be the essential point that Jesus is making here. He doesn't extend this out with different points about salt. He simply says, “If salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It's no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.” Now, the salt that was found and used in the ancient near east came from two basic sources. One was the dead sea, or the ocean itself, where by allowing the evaporation of the water, one would end up with the salt. But you did not use the salt from the dead sea, because it was so contaminated by other chemical compounds and heavy metals and all the rest that it was absolutely worthless. And it was also tasteless. Now was Jesus making a direct reference to this? We do not know, although that would have been very common to the understanding of the day. There is salt. That is absolutely worthless. Salt, once it has been used in the curing of meat or that is excess and not absorbed by the flesh, is salt that is useless. It's taste and usefulness has been destroyed and it is simply thrown out. So the idea that salt could become useless is probably not an impossibility to the understanding. We understand that it can become contaminated. What it means exactly for the salt to lose its savor is a little difficult perhaps to understand. It will always remain somewhat salty, but Jesus appears to be using something that by its very, well, awkwardness points to the issue: salt that is no longer salty is useless. So what do you do with it? It can't be made salty again. It's not good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. We read this passage with great danger if we do not recognize the warning that is in it. It's a warning against easy-believism. It's a warning against just some kind of tacit statement of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ without a genuine reception of Christ by faith. Without a genuine discipleship that follows. It is a severe word of indictment against nominal Christianity. It is against those who simply say, “Yes, I'm a Christian! But it's a matter of some kind of tag of some kind of membership.” It’s not of a life transforming experience in coming under the sovereignty of the Lord Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. And there are those of course who are nominal Christians. And of course you understand that that is only possible if one allows yourself to be the oxymoron of nominal and Christian, because in the New Testament, those two do not go together. That's not to say they are not found. They are found. For instance, they're found in the parable of the sower and the soils. Whereas, you know, Jesus says there are four different kinds of soil reflecting four different kinds of hearts. There is the one that is the asphalted heart. The gospel does not even penetrate. And then there is the heart of the shallow soil, the superficial who gives the appearance of life. But when the full noonday sun comes out, this Christian withers and just disappears. Dies. And then there is the thorny soil. And in that soil, the seed is struggling because this is a heart that is contaminated with mixed motivations and allegiances. And then there is the good soil that yields a crop, some 30, some 60, some a hundred fold. “He who has ears,” Jesus said, “let him hear.” We should not be surprised that there are those who are superficial in their response to the faith. In their response to the gospel. In their response to Christ. But their superficiality shows. That's the point. Eventually those who have eyes to see and ears to hear understand that that kind of superficiality shows in the parable. It shows when the full noon sun comes out as a metaphor of persecution. And when that sun bears its heat down upon that young seedling that is in that shallow soil, it withers and dies. This is a warning in Matthew chapter five in the Sermon on the Mount against nominal Christianity. “You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty? Again, it is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.” Now, as we have said, this is building upon the beatitudes. This is an indictment. It is a challenge. It's a test. We should read this passage the way the disciples would have heard it: “Are we really the followers of Christ?” But there is also a different and an additional meaning to this verse. And it has to do with the impact of Christ’s people in the society. Now, we would not know that merely from Matthew 5:13. We know that from what follows in this passage. In verses 14 and following, after Jesus spoke to his people and said, “You are the salt of the earth,” in verse 14, he says, “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket but on the lampstand. And it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” Now again, one of the dangers of any Bible study is that we'll take a verse out of context, and this is perhaps particularly dangerous and seductive when the verses are very familiar to us. And this verse is familiar to us. “You are the light of the world” is familiar to us by its use. And it's familiar to us by its misuse. Just to be very clear: this is not talking about the United States of America. This is talking about the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. One of the earliest of the Pilgrim fathers, John Winthrop, speaking of their ambition to establish a Christian community in which the pilgrims came, after all, to establish. He said, “This shall be as a city upon a hill.” C-I-T-E is the way he spelled it. In other words, this city, which is to be established on gospel principles, shall be a light unto the nations. That metaphor was left with the pilgrims, by and large, until president Ronald Reagan picked that up and applied it to the United States. He spoke of the United States as a city upon a hill. We understand what he meant by that, that the United States was to be an example to other nations. But in fairness to the Sermon on the Mount, this is not talking about any nation. Not even the United States of America. It’s speaking of Christ people. It’s speaking of the church. The church is the light of the world. And the church is to be, as it were, the city that is set upon a hill. In order to understand this passage, we need to understand something that comes along before this. This has to do with the fact that one of the primary points of identity for Israel as God's covenant people is that Israel was to be the light to the nations. This is familiar language. The Jewish people hearing Jesus speak of this would have understood that this was what was assigned to Israel. We can find this, for instance, in the prophet, Isaiah. In Isaiah chapter 42 and verse six, the Lord speaks to Isaiah to say, “I am the Lord and I have called you in righteousness. I will also hold you by the hand and watch over you. And I will appoint you as a covenant to the people, as a light to the nations, to open blind eyes, to being prisoners from the dungeon. And those who dwell in darkness from the prison.” That’s verses six and seven of Isaiah via chapter 42. Here, Israel is told, “You are to be as my people, a light to the nations.” This is in fulfillment of what was given as a witness unto Abraham and the Abrahamic covenant when we were told, “Through you and your seed, all the peoples of the earth shall be blessed.” They are blessed by the fact that Israel was to be a light to the nations. Not just to bear testimony to Israel's faith in the one true and living God, but to be a light unto others, that they too would come to know Yahweh, Jehovah, the one true and living God. We find that in Isaiah 42:6 and also in Isaiah 49, verse six, just a few pages over. The Lord speaking through Isaiah chapter 49 verse six, he says, “It is too small a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel. I will also make you a light to the nations so that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” In other words, here, Israel is told, “It's not just about you. It's about the fact that I will raise you up. I will preserve the tribes of Jacob and I will restore the preserved ones, the remnant of Israel, in order that my covenant people will be a light of the nations. Why? So that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” And how would this be accomplished? Well, Isaiah also speaks of that in a messianic prophecy that is very familiar to us in Isaiah chapter nine verse two. Very, very familiar language to us. “The people who walk in darkness will see a great light. Those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them.” So how does Israel become a light to the nations? Well, even in Isaiah, we are told that this is a messianic vision. This is a messianic promise. Through the Messiah the people who have dwelled in darkness will see a great light. In covenantal history, God's faithfulness to his promises to Israel are a demonstration of this light. The fact that God preserved his covenant people from their exile and brought them back and restored them is a testimony to this light. But in reality, it was only in the coming of the Messiah that the light was truly seen. The light was truly evident. The light was truly so present and undeniable that it became as a light unto the nations. Israel never fulfilled its universal purpose in itself. Its universal call and universal mission is fulfilled only in Christ. When Jesus says, “You are the light of the world,” therefore, he is picking up one of the most powerful metaphors. One of those powerful messages is identifying Israel. And he says, “It's fulfilled in you, in those who are my own.” But we also know it is fulfilled in Christ. Just think of the prologue to John's gospel. John chapter one. What do we read here? “In him was life. And the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it.” This is another very clear statement of the fact that it is in the Messiah that the light has come. Just for instance, in the prologue to John's gospel, when he shifts from speaking of Jesus to speaking of John the Baptist, he said, “There came a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify about the light so that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but he came to testify about the light. There was the true light, which coming into the world, enlightens every man. He was in the world and the world was made through him and the world did not know him. He came into his own and those who were his own did not receive him. But as many as received him to them gave he the right to become the children of God. Even to those who believe in his name, who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God.” Light becomes a powerful metaphor for our own salvation. We are enlightened by the gospel, and we are enlightened in order to see the gospel. Peter, writing to the church, in I Peter chapter two verse nine says this: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession.” Now, again, that is picking up the language very much like on the Sermon on the Mount. That is picking up the language of the Old Testament address to Israel. And now Peter says to the church, “You are the fulfillment of this. You are the recipient of these promises, and you in this present age are the demonstration of what God had promised to do through Israel so that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” So our salvation here is pictured as being taken from darkness to light. A little footnote: Does that mean that God is finished with Israel? By no means. Paul addresses this in the center of the book of Romans, where he makes very clear that there will be an outpouring of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ in the latter days, so that Israel will respond to Christ by faith. And thus the light will shine through them to the nations. But Jesus in Matthew chapter five is speaking to his own disciples and to those who are overhearing him and he says, “You are the light of the world.” This takes on a great deal of meaning. We need to understand that Jesus does not say that these are the marks of the church's aspiration. He doesn't say “You should try to be the salt of the earth.” He doesn't say, “You should try to be the light of the world.” He doesn't say, “If you're really faithful, if you're really true, you will be salty and you will be illuminating.” He says, “My people are these things, essentially. If you are my people, then you are salty and you are enlightening. If you are my people, you are the salt of the earth and you are the light of the world.” This is not something Jesus holds out as an aspiration. It's an established reality. It’s an objective reality. “If you are my people, this is who you are: salt of the earth and the light of the world.” Jesus presses this metaphor. He says, “A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.” I don't know if you've seen one of these maps, but the maps are absolutely fascinating. They are maps of the world at night taken by satellite. National Geographic published several of these. You can find them at the National Geographic website. If you haven't seen them, you need to see them because it tells you so much about the world. Because what you see is, is where light is found at night, and where the light is found, two other things are found. Human beings and modernity. Human beings and electricity. You find concentrations of human beings in a display of electricity at night in these incredible satellite maps. And where do you see illumination? Let's just say you take the east coast and the west coast of America, and you go about a hundred or 200 miles in. And there are bands of light all around. It's like the borders where the ocean hits are just illuminated with light. And as you come further into the country, there are now more sporadic groupings of light. You can identify cities. You don't even have to have place names. You can see Pittsburgh and Louisville and Cincinnati, and you can see Dallas and Houston and Chicago, and you can just travel. You can see these cities, but then the further west you go, the more darkness there appears. Why? Because the population density is going way down. Now, there are people there. And there is electricity there, but they're spread out in such a way that they're not concentrated. So they're not caught on the satellite image in the same way. You can certainly see why Canada is so affected by the United States. All you have to do is see one of these maps of North America at night, because what you see is that virtually the entire Canadian population in terms of its density is right along the American border. The further north you go, it’s dark. The rest of the world is very interesting because the rest of the world is relatively dark. Now, of course, in Europe, you have a great deal of light. And then also now in the Pacific rim, you have a great deal of light, in places like Australia. Where there are concentrations of population, you see the light, but you see that a great deal of the world is in darkness. What's very interesting about that kind of map is that it tells you where electricity is found, and it tells you where human beings are found in density. But where there is darkness, even though there is no electricity, it actually doesn't mean there are no human beings, because some of the largest cities in the world - and remember that the largest cities in the world are now in what we would call the third world or the two-thirds world or the developing world, or the global south, depending on what terminology you want to use - do not show up like the major cities of the north. But they are teaming with millions and millions and millions of persons. What do they lack? Well, according to this map, what they lack is access to electricity. But of course from a gospel perspective, it will be fascinating to see where light would show up in terms of the presence of gospel congregations. That would be interesting, wouldn’t it? If we had some kind of satellite image where all of a sudden, we could see the population of the world, and we could see not light bulbs being reflected in terms of the satellite perception, but what if we could see the gospel? What if we get to see gospel preaching? What if we could see evangelism as illuminated in that way? I think we would be embarrassed to see the disparity between, for instance, North America, where we would have a lot of light, thankfully of gospel churches, and where the rest of the world would be so hungry for the same. That's not to say that our task in this country is complete. It's not to say this country is a Christian country. If anything, the passage we're reading right now should be an indictment of American Christianity because of its nominalism and because of its superficiality. There is not enough light there nor enough demonstration of the transforming power of the gospel. But a city set upon a hill cannot be hidden any more than on one of these satellite maps. A city that has electricity, that has the lights on, cannot be hidden. It cannot happen. The satellite will find that light and will display it on the image. And again, I would just suggest you go and look at it, because it's just a matter of sheer fascination. “A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.” Christ’s people will become evident. Christ’s people will be evident in the world by the saltiness that is the proof of the gospel. And by the light, the illuminating power of the gospel, that is our assignment. “A city set on a hill cannot be hidden,” Christ says, “nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand.” And it gives light to all who are in the house. Now, one of the other things we have to keep in mind about this is that we have this ability to walk into a room and flip on a switch, and there is light. And I really like that. But you realize how much that becomes ingrained within us, and you know, to your own embarrassment, as I share that embarrassment with you, how that training and patterning comes out. Because what happens when the electricity goes out? You still turn on the switches. When you go in the room, it's just human nature. We're so well-trained in that way. There's no electricity, but you enter a room. What do you do? You turn on the light. And when you turn on the light, you're shocked when nothing happens, because it's supposed to come on. That light is supposed to illuminate the room. But we have light bulbs all over. I can't imagine how many light bulbs are in the house in which we live. I don't want to ever have to count them. It takes a lot of light, and we use light in so many different kinds of ways. Just think of all the light bulbs in this building. They're there for a purpose. It would be ridiculous to go to the trouble to light a lamp only to cover it up. That's insane. It is likewise insane for a Christian to claim to follow Christ and to give no demonstration of it. And furthermore, it defies the very purpose of God in bringing enlightenment to us if we are not a light unto others. No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bushel or under a basket, but puts it on a lampstand. Now, another one of the ways that we can be fooled and, perhaps, made more complacent in understanding this passage is that light for us is such an easy thing. It is a matter of flipping a switch or plugging in a lamp and putting in a light bulb. We have very powerful little lights that can now be carried on a key chain. There's no excuse for us not to have light. We have energy. We have power, and we have access to light. We live in multi-room houses in which every room has its own illumination, but the vast majority, if not all of them, of those hearing Jesus speak would almost assuredly be living in homes that would have been one room in terms of a living area. And they did the most amazing thing back during this time: when it was dark, they slept. Because it was relatively difficult to do much of anything else. Because even when we think about lamps and candles, we need to realize that in the first century, those are still very, very dim in terms of the light that they put out. I have in my library a lamp from the time of Jesus. It's a beautiful little thing. You would have poured a little oil into it. You would have put a little cotton wick into it and you would have lit it. And it would have put off a very, very dim glow, perhaps enough just to take care of some of the necessities of life. But it would not light so that you could read very well. It would not light so that you could do the cooking. It would light just enough so that you would be able to do the necessary things at night: get ready to go to bed and to sleep. Jesus said it would be foolish for someone to go to all that trouble, to light a lamp, and then put a basket over it. You wouldn't do that. Instead, you'd put it on a lampstand, because the whole purpose of having it is to maximize the light. And so in a house, you would put it on a lampstand so that there would be some glow in the entire room. So also God's people are not to hide their witness. Christ’s people are not to be an invisible people, but are to be evident by the illumination that comes through us, through Christ’s disciples to the world. Lest we would miss the point, verse 16 makes it emphatically clear: “Let your light shine before men.” So Jesus here is very clear in increasing the specificity. He increases the sharpness of his point by making this now an imperative, because the verses of 13 and 14 and then 14, continuing into 15, were descriptive. Now, of course, since they're in the Sermon, we know they’re also in the context as words of encouragement and, indeed, admonition, but they are descriptive. “You are the salt of the earth.” “You are the light of the world.” But in verse 16, it becomes a command and an imperative. “Let your light shine before men.” Why? How? “In such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your father who isn't heaven.” So Jesus here says to his own people, “It’s not just that you are the salt of the earth. And it's not just that you are the light of the world. It is that my purpose in you is that you would let your light shine before the world, before humanity, before men, in such a way that they would see your good works.” There is no message more clear in the New Testament than salvation by grace through faith. There is no message more repugnant to the New Testament than works-righteousness, but there is no point more easily missed than the fact that the salvation which comes to us by grace through faith is to become evident in good works, which are done to the glory of God. There is no tension between Paul and James. There is no confusion between grace and works. The New Testament is clear. Salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone. [inaudible] There is no question that in the new Testament works-righteousness is described as an anti-gospel. It is a fatal misconstrual of the gospel. It is the opposite of the logic of the gospel. It is a denial of grace, and it is a repudiation of faith. It leads not to life but to death. But is a fatal misunderstanding of the gospel of grace if we think that grace never becomes evident. Because the New Testament is clear here. Jesus is clear. Grace does become evident. Grace becomes evident in the life of the one who has been saved by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone. There's the evidence of good works. There's the evidence of the transforming power of Christ in the life. There's the evidence that old things are now gone. Behold, all things have become new. There is the evidence of the fact that the things we once hated, we now love, and the things we once loved, we now hated. The things which we once could not do and would not do, we now find ourselves doing, and we find Christ’s pleasure in doing them. But our good works are not to draw attention to the works nor to the worker. Our good works are not to draw attention to ourselves in terms of our goodness. That's the temptation, isn't it? We all want to have the merit badge of good works. But what we are told here is that these works are to be done. “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they would see your good works” and then do what? “and glorify your father, who is in heaven.” I met a parent, a mother actually, of one of our students. A couple of years ago, I happened to be preaching in a church. And I did not know that this was a home church and one of our students. And, and yet I was thrilled. And then his mother came up to me and she said, “I want to tell you why I believe in the gospel.” She said, “Now, I always believed in it. But I want to tell you why I believe in it in a whole new way now.” She said, “Because I know my son and I know who he was, and I know who he is. And I know there can be only one explanation for that. And that is the power of God and Jesus Christ.” She said, “I have never known anyone who was headed in so many wrong directions simultaneously as he was.” I never knew that a mother could find such shame in a son and such fear in what might happen next. And she said, “But when he came to faith in Christ, everything changed.” And she said, “You know, I doubted it, because he had tried every scheme imaginable. He tried this and that, and he'd come home with plan A and plan B. But none of them worked.” And she said, “So I was somewhat skeptical.” Then she said, “But I have seen the proof positive because of the change that's coming to his life.” She said, “Nothing explains this except Jesus. Nothing possibly could explain this.” She said, “You know, everything, he once loved, he just left. And now he's doing this stuff he used to make fun of.” And she said, “You know, the strangest thing is I'm embarrassed, because as a mother, I was praying for him this way, but I was praying but not believing that I would ever see this.” She said, “But the weirdest thing is his former friends find him such a puzzle.” She said, “They still come around to ask about him thinking that he's going to fall back into their ways. And yet, he doesn't. But he does see them and he just keeps witnessing to them.” And she said, “The amazing thing is they keep coming back.” Well, that was one mother's testimony, a testimony of what she has seen happened in her own son, the son who had gone in every bad direction imaginable and is now called as a minister of the gospel of Christ. Not in some flash and immediate thing that in which he just showed up at the seminary right after having a conversion experience. No, this was after some time when this that is commanded in the Sermon on the Mount had been demonstrated in his life. The demonstration had been there. And on the basis of that, the church celebrated this call in his life. One of the things I said to her is, “Look, you know, there isn't a student at the seminary who doesn't have this kind of story. It's not always as graphic. It's not always as dramatic as the story you have told, but this is the story of every sinner transformed by grace.” This is the apostle Paul's testimony. This is Romans chapter seven that leads into Romans chapter eight. This is a story of what happens in the life of one whose heart despises the things of God and is now transformed to the love of the things of God. A heart that is entirely self-centered in animosity towards God, an egocentrism as the very root of its operation that is transformed. And only the grace of God in Christ can explain this. And God is glorified. “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works.” And they better be there. That's the demonstration. That's the indictment of easy-believism and nominal Christianity. This is the passage that follows the beatitudes and says, “Look, those are not sweet little sayings that are to be written just like their little pithy maxims be found in a greeting card or printed on a calendar somewhere and hung on a wall. This has to be the defining mark of my people. And my people will show themselves, as my people, the same way that salt is undeniably salty and light is undeniably bright. My people will make themselves evident. Let your light so shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who was in heaven.” When this is true, when this happens, then God is glorified through the power of the display of the gospel of Christ. This passage is not first and foremost about the church in the world but about the church before her Lord. But it is also about the church in the world. And it’s not about political influence. It's not about cultural influence. It's about gospel influence: the salt of the earth. And the light of the world. We are to let our light shine before men in such a way that they may see our good works and glorify our Father, who is in heaven. And when that happens, we bring a focus on the gospel. We demonstrate the preeminence of Christ and we show the power of the gospel and transformed the lives. And the end result of that is that God is glorified. Again, it comes back to the fact that what we believe is that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone. Let's pray together. Father, we are so thankful for this passage. Thank you for setting these words in such an order that we understand how one point leads to another, how one theme leads to another, how one verse blends into another, how your consistent and progressive revelation in Scripture helps us to see all that we need to see in order to be your disciples in this generation. Father, thank you for informing us through Christ that we are, as his people, salt and light, the salt of the earth, the light of the world. Father, may we live by the power of the gospel and the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit in us. Maybe we live as Christ’s people under the authority of Scripture in such a way that people may see our good works and glorify you. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. God bless you. We'll see you next Sunday. And we'll pick up when Jesus says that he came not to abolish the Law or the Prophets, but to fulfill. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.Good morning. It's wonderful to see you again on this Lord's Day as we continue our study of the sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter five. When we were together last Lord's Day, we completed the study of the beatitudes, the introductory section to the Sermon on the Mount. And now as we turn to resume the Sermon beginning in chapter five, verse 13, we enter a section that is, at least in its symbolism and language, almost surely to be rooted in our memory. Very, very familiar language. “You are the salt of the earth,” Jesus says. “You are the light of the world.” These two very powerful metaphors have been used and misused throughout Christian history. And now we confront these right in the text as Jesus is delivering the sermon on the Mount. Now, when we ended the beatitudes, we ended a distinct section of the Sermon on the Mount, but it's all part of one literary unit. Now we need to remember the historical occasion of the delivery of the sermon on the Mount. When Jesus, we are told in John chapter five, had gathered together the crowds. They had gathered unto him and he went up on the mountain and sat down. His disciples came to him. He opened his mouth and began to teach them. So, Jesus gathers his disciples, but we also know that there was a larger crowd that had come to the end of chapter four. We're told that large crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis and Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan. And so we should expect that there are really two audiences for the Sermon on the Mount. There is the audience of the disciples whom Jesus has called. He has called them together. And there are those who are gathered in the crowd who have also come because they are the overhears of what Jesus is saying primarily to his disciples. That's a very important thing for us to recognize. There's a sense in which there are those who are overhearing what Jesus speaks to his disciples, because Jesus here is speaking of his own. He's speaking of those who will come to faith in him. He's speaking of those who will be in his church, his body and his bride. He's speaking specifically to his own, but there are others who are assuredly overhearing. The “you” is addressed to those who come to him by faith, to those who are in what we shall come to know as the church, those who are his own. We do not expect that the world will live by the Sermon on the Mount. We do not expect that the world will have its conscience shaped by the Sermon on the Mount. We do not expect that the world will have a, an immediate intellectual understanding of the Sermon on the Mount. But we do expect that God's people, Christ's people, are to see this sermon as a sermon directed to us, a sermon directed to us in the present. Yes, very, very clear in the passage we begin today. This is a sermon addressed to us in the present, but it's also in its entirety an eschatological passage showing us as it were a vision from the future, from God's future, from the completion, the consummation of how things will be seen in terms of what should have been and for what God's people should be. But in Matthew chapter five, we pick up in verse 13. Very familiar language. Jesus says, “You are the salt of the earth. B ut if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty? Again, it is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.” Now, one of the dangers of the Sermon on the Mount is that we tend to take these familiar verses out of context. We take them out of the context of the Sermon itself. And we take the Sermon out of the context of the gospel of Matthew. We take the gospel of Matthew out of its context within the New Testament. And we take the New Testament out of its context in terms of the entire canonical shape of Scripture. And that is always dangerous. We need to take the big view and then zero in on the precise understanding of this passage. One of the ways we injure the interpretation of the Sermon is by breaking it into separate components and saying, “Well, now, here's one section. And here's another section in particular.” One of the things we are wanting to do is to treat the beatitudes as separate from the rest of the Sermon. And that’s a problem because what we find in Matthew chapter five beginning at verse 13, builds on the beatitudes. In other words, what begins here is an indictment of Christ’s people if they fail to demonstrate the kind of Christ-likeness that should be the hallmark of his disciples. Jesus is saying, “Your following of me, your coming-to-me-by-faith, and the transformation that comes into your life must be evident.” There must be a demonstration of Christianity in our lives. This is to be a faith that is demonstrated in the evidence of the transformed life. And this is clearly the expectation of the Lord himself. He follows the beatitudes with this very strong statement: “You are the salt of the earth.” Now we know what salt is. And we understand it because it's necessary to life. We understand the chemical structure of salt is one of the first things you learn in chemistry class. And you understand that salt is one of the most common compounds found throughout all of creation. That life itself, biosis, seems to require salt. And of course, the human body requires salt. Certainly very interesting is something that just a couple of weeks ago showed up on YouTube and some of the other internet things. It was a 14 year old boy who was trying to run cross country when all of a sudden he realizes something is running behind him. And he looks over his shoulder and here comes a deer. It was caught by a photographer. And the deer is chasing this boy. He tries to lose the deer. The deer will not be lost. The deer finally comes up behind him and he stops and just tries to cover his head. He's laughing. He doesn't know whether he's supposed to be scared. “What is this deer going to do?” The deer puts her front legs over his shoulders and starts licking his neck. Now, one thing that a 14 year old boy is not ready for is a female deer running him down and putting her legs over his shoulder and starting to lick his neck. He's laughing. And finally someone comes and shoos the deer way. And the wildlife people determined that the deer was starved for salt. And that deer actually have the ability to smell salt. And they smelled it on the perspiration of this boy running cross country. And he ended up a love interest that he wasn't expecting, a deer who was actually after nothing more than salt. We have to have salt. And by the way, those of us who live in this part of the country have to understand this. One of the perplexing things to newcomers to Kentucky is how many little towns, villages and hamlets are named something “lick.” There's Buffalo lick and deer lick and doe lick. It’s the same thing. It's because there are salt deposits where these animals come in order to lick the salt. It’s necessary. There is an instinct in them to go after this salt. And we understand the necessity of it. We understand that this chemical compound is incredibly powerful. Now, one of the things that we could do with this passage is try to enumerate all the different ways that salt has been used and try to apply those metaphorically to say, “Well, this includes the church, the churches to do this.” And we can play with this. We can say that the one thing salt is a preservative. And, and we know that it is. And again, living here in Kentucky, anyone who's ever had Kentucky country ham knows that salt is a preservative, because that is all that you basically have: ham and brine and time equals a country ham. And sometimes you just need to realize this is not an elegant thing to see. As a matter of fact, every once in a while, someone has given a country ham, especially those who have pastorates in the country. I was given a country ham from time to time. I preached down in Glasgow a few years ago and was given a country ham. And, you know, that's a wonderful thing to be given. It’s a wonderful gift. It's a gift of love, especially when it's a home-cooked country ham. Someone has done this himself or herself. But I have to tell you, it is an awkward thing to receive in public. It stinks. It is ugly. It is beautiful only to those who have eyes to see. There’s the old story of a seminary student who happened to come from another part of the country, went out to preach and was given one of these country hams. He opened it up when it was in the trunk of his car, because it was stinky. He opened it up and saw it covered with all kinds of mold and stuff. And he threw it away on the side of the road thinking that it was rotten. He got back to the dormitory and told the other students what had happened. And they got in their car and tried to chase it down to find out exactly where he had discarded it. Because of course it isn't spoiled. That's the way it's supposed to be. You eat only what's inside. Salt is a preservative. There’s bacon. Other forms of meats have been salted. And by the way, if you lived as most persons lived throughout human history, the only meat you're likely to have is meat that is immediately fresh or that is desiccated and cured by salt. That's about all there was. If, for instance, you were headed on a sea voyage or on a trip of anything, you took the equivalent of meat jerky, because it was salted and preserved and dried out. That was the only way you could take it. It was the only way it could be preserved. Is the church to be a preservative? Well, you could take that metaphor and say, “The church is to preserve those things, which ought to be preserved where the church has found.” There ought to be that preservation of the enduring things, the eternal things of God's truth. You could also speak of salt as something of an antiseptic. And it seems to work that way as well. And one of the things that sometimes happens is how salt stings in a wound, but it also seems to cleanse a wound. Salt does all kinds of things, but I'm going to suggest to you that that kind of preaching on this passage is not very helpful. Delineating the different purposes of the chemical compounds of salt and suggesting that, metaphorically, those should be extended to the church really doesn't help much here, because the point is more direct than that. Jesus appears to be using salt as a metaphor for this one point: that salt that has lost its savor or has become tasteless is worthless. In other words, the simplicity of this point seems to be that a disciple who doesn't look like a disciple, a disciple who isn't living like a disciple, a disciple who isn't speaking and talking and behaving like a disciple, is worthless to the kingdom. And we probably need no extended points beyond that, because following the beatitudes, that seems to be the essential point that Jesus is making here. He doesn't extend this out with different points about salt. He simply says, “If salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It's no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.” Now, the salt that was found and used in the ancient near east came from two basic sources. One was the dead sea, or the ocean itself, where by allowing the evaporation of the water, one would end up with the salt. But you did not use the salt from the dead sea, because it was so contaminated by other chemical compounds and heavy metals and all the rest that it was absolutely worthless. And it was also tasteless. Now was Jesus making a direct reference to this? We do not know, although that would have been very common to the understanding of the day. There is salt. That is absolutely worthless. Salt, once it has been used in the curing of meat or that is excess and not absorbed by the flesh, is salt that is useless. It's taste and usefulness has been destroyed and it is simply thrown out. So the idea that salt could become useless is probably not an impossibility to the understanding. We understand that it can become contaminated. What it means exactly for the salt to lose its savor is a little difficult perhaps to understand. It will always remain somewhat salty, but Jesus appears to be using something that by its very, well, awkwardness points to the issue: salt that is no longer salty is useless. So what do you do with it? It can't be made salty again. It's not good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. We read this passage with great danger if we do not recognize the warning that is in it. It's a warning against easy-believism. It's a warning against just some kind of tacit statement of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ without a genuine reception of Christ by faith. Without a genuine discipleship that follows. It is a severe word of indictment against nominal Christianity. It is against those who simply say, “Yes, I'm a Christian! But it's a matter of some kind of tag of some kind of membership.” It’s not of a life transforming experience in coming under the sovereignty of the Lord Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. And there are those of course who are nominal Christians. And of course you understand that that is only possible if one allows yourself to be the oxymoron of nominal and Christian, because in the New Testament, those two do not go together. That's not to say they are not found. They are found. For instance, they're found in the parable of the sower and the soils. Whereas, you know, Jesus says there are four different kinds of soil reflecting four different kinds of hearts. There is the one that is the asphalted heart. The gospel does not even penetrate. And then there is the heart of the shallow soil, the superficial who gives the appearance of life. But when the full noonday sun comes out, this Christian withers and just disappears. Dies. And then there is the thorny soil. And in that soil, the seed is struggling because this is a heart that is contaminated with mixed motivations and allegiances. And then there is the good soil that yields a crop, some 30, some 60, some a hundred fold. “He who has ears,” Jesus said, “let him hear.” We should not be surprised that there are those who are superficial in their response to the faith. In their response to the gospel. In their response to Christ. But their superficiality shows. That's the point. Eventually those who have eyes to see and ears to hear understand that that kind of superficiality shows in the parable. It shows when the full noon sun comes out as a metaphor of persecution. And when that sun bears its heat down upon that young seedling that is in that shallow soil, it withers and dies. This is a warning in Matthew chapter five in the Sermon on the Mount against nominal Christianity. “You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty? Again, it is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.” Now, as we have said, this is building upon the beatitudes. This is an indictment. It is a challenge. It's a test. We should read this passage the way the disciples would have heard it: “Are we really the followers of Christ?” But there is also a different and an additional meaning to this verse. And it has to do with the impact of Christ’s people in the society. Now, we would not know that merely from Matthew 5:13. We know that from what follows in this passage. In verses 14 and following, after Jesus spoke to his people and said, “You are the salt of the earth,” in verse 14, he says, “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket but on the lampstand. And it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” Now again, one of the dangers of any Bible study is that we'll take a verse out of context, and this is perhaps particularly dangerous and seductive when the verses are very familiar to us. And this verse is familiar to us. “You are the light of the world” is familiar to us by its use. And it's familiar to us by its misuse. Just to be very clear: this is not talking about the United States of America. This is talking about the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. One of the earliest of the Pilgrim fathers, John Winthrop, speaking of their ambition to establish a Christian community in which the pilgrims came, after all, to establish. He said, “This shall be as a city upon a hill.” C-I-T-E is the way he spelled it. In other words, this city, which is to be established on gospel principles, shall be a light unto the nations. That metaphor was left with the pilgrims, by and large, until president Ronald Reagan picked that up and applied it to the United States. He spoke of the United States as a city upon a hill. We understand what he meant by that, that the United States was to be an example to other nations. But in fairness to the Sermon on the Mount, this is not talking about any nation. Not even the United States of America. It’s speaking of Christ people. It’s speaking of the church. The church is the light of the world. And the church is to be, as it were, the city that is set upon a hill. In order to understand this passage, we need to understand something that comes along before this. This has to do with the fact that one of the primary points of identity for Israel as God's covenant people is that Israel was to be the light to the nations. This is familiar language. The Jewish people hearing Jesus speak of this would have understood that this was what was assigned to Israel. We can find this, for instance, in the prophet, Isaiah. In Isaiah chapter 42 and verse six, the Lord speaks to Isaiah to say, “I am the Lord and I have called you in righteousness. I will also hold you by the hand and watch over you. And I will appoint you as a covenant to the people, as a light to the nations, to open blind eyes, to being prisoners from the dungeon. And those who dwell in darkness from the prison.” That’s verses six and seven of Isaiah via chapter 42. Here, Israel is told, “You are to be as my people, a light to the nations.” This is in fulfillment of what was given as a witness unto Abraham and the Abrahamic covenant when we were told, “Through you and your seed, all the peoples of the earth shall be blessed.” They are blessed by the fact that Israel was to be a light to the nations. Not just to bear testimony to Israel's faith in the one true and living God, but to be a light unto others, that they too would come to know Yahweh, Jehovah, the one true and living God. We find that in Isaiah 42:6 and also in Isaiah 49, verse six, just a few pages over. The Lord speaking through Isaiah chapter 49 verse six, he says, “It is too small a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel. I will also make you a light to the nations so that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” In other words, here, Israel is told, “It's not just about you. It's about the fact that I will raise you up. I will preserve the tribes of Jacob and I will restore the preserved ones, the remnant of Israel, in order that my covenant people will be a light of the nations. Why? So that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” And how would this be accomplished? Well, Isaiah also speaks of that in a messianic prophecy that is very familiar to us in Isaiah chapter nine verse two. Very, very familiar language to us. “The people who walk in darkness will see a great light. Those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them.” So how does Israel become a light to the nations? Well, even in Isaiah, we are told that this is a messianic vision. This is a messianic promise. Through the Messiah the people who have dwelled in darkness will see a great light. In covenantal history, God's faithfulness to his promises to Israel are a demonstration of this light. The fact that God preserved his covenant people from their exile and brought them back and restored them is a testimony to this light. But in reality, it was only in the coming of the Messiah that the light was truly seen. The light was truly evident. The light was truly so present and undeniable that it became as a light unto the nations. Israel never fulfilled its universal purpose in itself. Its universal call and universal mission is fulfilled only in Christ. When Jesus says, “You are the light of the world,” therefore, he is picking up one of the most powerful metaphors. One of those powerful messages is identifying Israel. And he says, “It's fulfilled in you, in those who are my own.” But we also know it is fulfilled in Christ. Just think of the prologue to John's gospel. John chapter one. What do we read here? “In him was life. And the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it.” This is another very clear statement of the fact that it is in the Messiah that the light has come. Just for instance, in the prologue to John's gospel, when he shifts from speaking of Jesus to speaking of John the Baptist, he said, “There came a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify about the light so that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but he came to testify about the light. There was the true light, which coming into the world, enlightens every man. He was in the world and the world was made through him and the world did not know him. He came into his own and those who were his own did not receive him. But as many as received him to them gave he the right to become the children of God. Even to those who believe in his name, who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God.” Light becomes a powerful metaphor for our own salvation. We are enlightened by the gospel, and we are enlightened in order to see the gospel. Peter, writing to the church, in I Peter chapter two verse nine says this: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession.” Now, again, that is picking up the language very much like on the Sermon on the Mount. That is picking up the language of the Old Testament address to Israel. And now Peter says to the church, “You are the fulfillment of this. You are the recipient of these promises, and you in this present age are the demonstration of what God had promised to do through Israel so that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” So our salvation here is pictured as being taken from darkness to light. A little footnote: Does that mean that God is finished with Israel? By no means. Paul addresses this in the center of the book of Romans, where he makes very clear that there will be an outpouring of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ in the latter days, so that Israel will respond to Christ by faith. And thus the light will shine through them to the nations. But Jesus in Matthew chapter five is speaking to his own disciples and to those who are overhearing him and he says, “You are the light of the world.” This takes on a great deal of meaning. We need to understand that Jesus does not say that these are the marks of the church's aspiration. He doesn't say “You should try to be the salt of the earth.” He doesn't say, “You should try to be the light of the world.” He doesn't say, “If you're really faithful, if you're really true, you will be salty and you will be illuminating.” He says, “My people are these things, essentially. If you are my people, then you are salty and you are enlightening. If you are my people, you are the salt of the earth and you are the light of the world.” This is not something Jesus holds out as an aspiration. It's an established reality. It’s an objective reality. “If you are my people, this is who you are: salt of the earth and the light of the world.” Jesus presses this metaphor. He says, “A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.” I don't know if you've seen one of these maps, but the maps are absolutely fascinating. They are maps of the world at night taken by satellite. National Geographic published several of these. You can find them at the National Geographic website. If you haven't seen them, you need to see them because it tells you so much about the world. Because what you see is, is where light is found at night, and where the light is found, two other things are found. Human beings and modernity. Human beings and electricity. You find concentrations of human beings in a display of electricity at night in these incredible satellite maps. And where do you see illumination? Let's just say you take the east coast and the west coast of America, and you go about a hundred or 200 miles in. And there are bands of light all around. It's like the borders where the ocean hits are just illuminated with light. And as you come further into the country, there are now more sporadic groupings of light. You can identify cities. You don't even have to have place names. You can see Pittsburgh and Louisville and Cincinnati, and you can see Dallas and Houston and Chicago, and you can just travel. You can see these cities, but then the further west you go, the more darkness there appears. Why? Because the population density is going way down. Now, there are people there. And there is electricity there, but they're spread out in such a way that they're not concentrated. So they're not caught on the satellite image in the same way. You can certainly see why Canada is so affected by the United States. All you have to do is see one of these maps of North America at night, because what you see is that virtually the entire Canadian population in terms of its density is right along the American border. The further north you go, it’s dark. The rest of the world is very interesting because the rest of the world is relatively dark. Now, of course, in Europe, you have a great deal of light. And then also now in the Pacific rim, you have a great deal of light, in places like Australia. Where there are concentrations of population, you see the light, but you see that a great deal of the world is in darkness. What's very interesting about that kind of map is that it tells you where electricity is found, and it tells you where human beings are found in density. But where there is darkness, even though there is no electricity, it actually doesn't mean there are no human beings, because some of the largest cities in the world - and remember that the largest cities in the world are now in what we would call the third world or the two-thirds world or the developing world, or the global south, depending on what terminology you want to use - do not show up like the major cities of the north. But they are teaming with millions and millions and millions of persons. What do they lack? Well, according to this map, what they lack is access to electricity. But of course from a gospel perspective, it will be fascinating to see where light would show up in terms of the presence of gospel congregations. That would be interesting, wouldn’t it? If we had some kind of satellite image where all of a sudden, we could see the population of the world, and we could see not light bulbs being reflected in terms of the satellite perception, but what if we could see the gospel? What if we get to see gospel preaching? What if we could see evangelism as illuminated in that way? I think we would be embarrassed to see the disparity between, for instance, North America, where we would have a lot of light, thankfully of gospel churches, and where the rest of the world would be so hungry for the same. That's not to say that our task in this country is complete. It's not to say this country is a Christian country. If anything, the passage we're reading right now should be an indictment of American Christianity because of its nominalism and because of its superficiality. There is not enough light there nor enough demonstration of the transforming power of the gospel. But a city set upon a hill cannot be hidden any more than on one of these satellite maps. A city that has electricity, that has the lights on, cannot be hidden. It cannot happen. The satellite will find that light and will display it on the image. And again, I would just suggest you go and look at it, because it's just a matter of sheer fascination. “A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.” Christ’s people will become evident. Christ’s people will be evident in the world by the saltiness that is the proof of the gospel. And by the light, the illuminating power of the gospel, that is our assignment. “A city set on a hill cannot be hidden,” Christ says, “nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand.” And it gives light to all who are in the house. Now, one of the other things we have to keep in mind about this is that we have this ability to walk into a room and flip on a switch, and there is light. And I really like that. But you realize how much that becomes ingrained within us, and you know, to your own embarrassment, as I share that embarrassment with you, how that training and patterning comes out. Because what happens when the electricity goes out? You still turn on the switches. When you go in the room, it's just human nature. We're so well-trained in that way. There's no electricity, but you enter a room. What do you do? You turn on the light. And when you turn on the light, you're shocked when nothing happens, because it's supposed to come on. That light is supposed to illuminate the room. But we have light bulbs all over. I can't imagine how many light bulbs are in the house in which we live. I don't want to ever have to count them. It takes a lot of light, and we use light in so many different kinds of ways. Just think of all the light bulbs in this building. They're there for a purpose. It would be ridiculous to go to the trouble to light a lamp only to cover it up. That's insane. It is likewise insane for a Christian to claim to follow Christ and to give no demonstration of it. And furthermore, it defies the very purpose of God in bringing enlightenment to us if we are not a light unto others. No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bushel or under a basket, but puts it on a lampstand. Now, another one of the ways that we can be fooled and, perhaps, made more complacent in understanding this passage is that light for us is such an easy thing. It is a matter of flipping a switch or plugging in a lamp and putting in a light bulb. We have very powerful little lights that can now be carried on a key chain. There's no excuse for us not to have light. We have energy. We have power, and we have access to light. We live in multi-room houses in which every room has its own illumination, but the vast majority, if not all of them, of those hearing Jesus speak would almost assuredly be living in homes that would have been one room in terms of a living area. And they did the most amazing thing back during this time: when it was dark, they slept. Because it was relatively difficult to do much of anything else. Because even when we think about lamps and candles, we need to realize that in the first century, those are still very, very dim in terms of the light that they put out. I have in my library a lamp from the time of Jesus. It's a beautiful little thing. You would have poured a little oil into it. You would have put a little cotton wick into it and you would have lit it. And it would have put off a very, very dim glow, perhaps enough just to take care of some of the necessities of life. But it would not light so that you could read very well. It would not light so that you could do the cooking. It would light just enough so that you would be able to do the necessary things at night: get ready to go to bed and to sleep. Jesus said it would be foolish for someone to go to all that trouble, to light a lamp, and then put a basket over it. You wouldn't do that. Instead, you'd put it on a lampstand, because the whole purpose of having it is to maximize the light. And so in a house, you would put it on a lampstand so that there would be some glow in the entire room. So also God's people are not to hide their witness. Christ’s people are not to be an invisible people, but are to be evident by the illumination that comes through us, through Christ’s disciples to the world. Lest we would miss the point, verse 16 makes it emphatically clear: “Let your light shine before men.” So Jesus here is very clear in increasing the specificity. He increases the sharpness of his point by making this now an imperative, because the verses of 13 and 14 and then 14, continuing into 15, were descriptive. Now, of course, since they're in the Sermon, we know they’re also in the context as words of encouragement and, indeed, admonition, but they are descriptive. “You are the salt of the earth.” “You are the light of the world.” But in verse 16, it becomes a command and an imperative. “Let your light shine before men.” Why? How? “In such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your father who isn't heaven.” So Jesus here says to his own people, “It’s not just that you are the salt of the earth. And it's not just that you are the light of the world. It is that my purpose in you is that you would let your light shine before the world, before humanity, before men, in such a way that they would see your good works.” There is no message more clear in the New Testament than salvation by grace through faith. There is no message more repugnant to the New Testament than works-righteousness, but there is no point more easily missed than the fact that the salvation which comes to us by grace through faith is to become evident in good works, which are done to the glory of God. There is no tension between Paul and James. There is no confusion between grace and works. The New Testament is clear. Salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone. [inaudible] There is no question that in the new Testament works-righteousness is described as an anti-gospel. It is a fatal misconstrual of the gospel. It is the opposite of the logic of the gospel. It is a denial of grace, and it is a repudiation of faith. It leads not to life but to death. But is a fatal misunderstanding of the gospel of grace if we think that grace never becomes evident. Because the New Testament is clear here. Jesus is clear. Grace does become evident. Grace becomes evident in the life of the one who has been saved by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone. There's the evidence of good works. There's the evidence of the transforming power of Christ in the life. There's the evidence that old things are now gone. Behold, all things have become new. There is the evidence of the fact that the things we once hated, we now love, and the things we once loved, we now hated. The things which we once could not do and would not do, we now find ourselves doing, and we find Christ’s pleasure in doing them. But our good works are not to draw attention to the works nor to the worker. Our good works are not to draw attention to ourselves in terms of our goodness. That's the temptation, isn't it? We all want to have the merit badge of good works. But what we are told here is that these works are to be done. “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they would see your good works” and then do what? “and glorify your father, who is in heaven.” I met a parent, a mother actually, of one of our students. A couple of years ago, I happened to be preaching in a church. And I did not know that this was a home church and one of our students. And, and yet I was thrilled. And then his mother came up to me and she said, “I want to tell you why I believe in the gospel.” She said, “Now, I always believed in it. But I want to tell you why I believe in it in a whole new way now.” She said, “Because I know my son and I know who he was, and I know who he is. And I know there can be only one explanation for that. And that is the power of God and Jesus Christ.” She said, “I have never known anyone who was headed in so many wrong directions simultaneously as he was.” I never knew that a mother could find such shame in a son and such fear in what might happen next. And she said, “But when he came to faith in Christ, everything changed.” And she said, “You know, I doubted it, because he had tried every scheme imaginable. He tried this and that, and he'd come home with plan A and plan B. But none of them worked.” And she said, “So I was somewhat skeptical.” Then she said, “But I have seen the proof positive because of the change that's coming to his life.” She said, “Nothing explains this except Jesus. Nothing possibly could explain this.” She said, “You know, everything, he once loved, he just left. And now he's doing this stuff he used to make fun of.” And she said, “You know, the strangest thing is I'm embarrassed, because as a mother, I was praying for him this way, but I was praying but not believing that I would ever see this.” She said, “But the weirdest thing is his former friends find him such a puzzle.” She said, “They still come around to ask about him thinking that he's going to fall back into their ways. And yet, he doesn't. But he does see them and he just keeps witnessing to them.” And she said, “The amazing thing is they keep coming back.” Well, that was one mother's testimony, a testimony of what she has seen happened in her own son, the son who had gone in every bad direction imaginable and is now called as a minister of the gospel of Christ. Not in some flash and immediate thing that in which he just showed up at the seminary right after having a conversion experience. No, this was after some time when this that is commanded in the Sermon on the Mount had been demonstrated in his life. The demonstration had been there. And on the basis of that, the church celebrated this call in his life. One of the things I said to her is, “Look, you know, there isn't a student at the seminary who doesn't have this kind of story. It's not always as graphic. It's not always as dramatic as the story you have told, but this is the story of every sinner transformed by grace.” This is the apostle Paul's testimony. This is Romans chapter seven that leads into Romans chapter eight. This is a story of what happens in the life of one whose heart despises the things of God and is now transformed to the love of the things of God. A heart that is entirely self-centered in animosity towards God, an egocentrism as the very root of its operation that is transformed. And only the grace of God in Christ can explain this. And God is glorified. “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works.” And they better be there. That's the demonstration. That's the indictment of easy-believism and nominal Christianity. This is the passage that follows the beatitudes and says, “Look, those are not sweet little sayings that are to be written just like their little pithy maxims be found in a greeting card or printed on a calendar somewhere and hung on a wall. This has to be the defining mark of my people. And my people will show themselves, as my people, the same way that salt is undeniably salty and light is undeniably bright. My people will make themselves evident. Let your light so shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who was in heaven.” When this is true, when this happens, then God is glorified through the power of the display of the gospel of Christ. This passage is not first and foremost about the church in the world but about the church before her Lord. But it is also about the church in the world. And it’s not about political influence. It's not about cultural influence. It's about gospel influence: the salt of the earth. And the light of the world. We are to let our light shine before men in such a way that they may see our good works and glorify our Father, who is in heaven. And when that happens, we bring a focus on the gospel. We demonstrate the preeminence of Christ and we show the power of the gospel and transformed the lives. And the end result of that is that God is glorified. Again, it comes back to the fact that what we believe is that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone. Let's pray together. Father, we are so thankful for this passage. Thank you for setting these words in such an order that we understand how one point leads to another, how one theme leads to another, how one verse blends into another, how your consistent and progressive revelation in Scripture helps us to see all that we need to see in order to be your disciples in this generation. Father, thank you for informing us through Christ that we are, as his people, salt and light, the salt of the earth, the light of the world. Father, may we live by the power of the gospel and the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit in us. Maybe we live as Christ’s people under the authority of Scripture in such a way that people may see our good works and glorify you. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. God bless you. We'll see you next Sunday. And we'll pick up when Jesus says that he came not to abolish the Law or the Prophets, but to fulfill. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2006/10/22/matthew-510-12/ Sun, 22 Oct 2006 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 47:25 http://www.albertmohler.com/2006/10/22/matthew-510-12/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2006/10/15/matthew-59/ Sun, 15 Oct 2006 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 42:22 http://www.albertmohler.com/2006/10/15/matthew-59/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2006/10/08/matthew-58/ Sun, 08 Oct 2006 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 36:49 http://www.albertmohler.com/2006/10/08/matthew-58/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2006/10/01/matthew-55-7/ Sun, 01 Oct 2006 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 37:15 http://www.albertmohler.com/2006/10/01/matthew-55-7/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2006/08/27/matthew-51-4/ Sun, 27 Aug 2006 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:42:36 http://www.albertmohler.com/2006/08/27/matthew-51-4/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2006/08/13/john-1713-26/ Sun, 13 Aug 2006 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 46:45 http://www.albertmohler.com/2006/08/13/john-1713-26/ Audio, Exposition, John, Message, Speaking and Teaching noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2006/08/06/john-178-16-2/ Sun, 06 Aug 2006 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 38:07 http://www.albertmohler.com/2006/08/06/john-178-16-2/ Audio, Exposition, John, Message, Speaking and Teaching noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2006/07/16/john-172-7/ Sun, 16 Jul 2006 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 46:47 http://www.albertmohler.com/2006/07/16/john-172-7/ Audio, Exposition, John, Message, Speaking and Teaching noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2006/07/09/john-171/ Sun, 09 Jul 2006 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 42:36 http://www.albertmohler.com/2006/07/09/john-171/ Audio, Exposition, John, Message, Speaking and Teaching noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2006/06/25/matthew-412-17/ Sun, 25 Jun 2006 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 42:02 http://www.albertmohler.com/2006/06/25/matthew-412-17/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2006/06/18/matthew-41-11/ Sun, 18 Jun 2006 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 41:12 http://www.albertmohler.com/2006/06/18/matthew-41-11/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2006/06/04/matthew-313-45/ Sun, 04 Jun 2006 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 39:20 http://www.albertmohler.com/2006/06/04/matthew-313-45/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2006/05/14/matthew-37-12/ Sun, 14 May 2006 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 40:21 http://www.albertmohler.com/2006/05/14/matthew-37-12/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2006/04/30/matthew-31-6/ Sun, 30 Apr 2006 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 42:10 http://www.albertmohler.com/2006/04/30/matthew-31-6/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2006/04/23/matthew-213-23/ Sun, 23 Apr 2006 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 44:00 http://www.albertmohler.com/2006/04/23/matthew-213-23/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2006/04/09/matthew-21-12/ Sun, 09 Apr 2006 11:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 37:26 http://www.albertmohler.com/2006/04/09/matthew-21-12/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2006/03/26/matthew-118-25/ Sun, 26 Mar 2006 10:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 44:51 http://www.albertmohler.com/2006/03/26/matthew-118-25/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2006/03/19/matthew-11-17/ Sun, 19 Mar 2006 10:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 47:28 http://www.albertmohler.com/2006/03/19/matthew-11-17/ Audio, Exposition, Matthew, Matthew Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2006/03/12/romans-1617-27/ Sun, 12 Mar 2006 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 47:07 http://www.albertmohler.com/2006/03/12/romans-1617-27/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2006/02/12/romans-1616-19/ Sun, 12 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 38:27 http://www.albertmohler.com/2006/02/12/romans-1616-19/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2006/01/29/romans-161-16/ Sun, 29 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 40:43 http://www.albertmohler.com/2006/01/29/romans-161-16/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2006/01/22/romans-1515-33/ Sun, 22 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 41:00 http://www.albertmohler.com/2006/01/22/romans-1515-33/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2006/01/15/romans-1513-19/ Sun, 15 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:44:46 http://www.albertmohler.com/2006/01/15/romans-1513-19/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2006/01/08/recap-of-rom-151-13/ Sun, 08 Jan 2006 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 40:58 http://www.albertmohler.com/2006/01/08/recap-of-rom-151-13/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2005/12/18/romans-151-13/ Sun, 18 Dec 2005 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 44:45 http://www.albertmohler.com/2005/12/18/romans-151-13/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2005/12/11/romans-147-23/ Sun, 11 Dec 2005 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 43:20 http://www.albertmohler.com/2005/12/11/romans-147-23/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2005/12/04/romans-141-10/ Sun, 04 Dec 2005 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 39:22 http://www.albertmohler.com/2005/12/04/romans-141-10/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2005/11/27/romans-138-14/ Sun, 27 Nov 2005 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 41:59 http://www.albertmohler.com/2005/11/27/romans-138-14/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2005/11/13/romans-131-7/ Sun, 13 Nov 2005 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 39:24 http://www.albertmohler.com/2005/11/13/romans-131-7/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2005/11/06/romans-1214-21/ Sun, 06 Nov 2005 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 43:53 http://www.albertmohler.com/2005/11/06/romans-1214-21/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2005/10/30/romans-129-13/ Sun, 30 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 39:59 http://www.albertmohler.com/2005/10/30/romans-129-13/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2005/10/16/romans-123-8/ Sun, 16 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 44:23 http://www.albertmohler.com/2005/10/16/romans-123-8/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2005/10/09/romans-121-2/ Sun, 09 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 38:45 http://www.albertmohler.com/2005/10/09/romans-121-2/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2005/10/02/romans-1133-121/ Sun, 02 Oct 2005 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 38:10 http://www.albertmohler.com/2005/10/02/romans-1133-121/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2005/09/25/romans-1111-32/ Sun, 25 Sep 2005 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 40:15 http://www.albertmohler.com/2005/09/25/romans-1111-32/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2005/09/11/romans-111-15/ Sun, 11 Sep 2005 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 38:29 http://www.albertmohler.com/2005/09/11/romans-111-15/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2005/09/04/hurricane-katrina-god-in-the-storm-job-37/ Sun, 04 Sep 2005 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:01:11 http://www.albertmohler.com/2005/09/04/hurricane-katrina-god-in-the-storm-job-37/ Audio, Biblical Topics, Exposition, Job noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2005/08/28/romans-1018-21/ Sun, 28 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 41:36 http://www.albertmohler.com/2005/08/28/romans-1018-21/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2005/08/21/romans-1014-15/ Sun, 21 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 40:48 http://www.albertmohler.com/2005/08/21/romans-1014-15/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2005/08/14/romans-105-13/ Sun, 14 Aug 2005 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 46:11 http://www.albertmohler.com/2005/08/14/romans-105-13/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2005/07/31/romans-101-8/ Sun, 31 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 35:14 http://www.albertmohler.com/2005/07/31/romans-101-8/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2005/06/26/romans-101-10/ Sun, 26 Jun 2005 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 38:08 http://www.albertmohler.com/2005/06/26/romans-101-10/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2005/06/12/romans-919-33/ Sun, 12 Jun 2005 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 36:01 http://www.albertmohler.com/2005/06/12/romans-919-33/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2005/05/29/romans-93-18/ Sun, 29 May 2005 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 47:25 http://www.albertmohler.com/2005/05/29/romans-93-18/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2005/05/15/romans-839-95/ Sun, 15 May 2005 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 40:56 http://www.albertmohler.com/2005/05/15/romans-839-95/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2005/05/08/romans-833-39/ Sun, 08 May 2005 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 44:52 http://www.albertmohler.com/2005/05/08/romans-833-39/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2005/05/01/romans-830-33/ Sun, 01 May 2005 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full http://www.albertmohler.com/2005/05/01/romans-830-33/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2005/04/24/romans-828-30/ Sun, 24 Apr 2005 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 47:35 http://www.albertmohler.com/2005/04/24/romans-828-30/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2005/04/17/romans-826-28/ Sun, 17 Apr 2005 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 36:57 http://www.albertmohler.com/2005/04/17/romans-826-28/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2005/03/20/romans-814-25/ Sun, 20 Mar 2005 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 44:27 http://www.albertmohler.com/2005/03/20/romans-814-25/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2005/03/13/romans-81-13/ Sun, 13 Mar 2005 00:00:00 +0000 There is one and only one means of rescue. And that is Jesus Christ. Paul understands that even as he observes himself, what he sees in the mirror is a sinner. And the problem with being a sinner is you can't extricate yourself from that problem. There is literally no way out, because the more you try to work your way out of sin, the more you find that it is an impossible reality. And in our power and our strength, there's no way out of this. There's no way to undo the sin problem. The only answer, the only rescue is going to come from outside of ourselves. And that comes through Jesus Christ. Paul tells us that at the end of Romans chapter seven, and then when we begin in Romans chapter eight, verse one, we come across one of those three great “therefore’s” of the book of Romans.
We encountered one already in Romans five one. Now Romans eight one, we will encounter yet a third Romans 12 one. But Paul says here, “therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Jesus.” Now lest we go pass this too quickly, “No condemnation,” you'll notice he doesn't say “There's a modified condemnation.” He doesn't say, “There's a lesser condemnation.” “There is now no condemnation.” So it isn't that Jesus paid it mostly. Or her Jesus paid a lot. It's, “Jesus paid it all.” That's the song we sing. And this is why it's because the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ was fully satisfactory. When Jesus Christ shed his blood on Calvary's cross for the remission of our sins, he paid the entire penalty. And because his sacrifice was received by the Father as completely acceptable, there is now no condemnation, but there's now no condemnation for specific persons.
And that is for those who are in Christ Jesus. Now all the way back in Romans chapter seven, we talked about Paul's notion of the believer’s mystical union with Christ. And this is very important. It's not only that we are associated with Christ. It's not only that we believe in him. It is that we are now (you see the preposition here) in him. We are now in his work. We are now in his people. We are now in his body because the church is described as the body of Christ. And the believer having been regenerated, having been renewed, having been redeemed, is now incorporated into the body of Christ. We are now in Christ Jesus. We are now in a mystical union. When we say “mystical,” it means a mysterious union with Christ. We are united with him. And Paul goes on to say in verse two, as he explains this work “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.” The law of the Spirit of life.
Now, again, Paul has a dichotomy in view. The dichotomy is between flesh and spirit. Jesus in John chapter six says. “The Spirit gives life.” The flesh profits nothing. And this dichotomy is a central metaphor for understanding the Christian life: flesh versus spirit. Now in the most important way, Paul here is not saying that this is the believer’s reality. At this point, he's not mainly focusing on the believer’s struggle with sin. That will come later. This is on the before-and-after picture. This is the before-our-salvation, when we were slaves to sin. And when we serve the flesh versus the after-our-salvation, when by the grace of God there's now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. And we now live by the Spirit, “for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.”
So there was a law. It's not now that there is no law. It is that now there is a new law. The old law led to sin and death. But this new law that operates in the Christian life leads to life. It has set us free from the law of sin and death. And then at verse three, we come across one of those great explanatory verses. We need this. Verse three helps to explain everything we have read in the entire book of Romans, everything we studied until this moment. “For what the law could not do, weak as it was, through the flesh, God did, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh.” Now think about Romans 8:3 and look back to Romans chapter three, beginning at verse 21. Paul is a wonderful teacher because, in repetitive cycles, he comes back to the same truth.
He amplifies it. He magnifies it and then he moves on and he says, “Let's go back. Let's remember that touchstone in chapter three beginning at verse 21.” Now listen if this isn't almost exactly what we're hearing in Romans chapter eight, but we understand it better now that we're in Romans chapter eight than we did when we were at Romans chapter three verse 21: “But now apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been being witnessed by the law and the prophets. Even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, for all who believe. For there is no distinction, for all of us sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Here's this part, listen: “being justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption, which is in Christ, Jesus, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in his blood through faith. This was to demonstrate his righteousness because in the forbearance of God, he passed over the sins previously committed for the demonstration I say of his righteousness at the present time, so that he would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” Now in Romans chapter three, Paul is here, steadfastly, determined to show us that God saves sinners without compromising his own righteousness. Now, when we come to chapter eight verse three, we're told again that what the law couldn't do, God did, but not only was it fully in accord with his own righteousness, he demanded the sacrifice and he provided the sacrifice. It is also fully effective for our salvation. He condemned sin in the flesh. In whose flesh? In the flesh of the Lord Jesus Christ. The penalty for sin was paid. The Lord did not cancel the penalty for sin.
He demanded the penalty for sin, but he provided the penalty for sin through Jesus Christ, the Son. Thus, he condemned sin in the flesh. Our flesh would not do, because we are sinners. What the law could not do weak as it was through the flesh. God did. And then in verse four, there again is a verse that hearkens back to Romans chapter three, so that the requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us. So the requirement of the law is fulfilled in us. That's the amazing thing. The requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. The penalty for our sin was paid in full, but as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, we know that we are not the one who paid it. It is the Lord Jesus Christ, but it was paid in full.
And the Lord received the sacrifice on the Son. Absolutely. And having received the sacrifice, the requirement of the law was met. And it's met in those who are now described the believers, the redeemed, as those who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. Now we pick up with new material in verse five: “For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh. But those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death. But the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.”
This gets down to the disposition of the heart. We look across humanity, and again, there are all kinds of distinctions people would make.: there are racial distinction, socio-economic distinctions. There are political distinctions, demographic distinctions, all kinds of distinctions of culture and ethnicity and other kinds of demographic factors. But none of them matters. In the span of eternity, none of those distinctions matter at all. And the “all” passages in Romans should be enough to convince us of that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All those distinctions wither away when you understand that the diagnosis for each one of us is sinner, but all those distinctions also melt away. When we understand that there's only one real distinction that matters. And that's the distinction between the saved and the lost, between those who are in Christ and those who are not. Paul wants us to see that distinction.
He's going to make that distinction very, very clear, not only in these verses, but in what's going to follow, especially after chapter 12, where he's going to deal with how Christian should look in the world, how we should live in the world, think in the world, negotiate, navigate in the world. He's going to be very clear that we should stand out, not as those who are conformed to the world, but who are transformed by the renewing of the mind. But right now his concern is between those who are in Christ and those who are not.
And you'll notice that he says here that there are those who are according to the flesh and that there are those who are according to the Spirit. Now let me suggest to you that there is a very dangerous misreading of this passage that you will sometimes find among some Christians, some evangelicals, some very well-meaning, well-intentioned evangelicals who aren't following closely Paul's logic in the book of Romans. They will suggest that within the Christian, there's a war between the flesh and the spirit. Now that is dangerously somewhat true. And we know that's the case, isn't it? We still struggle with sin. We still struggle with temptations and all the rest. But the misreading of this text is to believe that there could be believers in the Lord Jesus Christ who live according to the flesh. This is the myth of the carnal Christian.
And there are those who teach that there are carnal - meaning “flesh,” by the way, in the Latin - Christians. They simply are believers, but they don't live like believers. Paul doesn't know about those people. Now let me tell you, he doesn’t mean that he doesn't know Christians who do not sin. That's different, but here's the difference: a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ cannot sin without an inevitable consequence suffering the tortures of conscience. Is that distinction clear? You see if one is able to sin without any remorse, without any concern, without any grief, without any repentance, then I think Paul is telling us that person's not a believer. Now we know that there are believers who for some time live in rebellion. For some time, they may live with a rebellion against God's word and live with obvious sin, even public sin, even publicly known and notorious sin, but they cannot for long stay in that state of sin without their troubled conscience, by the work of the Spirit, bringing them back to repentance. There's simply no notion in the New Testament of someone who is merely an intellectual believer in the Lord Jesus Christ but is not a follower of Christ. That's what Paul wants to make clear here. Those who are according to the flesh, they're not believers. Contrasted with them are those who are according to the Spirit. in verse six, he makes very clear the mindset on the flesh is death.
Now he can't talk that way about believers. Paul won't talk that way about believers. Believers are those who are safe, as he will make clear at the end of this passage. That's what's so important. You'll see by the time we get down to the end of Romans chapter eight, this majestic passage on God's protection of believers, we're going to understand that he would not speak of believers as those who would be spiritually dead. “But the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.” By the way, the word used for “life” just the common word that we would think of where there was once death. The word “peace” is the characteristic word that Paul uses in his greetings. At the very beginning of his letter, it means not only the absence of hostility. It means the presence of wholeness. It's this beautiful picture of peace. It means more than just not being at war.
Paul continues to tell us that the mindset on the flesh is hostile toward God. I was talking to a group of Christians just in the last couple of days there in Georgia. I was talking about the Christian worldview and trying to tie it all together. It was a leadership conference for the Sunday school teachers of the church. Now you're going to love this. I was asked to go down and spend two days with the Sunday school teachers of this church. And I want to tell you why I did it. It's because this is a church down there at First Baptist Woodstock that is so intentional about Bible teaching. Now, when I talked to the Sunday school teachers of the church, I was talking to 650 Sunday school teachers in one church. That’s incredible. And twice a year, they have these big conferences on how to teach.
And I think it's an incredible idea. It was great. I enjoyed being there with them. And I got there and discovered that I had four one-hour sessions. They snuck out between a couple of the sessions to get a donut and some orange juice and came right back. I was very impressed. But when I was talking about the Christian worldview, I was talking about the realities of sin. And I said, “You know, in order to understand and diagnose the human problem, we've got to have that one word the world doesn't understand and doesn't like one bit. And that's the word sin. Because if you take that word and that truth out of our theological vocabulary, we have no way to explain humanity. We have no way to explain ourselves.
We have no way to explain the problem.” But I said, “You'll notice that that when you are dealing with sinners, you've got to look beneath the sins to the sin. You know, so often we look at the sins, but you got to look at the sin.” And I talked about this as a parent. I said, “You know, when you're looking at a child, you can easily look at your own child and think, ‘This kid is all right, except for these little sins.’ But the Bible says, he's a sinner. Well, that's a different thing than just sending. That means that from birth, the Bible tells us, we are opposed to God. We are hostile to God. Now, how does that turn out? It means that we want our own way. We want to be self-actualizing human beings. We want to be autonomous individuals. We want to be able to have our own way set our own course live by our own rules.”
And that's precisely the kind of hostility Paul's talking about here in verse seven: “The mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God.” Now we really don't like language quite this harsh, because it would be more comfortable if Paul said, “You know, sinners, well, they sin. And sinners, they don't quite understand everything. And sinners, they fail to see what they're missing.” But Paul goes right to the heart of matter. He cuts far beneath all of those concerns and says, “They're hostile toward God.” Now that's the picture of all of us in our sin. Remember when we already were studying back in Romans, we said, “While we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” So in other words, Christ died coming for the enemies of God. He came to redeem God's enemies. Those who were hostile to God. “The mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God.”
We need to know that. We need to know that it's not some kind of mild disposition. It's not some kind of just being out of sync. It's being hostile toward God, “for it does not subject itself to the law of God for it is not even able to do so.” Oh no. That last part we need, that two sinners can't please God. It's not just that they don't want to; it's that they can't. There's no righteousness in us that will please God. And there's nothing we can do that would please God. there's no way we can dig ourselves out of the hole of our own sin.
“And those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” You know, Paul really came to understand that in his own personal testimony. What does he say? He says, “I came to understand that my righteousness was as filthy rags. I spent all my life as a Pharisee, trying to please God. That's what I wanted to do. That's what the Pharisees were all about.” He said, “I was a Jew born of the tribe of Benjamin. I did everything right. I studied. I devoted myself to prayer. I fasted. I did all the things Pharisees do to try to prove themselves righteous. And I finally found out there was nothing. I could do that in my hostility toward God. In my state as a sinner, there was nothing I could do that could please God, for those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” Now in verse nine, there's this big change.
There's a “however.” On the other hand, “You are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.” Now he's not talking to some Christian saying, “Some of you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit.” He's writing to believers. If you are a believer, then you're not of the flesh. You are in the Spirit. Now again, he's already told us that doesn't mean we do not sin. It does mean we cannot be satisfied in our sin. It does mean that we cannot sin and give ourselves to sin. It does mean that the Holy Spirit of God is working within us to convict us of our sin and to bring us to repentance.
“You are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him.” There you go. If you just read this carefully, this means that if you don't have the Spirit of God, then you don't belong to Christ. So again, we're at that distinction between believers and unbelievers. We're not talking about two different kinds of believers, faithful believers and unfaithful believers, carnal believers and spiritual believers. We're talking about believers and unbelievers. And that's a very, very important point. “If Christ is in you though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” A little turn in the argument here. Okay. “If Christ is in us,” Paul says, “though the body is dead because of sin yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness.” I can remember as a young Christian trying to come to grips with the fact that my body was dead now. Not dead yet, but dead as eventual.
But the spirit is alive. We all still struggle with that, don't we? There's a “me” in here somewhere that is associated with his body but isn't limited to this body. Tell me you agree with this. Okay, good. You know that the is you, but you're more than the body. And there's one thing to be 15 trying to figure this out and another thing to be 45. Because at 15, all the signs are that you're more alive every day, but at 45, every time you run the hairbrush, there's death in it. You're going to look at that and think, you know, those hairs were once in my head, they have let go, and they're not coming back. Even when the things start to sag. I all of a sudden realized that there are lines in my face that weren't there before. And I don't think they're going away.
There's a big difference between being 15 and 45, but you know what? The 15 year old's body is just as dead as the 95 year old's body in terms of spiritual realities. But by the same token, in the 15-year-old believer and a 115-year-old believer, the spirit is just as alive. And this is a tremendous promise to us as we look at this. And we realize that he's talking here about eschatological realities. Realities at the end, realities when the Lord consummates all things. It is the promise of the resurrection of Christ as our resurrection as well. That's where he's going to be headed here. “If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin. Yet, the spirit is alive because of righteousness.” Here's the resurrection. Look at verse 11: “But if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the Spirit of God, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” So the wages of sin is death. Remember we read that the wages of sin is death. Our bodies are going die, and believers die. The eternal life that is God's work and gift to us through Christ is not the perpetuation of this earthly frame. Believers die pretty much on schedule, but there's the promise of Christ’s resurrection. We do not die as those who are spiritually dead, but as those who are spiritually alive, and even our mortal bodies will be resurrected as the Lord raised the body of Jesus Christ.
“So then brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh to live according to the flesh for if you were living, according to the flesh, you must die. But if by the Spirit you were putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are being led by the Spirit are being led by the Spirit of God. These are the sons of God.” This dichotomy between “flesh” and “Spirit” comes to a conclusion here, where in verse 12 we are told that we are under obligation, but we're under obligation to the Spirit, not to the flesh. “Those who are of the flesh are under obligation to the flesh.” Now, what would it mean to live under obligation to the flesh? Let's think about it for a minute. The flesh demands to be satisfied. And the unbeliever answers that by satisfying the flesh. We can understand that, but the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ can't live that way.
It's a very different life by a very different set of priorities and a very different power that is within us. “We are under obligation not to the flesh to live according to the flesh, but to the Spirit.” Paul will interrupt himself here. But his point is, “But to the Spirit, because we live by the spirit. For, if you're living according to the flesh, you must die.” Paul here gets at the verdict. The wages of sin is death. “But if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body you will live.” So that's a reference to our sanctification. There's God's work within us after our salvation. It's a progressive work where the Holy Spirit works within us to conform us to the image of Christ, and thus in the healthy, mature, faithful believer, it is not that we do not sin, but it is that we find ourselves conquering areas of sin in our life by the power of God within us. It does mean that as the Holy Spirit works within us, we no longer even desire some of the things we desired before. It is a progressive sanctification. And as the Holy Spirit reorders and rewires our thinking and our desiring and our moral consciousness and all the rest, we find that we can't even understand why we once thought as we once thought. “I don't even know why I used to do that. I don't even know why I used to think that way. I don't even know why I thought that was a good idea. I don't know why I thought that was a great plan. I don't even want that anymore.” And it's not because we have made ourselves holy; it's because the Holy Spirit is at work within us, conforming us to the image of Christ. [inaudible]
Now in verse 14, there's an enormous turn in this passage. And this is great stuff. “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.” Paul's going to leave behind the unbelievers as a topic of his concern for the next several verses. He's going to turn to the church. And as a matter of fact, for more or less, the rest of the book of Romans. That's what he's going to be doing, focusing on the church. And he says, “We, here, are not only those who have been forgiven our sins and incorporated into the body of Christ, but we are those who are being led by the Spirit of God and are the sons of God.” Now that's something that if we didn't have this passage, we wouldn't understand. We are the sons and daughters of God. [inaudible]
You have to go back to the first century and first century Judaism to realize how audacious that statement is. If you go back to the Gospels, and you see Jesus Christ speaking similarly, and you see how the Jewish authorities of the day responded with such venom, with such anger and outrage that someone would claim to be the son of God. Now, obviously when we're talking about Jesus Christ, we're talking about the incarnate Son of the living God, but now Paul says that believers are also in their own way sons of God. We've been adopted. Verse 15: “For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons, by which we cry out, ‘Abba, Father.’” One of the main New Testament words about our salvation is the word adoption. Now, just as we were beginning the class, we heard about Lisa Golladay going to pick up this little boy. And the Golladay's are going to adopt this child. Now it's a legal process, and it's just heartwarming to hear about it. It's exciting to even think about. We know how adoption works. A child that is not yours by birth is received into your family. And in the process of adoption, you say, “I will now receive this child as my own.” Now, legally, what is the status of an adopted son?
Legally, It's the same as her son by birth. Now, that's an amazing legal reality. It's a beautiful picture of love, because adoption is such a powerful metaphor, because no one has to adopt this child. If a child is yours by birth, the obligation is obvious. But if the child is not yours by birth the obligation is your desire. It is your strategic acceptance of this responsibility. And Terry and Lisa are going to say, “We're going to adopt this child as our own. We're going to treat him as our own. He will be as our son.” Well, when this little boy comes to understand that he'll come to understand that there were two parents who loved him so much that they received him as their own. They clothed them as their own son. They take care of him as their own son. They teach him and discipline them as their own son. He is their own son.
Well, Paul says, that's what our salvation is also about. God has no obligation to forgive sinners. God is under no obligation to do anything on behalf of sinners, but God does this through his Son. And when he saved sinners, he didn't save us merely that we would be transformed from death to life and from sin to grace, but that we will be adopted as his own sons. The spirit of adoption Paul's talking about here is just incredible. He says in verse 15 that by adoption, we're able to cry out, “Abba, Father.” That’s the Aramaic word for father. It's a familiar word. It's a word of love and endearment. We're able to cry out to God as Father. Not only as judge. Not only as the holy omnipotent One of Israel. Not only as the Lord Almighty, but as Father. In verse 16, “The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit, that we are the children of God.” That's the affirmation. The Holy Spirit continually reminds us of this, that we are the children of God. “And if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him so that we may be also glorified with him.” Now, when we think of inheritance, we tend to think of stuff, the kind of stuff that is left in a will. And we may wonder where the Christian stuff is.
Well, there's no stuff. It's a lot more important than stuff. It’s an inheritance of that which is of eternal importance. It is an inheritance of an eschatological promise, a promise at the end. It is the inheritance of a promise that all will one day be well. It is the inheritance of a promise that Christ’s work, which was begun in us, will be completed in us. It's an eschatological promise that we are safe in Christ. It's a promise of glorification in verse 17. Now this is one of those doctrines that is tragically overlooked in the church today. When we talk about Christ’s work in us, so often when we present the gospel, we just deal with how we are saved from our sin, how those who are lost are found, those who are the enemies of God are adopted as his sons and daughters.
That's all important, but we need to point out that Christ's work in us is not completed at the moment of our salvation. It is continued in us, and there are two big words. We already used one of them. That's the doctrine of sanctification. Sanct-tu. It’s simply the Latin word “holiness.” So the doctrine of sanctification is the doctrine of how we've become holy by the work of God within us. Now, this is not instantaneous. We're not instantaneously sanctified. We're not sanctified so that we no longer sin or no longer desire sin. It's a progressive work within us, especially the old things pass away. All things become new. And yet sanctification in this life is never, ever completed.
You can go to the nursing home and find the oldest person you can find who has been a saint for even 90 years or something like that. And there's often in these people a holiness that just begins to come out. And as they're facing the end of their life, and as they're reflecting on God's work within, there's often a sweetness and a holiness that just starts to come out, but you know what? They're not finished, because following sanctification comes the promise of our glorification. Now this glorification is an eschatological reality. It comes only at the end of all things. It comes only in connection with judgment and the consummation of the age and all the things that Christ will bring about. But the promise of our glorification is that we once resurrected, and having our resurrection bodies, will be glorified, that is, God's glory will transform us so that our sanctification is absolutely complete.
There will be in us not only no sin, but no memory of sin. There will be within us not only holiness, but absolute perfect holiness. And that is how it is explained that we will be prepared to spend eternity with God before him glorifying him perfectly. The only way we can glorify him perfectly is if we reflect his glory perfectly, and there is no way we can ever achieve that. That's God's gift. And it's the promise of our glorification. And we are told here that those who are adopted through Christ by the Father are given status as joint-heirs with Christ and the promise of our glorification.
Now in verse 18, Paul says, “If we have that kind of process” – and we have it –  “we can consider the sufferings of this present time as not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed in us.” Now this is a massive and very significant turn in the book of Romans. Because up to this point, just to remind ourselves, Paul's been dealing with conflict in the church over the nature of the gospel. We know that. He tells us that. We know that this was a church that was overwhelmingly Jewish made up of Jewish converts to Christianity, but the Jews were expelled from Rome. And we know that then it became an overwhelmingly Gentile church made up of Gentile converts to Christianity. And then we know that the Jews were allowed back. And so over the process of just two or three decades, this church went back and forth and there was division in the church over the nature of the gospel and over how Israel is related to the church.
We're going to get to that in just a little bit: over just how justification by faith works. Is that the only way to see the gospel? Is there any other way to see the gospel? Paul says, No. Paul goes back and he answers the Jewish believers by saying, “Look, even Abraham understood justification by faith. We followed through all that in Romans chapter four and following. But now he turns this massive shift, and he's no longer really concerned with the confusion over the gospel, because he said all that straight. He's not really confused or concerned at this point about conflict between the Jewish converts and the Gentile converts over the shape of the gospel. He's already dealt with that. But now he's writing to a church at Rome, and you don't have to have much historical knowledge of the Bible to know that this was a church that was facing, even in this time, the threat of persecution suffering. That has a way of clarifying doctrine.
Paul, preparing the church for this suffering, said, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time aren't even worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” Paul says, “If we really understand the work of Christ in our redemption, then we can suffer virtually anything in this life because of our confidence in what Christ will accomplish in us.” We can face death. We can face martyrdom. We can face persecution. We can face loss. We can face suffering. We can face sickness. We can face injury. We can face virtually anything because of the assured promise of the glory that is to be revealed to us. In verse 19, we read, “For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.”
When we think of redemption, we think in terms of human sin and its obvious effect and the fact that we must be redeemed, or we are lost. Paul has been talking about that redemption, but not only do we often look at the question of salvation in too small a frame and failed to look forward to sanctification and glorification, but we also sometimes look at our salvation in a way that is overly individualistic. I was saved. You were saved. Paul wants us to see that we were saved. And Paul wants us to see the church, the body of Christ, is the company of the redeemed. It's not just about me. It's not just about you. It's about God's determinative purpose to save the people from their sins to his own glory.
But there's more than that. Creation itself shows the effect of human sin. Now, the naturalistic scientist doesn't know that. The materialist just simply doesn't know that, but we know that. We go back to Genesis 1-3, and we come to understand that as soon as sin entered the experience of the cosmos through Adam’s sin, death entered. All kinds of things were set in motion. Predation. Animals began to eat each other. Death entered. Not only predation, but there were cosmic consequences to our sin: earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, horrible storms. Paul wants us to look at all that and see that creation itself is crying out for redemption. This is not the way it was supposed to be. Had sin never happened, the entire universe would be as Eden: perfect and peaceful and absolutely oblivious to the reality of sin.
It's important that we realize that Paul is telling us here that the entire cosmos is the arena of God's story of redemption. And the entire cosmos shows the effects of our sin, and that's why we are told that our redemption is also going to be the redemption of the physical world. When you get to the book of Revelation, there's a new heaven and a new earth. Things are as God intended them to be without sin. Now that also explains why in a new heaven and a new earth, only Christians will be there, those who have been glorified, because otherwise we would mess it up again. But in this new creation, we won't mess it up because we will be no longer able to sin.
Paul tells us that not only can we face suffering, but even the entire creation, which in its own way suffers, is now waiting eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. Now there are those in the world of political correctness, who would say that that statement is hopelessly species-ist. It just puts human beings at the pinnacle of creation and says, “All the creation is waiting to see what God's going to do in human beings. That's hopelessly species-ist. Who do we think we are?” Well, we're the sons and daughters of God. The Bible tells us that that's exactly the way it is. All of creation, every star, every atom, every molecule, every planet, and every universe is waiting to see what God's going to do in us.
And if the prophets of political correctness consider that species-ist, let them rant. “Because that's what the Bible says. And the entire universe is waiting to see what God is going to do in us and is longing to see, according to verse 19: “…is waiting eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.” Very quickly look at verses 20 and following: “The creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will also be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.” That's where we're going to have to stop, but when we are together again next Sunday morning, we'll pick back up with verse 20 and we'll see this cosmic redemption that is here held out, even with the universe, waiting to see the revealing of the sons of God.
And then we’ll find ourselves very quickly being reminded of what it is to be adopted as sons and to be given the promise of the redemption of our body. And then Paul's going to tell us that nothing can then separate us from the love of God. My guess is that the verses that follow here very quickly are some of the most precious verses in the Bible to you. And it will be fun to go through them and look at every single word. It's great to be back with you. May God bless you. It's an honor to study the Bible together with you, and we look forward to being together next Sunday. “Our Father, we come before you thankful that you've given us this opportunity. Father, may this be an investment in our hearts and minds and souls that your Holy Spirit would apply to our lives, that we will bear much fruit in your name and to your glory. In Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.”

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 42:08 http://www.albertmohler.com/2005/03/13/romans-81-13/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noWe are studying together and we find ourselves in Romans chapter eight. And so we're going to pick up in our verse by verse study through the book of Romans, where we are now in Romans chapter eight. And even though we have looked at the first several verses of this chapter, we're going to go back and look at verse one all over again in order to pick up the train of thought here. We remember that in Romans chapter seven, Paul was talking about the struggle with sin, and he ended Romans chapter seven by saying, “Oh, what a wretched man that I am! Who shall rescue me from this body of death?” A rhetorical question, because he not only asked the question, he will quickly answer it. And he says, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” There's one way of rescue. That is the singular truth of Christianity. There is one and only one means of rescue. And that is Jesus Christ. Paul understands that even as he observes himself, what he sees in the mirror is a sinner. And the problem with being a sinner is you can't extricate yourself from that problem. There is literally no way out, because the more you try to work your way out of sin, the more you find that it is an impossible reality. And in our power and our strength, there's no way out of this. There's no way to undo the sin problem. The only answer, the only rescue is going to come from outside of ourselves. And that comes through Jesus Christ. Paul tells us that at the end of Romans chapter seven, and then when we begin in Romans chapter eight, verse one, we come across one of those three great “therefore’s” of the book of Romans. We encountered one already in Romans five one. Now Romans eight one, we will encounter yet a third Romans 12 one. But Paul says here, “therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Jesus.” Now lest we go pass this too quickly, “No condemnation,” you'll notice he doesn't say “There's a modified condemnation.” He doesn't say, “There's a lesser condemnation.” “There is now no condemnation.” So it isn't that Jesus paid it mostly. Or her Jesus paid a lot. It's, “Jesus paid it all.” That's the song we sing. And this is why it's because the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ was fully satisfactory. When Jesus Christ shed his blood on Calvary's cross for the remission of our sins, he paid the entire penalty. And because his sacrifice was received by the Father as completely acceptable, there is now no condemnation, but there's now no condemnation for specific persons. And that is for those who are in Christ Jesus. Now all the way back in Romans chapter seven, we talked about Paul's notion of the believer’s mystical union with Christ. And this is very important. It's not only that we are associated with Christ. It's not only that we believe in him. It is that we are now (you see the preposition here) in him. We are now in his work. We are now in his people. We are now in his body because the church is described as the body of Christ. And the believer having been regenerated, having been renewed, having been redeemed, is now incorporated into the body of Christ. We are now in Christ Jesus. We are now in a mystical union. When we say “mystical,” it means a mysterious union with Christ. We are united with him. And Paul goes on to say in verse two, as he explains this work “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.” The law of the Spirit of life. Now, again, Paul has a dichotomy in view. The dichotomy is between flesh and spirit. Jesus in John chapter six says. “The Spirit gives life.” The flesh profits nothing. And this dichotomy is a central metaphor for understanding the Christian life: flesh versus spirit. Now in the most important way, Paul here is not saying that this is the believer’s reality. At this point, he's not mainly focusing on the believer’s struggle with sin. That will come later. This is on the before-and-after picture. This is the before-our-salvation, when we were slaves to sin. And when we serve the flesh versus the after-our-salvation, when by the grace of God there's now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. And we now live by the Spirit, “for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.” So there was a law. It's not now that there is no law. It is that now there is a new law. The old law led to sin and death. But this new law that operates in the Christian life leads to life. It has set us free from the law of sin and death. And then at verse three, we come across one of those great explanatory verses. We need this. Verse three helps to explain everything we have read in the entire book of Romans, everything we studied until this moment. “For what the law could not do, weak as it was, through the flesh, God did, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh.” Now think about Romans 8:3 and look back to Romans chapter three, beginning at verse 21. Paul is a wonderful teacher because, in repetitive cycles, he comes back to the same truth. He amplifies it. He magnifies it and then he moves on and he says, “Let's go back. Let's remember that touchstone in chapter three beginning at verse 21.” Now listen if this isn't almost exactly what we're hearing in Romans chapter eight, but we understand it better now that we're in Romans chapter eight than we did when we were at Romans chapter three verse 21: “But now apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been being witnessed by the law and the prophets. Even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, for all who believe. For there is no distinction, for all of us sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Here's this part, listen: “being justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption, which is in Christ, Jesus, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in his blood through faith. This was to demonstrate his righteousness because in the forbearance of God, he passed over the sins previously committed for the demonstration I say of his righteousness at the present time, so that he would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” Now in Romans chapter three, Paul is here, steadfastly, determined to show us that God saves sinners without compromising his own righteousness. Now, when we come to chapter eight verse three, we're told again that what the law couldn't do, God did, but not only was it fully in accord with his own righteousness, he demanded the sacrifice and he provided the sacrifice. It is also fully effective for our salvation. He condemned sin in the flesh. In whose flesh? In the flesh of the Lord Jesus Christ. The penalty for sin was paid. The Lord did not cancel the penalty for sin. He demanded the penalty for sin, but he provided the penalty for sin through Jesus Christ, the Son. Thus, he condemned sin in the flesh. Our flesh would not do, because we are sinners. What the law could not do weak as it was through the flesh. God did. And then in verse four, there again is a verse that hearkens back to Romans chapter three, so that the requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us. So the requirement of the law is fulfilled in us. That's the amazing thing. The requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. The penalty for our sin was paid in full, but as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, we know that we are not the one who paid it. It is the Lord Jesus Christ, but it was paid in full. And the Lord received the sacrifice on the Son. Absolutely. And having received the sacrifice, the requirement of the law was met. And it's met in those who are now described the believers, the redeemed, as those who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. Now we pick up with new material in verse five: “For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh. But those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death. But the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.” This gets down to the disposition of the heart. We look across humanity, and again, there are all kinds of distinctions people would make.: there are racial distinction, socio-economic distinctions. There are political distinctions, demographic distinctions, all kinds of distinctions of culture and ethnicity and other kinds of demographic factors. But none of them matters. In the span of eternity, none of those distinctions matter at all. And the “all” passages in Romans should be enough to convince us of that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All those distinctions wither away when you understand that the diagnosis for each one of us is sinner, but all those distinctions also melt away. When we understand that there's only one real distinction that matters. And that's the distinction between the saved and the lost, between those who are in Christ and those who are not. Paul wants us to see that distinction. He's going to make that distinction very, very clear, not only in these verses, but in what's going to follow, especially after chapter 12, where he's going to deal with how Christian should look in the world, how we should live in the world, think in the world, negotiate, navigate in the world. He's going to be very clear that we should stand out, not as those who are conformed to the world, but who are transformed by the renewing of the mind. But right now his concern is between those who are in Christ and those who are not. And you'll notice that he says here that there are those who are according to the flesh and that there are those who are according to the Spirit. Now let me suggest to you that there is a very dangerous misreading of this passage that you will sometimes find among some Christians, some evangelicals, some very well-meaning, well-intentioned evangelicals who aren't following closely Paul's logic in the book of Romans. They will suggest that within the Christian, there's a war between the flesh and the spirit. Now that is dangerously somewhat true. And we know that's the case, isn't it? We still struggle with sin. We still struggle with temptations and all the rest. But the misreading of this text is to believe that there could be believers in the Lord Jesus Christ who live according to the flesh. This is the myth of the carnal Christian. And there are those who teach that there are carnal - meaning “flesh,” by the way, in the Latin - Christians. They simply are believers, but they don't live like believers. Paul doesn't know about those people. Now let me tell you, he doesn’t mean that he doesn't know Christians who do not sin. That's different, but here's the difference: a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ cannot sin without an inevitable consequence suffering the tortures of conscience. Is that distinction clear? You see if one is able to sin without any remorse, without any concern, without any grief, without any repentance, then I think Paul is telling us that person's not a believer. Now we know that there are believers who for some time live in rebellion. For some time, they may live with a rebellion against God's word and live with obvious sin, even public sin, even publicly known and notorious sin, but they cannot for long stay in that state of sin without their troubled conscience, by the work of the Spirit, bringing them back to repentance. There's simply no notion in the New Testament of someone who is merely an intellectual believer in the Lord Jesus Christ but is not a follower of Christ. That's what Paul wants to make clear here. Those who are according to the flesh, they're not believers. Contrasted with them are those who are according to the Spirit. in verse six, he makes very clear the mindset on the flesh is death. Now he can't talk that way about believers. Paul won't talk that way about believers. Believers are those who are safe, as he will make clear at the end of this passage. That's what's so important. You'll see by the time we get down to the end of Romans chapter eight, this majestic passage on God's protection of believers, we're going to understand that he would not speak of believers as those who would be spiritually dead. “But the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.” By the way, the word used for “life” just the common word that we would think of where there was once death. The word “peace” is the characteristic word that Paul uses in his greetings. At the very beginning of his letter, it means not only the absence of hostility. It means the presence of wholeness. It's this beautiful picture of peace. It means more than just not being at war. Paul continues to tell us that the mindset on the flesh is hostile toward God. I was talking to a group of Christians just in the last couple of days there in Georgia. I was talking about the Christian worldview and trying to tie it all together. It was a leadership conference for the Sunday school teachers of the church. Now you're going to love this. I was asked to go down and spend two days with the Sunday school teachers of this church. And I want to tell you why I did it. It's because this is a church down there at First Baptist Woodstock that is so intentional about Bible teaching. Now, when I talked to the Sunday school teachers of the church, I was talking to 650 Sunday school teachers in one church. That’s incredible. And twice a year, they have these big conferences on how to teach. And I think it's an incredible idea. It was great. I enjoyed being there with them. And I got there and discovered that I had four one-hour sessions. They snuck out between a couple of the sessions to get a donut and some orange juice and came right back. I was very impressed. But when I was talking about the Christian worldview, I was talking about the realities of sin. And I said, “You know, in order to understand and diagnose the human problem, we've got to have that one word the world doesn't understand and doesn't like one bit. And that's the word sin. Because if you take that word and that truth out of our theological vocabulary, we have no way to explain humanity. We have no way to explain ourselves. We have no way to explain the problem.” But I said, “You'll notice that that when you are dealing with sinners, you've got to look beneath the sins to the sin. You know, so often we look at the sins, but you got to look at the sin.” And I talked about this as a parent. I said, “You know, when you're looking at a child, you can easily look at your own child and think, ‘This kid is all right, except for these little sins.’ But the Bible says, he's a sinner. Well, that's a different thing than just sending. That means that from birth, the Bible tells us, we are opposed to God. We are hostile to God. Now, how does that turn out? It means that we want our own way. We want to be self-actualizing human beings. We want to be autonomous individuals. We want to be able to have our own way set our own course live by our own rules.” And that's precisely the kind of hostility Paul's talking about here in verse seven: “The mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God.” Now we really don't like language quite this harsh, because it would be more comfortable if Paul said, “You know, sinners, well, they sin. And sinners, they don't quite understand everything. And sinners, they fail to see what they're missing.” But Paul goes right to the heart of matter. He cuts far beneath all of those concerns and says, “They're hostile toward God.” Now that's the picture of all of us in our sin. Remember when we already were studying back in Romans, we said, “While we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” So in other words, Christ died coming for the enemies of God. He came to redeem God's enemies. Those who were hostile to God. “The mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God.” We need to know that. We need to know that it's not some kind of mild disposition. It's not some kind of just being out of sync. It's being hostile toward God, “for it does not subject itself to the law of God for it is not even able to do so.” Oh no. That last part we need, that two sinners can't please God. It's not just that they don't want to; it's that they can't. There's no righteousness in us that will please God. And there's nothing we can do that would please God. there's no way we can dig ourselves out of the hole of our own sin. “And those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” You know, Paul really came to understand that in his own personal testimony. What does he say? He says, “I came to understand that my righteousness was as filthy rags. I spent all my life as a Pharisee, trying to please God. That's what I wanted to do. That's what the Pharisees were all about.” He said, “I was a Jew born of the tribe of Benjamin. I did everything right. I studied. I devoted myself to prayer. I fasted. I did all the things Pharisees do to try to prove themselves righteous. And I finally found out there was nothing. I could do that in my hostility toward God. In my state as a sinner, there was nothing I could do that could please God, for those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” Now in verse nine, there's this big change. There's a “however.” On the other hand, “You are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.” Now he's not talking to some Christian saying, “Some of you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit.” He's writing to believers. If you are a believer, then you're not of the flesh. You are in the Spirit. Now again, he's already told us that doesn't mean we do not sin. It does mean we cannot be satisfied in our sin. It does mean that we cannot sin and give ourselves to sin. It does mean that the Holy Spirit of God is working within us to convict us of our sin and to bring us to repentance. “You are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him.” There you go. If you just read this carefully, this means that if you don't have the Spirit of God, then you don't belong to Christ. So again, we're at that distinction between believers and unbelievers. We're not talking about two different kinds of believers, faithful believers and unfaithful believers, carnal believers and spiritual believers. We're talking about believers and unbelievers. And that's a very, very important point. “If Christ is in you though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” A little turn in the argument here. Okay. “If Christ is in us,” Paul says, “though the body is dead because of sin yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness.” I can remember as a young Christian trying to come to grips with the fact that my body was dead now. Not dead yet, but dead as eventual. But the spirit is alive. We all still struggle with that, don't we? There's a “me” in here somewhere that is associated with his body but isn't limited to this body. Tell me you agree with this. Okay, good. You know that the is you, but you're more than the body. And there's one thing to be 15 trying to figure this out and another thing to be 45. Because at 15, all the signs are that you're more alive every day, but at 45, every time you run the hairbrush, there's death in it. You're going to look at that and think, you know, those hairs were once in my head, they have let go, and they're not coming back. Even when the things start to sag. I all of a sudden realized that there are lines in my face that weren't there before. And I don't think they're going away. There's a big difference between being 15 and 45, but you know what? The 15 year old's body is just as dead as the 95 year old's body in terms of spiritual realities. But by the same token, in the 15-year-old believer and a 115-year-old believer, the spirit is just as alive. And this is a tremendous promise to us as we look at this. And we realize that he's talking here about eschatological realities. Realities at the end, realities when the Lord consummates all things. It is the promise of the resurrection of Christ as our resurrection as well. That's where he's going to be headed here. “If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin. Yet, the spirit is alive because of righteousness.” Here's the resurrection. Look at verse 11: “But if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the Spirit of God, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” So the wages of sin is death. Remember we read that the wages of sin is death. Our bodies are going die, and believers die. The eternal life that is God's work and gift to us through Christ is not the perpetuation of this earthly frame. Believers die pretty much on schedule, but there's the promise of Christ’s resurrection. We do not die as those who are spiritually dead, but as those who are spiritually alive, and even our mortal bodies will be resurrected as the Lord raised the body of Jesus Christ. “So then brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh to live according to the flesh for if you were living, according to the flesh, you must die. But if by the Spirit you were putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are being led by the Spirit are being led by the Spirit of God. These are the sons of God.” This dichotomy between “flesh” and “Spirit” comes to a conclusion here, where in verse 12 we are told that we are under obligation, but we're under obligation to the Spirit, not to the flesh. “Those who are of the flesh are under obligation to the flesh.” Now, what would it mean to live under obligation to the flesh? Let's think about it for a minute. The flesh demands to be satisfied. And the unbeliever answers that by satisfying the flesh. We can understand that, but the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ can't live that way. It's a very different life by a very different set of priorities and a very different power that is within us. “We are under obligation not to the flesh to live according to the flesh, but to the Spirit.” Paul will interrupt himself here. But his point is, “But to the Spirit, because we live by the spirit. For, if you're living according to the flesh, you must die.” Paul here gets at the verdict. The wages of sin is death. “But if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body you will live.” So that's a reference to our sanctification. There's God's work within us after our salvation. It's a progressive work where the Holy Spirit works within us to conform us to the image of Christ, and thus in the healthy, mature, faithful believer, it is not that we do not sin, but it is that we find ourselves conquering areas of sin in our life by the power of God within us. It does mean that as the Holy Spirit works within us, we no longer even desire some of the things we desired before. It is a progressive sanctification. And as the Holy Spirit reorders and rewires our thinking and our desiring and our moral consciousness and all the rest, we find that we can't even understand why we once thought as we once thought. “I don't even know why I used to do that. I don't even know why I used to think that way. I don't even know why I thought that was a good idea. I don't know why I thought that was a great plan. I don't even want that anymore.” And it's not because we have made ourselves holy; it's because the Holy Spirit is at work within us, conforming us to the image of Christ. [inaudible] Now in verse 14, there's an enormous turn in this passage. And this is great stuff. “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.” Paul's going to leave behind the unbelievers as a topic of his concern for the next several verses. He's going to turn to the church. And as a matter of fact, for more or less, the rest of the book of Romans. That's what he's going to be doing, focusing on the church. And he says, “We, here, are not only those who have been forgiven our sins and incorporated into the body of Christ, but we are those who are being led by the Spirit of God and are the sons of God.” Now that's something that if we didn't have this passage, we wouldn't understand. We are the sons and daughters of God. [inaudible] You have to go back to the first century and first century Judaism to realize how audacious that statement is. If you go back to the Gospels, and you see Jesus Christ speaking similarly, and you see how the Jewish authorities of the day responded with such venom, with such anger and outrage that someone would claim to be the son of God. Now, obviously when we're talking about Jesus Christ, we're talking about the incarnate Son of the living God, but now Paul says that believers are also in their own way sons of God. We've been adopted. Verse 15: “For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons, by which we cry out, ‘Abba, Father.’” One of the main New Testament words about our salvation is the word adoption. Now, just as we were beginning the class, we heard about Lisa Golladay going to pick up this little boy. And the Golladay's are going to adopt this child. Now it's a legal process, and it's just heartwarming to hear about it. It's exciting to even think about. We know how adoption works. A child that is not yours by birth is received into your family. And in the process of adoption, you say, “I will now receive this child as my own.” Now, legally, what is the status of an adopted son? Legally, It's the same as her son by birth. Now, that's an amazing legal reality. It's a beautiful picture of love, because adoption is such a powerful metaphor, because no one has to adopt this child. If a child is yours by birth, the obligation is obvious. But if the child is not yours by birth the obligation is your desire. It is your strategic acceptance of this responsibility. And Terry and Lisa are going to say, “We're going to adopt this child as our own. We're going to treat him as our own. He will be as our son.” Well, when this little boy comes to understand that he'll come to understand that there were two parents who loved him so much that they received him as their own. They clothed them as their own son. They take care of him as their own son. They teach him and discipline them as their own son. He is their own son. Well, Paul says, that's what our salvation is also about. God has no obligation to forgive sinners. God is under no obligation to do anything on behalf of sinners, but God does this through his Son. And when he saved sinners, he didn't save us merely that we would be transformed from death to life and from sin to grace, but that we will be adopted as his own sons. The spirit of adoption Paul's talking about here is just incredible. He says in verse 15 that by adoption, we're able to cry out, “Abba, Father.” That’s the Aramaic word for father. It's a familiar word. It's a word of love and endearment. We're able to cry out to God as Father. Not only as judge. Not only as the holy omnipotent One of Israel. Not only as the Lord Almighty, but as Father. In verse 16, “The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit, that we are the children of God.” That's the affirmation. The Holy Spirit continually reminds us of this, that we are the children of God. “And if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him so that we may be also glorified with him.” Now, when we think of inheritance, we tend to think of stuff, the kind of stuff that is left in a will. And we may wonder where the Christian stuff is. Well, there's no stuff. It's a lot more important than stuff. It’s an inheritance of that which is of eternal importance. It is an inheritance of an eschatological promise, a promise at the end. It is the inheritance of a promise that all will one day be well. It is the inheritance of a promise that Christ’s work, which was begun in us, will be completed in us. It's an eschatological promise that we are safe in Christ. It's a promise of glorification in verse 17. Now this is one of those doctrines that is tragically overlooked in the church today. When we talk about Christ’s work in us, so often when we present the gospel, we just deal with how we are saved from our sin, how those who are lost are found, those who are the enemies of God are adopted as his sons and daughters. That's all important, but we need to point out that Christ's work in us is not completed at the moment of our salvation. It is continued in us, and there are two big words. We already used one of them. That's the doctrine of sanctification. Sanct-tu. It’s simply the Latin word “holiness.” So the doctrine of sanctification is the doctrine of how we've become holy by the work of God within us. Now, this is not instantaneous. We're not instantaneously sanctified. We're not sanctified so that we no longer sin or no longer desire sin. It's a progressive work within us, especially the old things pass away. All things become new. And yet sanctification in this life is never, ever completed. You can go to the nursing home and find the oldest person you can find who has been a saint for even 90 years or something like that. And there's often in these people a holiness that just begins to come out. And as they're facing the end of their life, and as they're reflecting on God's work within, there's often a sweetness and a holiness that just starts to come out, but you know what? They're not finished, because following sanctification comes the promise of our glorification. Now this glorification is an eschatological reality. It comes only at the end of all things. It comes only in connection with judgment and the consummation of the age and all the things that Christ will bring about. But the promise of our glorification is that we once resurrected, and having our resurrection bodies, will be glorified, that is, God's glory will transform us so that our sanctification is absolutely complete. There will be in us not only no sin, but no memory of sin. There will be within us not only holiness, but absolute perfect holiness. And that is how it is explained that we will be prepared to spend eternity with God before him glorifying him perfectly. The only way we can glorify him perfectly is if we reflect his glory perfectly, and there is no way we can ever achieve that. That's God's gift. And it's the promise of our glorification. And we are told here that those who are adopted through Christ by the Father are given status as joint-heirs with Christ and the promise of our glorification. Now in verse 18, Paul says, “If we have that kind of process” – and we have it –  “we can consider the sufferings of this present time as not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed in us.” Now this is a massive and very significant turn in the book of Romans. Because up to this point, just to remind ourselves, Paul's been dealing with conflict in the church over the nature of the gospel. We know that. He tells us that. We know that this was a church that was overwhelmingly Jewish made up of Jewish converts to Christianity, but the Jews were expelled from Rome. And we know that then it became an overwhelmingly Gentile church made up of Gentile converts to Christianity. And then we know that the Jews were allowed back. And so over the process of just two or three decades, this church went back and forth and there was division in the church over the nature of the gospel and over how Israel is related to the church. We're going to get to that in just a little bit: over just how justification by faith works. Is that the only way to see the gospel? Is there any other way to see the gospel? Paul says, No. Paul goes back and he answers the Jewish believers by saying, “Look, even Abraham understood justification by faith. We followed through all that in Romans chapter four and following. But now he turns this massive shift, and he's no longer really concerned with the confusion over the gospel, because he said all that straight. He's not really confused or concerned at this point about conflict between the Jewish converts and the Gentile converts over the shape of the gospel. He's already dealt with that. But now he's writing to a church at Rome, and you don't have to have much historical knowledge of the Bible to know that this was a church that was facing, even in this time, the threat of persecution suffering. That has a way of clarifying doctrine. Paul, preparing the church for this suffering, said, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time aren't even worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” Paul says, “If we really understand the work of Christ in our redemption, then we can suffer virtually anything in this life because of our confidence in what Christ will accomplish in us.” We can face death. We can face martyrdom. We can face persecution. We can face loss. We can face suffering. We can face sickness. We can face injury. We can face virtually anything because of the assured promise of the glory that is to be revealed to us. In verse 19, we read, “For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.” When we think of redemption, we think in terms of human sin and its obvious effect and the fact that we must be redeemed, or we are lost. Paul has been talking about that redemption, but not only do we often look at the question of salvation in too small a frame and failed to look forward to sanctification and glorification, but we also sometimes look at our salvation in a way that is overly individualistic. I was saved. You were saved. Paul wants us to see that we were saved. And Paul wants us to see the church, the body of Christ, is the company of the redeemed. It's not just about me. It's not just about you. It's about God's determinative purpose to save the people from their sins to his own glory. But there's more than that. Creation itself shows the effect of human sin. Now, the naturalistic scientist doesn't know that. The materialist just simply doesn't know that, but we know that. We go back to Genesis 1-3, and we come to understand that as soon as sin entered the experience of the cosmos through Adam’s sin, death entered. All kinds of things were set in motion. Predation. Animals began to eat each other. Death entered. Not only predation, but there were cosmic consequences to our sin: earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, horrible storms. Paul wants us to look at all that and see that creation itself is crying out for redemption. This is not the way it was supposed to be. Had sin never happened, the entire universe would be as Eden: perfect and peaceful and absolutely oblivious to the reality of sin. It's important that we realize that Paul is telling us here that the entire cosmos is the arena of God's story of redemption. And the entire cosmos shows the effects of our sin, and that's why we are told that our redemption is also going to be the redemption of the physical world. When you get to the book of Revelation, there's a new heaven and a new earth. Things are as God intended them to be without sin. Now that also explains why in a new heaven and a new earth, only Christians will be there, those who have been glorified, because otherwise we would mess it up again. But in this new creation, we won't mess it up because we will be no longer able to sin. Paul tells us that not only can we face suffering, but even the entire creation, which in its own way suffers, is now waiting eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. Now there are those in the world of political correctness, who would say that that statement is hopelessly species-ist. It just puts human beings at the pinnacle of creation and says, “All the creation is waiting to see what God's going to do in human beings. That's hopelessly species-ist. Who do we think we are?” Well, we're the sons and daughters of God. The Bible tells us that that's exactly the way it is. All of creation, every star, every atom, every molecule, every planet, and every universe is waiting to see what God's going to do in us. And if the prophets of political correctness consider that species-ist, let them rant. “Because that's what the Bible says. And the entire universe is waiting to see what God is going to do in us and is longing to see, according to verse 19: “…is waiting eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.” Very quickly look at verses 20 and following: “The creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will also be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.” That's where we're going to have to stop, but when we are together again next Sunday morning, we'll pick back up with verse 20 and we'll see this cosmic redemption that is here held out, even with the universe, waiting to see the revealing of the sons of God. And then we’ll find ourselves very quickly being reminded of what it is to be adopted as sons and to be given the promise of the redemption of our body. And then Paul's going to tell us that nothing can then separate us from the love of God. My guess is that the verses that follow here very quickly are some of the most precious verses in the Bible to you. And it will be fun to go through them and look at every single word. It's great to be back with you. May God bless you. It's an honor to study the Bible together with you, and we look forward to being together next Sunday. “Our Father, we come before you thankful that you've given us this opportunity. Father, may this be an investment in our hearts and minds and souls that your Holy Spirit would apply to our lives, that we will bear much fruit in your name and to your glory. In Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.” You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.We are studying together and we find ourselves in Romans chapter eight. And so we're going to pick up in our verse by verse study through the book of Romans, where we are now in Romans chapter eight. And even though we have looked at the first several verses of this chapter, we're going to go back and look at verse one all over again in order to pick up the train of thought here. We remember that in Romans chapter seven, Paul was talking about the struggle with sin, and he ended Romans chapter seven by saying, “Oh, what a wretched man that I am! Who shall rescue me from this body of death?” A rhetorical question, because he not only asked the question, he will quickly answer it. And he says, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” There's one way of rescue. That is the singular truth of Christianity. There is one and only one means of rescue. And that is Jesus Christ. Paul understands that even as he observes himself, what he sees in the mirror is a sinner. And the problem with being a sinner is you can't extricate yourself from that problem. There is literally no way out, because the more you try to work your way out of sin, the more you find that it is an impossible reality. And in our power and our strength, there's no way out of this. There's no way to undo the sin problem. The only answer, the only rescue is going to come from outside of ourselves. And that comes through Jesus Christ. Paul tells us that at the end of Romans chapter seven, and then when we begin in Romans chapter eight, verse one, we come across one of those three great “therefore’s” of the book of Romans. We encountered one already in Romans five one. Now Romans eight one, we will encounter yet a third Romans 12 one. But Paul says here, “therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Jesus.” Now lest we go pass this too quickly, “No condemnation,” you'll notice he doesn't say “There's a modified condemnation.” He doesn't say, “There's a lesser condemnation.” “There is now no condemnation.” So it isn't that Jesus paid it mostly. Or her Jesus paid a lot. It's, “Jesus paid it all.” That's the song we sing. And this is why it's because the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ was fully satisfactory. When Jesus Christ shed his blood on Calvary's cross for the remission of our sins, he paid the entire penalty. And because his sacrifice was received by the Father as completely acceptable, there is now no condemnation, but there's now no condemnation for specific persons. And that is for those who are in Christ Jesus. Now all the way back in Romans chapter seven, we talked about Paul's notion of the believer’s mystical union with Christ. And this is very important. It's not only that we are associated with Christ. It's not only that we believe in him. It is that we are now (you see the preposition here) in him. We are now in his work. We are now in his people. We are now in his body because the church is described as the body of Christ. And the believer having been regenerated, having been renewed, having been redeemed, is now incorporated into the body of Christ. We are now in Christ Jesus. We are now in a mystical union. When we say “mystical,” it means a mysterious union with Christ. We are united with him. And Paul goes on to say in verse two, as he explains this work “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.” The law of the Spirit of life. Now, again, Paul has a dichotomy in view. The dichotomy is between flesh and spirit. Jesus in John chapter six says. “The Spirit gives life.” The flesh profits nothing. And this dichotomy is a central metaphor for understanding the Christian life: flesh versus spirit. Now in the most important way, Paul here is not saying that this is the believer’s reality. At this point, he's not mainly focusing on the believer’s struggle with sin. That will come later. This is on the before-and-after picture. This is the before-our-salvation, when we were slaves to sin. And when we serve the flesh versus the after-our-salvation, when by the grace of God there's now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. And we now live by the Spirit, “for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.” So there was a law. It's not now that there is no law. It is that now there is a new law. The old law led to sin and death. But this new law that operates in the Christian life leads to life. It has set us free from the law of sin and death. And then at verse three, we come across one of those great explanatory verses. We need this. Verse three helps to explain everything we have read in the entire book of Romans, everything we studied until this moment. “For what the law could not do, weak as it was, through the flesh, God did, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh.” Now think about Romans 8:3 and look back to Romans chapter three, beginning at verse 21. Paul is a wonderful teacher because, in repetitive cycles, he comes back to the same truth. He amplifies it. He magnifies it and then he moves on and he says, “Let's go back. Let's remember that touchstone in chapter three beginning at verse 21.” Now listen if this isn't almost exactly what we're hearing in Romans chapter eight, but we understand it better now that we're in Romans chapter eight than we did when we were at Romans chapter three verse 21: “But now apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been being witnessed by the law and the prophets. Even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, for all who believe. For there is no distinction, for all of us sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Here's this part, listen: “being justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption, which is in Christ, Jesus, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in his blood through faith. This was to demonstrate his righteousness because in the forbearance of God, he passed over the sins previously committed for the demonstration I say of his righteousness at the present time, so that he would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” Now in Romans chapter three, Paul is here, steadfastly, determined to show us that God saves sinners without compromising his own righteousness. Now, when we come to chapter eight verse three, we're told again that what the law couldn't do, God did, but not only was it fully in accord with his own righteousness, he demanded the sacrifice and he provided the sacrifice. It is also fully effective for our salvation. He condemned sin in the flesh. In whose flesh? In the flesh of the Lord Jesus Christ. The penalty for sin was paid. The Lord did not cancel the penalty for sin. He demanded the penalty for sin, but he provided the penalty for sin through Jesus Christ, the Son. Thus, he condemned sin in the flesh. Our flesh would not do, because we are sinners. What the law could not do weak as it was through the flesh. God did. And then in verse four, there again is a verse that hearkens back to Romans chapter three, so that the requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us. So the requirement of the law is fulfilled in us. That's the amazing thing. The requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. The penalty for our sin was paid in full, but as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, we know that we are not the one who paid it. It is the Lord Jesus Christ, but it was paid in full. And the Lord received the sacrifice on the Son. Absolutely. And having received the sacrifice, the requirement of the law was met. And it's met in those who are now described the believers, the redeemed, as those who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. Now we pick up with new material in verse five: “For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh. But those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death. But the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.” This gets down to the disposition of the heart. We look across humanity, and again, there are all kinds of distinctions people would make.: there are racial distinction, socio-economic distinctions. There are political distinctions, demographic distinctions, all kinds of distinctions of culture and ethnicity and other kinds of demographic factors. But none of them matters. In the span of eternity, none of those distinctions matter at all. And the “all” passages in Romans should be enough to convince us of that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All those distinctions wither away when you understand that the diagnosis for each one of us is sinner, but all those distinctions also melt away. When we understand that there's only one real distinction that matters. And that's the distinction between the saved and the lost, between those who are in Christ and those who are not. Paul wants us to see that distinction. He's going to make that distinction very, very clear, not only in these verses, but in what's going to follow, especially after chapter 12, where he's going to deal with how Christian should look in the world, how we should live in the world, think in the world, negotiate, navigate in the world. He's going to be very clear that we should stand out, not as those who are conformed to the world, but who are transformed by the renewing of the mind. But right now his concern is between those who are in Christ and those who are not. And you'll notice that he says here that there are those who are according to the flesh and that there are those who are according to the Spirit. Now let me suggest to you that there is a very dangerous misreading of this passage that you will sometimes find among some Christians, some evangelicals, some very well-meaning, well-intentioned evangelicals who aren't following closely Paul's logic in the book of Romans. They will suggest that within the Christian, there's a war between the flesh and the spirit. Now that is dangerously somewhat true. And we know that's the case, isn't it? We still struggle with sin. We still struggle with temptations and all the rest. But the misreading of this text is to believe that there could be believers in the Lord Jesus Christ who live according to the flesh. This is the myth of the carnal Christian. And there are those who teach that there are carnal - meaning “flesh,” by the way, in the Latin - Christians. They simply are believers, but they don't live like believers. Paul doesn't know about those people. Now let me tell you, he doesn’t mean that he doesn't know Christians who do not sin. That's different, but here's the difference: a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ cannot sin without an inevitable consequence suffering the tortures of conscience. Is that distinction clear? You see if one is able to sin without any remorse, without any concern, without any grief, without any repentance, then I think Paul is telling us that person's not a believer. Now we know that there are believers who for some time live in rebellion. For some time, they may live with a rebellion against God's word and live with obvious sin, even public sin, even publicly known and notorious sin, but they cannot for long stay in that state of sin without their troubled conscience, by the work of the Spirit, bringing them back to repentance. There's simply no notion in the New Testament of someone who is merely an intellectual believer in the Lord Jesus Christ but is not a follower of Christ. That's what Paul wants to make clear here. Those who are according to the flesh, they're not believers. Contrasted with them are those who are according to the Spirit. in verse six, he makes very clear the mindset on the flesh is death. Now he can't talk that way about believers. Paul won't talk that way about believers. Believers are those who are safe, as he will make clear at the end of this passage. That's what's so important. You'll see by the time we get down to the end of Romans chapter eight, this majestic passage on God's protection of believers, we're going to understand that he would not speak of believers as those who would be spiritually dead. “But the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.” By the way, the word used for “life” just the common word that we would think of where there was once death. The word “peace” is the characteristic word that Paul uses in his greetings. At the very beginning of his letter, it means not only the absence of hostility. It means the presence of wholeness. It's this beautiful picture of peace. It means more than just not being at war. Paul continues to tell us that the mindset on the flesh is hostile toward God. I was talking to a group of Christians just in the last couple of days there in Georgia. I was talking about the Christian worldview and trying to tie it all together. It was a leadership conference for the Sunday school teachers of the church. Now you're going to love this. I was asked to go down and spend two days with the Sunday school teachers of this church. And I want to tell you why I did it. It's because this is a church down there at First Baptist Woodstock that is so intentional about Bible teaching. Now, when I talked to the Sunday school teachers of the church, I was talking to 650 Sunday school teachers in one church. That’s incredible. And twice a year, they have these big conferences on how to teach. And I think it's an incredible idea. It was great. I enjoyed being there with them. And I got there and discovered that I had four one-hour sessions. They snuck out between a couple of the sessions to get a donut and some orange juice and came right back. I was very impressed. But when I was talking about the Christian worldview, I was talking about the realities of sin. And I said, “You know, in order to understand and diagnose the human problem, we've got to have that one word the world doesn't understand and doesn't like one bit. And that's the word sin. Because if you take that word and that truth out of our theological vocabulary, we have no way to explain humanity. We have no way to explain ourselves. We have no way to explain the problem.” But I said, “You'll notice that that when you are dealing with sinners, you've got to look beneath the sins to the sin. You know, so often we look at the sins, but you got to look at the sin.” And I talked about this as a parent. I said, “You know, when you're looking at a child, you can easily look at your own child and think, ‘This kid is all right, except for these little sins.’ But the Bible says, he's a sinner. Well, that's a different thing than just sending. That means that from birth, the Bible tells us, we are opposed to God. We are hostile to God. Now, how does that turn out? It means that we want our own way. We want to be self-actualizing human beings. We want to be autonomous individuals. We want to be able to have our own way set our own course live by our own rules.” And that's precisely the kind of hostility Paul's talking about here in verse seven: “The mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God.” Now we really don't like language quite this harsh, because it would be more comfortable if Paul said, “You know, sinners, well, they sin. And sinners, they don't quite understand everything. And sinners, they fail to see what they're missing.” But Paul goes right to the heart of matter. He cuts far beneath all of those concerns and says, “They're hostile toward God.” Now that's the picture of all of us in our sin. Remember when we already were studying back in Romans, we said, “While we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” So in other words, Christ died coming for the enemies of God. He came to redeem God's enemies. Those who were hostile to God. “The mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God.” We need to know that. We need to know that it's not some kind of mild disposition. It's not some kind of just being out of sync. It's being hostile toward God, “for it does not subject itself to the law of God for it is not even able to do so.” Oh no. That last part we need, that two sinners can't please God. It's not just that they don't want to; it's that they can't. There's no righteousness in us that will please God. And there's nothing we can do that would please God. there's no way we can dig ourselves out of the hole of our own sin. “And those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” You know, Paul really came to understand that in his own personal testimony. What does he say? He says, “I came to understand that my righteousness was as filthy rags. I spent all my life as a Pharisee, trying to please God. That's what I wanted to do. That's what the Pharisees were all about.” He said, “I was a Jew born of the tribe of Benjamin. I did everything right. I studied. I devoted myself to prayer. I fasted. I did all the things Pharisees do to try to prove themselves righteous. And I finally found out there was nothing. I could do that in my hostility toward God. In my state as a sinner, there was nothing I could do that could please God, for those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” Now in verse nine, there's this big change. There's a “however.” On the other hand, “You are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.” Now he's not talking to some Christian saying, “Some of you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit.” He's writing to believers. If you are a believer, then you're not of the flesh. You are in the Spirit. Now again, he's already told us that doesn't mean we do not sin. It does mean we cannot be satisfied in our sin. It does mean that we cannot sin and give ourselves to sin. It does mean that the Holy Spirit of God is working within us to convict us of our sin and to bring us to repentance. “You are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him.” There you go. If you just read this carefully, this means that if you don't have the Spirit of God, then you don't belong to Christ. So again, we're at that distinction between believers and unbelievers. We're not talking about two different kinds of believers, faithful believers and unfaithful believers, carnal believers and spiritual believers. We're talking about believers and unbelievers. And that's a very, very important point. “If Christ is in you though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” A little turn in the argument here. Okay. “If Christ is in us,” Paul says, “though the body is dead because of sin yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness.” I can remember as a young Christian trying to come to grips with the fact that my body was dead now. Not dead yet, but dead as eventual. But the spirit is alive. We all still struggle with that, don't we? There's a “me” in here somewhere that is associated with his body but isn't limited to this body. Tell me you agree with this. Okay, good. You know that the is you, but you're more than the body. And there's one thing to be 15 trying to figure this out and another thing to be 45. Because at 15, all the signs are that you're more alive every day, but at 45, every time you run the hairbrush, there's death in it. You're going to look at that and think, you know, those hairs were once in my head, they have let go, and they're not coming back. Even when the things start to sag. I all of a sudden realized that there are lines in my face that weren't there before. And I don't think they're going away. There's a big difference between being 15 and 45, but you know what? The 15 year old's body is just as dead as the 95 year old's body in terms of spiritual realities. But by the same token, in the 15-year-old believer and a 115-year-old believer, the spirit is just as alive. And this is a tremendous promise to us as we look at this. And we realize that he's talking here about eschatological realities. Realities at the end, realities when the Lord consummates all things. It is the promise of the resurrection of Christ as our resurrection as well. That's where he's going to be headed here. “If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin. Yet, the spirit is alive because of righteousness.” Here's the resurrection. Look at verse 11: “But if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the Spirit of God, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” So the wages of sin is death. Remember we read that the wages of sin is death. Our bodies are going die, and believers die. The eternal life that is God's work and gift to us through Christ is not the perpetuation of this earthly frame. Believers die pretty much on schedule, but there's the promise of Christ’s resurrection. We do not die as those who are spiritually dead, but as those who are spiritually alive, and even our mortal bodies will be resurrected as the Lord raised the body of Jesus Christ. “So then brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh to live according to the flesh for if you were living, according to the flesh, you must die. But if by the Spirit you were putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are being led by the Spirit are being led by the Spirit of God. These are the sons of God.” This dichotomy between “flesh” and “Spirit” comes to a conclusion here, where in verse 12 we are told that we are under obligation, but we're under obligation to the Spirit, not to the flesh. “Those who are of the flesh are under obligation to the flesh.” Now, what would it mean to live under obligation to the flesh? Let's think about it for a minute. The flesh demands to be satisfied. And the unbeliever answers that by satisfying the flesh. We can understand that, but the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ can't live that way. It's a very different life by a very different set of priorities and a very different power that is within us. “We are under obligation not to the flesh to live according to the flesh, but to the Spirit.” Paul will interrupt himself here. But his point is, “But to the Spirit, because we live by the spirit. For, if you're living according to the flesh, you must die.” Paul here gets at the verdict. The wages of sin is death. “But if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body you will live.” So that's a reference to our sanctification. There's God's work within us after our salvation. It's a progressive work where the Holy Spirit works within us to conform us to the image of Christ, and thus in the healthy, mature, faithful believer, it is not that we do not sin, but it is that we find ourselves conquering areas of sin in our life by the power of God within us. It does mean that as the Holy Spirit works within us, we no longer even desire some of the things we desired before. It is a progressive sanctification. And as the Holy Spirit reorders and rewires our thinking and our desiring and our moral consciousness and all the rest, we find that we can't even understand why we once thought as we once thought. “I don't even know why I used to do that. I don't even know why I used to think that way. I don't even know why I thought that was a good idea. I don't know why I thought that was a great plan. I don't even want that anymore.” And it's not because we have made ourselves holy; it's because the Holy Spirit is at work within us, conforming us to the image of Christ. [inaudible] Now in verse 14, there's an enormous turn in this passage. And this is great stuff. “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.” Paul's going to leave behind the unbelievers as a topic of his concern for the next several verses. He's going to turn to the church. And as a matter of fact, for more or less, the rest of the book of Romans. That's what he's going to be doing, focusing on the church. And he says, “We, here, are not only those who have been forgiven our sins and incorporated into the body of Christ, but we are those who are being led by the Spirit of God and are the sons of God.” Now that's something that if we didn't have this passage, we wouldn't understand. We are the sons and daughters of God. [inaudible] You have to go back to the first century and first century Judaism to realize how audacious that statement is. If you go back to the Gospels, and you see Jesus Christ speaking similarly, and you see how the Jewish authorities of the day responded with such venom, with such anger and outrage that someone would claim to be the son of God. Now, obviously when we're talking about Jesus Christ, we're talking about the incarnate Son of the living God, but now Paul says that believers are also in their own way sons of God. We've been adopted. Verse 15: “For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons, by which we cry out, ‘Abba, Father.’” One of the main New Testament words about our salvation is the word adoption. Now, just as we were beginning the class, we heard about Lisa Golladay going to pick up this little boy. And the Golladay's are going to adopt this child. Now it's a legal process, and it's just heartwarming to hear about it. It's exciting to even think about. We know how adoption works. A child that is not yours by birth is received into your family. And in the process of adoption, you say, “I will now receive this child as my own.” Now, legally, what is the status of an adopted son? Legally, It's the same as her son by birth. Now, that's an amazing legal reality. It's a beautiful picture of love, because adoption is such a powerful metaphor, because no one has to adopt this child. If a child is yours by birth, the obligation is obvious. But if the child is not yours by birth the obligation is your desire. It is your strategic acceptance of this responsibility. And Terry and Lisa are going to say, “We're going to adopt this child as our own. We're going to treat him as our own. He will be as our son.” Well, when this little boy comes to understand that he'll come to understand that there were two parents who loved him so much that they received him as their own. They clothed them as their own son. They take care of him as their own son. They teach him and discipline them as their own son. He is their own son. Well, Paul says, that's what our salvation is also about. God has no obligation to forgive sinners. God is under no obligation to do anything on behalf of sinners, but God does this through his Son. And when he saved sinners, he didn't save us merely that we would be transformed from death to life and from sin to grace, but that we will be adopted as his own sons. The spirit of adoption Paul's talking about here is just incredible. He says in verse 15 that by adoption, we're able to cry out, “Abba, Father.” That’s the Aramaic word for father. It's a familiar word. It's a word of love and endearment. We're able to cry out to God as Father. Not only as judge. Not only as the holy omnipotent One of Israel. Not only as the Lord Almighty, but as Father. In verse 16, “The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit, that we are the children of God.” That's the affirmation. The Holy Spirit continually reminds us of this, that we are the children of God. “And if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him so that we may be also glorified with him.” Now, when we think of inheritance, we tend to think of stuff, the kind of stuff that is left in a will. And we may wonder where the Christian stuff is. Well, there's no stuff. It's a lot more important than stuff. It’s an inheritance of that which is of eternal importance. It is an inheritance of an eschatological promise, a promise at the end. It is the inheritance of a promise that all will one day be well. It is the inheritance of a promise that Christ’s work, which was begun in us, will be completed in us. It's an eschatological promise that we are safe in Christ. It's a promise of glorification in verse 17. Now this is one of those doctrines that is tragically overlooked in the church today. When we talk about Christ’s work in us, so often when we present the gospel, we just deal with how we are saved from our sin, how those who are lost are found, those who are the enemies of God are adopted as his sons and daughters. That's all important, but we need to point out that Christ's work in us is not completed at the moment of our salvation. It is continued in us, and there are two big words. We already used one of them. That's the doctrine of sanctification. Sanct-tu. It’s simply the Latin word “holiness.” So the doctrine of sanctification is the doctrine of how we've become holy by the work of God within us. Now, this is not instantaneous. We're not instantaneously sanctified. We're not sanctified so that we no longer sin or no longer desire sin. It's a progressive work within us, especially the old things pass away. All things become new. And yet sanctification in this life is never, ever completed. You can go to the nursing home and find the oldest person you can find who has been a saint for even 90 years or something like that. And there's often in these people a holiness that just begins to come out. And as they're facing the end of their life, and as they're reflecting on God's work within, there's often a sweetness and a holiness that just starts to come out, but you know what? They're not finished, because following sanctification comes the promise of our glorification. Now this glorification is an eschatological reality. It comes only at the end of all things. It comes only in connection with judgment and the consummation of the age and all the things that Christ will bring about. But the promise of our glorification is that we once resurrected, and having our resurrection bodies, will be glorified, that is, God's glory will transform us so that our sanctification is absolutely complete. There will be in us not only no sin, but no memory of sin. There will be within us not only holiness, but absolute perfect holiness. And that is how it is explained that we will be prepared to spend eternity with God before him glorifying him perfectly. The only way we can glorify him perfectly is if we reflect his glory perfectly, and there is no way we can ever achieve that. That's God's gift. And it's the promise of our glorification. And we are told here that those who are adopted through Christ by the Father are given status as joint-heirs with Christ and the promise of our glorification. Now in verse 18, Paul says, “If we have that kind of process” – and we have it –  “we can consider the sufferings of this present time as not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed in us.” Now this is a massive and very significant turn in the book of Romans. Because up to this point, just to remind ourselves, Paul's been dealing with conflict in the church over the nature of the gospel. We know that. He tells us that. We know that this was a church that was overwhelmingly Jewish made up of Jewish converts to Christianity, but the Jews were expelled from Rome. And we know that then it became an overwhelmingly Gentile church made up of Gentile converts to Christianity. And then we know that the Jews were allowed back. And so over the process of just two or three decades, this church went back and forth and there was division in the church over the nature of the gospel and over how Israel is related to the church. We're going to get to that in just a little bit: over just how justification by faith works. Is that the only way to see the gospel? Is there any other way to see the gospel? Paul says, No. Paul goes back and he answers the Jewish believers by saying, “Look, even Abraham understood justification by faith. We followed through all that in Romans chapter four and following. But now he turns this massive shift, and he's no longer really concerned with the confusion over the gospel, because he said all that straight. He's not really confused or concerned at this point about conflict between the Jewish converts and the Gentile converts over the shape of the gospel. He's already dealt with that. But now he's writing to a church at Rome, and you don't have to have much historical knowledge of the Bible to know that this was a church that was facing, even in this time, the threat of persecution suffering. That has a way of clarifying doctrine. Paul, preparing the church for this suffering, said, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time aren't even worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” Paul says, “If we really understand the work of Christ in our redemption, then we can suffer virtually anything in this life because of our confidence in what Christ will accomplish in us.” We can face death. We can face martyrdom. We can face persecution. We can face loss. We can face suffering. We can face sickness. We can face injury. We can face virtually anything because of the assured promise of the glory that is to be revealed to us. In verse 19, we read, “For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.” When we think of redemption, we think in terms of human sin and its obvious effect and the fact that we must be redeemed, or we are lost. Paul has been talking about that redemption, but not only do we often look at the question of salvation in too small a frame and failed to look forward to sanctification and glorification, but we also sometimes look at our salvation in a way that is overly individualistic. I was saved. You were saved. Paul wants us to see that we were saved. And Paul wants us to see the church, the body of Christ, is the company of the redeemed. It's not just about me. It's not just about you. It's about God's determinative purpose to save the people from their sins to his own glory. But there's more than that. Creation itself shows the effect of human sin. Now, the naturalistic scientist doesn't know that. The materialist just simply doesn't know that, but we know that. We go back to Genesis 1-3, and we come to understand that as soon as sin entered the experience of the cosmos through Adam’s sin, death entered. All kinds of things were set in motion. Predation. Animals began to eat each other. Death entered. Not only predation, but there were cosmic consequences to our sin: earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, horrible storms. Paul wants us to look at all that and see that creation itself is crying out for redemption. This is not the way it was supposed to be. Had sin never happened, the entire universe would be as Eden: perfect and peaceful and absolutely oblivious to the reality of sin. It's important that we realize that Paul is telling us here that the entire cosmos is the arena of God's story of redemption. And the entire cosmos shows the effects of our sin, and that's why we are told that our redemption is also going to be the redemption of the physical world. When you get to the book of Revelation, there's a new heaven and a new earth. Things are as God intended them to be without sin. Now that also explains why in a new heaven and a new earth, only Christians will be there, those who have been glorified, because otherwise we would mess it up again. But in this new creation, we won't mess it up because we will be no longer able to sin. Paul tells us that not only can we face suffering, but even the entire creation, which in its own way suffers, is now waiting eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. Now there are those in the world of political correctness, who would say that that statement is hopelessly species-ist. It just puts human beings at the pinnacle of creation and says, “All the creation is waiting to see what God's going to do in human beings. That's hopelessly species-ist. Who do we think we are?” Well, we're the sons and daughters of God. The Bible tells us that that's exactly the way it is. All of creation, every star, every atom, every molecule, every planet, and every universe is waiting to see what God's going to do in us. And if the prophets of political correctness consider that species-ist, let them rant. “Because that's what the Bible says. And the entire universe is waiting to see what God is going to do in us and is longing to see, according to verse 19: “…is waiting eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.” Very quickly look at verses 20 and following: “The creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will also be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.” That's where we're going to have to stop, but when we are together again next Sunday morning, we'll pick back up with verse 20 and we'll see this cosmic redemption that is here held out, even with the universe, waiting to see the revealing of the sons of God. And then we’ll find ourselves very quickly being reminded of what it is to be adopted as sons and to be given the promise of the redemption of our body. And then Paul's going to tell us that nothing can then separate us from the love of God. My guess is that the verses that follow here very quickly are some of the most precious verses in the Bible to you. And it will be fun to go through them and look at every single word. It's great to be back with you. May God bless you. It's an honor to study the Bible together with you, and we look forward to being together next Sunday. “Our Father, we come before you thankful that you've given us this opportunity. Father, may this be an investment in our hearts and minds and souls that your Holy Spirit would apply to our lives, that we will bear much fruit in your name and to your glory. In Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.” You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2005/02/20/romans-713-25/ Sun, 20 Feb 2005 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 41:13 http://www.albertmohler.com/2005/02/20/romans-713-25/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2005/02/13/romans-74-13/ Sun, 13 Feb 2005 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 39:51 http://www.albertmohler.com/2005/02/13/romans-74-13/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2005/02/06/romans-61-23-71-4/ Sun, 06 Feb 2005 00:00:00 +0000 Then he answers it in verse two, “may it never be!” How shall you, who died to sin, or we, who died to sin, still live in it?”  One of the accusations against the gospel is that it leads to antinomianism, which means no-law-ism. In other words, the idea that one can live however one wants to live. And you have to remember that our original context is very important. And even though it is the original context, 20 centuries ago, it's pretty close to how we live today as well, in that the first audience for this letter is the Roman congregation, and we've talked about this so many times, were made up Christians. Some of whom had been Jews who came to know the Lord Jesus Christ, and some had been Gentiles. 
Now before Christ, what was the big difference between the Jew and the Gentile? The law. The Jews had the law. The law was the special revelation of God given to the children of Israel. Most preeminently in Mount Sinai, through Moses, God gave it to the people of Israel. First, these 10 words, the 10 Commandments, and then also the entire body of law. And that's what made Israel distinctive. The law was a representation of the covenant, the special covenant that God had with his chosen people, Israel. So, in this church are those who had come out of the religion of the law. And then there were those who had come out of the lifestyles of lawlessness. They had come together and here they are in one church made up of believers in Jesus Christ. By definition new believers, because this is a young church, a first generation church. And Paul's trying to help them see the realities of what the Christian life is supposed to be like.
But it's interesting, isn't it? Paul has to raise and answer this question, because obviously there are some people who are saying, “Hey, the more we sin, grace much more abounds, so let's just sin, so we'll see more grace.” And you can understand how a fallen human mind could think this way. Look, if God loves to forgive sin, let’s let Him have a lot of pleasure in forgiving sin. Let's sin a lot so that He would be pleased and forgiving a lot. Paul shows that to be among the most perverse forms of logic. We could imagine when Paul says, “may it never be!” That's one of his strongest statements and he uses it several times in the book of Romans, and at least twice in this chapter, “may it never be!” As you see, also in verse 15, he makes this very clear. This is not the answer.
Then he explains in the remainder of chapter six  why it's not the answer; why we as Christians, can't give ourselves to sin. We can't use the excuse that since there's grace abounding to the greatest of sinners, we should sin as much as possible. Paul says that shows that you just don't understand the gospel. Frankly it calls into question whether or not you actually have had this saving encounter with Christ. Because if you have, you will begin to hate those things, which you had loved. The transformation of the gospel is not just in who we are and it's not even just in what we do, it's in what we want. That's what Paul wants us to see. 
The transforming power of grace in the Christian's life is not just demonstrated in the fact that there is an objective difference now that we are no longer under wrath and under grace.It's no longer just that we do things we had never done before. And we do not do things we had done before. It's that our very wants are realigned. And that's a demonstration of what grace really does in the life of the believers. 
So Paul goes on in Romans chapter six, as we saw, by using a metaphor of baptism in verse four: “Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death. So just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.” 
This newness of life. It's not just like a new page. It's a new dimension, a new experience living under the covenant of grace. We learn what it is to live, no longer by the law, but the law of Christ, which isn't a lower law, it’s a higher law. Jesus recites the law for instance, on the Sermon of the Mount, he says, “You have heard it said”, and then he says, “But I say to you,” –he never minimizes the law.
When it comes to adultery, he never says, “You have heard it said, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you, it's no big deal.”  That's not what Jesus does. He does the opposite. He says, “You have heard it said, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you, if a man lusts in his heart, he has committed adultery.” And what is Jesus doing there? He is not just upping the ante, so to speak. He's getting to the heart. Jesus is concerned with the heart. Christianity addresses itself to the heart. The heart is the metaphor for the being, who the person really is. And so when we talk about a transformed heart, we are talking about a difference in who we are–even in what we desire. We ended with verse 12 last time. We pick up on verse 13, as Paul says, “Do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin.”
Now, what are the members of our body? Well, the limbs, that's what he was talking about. Actually the entirety of the human body and what he is saying here is that the body's important. 
Now, why is this really important for us to recognize? Well it's because Christianity is a holistic faith and there are some faiths that really have no concern for the body whatsoever. Then there are other religions that make the body the issue. There are those who think that the issue is to starve the body or to punish the body in terms of atonement for sin. We don't believe that. You could beat yourself up. You could starve yourself. And that has nothing to do with your salvation. 
Then there are those who say that the body doesn't matter at all. And these are dualistic fatihs, in which it's just what you have on the inside that matters in terms of your own personality and your own consciousness and all the rest, and what you do with your body really isn't all that important. Now these are ancient heresies, but I tell you, they are alive in our culture today. Because this dualism is how a lot of very sophisticated sin. I say very sophisticated sinners because they think “I can do this with my body without doing this with my heart”  And the Bible calls that a lie. You know, the Bible says the one who commits adultery is an adulterer. None of that works. Your heart betrays who you are because your body has betrayed your heart. And there are some who can rationalize this. They can say this, “Look, my, my body can do any number of things, but my internal soul was unblemished by all this.”  And Christianity would answer that with a thunderous, “nonsense.” 
So Paul says, “do not go on.” And the verb tense there is very interesting. It's the progressive “do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin” How? “As instruments of unrighteousness.” So our body is an instrument of one thing or another. It's either an instrument for righteousness or unrighteousness. And what we do with our body is a big and very important indicator of who we really are and whether or not we've transformed by the power of Christ.
The power of the resurrection comes in here, too. We are to present ourselves to God as those alive from the dead. We were dead. So we had a dead body. Now the body that is alive in Christ is owned by him. Our members are then to be instruments of righteousness for “sin shall not be master over you for you are not under the law, but under grace” What then, shall we sin? Because we are not under the law, but under grace? May it never be” There's that second time he comes thunderously with this. Here's that perverse logic again, “let's sin because we're not under the law. We're under grace.” 
Now I am certain that any of you have been Christians for any number of years. You've heard this. It's almost as if some people don't even know this verse in the Bible, because they say exactly the opposite. We're not under the law. We're under grace. Okay. That's true. What does that mean? So we can do this, or we can do that. Sorry. Grace is not a lower law. It's a higher law. But it's not a law that measures your own righteousness in terms of whether you measure up to this. But it's a state which is achieved by Christ's own righteousness, imputed to us. But that righteousness is to become evident in us. That's the doctrine of sanctification. “Do you not know?” And, by the way, Paul uses legal language very commonly. When Paul in his letter says, “do you not know” that is his emphatic way of saying, “you're supposed to know this.” “Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves to the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death or obedience resulting in righteousness?” You're going to be enslaved, to one thing or another. The apostle Paul uses these contrasts all the time. 
For instance, he makes it very clear we're going to be a fool of one kind or another. I talked about this in a message at the Seminary just a few weeks ago, you're either going to be a fool for Christ's sake, or you're going to be a fool for neglecting the revelation of God. Paul makes that very clear. You're gonna be a slave of one kind or another. You're going to have to choose what kind of fool you're going to be: A fool in the face of the world who believes in Christ, or a fool in the face of Christ who rejects his revelation. You're going to be a slave to one master or another. You're going to be a slave either to the Lord, Jesus Christ, or you're going to be a slave to your lust. That's it. One leads to life, the other to death. Verse 17: “But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching, to which you were committed.” 
This is another one of Paul's very pastoral strategies: You-were-then versus you-are-now. He does this also in I Corinthians chapter six, where he gives an entire list of persons who will not inherit the kingdom of God. And then he turns to the church and he says, “such were some of you.” There's a past tense and there’s a present tense. In fact, for the Apostle Paul, there's the past tense, the present tense, and the future tense. And the past tense is we all came out of sin. We were sinners; that's by definition who we were. The most important thing about us is that we were a sinner and we were slaves to sin. But by the power of God, we are no longer slaves to sin. And, therefore, as Paul says here, it's true that we were slaves of sin, but it's no longer true that we are slaves of sin. You became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching, to which you were committed. That's the gospel. 
And this is an interesting little phrase here. Paul uses it at four or five different places in his, in his letters where he says this form of teaching. Now one can easily pass right over it, because remember Paul's using some idioms, some of the phrases of his own time, and that “form of teaching” is a pretty technical phrase. That means a “philosophy of life.”
And in other words, this was the entire worldview we could say to which you have become committed by Christ. And then in verse 18, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. So there it is: Rather than slaves of unrighteousness. We are now slaves of righteousness. I'm speaking in human terms, Paul says, because of the weakness of your flesh for just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness resulting in what? That last word: Sanctification. 
Paul here continues his argument, and he's contrasting again: You were once slaves to unrighteousness. Now, when you're a slave, what do you do? Well, you do whatever your master says. And if you're a slave to unrighteousness, then you are mastered by unrighteousness. 
How surprised should we be when sinners sin. Not surprised, right? Let's talk about that for a moment. It's one of the problems with secular psychology. You see, the default for secular psychology is that people are basically good. And we're surprised when something goes wrong. We're surprised by misbehavior. But the biblical worldview is the opposite. We are broken from the moment we are born; in sin in our mother's womb we were conceived and we are born as sinners. And we should expect that sinners will sin. 
Now, why do sinners not sin? I mean, without a relationship to Christ, why do sinners not sin?
Well, Paul says in chapter two, as we saw, there is the function of conscience. Conscience is a limiting factor. Conscience is a limiting factor in that it is a restraining influence in the life for the individual who would otherwise give himself or herself completely to sin. So we should be thankful to conscience, but conscience is not a perfect guide, not by any means because Paul says it ultimately becomes a matter for either excusing us or condemning us because we rationalize. So it is a restraining factor, but it's not ultimately able to restrain persons from sin. 
By the way, a new book out in the bookstores argues that one out of every 25 human beings has no conscience. Obviously they have the moral capacity God put in them. But in other words, they have so given themselves to immorality and so opposed themselves to the very concept of right and wrong that they really have no conscience. And what this book is talking about is the fact that what used to be called “psychopathology” or a “psychopath” is now becoming more and more common because there are persons who literally have no conscience in misbehavior. That's a scary thought. We'll leave that to the secular authors for a moment. 
But let's go back to this. Paul says we should expect sinners to sin because sinners are slaves to sin. Why do sinners not sin? Well, the conscience is one factor. What is another factor? Paul will deal with this in Romans chapter 13. What is another factor why sinners don’t sin? Will choose in the moment not to do something they otherwise would do is the fear of punishment, right? In Romans chapter 13. Paul says, that's why God has given the government this authority because sin must be restrained. So with the government, you enforce civil law and criminal law, and have the power to enforce that law, and to prosecute violations of that law, and to incarcerate or to punish the violators of that law. It does have an effect. There's no doubt about it. As a matter of fact, any criminologist will tell you that the closer the tie between crime and punishment, the more evident the lesson is that should be very clear, and you don't have to be a criminologist to figure this out. All you have to do is be a mom or dad. 
I mean, that’s the way it works. You know, “How do you keep Junior from doing this?” Well, can you get inside Junior's heart and rearrange the furniture so that he no longer wants to desire to do this? No, you can't do that. It's not given to us to do that. So what do we do? “You do this, I will do this.” It's a promise. You just make it very clear: cause and effect. That's why parental discipline is so important. And that's why understanding, from a Christian worldview, that we are dealing with a sinner is very important. Because those in the secular psychotherapeutic community treat children as if they're just neutral, whatever they do is because of some environmental influence for all the rest. We know better than that. It's what comes from the heart. So there are restraints upon evil doing. There's the restraint of conscience. There's the restraint of the government. There's the restraint of authority.
And there are other things that come into play there. But none of that is enough to keep sinners from sin. That's why we still have to build prisons. That's why parents still have to discipline. So Paul says, we understand this is a slavery. We expect sinners to sin because they are slaves to sin, but the transforming grace of the Lord Jesus Christ means, as he says, in verse 14, that sin “cannot be master over us over believers.” Can't be a master. Now, we've already talked about the fact that this doesn't mean that believers don't sin. That's why we have Romans seven ahead of us. It does mean that we can't give ourselves to sin. We cannot serve sin as a master. We are to be slaves for obedience, as he says, in verse 16 and 17, rather than slaves of disobedience. 
In verse 19 he says, “I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh.” In other words, Paul says, I'm having to speak about this entire matter, and I'm having to speak in this elementary form of teaching because you're weak. 
Now let's think about that for a moment. Is the weakness of your flesh that Paul is talking just about the Roman church in a particular moment of weakness, or is he talking to believers about a constant state of weakness? Or is he talking about something here that we can't understand? Those are the three options. And I'll tell you why it's important. It is because there are some who argue that sanctification can be perfectly achieved in this life and that we can learn to be perfect. That Christians can never sin. When we reach that state of sinlessness. And thus Paul here is speaking about a weakness of the full flesh that can be overcome. There are others who say no, the weakness of the flesh is an ongoing thing. That's why we must look forward to the glorification that is yet to come,  because so long as we are human beings on planet earth, we're going to be afflicted by this kind of weakness. And there are others who say, “we really can't know what Paul means here.”  Well, I think number one, it's ridiculous to insult the Scripture to say, “we can't know what Paul means here.” Paul obviously intended for us to understand what he meant. 
And it can't be perfectionism because we do have Roman seven coming. Paul's gonna tell us that we do sin, but we can't give ourselves to sin. So once this weakness is the incompleteness of the word that has been begun in us. The moment we come to faith in Christ, our eternal destiny is sealed. We are given the gift of eternal life. The righteousness of Christ is imputed to us. But we still sin. Not as the master over us, but nonetheless, as the problem that it sets us, and we understand that sanctification is an ongoing process in this life, whereby the Holy Spirit, through the word, conforms us to the likeness of Christ, and it will be completed only on that day.
That “day” is the day of judgment, the day of resurrection, the day of completion, the day when God does all things that bring his will to absolute completion. And that's why in the book of Philippians, Paul will say to the Philippian Christians, “I am very confident, fully confident, absolutely confident that he who began a good work in you will complete it on the day of the Lord, Jesus Christ.” For when you were slaves of sin, we read in verse 20, you were free in regard to righteousness. “Therefore, what benefits were you deriving from the things which you are now ashamed of?”  For the things which you are now ashamed of, the outcome of those things is death. But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit resulting in sanctification. 
There's that word. And the outcome: eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life and righteous in Jesus, our Lord. Fascinating. Isn't it? Paul does the “if–then,” the “before and the now.” You were slaves of sin. And when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. What does that mean? You didn't care. You weren't concerned about it.  The problem was that righteousness was not your kid, your goal, it was not your concern. And as evidence of that in verse 21, you were doing all kinds of things from which you thought you derived some benefit.
This is an interesting argument. Why does this sinner sin? He thinks this to his benefit. I mean, you know, a sinner generally does not sin in order to deny himself, but rather to, to receive some kind of gain. And so whether it's the robber robbing, the thief, or the liar lying, or the disobedient in disobedience, whatever. The covetous person in the coveting, etc. Why does one sin? It is because one sees a benefit in this sinning. Paul says, you know, on the other side of salvation, what kind of benefit was there? What did, what did your, what did your fornication gain you? What did your lawlessness get for you? What did your rebellion reap? The outcome of those things is death, Paul says.  
Now that's about the strongest word we can imagine. And it's stronger than anything we have been prepared to encounter yet. Because we know the verse “For the of wages of sin are death.” We know that, but we're not there yet. This is where we have to remember when we study a book like this, we need to do our very best to try to follow it in sequence as the original hearers would've heard it. And, and so all of a sudden, Paul just drops this. The outcome of those things is death.
The fornicator doesn't say, “Hey, I'm gonna commit suicide.” But when he fornicates, he is. I mean, he's giving himself over to death. The murderer, the thief, the liar, the rebellious. We know that catalog from Roman chapter one, we're all there. Some were “inventors of evil things.” The outcome of those things is death. That is such strong language because that flies in the face of virtually every worldview you could imagine, other than the Christian gospel. 
Other worldviews, the worldviews of the East, say the way to get out of this is simply to deny desire. The outcome of this isn't death. The outcome of this is a giant weight. One brings on oneself and one must free oneself of. That's basically what Eastern philosophies are all about: Daoism, Buddhism. There are others who say the way out of this is by certain liturgy, certain practices, certain acts of devotion and all the rest. But Paul says all this, it just leads to death. There's only one way to be out of it. And that's in verse 22, but having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit resulting in sanctification, in the outcome of eternal life, that's where it benefits. 
interesting. Isn't it? The sinner sins because she thinks she's gonna benefit by this end. I mean, that’s why an individual would do this. There's some benefit to it. There's some benefit whether it's pleasure or gain or, or esteem or power, whatever, no one sins against his best interest, as he understands it. Sin is the demonstration of self-interest, not the denial of self-interest. The sin is looking forward to a benefit. And Paul says, what kind of benefit do you get? Death. But on the other hand, for those who've been transformed by the power of God, there is a benefit and that results in sanctification. And the outcome is eternal life.
Paul helps us to see the contrast here. He's not just doing some kind of cosmic, “let's make a deal.” Behind curtain number one, sin that leads to death. Meanwhile, Jane points to behind door number two, which is sanctification, that leads to eternal life. You make your choice, 
Nothing as crass as that. But the contrast is as clear as that. Paul says, look, you're Christians. You have come under faith in the Lord, Jesus Christ. We can have an honest discussion about sin. And in this honest discussion, we're gonna say we want sin because we thought we were gonna get a benefit out of it. And what do we get? Death. But by the grace of God, there's an entirely different benefit. That is our aim and our gift by God's grace. That is sanctification that process whereby we are conformed to the image of Christ that results in eternal life. Paul uses the word that's translated here: outcome. The outcome of those things is death verse 21, the outcome in verse 22 is eternal life. And then we have that great verse, Roman 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Double contrast there: Not only do you have sin that leads to death and grace that leads to life. You have sin with wages and salvation as a gift. 
Paul, inspired by the Holy spirit, just loads this verse, just a few words, with such meaning because of the contrast. It's not only between life and death; sin, leading to death, faith, leading to life, grace, and  justification as God's gift to us in salvation, leading to life. It's also that sin comes by wages. What you earn is what you get. What you sow is what you reap. The use of  the word wages there is very clear. And, and by the way, the word wages is a class-specific word in the Roman empire. It's not so class-specific to us, virtually everybody at every level of American society, every stratum, works for salary or works for wages. We understand that. But we have to realize in the Greco-Roman world, only people at the bottom got wages. Everybody else had property. And would have income from the property or from an estate or something even larger. But those who were at the lowest level of society had wages. And how did you get your wages? You worked for it. That's why the parables of Jesus come into play here with, with his parables of employment. But the wages of sin is death. Everybody can understand this. You work for sin and sin pays you back with death. That's the deal. 
But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. The break that takes place here between chapter six and chapter seven is an artificial break. In other words, the argument just continues. But,  Robert Stefanos, the printer who put this in, wanted to break it up enough so that we could find texts easily. So I'm gonna continue through just verse three of chapter seven. 
We have time to get that far, through the first three verses, because it introduces something we're going to pick up next time. Paul says, “Or do you not know, brothers]—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.”
Is that perfectly clear to you? Perhaps not? What is Paul saying here? He's saying, look, not only are you one kind of fool or another, and one kind of slave or another, it is as if you're married to one kind of master or another. And what's very interesting here. Paul is using the metaphor of the bride of Christ, of Christians as the bride of Christ. And what he's saying here is if Christ be dead, there's no allegiance owed to him. 
You say, if a wife becomes a widow, she's no longer obligated in marriage to her husband, he's dead. A look at verse four. “Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.” That is one of the most amazing metaphors found anywhere in the book of Romans. And it's pretty complex. But what he's saying here is that you were, in verse four, once made to die to the law. You had to die to the law. That's necessary for our salvation. To die to pretensions that we can achieve righteousness by the law. That's what he's talking about here. We die to the claim that we can make ourselves righteous. You have to die to that. But now we've been made alive in Christ. We've been joined to another. We had to die to the law as if the law was our first husband, speaking of, of the bride of Christ.
But now we are married to Christ and he was raised from the dead in order that we might bear fruit for God. In other words, we have a living spouse, as the church. Now this is an awkward metaphor for most of us, because it's difficult for us to talk in these terms about what it means to be the bride of Christ.  Paul says, look, what makes the bride of Christ different is the bride of Christ, the church, is made up of people who are once married to the law, which means married to sin. But now we're married to Christ and sin is now as good as dead to us. Like a first spouse who dies. We're no longer obligated to sin, But now we're obligated to Christ. He was raised from the dead and forever lives. The bride of Christ now owes her allegiance to the bride groom, the Lord Jesus Christ, who has saved us by his grace and will ever live, and whose claim upon his church will never cease.
Now, there are a lot of Christians who have been in churches all their lives and heard biblical preaching for years and have never encountered this because this is one of those texts that preachers tend to jump over when they're doing highlights in the book of Romans, because this is pretty technical stuff. And you have to go through it just about the way we went through chapter six, in order to understand what Paul's saying here: you're going to be one kind of fool or another. He says elsewhere, earlier in Romans, you're going be one kind of slave or another. And you're also going to be one kind of bride or another. 
Now hang with me. This metaphor is a little awkward, but it's intentional. So because we, as Christians, all together, are part of the bride of Chris. And the church is going to be married, either through the law, which leads to death (that's what we came out of), the first spouse, or to Christ the risen Lord, the way that leads to life. That's enough to make you think for a week 
As we ponder these metaphors that Paul uses, he wants us to see that we are to be dead to sin in terms of sin having a claim on us. That's the big thing: Do we continue to sin? Yes. But we have something as believers that we did not have before. Not only the gift of eternal life, but we also have Christ in us, the hope of glory. So that Christ in us, as we give ourselves to him, as we are by the process of sanctification made like him, as Paul would say, we are now united with him, it is not necessary that we sin. And so what Paul will encourage is for Christians to learn to grow in grace. So that sin becomes something that we gain victory over day by day, and month by month, and year by year. Not because of our willpower, but because of the power of Christ within us. Not because of our strength, but because of the strength of Christ. You put all that together and you realize Paul's about to set up an incredible argument. And next week we're gonna encounter law and grace, and Dr. Jekel and Mr. Hyde, I look forward to seeing you then. Let's pray together. Our Father, we are so thankful that you've given us this word of life. May it be unto life for us. And may we live for you. We pray this in the name of your Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 33:43 http://www.albertmohler.com/2005/02/06/romans-61-23-71-4/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noWe're picking up in Romans chapter six, and this is where we left off. And we're gonna zip right through the end of the chapter, because this is where Paul is in a series of repetitions. Then we're going to get to chapter seven, where we're going to encounter what may be the most unexpected metaphor about what Paul's been talking about here–and that is the relationship of the believer to sin and how our newness of life in Christ is supposed to transform that entire equation. But we pick up in chapter six, verse 12, with the theme verse for this chapter: “Therefore do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.” Now in chapter six, verse one, Paul asked this question, “What shall we say then are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?” Then he answers it in verse two, “may it never be!” How shall you, who died to sin, or we, who died to sin, still live in it?”  One of the accusations against the gospel is that it leads to antinomianism, which means no-law-ism. In other words, the idea that one can live however one wants to live. And you have to remember that our original context is very important. And even though it is the original context, 20 centuries ago, it's pretty close to how we live today as well, in that the first audience for this letter is the Roman congregation, and we've talked about this so many times, were made up Christians. Some of whom had been Jews who came to know the Lord Jesus Christ, and some had been Gentiles.  Now before Christ, what was the big difference between the Jew and the Gentile? The law. The Jews had the law. The law was the special revelation of God given to the children of Israel. Most preeminently in Mount Sinai, through Moses, God gave it to the people of Israel. First, these 10 words, the 10 Commandments, and then also the entire body of law. And that's what made Israel distinctive. The law was a representation of the covenant, the special covenant that God had with his chosen people, Israel. So, in this church are those who had come out of the religion of the law. And then there were those who had come out of the lifestyles of lawlessness. They had come together and here they are in one church made up of believers in Jesus Christ. By definition new believers, because this is a young church, a first generation church. And Paul's trying to help them see the realities of what the Christian life is supposed to be like. But it's interesting, isn't it? Paul has to raise and answer this question, because obviously there are some people who are saying, “Hey, the more we sin, grace much more abounds, so let's just sin, so we'll see more grace.” And you can understand how a fallen human mind could think this way. Look, if God loves to forgive sin, let’s let Him have a lot of pleasure in forgiving sin. Let's sin a lot so that He would be pleased and forgiving a lot. Paul shows that to be among the most perverse forms of logic. We could imagine when Paul says, “may it never be!” That's one of his strongest statements and he uses it several times in the book of Romans, and at least twice in this chapter, “may it never be!” As you see, also in verse 15, he makes this very clear. This is not the answer. Then he explains in the remainder of chapter six  why it's not the answer; why we as Christians, can't give ourselves to sin. We can't use the excuse that since there's grace abounding to the greatest of sinners, we should sin as much as possible. Paul says that shows that you just don't understand the gospel. Frankly it calls into question whether or not you actually have had this saving encounter with Christ. Because if you have, you will begin to hate those things, which you had loved. The transformation of the gospel is not just in who we are and it's not even just in what we do, it's in what we want. That's what Paul wants us to see.  The transforming power of grace in the Christian's life is not just demonstrated in the fact that there is an objective difference now that we are no longer under wrath and under grace.It's no longer just that we do things we had never done before. And we do not do things we had done before. It's that our very wants are realigned. And that's a demonstration of what grace really does in the life of the believers.  So Paul goes on in Romans chapter six, as we saw, by using a metaphor of baptism in verse four: “Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death. So just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”  This newness of life. It's not just like a new page. It's a new dimension, a new experience living under the covenant of grace. We learn what it is to live, no longer by the law, but the law of Christ, which isn't a lower law, it’s a higher law. Jesus recites the law for instance, on the Sermon of the Mount, he says, “You have heard it said”, and then he says, “But I say to you,” –he never minimizes the law. When it comes to adultery, he never says, “You have heard it said, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you, it's no big deal.”  That's not what Jesus does. He does the opposite. He says, “You have heard it said, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you, if a man lusts in his heart, he has committed adultery.” And what is Jesus doing there? He is not just upping the ante, so to speak. He's getting to the heart. Jesus is concerned with the heart. Christianity addresses itself to the heart. The heart is the metaphor for the being, who the person really is. And so when we talk about a transformed heart, we are talking about a difference in who we are–even in what we desire. We ended with verse 12 last time. We pick up on verse 13, as Paul says, “Do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin.” Now, what are the members of our body? Well, the limbs, that's what he was talking about. Actually the entirety of the human body and what he is saying here is that the body's important.  Now, why is this really important for us to recognize? Well it's because Christianity is a holistic faith and there are some faiths that really have no concern for the body whatsoever. Then there are other religions that make the body the issue. There are those who think that the issue is to starve the body or to punish the body in terms of atonement for sin. We don't believe that. You could beat yourself up. You could starve yourself. And that has nothing to do with your salvation.  Then there are those who say that the body doesn't matter at all. And these are dualistic fatihs, in which it's just what you have on the inside that matters in terms of your own personality and your own consciousness and all the rest, and what you do with your body really isn't all that important. Now these are ancient heresies, but I tell you, they are alive in our culture today. Because this dualism is how a lot of very sophisticated sin. I say very sophisticated sinners because they think “I can do this with my body without doing this with my heart”  And the Bible calls that a lie. You know, the Bible says the one who commits adultery is an adulterer. None of that works. Your heart betrays who you are because your body has betrayed your heart. And there are some who can rationalize this. They can say this, “Look, my, my body can do any number of things, but my internal soul was unblemished by all this.”  And Christianity would answer that with a thunderous, “nonsense.”  So Paul says, “do not go on.” And the verb tense there is very interesting. It's the progressive “do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin” How? “As instruments of unrighteousness.” So our body is an instrument of one thing or another. It's either an instrument for righteousness or unrighteousness. And what we do with our body is a big and very important indicator of who we really are and whether or not we've transformed by the power of Christ. The power of the resurrection comes in here, too. We are to present ourselves to God as those alive from the dead. We were dead. So we had a dead body. Now the body that is alive in Christ is owned by him. Our members are then to be instruments of righteousness for “sin shall not be master over you for you are not under the law, but under grace” What then, shall we sin? Because we are not under the law, but under grace? May it never be” There's that second time he comes thunderously with this. Here's that perverse logic again, “let's sin because we're not under the law. We're under grace.”  Now I am certain that any of you have been Christians for any number of years. You've heard this. It's almost as if some people don't even know this verse in the Bible, because they say exactly the opposite. We're not under the law. We're under grace. Okay. That's true. What does that mean? So we can do this, or we can do that. Sorry. Grace is not a lower law. It's a higher law. But it's not a law that measures your own righteousness in terms of whether you measure up to this. But it's a state which is achieved by Christ's own righteousness, imputed to us. But that righteousness is to become evident in us. That's the doctrine of sanctification. “Do you not know?” And, by the way, Paul uses legal language very commonly. When Paul in his letter says, “do you not know” that is his emphatic way of saying, “you're supposed to know this.” “Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves to the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death or obedience resulting in righteousness?” You're going to be enslaved, to one thing or another. The apostle Paul uses these contrasts all the time.  For instance, he makes it very clear we're going to be a fool of one kind or another. I talked about this in a message at the Seminary just a few weeks ago, you're either going to be a fool for Christ's sake, or you're going to be a fool for neglecting the revelation of God. Paul makes that very clear. You're gonna be a slave of one kind or another. You're going to have to choose what kind of fool you're going to be: A fool in the face of the world who believes in Christ, or a fool in the face of Christ who rejects his revelation. You're going to be a slave to one master or another. You're going to be a slave either to the Lord, Jesus Christ, or you're going to be a slave to your lust. That's it. One leads to life, the other to death. Verse 17: “But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching, to which you were committed.”  This is another one of Paul's very pastoral strategies: You-were-then versus you-are-now. He does this also in I Corinthians chapter six, where he gives an entire list of persons who will not inherit the kingdom of God. And then he turns to the church and he says, “such were some of you.” There's a past tense and there’s a present tense. In fact, for the Apostle Paul, there's the past tense, the present tense, and the future tense. And the past tense is we all came out of sin. We were sinners; that's by definition who we were. The most important thing about us is that we were a sinner and we were slaves to sin. But by the power of God, we are no longer slaves to sin. And, therefore, as Paul says here, it's true that we were slaves of sin, but it's no longer true that we are slaves of sin. You became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching, to which you were committed. That's the gospel.  And this is an interesting little phrase here. Paul uses it at four or five different places in his, in his letters where he says this form of teaching. Now one can easily pass right over it, because remember Paul's using some idioms, some of the phrases of his own time, and that “form of teaching” is a pretty technical phrase. That means a “philosophy of life.” And in other words, this was the entire worldview we could say to which you have become committed by Christ. And then in verse 18, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. So there it is: Rather than slaves of unrighteousness. We are now slaves of righteousness. I'm speaking in human terms, Paul says, because of the weakness of your flesh for just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness resulting in what? That last word: Sanctification.  Paul here continues his argument, and he's contrasting again: You were once slaves to unrighteousness. Now, when you're a slave, what do you do? Well, you do whatever your master says. And if you're a slave to unrighteousness, then you are mastered by unrighteousness.  How surprised should we be when sinners sin. Not surprised, right? Let's talk about that for a moment. It's one of the problems with secular psychology. You see, the default for secular psychology is that people are basically good. And we're surprised when something goes wrong. We're surprised by misbehavior. But the biblical worldview is the opposite. We are broken from the moment we are born; in sin in our mother's womb we were conceived and we are born as sinners. And we should expect that sinners will sin.  Now, why do sinners not sin? I mean, without a relationship to Christ, why do sinners not sin? Well, Paul says in chapter two, as we saw, there is the function of conscience. Conscience is a limiting factor. Conscience is a limiting factor in that it is a restraining influence in the life for the individual who would otherwise give himself or herself completely to sin. So we should be thankful to conscience, but conscience is not a perfect guide, not by any means because Paul says it ultimately becomes a matter for either excusing us or condemning us because we rationalize. So it is a restraining factor, but it's not ultimately able to restrain persons from sin.  By the way, a new book out in the bookstores argues that one out of every 25 human beings has no conscience. Obviously they have the moral capacity God put in them. But in other words, they have so given themselves to immorality and so opposed themselves to the very concept of right and wrong that they really have no conscience. And what this book is talking about is the fact that what used to be called “psychopathology” or a “psychopath” is now becoming more and more common because there are persons who literally have no conscience in misbehavior. That's a scary thought. We'll leave that to the secular authors for a moment.  But let's go back to this. Paul says we should expect sinners to sin because sinners are slaves to sin. Why do sinners not sin? Well, the conscience is one factor. What is another factor? Paul will deal with this in Romans chapter 13. What is another factor why sinners don’t sin? Will choose in the moment not to do something they otherwise would do is the fear of punishment, right? In Romans chapter 13. Paul says, that's why God has given the government this authority because sin must be restrained. So with the government, you enforce civil law and criminal law, and have the power to enforce that law, and to prosecute violations of that law, and to incarcerate or to punish the violators of that law. It does have an effect. There's no doubt about it. As a matter of fact, any criminologist will tell you that the closer the tie between crime and punishment, the more evident the lesson is that should be very clear, and you don't have to be a criminologist to figure this out. All you have to do is be a mom or dad.  I mean, that’s the way it works. You know, “How do you keep Junior from doing this?” Well, can you get inside Junior's heart and rearrange the furniture so that he no longer wants to desire to do this? No, you can't do that. It's not given to us to do that. So what do we do? “You do this, I will do this.” It's a promise. You just make it very clear: cause and effect. That's why parental discipline is so important. And that's why understanding, from a Christian worldview, that we are dealing with a sinner is very important. Because those in the secular psychotherapeutic community treat children as if they're just neutral, whatever they do is because of some environmental influence for all the rest. We know better than that. It's what comes from the heart. So there are restraints upon evil doing. There's the restraint of conscience. There's the restraint of the government. There's the restraint of authority. And there are other things that come into play there. But none of that is enough to keep sinners from sin. That's why we still have to build prisons. That's why parents still have to discipline. So Paul says, we understand this is a slavery. We expect sinners to sin because they are slaves to sin, but the transforming grace of the Lord Jesus Christ means, as he says, in verse 14, that sin “cannot be master over us over believers.” Can't be a master. Now, we've already talked about the fact that this doesn't mean that believers don't sin. That's why we have Romans seven ahead of us. It does mean that we can't give ourselves to sin. We cannot serve sin as a master. We are to be slaves for obedience, as he says, in verse 16 and 17, rather than slaves of disobedience.  In verse 19 he says, “I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh.” In other words, Paul says, I'm having to speak about this entire matter, and I'm having to speak in this elementary form of teaching because you're weak.  Now let's think about that for a moment. Is the weakness of your flesh that Paul is talking just about the Roman church in a particular moment of weakness, or is he talking to believers about a constant state of weakness? Or is he talking about something here that we can't understand? Those are the three options. And I'll tell you why it's important. It is because there are some who argue that sanctification can be perfectly achieved in this life and that we can learn to be perfect. That Christians can never sin. When we reach that state of sinlessness. And thus Paul here is speaking about a weakness of the full flesh that can be overcome. There are others who say no, the weakness of the flesh is an ongoing thing. That's why we must look forward to the glorification that is yet to come,  because so long as we are human beings on planet earth, we're going to be afflicted by this kind of weakness. And there are others who say, “we really can't know what Paul means here.”  Well, I think number one, it's ridiculous to insult the Scripture to say, “we can't know what Paul means here.” Paul obviously intended for us to understand what he meant.  And it can't be perfectionism because we do have Roman seven coming. Paul's gonna tell us that we do sin, but we can't give ourselves to sin. So once this weakness is the incompleteness of the word that has been begun in us. The moment we come to faith in Christ, our eternal destiny is sealed. We are given the gift of eternal life. The righteousness of Christ is imputed to us. But we still sin. Not as the master over us, but nonetheless, as the problem that it sets us, and we understand that sanctification is an ongoing process in this life, whereby the Holy Spirit, through the word, conforms us to the likeness of Christ, and it will be completed only on that day. That “day” is the day of judgment, the day of resurrection, the day of completion, the day when God does all things that bring his will to absolute completion. And that's why in the book of Philippians, Paul will say to the Philippian Christians, “I am very confident, fully confident, absolutely confident that he who began a good work in you will complete it on the day of the Lord, Jesus Christ.” For when you were slaves of sin, we read in verse 20, you were free in regard to righteousness. “Therefore, what benefits were you deriving from the things which you are now ashamed of?”  For the things which you are now ashamed of, the outcome of those things is death. But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit resulting in sanctification.  There's that word. And the outcome: eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life and righteous in Jesus, our Lord. Fascinating. Isn't it? Paul does the “if–then,” the “before and the now.” You were slaves of sin. And when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. What does that mean? You didn't care. You weren't concerned about it.  The problem was that righteousness was not your kid, your goal, it was not your concern. And as evidence of that in verse 21, you were doing all kinds of things from which you thought you derived some benefit. This is an interesting argument. Why does this sinner sin? He thinks this to his benefit. I mean, you know, a sinner generally does not sin in order to deny himself, but rather to, to receive some kind of gain. And so whether it's the robber robbing, the thief, or the liar lying, or the disobedient in disobedience, whatever. The covetous person in the coveting, etc. Why does one sin? It is because one sees a benefit in this sinning. Paul says, you know, on the other side of salvation, what kind of benefit was there? What did, what did your, what did your fornication gain you? What did your lawlessness get for you? What did your rebellion reap? The outcome of those things is death, Paul says.   Now that's about the strongest word we can imagine. And it's stronger than anything we have been prepared to encounter yet. Because we know the verse “For the of wages of sin are death.” We know that, but we're not there yet. This is where we have to remember when we study a book like this, we need to do our very best to try to follow it in sequence as the original hearers would've heard it. And, and so all of a sudden, Paul just drops this. The outcome of those things is death. The fornicator doesn't say, “Hey, I'm gonna commit suicide.” But when he fornicates, he is. I mean, he's giving himself over to death. The murderer, the thief, the liar, the rebellious. We know that catalog from Roman chapter one, we're all there. Some were “inventors of evil things.” The outcome of those things is death. That is such strong language because that flies in the face of virtually every worldview you could imagine, other than the Christian gospel.  Other worldviews, the worldviews of the East, say the way to get out of this is simply to deny desire. The outcome of this isn't death. The outcome of this is a giant weight. One brings on oneself and one must free oneself of. That's basically what Eastern philosophies are all about: Daoism, Buddhism. There are others who say the way out of this is by certain liturgy, certain practices, certain acts of devotion and all the rest. But Paul says all this, it just leads to death. There's only one way to be out of it. And that's in verse 22, but having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit resulting in sanctification, in the outcome of eternal life, that's where it benefits.  interesting. Isn't it? The sinner sins because she thinks she's gonna benefit by this end. I mean, that’s why an individual would do this. There's some benefit to it. There's some benefit whether it's pleasure or gain or, or esteem or power, whatever, no one sins against his best interest, as he understands it. Sin is the demonstration of self-interest, not the denial of self-interest. The sin is looking forward to a benefit. And Paul says, what kind of benefit do you get? Death. But on the other hand, for those who've been transformed by the power of God, there is a benefit and that results in sanctification. And the outcome is eternal life. Paul helps us to see the contrast here. He's not just doing some kind of cosmic, “let's make a deal.” Behind curtain number one, sin that leads to death. Meanwhile, Jane points to behind door number two, which is sanctification, that leads to eternal life. You make your choice,  Nothing as crass as that. But the contrast is as clear as that. Paul says, look, you're Christians. You have come under faith in the Lord, Jesus Christ. We can have an honest discussion about sin. And in this honest discussion, we're gonna say we want sin because we thought we were gonna get a benefit out of it. And what do we get? Death. But by the grace of God, there's an entirely different benefit. That is our aim and our gift by God's grace. That is sanctification that process whereby we are conformed to the image of Christ that results in eternal life. Paul uses the word that's translated here: outcome. The outcome of those things is death verse 21, the outcome in verse 22 is eternal life. And then we have that great verse, Roman 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Double contrast there: Not only do you have sin that leads to death and grace that leads to life. You have sin with wages and salvation as a gift.  Paul, inspired by the Holy spirit, just loads this verse, just a few words, with such meaning because of the contrast. It's not only between life and death; sin, leading to death, faith, leading to life, grace, and  justification as God's gift to us in salvation, leading to life. It's also that sin comes by wages. What you earn is what you get. What you sow is what you reap. The use of  the word wages there is very clear. And, and by the way, the word wages is a class-specific word in the Roman empire. It's not so class-specific to us, virtually everybody at every level of American society, every stratum, works for salary or works for wages. We understand that. But we have to realize in the Greco-Roman world, only people at the bottom got wages. Everybody else had property. And would have income from the property or from an estate or something even larger. But those who were at the lowest level of society had wages. And how did you get your wages? You worked for it. That's why the parables of Jesus come into play here with, with his parables of employment. But the wages of sin is death. Everybody can understand this. You work for sin and sin pays you back with death. That's the deal.  But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. The break that takes place here between chapter six and chapter seven is an artificial break. In other words, the argument just continues. But,  Robert Stefanos, the printer who put this in, wanted to break it up enough so that we could find texts easily. So I'm gonna continue through just verse three of chapter seven.  We have time to get that far, through the first three verses, because it introduces something we're going to pick up next time. Paul says, “Or do you not know, brothers]—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.” Is that perfectly clear to you? Perhaps not? What is Paul saying here? He's saying, look, not only are you one kind of fool or another, and one kind of slave or another, it is as if you're married to one kind of master or another. And what's very interesting here. Paul is using the metaphor of the bride of Christ, of Christians as the bride of Christ. And what he's saying here is if Christ be dead, there's no allegiance owed to him.  You say, if a wife becomes a widow, she's no longer obligated in marriage to her husband, he's dead. A look at verse four. “Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.” That is one of the most amazing metaphors found anywhere in the book of Romans. And it's pretty complex. But what he's saying here is that you were, in verse four, once made to die to the law. You had to die to the law. That's necessary for our salvation. To die to pretensions that we can achieve righteousness by the law. That's what he's talking about here. We die to the claim that we can make ourselves righteous. You have to die to that. But now we've been made alive in Christ. We've been joined to another. We had to die to the law as if the law was our first husband, speaking of, of the bride of Christ. But now we are married to Christ and he was raised from the dead in order that we might bear fruit for God. In other words, we have a living spouse, as the church. Now this is an awkward metaphor for most of us, because it's difficult for us to talk in these terms about what it means to be the bride of Christ.  Paul says, look, what makes the bride of Christ different is the bride of Christ, the church, is made up of people who are once married to the law, which means married to sin. But now we're married to Christ and sin is now as good as dead to us. Like a first spouse who dies. We're no longer obligated to sin, But now we're obligated to Christ. He was raised from the dead and forever lives. The bride of Christ now owes her allegiance to the bride groom, the Lord Jesus Christ, who has saved us by his grace and will ever live, and whose claim upon his church will never cease. Now, there are a lot of Christians who have been in churches all their lives and heard biblical preaching for years and have never encountered this because this is one of those texts that preachers tend to jump over when they're doing highlights in the book of Romans, because this is pretty technical stuff. And you have to go through it just about the way we went through chapter six, in order to understand what Paul's saying here: you're going to be one kind of fool or another. He says elsewhere, earlier in Romans, you're going be one kind of slave or another. And you're also going to be one kind of bride or another.  Now hang with me. This metaphor is a little awkward, but it's intentional. So because we, as Christians, all together, are part of the bride of Chris. And the church is going to be married, either through the law, which leads to death (that's what we came out of), the first spouse, or to Christ the risen Lord, the way that leads to life. That's enough to make you think for a week  As we ponder these metaphors that Paul uses, he wants us to see that we are to be dead to sin in terms of sin having a claim on us. That's the big thing: Do we continue to sin? Yes. But we have something as believers that we did not have before. Not only the gift of eternal life, but we also have Christ in us, the hope of glory. So that Christ in us, as we give ourselves to him, as we are by the process of sanctification made like him, as Paul would say, we are now united with him, it is not necessary that we sin. And so what Paul will encourage is for Christians to learn to grow in grace. So that sin becomes something that we gain victory over day by day, and month by month, and year by year. Not because of our willpower, but because of the power of Christ within us. Not because of our strength, but because of the strength of Christ. You put all that together and you realize Paul's about to set up an incredible argument. And next week we're gonna encounter law and grace, and Dr. Jekel and Mr. Hyde, I look forward to seeing you then. Let's pray together. Our Father, we are so thankful that you've given us this word of life. May it be unto life for us. And may we live for you. We pray this in the name of your Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.We're picking up in Romans chapter six, and this is where we left off. And we're gonna zip right through the end of the chapter, because this is where Paul is in a series of repetitions. Then we're going to get to chapter seven, where we're going to encounter what may be the most unexpected metaphor about what Paul's been talking about here–and that is the relationship of the believer to sin and how our newness of life in Christ is supposed to transform that entire equation. But we pick up in chapter six, verse 12, with the theme verse for this chapter: “Therefore do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.” Now in chapter six, verse one, Paul asked this question, “What shall we say then are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?” Then he answers it in verse two, “may it never be!” How shall you, who died to sin, or we, who died to sin, still live in it?”  One of the accusations against the gospel is that it leads to antinomianism, which means no-law-ism. In other words, the idea that one can live however one wants to live. And you have to remember that our original context is very important. And even though it is the original context, 20 centuries ago, it's pretty close to how we live today as well, in that the first audience for this letter is the Roman congregation, and we've talked about this so many times, were made up Christians. Some of whom had been Jews who came to know the Lord Jesus Christ, and some had been Gentiles.  Now before Christ, what was the big difference between the Jew and the Gentile? The law. The Jews had the law. The law was the special revelation of God given to the children of Israel. Most preeminently in Mount Sinai, through Moses, God gave it to the people of Israel. First, these 10 words, the 10 Commandments, and then also the entire body of law. And that's what made Israel distinctive. The law was a representation of the covenant, the special covenant that God had with his chosen people, Israel. So, in this church are those who had come out of the religion of the law. And then there were those who had come out of the lifestyles of lawlessness. They had come together and here they are in one church made up of believers in Jesus Christ. By definition new believers, because this is a young church, a first generation church. And Paul's trying to help them see the realities of what the Christian life is supposed to be like. But it's interesting, isn't it? Paul has to raise and answer this question, because obviously there are some people who are saying, “Hey, the more we sin, grace much more abounds, so let's just sin, so we'll see more grace.” And you can understand how a fallen human mind could think this way. Look, if God loves to forgive sin, let’s let Him have a lot of pleasure in forgiving sin. Let's sin a lot so that He would be pleased and forgiving a lot. Paul shows that to be among the most perverse forms of logic. We could imagine when Paul says, “may it never be!” That's one of his strongest statements and he uses it several times in the book of Romans, and at least twice in this chapter, “may it never be!” As you see, also in verse 15, he makes this very clear. This is not the answer. Then he explains in the remainder of chapter six  why it's not the answer; why we as Christians, can't give ourselves to sin. We can't use the excuse that since there's grace abounding to the greatest of sinners, we should sin as much as possible. Paul says that shows that you just don't understand the gospel. Frankly it calls into question whether or not you actually have had this saving encounter with Christ. Because if you have, you will begin to hate those things, which you had loved. The transformation of the gospel is not just in who we are and it's not even just in what we do, it's in what we want. That's what Paul wants us to see.  The transforming power of grace in the Christian's life is not just demonstrated in the fact that there is an objective difference now that we are no longer under wrath and under grace.It's no longer just that we do things we had never done before. And we do not do things we had done before. It's that our very wants are realigned. And that's a demonstration of what grace really does in the life of the believers.  So Paul goes on in Romans chapter six, as we saw, by using a metaphor of baptism in verse four: “Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death. So just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”  This newness of life. It's not just like a new page. It's a new dimension, a new experience living under the covenant of grace. We learn what it is to live, no longer by the law, but the law of Christ, which isn't a lower law, it’s a higher law. Jesus recites the law for instance, on the Sermon of the Mount, he says, “You have heard it said”, and then he says, “But I say to you,” –he never minimizes the law. When it comes to adultery, he never says, “You have heard it said, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you, it's no big deal.”  That's not what Jesus does. He does the opposite. He says, “You have heard it said, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you, if a man lusts in his heart, he has committed adultery.” And what is Jesus doing there? He is not just upping the ante, so to speak. He's getting to the heart. Jesus is concerned with the heart. Christianity addresses itself to the heart. The heart is the metaphor for the being, who the person really is. And so when we talk about a transformed heart, we are talking about a difference in who we are–even in what we desire. We ended with verse 12 last time. We pick up on verse 13, as Paul says, “Do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin.” Now, what are the members of our body? Well, the limbs, that's what he was talking about. Actually the entirety of the human body and what he is saying here is that the body's important.  Now, why is this really important for us to recognize? Well it's because Christianity is a holistic faith and there are some faiths that really have no concern for the body whatsoever. Then there are other religions that make the body the issue. There are those who think that the issue is to starve the body or to punish the body in terms of atonement for sin. We don't believe that. You could beat yourself up. You could starve yourself. And that has nothing to do with your salvation.  Then there are those who say that the body doesn't matter at all. And these are dualistic fatihs, in which it's just what you have on the inside that matters in terms of your own personality and your own consciousness and all the rest, and what you do with your body really isn't all that important. Now these are ancient heresies, but I tell you, they are alive in our culture today. Because this dualism is how a lot of very sophisticated sin. I say very sophisticated sinners because they think “I can do this with my body without doing this with my heart”  And the Bible calls that a lie. You know, the Bible says the one who commits adultery is an adulterer. None of that works. Your heart betrays who you are because your body has betrayed your heart. And there are some who can rationalize this. They can say this, “Look, my, my body can do any number of things, but my internal soul was unblemished by all this.”  And Christianity would answer that with a thunderous, “nonsense.”  So Paul says, “do not go on.” And the verb tense there is very interesting. It's the progressive “do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin” How? “As instruments of unrighteousness.” So our body is an instrument of one thing or another. It's either an instrument for righteousness or unrighteousness. And what we do with our body is a big and very important indicator of who we really are and whether or not we've transformed by the power of Christ. The power of the resurrection comes in here, too. We are to present ourselves to God as those alive from the dead. We were dead. So we had a dead body. Now the body that is alive in Christ is owned by him. Our members are then to be instruments of righteousness for “sin shall not be master over you for you are not under the law, but under grace” What then, shall we sin? Because we are not under the law, but under grace? May it never be” There's that second time he comes thunderously with this. Here's that perverse logic again, “let's sin because we're not under the law. We're under grace.”  Now I am certain that any of you have been Christians for any number of years. You've heard this. It's almost as if some people don't even know this verse in the Bible, because they say exactly the opposite. We're not under the law. We're under grace. Okay. That's true. What does that mean? So we can do this, or we can do that. Sorry. Grace is not a lower law. It's a higher law. But it's not a law that measures your own righteousness in terms of whether you measure up to this. But it's a state which is achieved by Christ's own righteousness, imputed to us. But that righteousness is to become evident in us. That's the doctrine of sanctification. “Do you not know?” And, by the way, Paul uses legal language very commonly. When Paul in his letter says, “do you not know” that is his emphatic way of saying, “you're supposed to know this.” “Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves to the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death or obedience resulting in righteousness?” You're going to be enslaved, to one thing or another. The apostle Paul uses these contrasts all the time.  For instance, he makes it very clear we're going to be a fool of one kind or another. I talked about this in a message at the Seminary just a few weeks ago, you're either going to be a fool for Christ's sake, or you're going to be a fool for neglecting the revelation of God. Paul makes that very clear. You're gonna be a slave of one kind or another. You're going to have to choose what kind of fool you're going to be: A fool in the face of the world who believes in Christ, or a fool in the face of Christ who rejects his revelation. You're going to be a slave to one master or another. You're going to be a slave either to the Lord, Jesus Christ, or you're going to be a slave to your lust. That's it. One leads to life, the other to death. Verse 17: “But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching, to which you were committed.”  This is another one of Paul's very pastoral strategies: You-were-then versus you-are-now. He does this also in I Corinthians chapter six, where he gives an entire list of persons who will not inherit the kingdom of God. And then he turns to the church and he says, “such were some of you.” There's a past tense and there’s a present tense. In fact, for the Apostle Paul, there's the past tense, the present tense, and the future tense. And the past tense is we all came out of sin. We were sinners; that's by definition who we were. The most important thing about us is that we were a sinner and we were slaves to sin. But by the power of God, we are no longer slaves to sin. And, therefore, as Paul says here, it's true that we were slaves of sin, but it's no longer true that we are slaves of sin. You became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching, to which you were committed. That's the gospel.  And this is an interesting little phrase here. Paul uses it at four or five different places in his, in his letters where he says this form of teaching. Now one can easily pass right over it, because remember Paul's using some idioms, some of the phrases of his own time, and that “form of teaching” is a pretty technical phrase. That means a “philosophy of life.” And in other words, this was the entire worldview we could say to which you have become committed by Christ. And then in verse 18, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. So there it is: Rather than slaves of unrighteousness. We are now slaves of righteousness. I'm speaking in human terms, Paul says, because of the weakness of your flesh for just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness resulting in what? That last word: Sanctification.  Paul here continues his argument, and he's contrasting again: You were once slaves to unrighteousness. Now, when you're a slave, what do you do? Well, you do whatever your master says. And if you're a slave to unrighteousness, then you are mastered by unrighteousness.  How surprised should we be when sinners sin. Not surprised, right? Let's talk about that for a moment. It's one of the problems with secular psychology. You see, the default for secular psychology is that people are basically good. And we're surprised when something goes wrong. We're surprised by misbehavior. But the biblical worldview is the opposite. We are broken from the moment we are born; in sin in our mother's womb we were conceived and we are born as sinners. And we should expect that sinners will sin.  Now, why do sinners not sin? I mean, without a relationship to Christ, why do sinners not sin? Well, Paul says in chapter two, as we saw, there is the function of conscience. Conscience is a limiting factor. Conscience is a limiting factor in that it is a restraining influence in the life for the individual who would otherwise give himself or herself completely to sin. So we should be thankful to conscience, but conscience is not a perfect guide, not by any means because Paul says it ultimately becomes a matter for either excusing us or condemning us because we rationalize. So it is a restraining factor, but it's not ultimately able to restrain persons from sin.  By the way, a new book out in the bookstores argues that one out of every 25 human beings has no conscience. Obviously they have the moral capacity God put in them. But in other words, they have so given themselves to immorality and so opposed themselves to the very concept of right and wrong that they really have no conscience. And what this book is talking about is the fact that what used to be called “psychopathology” or a “psychopath” is now becoming more and more common because there are persons who literally have no conscience in misbehavior. That's a scary thought. We'll leave that to the secular authors for a moment.  But let's go back to this. Paul says we should expect sinners to sin because sinners are slaves to sin. Why do sinners not sin? Well, the conscience is one factor. What is another factor? Paul will deal with this in Romans chapter 13. What is another factor why sinners don’t sin? Will choose in the moment not to do something they otherwise would do is the fear of punishment, right? In Romans chapter 13. Paul says, that's why God has given the government this authority because sin must be restrained. So with the government, you enforce civil law and criminal law, and have the power to enforce that law, and to prosecute violations of that law, and to incarcerate or to punish the violators of that law. It does have an effect. There's no doubt about it. As a matter of fact, any criminologist will tell you that the closer the tie between crime and punishment, the more evident the lesson is that should be very clear, and you don't have to be a criminologist to figure this out. All you have to do is be a mom or dad.  I mean, that’s the way it works. You know, “How do you keep Junior from doing this?” Well, can you get inside Junior's heart and rearrange the furniture so that he no longer wants to desire to do this? No, you can't do that. It's not given to us to do that. So what do we do? “You do this, I will do this.” It's a promise. You just make it very clear: cause and effect. That's why parental discipline is so important. And that's why understanding, from a Christian worldview, that we are dealing with a sinner is very important. Because those in the secular psychotherapeutic community treat children as if they're just neutral, whatever they do is because of some environmental influence for all the rest. We know better than that. It's what comes from the heart. So there are restraints upon evil doing. There's the restraint of conscience. There's the restraint of the government. There's the restraint of authority. And there are other things that come into play there. But none of that is enough to keep sinners from sin. That's why we still have to build prisons. That's why parents still have to discipline. So Paul says, we understand this is a slavery. We expect sinners to sin because they are slaves to sin, but the transforming grace of the Lord Jesus Christ means, as he says, in verse 14, that sin “cannot be master over us over believers.” Can't be a master. Now, we've already talked about the fact that this doesn't mean that believers don't sin. That's why we have Romans seven ahead of us. It does mean that we can't give ourselves to sin. We cannot serve sin as a master. We are to be slaves for obedience, as he says, in verse 16 and 17, rather than slaves of disobedience.  In verse 19 he says, “I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh.” In other words, Paul says, I'm having to speak about this entire matter, and I'm having to speak in this elementary form of teaching because you're weak.  Now let's think about that for a moment. Is the weakness of your flesh that Paul is talking just about the Roman church in a particular moment of weakness, or is he talking to believers about a constant state of weakness? Or is he talking about something here that we can't understand? Those are the three options. And I'll tell you why it's important. It is because there are some who argue that sanctification can be perfectly achieved in this life and that we can learn to be perfect. That Christians can never sin. When we reach that state of sinlessness. And thus Paul here is speaking about a weakness of the full flesh that can be overcome. There are others who say no, the weakness of the flesh is an ongoing thing. That's why we must look forward to the glorification that is yet to come,  because so long as we are human beings on planet earth, we're going to be afflicted by this kind of weakness. And there are others who say, “we really can't know what Paul means here.”  Well, I think number one, it's ridiculous to insult the Scripture to say, “we can't know what Paul means here.” Paul obviously intended for us to understand what he meant.  And it can't be perfectionism because we do have Roman seven coming. Paul's gonna tell us that we do sin, but we can't give ourselves to sin. So once this weakness is the incompleteness of the word that has been begun in us. The moment we come to faith in Christ, our eternal destiny is sealed. We are given the gift of eternal life. The righteousness of Christ is imputed to us. But we still sin. Not as the master over us, but nonetheless, as the problem that it sets us, and we understand that sanctification is an ongoing process in this life, whereby the Holy Spirit, through the word, conforms us to the likeness of Christ, and it will be completed only on that day. That “day” is the day of judgment, the day of resurrection, the day of completion, the day when God does all things that bring his will to absolute completion. And that's why in the book of Philippians, Paul will say to the Philippian Christians, “I am very confident, fully confident, absolutely confident that he who began a good work in you will complete it on the day of the Lord, Jesus Christ.” For when you were slaves of sin, we read in verse 20, you were free in regard to righteousness. “Therefore, what benefits were you deriving from the things which you are now ashamed of?”  For the things which you are now ashamed of, the outcome of those things is death. But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit resulting in sanctification.  There's that word. And the outcome: eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life and righteous in Jesus, our Lord. Fascinating. Isn't it? Paul does the “if–then,” the “before and the now.” You were slaves of sin. And when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. What does that mean? You didn't care. You weren't concerned about it.  The problem was that righteousness was not your kid, your goal, it was not your concern. And as evidence of that in verse 21, you were doing all kinds of things from which you thought you derived some benefit. This is an interesting argument. Why does this sinner sin? He thinks this to his benefit. I mean, you know, a sinner generally does not sin in order to deny himself, but rather to, to receive some kind of gain. And so whether it's the robber robbing, the thief, or the liar lying, or the disobedient in disobedience, whatever. The covetous person in the coveting, etc. Why does one sin? It is because one sees a benefit in this sinning. Paul says, you know, on the other side of salvation, what kind of benefit was there? What did, what did your, what did your fornication gain you? What did your lawlessness get for you? What did your rebellion reap? The outcome of those things is death, Paul says.   Now that's about the strongest word we can imagine. And it's stronger than anything we have been prepared to encounter yet. Because we know the verse “For the of wages of sin are death.” We know that, but we're not there yet. This is where we have to remember when we study a book like this, we need to do our very best to try to follow it in sequence as the original hearers would've heard it. And, and so all of a sudden, Paul just drops this. The outcome of those things is death. The fornicator doesn't say, “Hey, I'm gonna commit suicide.” But when he fornicates, he is. I mean, he's giving himself over to death. The murderer, the thief, the liar, the rebellious. We know that catalog from Roman chapter one, we're all there. Some were “inventors of evil things.” The outcome of those things is death. That is such strong language because that flies in the face of virtually every worldview you could imagine, other than the Christian gospel.  Other worldviews, the worldviews of the East, say the way to get out of this is simply to deny desire. The outcome of this isn't death. The outcome of this is a giant weight. One brings on oneself and one must free oneself of. That's basically what Eastern philosophies are all about: Daoism, Buddhism. There are others who say the way out of this is by certain liturgy, certain practices, certain acts of devotion and all the rest. But Paul says all this, it just leads to death. There's only one way to be out of it. And that's in verse 22, but having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit resulting in sanctification, in the outcome of eternal life, that's where it benefits.  interesting. Isn't it? The sinner sins because she thinks she's gonna benefit by this end. I mean, that’s why an individual would do this. There's some benefit to it. There's some benefit whether it's pleasure or gain or, or esteem or power, whatever, no one sins against his best interest, as he understands it. Sin is the demonstration of self-interest, not the denial of self-interest. The sin is looking forward to a benefit. And Paul says, what kind of benefit do you get? Death. But on the other hand, for those who've been transformed by the power of God, there is a benefit and that results in sanctification. And the outcome is eternal life. Paul helps us to see the contrast here. He's not just doing some kind of cosmic, “let's make a deal.” Behind curtain number one, sin that leads to death. Meanwhile, Jane points to behind door number two, which is sanctification, that leads to eternal life. You make your choice,  Nothing as crass as that. But the contrast is as clear as that. Paul says, look, you're Christians. You have come under faith in the Lord, Jesus Christ. We can have an honest discussion about sin. And in this honest discussion, we're gonna say we want sin because we thought we were gonna get a benefit out of it. And what do we get? Death. But by the grace of God, there's an entirely different benefit. That is our aim and our gift by God's grace. That is sanctification that process whereby we are conformed to the image of Christ that results in eternal life. Paul uses the word that's translated here: outcome. The outcome of those things is death verse 21, the outcome in verse 22 is eternal life. And then we have that great verse, Roman 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Double contrast there: Not only do you have sin that leads to death and grace that leads to life. You have sin with wages and salvation as a gift.  Paul, inspired by the Holy spirit, just loads this verse, just a few words, with such meaning because of the contrast. It's not only between life and death; sin, leading to death, faith, leading to life, grace, and  justification as God's gift to us in salvation, leading to life. It's also that sin comes by wages. What you earn is what you get. What you sow is what you reap. The use of  the word wages there is very clear. And, and by the way, the word wages is a class-specific word in the Roman empire. It's not so class-specific to us, virtually everybody at every level of American society, every stratum, works for salary or works for wages. We understand that. But we have to realize in the Greco-Roman world, only people at the bottom got wages. Everybody else had property. And would have income from the property or from an estate or something even larger. But those who were at the lowest level of society had wages. And how did you get your wages? You worked for it. That's why the parables of Jesus come into play here with, with his parables of employment. But the wages of sin is death. Everybody can understand this. You work for sin and sin pays you back with death. That's the deal.  But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. The break that takes place here between chapter six and chapter seven is an artificial break. In other words, the argument just continues. But,  Robert Stefanos, the printer who put this in, wanted to break it up enough so that we could find texts easily. So I'm gonna continue through just verse three of chapter seven.  We have time to get that far, through the first three verses, because it introduces something we're going to pick up next time. Paul says, “Or do you not know, brothers]—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.” Is that perfectly clear to you? Perhaps not? What is Paul saying here? He's saying, look, not only are you one kind of fool or another, and one kind of slave or another, it is as if you're married to one kind of master or another. And what's very interesting here. Paul is using the metaphor of the bride of Christ, of Christians as the bride of Christ. And what he's saying here is if Christ be dead, there's no allegiance owed to him.  You say, if a wife becomes a widow, she's no longer obligated in marriage to her husband, he's dead. A look at verse four. “Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.” That is one of the most amazing metaphors found anywhere in the book of Romans. And it's pretty complex. But what he's saying here is that you were, in verse four, once made to die to the law. You had to die to the law. That's necessary for our salvation. To die to pretensions that we can achieve righteousness by the law. That's what he's talking about here. We die to the claim that we can make ourselves righteous. You have to die to that. But now we've been made alive in Christ. We've been joined to another. We had to die to the law as if the law was our first husband, speaking of, of the bride of Christ. But now we are married to Christ and he was raised from the dead in order that we might bear fruit for God. In other words, we have a living spouse, as the church. Now this is an awkward metaphor for most of us, because it's difficult for us to talk in these terms about what it means to be the bride of Christ.  Paul says, look, what makes the bride of Christ different is the bride of Christ, the church, is made up of people who are once married to the law, which means married to sin. But now we're married to Christ and sin is now as good as dead to us. Like a first spouse who dies. We're no longer obligated to sin, But now we're obligated to Christ. He was raised from the dead and forever lives. The bride of Christ now owes her allegiance to the bride groom, the Lord Jesus Christ, who has saved us by his grace and will ever live, and whose claim upon his church will never cease. Now, there are a lot of Christians who have been in churches all their lives and heard biblical preaching for years and have never encountered this because this is one of those texts that preachers tend to jump over when they're doing highlights in the book of Romans, because this is pretty technical stuff. And you have to go through it just about the way we went through chapter six, in order to understand what Paul's saying here: you're going to be one kind of fool or another. He says elsewhere, earlier in Romans, you're going be one kind of slave or another. And you're also going to be one kind of bride or another.  Now hang with me. This metaphor is a little awkward, but it's intentional. So because we, as Christians, all together, are part of the bride of Chris. And the church is going to be married, either through the law, which leads to death (that's what we came out of), the first spouse, or to Christ the risen Lord, the way that leads to life. That's enough to make you think for a week  As we ponder these metaphors that Paul uses, he wants us to see that we are to be dead to sin in terms of sin having a claim on us. That's the big thing: Do we continue to sin? Yes. But we have something as believers that we did not have before. Not only the gift of eternal life, but we also have Christ in us, the hope of glory. So that Christ in us, as we give ourselves to him, as we are by the process of sanctification made like him, as Paul would say, we are now united with him, it is not necessary that we sin. And so what Paul will encourage is for Christians to learn to grow in grace. So that sin becomes something that we gain victory over day by day, and month by month, and year by year. Not because of our willpower, but because of the power of Christ within us. Not because of our strength, but because of the strength of Christ. You put all that together and you realize Paul's about to set up an incredible argument. And next week we're gonna encounter law and grace, and Dr. Jekel and Mr. Hyde, I look forward to seeing you then. Let's pray together. Our Father, we are so thankful that you've given us this word of life. May it be unto life for us. And may we live for you. We pray this in the name of your Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2004/12/12/romans-51-2/ Sun, 12 Dec 2004 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 44:34 http://www.albertmohler.com/2004/12/12/romans-51-2/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2004/12/05/romans-49-25/ Sun, 05 Dec 2004 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 46:42 http://www.albertmohler.com/2004/12/05/romans-49-25/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2004/11/28/romans-327-412/ Sun, 28 Nov 2004 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 42:03 http://www.albertmohler.com/2004/11/28/romans-327-412/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2004/10/17/romans-321-25/ Sun, 17 Oct 2004 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 49:52 http://www.albertmohler.com/2004/10/17/romans-321-25/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2004/10/10/romans-31-20/ Sun, 10 Oct 2004 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:40:10 http://www.albertmohler.com/2004/10/10/romans-31-20/ Audio, Exposition, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2004/10/03/romans-217-29/ Sun, 03 Oct 2004 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 45:54 http://www.albertmohler.com/2004/10/03/romans-217-29/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2004/09/12/romans-212-16/ Sun, 12 Sep 2004 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 40:14 http://www.albertmohler.com/2004/09/12/romans-212-16/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2004/09/05/romans-21-11/ Sun, 05 Sep 2004 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 42:15 http://www.albertmohler.com/2004/09/05/romans-21-11/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2004/08/29/romans-124-32/ Sun, 29 Aug 2004 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 49:38 http://www.albertmohler.com/2004/08/29/romans-124-32/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2004/08/08/romans-118-23/ Sun, 08 Aug 2004 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 46:26 http://www.albertmohler.com/2004/08/08/romans-118-23/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2004/07/25/romans-116-18/ Sun, 25 Jul 2004 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 40:08 http://www.albertmohler.com/2004/07/25/romans-116-18/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2004/06/20/romans-18-17/ Sun, 20 Jun 2004 00:00:00 +0000 And as the scripture itself attests, men of old were moved by the Holy Spirit to write these very words. Now, the very fact that every single word is inspired and every word is fully inspired means that there are no extra words. There are no unneeded or unnecessary words, even where there is repetition in Scripture, that repetition is important for us. It's telling us something. But when we come to the book of Romans, we are reminded of that very important truth that when we come to the New Testament, it is very, very easy, once you start studying that text, to understand that we need every one of these books. Because without any one of these books, we would be left with a significant gap in our knowledge of the gospel and of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
For instance, when I was teaching some years ago through the book of Hebrews, it was apparent to me that there is so much in this book that isn't found anywhere else. It's one of those books that helps to bring everything together that helps to synthesize our knowledge of biblical truth helps to bring it together so that we can understand it. And once you understand the book of Hebrews, you actually understand not only the other books of the New Testament in a new way, but of course you understand the Old Covenant and the Old Testament in a very profound and powerfully new way. 
But the book of Romans, New Testament scholars always resist when people say it's a systematic theology right here at the center of the New Testament. The reason they resist that is because that really ignores the fact that it was written, first of all, as a letter. But I have to come back as a theologian, and I have to say yes, but it was a letter about theology. And this letter about theology helps us to understand so much about the gospel, about the church, about the Christian life, but most importantly about the gospel itself. And that's what we find when you look at Romans 1, and we really left off at verse seven. We were looking at these introductory issues and we were looking at what Paul said here at the end of verse 7: “Grace to you in peace from God, our father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”  Combining “shalom” and “karine” in this case, karis, which is grace. He was speaking in a way that would be very much identified with both the Gentile and the Jewish Christians in Rome.
I said that Romans has been important in the history of the church, and it has been at very strategic points. And you can look at the earliest church fathers, the earliest pastors and bishops and elders and theologians of the church. And you can quickly see how the book of Romans was essential to their understanding of what the gospel is. Then you go to the fourth century and really it is Augustine, the great Bishop of Hippo in Northern Africa, the greatest theologian of the early church. It was the book of Romans that helped him to understand how it was that God had determined to save a people, how he did it through the Lord Jesus Christ and how the church then ought to preach the gospel. Then you can fast forward to other eras, especially you think of the Reformation when it was the book of Romans that helped Martin Luther the great reformer of the 16th century to understand the doctrine of justification by faith, which we will shortly encounter in this very book.
And then at other points, the book of Romans has been similarly effective, similarly helpful. The German confessing church, that is the true church over against the Nazis, found great solace in the book of Romans. And we could continue on down. I think for most of us, the book of Romans is our first introduction, if we study it seriously, to some of the deeper things of the faith.
And we get there very quickly in verse eight of chapter one, Paul says this first, “I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world.” Now that's a nice statement. That is a pastoral statement. It's characteristic of Paul, that he would thank God for the Roman Christians. He's expressing his appreciation for the fact that they are a gift to the church. It is more than just a familiar greeting.
As you shall see in verse seven, he identified them as the beloved of God in Rome. These are the ones whom God loves, has loved through Jesus Christ. These are the ones who are the recipients of the gospel. And now Paul says, “I thank God for you,” Why? In verse eight, “because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world.” 
Now there have been in different places in different times, secret congregations, secret groups of Christians. At The end of World War II, there were many Christian missionary agencies that picked up a new opening with, of course, the defeat of the empire of Japan. Different areas, especially in Polynesian and in the South Pacific, where missions could be picked up once again in the great heyday of Victorian missions. There were men like John Payton and others who had gone to the Hebrides, and very famous missionary accounts of how the gospel had been spread to those regions.
But World War II was a great interruption. And I remember years ago, reading of one island that the missionaries had targeted in order to go and share the gospel. And when they got there, they found Christians. Because these different island groups had missionized one another, evangelized one another, even during the war. And sometimes there are secret congregations. The rest of the world isn't even aware that they are there, but there could be no secrecy, no hiding for the church, this congregation in Rome. In the capital city of the empire, this was a congregation that was well known, perhaps well known to the secular authorities that may come later, but certainly known to those who love the gospel. And what is said of them in verse eight is that their faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world, their faith. 
Now, this is a sense in which we would probably, in the English, want to change that to faithfulness because that's really what Paul is talking about there. It is their demonstration of the faith. It's not just for their faith as in the faith once for all delivered to the saints. It's more in the faith that is being demonstrated in their faithfulness, their in Rome being proclaimed throughout the whole world. Now here's another little incident here when you say the whole world, what is Paul talking about? Well, Paul is, as we discussed, a Roman citizen. And so when he mentions the whole world, he's really talking about what we would know now as the Roman world. And so far as the Romans were concerned that that was the world. And in terms of communication, in terms of transportation, in terms of links, that's where the world was. So virtually everywhere where the gospel had yet reached, the faith of the church at Rome was now being known. In verse nine. Paul goes on and says, “for God, whom I serve in my spirit, in the preaching of the gospel of his son is my witness as to how increasingly” or unceasingly, excuse me, “I make mention of you.”
So Paul wants the church at Rome to know that they have become an illustration point in Paul's teaching. They've become a point of Paul's pride and concern. When he talks about the furtherance of the gospel, he can tell churches all over the world, all over Asia Minor, all throughout the Roman Empire, there's a church in Rome now. The capital city has a church as well. You can go to Rome and there are Christians there. He's been speaking of them, using them as an illustration. Perhaps this illustration is rooted in some early form of persecution suffered by the church in Rome, perhaps their faith has already been tested and there may even have been some kind of controversy or pressure, a prejudice that was indicated against them. But they have become an issue for Paul, a teaching point, for him to make reference to them as he writes and ministers to others throughout the Christian world.
 A couple of interesting things in verse nine. If you are reading a modern English translation, it is likely that you see a good many of italicized words in this. And in most of your modern translations, those italicized words indicate words that were necessarily supplied by the translator in order to achieve meaning. And you need these words, trust me, as you study the Greek and the Hebrew. And in this case, the Greek. You'll understand that every time you move from one language group to another, there's a loss of what is called implicit meaning. Implicit meaning is there because we know how a word is used beyond what the word actually means. And you know, children know this. Children have to learn their mother's implicit language. Right? Of course we do.
When she says “don't,” she doesn't just mean don't do anything. She means don't do “that.” And you know “that” is not in there. She doesn't have to use a whole sentence. She just knows it's there. Or if you say “there,” you know, somebody walks in with a bunch of bags and you say, “there,” they put 'em there. You don't have to say “it would be most convenient for me in my family. And for all within this domestic household, if you would place those items carefully in that place.” In other words, we all use a form of shorthand. Now in the Greek language that is particularly so. Because the verbs often have an implicit direct object. In other words, you're supposed to know that “this” is pointing to “that.” So as you look at verse nine, you'll see “for God whom I serve in my spirit in the” and then you'll see italicized text in the New American Standard, “preaching of the,” and then picking back up in the normal text “gospel of his Son.”
So if you just translated it directly, it would be “for God who I serve in my spirit, in the gospel of his Son.” But it is clear that Paul's talking about the proclamation of the gospel, the sharing, the transmission of the gospel. I just bring that up to remind us that when we study the Word carefully, you need to be aware that these italics mean something. And it's not emphasis. 
Sometimes you'll hear, for instance, a first year seminary student do a public reading at the Bible or something and get to these words, and they raise their voice, as if this was an emphasis. You know, “for God who I serve in my spirit, in the preaching of the gospel of his son, is my witness as to how unceasingly I make mention of you”  might make for interesting preaching, but that's not what the italics are there for.
They're instead to tell us those words have been supplied necessarily. And that's a good issue of translation, and honesty. In other words, they're saying we had to put this in, in order to make the point clear. In verse 10, a continuation of the same sentence, where Paul said he makes “unceasing mention of the Romans, always in my prayers making requests, if perhaps now at last, by the will of God, I may succeed in coming to you.” Interesting. Paul here speaks not only of the fact that they have become an illustration for him, but of the fact that he wants to visit them. He's making prayers for them. One of the basic functions of Paul's apostolic ministry was prayer. He refers to this time and time again in almost every one of the introductory sections of every one of his letters; there is a statement about his unceasing, faithful, pastoral prayers for these churches.
Paul was obviously a man of prayer. He speaks of prayer, of his unceasing prayer, of his constant prayer. He speaks of his prayer for the particulars. He will often say, “I'm praying this for you.” And he will say to a church, “I'm praying that you will receive this from the Lord.” But here he speaks of his unceasing prayers for them. “If perhaps now at last, by the will of God, I may succeed in coming to you.” 
Now, one of the things we talked about in the introductory considerations of this book was that Paul's visit to Rome, a much promised visit and a much anticipated visit, had been delayed. And we looked back, you'll remember the book of Acts and we saw how Paul was delayed. First of all, by the necessity of going to Asia Minor. And it was in that return eventually to Jerusalem, first to Asia Minor, and then to Jerusalem, that Paul for instance, gave his farewell address to the Ephesian elders in Melitus. And you follow on through Paul is now writing to the Romans, we think from Corinth, as he is preparing to get to them, but he knows not exactly when he will arrive. But as we shall see, there was frustration obvious, more than implicit, explicit frustration on the part of the Romans that Paul had not yet arrived there. 
And that's a major part of his concern in these verses. He says that he wants to come to them; verse 11, “For I long to see you so that I may impart some spiritual gift to you that you may be established.” Paul here speaks of his intense desire to visit with them. This isn't a light thing. It's not a small thing. It's a very major issue to the Apostle Paul. He wants to visit with the Romans. He wants to see this church for himself. He also wants to get to Rome. But as Paul, the Roman citizen knows, he may get to Rome the hard way. That is, his visit to Rome may come as he is a prisoner of Rome. 
These things are outside of his hands. That's why he speaks to the sovereignty of God. That's why he made the reference in the earlier verse there, in verse 10, to the will of God as to whether or not he would succeed in arriving in Rome. But he speaks of his longing to be there in order that, in verse 11, he might impart some spiritual gift to them. In other words there could be something that Paul could bring to them as a gift. And Paul's apostolic ministry was involved in the bestowal of gifts upon the congregations he visited. To whom he wrote, the congregations of his pastoral concern and his pastoral heart, he wanted to give them a gift that “you may be established.”
Now that word established is very important. Paul uses it repeatedly. It's a common word, and it has to do with what we might consider being fortified. Or being strengthened. But it has an enduring aspect. In other words, this church would be established so that it would be even stronger, even more enduring, even more fortified in the years to come. And there's another, “so that,” and that's another characteristic of the Greek language. You can pile up these clauses that are considered what we would call instrumental. So that, for that, because of, and you see it here, that is in verse 12, “that I may be encouraged together with you while among you, each of us by the other's faith, both yours and mine.” So Paul says, look, I realize that as I aim so fervently and faithfully to come to you it is because I want to give you a gift. But it is also because I know that I will receive much in being with you. 
And again, this speaks of Paul's pastoral personality, of his approach to the churches, of his apostolic ministry. You could call it “give and take” but for Paul it's richer than that. It's “give and give” for Paul. It is the fact that he will encourage the churches and the churches will encourage him. You find a very precious demonstration of this in his letter to the church at Philippi. The book of Philippians, as you read that, Paul speaks of his constant encouragement from this church. Paul was facing apostolic trials, facing persecution, facing all kinds of challenges. He wanted to encourage the churches. But at significant points the churches also encouraged him. Compare the letter that we have in the New Testament to the church at Philippi to the two letters that we have in the New Testament that Paul wrote to the Corinthian church.
And you'll see that at times Paul's ministry is almost at the breaking point of concern for a church, that leads even to frustration. And at other times it is a source of great blessing that helps to energize Paul for his ministry to the other churches. At this point in the book of Romans, it is not yet clear exactly how Paul relates to this church. Now it will become very clear shortly. It's clear right away. By the time you start, for instance, 1 Corinthians chapter one, Paul's writing that church in rebuke. In a very clear, open, undiluted rebuke. If you read the book of Philippians, it opens with tremendous encouragement, you have to get almost to the end of that book before you find Paul mentioning some pastoral issues with conflict in the church, and et cetera. They were minor issues in Paul's mind, over and against the total purpose of the letter.
He wrote the book of Galatians to confront a heresy. And, like with the subtlety of a baseball bat, he got that point across to the Galatian congregation. We are not at this point in the book of Romans yet sure, exactly, what Paul's purpose is. We're later going to see it's the massive exposition of the gospel. And let me go ahead and say at this point, that is most likely occasioned by the fact that this church at the western most extremity of where the Christian gospel has reached, further from Jerusalem than any other church that is mentioned at this time, this church made up of what we now know are largely Gentile converts to Christianity, is a church that probably needs more theological teaching and more doctrinal substance than any of the other churches mentioned. 
Many of whom, that is those other churches, have had multiple apostolic contacts. They've had multiple opportunities for ministry, including from the apostle Paul, but the church in Rome is desperately in need of this kind of teaching. But he wants to be encouraged. “We will be encouraged together,” he says, in verse 12, with you and me. I'll be encouraged. You'll be encouraged. Each of us by the other's faith, both yours and mine. Now that's repetitive somewhat, but it follows the normal letter writing kind of tone that Paul has established. 
In verse 13, “I do not want you to be unaware brethren that often I have planned to come to you and have been prevented so far that I may obtain some fruit among you also, even as among the rest of the Gentiles.” Interesting here, Paul says, “I do not want you to be unaware.” 
Now, some of you may have the King James and in the King James version, it says “I would not have you ignorant, brethren” or “I would not have you ignorant brethren.”
Some of you may remember the name of Miss Bertha Smith. One of the great prayer warriors of Southern Baptist life. She was one of the missionaries in the revival in China. She never married. She was a formidable figure. Let me just say that. 
Miss Bertha was a prayer war. That was her ministry. She led prayer conferences all over the Southern Baptist Convention. She was well known; grown men would tremble in her sight. She was an incredible figure. But when she was asked one time why she did not marry, she mentioned Roma's 1:13. And she said, “I would not have you ignorant brethren.” She wouldn't have any of them. Well, it worked for Miss Bertha. 
But that's not at all what the Apostle Paul's talking about here. He says, I don't want you to dwell in ignorance. I don't want you to be unaware. I don't want you to be in the dark. I want you to be fully aware of why I have not arrived to you.  He says, “I plan to come to you and have been prevented so far that I may obtain some fruit among you also, even as among the rest of the Gentiles.” 
Now in verses 13 and 14, something very important comes to light. And that is that there was open speculation on the part of the Christians in Rome about Paul's reason for not yet arriving in Rome. Now we know this also from some background materials. It's implicit very much here in the text. In other words, Paul writes somewhat, you might say, defensively here. Not defensively as if he's in a position of weakness, but defensively in order to give a defense of the fact that he has not yet arrived there.
The Roman Christians evidently thought Paul should have dropped everything to come to Rome. Paul should have arrived in Rome much earlier. I mean, after all, all the roads do lead here, Paul. Rome is the capital. Why have you not arrived here? Why are you just out there in the provinces? There may even have been some speculation that went further than that. And in a more dangerous direction than that. It could be they were saying, well, you know, Paul, if he came here, he's going to face a lot of trouble. You know, it's one thing being a Christian in the provinces. It's another thing being a Christian here in Caesars city. It may be that they were speculating that he had some purpose for staying out in Asia Minor. Now, folks, you just have to understand that if you live in Rome, everything else is the boondocks, everything else. 
If you're in Rome, you're living at the very center of the universe. Why would anyone not come here? If you want to influence the world, you're going to have to deal with Rome. If you're going to establish a major business, it's going to have to be in Rome. It's going to have to deal with Rome. Rome's going to be the primary client, the primary patron. If you want anything major done in the world, in the Roman world, you've got to come to Rome. 
Paul writes saying, “I have longed to be with you. I have planned, “ he says in verse 13, “to come to you.” But in that parenthetical explanation, he says, I have been prevented so far. In other words, this was not Paul's choice not to be there. The delay was not Paul's volition. It was rather the interruption by the Holy Spirit. He has made that clear already, but he goes on writing more positively to say that he does want to come in order that he may obtain some fruit among you, that fruit meaning the fruit of the faith, even as among the rest of the Gentiles.
Now there, interestingly enough, is a reference to something we might have missed. Paul writes to this church in Rome as if it is primarily a Gentile church. There's a reference to it right there. But he also speaks, remember he is the great apostle to the Gentiles, he speaks of the gospel to the Gentiles right here. Look at verse 14: “I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.” Now at different points. Paul talks about his indebtedness to both Jews and Greeks, or Jews and Gentiles. Later, he will speak of the gospel being for the Jew first and also for the Gentile or for the Greek. But here he speaks of two different classifications of Gentiles. There are the Greeks and there's everyone else. Well, you know enough ancient history to say, well, there really isn't any great Greek empire at this point. 
In fact, the Greek city states have disappeared. Athens has lost its glory. It's no longer the center of the world. So what's this about the Greek and the barbarian? Well, it has to do with the language. And that language, the Greek language, and Greek philosophy, and Greek thought as being the foundation of what will become Roman thought. And remember that at this point the Latin language is at its earliest stages. It has not yet achieved even parity with the Greek language among the educated classes. That will not come for another 300 or 400 years. At that point, Latin became the major language of the Western world, leaving the Greek language as a matter of mostly antiquarium concern. But at this point, Greek is the language of wisdom. Greek is the language of philosophy, of literature, of knowledge. If you have culture and you're educated, you are familiar with the Greek language.
And when he is speaking of the Greeks, he's not speaking of those who have Greek surnames. He's not speaking of people who are even from Greece. He's not speaking of those identified with Greek culture. He's speaking of those who are adept at the Greek language. They're the sophisticated ones. They're the ones, by the way, who could read Paul's letters written in Greek. But he speaks here of an obligation, both to the Greeks and to barbarians.
Now that's an interesting word. And you know, these days, when we think of barbarians, we tend to think of what, I don't know, Conan, or something like that. I've not seen the movie, but I know the title. You know, in other words, the barbarian was an unsophisticated, violent person. And the barbarians were largely unsophisticated. And they were often violent. 
But they got their name, not because they acted barbarically, that came later, but because their language was considered so rudimentary and crude that to the Greeks, it just sounded like “bar bar, bar, bar, bar,” like lots of gutturals. And then, so they just said, all right, bar bar, you're a barbarian. And so when the Greeks talked about barbarians, that was the ultimate put down. If you are a barbarian, you are a knuckle-dragging ignoramus from the provinces. You were people from the Hills. You were the cousins who were the bumpkins. You were unlettered, unsophisticated, and you couldn't even speak a decently language. Much less read any language. 
But the barbarians were on the outskirts of the Roman empire. At least at this point, they came into what we might call the in-skirts in the fourth century. But at this point, they're on the outskirts. And the barbarians were seen as, well, let's put it this way: If you were a Roman citizen, you saw the world divided between Rome and everything else. And what differentiated Rome from everything else was that Rome was the culture, was the literature, was the language, was the inheritance of Greek, and of Greek philosophy and Greek culture. But everything else is darkness, ignorance, and backwards. Paul here writes that he is under an obligation, that is a gospel obligation, both the Greeks and the barbarians.
Now you have read that one a little carefully. Paul's saying here, yeah, I can't wait to get to Rome in order to see all you sophisticated people. I can't wait to get to Rome. I know you're there at the center of the capital city of the empire. I'm really driven by a gospel fervency, a divine commission, to get to you. But I also want to tell you that I am under obligation, not only to you, but also to the barbarians. Also to those you would consider backwards or even foolish. Look at verse 14: “I am under obligation, both the Greeks and the barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.” 
Now don't read this carelessly. This doesn't mean that Paul says I'm going to be reaching out to people of all different IQ levels. I'll be ministering to the mensa society, of the super eggheads, and I'll also be dealing with people who can barely count with their toes and their fingers. No, that’s not what he's talking about. He’s not talking about intelligence. He is talking about language and culture. Because foolishness is what Imperial Rome, or what we might better call Greco Roman culture saw everything else. Foolishness. Come to 1 Corinthians chapter one. We will encounter that again. 
So in verse 15: “For my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also, who are in Rome.” He's preached everywhere else. He preached in the hinterlands, an Asia Minor. He's been preaching it in some of what we would now know as increasingly Western Europe. He has reached as far as what is now known as Greece, he has been in places like Corinth and other major Greek cities. He had even been to Athens as in Acts chapter 17. So Paul had been preaching to the sophisticated and to the unsophisticated, to the cultured and the uncultured, to the Greek and to the barbarian, to the Jew and to the Gentile. Paul has been preaching the ministry of the gospel to all, his ministry has been the gospel for all. And now when he comes to verse 16, he says “For, I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God, for salvation to everyone who believes. To the Jew first and also to the Greek” 
Now what's Paul doing here? I'm not ashamed, he says, of the gospel. I'm not ashamed of the gospel. I'm not ashamed of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm not ashamed of this message of salvation. I'm not ashamed of the gospel. Why does Paul say that? Does it come as somewhat of a surprise that he would make a statement that is more in the negative than in the positive? You know, in other words, he doesn't say I'm proud of the gospel. He says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel. 
I would submit to you that I think the reason for that is implicit in what Paul's already written. And that is the charge of the Roman church that he has not yet come to Rome to preach the gospel. Why Paul, is it? Is there some fear in Paul to come? Is it because there is some lack of boldness in Paul? Is this a strategic decision on Paul's part? Paul wants to be very clear. I'm not ashamed of the gospel. When I get to Rome, it's this gospel I'm going to preach. I can't wait to get to you. And when I get to you, I'm going to preach the gospel just as I preached it in every city from Damascus and Jerusalem, all the way to Thessalonica, Philippi, the cities of Asia Minor, Corinth, and all the rest. 
This is the heart of where Paul begins his exposition of the gospel itself. He says, first of all, that's the very center of my ministry. It's the center of my message. That's what I'm going to preach. That's what I'm all about. That's my passion. That's my heart. When I arrive in Rome, I'm going to preach the gospel. And there's another instrumental phrase that comes right after that, “for it is the power of God for salvation.”
There isn't any other salvation. There isn't any other power. Paul says, when I get to Rome, I'm going to preach the same gospel I have preached everywhere else. The very heart of my ministry, he says, it's the gospel. When I come to you, I'm not going to be about politics. I'm not going to be about culture. I'm not going to be about education. I'm not going to be about all those things. I am going to be about the gospel. 
The one thing the church must always get right before it can get anything else right is the gospel. The gospel is the absolute fundamental, the absolute foundation. If we do not get the gospel right we cannot possibly get anything else right. That's why Paul spends so much time here in the book of Romans setting out what the gospel is and what the gospel is not. He wants the church in Rome to understand the gospel, to embrace the gospel, to teach and to preach the gospel, and to guard the gospel.
He says, I'm not ashamed of it. And in the Greco Roman rhetorical tradition, that's not a defensive statement. That is a very bold statement. In that culture, that was a way of saying, I want to draw a line, a very bold and dramatic line, a bright red line, right here to say, I am going to preach this gospel. In it there is no shame. There is nothing to be ashamed of. It's the gospel I'm going to preach, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. 
In that phrase, to everyone who believes, it has a double meaning. Number one, everyone who believes is transformed by this gospel. Everyone, that's everyone in Paul's preaching. Everyone, or anyone who comes to Christ by faith, will be saved. Whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. That's the everyone. It's unconditional. It doesn't say Jew, Greek lettered, unlettered, wise, foolish, according to the culture of the day. Everyone who believes, believes this gospel. 
But that's the second commonality here. Everyone who is saved is saved by this gospel. There's no other way of salvation. There's no other gospel that saves. Everyone who is saved comes to God through Christ by this gospel, the gospel Paul preaches. But he preaches it with a sense of priority. And the priority is to the Jew first and also to the Greek. There have been some who suggested that this is just a chronological reference, just an historical fact. Paul's just saying, look, the gospel was preached first to the Jews before it was preached to the Gentiles. It was Jesus, a Jew in the flesh, who shared the gospel, first of all, with his apostles, his disciples, who became the apostles of the church. And they proclaimed the faith first to the Jews of Jerusalem before going on to Samaria and Judea and the uttermost parts of the world.
But that's not what Paul's really dealing with here. He's really dealing with an intentional priority. In other words, the gospel was intended to be preached to the Jews first. And then through the Jews to the rest of the world, Paul is a Jew. It's by no accident, it's by the providence and sovereignty of God. 
This is one of the things we need to remember is that the gospel was preached first to the Jewish people, not just as a historical accident, but by God's sovereign plan. It will be preached first to the children of Christ’s own people, to the sons of Abraham. It will be preached first of all to those who were his own. And that's why in the prologue to the Gospel of John, you have that statement that says “he came into his own and his own received him not, but to all who received him to them gave you power to become the sons of God.”
So in other words, there was a pattern of the gospel being preached first to the Jews, and then an increasing pattern of Jewish rejection of the gospel that led to an opening, we know from the book of Acts, to the preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles.
Paul's doing a little church history here, but he's also doing a little theology lesson, a little doctrinal correction. To say that we are indebted to the Jewish people for the preaching of the gospel. And there is a priority to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Then in verse 17, he says “For in it,” that is in the gospel, “the righteousness of God has revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the righteous man shall live by faith.” There's justification by faith, and there is more than we can handle on this Sunday morning. And so this is where we will pick it up the next time as we are studying here in the book of Romans. But we're going to go back just a little bit to put all this into context, and to look at verse 17, not so much as it points forward, but as it concludes a part of an argument here: “For, in it,” that is in the gospel, “the righteousness of God is revealed from fed faith to faith.”
Now, this is something new, at least in the book of Romans, thus far, this mention of the righteousness of God. Now, if you were a Jewish Christian, you would be completely unsurprised by Paul's reference to the righteousness of God in this way. Because the big issue in the Jewish mind was righteousness. That was the fundamental issue. How could one be made right with God? The sacrificial system was a way of pointing to that righteousness, but there was clearly a misunderstanding. There was an effort of human righteousness. The law was intended, as Paul said, to be our tutor, to teach us of our sinfulness. It was never capable of leading human beings to achieve a righteousness that would be acceptable to God. Paul will, in later chapters, even in later verses of this chapter, make the universality of our sin so clear as the background to that assessment.
So what is the righteousness of God here? Now  I said it wouldn't surprise the Jewish people because the way that the Jewish mind first understood the gospel was very clearly, as demonstrated in the book of Hebrews, in the fact that Christ is our righteousness. Our righteousness, as Paul said, is as filthy rags. There's no righteousness in us. We are incapable of achieving that righteousness that will be acceptable to God, but Christ achieved that righteousness being the sinless one who died in our place, as the God-man in his perfect obedience, his active and his passive obedience in the cross, his resurrection from the dead. His righteousness is then imputed to us. And thus we are righteous. The Jewish mind would understand that as the first and foremost issue in our salvation It wasn't clear that the Romans understood the gospel in the same way. 
As we will continue through our study through the book of Romans, you're going to see at critical junctures in the text, for instance, in Romans 3, and in Romans 5, and in Romans 8, that Paul will be involved in some pretty pointed correction, that's more than implicit in the text, of perhaps how the Romans had come to understand the gospel. But right up front here, he hints to them with this issue of the righteousness of God, that the righteousness of God is what is demonstrated in the gospel itself. Now this phrase, the righteousness of God, in 1:17, again, has a double meaning. 
How many times have we already seen in different verses just between one and 17 in this chapter that there's often a double meaning. And it is because Paul is using some of the most loaded vocabulary in the Christian language. 
The righteousness of God means two things. And it does almost everywhere you encounter it in the New Testament. It means, first of all, God's own righteousness. That is his own attribute. This is his characteristic, the truth about him, that he is absolutely righteous. 
Now, let me ask you a question. How is God righteous? Is it that God measures up to an external standard? Is there some kind of standard out there in the universe of righteousness, some kind of stacked pole and God perfectly matches that? No, there's nothing outside him. You can't measure God by any other standard. He is the standard. So what is righteousness? It's who God is. That's the only way we know what righteousness is. Our concept of righteousness must be derived from the character of God. We cannot come to understand the character of God from our arbitrary idea of righteousness. 
Now, let me just put in a little footnote here, pastorally. This is the only fundamental answer we have. And it is a fully adequate answer we have. When someone says, how could God do that? Or how could God allow that to happen? The question of theodicy. And they say, well, you know, a righteous God could not do that. Or a just God could not allow that to happen. What is a person who makes that judgment doing? They have in their mind an idea of righteousness. And they're saying, God fails to live up to that standard. Therefore, he is not righteous. Well, that's backwards. Where do we come up with such a standard? I hear this all the time. You can come across this virtually every single day if you read the right things. Where people say, well, you know, we have to have a God that will live up to our standards.
Well our standards have to match God's. We have to go the right direction. This is the  self-revealed God, the creator of the universe. Now, where do we think we come up with an idea of justice or righteousness or mercy or grace or holiness? And then we're going to see if God measures up to that? It's an idol of our own mind. There's not some kind of cosmic bank of realities, like righteousness, that we draw off from and say, let's see if God measures up to it. 
Righteousness in the Hebrew sense is absolute alignment with God. It is God's absolute alignment with his own character. That means he is fully righteous. And our righteousness would have to be as righteous as is his, if we were going to be acceptable in his sight. And of course that's an impossibility. 
So the second meaning as in verse 17 of the phrase, the righteousness of God, is about the righteousness that God gives those who come to Christ in faith. So the first meaning is always God's own righteousness, his own personal possession, that absolute righteousness. And then the second meaning throughout the entire New Testament, where you see this phrase, the righteousness of God, it refers to that righteousness which is made ours, declared to be ours imputed to us, that is the righteousness of Christ that becomes the believers by faith. 
Now we aren't given it as if it's something we have earned or deserved. That would be the antithesis of the gospel. It's declared to be ours by God the Father, the Holy Judge, who imputes that it declares his own son's righteousness to be ours. That's the only righteousness that will save, that’s the only righteousness that will suffice. That's Paul's concern here, writing to the Romans. Maybe they don't quite understand the righteousness of God and thus, they do not fully understand the work of Christ is related to that righteousness.
Paul's going to set them straight and verse 17, he throws them in the deep end of the theological pool. After his greeting, after his apostolic blessing, after his explanation of why he has not yet arrived there, after he says he is not ashamed of the gospel, he kicks them in the deep end of the pool and says “for in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written. But the righteous man shall live by faith.” 
When we pick up next time, we're going to be talking about justification by faith, how it's rooted here in this very text, how Paul is going to explicate and expound this in all the verses that continue. But right now, look at this one clause in verse 17: “the righteousness of God is revealed,” how? “From faith to faith.” 
Now you could read that and say, well, now, that sounds like interesting theological poetry, “from faith to faith.” You could put that to music. It could become a hymn. What is he talking about here? He makes it very clear. These things are understood only by those who are regenerated. These things are understood only by those who are redeemed. You can only understand the gospel in this sense from the inside, not from the outside.
It only makes sense to those who have come to Christ by faith in terms of the fullness of the gospel and how it works. When we share the gospel, we speak of these things. We explain the work of Christ. We explain the absolutely insurmountable problem of our sin. We speak about the holiness of God. We speak about God's provision in Jesus Christ. We speak about the necessity of believing in Christ and coming to Christ by faith. And we speak of the promises of our salvation. 
But, you know, it's only when regeneration has taken place, when Christ has come into the heart and has transformed life, that full understanding begins to come of all of these things. And that full understanding is expressed from faith to faith. It is on the basis of faith we are drawn to the gospel. It's in the power of faith that we are kept in the gospel. It is the faith that is God's gift. These things are revealed “from faith to faith, just as it is written, but the righteous man shall live by faith.” Quoting Habakkuk  2:4. Faith, it's where it begins and ends with Paul. He speaks of the faith, of the content of the faith, of the demonstration of the faith, and of the essence of the faith in this doctrine we know this as justification by faith. 
We have seen 17 verses in the opening chapter in the book of Romans. Every one of these verses is laden with incredible meaning and with great depth. One of my favorite scholars of the book of Romans suggests that Paul, if he had not been so miraculously and marvelously claimed by the gospel, would've been remembered in Jewish history as a legal prosecutor. That is as the persecutor of the church. Not only that, it appeared that Paul was an innovator in terms of using new prosecutorial tools in order to persecute the church. He had a legal mind. He  talks like an attorney. He makes his case like an attorney. He's doing that right here. 
But of course he was gloriously saved by the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. He met Christ on the Damascus road. And now he's using all those tools that God put in him, as he was trained by Gamaliel, the great teacher of the law, he's using all these tools to make an argument and like an attorney, getting ready to set up his entire case in these verses. Paul has been speaking to the church in Rome saying, I'm gonna give you an advanced word of what I'm going to do when I come to you.
But because I have been delayed in coming to you, I'm going to send you this letter. And of course it is a massive letter. And he says, I'm going to tell you that it's going to be about faith. It's going to be about the righteousness of God. And after greeting them in such a wonderfully apostolic way, speaking to them, both as Jews and his Greeks, telling them of his desire to be with them in explaining his delay. And then going on to say, when he does arrive with him, it's going to be to impart a gift, even as he hopes to receive a gift. He says, folks, it all comes down to the gospel. And I want to nail this down before I come to you. Paul is saying, I want you to have all of this clearly understood and embraced, caught, and confessed before I come to visit with you.
It's just too important to wait until I can arrive to you. The gospel, in terms of this content, the faith once for all delivered to the saints, is going to precede Paul to Rome. But when Paul arrives in Rome, literally in Caesar's custody, the church will have received all of this and will already have been taught. 
In all likelihood, Paul never would have had the opportunity to preach as freely as might have been the case, had he not been Caesar's prisoner. But remember, when you do come to the end of the book of Acts, we are told that Paul, even in Caesar's custody, was able to preach the gospel and was preaching in the churches. But they had already received this gospel. And when he came to them as the Apostle, he was able to apply this gospel to them. 
Our Father, we are so thankful for this Word, how fresh and alive it is as it speaks to us and how it challenges us even today. Father, as we follow through this book, verse by verse and word by word, may you apply it to our hearts. That we would be more Christlike, more faithful, and every day more a demonstration of the faith. For it is in the name and in the power of the Lord Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 50:06 http://www.albertmohler.com/2004/06/20/romans-18-17/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noWell we are continuing in our studying the book of Roman. And it has been a thrill just to get started on what we know is going to be a considerable study. And today we're gonna pick back up in Romans chapter 1, where we began, by looking at the last several weeks at introductory issues and at Paul's very first statements to the Christians in Rome. I thought it might be interesting in the background to our study today to talk about the impact of the book of Romans at significant points in the history of the church. It's important because when we think about the New Testament Canon, that is the set of books that make up the New Testament, or the 66 books that make up the Bible, we need to recognize that the Lord has inspired every single one of them. The Holy Spirit inspired every single word of scripture. And as the scripture itself attests, men of old were moved by the Holy Spirit to write these very words. Now, the very fact that every single word is inspired and every word is fully inspired means that there are no extra words. There are no unneeded or unnecessary words, even where there is repetition in Scripture, that repetition is important for us. It's telling us something. But when we come to the book of Romans, we are reminded of that very important truth that when we come to the New Testament, it is very, very easy, once you start studying that text, to understand that we need every one of these books. Because without any one of these books, we would be left with a significant gap in our knowledge of the gospel and of the Lord Jesus Christ.  For instance, when I was teaching some years ago through the book of Hebrews, it was apparent to me that there is so much in this book that isn't found anywhere else. It's one of those books that helps to bring everything together that helps to synthesize our knowledge of biblical truth helps to bring it together so that we can understand it. And once you understand the book of Hebrews, you actually understand not only the other books of the New Testament in a new way, but of course you understand the Old Covenant and the Old Testament in a very profound and powerfully new way.  But the book of Romans, New Testament scholars always resist when people say it's a systematic theology right here at the center of the New Testament. The reason they resist that is because that really ignores the fact that it was written, first of all, as a letter. But I have to come back as a theologian, and I have to say yes, but it was a letter about theology. And this letter about theology helps us to understand so much about the gospel, about the church, about the Christian life, but most importantly about the gospel itself. And that's what we find when you look at Romans 1, and we really left off at verse seven. We were looking at these introductory issues and we were looking at what Paul said here at the end of verse 7: “Grace to you in peace from God, our father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”  Combining “shalom” and “karine” in this case, karis, which is grace. He was speaking in a way that would be very much identified with both the Gentile and the Jewish Christians in Rome. I said that Romans has been important in the history of the church, and it has been at very strategic points. And you can look at the earliest church fathers, the earliest pastors and bishops and elders and theologians of the church. And you can quickly see how the book of Romans was essential to their understanding of what the gospel is. Then you go to the fourth century and really it is Augustine, the great Bishop of Hippo in Northern Africa, the greatest theologian of the early church. It was the book of Romans that helped him to understand how it was that God had determined to save a people, how he did it through the Lord Jesus Christ and how the church then ought to preach the gospel. Then you can fast forward to other eras, especially you think of the Reformation when it was the book of Romans that helped Martin Luther the great reformer of the 16th century to understand the doctrine of justification by faith, which we will shortly encounter in this very book. And then at other points, the book of Romans has been similarly effective, similarly helpful. The German confessing church, that is the true church over against the Nazis, found great solace in the book of Romans. And we could continue on down. I think for most of us, the book of Romans is our first introduction, if we study it seriously, to some of the deeper things of the faith. And we get there very quickly in verse eight of chapter one, Paul says this first, “I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world.” Now that's a nice statement. That is a pastoral statement. It's characteristic of Paul, that he would thank God for the Roman Christians. He's expressing his appreciation for the fact that they are a gift to the church. It is more than just a familiar greeting. As you shall see in verse seven, he identified them as the beloved of God in Rome. These are the ones whom God loves, has loved through Jesus Christ. These are the ones who are the recipients of the gospel. And now Paul says, “I thank God for you,” Why? In verse eight, “because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world.”  Now there have been in different places in different times, secret congregations, secret groups of Christians. At The end of World War II, there were many Christian missionary agencies that picked up a new opening with, of course, the defeat of the empire of Japan. Different areas, especially in Polynesian and in the South Pacific, where missions could be picked up once again in the great heyday of Victorian missions. There were men like John Payton and others who had gone to the Hebrides, and very famous missionary accounts of how the gospel had been spread to those regions. But World War II was a great interruption. And I remember years ago, reading of one island that the missionaries had targeted in order to go and share the gospel. And when they got there, they found Christians. Because these different island groups had missionized one another, evangelized one another, even during the war. And sometimes there are secret congregations. The rest of the world isn't even aware that they are there, but there could be no secrecy, no hiding for the church, this congregation in Rome. In the capital city of the empire, this was a congregation that was well known, perhaps well known to the secular authorities that may come later, but certainly known to those who love the gospel. And what is said of them in verse eight is that their faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world, their faith.  Now, this is a sense in which we would probably, in the English, want to change that to faithfulness because that's really what Paul is talking about there. It is their demonstration of the faith. It's not just for their faith as in the faith once for all delivered to the saints. It's more in the faith that is being demonstrated in their faithfulness, their in Rome being proclaimed throughout the whole world. Now here's another little incident here when you say the whole world, what is Paul talking about? Well, Paul is, as we discussed, a Roman citizen. And so when he mentions the whole world, he's really talking about what we would know now as the Roman world. And so far as the Romans were concerned that that was the world. And in terms of communication, in terms of transportation, in terms of links, that's where the world was. So virtually everywhere where the gospel had yet reached, the faith of the church at Rome was now being known. In verse nine. Paul goes on and says, “for God, whom I serve in my spirit, in the preaching of the gospel of his son is my witness as to how increasingly” or unceasingly, excuse me, “I make mention of you.” So Paul wants the church at Rome to know that they have become an illustration point in Paul's teaching. They've become a point of Paul's pride and concern. When he talks about the furtherance of the gospel, he can tell churches all over the world, all over Asia Minor, all throughout the Roman Empire, there's a church in Rome now. The capital city has a church as well. You can go to Rome and there are Christians there. He's been speaking of them, using them as an illustration. Perhaps this illustration is rooted in some early form of persecution suffered by the church in Rome, perhaps their faith has already been tested and there may even have been some kind of controversy or pressure, a prejudice that was indicated against them. But they have become an issue for Paul, a teaching point, for him to make reference to them as he writes and ministers to others throughout the Christian world.  A couple of interesting things in verse nine. If you are reading a modern English translation, it is likely that you see a good many of italicized words in this. And in most of your modern translations, those italicized words indicate words that were necessarily supplied by the translator in order to achieve meaning. And you need these words, trust me, as you study the Greek and the Hebrew. And in this case, the Greek. You'll understand that every time you move from one language group to another, there's a loss of what is called implicit meaning. Implicit meaning is there because we know how a word is used beyond what the word actually means. And you know, children know this. Children have to learn their mother's implicit language. Right? Of course we do. When she says “don't,” she doesn't just mean don't do anything. She means don't do “that.” And you know “that” is not in there. She doesn't have to use a whole sentence. She just knows it's there. Or if you say “there,” you know, somebody walks in with a bunch of bags and you say, “there,” they put 'em there. You don't have to say “it would be most convenient for me in my family. And for all within this domestic household, if you would place those items carefully in that place.” In other words, we all use a form of shorthand. Now in the Greek language that is particularly so. Because the verbs often have an implicit direct object. In other words, you're supposed to know that “this” is pointing to “that.” So as you look at verse nine, you'll see “for God whom I serve in my spirit in the” and then you'll see italicized text in the New American Standard, “preaching of the,” and then picking back up in the normal text “gospel of his Son.” So if you just translated it directly, it would be “for God who I serve in my spirit, in the gospel of his Son.” But it is clear that Paul's talking about the proclamation of the gospel, the sharing, the transmission of the gospel. I just bring that up to remind us that when we study the Word carefully, you need to be aware that these italics mean something. And it's not emphasis.  Sometimes you'll hear, for instance, a first year seminary student do a public reading at the Bible or something and get to these words, and they raise their voice, as if this was an emphasis. You know, “for God who I serve in my spirit, in the preaching of the gospel of his son, is my witness as to how unceasingly I make mention of you”  might make for interesting preaching, but that's not what the italics are there for. They're instead to tell us those words have been supplied necessarily. And that's a good issue of translation, and honesty. In other words, they're saying we had to put this in, in order to make the point clear. In verse 10, a continuation of the same sentence, where Paul said he makes “unceasing mention of the Romans, always in my prayers making requests, if perhaps now at last, by the will of God, I may succeed in coming to you.” Interesting. Paul here speaks not only of the fact that they have become an illustration for him, but of the fact that he wants to visit them. He's making prayers for them. One of the basic functions of Paul's apostolic ministry was prayer. He refers to this time and time again in almost every one of the introductory sections of every one of his letters; there is a statement about his unceasing, faithful, pastoral prayers for these churches. Paul was obviously a man of prayer. He speaks of prayer, of his unceasing prayer, of his constant prayer. He speaks of his prayer for the particulars. He will often say, “I'm praying this for you.” And he will say to a church, “I'm praying that you will receive this from the Lord.” But here he speaks of his unceasing prayers for them. “If perhaps now at last, by the will of God, I may succeed in coming to you.”  Now, one of the things we talked about in the introductory considerations of this book was that Paul's visit to Rome, a much promised visit and a much anticipated visit, had been delayed. And we looked back, you'll remember the book of Acts and we saw how Paul was delayed. First of all, by the necessity of going to Asia Minor. And it was in that return eventually to Jerusalem, first to Asia Minor, and then to Jerusalem, that Paul for instance, gave his farewell address to the Ephesian elders in Melitus. And you follow on through Paul is now writing to the Romans, we think from Corinth, as he is preparing to get to them, but he knows not exactly when he will arrive. But as we shall see, there was frustration obvious, more than implicit, explicit frustration on the part of the Romans that Paul had not yet arrived there.  And that's a major part of his concern in these verses. He says that he wants to come to them; verse 11, “For I long to see you so that I may impart some spiritual gift to you that you may be established.” Paul here speaks of his intense desire to visit with them. This isn't a light thing. It's not a small thing. It's a very major issue to the Apostle Paul. He wants to visit with the Romans. He wants to see this church for himself. He also wants to get to Rome. But as Paul, the Roman citizen knows, he may get to Rome the hard way. That is, his visit to Rome may come as he is a prisoner of Rome.  These things are outside of his hands. That's why he speaks to the sovereignty of God. That's why he made the reference in the earlier verse there, in verse 10, to the will of God as to whether or not he would succeed in arriving in Rome. But he speaks of his longing to be there in order that, in verse 11, he might impart some spiritual gift to them. In other words there could be something that Paul could bring to them as a gift. And Paul's apostolic ministry was involved in the bestowal of gifts upon the congregations he visited. To whom he wrote, the congregations of his pastoral concern and his pastoral heart, he wanted to give them a gift that “you may be established.” Now that word established is very important. Paul uses it repeatedly. It's a common word, and it has to do with what we might consider being fortified. Or being strengthened. But it has an enduring aspect. In other words, this church would be established so that it would be even stronger, even more enduring, even more fortified in the years to come. And there's another, “so that,” and that's another characteristic of the Greek language. You can pile up these clauses that are considered what we would call instrumental. So that, for that, because of, and you see it here, that is in verse 12, “that I may be encouraged together with you while among you, each of us by the other's faith, both yours and mine.” So Paul says, look, I realize that as I aim so fervently and faithfully to come to you it is because I want to give you a gift. But it is also because I know that I will receive much in being with you.  And again, this speaks of Paul's pastoral personality, of his approach to the churches, of his apostolic ministry. You could call it “give and take” but for Paul it's richer than that. It's “give and give” for Paul. It is the fact that he will encourage the churches and the churches will encourage him. You find a very precious demonstration of this in his letter to the church at Philippi. The book of Philippians, as you read that, Paul speaks of his constant encouragement from this church. Paul was facing apostolic trials, facing persecution, facing all kinds of challenges. He wanted to encourage the churches. But at significant points the churches also encouraged him. Compare the letter that we have in the New Testament to the church at Philippi to the two letters that we have in the New Testament that Paul wrote to the Corinthian church. And you'll see that at times Paul's ministry is almost at the breaking point of concern for a church, that leads even to frustration. And at other times it is a source of great blessing that helps to energize Paul for his ministry to the other churches. At this point in the book of Romans, it is not yet clear exactly how Paul relates to this church. Now it will become very clear shortly. It's clear right away. By the time you start, for instance, 1 Corinthians chapter one, Paul's writing that church in rebuke. In a very clear, open, undiluted rebuke. If you read the book of Philippians, it opens with tremendous encouragement, you have to get almost to the end of that book before you find Paul mentioning some pastoral issues with conflict in the church, and et cetera. They were minor issues in Paul's mind, over and against the total purpose of the letter. He wrote the book of Galatians to confront a heresy. And, like with the subtlety of a baseball bat, he got that point across to the Galatian congregation. We are not at this point in the book of Romans yet sure, exactly, what Paul's purpose is. We're later going to see it's the massive exposition of the gospel. And let me go ahead and say at this point, that is most likely occasioned by the fact that this church at the western most extremity of where the Christian gospel has reached, further from Jerusalem than any other church that is mentioned at this time, this church made up of what we now know are largely Gentile converts to Christianity, is a church that probably needs more theological teaching and more doctrinal substance than any of the other churches mentioned.  Many of whom, that is those other churches, have had multiple apostolic contacts. They've had multiple opportunities for ministry, including from the apostle Paul, but the church in Rome is desperately in need of this kind of teaching. But he wants to be encouraged. “We will be encouraged together,” he says, in verse 12, with you and me. I'll be encouraged. You'll be encouraged. Each of us by the other's faith, both yours and mine. Now that's repetitive somewhat, but it follows the normal letter writing kind of tone that Paul has established.  In verse 13, “I do not want you to be unaware brethren that often I have planned to come to you and have been prevented so far that I may obtain some fruit among you also, even as among the rest of the Gentiles.” Interesting here, Paul says, “I do not want you to be unaware.”  Now, some of you may have the King James and in the King James version, it says “I would not have you ignorant, brethren” or “I would not have you ignorant brethren.” Some of you may remember the name of Miss Bertha Smith. One of the great prayer warriors of Southern Baptist life. She was one of the missionaries in the revival in China. She never married. She was a formidable figure. Let me just say that.  Miss Bertha was a prayer war. That was her ministry. She led prayer conferences all over the Southern Baptist Convention. She was well known; grown men would tremble in her sight. She was an incredible figure. But when she was asked one time why she did not marry, she mentioned Roma's 1:13. And she said, “I would not have you ignorant brethren.” She wouldn't have any of them. Well, it worked for Miss Bertha.  But that's not at all what the Apostle Paul's talking about here. He says, I don't want you to dwell in ignorance. I don't want you to be unaware. I don't want you to be in the dark. I want you to be fully aware of why I have not arrived to you.  He says, “I plan to come to you and have been prevented so far that I may obtain some fruit among you also, even as among the rest of the Gentiles.”  Now in verses 13 and 14, something very important comes to light. And that is that there was open speculation on the part of the Christians in Rome about Paul's reason for not yet arriving in Rome. Now we know this also from some background materials. It's implicit very much here in the text. In other words, Paul writes somewhat, you might say, defensively here. Not defensively as if he's in a position of weakness, but defensively in order to give a defense of the fact that he has not yet arrived there. The Roman Christians evidently thought Paul should have dropped everything to come to Rome. Paul should have arrived in Rome much earlier. I mean, after all, all the roads do lead here, Paul. Rome is the capital. Why have you not arrived here? Why are you just out there in the provinces? There may even have been some speculation that went further than that. And in a more dangerous direction than that. It could be they were saying, well, you know, Paul, if he came here, he's going to face a lot of trouble. You know, it's one thing being a Christian in the provinces. It's another thing being a Christian here in Caesars city. It may be that they were speculating that he had some purpose for staying out in Asia Minor. Now, folks, you just have to understand that if you live in Rome, everything else is the boondocks, everything else.  If you're in Rome, you're living at the very center of the universe. Why would anyone not come here? If you want to influence the world, you're going to have to deal with Rome. If you're going to establish a major business, it's going to have to be in Rome. It's going to have to deal with Rome. Rome's going to be the primary client, the primary patron. If you want anything major done in the world, in the Roman world, you've got to come to Rome.  Paul writes saying, “I have longed to be with you. I have planned, “ he says in verse 13, “to come to you.” But in that parenthetical explanation, he says, I have been prevented so far. In other words, this was not Paul's choice not to be there. The delay was not Paul's volition. It was rather the interruption by the Holy Spirit. He has made that clear already, but he goes on writing more positively to say that he does want to come in order that he may obtain some fruit among you, that fruit meaning the fruit of the faith, even as among the rest of the Gentiles. Now there, interestingly enough, is a reference to something we might have missed. Paul writes to this church in Rome as if it is primarily a Gentile church. There's a reference to it right there. But he also speaks, remember he is the great apostle to the Gentiles, he speaks of the gospel to the Gentiles right here. Look at verse 14: “I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.” Now at different points. Paul talks about his indebtedness to both Jews and Greeks, or Jews and Gentiles. Later, he will speak of the gospel being for the Jew first and also for the Gentile or for the Greek. But here he speaks of two different classifications of Gentiles. There are the Greeks and there's everyone else. Well, you know enough ancient history to say, well, there really isn't any great Greek empire at this point.  In fact, the Greek city states have disappeared. Athens has lost its glory. It's no longer the center of the world. So what's this about the Greek and the barbarian? Well, it has to do with the language. And that language, the Greek language, and Greek philosophy, and Greek thought as being the foundation of what will become Roman thought. And remember that at this point the Latin language is at its earliest stages. It has not yet achieved even parity with the Greek language among the educated classes. That will not come for another 300 or 400 years. At that point, Latin became the major language of the Western world, leaving the Greek language as a matter of mostly antiquarium concern. But at this point, Greek is the language of wisdom. Greek is the language of philosophy, of literature, of knowledge. If you have culture and you're educated, you are familiar with the Greek language. And when he is speaking of the Greeks, he's not speaking of those who have Greek surnames. He's not speaking of people who are even from Greece. He's not speaking of those identified with Greek culture. He's speaking of those who are adept at the Greek language. They're the sophisticated ones. They're the ones, by the way, who could read Paul's letters written in Greek. But he speaks here of an obligation, both to the Greeks and to barbarians. Now that's an interesting word. And you know, these days, when we think of barbarians, we tend to think of what, I don't know, Conan, or something like that. I've not seen the movie, but I know the title. You know, in other words, the barbarian was an unsophisticated, violent person. And the barbarians were largely unsophisticated. And they were often violent.  But they got their name, not because they acted barbarically, that came later, but because their language was considered so rudimentary and crude that to the Greeks, it just sounded like “bar bar, bar, bar, bar,” like lots of gutturals. And then, so they just said, all right, bar bar, you're a barbarian. And so when the Greeks talked about barbarians, that was the ultimate put down. If you are a barbarian, you are a knuckle-dragging ignoramus from the provinces. You were people from the Hills. You were the cousins who were the bumpkins. You were unlettered, unsophisticated, and you couldn't even speak a decently language. Much less read any language.  But the barbarians were on the outskirts of the Roman empire. At least at this point, they came into what we might call the in-skirts in the fourth century. But at this point, they're on the outskirts. And the barbarians were seen as, well, let's put it this way: If you were a Roman citizen, you saw the world divided between Rome and everything else. And what differentiated Rome from everything else was that Rome was the culture, was the literature, was the language, was the inheritance of Greek, and of Greek philosophy and Greek culture. But everything else is darkness, ignorance, and backwards. Paul here writes that he is under an obligation, that is a gospel obligation, both the Greeks and the barbarians. Now you have read that one a little carefully. Paul's saying here, yeah, I can't wait to get to Rome in order to see all you sophisticated people. I can't wait to get to Rome. I know you're there at the center of the capital city of the empire. I'm really driven by a gospel fervency, a divine commission, to get to you. But I also want to tell you that I am under obligation, not only to you, but also to the barbarians. Also to those you would consider backwards or even foolish. Look at verse 14: “I am under obligation, both the Greeks and the barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.”  Now don't read this carelessly. This doesn't mean that Paul says I'm going to be reaching out to people of all different IQ levels. I'll be ministering to the mensa society, of the super eggheads, and I'll also be dealing with people who can barely count with their toes and their fingers. No, that’s not what he's talking about. He’s not talking about intelligence. He is talking about language and culture. Because foolishness is what Imperial Rome, or what we might better call Greco Roman culture saw everything else. Foolishness. Come to 1 Corinthians chapter one. We will encounter that again.  So in verse 15: “For my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also, who are in Rome.” He's preached everywhere else. He preached in the hinterlands, an Asia Minor. He's been preaching it in some of what we would now know as increasingly Western Europe. He has reached as far as what is now known as Greece, he has been in places like Corinth and other major Greek cities. He had even been to Athens as in Acts chapter 17. So Paul had been preaching to the sophisticated and to the unsophisticated, to the cultured and the uncultured, to the Greek and to the barbarian, to the Jew and to the Gentile. Paul has been preaching the ministry of the gospel to all, his ministry has been the gospel for all. And now when he comes to verse 16, he says “For, I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God, for salvation to everyone who believes. To the Jew first and also to the Greek”  Now what's Paul doing here? I'm not ashamed, he says, of the gospel. I'm not ashamed of the gospel. I'm not ashamed of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm not ashamed of this message of salvation. I'm not ashamed of the gospel. Why does Paul say that? Does it come as somewhat of a surprise that he would make a statement that is more in the negative than in the positive? You know, in other words, he doesn't say I'm proud of the gospel. He says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel.  I would submit to you that I think the reason for that is implicit in what Paul's already written. And that is the charge of the Roman church that he has not yet come to Rome to preach the gospel. Why Paul, is it? Is there some fear in Paul to come? Is it because there is some lack of boldness in Paul? Is this a strategic decision on Paul's part? Paul wants to be very clear. I'm not ashamed of the gospel. When I get to Rome, it's this gospel I'm going to preach. I can't wait to get to you. And when I get to you, I'm going to preach the gospel just as I preached it in every city from Damascus and Jerusalem, all the way to Thessalonica, Philippi, the cities of Asia Minor, Corinth, and all the rest.  This is the heart of where Paul begins his exposition of the gospel itself. He says, first of all, that's the very center of my ministry. It's the center of my message. That's what I'm going to preach. That's what I'm all about. That's my passion. That's my heart. When I arrive in Rome, I'm going to preach the gospel. And there's another instrumental phrase that comes right after that, “for it is the power of God for salvation.” There isn't any other salvation. There isn't any other power. Paul says, when I get to Rome, I'm going to preach the same gospel I have preached everywhere else. The very heart of my ministry, he says, it's the gospel. When I come to you, I'm not going to be about politics. I'm not going to be about culture. I'm not going to be about education. I'm not going to be about all those things. I am going to be about the gospel.  The one thing the church must always get right before it can get anything else right is the gospel. The gospel is the absolute fundamental, the absolute foundation. If we do not get the gospel right we cannot possibly get anything else right. That's why Paul spends so much time here in the book of Romans setting out what the gospel is and what the gospel is not. He wants the church in Rome to understand the gospel, to embrace the gospel, to teach and to preach the gospel, and to guard the gospel. He says, I'm not ashamed of it. And in the Greco Roman rhetorical tradition, that's not a defensive statement. That is a very bold statement. In that culture, that was a way of saying, I want to draw a line, a very bold and dramatic line, a bright red line, right here to say, I am going to preach this gospel. In it there is no shame. There is nothing to be ashamed of. It's the gospel I'm going to preach, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.  In that phrase, to everyone who believes, it has a double meaning. Number one, everyone who believes is transformed by this gospel. Everyone, that's everyone in Paul's preaching. Everyone, or anyone who comes to Christ by faith, will be saved. Whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. That's the everyone. It's unconditional. It doesn't say Jew, Greek lettered, unlettered, wise, foolish, according to the culture of the day. Everyone who believes, believes this gospel.  But that's the second commonality here. Everyone who is saved is saved by this gospel. There's no other way of salvation. There's no other gospel that saves. Everyone who is saved comes to God through Christ by this gospel, the gospel Paul preaches. But he preaches it with a sense of priority. And the priority is to the Jew first and also to the Greek. There have been some who suggested that this is just a chronological reference, just an historical fact. Paul's just saying, look, the gospel was preached first to the Jews before it was preached to the Gentiles. It was Jesus, a Jew in the flesh, who shared the gospel, first of all, with his apostles, his disciples, who became the apostles of the church. And they proclaimed the faith first to the Jews of Jerusalem before going on to Samaria and Judea and the uttermost parts of the world. But that's not what Paul's really dealing with here. He's really dealing with an intentional priority. In other words, the gospel was intended to be preached to the Jews first. And then through the Jews to the rest of the world, Paul is a Jew. It's by no accident, it's by the providence and sovereignty of God.  This is one of the things we need to remember is that the gospel was preached first to the Jewish people, not just as a historical accident, but by God's sovereign plan. It will be preached first to the children of Christ’s own people, to the sons of Abraham. It will be preached first of all to those who were his own. And that's why in the prologue to the Gospel of John, you have that statement that says “he came into his own and his own received him not, but to all who received him to them gave you power to become the sons of God.” So in other words, there was a pattern of the gospel being preached first to the Jews, and then an increasing pattern of Jewish rejection of the gospel that led to an opening, we know from the book of Acts, to the preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles. Paul's doing a little church history here, but he's also doing a little theology lesson, a little doctrinal correction. To say that we are indebted to the Jewish people for the preaching of the gospel. And there is a priority to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Then in verse 17, he says “For in it,” that is in the gospel, “the righteousness of God has revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the righteous man shall live by faith.” There's justification by faith, and there is more than we can handle on this Sunday morning. And so this is where we will pick it up the next time as we are studying here in the book of Romans. But we're going to go back just a little bit to put all this into context, and to look at verse 17, not so much as it points forward, but as it concludes a part of an argument here: “For, in it,” that is in the gospel, “the righteousness of God is revealed from fed faith to faith.” Now, this is something new, at least in the book of Romans, thus far, this mention of the righteousness of God. Now, if you were a Jewish Christian, you would be completely unsurprised by Paul's reference to the righteousness of God in this way. Because the big issue in the Jewish mind was righteousness. That was the fundamental issue. How could one be made right with God? The sacrificial system was a way of pointing to that righteousness, but there was clearly a misunderstanding. There was an effort of human righteousness. The law was intended, as Paul said, to be our tutor, to teach us of our sinfulness. It was never capable of leading human beings to achieve a righteousness that would be acceptable to God. Paul will, in later chapters, even in later verses of this chapter, make the universality of our sin so clear as the background to that assessment. So what is the righteousness of God here? Now  I said it wouldn't surprise the Jewish people because the way that the Jewish mind first understood the gospel was very clearly, as demonstrated in the book of Hebrews, in the fact that Christ is our righteousness. Our righteousness, as Paul said, is as filthy rags. There's no righteousness in us. We are incapable of achieving that righteousness that will be acceptable to God, but Christ achieved that righteousness being the sinless one who died in our place, as the God-man in his perfect obedience, his active and his passive obedience in the cross, his resurrection from the dead. His righteousness is then imputed to us. And thus we are righteous. The Jewish mind would understand that as the first and foremost issue in our salvation It wasn't clear that the Romans understood the gospel in the same way.  As we will continue through our study through the book of Romans, you're going to see at critical junctures in the text, for instance, in Romans 3, and in Romans 5, and in Romans 8, that Paul will be involved in some pretty pointed correction, that's more than implicit in the text, of perhaps how the Romans had come to understand the gospel. But right up front here, he hints to them with this issue of the righteousness of God, that the righteousness of God is what is demonstrated in the gospel itself. Now this phrase, the righteousness of God, in 1:17, again, has a double meaning.  How many times have we already seen in different verses just between one and 17 in this chapter that there's often a double meaning. And it is because Paul is using some of the most loaded vocabulary in the Christian language.  The righteousness of God means two things. And it does almost everywhere you encounter it in the New Testament. It means, first of all, God's own righteousness. That is his own attribute. This is his characteristic, the truth about him, that he is absolutely righteous.  Now, let me ask you a question. How is God righteous? Is it that God measures up to an external standard? Is there some kind of standard out there in the universe of righteousness, some kind of stacked pole and God perfectly matches that? No, there's nothing outside him. You can't measure God by any other standard. He is the standard. So what is righteousness? It's who God is. That's the only way we know what righteousness is. Our concept of righteousness must be derived from the character of God. We cannot come to understand the character of God from our arbitrary idea of righteousness.  Now, let me just put in a little footnote here, pastorally. This is the only fundamental answer we have. And it is a fully adequate answer we have. When someone says, how could God do that? Or how could God allow that to happen? The question of theodicy. And they say, well, you know, a righteous God could not do that. Or a just God could not allow that to happen. What is a person who makes that judgment doing? They have in their mind an idea of righteousness. And they're saying, God fails to live up to that standard. Therefore, he is not righteous. Well, that's backwards. Where do we come up with such a standard? I hear this all the time. You can come across this virtually every single day if you read the right things. Where people say, well, you know, we have to have a God that will live up to our standards. Well our standards have to match God's. We have to go the right direction. This is the  self-revealed God, the creator of the universe. Now, where do we think we come up with an idea of justice or righteousness or mercy or grace or holiness? And then we're going to see if God measures up to that? It's an idol of our own mind. There's not some kind of cosmic bank of realities, like righteousness, that we draw off from and say, let's see if God measures up to it.  Righteousness in the Hebrew sense is absolute alignment with God. It is God's absolute alignment with his own character. That means he is fully righteous. And our righteousness would have to be as righteous as is his, if we were going to be acceptable in his sight. And of course that's an impossibility.  So the second meaning as in verse 17 of the phrase, the righteousness of God, is about the righteousness that God gives those who come to Christ in faith. So the first meaning is always God's own righteousness, his own personal possession, that absolute righteousness. And then the second meaning throughout the entire New Testament, where you see this phrase, the righteousness of God, it refers to that righteousness which is made ours, declared to be ours imputed to us, that is the righteousness of Christ that becomes the believers by faith.  Now we aren't given it as if it's something we have earned or deserved. That would be the antithesis of the gospel. It's declared to be ours by God the Father, the Holy Judge, who imputes that it declares his own son's righteousness to be ours. That's the only righteousness that will save, that’s the only righteousness that will suffice. That's Paul's concern here, writing to the Romans. Maybe they don't quite understand the righteousness of God and thus, they do not fully understand the work of Christ is related to that righteousness. Paul's going to set them straight and verse 17, he throws them in the deep end of the theological pool. After his greeting, after his apostolic blessing, after his explanation of why he has not yet arrived there, after he says he is not ashamed of the gospel, he kicks them in the deep end of the pool and says “for in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written. But the righteous man shall live by faith.”  When we pick up next time, we're going to be talking about justification by faith, how it's rooted here in this very text, how Paul is going to explicate and expound this in all the verses that continue. But right now, look at this one clause in verse 17: “the righteousness of God is revealed,” how? “From faith to faith.”  Now you could read that and say, well, now, that sounds like interesting theological poetry, “from faith to faith.” You could put that to music. It could become a hymn. What is he talking about here? He makes it very clear. These things are understood only by those who are regenerated. These things are understood only by those who are redeemed. You can only understand the gospel in this sense from the inside, not from the outside. It only makes sense to those who have come to Christ by faith in terms of the fullness of the gospel and how it works. When we share the gospel, we speak of these things. We explain the work of Christ. We explain the absolutely insurmountable problem of our sin. We speak about the holiness of God. We speak about God's provision in Jesus Christ. We speak about the necessity of believing in Christ and coming to Christ by faith. And we speak of the promises of our salvation.  But, you know, it's only when regeneration has taken place, when Christ has come into the heart and has transformed life, that full understanding begins to come of all of these things. And that full understanding is expressed from faith to faith. It is on the basis of faith we are drawn to the gospel. It's in the power of faith that we are kept in the gospel. It is the faith that is God's gift. These things are revealed “from faith to faith, just as it is written, but the righteous man shall live by faith.” Quoting Habakkuk  2:4. Faith, it's where it begins and ends with Paul. He speaks of the faith, of the content of the faith, of the demonstration of the faith, and of the essence of the faith in this doctrine we know this as justification by faith.  We have seen 17 verses in the opening chapter in the book of Romans. Every one of these verses is laden with incredible meaning and with great depth. One of my favorite scholars of the book of Romans suggests that Paul, if he had not been so miraculously and marvelously claimed by the gospel, would've been remembered in Jewish history as a legal prosecutor. That is as the persecutor of the church. Not only that, it appeared that Paul was an innovator in terms of using new prosecutorial tools in order to persecute the church. He had a legal mind. He  talks like an attorney. He makes his case like an attorney. He's doing that right here.  But of course he was gloriously saved by the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. He met Christ on the Damascus road. And now he's using all those tools that God put in him, as he was trained by Gamaliel, the great teacher of the law, he's using all these tools to make an argument and like an attorney, getting ready to set up his entire case in these verses. Paul has been speaking to the church in Rome saying, I'm gonna give you an advanced word of what I'm going to do when I come to you. But because I have been delayed in coming to you, I'm going to send you this letter. And of course it is a massive letter. And he says, I'm going to tell you that it's going to be about faith. It's going to be about the righteousness of God. And after greeting them in such a wonderfully apostolic way, speaking to them, both as Jews and his Greeks, telling them of his desire to be with them in explaining his delay. And then going on to say, when he does arrive with him, it's going to be to impart a gift, even as he hopes to receive a gift. He says, folks, it all comes down to the gospel. And I want to nail this down before I come to you. Paul is saying, I want you to have all of this clearly understood and embraced, caught, and confessed before I come to visit with you. It's just too important to wait until I can arrive to you. The gospel, in terms of this content, the faith once for all delivered to the saints, is going to precede Paul to Rome. But when Paul arrives in Rome, literally in Caesar's custody, the church will have received all of this and will already have been taught.  In all likelihood, Paul never would have had the opportunity to preach as freely as might have been the case, had he not been Caesar's prisoner. But remember, when you do come to the end of the book of Acts, we are told that Paul, even in Caesar's custody, was able to preach the gospel and was preaching in the churches. But they had already received this gospel. And when he came to them as the Apostle, he was able to apply this gospel to them.  Our Father, we are so thankful for this Word, how fresh and alive it is as it speaks to us and how it challenges us even today. Father, as we follow through this book, verse by verse and word by word, may you apply it to our hearts. That we would be more Christlike, more faithful, and every day more a demonstration of the faith. For it is in the name and in the power of the Lord Jesus Christ we pray. Amen. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.Well we are continuing in our studying the book of Roman. And it has been a thrill just to get started on what we know is going to be a considerable study. And today we're gonna pick back up in Romans chapter 1, where we began, by looking at the last several weeks at introductory issues and at Paul's very first statements to the Christians in Rome. I thought it might be interesting in the background to our study today to talk about the impact of the book of Romans at significant points in the history of the church. It's important because when we think about the New Testament Canon, that is the set of books that make up the New Testament, or the 66 books that make up the Bible, we need to recognize that the Lord has inspired every single one of them. The Holy Spirit inspired every single word of scripture. And as the scripture itself attests, men of old were moved by the Holy Spirit to write these very words. Now, the very fact that every single word is inspired and every word is fully inspired means that there are no extra words. There are no unneeded or unnecessary words, even where there is repetition in Scripture, that repetition is important for us. It's telling us something. But when we come to the book of Romans, we are reminded of that very important truth that when we come to the New Testament, it is very, very easy, once you start studying that text, to understand that we need every one of these books. Because without any one of these books, we would be left with a significant gap in our knowledge of the gospel and of the Lord Jesus Christ.  For instance, when I was teaching some years ago through the book of Hebrews, it was apparent to me that there is so much in this book that isn't found anywhere else. It's one of those books that helps to bring everything together that helps to synthesize our knowledge of biblical truth helps to bring it together so that we can understand it. And once you understand the book of Hebrews, you actually understand not only the other books of the New Testament in a new way, but of course you understand the Old Covenant and the Old Testament in a very profound and powerfully new way.  But the book of Romans, New Testament scholars always resist when people say it's a systematic theology right here at the center of the New Testament. The reason they resist that is because that really ignores the fact that it was written, first of all, as a letter. But I have to come back as a theologian, and I have to say yes, but it was a letter about theology. And this letter about theology helps us to understand so much about the gospel, about the church, about the Christian life, but most importantly about the gospel itself. And that's what we find when you look at Romans 1, and we really left off at verse seven. We were looking at these introductory issues and we were looking at what Paul said here at the end of verse 7: “Grace to you in peace from God, our father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”  Combining “shalom” and “karine” in this case, karis, which is grace. He was speaking in a way that would be very much identified with both the Gentile and the Jewish Christians in Rome. I said that Romans has been important in the history of the church, and it has been at very strategic points. And you can look at the earliest church fathers, the earliest pastors and bishops and elders and theologians of the church. And you can quickly see how the book of Romans was essential to their understanding of what the gospel is. Then you go to the fourth century and really it is Augustine, the great Bishop of Hippo in Northern Africa, the greatest theologian of the early church. It was the book of Romans that helped him to understand how it was that God had determined to save a people, how he did it through the Lord Jesus Christ and how the church then ought to preach the gospel. Then you can fast forward to other eras, especially you think of the Reformation when it was the book of Romans that helped Martin Luther the great reformer of the 16th century to understand the doctrine of justification by faith, which we will shortly encounter in this very book. And then at other points, the book of Romans has been similarly effective, similarly helpful. The German confessing church, that is the true church over against the Nazis, found great solace in the book of Romans. And we could continue on down. I think for most of us, the book of Romans is our first introduction, if we study it seriously, to some of the deeper things of the faith. And we get there very quickly in verse eight of chapter one, Paul says this first, “I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world.” Now that's a nice statement. That is a pastoral statement. It's characteristic of Paul, that he would thank God for the Roman Christians. He's expressing his appreciation for the fact that they are a gift to the church. It is more than just a familiar greeting. As you shall see in verse seven, he identified them as the beloved of God in Rome. These are the ones whom God loves, has loved through Jesus Christ. These are the ones who are the recipients of the gospel. And now Paul says, “I thank God for you,” Why? In verse eight, “because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world.”  Now there have been in different places in different times, secret congregations, secret groups of Christians. At The end of World War II, there were many Christian missionary agencies that picked up a new opening with, of course, the defeat of the empire of Japan. Different areas, especially in Polynesian and in the South Pacific, where missions could be picked up once again in the great heyday of Victorian missions. There were men like John Payton and others who had gone to the Hebrides, and very famous missionary accounts of how the gospel had been spread to those regions. But World War II was a great interruption. And I remember years ago, reading of one island that the missionaries had targeted in order to go and share the gospel. And when they got there, they found Christians. Because these different island groups had missionized one another, evangelized one another, even during the war. And sometimes there are secret congregations. The rest of the world isn't even aware that they are there, but there could be no secrecy, no hiding for the church, this congregation in Rome. In the capital city of the empire, this was a congregation that was well known, perhaps well known to the secular authorities that may come later, but certainly known to those who love the gospel. And what is said of them in verse eight is that their faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world, their faith.  Now, this is a sense in which we would probably, in the English, want to change that to faithfulness because that's really what Paul is talking about there. It is their demonstration of the faith. It's not just for their faith as in the faith once for all delivered to the saints. It's more in the faith that is being demonstrated in their faithfulness, their in Rome being proclaimed throughout the whole world. Now here's another little incident here when you say the whole world, what is Paul talking about? Well, Paul is, as we discussed, a Roman citizen. And so when he mentions the whole world, he's really talking about what we would know now as the Roman world. And so far as the Romans were concerned that that was the world. And in terms of communication, in terms of transportation, in terms of links, that's where the world was. So virtually everywhere where the gospel had yet reached, the faith of the church at Rome was now being known. In verse nine. Paul goes on and says, “for God, whom I serve in my spirit, in the preaching of the gospel of his son is my witness as to how increasingly” or unceasingly, excuse me, “I make mention of you.” So Paul wants the church at Rome to know that they have become an illustration point in Paul's teaching. They've become a point of Paul's pride and concern. When he talks about the furtherance of the gospel, he can tell churches all over the world, all over Asia Minor, all throughout the Roman Empire, there's a church in Rome now. The capital city has a church as well. You can go to Rome and there are Christians there. He's been speaking of them, using them as an illustration. Perhaps this illustration is rooted in some early form of persecution suffered by the church in Rome, perhaps their faith has already been tested and there may even have been some kind of controversy or pressure, a prejudice that was indicated against them. But they have become an issue for Paul, a teaching point, for him to make reference to them as he writes and ministers to others throughout the Christian world.  A couple of interesting things in verse nine. If you are reading a modern English translation, it is likely that you see a good many of italicized words in this. And in most of your modern translations, those italicized words indicate words that were necessarily supplied by the translator in order to achieve meaning. And you need these words, trust me, as you study the Greek and the Hebrew. And in this case, the Greek. You'll understand that every time you move from one language group to another, there's a loss of what is called implicit meaning. Implicit meaning is there because we know how a word is used beyond what the word actually means. And you know, children know this. Children have to learn their mother's implicit language. Right? Of course we do. When she says “don't,” she doesn't just mean don't do anything. She means don't do “that.” And you know “that” is not in there. She doesn't have to use a whole sentence. She just knows it's there. Or if you say “there,” you know, somebody walks in with a bunch of bags and you say, “there,” they put 'em there. You don't have to say “it would be most convenient for me in my family. And for all within this domestic household, if you would place those items carefully in that place.” In other words, we all use a form of shorthand. Now in the Greek language that is particularly so. Because the verbs often have an implicit direct object. In other words, you're supposed to know that “this” is pointing to “that.” So as you look at verse nine, you'll see “for God whom I serve in my spirit in the” and then you'll see italicized text in the New American Standard, “preaching of the,” and then picking back up in the normal text “gospel of his Son.” So if you just translated it directly, it would be “for God who I serve in my spirit, in the gospel of his Son.” But it is clear that Paul's talking about the proclamation of the gospel, the sharing, the transmission of the gospel. I just bring that up to remind us that when we study the Word carefully, you need to be aware that these italics mean something. And it's not emphasis.  Sometimes you'll hear, for instance, a first year seminary student do a public reading at the Bible or something and get to these words, and they raise their voice, as if this was an emphasis. You know, “for God who I serve in my spirit, in the preaching of the gospel of his son, is my witness as to how unceasingly I make mention of you”  might make for interesting preaching, but that's not what the italics are there for. They're instead to tell us those words have been supplied necessarily. And that's a good issue of translation, and honesty. In other words, they're saying we had to put this in, in order to make the point clear. In verse 10, a continuation of the same sentence, where Paul said he makes “unceasing mention of the Romans, always in my prayers making requests, if perhaps now at last, by the will of God, I may succeed in coming to you.” Interesting. Paul here speaks not only of the fact that they have become an illustration for him, but of the fact that he wants to visit them. He's making prayers for them. One of the basic functions of Paul's apostolic ministry was prayer. He refers to this time and time again in almost every one of the introductory sections of every one of his letters; there is a statement about his unceasing, faithful, pastoral prayers for these churches. Paul was obviously a man of prayer. He speaks of prayer, of his unceasing prayer, of his constant prayer. He speaks of his prayer for the particulars. He will often say, “I'm praying this for you.” And he will say to a church, “I'm praying that you will receive this from the Lord.” But here he speaks of his unceasing prayers for them. “If perhaps now at last, by the will of God, I may succeed in coming to you.”  Now, one of the things we talked about in the introductory considerations of this book was that Paul's visit to Rome, a much promised visit and a much anticipated visit, had been delayed. And we looked back, you'll remember the book of Acts and we saw how Paul was delayed. First of all, by the necessity of going to Asia Minor. And it was in that return eventually to Jerusalem, first to Asia Minor, and then to Jerusalem, that Paul for instance, gave his farewell address to the Ephesian elders in Melitus. And you follow on through Paul is now writing to the Romans, we think from Corinth, as he is preparing to get to them, but he knows not exactly when he will arrive. But as we shall see, there was frustration obvious, more than implicit, explicit frustration on the part of the Romans that Paul had not yet arrived there.  And that's a major part of his concern in these verses. He says that he wants to come to them; verse 11, “For I long to see you so that I may impart some spiritual gift to you that you may be established.” Paul here speaks of his intense desire to visit with them. This isn't a light thing. It's not a small thing. It's a very major issue to the Apostle Paul. He wants to visit with the Romans. He wants to see this church for himself. He also wants to get to Rome. But as Paul, the Roman citizen knows, he may get to Rome the hard way. That is, his visit to Rome may come as he is a prisoner of Rome.  These things are outside of his hands. That's why he speaks to the sovereignty of God. That's why he made the reference in the earlier verse there, in verse 10, to the will of God as to whether or not he would succeed in arriving in Rome. But he speaks of his longing to be there in order that, in verse 11, he might impart some spiritual gift to them. In other words there could be something that Paul could bring to them as a gift. And Paul's apostolic ministry was involved in the bestowal of gifts upon the congregations he visited. To whom he wrote, the congregations of his pastoral concern and his pastoral heart, he wanted to give them a gift that “you may be established.” Now that word established is very important. Paul uses it repeatedly. It's a common word, and it has to do with what we might consider being fortified. Or being strengthened. But it has an enduring aspect. In other words, this church would be established so that it would be even stronger, even more enduring, even more fortified in the years to come. And there's another, “so that,” and that's another characteristic of the Greek language. You can pile up these clauses that are considered what we would call instrumental. So that, for that, because of, and you see it here, that is in verse 12, “that I may be encouraged together with you while among you, each of us by the other's faith, both yours and mine.” So Paul says, look, I realize that as I aim so fervently and faithfully to come to you it is because I want to give you a gift. But it is also because I know that I will receive much in being with you.  And again, this speaks of Paul's pastoral personality, of his approach to the churches, of his apostolic ministry. You could call it “give and take” but for Paul it's richer than that. It's “give and give” for Paul. It is the fact that he will encourage the churches and the churches will encourage him. You find a very precious demonstration of this in his letter to the church at Philippi. The book of Philippians, as you read that, Paul speaks of his constant encouragement from this church. Paul was facing apostolic trials, facing persecution, facing all kinds of challenges. He wanted to encourage the churches. But at significant points the churches also encouraged him. Compare the letter that we have in the New Testament to the church at Philippi to the two letters that we have in the New Testament that Paul wrote to the Corinthian church. And you'll see that at times Paul's ministry is almost at the breaking point of concern for a church, that leads even to frustration. And at other times it is a source of great blessing that helps to energize Paul for his ministry to the other churches. At this point in the book of Romans, it is not yet clear exactly how Paul relates to this church. Now it will become very clear shortly. It's clear right away. By the time you start, for instance, 1 Corinthians chapter one, Paul's writing that church in rebuke. In a very clear, open, undiluted rebuke. If you read the book of Philippians, it opens with tremendous encouragement, you have to get almost to the end of that book before you find Paul mentioning some pastoral issues with conflict in the church, and et cetera. They were minor issues in Paul's mind, over and against the total purpose of the letter. He wrote the book of Galatians to confront a heresy. And, like with the subtlety of a baseball bat, he got that point across to the Galatian congregation. We are not at this point in the book of Romans yet sure, exactly, what Paul's purpose is. We're later going to see it's the massive exposition of the gospel. And let me go ahead and say at this point, that is most likely occasioned by the fact that this church at the western most extremity of where the Christian gospel has reached, further from Jerusalem than any other church that is mentioned at this time, this church made up of what we now know are largely Gentile converts to Christianity, is a church that probably needs more theological teaching and more doctrinal substance than any of the other churches mentioned.  Many of whom, that is those other churches, have had multiple apostolic contacts. They've had multiple opportunities for ministry, including from the apostle Paul, but the church in Rome is desperately in need of this kind of teaching. But he wants to be encouraged. “We will be encouraged together,” he says, in verse 12, with you and me. I'll be encouraged. You'll be encouraged. Each of us by the other's faith, both yours and mine. Now that's repetitive somewhat, but it follows the normal letter writing kind of tone that Paul has established.  In verse 13, “I do not want you to be unaware brethren that often I have planned to come to you and have been prevented so far that I may obtain some fruit among you also, even as among the rest of the Gentiles.” Interesting here, Paul says, “I do not want you to be unaware.”  Now, some of you may have the King James and in the King James version, it says “I would not have you ignorant, brethren” or “I would not have you ignorant brethren.” Some of you may remember the name of Miss Bertha Smith. One of the great prayer warriors of Southern Baptist life. She was one of the missionaries in the revival in China. She never married. She was a formidable figure. Let me just say that.  Miss Bertha was a prayer war. That was her ministry. She led prayer conferences all over the Southern Baptist Convention. She was well known; grown men would tremble in her sight. She was an incredible figure. But when she was asked one time why she did not marry, she mentioned Roma's 1:13. And she said, “I would not have you ignorant brethren.” She wouldn't have any of them. Well, it worked for Miss Bertha.  But that's not at all what the Apostle Paul's talking about here. He says, I don't want you to dwell in ignorance. I don't want you to be unaware. I don't want you to be in the dark. I want you to be fully aware of why I have not arrived to you.  He says, “I plan to come to you and have been prevented so far that I may obtain some fruit among you also, even as among the rest of the Gentiles.”  Now in verses 13 and 14, something very important comes to light. And that is that there was open speculation on the part of the Christians in Rome about Paul's reason for not yet arriving in Rome. Now we know this also from some background materials. It's implicit very much here in the text. In other words, Paul writes somewhat, you might say, defensively here. Not defensively as if he's in a position of weakness, but defensively in order to give a defense of the fact that he has not yet arrived there. The Roman Christians evidently thought Paul should have dropped everything to come to Rome. Paul should have arrived in Rome much earlier. I mean, after all, all the roads do lead here, Paul. Rome is the capital. Why have you not arrived here? Why are you just out there in the provinces? There may even have been some speculation that went further than that. And in a more dangerous direction than that. It could be they were saying, well, you know, Paul, if he came here, he's going to face a lot of trouble. You know, it's one thing being a Christian in the provinces. It's another thing being a Christian here in Caesars city. It may be that they were speculating that he had some purpose for staying out in Asia Minor. Now, folks, you just have to understand that if you live in Rome, everything else is the boondocks, everything else.  If you're in Rome, you're living at the very center of the universe. Why would anyone not come here? If you want to influence the world, you're going to have to deal with Rome. If you're going to establish a major business, it's going to have to be in Rome. It's going to have to deal with Rome. Rome's going to be the primary client, the primary patron. If you want anything major done in the world, in the Roman world, you've got to come to Rome.  Paul writes saying, “I have longed to be with you. I have planned, “ he says in verse 13, “to come to you.” But in that parenthetical explanation, he says, I have been prevented so far. In other words, this was not Paul's choice not to be there. The delay was not Paul's volition. It was rather the interruption by the Holy Spirit. He has made that clear already, but he goes on writing more positively to say that he does want to come in order that he may obtain some fruit among you, that fruit meaning the fruit of the faith, even as among the rest of the Gentiles. Now there, interestingly enough, is a reference to something we might have missed. Paul writes to this church in Rome as if it is primarily a Gentile church. There's a reference to it right there. But he also speaks, remember he is the great apostle to the Gentiles, he speaks of the gospel to the Gentiles right here. Look at verse 14: “I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.” Now at different points. Paul talks about his indebtedness to both Jews and Greeks, or Jews and Gentiles. Later, he will speak of the gospel being for the Jew first and also for the Gentile or for the Greek. But here he speaks of two different classifications of Gentiles. There are the Greeks and there's everyone else. Well, you know enough ancient history to say, well, there really isn't any great Greek empire at this point.  In fact, the Greek city states have disappeared. Athens has lost its glory. It's no longer the center of the world. So what's this about the Greek and the barbarian? Well, it has to do with the language. And that language, the Greek language, and Greek philosophy, and Greek thought as being the foundation of what will become Roman thought. And remember that at this point the Latin language is at its earliest stages. It has not yet achieved even parity with the Greek language among the educated classes. That will not come for another 300 or 400 years. At that point, Latin became the major language of the Western world, leaving the Greek language as a matter of mostly antiquarium concern. But at this point, Greek is the language of wisdom. Greek is the language of philosophy, of literature, of knowledge. If you have culture and you're educated, you are familiar with the Greek language. And when he is speaking of the Greeks, he's not speaking of those who have Greek surnames. He's not speaking of people who are even from Greece. He's not speaking of those identified with Greek culture. He's speaking of those who are adept at the Greek language. They're the sophisticated ones. They're the ones, by the way, who could read Paul's letters written in Greek. But he speaks here of an obligation, both to the Greeks and to barbarians. Now that's an interesting word. And you know, these days, when we think of barbarians, we tend to think of what, I don't know, Conan, or something like that. I've not seen the movie, but I know the title. You know, in other words, the barbarian was an unsophisticated, violent person. And the barbarians were largely unsophisticated. And they were often violent.  But they got their name, not because they acted barbarically, that came later, but because their language was considered so rudimentary and crude that to the Greeks, it just sounded like “bar bar, bar, bar, bar,” like lots of gutturals. And then, so they just said, all right, bar bar, you're a barbarian. And so when the Greeks talked about barbarians, that was the ultimate put down. If you are a barbarian, you are a knuckle-dragging ignoramus from the provinces. You were people from the Hills. You were the cousins who were the bumpkins. You were unlettered, unsophisticated, and you couldn't even speak a decently language. Much less read any language.  But the barbarians were on the outskirts of the Roman empire. At least at this point, they came into what we might call the in-skirts in the fourth century. But at this point, they're on the outskirts. And the barbarians were seen as, well, let's put it this way: If you were a Roman citizen, you saw the world divided between Rome and everything else. And what differentiated Rome from everything else was that Rome was the culture, was the literature, was the language, was the inheritance of Greek, and of Greek philosophy and Greek culture. But everything else is darkness, ignorance, and backwards. Paul here writes that he is under an obligation, that is a gospel obligation, both the Greeks and the barbarians. Now you have read that one a little carefully. Paul's saying here, yeah, I can't wait to get to Rome in order to see all you sophisticated people. I can't wait to get to Rome. I know you're there at the center of the capital city of the empire. I'm really driven by a gospel fervency, a divine commission, to get to you. But I also want to tell you that I am under obligation, not only to you, but also to the barbarians. Also to those you would consider backwards or even foolish. Look at verse 14: “I am under obligation, both the Greeks and the barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish.”  Now don't read this carelessly. This doesn't mean that Paul says I'm going to be reaching out to people of all different IQ levels. I'll be ministering to the mensa society, of the super eggheads, and I'll also be dealing with people who can barely count with their toes and their fingers. No, that’s not what he's talking about. He’s not talking about intelligence. He is talking about language and culture. Because foolishness is what Imperial Rome, or what we might better call Greco Roman culture saw everything else. Foolishness. Come to 1 Corinthians chapter one. We will encounter that again.  So in verse 15: “For my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also, who are in Rome.” He's preached everywhere else. He preached in the hinterlands, an Asia Minor. He's been preaching it in some of what we would now know as increasingly Western Europe. He has reached as far as what is now known as Greece, he has been in places like Corinth and other major Greek cities. He had even been to Athens as in Acts chapter 17. So Paul had been preaching to the sophisticated and to the unsophisticated, to the cultured and the uncultured, to the Greek and to the barbarian, to the Jew and to the Gentile. Paul has been preaching the ministry of the gospel to all, his ministry has been the gospel for all. And now when he comes to verse 16, he says “For, I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God, for salvation to everyone who believes. To the Jew first and also to the Greek”  Now what's Paul doing here? I'm not ashamed, he says, of the gospel. I'm not ashamed of the gospel. I'm not ashamed of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm not ashamed of this message of salvation. I'm not ashamed of the gospel. Why does Paul say that? Does it come as somewhat of a surprise that he would make a statement that is more in the negative than in the positive? You know, in other words, he doesn't say I'm proud of the gospel. He says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel.  I would submit to you that I think the reason for that is implicit in what Paul's already written. And that is the charge of the Roman church that he has not yet come to Rome to preach the gospel. Why Paul, is it? Is there some fear in Paul to come? Is it because there is some lack of boldness in Paul? Is this a strategic decision on Paul's part? Paul wants to be very clear. I'm not ashamed of the gospel. When I get to Rome, it's this gospel I'm going to preach. I can't wait to get to you. And when I get to you, I'm going to preach the gospel just as I preached it in every city from Damascus and Jerusalem, all the way to Thessalonica, Philippi, the cities of Asia Minor, Corinth, and all the rest.  This is the heart of where Paul begins his exposition of the gospel itself. He says, first of all, that's the very center of my ministry. It's the center of my message. That's what I'm going to preach. That's what I'm all about. That's my passion. That's my heart. When I arrive in Rome, I'm going to preach the gospel. And there's another instrumental phrase that comes right after that, “for it is the power of God for salvation.” There isn't any other salvation. There isn't any other power. Paul says, when I get to Rome, I'm going to preach the same gospel I have preached everywhere else. The very heart of my ministry, he says, it's the gospel. When I come to you, I'm not going to be about politics. I'm not going to be about culture. I'm not going to be about education. I'm not going to be about all those things. I am going to be about the gospel.  The one thing the church must always get right before it can get anything else right is the gospel. The gospel is the absolute fundamental, the absolute foundation. If we do not get the gospel right we cannot possibly get anything else right. That's why Paul spends so much time here in the book of Romans setting out what the gospel is and what the gospel is not. He wants the church in Rome to understand the gospel, to embrace the gospel, to teach and to preach the gospel, and to guard the gospel. He says, I'm not ashamed of it. And in the Greco Roman rhetorical tradition, that's not a defensive statement. That is a very bold statement. In that culture, that was a way of saying, I want to draw a line, a very bold and dramatic line, a bright red line, right here to say, I am going to preach this gospel. In it there is no shame. There is nothing to be ashamed of. It's the gospel I'm going to preach, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.  In that phrase, to everyone who believes, it has a double meaning. Number one, everyone who believes is transformed by this gospel. Everyone, that's everyone in Paul's preaching. Everyone, or anyone who comes to Christ by faith, will be saved. Whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. That's the everyone. It's unconditional. It doesn't say Jew, Greek lettered, unlettered, wise, foolish, according to the culture of the day. Everyone who believes, believes this gospel.  But that's the second commonality here. Everyone who is saved is saved by this gospel. There's no other way of salvation. There's no other gospel that saves. Everyone who is saved comes to God through Christ by this gospel, the gospel Paul preaches. But he preaches it with a sense of priority. And the priority is to the Jew first and also to the Greek. There have been some who suggested that this is just a chronological reference, just an historical fact. Paul's just saying, look, the gospel was preached first to the Jews before it was preached to the Gentiles. It was Jesus, a Jew in the flesh, who shared the gospel, first of all, with his apostles, his disciples, who became the apostles of the church. And they proclaimed the faith first to the Jews of Jerusalem before going on to Samaria and Judea and the uttermost parts of the world. But that's not what Paul's really dealing with here. He's really dealing with an intentional priority. In other words, the gospel was intended to be preached to the Jews first. And then through the Jews to the rest of the world, Paul is a Jew. It's by no accident, it's by the providence and sovereignty of God.  This is one of the things we need to remember is that the gospel was preached first to the Jewish people, not just as a historical accident, but by God's sovereign plan. It will be preached first to the children of Christ’s own people, to the sons of Abraham. It will be preached first of all to those who were his own. And that's why in the prologue to the Gospel of John, you have that statement that says “he came into his own and his own received him not, but to all who received him to them gave you power to become the sons of God.” So in other words, there was a pattern of the gospel being preached first to the Jews, and then an increasing pattern of Jewish rejection of the gospel that led to an opening, we know from the book of Acts, to the preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles. Paul's doing a little church history here, but he's also doing a little theology lesson, a little doctrinal correction. To say that we are indebted to the Jewish people for the preaching of the gospel. And there is a priority to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Then in verse 17, he says “For in it,” that is in the gospel, “the righteousness of God has revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the righteous man shall live by faith.” There's justification by faith, and there is more than we can handle on this Sunday morning. And so this is where we will pick it up the next time as we are studying here in the book of Romans. But we're going to go back just a little bit to put all this into context, and to look at verse 17, not so much as it points forward, but as it concludes a part of an argument here: “For, in it,” that is in the gospel, “the righteousness of God is revealed from fed faith to faith.” Now, this is something new, at least in the book of Romans, thus far, this mention of the righteousness of God. Now, if you were a Jewish Christian, you would be completely unsurprised by Paul's reference to the righteousness of God in this way. Because the big issue in the Jewish mind was righteousness. That was the fundamental issue. How could one be made right with God? The sacrificial system was a way of pointing to that righteousness, but there was clearly a misunderstanding. There was an effort of human righteousness. The law was intended, as Paul said, to be our tutor, to teach us of our sinfulness. It was never capable of leading human beings to achieve a righteousness that would be acceptable to God. Paul will, in later chapters, even in later verses of this chapter, make the universality of our sin so clear as the background to that assessment. So what is the righteousness of God here? Now  I said it wouldn't surprise the Jewish people because the way that the Jewish mind first understood the gospel was very clearly, as demonstrated in the book of Hebrews, in the fact that Christ is our righteousness. Our righteousness, as Paul said, is as filthy rags. There's no righteousness in us. We are incapable of achieving that righteousness that will be acceptable to God, but Christ achieved that righteousness being the sinless one who died in our place, as the God-man in his perfect obedience, his active and his passive obedience in the cross, his resurrection from the dead. His righteousness is then imputed to us. And thus we are righteous. The Jewish mind would understand that as the first and foremost issue in our salvation It wasn't clear that the Romans understood the gospel in the same way.  As we will continue through our study through the book of Romans, you're going to see at critical junctures in the text, for instance, in Romans 3, and in Romans 5, and in Romans 8, that Paul will be involved in some pretty pointed correction, that's more than implicit in the text, of perhaps how the Romans had come to understand the gospel. But right up front here, he hints to them with this issue of the righteousness of God, that the righteousness of God is what is demonstrated in the gospel itself. Now this phrase, the righteousness of God, in 1:17, again, has a double meaning.  How many times have we already seen in different verses just between one and 17 in this chapter that there's often a double meaning. And it is because Paul is using some of the most loaded vocabulary in the Christian language.  The righteousness of God means two things. And it does almost everywhere you encounter it in the New Testament. It means, first of all, God's own righteousness. That is his own attribute. This is his characteristic, the truth about him, that he is absolutely righteous.  Now, let me ask you a question. How is God righteous? Is it that God measures up to an external standard? Is there some kind of standard out there in the universe of righteousness, some kind of stacked pole and God perfectly matches that? No, there's nothing outside him. You can't measure God by any other standard. He is the standard. So what is righteousness? It's who God is. That's the only way we know what righteousness is. Our concept of righteousness must be derived from the character of God. We cannot come to understand the character of God from our arbitrary idea of righteousness.  Now, let me just put in a little footnote here, pastorally. This is the only fundamental answer we have. And it is a fully adequate answer we have. When someone says, how could God do that? Or how could God allow that to happen? The question of theodicy. And they say, well, you know, a righteous God could not do that. Or a just God could not allow that to happen. What is a person who makes that judgment doing? They have in their mind an idea of righteousness. And they're saying, God fails to live up to that standard. Therefore, he is not righteous. Well, that's backwards. Where do we come up with such a standard? I hear this all the time. You can come across this virtually every single day if you read the right things. Where people say, well, you know, we have to have a God that will live up to our standards. Well our standards have to match God's. We have to go the right direction. This is the  self-revealed God, the creator of the universe. Now, where do we think we come up with an idea of justice or righteousness or mercy or grace or holiness? And then we're going to see if God measures up to that? It's an idol of our own mind. There's not some kind of cosmic bank of realities, like righteousness, that we draw off from and say, let's see if God measures up to it.  Righteousness in the Hebrew sense is absolute alignment with God. It is God's absolute alignment with his own character. That means he is fully righteous. And our righteousness would have to be as righteous as is his, if we were going to be acceptable in his sight. And of course that's an impossibility.  So the second meaning as in verse 17 of the phrase, the righteousness of God, is about the righteousness that God gives those who come to Christ in faith. So the first meaning is always God's own righteousness, his own personal possession, that absolute righteousness. And then the second meaning throughout the entire New Testament, where you see this phrase, the righteousness of God, it refers to that righteousness which is made ours, declared to be ours imputed to us, that is the righteousness of Christ that becomes the believers by faith.  Now we aren't given it as if it's something we have earned or deserved. That would be the antithesis of the gospel. It's declared to be ours by God the Father, the Holy Judge, who imputes that it declares his own son's righteousness to be ours. That's the only righteousness that will save, that’s the only righteousness that will suffice. That's Paul's concern here, writing to the Romans. Maybe they don't quite understand the righteousness of God and thus, they do not fully understand the work of Christ is related to that righteousness. Paul's going to set them straight and verse 17, he throws them in the deep end of the theological pool. After his greeting, after his apostolic blessing, after his explanation of why he has not yet arrived there, after he says he is not ashamed of the gospel, he kicks them in the deep end of the pool and says “for in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written. But the righteous man shall live by faith.”  When we pick up next time, we're going to be talking about justification by faith, how it's rooted here in this very text, how Paul is going to explicate and expound this in all the verses that continue. But right now, look at this one clause in verse 17: “the righteousness of God is revealed,” how? “From faith to faith.”  Now you could read that and say, well, now, that sounds like interesting theological poetry, “from faith to faith.” You could put that to music. It could become a hymn. What is he talking about here? He makes it very clear. These things are understood only by those who are regenerated. These things are understood only by those who are redeemed. You can only understand the gospel in this sense from the inside, not from the outside. It only makes sense to those who have come to Christ by faith in terms of the fullness of the gospel and how it works. When we share the gospel, we speak of these things. We explain the work of Christ. We explain the absolutely insurmountable problem of our sin. We speak about the holiness of God. We speak about God's provision in Jesus Christ. We speak about the necessity of believing in Christ and coming to Christ by faith. And we speak of the promises of our salvation.  But, you know, it's only when regeneration has taken place, when Christ has come into the heart and has transformed life, that full understanding begins to come of all of these things. And that full understanding is expressed from faith to faith. It is on the basis of faith we are drawn to the gospel. It's in the power of faith that we are kept in the gospel. It is the faith that is God's gift. These things are revealed “from faith to faith, just as it is written, but the righteous man shall live by faith.” Quoting Habakkuk  2:4. Faith, it's where it begins and ends with Paul. He speaks of the faith, of the content of the faith, of the demonstration of the faith, and of the essence of the faith in this doctrine we know this as justification by faith.  We have seen 17 verses in the opening chapter in the book of Romans. Every one of these verses is laden with incredible meaning and with great depth. One of my favorite scholars of the book of Romans suggests that Paul, if he had not been so miraculously and marvelously claimed by the gospel, would've been remembered in Jewish history as a legal prosecutor. That is as the persecutor of the church. Not only that, it appeared that Paul was an innovator in terms of using new prosecutorial tools in order to persecute the church. He had a legal mind. He  talks like an attorney. He makes his case like an attorney. He's doing that right here.  But of course he was gloriously saved by the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. He met Christ on the Damascus road. And now he's using all those tools that God put in him, as he was trained by Gamaliel, the great teacher of the law, he's using all these tools to make an argument and like an attorney, getting ready to set up his entire case in these verses. Paul has been speaking to the church in Rome saying, I'm gonna give you an advanced word of what I'm going to do when I come to you. But because I have been delayed in coming to you, I'm going to send you this letter. And of course it is a massive letter. And he says, I'm going to tell you that it's going to be about faith. It's going to be about the righteousness of God. And after greeting them in such a wonderfully apostolic way, speaking to them, both as Jews and his Greeks, telling them of his desire to be with them in explaining his delay. And then going on to say, when he does arrive with him, it's going to be to impart a gift, even as he hopes to receive a gift. He says, folks, it all comes down to the gospel. And I want to nail this down before I come to you. Paul is saying, I want you to have all of this clearly understood and embraced, caught, and confessed before I come to visit with you. It's just too important to wait until I can arrive to you. The gospel, in terms of this content, the faith once for all delivered to the saints, is going to precede Paul to Rome. But when Paul arrives in Rome, literally in Caesar's custody, the church will have received all of this and will already have been taught.  In all likelihood, Paul never would have had the opportunity to preach as freely as might have been the case, had he not been Caesar's prisoner. But remember, when you do come to the end of the book of Acts, we are told that Paul, even in Caesar's custody, was able to preach the gospel and was preaching in the churches. But they had already received this gospel. And when he came to them as the Apostle, he was able to apply this gospel to them.  Our Father, we are so thankful for this Word, how fresh and alive it is as it speaks to us and how it challenges us even today. Father, as we follow through this book, verse by verse and word by word, may you apply it to our hearts. That we would be more Christlike, more faithful, and every day more a demonstration of the faith. For it is in the name and in the power of the Lord Jesus Christ we pray. Amen. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2004/06/06/romans-11-7/ Sun, 06 Jun 2004 00:00:00 +0000 The book of Romans stands right there in the center of the New Testament as that great book without which we would not know so much. Every single word of Scripture is inspired and every word is fully inspired. There's no extraneous material. No book is more important than other books in terms of the inspiration. But in terms of helping us to understand the rest of the story, the book of Romans is so essential because it gives us that synthesis we need.
And you know, what a synthesis is, is when the arguments all come together and are laid out in a way that is comprehensive. We can understand that here. Paul is going to give us the big view of the gospel itself, but he's also going to deal with the actual way the gospel works. And that's what's so important. It's not just enough to say Jesus saves. 
Now you have say that, that's the very heart of the gospel. But Paul tells us not only that he saves, but Paul goes to great length in this book to tell us how he saves and thus how it is the church is to live as a redeemed people in the world. Last week, we started looking at some of the background issues because there's no way to understand what's going on in the book of Romans without understanding why Paul wrote the letter, who Paul was, and where this took place in the chronology of Paul's ministry.
Now, as you will remember, when we looked at this last week, we talked about the fact that there are internal and external clues as to when Paul wrote this book. And we're looking at a period between 54 and 58 AD. So this is very early in the life and experience of the early church; you're talking about in the midpoint of the first century. But this is also something of the midpoint of the Apostle Paul's career as the Apostle to the Gentiles. What is behind him? 
Well, according to the very last chapter of the book of Romans, in Romans chapter 16, we find out that Paul tells us that what lies behind him is the ministry to the east, the ministry to the churches of Asia Minor. And so we have all these churches from Cortinh to Thessolanica, to Philippi. That's where Paul has been giving so much of his attention after his conversion.
And we're gonna trace that in just a moment. After his conversion, he spent so much time there in these missionary journeys, in what we call Asia Minor, or what would today be called Turkey. Now that is completed, it's completed for two reasons. 
Let's think about that for a moment. Two reasons. The first reason is that there are churches planted right there. And so Paul can look back at his ministry in Asia Minor and know that he has left churches and they are not only churches that are hanging on by the skin of their teeth. They are churches that are beginning to thrive and they have leadership and they have a grasp of the gospel. And they're beginning to show the fruit of congregational life. Paul is sending people like Timothy, men he raised up to be the leaders of these churches. And as you follow through the Old Testament, read the letters, and read the book of Acts, you can see that we have in Asia Minor, what we now know is Turkey, are thriving churches. 
There is in Jerusalem a church, and in many ways that is the mother church, of course, of all the rest of the churches that will emerge in the first century. But the other reason Paul's ministry to the east is finished is because God is giving him an open door to ministry to the west. And that means Rome and points westward from there. And what is west from Rome in the Roman empire is the territory known as Gual, and Gaul is today, mostly what we would call France, but also a good deal of Southern Spain. And it is a tremendous territory in which Europeans are beginning to think of themselves as a part of the Roman empire. And by the end of Paul's ministry, the gospel had been preached in Gual.
That is an amazing thing, that by the end of the first century, not by Paul, but by others, he would send and would be sent out from these churches, the gospel will reach what we now know as the British Isles. Just imagine that in one century, in the ancient world, the gospel would spread so quickly to the far east, we know the gospel will get as far as what we now call India. And then as far west and north, as not only Gual or modern day France, but also in England, what we would now call the British Isles. 
But we need to pick up on who Paul was. This is where we left off last week, because in order to understand the book of Romans we have to understand its author. Paul's personality, his testimony, and his chronology is so important. Here. We are reminded that he was born into a Jewish family.
One of the most important aspects of his biography, this is exactly where we left off last week, is the fact that he was a Roman citizen. He was a Roman citizen by birth, which meant that someone in his family in a generation past had done some extraordinary service for the empire and the emperor had, or at least on the emperor's authority, Roman citizenship had been given to Paul's family. That was an incredible honor. And as we shall see, it plays out as an enormous privilege or right, for Paul. For instance, a Roman citizen could not be flogged. And a Roman citizen had a right of immediate appeal to Caesar. So if on penalty of death, as Paul was later to face a trial and penalty of death, he's able to appeal to Caesar. 
Now the Apostle Paul seizes every single moment for the gospel. For example, when he was chained to a member of the Praetorian guard, he says, this is great. This is the most interesting form of evangelism. It's an unexpected form of evangelism. This guy can't get away from me. He is chained to me. And not only that, but the man who's chained to me is a member of Caesar's household. I am able to evangelize Caesar's household by Caesar's accidental plan. And eventually he gets to confront Cesar himself, although that is not given to us at the end of the book of Acts, we know that it's coming. We do not have a record of exactly what happened there, but Paul was very proud of his Roman citizenship, as well as of his Jewish roots. And as you look at texts like Acts 16:39 and Acts 22:3, and the first chapter of Galatians, Paul will make a great deal out of his Roman citizenship. And he will use it to the fullest, as a way of getting to Rome to see Caesar.
But Paul is also raised as a Jewish boy, a Jewish young man. And both in Tarshish, and later in Jerusalem, he will receive the very finest Jewish education. So what we have in Paul is this incredible intersection of the Roman and Jewish worlds. Now, in the providence of God, who better to minister as the great Apostle to the Gentiles than a man whose life situation and biography will represent the intersection of the Greek and the Jewish worlds. It has to be a man who understands the Jewish world or he can't possibly be the great missionary to the Gentiles and do that effectively, if he himself is not a Jew. Because he becomes the transitional figure on the basis of his Jewishness to say:  this is a gospel for Gentiles as well. But he also has to have some credibility. He has to have mobility. He has to have the status that the Roman citizenship would give him. It is clear in the providence of God that long before the Apostle Paul ever came to life, God had prepared him for this particular service. Put him in just the right place, born to just the right parents, having just the right education and just the right experiences. But of course, I am speaking somewhat anachronistically here because I am referring to this man as Paul. 
And the reality is of course that if we had known him as a boy, and if we had known him as a young man, we would not have called him Paul, but we would've called him Saul. Now he was of the tribe of Benjamin.  Saul, as we have indicated last week, was the most illustrious member of that tribe, the first king of Israel, a man whose reign was marked by both greatness and humiliation, but without doubt, the name Saul was the primary name of the entire tribe.
When you name your boy Saul, and you're from the tribe of Benjamin, you expect great things from this young man. His parents obviously expected great things from Saul. Saul began his life and was educated, as we've said, in Tarshish and in Jerusalem. He studied with Gamaliel, according to the strictest interpretation of the ancestral law, as he himself referred. And then having reached adulthood, it is interesting that his young adulthood coincides with the events concerning Jesus the Christ in Jerusalem. Now it is clear that Saul was on the inside track for leadership in the church. 
You know, every once in a while, you can just look at someone and you are going to know this kid is meant for greatness. I mean, this kid is meant for some kind of leadership. I can remember one time, long ago, getting to know an elementary school principal. And he said, every once in a while you see a kid, and this guy had been in the public schools for 40 years, he said, “every once in a while you see a kid and you know, this guy is going to be the president or the godfather one, or, two, he's going to run something. He's either gonna run the mafia or he is going to be a four star general running the military, but one way or another, this kid's going to go somewhere.”
And that must have been the way that Saul looked to those who observed him. It's clear that he was on the inside track, not only in terms of education, but also in terms of his leadership potential. But how does he employ that leadership? That's the big question. How do we come to know Saul in the first place? We know him before his conversion. And that is because he used his leadership, as this young Roman trained, Gamliel trained, Jewish leader, as a persecutor of the church.
The first reference we have to the Apostle Paul, who was then known as Saul, is in the stoning of Stephen, where we are told that Saul had been ransacking the church. And it is at the stoning of Stephen in the book of Acts that Saul actually holds the cloaks of those who do the stoning. Now that is more than symbolic because in the holding of the cloak, that's a way where Saul doesn't have to do the dirty work, he just saw to it that it was done. Now that's an interesting model of leadership right there. He had agitated the crowd in order to stone Steven, but he himself did not throw the stones. Instead, he held the cloaks of those who did the same, but he was known as a persecutor of the church. That's very important. He talks about it himself. Look at Galatians chapter one.
Paul reveals something about himself in virtually every one of his letters, but in Galatians, probably because he was so agitated at the Galatian church, he's very honest about these things. Look at verse 13 and following, “For you have heard of my former manner of life in Judaism, how I used to persecute the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my countrymen being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions.” 
Now we can follow that through to great profit, but for the sake of time, we're going to end there and just say that in this very revelatory statement, Paul, referring to his previous life, as Saul, says, he was zealous above all his peers. He was zealous for the traditions of his countrymen. In other words, in Saul's persecution of the church, you had a combination of what he saw as Jewish patriotism and a zeal to protect the orthodoxy of his day.
And that meant persecuting the church because the temple authorities, the Jewish authorities, had hardened their hearts against Jesus. They had rejected him as the Son of God and as savior. They had been complicit with the Jews in leading to his crucifixion. Saul was out to defend the temple and its authorities and to oppose this new movement known as Christianity. 
We have another indication of this in 1 Corinthians 15, another statement by Paul, this great chapter that of course refers to the resurrection. That's the central point. In first Corinthians 15, we come across Paul making the argument that the gospel comes with priority. The first priority of the gospel we have in verse three, “For I delivered to you as a first importance, what I also received that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures. And that he was buried. And he was raised on the third day, according to the Scriptures.” 
Now this is, again, Paul's absolute irreducible minimum of the gospel. You can't get the gospel any shorter or smaller than this. You can't leave anything that Paul has just said out and still have the gospel; it is a first priority. This is what you have to nail down first of all. And of course, this is a direct reputation of everything Paul had stood for during his career as the persecutor of the church, but he's going to refer to that. He speaks to the appearances of Jesus in verse six. First we want to go back to verse five, “ he appeared to Cephas,” that’s Peter, Cephas meaning rock, “and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James then to all the Apostles,” not look at verse 8 “And last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared to me also for, I am the least of the Apostles and not fit to be called an Apostle because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God, I am what I am. And his grace toward me did not prove vain, but I labored even more than all of them yet. Not I, but the grace of God with me.” 
Interesting, isn't it? This is the Apostle Paul's Popeye verse, “I am what I am” in verse 10, where you have Paul giving his testimony here and saying, listen, I don't deserve to be an Apostle. I don't deserve any of this. By definition we do not deserve grace. And Paul says that if there's anyone who must be reminded that he doesn't deserve grace it is I. But he says, but I am what I am. By human qualification I shouldn't mean Apostle. Why should the persecutor of the church become the leader of the church? But this is God's church, and God does what he pleases in his church. And God pleased to turn the persecutor into the Apostle. And that's exactly what took place here.
This persecution of the church had been largely localized first in Jerusalem. In Acts chapter eight, we are told that Paul was actually dragging men and women out of their homes and persecuting them there in Jerusalem. Bringing them for trial, harassing them, flogging them, imprisoning them, trying to put it into this movement. 
But Paul's zeal as a persecutor. And you might even think of him as a prosecutor, just think of him as legally serving something like the function of a district attorney in our legal system; he is out to find criminals and to bring them for trial. The reach of his persecution or prosecution eventually goes beyond Jerusalem. And that is what leads to his conversion. 
Paul was headed to Damascus. Now I should not pass by us very quickly. Damascus is in what is now known as Syria. It's far to the north, it's outside Jewish territory. It was actually outside Jewish law. 
You can understand the persecution according to Jewish law in Jerusalem, but this is going far outside Jerusalem, where there was a large Jewish community, nonetheless Damascus, and Saul's determination to put an end to this Christian movement, this thing known as “The Way” the followers of Jesus Christ, his zeal led him to go to the chief priest with an unusual request for a warrant to go all the way to Damascus in order to round up the Jews who were believers in Christ there, and bring them back to Jerusalem for prosecution. Now, unless you just let that go by you, that is an almost breathtaking act of audacity. Just imagine that this is going that far out of Jerusalem, going into a different country, into a different region, into Gentile territory, just in order to arrest Jews who were followers of the Lord, Jesus Christ.
Paul is way out on a limb here, or Saul, way out on a limb here. The extremity, the arrogance of his persecution is now almost on some kind of manic or maniacal level. The chief priest gives him the warrant and he goes to Damascus. But in Acts chapter 9, and it's good that we should turn there, in Acts chapter 9, what happens is not at all what Saul has planned. It is now that we understand that Saul is going to be a different man. When he gets to Damascus, he will not be a percutor of the church. He will be a member of the church. In Acts chapter 9, we come across Saul's conversion. “Now Saul, still breathing, threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus so that he found any belonging to the way,” that's the way the Christians referred to there, “there both men and women. He might bring them bound to Jerusalem. As he was traveling, it happened that he was approaching Damascus and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. And he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ And he said, ‘Who are you Lord?’ And he said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city. And it will be told to you what you must do.’
The men who traveled with him stood speechless, hearing the voice, but seeing no one. Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing. And leading him by the hand, they brought him into Damascus and he was three days without sight and neither ate nor drank. Now, there was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias, and the Lord said to him in a vision ‘Ananias.’ And he said, ‘Here am I Lord?’” 
Now, that goes all the way back to Samuel. That's the traditional Jewish way that the Lord gets the man's attention, through a dream, “Here am I Lord,”  also in Isaiah chapter six. 
“And the Lord said to him, get up and go to the street called Straight and inquire at the house of Judas for a man from Tarshish named Saul for he is praying.” 
Okay, let's just stop there for a minute. You may have been with us when we went through the book of Acts verse by verse, that was several years ago.
In fact, we were in the book of Acts for several years, but nonetheless, when you look back to Acts chapter nine, here, you have a real sympathy for this man, Annaias. The Lord speaks to you, just imagine in a dream, you know of this fire breathing persecutor of the church, named Saul in Jerusalem, and you've heard no doubt that he's coming to Damascus to arrest Christians. And in the middle of the night, a vision from the Lord comes to you and says, “I want you to see this man named Saul from Tarsus.” That's no ordinary command. 
“He's praying, the Lord told Ananais, and he has seen in a vision, a man named Ananais coming in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight. And Ananais answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much harm he did to your Saint to Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the chief priest to bind all who call on your name.” 
So Ananais does know the church in Damascus had one way or another been alerted to exactly why Saul was coming and what his intention was. “But Ananais said, ‘Lord, I've heard from many about this man, how much harm he did to your saints in Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the chief priest to bind all who call in your name.’ But the Lord said to him, ‘Go for, he is a chosen instrument of mine to bear my name before the Gentiles and Kings and the sons of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.’”  
Well, we know the rest of that story. Ananais did what the Lord commanded him to do. And indeed Saul was given his sight. He is then later called Paul to represent the change in his life. Much like Simon is named Peter representing a transition and in some  places and in periods in history of the church, Christians were given new names just to represent this change of life.
But it's interesting in this command to Ananais, the Lord tells this Jewish man named Ananias in Damascus, why he is to do this. And the commission here is very important, because he says in verse 15, “Go for he is a chosen instrument of mine to bear my name among the Gentiles and Kings and the sons of Israel.” It's interesting there, look at that commission. Let's take it apart for a minute. 
He is an instrument of mine to bear my name among whom? Among the Gentiles and Kings and the sons of Israel. So the Apostle Paul will have a ministry to his fellow Jews. That's the last  part of this commission. And that's very important because there will actually come a time when Saul, now Paul, is going to have to stare down Peter, the great leader of the church in Jerusalem, on the question of the Gentiles.
So you're going to have Paul as an authority, as a believer, correcting another believer, establishing the purpose of the gospel there among the Jews as well. But it also says he is going to be an instrument for the gospel among the Gentiles. Paul will become the great Apostle to the Gentiles. He will call himself that. He will come to know that that is why God has called him, transformed him, saved him, redeemed him, and given him this particular commission. It's because there's no one else who is situated as he is now to do this. But the third part of this is interesting, is it not? Because we are told that Paul will have a ministry for the sake of the gospel to Kings. To Kings. Now that's quite a promise, but it literally comes to pass before  Agrippa. Before other Kings, Paul will have the opportunity to share the gospel. And that is also tracked through the book of acts. 
His conversion in chapter nine is not only a transition from being a persecutor of the church to being a leader of the church, it is his regeneration. It is a complete change of life. And in this passage you have this magnificent display of God's grace in the life of the Apostle Paul. 
Let's look at Galatians chapter 3 for just a moment. Paul gives us a commentary on this in Galatians chapter 3, look at verse 10 through 14: 
“For as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse for, as it is written ‘cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law to perform them.’ Now we know that no one is justified by the law before God is evident, for the righteous man shall live by faith. However, the law is not of faith. On the contrary, whoever practices them shall live by them. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law having become a curse for us. For it is written ‘cursed as everyone who hangs on a tree,’ in order that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles so that we would receive the promise of the spirit through faith.” 
In this little passage, we just read, Paul ends up giving his warrant for going to the Gentiles, but he also does, making clear, and this is what we need to understand up front, that that's what the Jews should have understood from the beginning. That's Paul's point here in Galatians 3:  They should have understood that the gospel was for the Gentiles from the beginning, even in the Abrahamic covenant. God says through Abraham, I will bless all nations through you.
It is a blessing to Israel first, yes, but it's not just for Israel. It is a blessing that is to go beyond. I wanted us to look at those few verses from Galatians 3, because the man who could write that is a man whose mind has been completely changed from the persecutor of the church to the ambassador of grace to the Gentiles. This is a man whose entire worldview got turned upside down. And now he writes with such forcefulness about the ministry of the gospel over against the ministry of the law. What was old has passed away. It has been fulfilled in Christ. Paul is now the Apostle to the Gentiles, and that will be his role and function in the church. He will lead this westward expansion. He will lead in the establishment of Gentile churches, and eventually he will get to Rome. But before he arrives there, he writes the saints, the church in Rome. And that's the letter we have. 
And so very quickly let's begin looking right at the text of the book of Romans. We now know to whom it was written. To a church, as we saw last week, that was at one time largely Jewish but is now largely Gentile because of the expulsion of the Jews from Rome.
We know about when it was written: somewhere between AD 54 and 58. And we know who wrote it. The human instrument of this writing was the Apostle Paul. Now we can look at the text itself. 
“Paul, a bond servant of Christ Jesus called as an Apostle set apart for the gospel of God.” 
First word is Paul. You often hear the letters and the New Testament referred to as the epistles, the epistle of Paul to this, or the epistle of Paul to those. The Greek word for letter is simply epistle. But the whole category of epistles or letters was well known in the ancient world. Letters functioned in that world differently than in hours. 
Now, every once in a while, we communicate something magnificent or major by means of a letter, but let's face it, we don't get big news basically by letters. Not in the day of instant communications, not in the day of the telephone, much less now in the day of television and email, and satellite transmission and everything else. Rarely do we open a letter in order to find out some magnificent momentous news. 
But in the ancient world, the letter was the main means whereby communication was made. Now, this is something that people who lived just a hundred years ago could have well understood. As a matter of fact, one of the sad things in terms of a historical perspective is how little is going to be known by reading our letters, because we don't write that many. Or the letters we write are largely perfunctory or courtesy. There's not a great deal of material in them in terms of news. But you can't imagine, I don't think any of us can imagine, what it was like to live in a world in which you heard so little.
A letter coming from someone like the Apostle Paul would mean everything. In the traditional style of letters in the first century, you began the letter with your own name. Now, frankly, I think that makes more sense than the way we write letters. You know, we put our name at the end. Well, that's great. But sometimes you have to look to the end to find out who's writing to you. Not so in the ancient world, you put your name first so that the people reading it would know for whom the letter had come. 
Let's look at how he identifies him. So he calls himself by his Christian name, Paul, but then he describes himself as a bondservant of Christ Jesus. Paul will, again and again, describe himself in two different ways. He does it right here in this very verse. On the one hand, as an Apostle. And on the other hand as a slave. 
Now, this is so important because we tend to think of authority as a matter of mere privilege, without understanding what Paul saw. And that is that authority in the church as being a form of servanthood. Now, it didn't mean that he was reluctant to exercise that authority. He will exercise it again and again. He will say, “I am an Apostle. I'm speaking on behalf of the authority of Christ himself. I'm going to define reality. I'm going to tell you what the truth is. This is the gospel, and that's not the gospel choose you today, which one you're gonna serve.” 
The Apostle Paul was not reticent to use his authority, but he understood it wasn't about himself. It's not about Paul. It is instead about Christ. Just as it was John the Baptist who pointed to Jesus said, “I must decrease that he must increase.”
Paul will say in so many different ways in his letters, “I'm not the point here, I am insignificant. It is Christ who is supremely significant.”  And he will say things like “to live is Christ, to die is gain.”  Just to point out the fact that it is Christ himself who is everything. But just as much as Paul was quick to point out that he was a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, he would all also use this apostolic authority. So you have this going back and forth. Paul puts both of these aspects here in verse one. He is a slave, a dulas. He is so much a slave to Christ that everything he knows, everything he has, everything he knows about himself, everythings he hopes for in the life to come is all due to Christ. He is Christ’s slave 
A bondservant is one who has willingly become a slave. That is one who has sold himself into slavery. Paul says, “I belong to Lord Jesus Christ.” Just like a servant would belong to his master. He identifies Christ by Christ Jesus. Now, sometimes we say Jesus Christ. Another important reminder to us that the names Christ and Jesus are just that they are names. But they are names that come as a title, especially Christ. Jesus, or what you would have as a Yeshua in the Hebrew or Aramaic dialect is a name common to the Old Testament. It's the same name that is translated as Joshua in the Old Testament. And it's a word that by itself, declares “savior.”  “Unto you shall be born this day in the city of David a savior, who is Christ the Lord. And his name shall be Jesus, which means savior.” His name was declaring his purpose, but it was a common name. And in the ancient near east, and especially in what we would call Israel, you would find others who would have the same name, the name Jesus or Yeshua, but they would not have the title Christ.
The Christ is the Messiah, the Christos, the anointed one, the promised one, Israel's consolation. So to say Christ Jesus is to make very clear you're speaking of the incarnate man known as Jesus Christ, who is also the incarnate God, son of God, who is the Messiah, the anointed one. “A bond servant of Christ Jesus called as an Apostle.” 
Paul didn't volunteer as an Apostle. What we read from 1 Corinthians 15 reminds us that Paul said I was set apart, I was commissioned, I was called. Now, I'm the least of all. I'm not worthy to be an Apostle, but ladies and gentlemen, I am an Apostle. Not because I've declared myself to be one, but because Christ Jesus has made me one. The one whose slave or bond servant  I am, he has made me an Apostle. That is defined as being set apart for the gospel of God. What is Paul's apostolate all about? His Apostleship, his purpose is for the cause of the gospel. He is set apart for the gospel of God.
In verse two, Paul gives us an extended commentary on that gospel. This is the gospel, which he…Now who's “he?” This is God the father, as we shall see, “he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures concerning his son who is born of a descendant of David, according to the flesh.” 
Let's just stop there for a moment. Here is no longer Saul, here's Paul. How do you see the difference? Saul, the persecutor of the church, made it his business to argue that Jesus was not the son of God, could not be the Messiah, the followers of Christ were illegitimate, they could not be called Jews. They were to be corrected or imprisoned and flogged. They were to be persecuted. Now he's making the case from the other side on the basis of his own apostolic authority, he describes this gospel saying it was promised beforehand through his prophets and the Holy Scriptures.
Don't let that pass you by. Here is Paul saying we should have seen it. The Jews universally, all of us, should have recognized in Jesus Christ the absolute fulfillment of all of God's promises. He had told us beforehand what he was going to do. And he told beforehand, but listen to how he says in his prophets, in the holy Scriptures, he's referring to the Old Testament Scriptures. That's right there. He says, ladies and gentlemen, it's in black and white. We should have known it. These things in verse three “concerning his son.” So what you have in verse one is the title Christ. The anointed one. What you have in verse three is the declaration that this Christ Jesus is none other than the very Son of God. Now it's just like there in the gospel of Luke. The angels put it all together by saying a babe is born to you, a savior, who is Christ the Lord.
They have all three put together, savior, Christ, Lord, put together in the angelic declaration to the shepherds. Here you have it put together in the apostolic declaration of the Apostle Paul Christ, Jesus, Son, all there in the first three verses. But there's more: “who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh.” That is according to how you would measure or trace his earthly lineage, by descent of David, that was foretold also in the Scriptures. 
Then look at verse four, who this is, “the son was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ, our Lord.” 
Just in case we missed it all put together in the first three verses, in the next verse, verse four, he puts it all together for us again: “who was declared the Son of God.” In other words, those who were alive at the time and who witnessed his resurrection, saw the Father's declaration, that this is his son.
The declaration had come already at the baptism., “This is my son in whom I am well pleased.” But it was in the resurrection in particular that God universally said to the entire world, “This is my son.” And that is a theme that will come up again and again in the Apostle Paul's ministry, it is the resurrection that underlines for all time, universally for all peoples and all places, this is God's son. For Paul the resurrection is everything. That's why in 1 Corinthians 15, where we just read, he said, “I delivered under you that, which is a first importance, which I also received, that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures. And that he was raised from the dead, according to the Scriptures.” God raised him from the dead. Without the resurrection there is no fulfillment of the prophecy. Without the resurrection there is no power of God demonstrated in him. But with the resurrection, universally, throughout all time, categorically, unquestionably, he is declared to be the Son of God.
And this was revealed to him. How? According to the spirit of holiness through Jesus Christ, our Lord. There you have Jesus, Christ, Lord–all put together. And we're only four verses into the book of Romans. It’s like he's loading it on the upfront, right as we get into the book with the serious theology, with all the serious doctrinal content, that's going to follow. He's writing to a largely Gentile church. And he said, I'm a Jew. We should have seen it. We'll declare it now to you. I'm the Apostle to the Gentiles. He's already said that I am an Apostle. I'm coming to you. And this is the message I send to you, that God showed his salvation, declared his power in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. He is the very Son of God. He is the Messiah, the savior Christ Jesus, according to the spirit of holiness, we know him as Jesus Christ our Lord. 
Now in verse five, he's going to tell us that it is through him, through Christ, “we receive grace and Apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for his name's sake, among whom you also are called or the called of Jesus Christ to all who are the beloved of God in Rome called to be saints or called as saints, grace to you in peace from God, our father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” 
This is where we'll pick up next week. Just let me make one comment here. If you wrote a letter in the ancient near east, in this time in the Roman empire, in the first century, you began the letter with your own name, but as you wrote the letter, you will give some kind of greeting. And the traditional greeting and the Greek language was karin, which is graciousness.
It's just like today we would say something like, “dear,”  is kind of the same thing. Dear Fred, dear Hazel, dear whatever, dear you guys. That's a gracious thing. You know, the word dear is just kind of a throwaway thing now we don't give it a whole lot of attention, but it really was intended to mean something. “You are dear to me.” And so you would write the letter that way. 
But in the ancient world, in the Roman world, you begin with something like “graciousness to you.” Well, remember that Paul is the Jew who is the Apostle to the Gentiles. He's going to show that the gospel is for Jews and for Greeks, it’s going to come very quickly here in Romans chapter 1. And by Greeks, he means Gentiles. He's going to show that he is a Jew, who is the Apostle commissioned to the Gentiles.
He doesn't use the greeting charin. Instead he uses the greeting charis. Grace. Not graciousness, but grace. A different thing altogether, grace and peace, peace, shalom. So when you come to the end of verse seven, he greets the church, both Jews and Greeks. He greets them, both Jews and Gentiles. He uses not only grace, but shalom, grace and peace. Shalom was the traditional Jewish way of greeting. Grace, a traditional, or at least a modification of the traditional Roman way of greeting. And here, Paul kind of sets it all up before the church, Jews and Gentiles together, grace and peace to you through our Lord Jesus Christ. 
Oh Lord. We pray that you would lead us into the study of your word in a way that will lead us to Christian maturity, to the expansion of your gospel.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 40:42 http://www.albertmohler.com/2004/06/06/romans-11-7/ Audio, Exposition, Romans, Romans Series noWell, we are continuing our study in the book of Romans. And there's no way to understand the present, as we ought to understand our times, then by looking back in the eternal word of God to how we should understand the earliest consciousness, experiences, and convictions of the church. And no better place for that than in Romans. It is a thrill to begin our study. We've anticipated this for a long time.  The book of Romans stands right there in the center of the New Testament as that great book without which we would not know so much. Every single word of Scripture is inspired and every word is fully inspired. There's no extraneous material. No book is more important than other books in terms of the inspiration. But in terms of helping us to understand the rest of the story, the book of Romans is so essential because it gives us that synthesis we need. And you know, what a synthesis is, is when the arguments all come together and are laid out in a way that is comprehensive. We can understand that here. Paul is going to give us the big view of the gospel itself, but he's also going to deal with the actual way the gospel works. And that's what's so important. It's not just enough to say Jesus saves.  Now you have say that, that's the very heart of the gospel. But Paul tells us not only that he saves, but Paul goes to great length in this book to tell us how he saves and thus how it is the church is to live as a redeemed people in the world. Last week, we started looking at some of the background issues because there's no way to understand what's going on in the book of Romans without understanding why Paul wrote the letter, who Paul was, and where this took place in the chronology of Paul's ministry. Now, as you will remember, when we looked at this last week, we talked about the fact that there are internal and external clues as to when Paul wrote this book. And we're looking at a period between 54 and 58 AD. So this is very early in the life and experience of the early church; you're talking about in the midpoint of the first century. But this is also something of the midpoint of the Apostle Paul's career as the Apostle to the Gentiles. What is behind him?  Well, according to the very last chapter of the book of Romans, in Romans chapter 16, we find out that Paul tells us that what lies behind him is the ministry to the east, the ministry to the churches of Asia Minor. And so we have all these churches from Cortinh to Thessolanica, to Philippi. That's where Paul has been giving so much of his attention after his conversion. And we're gonna trace that in just a moment. After his conversion, he spent so much time there in these missionary journeys, in what we call Asia Minor, or what would today be called Turkey. Now that is completed, it's completed for two reasons.  Let's think about that for a moment. Two reasons. The first reason is that there are churches planted right there. And so Paul can look back at his ministry in Asia Minor and know that he has left churches and they are not only churches that are hanging on by the skin of their teeth. They are churches that are beginning to thrive and they have leadership and they have a grasp of the gospel. And they're beginning to show the fruit of congregational life. Paul is sending people like Timothy, men he raised up to be the leaders of these churches. And as you follow through the Old Testament, read the letters, and read the book of Acts, you can see that we have in Asia Minor, what we now know is Turkey, are thriving churches.  There is in Jerusalem a church, and in many ways that is the mother church, of course, of all the rest of the churches that will emerge in the first century. But the other reason Paul's ministry to the east is finished is because God is giving him an open door to ministry to the west. And that means Rome and points westward from there. And what is west from Rome in the Roman empire is the territory known as Gual, and Gaul is today, mostly what we would call France, but also a good deal of Southern Spain. And it is a tremendous territory in which Europeans are beginning to think of themselves as a part of the Roman empire. And by the end of Paul's ministry, the gospel had been preached in Gual. That is an amazing thing, that by the end of the first century, not by Paul, but by others, he would send and would be sent out from these churches, the gospel will reach what we now know as the British Isles. Just imagine that in one century, in the ancient world, the gospel would spread so quickly to the far east, we know the gospel will get as far as what we now call India. And then as far west and north, as not only Gual or modern day France, but also in England, what we would now call the British Isles.  But we need to pick up on who Paul was. This is where we left off last week, because in order to understand the book of Romans we have to understand its author. Paul's personality, his testimony, and his chronology is so important. Here. We are reminded that he was born into a Jewish family. One of the most important aspects of his biography, this is exactly where we left off last week, is the fact that he was a Roman citizen. He was a Roman citizen by birth, which meant that someone in his family in a generation past had done some extraordinary service for the empire and the emperor had, or at least on the emperor's authority, Roman citizenship had been given to Paul's family. That was an incredible honor. And as we shall see, it plays out as an enormous privilege or right, for Paul. For instance, a Roman citizen could not be flogged. And a Roman citizen had a right of immediate appeal to Caesar. So if on penalty of death, as Paul was later to face a trial and penalty of death, he's able to appeal to Caesar.  Now the Apostle Paul seizes every single moment for the gospel. For example, when he was chained to a member of the Praetorian guard, he says, this is great. This is the most interesting form of evangelism. It's an unexpected form of evangelism. This guy can't get away from me. He is chained to me. And not only that, but the man who's chained to me is a member of Caesar's household. I am able to evangelize Caesar's household by Caesar's accidental plan. And eventually he gets to confront Cesar himself, although that is not given to us at the end of the book of Acts, we know that it's coming. We do not have a record of exactly what happened there, but Paul was very proud of his Roman citizenship, as well as of his Jewish roots. And as you look at texts like Acts 16:39 and Acts 22:3, and the first chapter of Galatians, Paul will make a great deal out of his Roman citizenship. And he will use it to the fullest, as a way of getting to Rome to see Caesar. But Paul is also raised as a Jewish boy, a Jewish young man. And both in Tarshish, and later in Jerusalem, he will receive the very finest Jewish education. So what we have in Paul is this incredible intersection of the Roman and Jewish worlds. Now, in the providence of God, who better to minister as the great Apostle to the Gentiles than a man whose life situation and biography will represent the intersection of the Greek and the Jewish worlds. It has to be a man who understands the Jewish world or he can't possibly be the great missionary to the Gentiles and do that effectively, if he himself is not a Jew. Because he becomes the transitional figure on the basis of his Jewishness to say:  this is a gospel for Gentiles as well. But he also has to have some credibility. He has to have mobility. He has to have the status that the Roman citizenship would give him. It is clear in the providence of God that long before the Apostle Paul ever came to life, God had prepared him for this particular service. Put him in just the right place, born to just the right parents, having just the right education and just the right experiences. But of course, I am speaking somewhat anachronistically here because I am referring to this man as Paul.  And the reality is of course that if we had known him as a boy, and if we had known him as a young man, we would not have called him Paul, but we would've called him Saul. Now he was of the tribe of Benjamin.  Saul, as we have indicated last week, was the most illustrious member of that tribe, the first king of Israel, a man whose reign was marked by both greatness and humiliation, but without doubt, the name Saul was the primary name of the entire tribe. When you name your boy Saul, and you're from the tribe of Benjamin, you expect great things from this young man. His parents obviously expected great things from Saul. Saul began his life and was educated, as we've said, in Tarshish and in Jerusalem. He studied with Gamaliel, according to the strictest interpretation of the ancestral law, as he himself referred. And then having reached adulthood, it is interesting that his young adulthood coincides with the events concerning Jesus the Christ in Jerusalem. Now it is clear that Saul was on the inside track for leadership in the church.  You know, every once in a while, you can just look at someone and you are going to know this kid is meant for greatness. I mean, this kid is meant for some kind of leadership. I can remember one time, long ago, getting to know an elementary school principal. And he said, every once in a while you see a kid, and this guy had been in the public schools for 40 years, he said, “every once in a while you see a kid and you know, this guy is going to be the president or the godfather one, or, two, he's going to run something. He's either gonna run the mafia or he is going to be a four star general running the military, but one way or another, this kid's going to go somewhere.” And that must have been the way that Saul looked to those who observed him. It's clear that he was on the inside track, not only in terms of education, but also in terms of his leadership potential. But how does he employ that leadership? That's the big question. How do we come to know Saul in the first place? We know him before his conversion. And that is because he used his leadership, as this young Roman trained, Gamliel trained, Jewish leader, as a persecutor of the church. The first reference we have to the Apostle Paul, who was then known as Saul, is in the stoning of Stephen, where we are told that Saul had been ransacking the church. And it is at the stoning of Stephen in the book of Acts that Saul actually holds the cloaks of those who do the stoning. Now that is more than symbolic because in the holding of the cloak, that's a way where Saul doesn't have to do the dirty work, he just saw to it that it was done. Now that's an interesting model of leadership right there. He had agitated the crowd in order to stone Steven, but he himself did not throw the stones. Instead, he held the cloaks of those who did the same, but he was known as a persecutor of the church. That's very important. He talks about it himself. Look at Galatians chapter one. Paul reveals something about himself in virtually every one of his letters, but in Galatians, probably because he was so agitated at the Galatian church, he's very honest about these things. Look at verse 13 and following, “For you have heard of my former manner of life in Judaism, how I used to persecute the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my countrymen being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions.”  Now we can follow that through to great profit, but for the sake of time, we're going to end there and just say that in this very revelatory statement, Paul, referring to his previous life, as Saul, says, he was zealous above all his peers. He was zealous for the traditions of his countrymen. In other words, in Saul's persecution of the church, you had a combination of what he saw as Jewish patriotism and a zeal to protect the orthodoxy of his day. And that meant persecuting the church because the temple authorities, the Jewish authorities, had hardened their hearts against Jesus. They had rejected him as the Son of God and as savior. They had been complicit with the Jews in leading to his crucifixion. Saul was out to defend the temple and its authorities and to oppose this new movement known as Christianity.  We have another indication of this in 1 Corinthians 15, another statement by Paul, this great chapter that of course refers to the resurrection. That's the central point. In first Corinthians 15, we come across Paul making the argument that the gospel comes with priority. The first priority of the gospel we have in verse three, “For I delivered to you as a first importance, what I also received that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures. And that he was buried. And he was raised on the third day, according to the Scriptures.”  Now this is, again, Paul's absolute irreducible minimum of the gospel. You can't get the gospel any shorter or smaller than this. You can't leave anything that Paul has just said out and still have the gospel; it is a first priority. This is what you have to nail down first of all. And of course, this is a direct reputation of everything Paul had stood for during his career as the persecutor of the church, but he's going to refer to that. He speaks to the appearances of Jesus in verse six. First we want to go back to verse five, “ he appeared to Cephas,” that’s Peter, Cephas meaning rock, “and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James then to all the Apostles,” not look at verse 8 “And last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared to me also for, I am the least of the Apostles and not fit to be called an Apostle because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God, I am what I am. And his grace toward me did not prove vain, but I labored even more than all of them yet. Not I, but the grace of God with me.”  Interesting, isn't it? This is the Apostle Paul's Popeye verse, “I am what I am” in verse 10, where you have Paul giving his testimony here and saying, listen, I don't deserve to be an Apostle. I don't deserve any of this. By definition we do not deserve grace. And Paul says that if there's anyone who must be reminded that he doesn't deserve grace it is I. But he says, but I am what I am. By human qualification I shouldn't mean Apostle. Why should the persecutor of the church become the leader of the church? But this is God's church, and God does what he pleases in his church. And God pleased to turn the persecutor into the Apostle. And that's exactly what took place here. This persecution of the church had been largely localized first in Jerusalem. In Acts chapter eight, we are told that Paul was actually dragging men and women out of their homes and persecuting them there in Jerusalem. Bringing them for trial, harassing them, flogging them, imprisoning them, trying to put it into this movement.  But Paul's zeal as a persecutor. And you might even think of him as a prosecutor, just think of him as legally serving something like the function of a district attorney in our legal system; he is out to find criminals and to bring them for trial. The reach of his persecution or prosecution eventually goes beyond Jerusalem. And that is what leads to his conversion.  Paul was headed to Damascus. Now I should not pass by us very quickly. Damascus is in what is now known as Syria. It's far to the north, it's outside Jewish territory. It was actually outside Jewish law.  You can understand the persecution according to Jewish law in Jerusalem, but this is going far outside Jerusalem, where there was a large Jewish community, nonetheless Damascus, and Saul's determination to put an end to this Christian movement, this thing known as “The Way” the followers of Jesus Christ, his zeal led him to go to the chief priest with an unusual request for a warrant to go all the way to Damascus in order to round up the Jews who were believers in Christ there, and bring them back to Jerusalem for prosecution. Now, unless you just let that go by you, that is an almost breathtaking act of audacity. Just imagine that this is going that far out of Jerusalem, going into a different country, into a different region, into Gentile territory, just in order to arrest Jews who were followers of the Lord, Jesus Christ. Paul is way out on a limb here, or Saul, way out on a limb here. The extremity, the arrogance of his persecution is now almost on some kind of manic or maniacal level. The chief priest gives him the warrant and he goes to Damascus. But in Acts chapter 9, and it's good that we should turn there, in Acts chapter 9, what happens is not at all what Saul has planned. It is now that we understand that Saul is going to be a different man. When he gets to Damascus, he will not be a percutor of the church. He will be a member of the church. In Acts chapter 9, we come across Saul's conversion. “Now Saul, still breathing, threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus so that he found any belonging to the way,” that's the way the Christians referred to there, “there both men and women. He might bring them bound to Jerusalem. As he was traveling, it happened that he was approaching Damascus and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. And he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ And he said, ‘Who are you Lord?’ And he said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city. And it will be told to you what you must do.’ The men who traveled with him stood speechless, hearing the voice, but seeing no one. Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing. And leading him by the hand, they brought him into Damascus and he was three days without sight and neither ate nor drank. Now, there was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias, and the Lord said to him in a vision ‘Ananias.’ And he said, ‘Here am I Lord?’”  Now, that goes all the way back to Samuel. That's the traditional Jewish way that the Lord gets the man's attention, through a dream, “Here am I Lord,”  also in Isaiah chapter six.  “And the Lord said to him, get up and go to the street called Straight and inquire at the house of Judas for a man from Tarshish named Saul for he is praying.”  Okay, let's just stop there for a minute. You may have been with us when we went through the book of Acts verse by verse, that was several years ago. In fact, we were in the book of Acts for several years, but nonetheless, when you look back to Acts chapter nine, here, you have a real sympathy for this man, Annaias. The Lord speaks to you, just imagine in a dream, you know of this fire breathing persecutor of the church, named Saul in Jerusalem, and you've heard no doubt that he's coming to Damascus to arrest Christians. And in the middle of the night, a vision from the Lord comes to you and says, “I want you to see this man named Saul from Tarsus.” That's no ordinary command.  “He's praying, the Lord told Ananais, and he has seen in a vision, a man named Ananais coming in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight. And Ananais answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much harm he did to your Saint to Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the chief priest to bind all who call on your name.”  So Ananais does know the church in Damascus had one way or another been alerted to exactly why Saul was coming and what his intention was. “But Ananais said, ‘Lord, I've heard from many about this man, how much harm he did to your saints in Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the chief priest to bind all who call in your name.’ But the Lord said to him, ‘Go for, he is a chosen instrument of mine to bear my name before the Gentiles and Kings and the sons of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.’”   Well, we know the rest of that story. Ananais did what the Lord commanded him to do. And indeed Saul was given his sight. He is then later called Paul to represent the change in his life. Much like Simon is named Peter representing a transition and in some  places and in periods in history of the church, Christians were given new names just to represent this change of life. But it's interesting in this command to Ananais, the Lord tells this Jewish man named Ananias in Damascus, why he is to do this. And the commission here is very important, because he says in verse 15, “Go for he is a chosen instrument of mine to bear my name among the Gentiles and Kings and the sons of Israel.” It's interesting there, look at that commission. Let's take it apart for a minute.  He is an instrument of mine to bear my name among whom? Among the Gentiles and Kings and the sons of Israel. So the Apostle Paul will have a ministry to his fellow Jews. That's the last  part of this commission. And that's very important because there will actually come a time when Saul, now Paul, is going to have to stare down Peter, the great leader of the church in Jerusalem, on the question of the Gentiles. So you're going to have Paul as an authority, as a believer, correcting another believer, establishing the purpose of the gospel there among the Jews as well. But it also says he is going to be an instrument for the gospel among the Gentiles. Paul will become the great Apostle to the Gentiles. He will call himself that. He will come to know that that is why God has called him, transformed him, saved him, redeemed him, and given him this particular commission. It's because there's no one else who is situated as he is now to do this. But the third part of this is interesting, is it not? Because we are told that Paul will have a ministry for the sake of the gospel to Kings. To Kings. Now that's quite a promise, but it literally comes to pass before  Agrippa. Before other Kings, Paul will have the opportunity to share the gospel. And that is also tracked through the book of acts.  His conversion in chapter nine is not only a transition from being a persecutor of the church to being a leader of the church, it is his regeneration. It is a complete change of life. And in this passage you have this magnificent display of God's grace in the life of the Apostle Paul.  Let's look at Galatians chapter 3 for just a moment. Paul gives us a commentary on this in Galatians chapter 3, look at verse 10 through 14:  “For as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse for, as it is written ‘cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law to perform them.’ Now we know that no one is justified by the law before God is evident, for the righteous man shall live by faith. However, the law is not of faith. On the contrary, whoever practices them shall live by them. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law having become a curse for us. For it is written ‘cursed as everyone who hangs on a tree,’ in order that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles so that we would receive the promise of the spirit through faith.”  In this little passage, we just read, Paul ends up giving his warrant for going to the Gentiles, but he also does, making clear, and this is what we need to understand up front, that that's what the Jews should have understood from the beginning. That's Paul's point here in Galatians 3:  They should have understood that the gospel was for the Gentiles from the beginning, even in the Abrahamic covenant. God says through Abraham, I will bless all nations through you. It is a blessing to Israel first, yes, but it's not just for Israel. It is a blessing that is to go beyond. I wanted us to look at those few verses from Galatians 3, because the man who could write that is a man whose mind has been completely changed from the persecutor of the church to the ambassador of grace to the Gentiles. This is a man whose entire worldview got turned upside down. And now he writes with such forcefulness about the ministry of the gospel over against the ministry of the law. What was old has passed away. It has been fulfilled in Christ. Paul is now the Apostle to the Gentiles, and that will be his role and function in the church. He will lead this westward expansion. He will lead in the establishment of Gentile churches, and eventually he will get to Rome. But before he arrives there, he writes the saints, the church in Rome. And that's the letter we have.  And so very quickly let's begin looking right at the text of the book of Romans. We now know to whom it was written. To a church, as we saw last week, that was at one time largely Jewish but is now largely Gentile because of the expulsion of the Jews from Rome. We know about when it was written: somewhere between AD 54 and 58. And we know who wrote it. The human instrument of this writing was the Apostle Paul. Now we can look at the text itself.  “Paul, a bond servant of Christ Jesus called as an Apostle set apart for the gospel of God.”  First word is Paul. You often hear the letters and the New Testament referred to as the epistles, the epistle of Paul to this, or the epistle of Paul to those. The Greek word for letter is simply epistle. But the whole category of epistles or letters was well known in the ancient world. Letters functioned in that world differently than in hours.  Now, every once in a while, we communicate something magnificent or major by means of a letter, but let's face it, we don't get big news basically by letters. Not in the day of instant communications, not in the day of the telephone, much less now in the day of television and email, and satellite transmission and everything else. Rarely do we open a letter in order to find out some magnificent momentous news.  But in the ancient world, the letter was the main means whereby communication was made. Now, this is something that people who lived just a hundred years ago could have well understood. As a matter of fact, one of the sad things in terms of a historical perspective is how little is going to be known by reading our letters, because we don't write that many. Or the letters we write are largely perfunctory or courtesy. There's not a great deal of material in them in terms of news. But you can't imagine, I don't think any of us can imagine, what it was like to live in a world in which you heard so little. A letter coming from someone like the Apostle Paul would mean everything. In the traditional style of letters in the first century, you began the letter with your own name. Now, frankly, I think that makes more sense than the way we write letters. You know, we put our name at the end. Well, that's great. But sometimes you have to look to the end to find out who's writing to you. Not so in the ancient world, you put your name first so that the people reading it would know for whom the letter had come.  Let's look at how he identifies him. So he calls himself by his Christian name, Paul, but then he describes himself as a bondservant of Christ Jesus. Paul will, again and again, describe himself in two different ways. He does it right here in this very verse. On the one hand, as an Apostle. And on the other hand as a slave.  Now, this is so important because we tend to think of authority as a matter of mere privilege, without understanding what Paul saw. And that is that authority in the church as being a form of servanthood. Now, it didn't mean that he was reluctant to exercise that authority. He will exercise it again and again. He will say, “I am an Apostle. I'm speaking on behalf of the authority of Christ himself. I'm going to define reality. I'm going to tell you what the truth is. This is the gospel, and that's not the gospel choose you today, which one you're gonna serve.”  The Apostle Paul was not reticent to use his authority, but he understood it wasn't about himself. It's not about Paul. It is instead about Christ. Just as it was John the Baptist who pointed to Jesus said, “I must decrease that he must increase.” Paul will say in so many different ways in his letters, “I'm not the point here, I am insignificant. It is Christ who is supremely significant.”  And he will say things like “to live is Christ, to die is gain.”  Just to point out the fact that it is Christ himself who is everything. But just as much as Paul was quick to point out that he was a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, he would all also use this apostolic authority. So you have this going back and forth. Paul puts both of these aspects here in verse one. He is a slave, a dulas. He is so much a slave to Christ that everything he knows, everything he has, everything he knows about himself, everythings he hopes for in the life to come is all due to Christ. He is Christ’s slave  A bondservant is one who has willingly become a slave. That is one who has sold himself into slavery. Paul says, “I belong to Lord Jesus Christ.” Just like a servant would belong to his master. He identifies Christ by Christ Jesus. Now, sometimes we say Jesus Christ. Another important reminder to us that the names Christ and Jesus are just that they are names. But they are names that come as a title, especially Christ. Jesus, or what you would have as a Yeshua in the Hebrew or Aramaic dialect is a name common to the Old Testament. It's the same name that is translated as Joshua in the Old Testament. And it's a word that by itself, declares “savior.”  “Unto you shall be born this day in the city of David a savior, who is Christ the Lord. And his name shall be Jesus, which means savior.” His name was declaring his purpose, but it was a common name. And in the ancient near east, and especially in what we would call Israel, you would find others who would have the same name, the name Jesus or Yeshua, but they would not have the title Christ. The Christ is the Messiah, the Christos, the anointed one, the promised one, Israel's consolation. So to say Christ Jesus is to make very clear you're speaking of the incarnate man known as Jesus Christ, who is also the incarnate God, son of God, who is the Messiah, the anointed one. “A bond servant of Christ Jesus called as an Apostle.”  Paul didn't volunteer as an Apostle. What we read from 1 Corinthians 15 reminds us that Paul said I was set apart, I was commissioned, I was called. Now, I'm the least of all. I'm not worthy to be an Apostle, but ladies and gentlemen, I am an Apostle. Not because I've declared myself to be one, but because Christ Jesus has made me one. The one whose slave or bond servant  I am, he has made me an Apostle. That is defined as being set apart for the gospel of God. What is Paul's apostolate all about? His Apostleship, his purpose is for the cause of the gospel. He is set apart for the gospel of God. In verse two, Paul gives us an extended commentary on that gospel. This is the gospel, which he…Now who's “he?” This is God the father, as we shall see, “he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures concerning his son who is born of a descendant of David, according to the flesh.”  Let's just stop there for a moment. Here is no longer Saul, here's Paul. How do you see the difference? Saul, the persecutor of the church, made it his business to argue that Jesus was not the son of God, could not be the Messiah, the followers of Christ were illegitimate, they could not be called Jews. They were to be corrected or imprisoned and flogged. They were to be persecuted. Now he's making the case from the other side on the basis of his own apostolic authority, he describes this gospel saying it was promised beforehand through his prophets and the Holy Scriptures. Don't let that pass you by. Here is Paul saying we should have seen it. The Jews universally, all of us, should have recognized in Jesus Christ the absolute fulfillment of all of God's promises. He had told us beforehand what he was going to do. And he told beforehand, but listen to how he says in his prophets, in the holy Scriptures, he's referring to the Old Testament Scriptures. That's right there. He says, ladies and gentlemen, it's in black and white. We should have known it. These things in verse three “concerning his son.” So what you have in verse one is the title Christ. The anointed one. What you have in verse three is the declaration that this Christ Jesus is none other than the very Son of God. Now it's just like there in the gospel of Luke. The angels put it all together by saying a babe is born to you, a savior, who is Christ the Lord. They have all three put together, savior, Christ, Lord, put together in the angelic declaration to the shepherds. Here you have it put together in the apostolic declaration of the Apostle Paul Christ, Jesus, Son, all there in the first three verses. But there's more: “who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh.” That is according to how you would measure or trace his earthly lineage, by descent of David, that was foretold also in the Scriptures.  Then look at verse four, who this is, “the son was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ, our Lord.”  Just in case we missed it all put together in the first three verses, in the next verse, verse four, he puts it all together for us again: “who was declared the Son of God.” In other words, those who were alive at the time and who witnessed his resurrection, saw the Father's declaration, that this is his son. The declaration had come already at the baptism., “This is my son in whom I am well pleased.” But it was in the resurrection in particular that God universally said to the entire world, “This is my son.” And that is a theme that will come up again and again in the Apostle Paul's ministry, it is the resurrection that underlines for all time, universally for all peoples and all places, this is God's son. For Paul the resurrection is everything. That's why in 1 Corinthians 15, where we just read, he said, “I delivered under you that, which is a first importance, which I also received, that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures. And that he was raised from the dead, according to the Scriptures.” God raised him from the dead. Without the resurrection there is no fulfillment of the prophecy. Without the resurrection there is no power of God demonstrated in him. But with the resurrection, universally, throughout all time, categorically, unquestionably, he is declared to be the Son of God. And this was revealed to him. How? According to the spirit of holiness through Jesus Christ, our Lord. There you have Jesus, Christ, Lord–all put together. And we're only four verses into the book of Romans. It’s like he's loading it on the upfront, right as we get into the book with the serious theology, with all the serious doctrinal content, that's going to follow. He's writing to a largely Gentile church. And he said, I'm a Jew. We should have seen it. We'll declare it now to you. I'm the Apostle to the Gentiles. He's already said that I am an Apostle. I'm coming to you. And this is the message I send to you, that God showed his salvation, declared his power in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. He is the very Son of God. He is the Messiah, the savior Christ Jesus, according to the spirit of holiness, we know him as Jesus Christ our Lord.  Now in verse five, he's going to tell us that it is through him, through Christ, “we receive grace and Apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for his name's sake, among whom you also are called or the called of Jesus Christ to all who are the beloved of God in Rome called to be saints or called as saints, grace to you in peace from God, our father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”  This is where we'll pick up next week. Just let me make one comment here. If you wrote a letter in the ancient near east, in this time in the Roman empire, in the first century, you began the letter with your own name, but as you wrote the letter, you will give some kind of greeting. And the traditional greeting and the Greek language was karin, which is graciousness. It's just like today we would say something like, “dear,”  is kind of the same thing. Dear Fred, dear Hazel, dear whatever, dear you guys. That's a gracious thing. You know, the word dear is just kind of a throwaway thing now we don't give it a whole lot of attention, but it really was intended to mean something. “You are dear to me.” And so you would write the letter that way.  But in the ancient world, in the Roman world, you begin with something like “graciousness to you.” Well, remember that Paul is the Jew who is the Apostle to the Gentiles. He's going to show that the gospel is for Jews and for Greeks, it’s going to come very quickly here in Romans chapter 1. And by Greeks, he means Gentiles. He's going to show that he is a Jew, who is the Apostle commissioned to the Gentiles. He doesn't use the greeting charin. Instead he uses the greeting charis. Grace. Not graciousness, but grace. A different thing altogether, grace and peace, peace, shalom. So when you come to the end of verse seven, he greets the church, both Jews and Greeks. He greets them, both Jews and Gentiles. He uses not only grace, but shalom, grace and peace. Shalom was the traditional Jewish way of greeting. Grace, a traditional, or at least a modification of the traditional Roman way of greeting. And here, Paul kind of sets it all up before the church, Jews and Gentiles together, grace and peace to you through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Oh Lord. We pray that you would lead us into the study of your word in a way that will lead us to Christian maturity, to the expansion of your gospel. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.Well, we are continuing our study in the book of Romans. And there's no way to understand the present, as we ought to understand our times, then by looking back in the eternal word of God to how we should understand the earliest consciousness, experiences, and convictions of the church. And no better place for that than in Romans. It is a thrill to begin our study. We've anticipated this for a long time.  The book of Romans stands right there in the center of the New Testament as that great book without which we would not know so much. Every single word of Scripture is inspired and every word is fully inspired. There's no extraneous material. No book is more important than other books in terms of the inspiration. But in terms of helping us to understand the rest of the story, the book of Romans is so essential because it gives us that synthesis we need. And you know, what a synthesis is, is when the arguments all come together and are laid out in a way that is comprehensive. We can understand that here. Paul is going to give us the big view of the gospel itself, but he's also going to deal with the actual way the gospel works. And that's what's so important. It's not just enough to say Jesus saves.  Now you have say that, that's the very heart of the gospel. But Paul tells us not only that he saves, but Paul goes to great length in this book to tell us how he saves and thus how it is the church is to live as a redeemed people in the world. Last week, we started looking at some of the background issues because there's no way to understand what's going on in the book of Romans without understanding why Paul wrote the letter, who Paul was, and where this took place in the chronology of Paul's ministry. Now, as you will remember, when we looked at this last week, we talked about the fact that there are internal and external clues as to when Paul wrote this book. And we're looking at a period between 54 and 58 AD. So this is very early in the life and experience of the early church; you're talking about in the midpoint of the first century. But this is also something of the midpoint of the Apostle Paul's career as the Apostle to the Gentiles. What is behind him?  Well, according to the very last chapter of the book of Romans, in Romans chapter 16, we find out that Paul tells us that what lies behind him is the ministry to the east, the ministry to the churches of Asia Minor. And so we have all these churches from Cortinh to Thessolanica, to Philippi. That's where Paul has been giving so much of his attention after his conversion. And we're gonna trace that in just a moment. After his conversion, he spent so much time there in these missionary journeys, in what we call Asia Minor, or what would today be called Turkey. Now that is completed, it's completed for two reasons.  Let's think about that for a moment. Two reasons. The first reason is that there are churches planted right there. And so Paul can look back at his ministry in Asia Minor and know that he has left churches and they are not only churches that are hanging on by the skin of their teeth. They are churches that are beginning to thrive and they have leadership and they have a grasp of the gospel. And they're beginning to show the fruit of congregational life. Paul is sending people like Timothy, men he raised up to be the leaders of these churches. And as you follow through the Old Testament, read the letters, and read the book of Acts, you can see that we have in Asia Minor, what we now know is Turkey, are thriving churches.  There is in Jerusalem a church, and in many ways that is the mother church, of course, of all the rest of the churches that will emerge in the first century. But the other reason Paul's ministry to the east is finished is because God is giving him an open door to ministry to the west. And that means Rome and points westward from there. And what is west from Rome in the Roman empire is the territory known as Gual, and Gaul is today, mostly what we would call France, but also a good deal of Southern Spain. And it is a tremendous territory in which Europeans are beginning to think of themselves as a part of the Roman empire. And by the end of Paul's ministry, the gospel had been preached in Gual. That is an amazing thing, that by the end of the first century, not by Paul, but by others, he would send and would be sent out from these churches, the gospel will reach what we now know as the British Isles. Just imagine that in one century, in the ancient world, the gospel would spread so quickly to the far east, we know the gospel will get as far as what we now call India. And then as far west and north, as not only Gual or modern day France, but also in England, what we would now call the British Isles.  But we need to pick up on who Paul was. This is where we left off last week, because in order to understand the book of Romans we have to understand its author. Paul's personality, his testimony, and his chronology is so important. Here. We are reminded that he was born into a Jewish family. One of the most important aspects of his biography, this is exactly where we left off last week, is the fact that he was a Roman citizen. He was a Roman citizen by birth, which meant that someone in his family in a generation past had done some extraordinary service for the empire and the emperor had, or at least on the emperor's authority, Roman citizenship had been given to Paul's family. That was an incredible honor. And as we shall see, it plays out as an enormous privilege or right, for Paul. For instance, a Roman citizen could not be flogged. And a Roman citizen had a right of immediate appeal to Caesar. So if on penalty of death, as Paul was later to face a trial and penalty of death, he's able to appeal to Caesar.  Now the Apostle Paul seizes every single moment for the gospel. For example, when he was chained to a member of the Praetorian guard, he says, this is great. This is the most interesting form of evangelism. It's an unexpected form of evangelism. This guy can't get away from me. He is chained to me. And not only that, but the man who's chained to me is a member of Caesar's household. I am able to evangelize Caesar's household by Caesar's accidental plan. And eventually he gets to confront Cesar himself, although that is not given to us at the end of the book of Acts, we know that it's coming. We do not have a record of exactly what happened there, but Paul was very proud of his Roman citizenship, as well as of his Jewish roots. And as you look at texts like Acts 16:39 and Acts 22:3, and the first chapter of Galatians, Paul will make a great deal out of his Roman citizenship. And he will use it to the fullest, as a way of getting to Rome to see Caesar. But Paul is also raised as a Jewish boy, a Jewish young man. And both in Tarshish, and later in Jerusalem, he will receive the very finest Jewish education. So what we have in Paul is this incredible intersection of the Roman and Jewish worlds. Now, in the providence of God, who better to minister as the great Apostle to the Gentiles than a man whose life situation and biography will represent the intersection of the Greek and the Jewish worlds. It has to be a man who understands the Jewish world or he can't possibly be the great missionary to the Gentiles and do that effectively, if he himself is not a Jew. Because he becomes the transitional figure on the basis of his Jewishness to say:  this is a gospel for Gentiles as well. But he also has to have some credibility. He has to have mobility. He has to have the status that the Roman citizenship would give him. It is clear in the providence of God that long before the Apostle Paul ever came to life, God had prepared him for this particular service. Put him in just the right place, born to just the right parents, having just the right education and just the right experiences. But of course, I am speaking somewhat anachronistically here because I am referring to this man as Paul.  And the reality is of course that if we had known him as a boy, and if we had known him as a young man, we would not have called him Paul, but we would've called him Saul. Now he was of the tribe of Benjamin.  Saul, as we have indicated last week, was the most illustrious member of that tribe, the first king of Israel, a man whose reign was marked by both greatness and humiliation, but without doubt, the name Saul was the primary name of the entire tribe. When you name your boy Saul, and you're from the tribe of Benjamin, you expect great things from this young man. His parents obviously expected great things from Saul. Saul began his life and was educated, as we've said, in Tarshish and in Jerusalem. He studied with Gamaliel, according to the strictest interpretation of the ancestral law, as he himself referred. And then having reached adulthood, it is interesting that his young adulthood coincides with the events concerning Jesus the Christ in Jerusalem. Now it is clear that Saul was on the inside track for leadership in the church.  You know, every once in a while, you can just look at someone and you are going to know this kid is meant for greatness. I mean, this kid is meant for some kind of leadership. I can remember one time, long ago, getting to know an elementary school principal. And he said, every once in a while you see a kid, and this guy had been in the public schools for 40 years, he said, “every once in a while you see a kid and you know, this guy is going to be the president or the godfather one, or, two, he's going to run something. He's either gonna run the mafia or he is going to be a four star general running the military, but one way or another, this kid's going to go somewhere.” And that must have been the way that Saul looked to those who observed him. It's clear that he was on the inside track, not only in terms of education, but also in terms of his leadership potential. But how does he employ that leadership? That's the big question. How do we come to know Saul in the first place? We know him before his conversion. And that is because he used his leadership, as this young Roman trained, Gamliel trained, Jewish leader, as a persecutor of the church. The first reference we have to the Apostle Paul, who was then known as Saul, is in the stoning of Stephen, where we are told that Saul had been ransacking the church. And it is at the stoning of Stephen in the book of Acts that Saul actually holds the cloaks of those who do the stoning. Now that is more than symbolic because in the holding of the cloak, that's a way where Saul doesn't have to do the dirty work, he just saw to it that it was done. Now that's an interesting model of leadership right there. He had agitated the crowd in order to stone Steven, but he himself did not throw the stones. Instead, he held the cloaks of those who did the same, but he was known as a persecutor of the church. That's very important. He talks about it himself. Look at Galatians chapter one. Paul reveals something about himself in virtually every one of his letters, but in Galatians, probably because he was so agitated at the Galatian church, he's very honest about these things. Look at verse 13 and following, “For you have heard of my former manner of life in Judaism, how I used to persecute the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my countrymen being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions.”  Now we can follow that through to great profit, but for the sake of time, we're going to end there and just say that in this very revelatory statement, Paul, referring to his previous life, as Saul, says, he was zealous above all his peers. He was zealous for the traditions of his countrymen. In other words, in Saul's persecution of the church, you had a combination of what he saw as Jewish patriotism and a zeal to protect the orthodoxy of his day. And that meant persecuting the church because the temple authorities, the Jewish authorities, had hardened their hearts against Jesus. They had rejected him as the Son of God and as savior. They had been complicit with the Jews in leading to his crucifixion. Saul was out to defend the temple and its authorities and to oppose this new movement known as Christianity.  We have another indication of this in 1 Corinthians 15, another statement by Paul, this great chapter that of course refers to the resurrection. That's the central point. In first Corinthians 15, we come across Paul making the argument that the gospel comes with priority. The first priority of the gospel we have in verse three, “For I delivered to you as a first importance, what I also received that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures. And that he was buried. And he was raised on the third day, according to the Scriptures.”  Now this is, again, Paul's absolute irreducible minimum of the gospel. You can't get the gospel any shorter or smaller than this. You can't leave anything that Paul has just said out and still have the gospel; it is a first priority. This is what you have to nail down first of all. And of course, this is a direct reputation of everything Paul had stood for during his career as the persecutor of the church, but he's going to refer to that. He speaks to the appearances of Jesus in verse six. First we want to go back to verse five, “ he appeared to Cephas,” that’s Peter, Cephas meaning rock, “and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James then to all the Apostles,” not look at verse 8 “And last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared to me also for, I am the least of the Apostles and not fit to be called an Apostle because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God, I am what I am. And his grace toward me did not prove vain, but I labored even more than all of them yet. Not I, but the grace of God with me.”  Interesting, isn't it? This is the Apostle Paul's Popeye verse, “I am what I am” in verse 10, where you have Paul giving his testimony here and saying, listen, I don't deserve to be an Apostle. I don't deserve any of this. By definition we do not deserve grace. And Paul says that if there's anyone who must be reminded that he doesn't deserve grace it is I. But he says, but I am what I am. By human qualification I shouldn't mean Apostle. Why should the persecutor of the church become the leader of the church? But this is God's church, and God does what he pleases in his church. And God pleased to turn the persecutor into the Apostle. And that's exactly what took place here. This persecution of the church had been largely localized first in Jerusalem. In Acts chapter eight, we are told that Paul was actually dragging men and women out of their homes and persecuting them there in Jerusalem. Bringing them for trial, harassing them, flogging them, imprisoning them, trying to put it into this movement.  But Paul's zeal as a persecutor. And you might even think of him as a prosecutor, just think of him as legally serving something like the function of a district attorney in our legal system; he is out to find criminals and to bring them for trial. The reach of his persecution or prosecution eventually goes beyond Jerusalem. And that is what leads to his conversion.  Paul was headed to Damascus. Now I should not pass by us very quickly. Damascus is in what is now known as Syria. It's far to the north, it's outside Jewish territory. It was actually outside Jewish law.  You can understand the persecution according to Jewish law in Jerusalem, but this is going far outside Jerusalem, where there was a large Jewish community, nonetheless Damascus, and Saul's determination to put an end to this Christian movement, this thing known as “The Way” the followers of Jesus Christ, his zeal led him to go to the chief priest with an unusual request for a warrant to go all the way to Damascus in order to round up the Jews who were believers in Christ there, and bring them back to Jerusalem for prosecution. Now, unless you just let that go by you, that is an almost breathtaking act of audacity. Just imagine that this is going that far out of Jerusalem, going into a different country, into a different region, into Gentile territory, just in order to arrest Jews who were followers of the Lord, Jesus Christ. Paul is way out on a limb here, or Saul, way out on a limb here. The extremity, the arrogance of his persecution is now almost on some kind of manic or maniacal level. The chief priest gives him the warrant and he goes to Damascus. But in Acts chapter 9, and it's good that we should turn there, in Acts chapter 9, what happens is not at all what Saul has planned. It is now that we understand that Saul is going to be a different man. When he gets to Damascus, he will not be a percutor of the church. He will be a member of the church. In Acts chapter 9, we come across Saul's conversion. “Now Saul, still breathing, threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus so that he found any belonging to the way,” that's the way the Christians referred to there, “there both men and women. He might bring them bound to Jerusalem. As he was traveling, it happened that he was approaching Damascus and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. And he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ And he said, ‘Who are you Lord?’ And he said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city. And it will be told to you what you must do.’ The men who traveled with him stood speechless, hearing the voice, but seeing no one. Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing. And leading him by the hand, they brought him into Damascus and he was three days without sight and neither ate nor drank. Now, there was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias, and the Lord said to him in a vision ‘Ananias.’ And he said, ‘Here am I Lord?’”  Now, that goes all the way back to Samuel. That's the traditional Jewish way that the Lord gets the man's attention, through a dream, “Here am I Lord,”  also in Isaiah chapter six.  “And the Lord said to him, get up and go to the street called Straight and inquire at the house of Judas for a man from Tarshish named Saul for he is praying.”  Okay, let's just stop there for a minute. You may have been with us when we went through the book of Acts verse by verse, that was several years ago. In fact, we were in the book of Acts for several years, but nonetheless, when you look back to Acts chapter nine, here, you have a real sympathy for this man, Annaias. The Lord speaks to you, just imagine in a dream, you know of this fire breathing persecutor of the church, named Saul in Jerusalem, and you've heard no doubt that he's coming to Damascus to arrest Christians. And in the middle of the night, a vision from the Lord comes to you and says, “I want you to see this man named Saul from Tarsus.” That's no ordinary command.  “He's praying, the Lord told Ananais, and he has seen in a vision, a man named Ananais coming in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight. And Ananais answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much harm he did to your Saint to Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the chief priest to bind all who call on your name.”  So Ananais does know the church in Damascus had one way or another been alerted to exactly why Saul was coming and what his intention was. “But Ananais said, ‘Lord, I've heard from many about this man, how much harm he did to your saints in Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the chief priest to bind all who call in your name.’ But the Lord said to him, ‘Go for, he is a chosen instrument of mine to bear my name before the Gentiles and Kings and the sons of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.’”   Well, we know the rest of that story. Ananais did what the Lord commanded him to do. And indeed Saul was given his sight. He is then later called Paul to represent the change in his life. Much like Simon is named Peter representing a transition and in some  places and in periods in history of the church, Christians were given new names just to represent this change of life. But it's interesting in this command to Ananais, the Lord tells this Jewish man named Ananias in Damascus, why he is to do this. And the commission here is very important, because he says in verse 15, “Go for he is a chosen instrument of mine to bear my name among the Gentiles and Kings and the sons of Israel.” It's interesting there, look at that commission. Let's take it apart for a minute.  He is an instrument of mine to bear my name among whom? Among the Gentiles and Kings and the sons of Israel. So the Apostle Paul will have a ministry to his fellow Jews. That's the last  part of this commission. And that's very important because there will actually come a time when Saul, now Paul, is going to have to stare down Peter, the great leader of the church in Jerusalem, on the question of the Gentiles. So you're going to have Paul as an authority, as a believer, correcting another believer, establishing the purpose of the gospel there among the Jews as well. But it also says he is going to be an instrument for the gospel among the Gentiles. Paul will become the great Apostle to the Gentiles. He will call himself that. He will come to know that that is why God has called him, transformed him, saved him, redeemed him, and given him this particular commission. It's because there's no one else who is situated as he is now to do this. But the third part of this is interesting, is it not? Because we are told that Paul will have a ministry for the sake of the gospel to Kings. To Kings. Now that's quite a promise, but it literally comes to pass before  Agrippa. Before other Kings, Paul will have the opportunity to share the gospel. And that is also tracked through the book of acts.  His conversion in chapter nine is not only a transition from being a persecutor of the church to being a leader of the church, it is his regeneration. It is a complete change of life. And in this passage you have this magnificent display of God's grace in the life of the Apostle Paul.  Let's look at Galatians chapter 3 for just a moment. Paul gives us a commentary on this in Galatians chapter 3, look at verse 10 through 14:  “For as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse for, as it is written ‘cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law to perform them.’ Now we know that no one is justified by the law before God is evident, for the righteous man shall live by faith. However, the law is not of faith. On the contrary, whoever practices them shall live by them. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law having become a curse for us. For it is written ‘cursed as everyone who hangs on a tree,’ in order that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles so that we would receive the promise of the spirit through faith.”  In this little passage, we just read, Paul ends up giving his warrant for going to the Gentiles, but he also does, making clear, and this is what we need to understand up front, that that's what the Jews should have understood from the beginning. That's Paul's point here in Galatians 3:  They should have understood that the gospel was for the Gentiles from the beginning, even in the Abrahamic covenant. God says through Abraham, I will bless all nations through you. It is a blessing to Israel first, yes, but it's not just for Israel. It is a blessing that is to go beyond. I wanted us to look at those few verses from Galatians 3, because the man who could write that is a man whose mind has been completely changed from the persecutor of the church to the ambassador of grace to the Gentiles. This is a man whose entire worldview got turned upside down. And now he writes with such forcefulness about the ministry of the gospel over against the ministry of the law. What was old has passed away. It has been fulfilled in Christ. Paul is now the Apostle to the Gentiles, and that will be his role and function in the church. He will lead this westward expansion. He will lead in the establishment of Gentile churches, and eventually he will get to Rome. But before he arrives there, he writes the saints, the church in Rome. And that's the letter we have.  And so very quickly let's begin looking right at the text of the book of Romans. We now know to whom it was written. To a church, as we saw last week, that was at one time largely Jewish but is now largely Gentile because of the expulsion of the Jews from Rome. We know about when it was written: somewhere between AD 54 and 58. And we know who wrote it. The human instrument of this writing was the Apostle Paul. Now we can look at the text itself.  “Paul, a bond servant of Christ Jesus called as an Apostle set apart for the gospel of God.”  First word is Paul. You often hear the letters and the New Testament referred to as the epistles, the epistle of Paul to this, or the epistle of Paul to those. The Greek word for letter is simply epistle. But the whole category of epistles or letters was well known in the ancient world. Letters functioned in that world differently than in hours.  Now, every once in a while, we communicate something magnificent or major by means of a letter, but let's face it, we don't get big news basically by letters. Not in the day of instant communications, not in the day of the telephone, much less now in the day of television and email, and satellite transmission and everything else. Rarely do we open a letter in order to find out some magnificent momentous news.  But in the ancient world, the letter was the main means whereby communication was made. Now, this is something that people who lived just a hundred years ago could have well understood. As a matter of fact, one of the sad things in terms of a historical perspective is how little is going to be known by reading our letters, because we don't write that many. Or the letters we write are largely perfunctory or courtesy. There's not a great deal of material in them in terms of news. But you can't imagine, I don't think any of us can imagine, what it was like to live in a world in which you heard so little. A letter coming from someone like the Apostle Paul would mean everything. In the traditional style of letters in the first century, you began the letter with your own name. Now, frankly, I think that makes more sense than the way we write letters. You know, we put our name at the end. Well, that's great. But sometimes you have to look to the end to find out who's writing to you. Not so in the ancient world, you put your name first so that the people reading it would know for whom the letter had come.  Let's look at how he identifies him. So he calls himself by his Christian name, Paul, but then he describes himself as a bondservant of Christ Jesus. Paul will, again and again, describe himself in two different ways. He does it right here in this very verse. On the one hand, as an Apostle. And on the other hand as a slave.  Now, this is so important because we tend to think of authority as a matter of mere privilege, without understanding what Paul saw. And that is that authority in the church as being a form of servanthood. Now, it didn't mean that he was reluctant to exercise that authority. He will exercise it again and again. He will say, “I am an Apostle. I'm speaking on behalf of the authority of Christ himself. I'm going to define reality. I'm going to tell you what the truth is. This is the gospel, and that's not the gospel choose you today, which one you're gonna serve.”  The Apostle Paul was not reticent to use his authority, but he understood it wasn't about himself. It's not about Paul. It is instead about Christ. Just as it was John the Baptist who pointed to Jesus said, “I must decrease that he must increase.” Paul will say in so many different ways in his letters, “I'm not the point here, I am insignificant. It is Christ who is supremely significant.”  And he will say things like “to live is Christ, to die is gain.”  Just to point out the fact that it is Christ himself who is everything. But just as much as Paul was quick to point out that he was a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, he would all also use this apostolic authority. So you have this going back and forth. Paul puts both of these aspects here in verse one. He is a slave, a dulas. He is so much a slave to Christ that everything he knows, everything he has, everything he knows about himself, everythings he hopes for in the life to come is all due to Christ. He is Christ’s slave  A bondservant is one who has willingly become a slave. That is one who has sold himself into slavery. Paul says, “I belong to Lord Jesus Christ.” Just like a servant would belong to his master. He identifies Christ by Christ Jesus. Now, sometimes we say Jesus Christ. Another important reminder to us that the names Christ and Jesus are just that they are names. But they are names that come as a title, especially Christ. Jesus, or what you would have as a Yeshua in the Hebrew or Aramaic dialect is a name common to the Old Testament. It's the same name that is translated as Joshua in the Old Testament. And it's a word that by itself, declares “savior.”  “Unto you shall be born this day in the city of David a savior, who is Christ the Lord. And his name shall be Jesus, which means savior.” His name was declaring his purpose, but it was a common name. And in the ancient near east, and especially in what we would call Israel, you would find others who would have the same name, the name Jesus or Yeshua, but they would not have the title Christ. The Christ is the Messiah, the Christos, the anointed one, the promised one, Israel's consolation. So to say Christ Jesus is to make very clear you're speaking of the incarnate man known as Jesus Christ, who is also the incarnate God, son of God, who is the Messiah, the anointed one. “A bond servant of Christ Jesus called as an Apostle.”  Paul didn't volunteer as an Apostle. What we read from 1 Corinthians 15 reminds us that Paul said I was set apart, I was commissioned, I was called. Now, I'm the least of all. I'm not worthy to be an Apostle, but ladies and gentlemen, I am an Apostle. Not because I've declared myself to be one, but because Christ Jesus has made me one. The one whose slave or bond servant  I am, he has made me an Apostle. That is defined as being set apart for the gospel of God. What is Paul's apostolate all about? His Apostleship, his purpose is for the cause of the gospel. He is set apart for the gospel of God. In verse two, Paul gives us an extended commentary on that gospel. This is the gospel, which he…Now who's “he?” This is God the father, as we shall see, “he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures concerning his son who is born of a descendant of David, according to the flesh.”  Let's just stop there for a moment. Here is no longer Saul, here's Paul. How do you see the difference? Saul, the persecutor of the church, made it his business to argue that Jesus was not the son of God, could not be the Messiah, the followers of Christ were illegitimate, they could not be called Jews. They were to be corrected or imprisoned and flogged. They were to be persecuted. Now he's making the case from the other side on the basis of his own apostolic authority, he describes this gospel saying it was promised beforehand through his prophets and the Holy Scriptures. Don't let that pass you by. Here is Paul saying we should have seen it. The Jews universally, all of us, should have recognized in Jesus Christ the absolute fulfillment of all of God's promises. He had told us beforehand what he was going to do. And he told beforehand, but listen to how he says in his prophets, in the holy Scriptures, he's referring to the Old Testament Scriptures. That's right there. He says, ladies and gentlemen, it's in black and white. We should have known it. These things in verse three “concerning his son.” So what you have in verse one is the title Christ. The anointed one. What you have in verse three is the declaration that this Christ Jesus is none other than the very Son of God. Now it's just like there in the gospel of Luke. The angels put it all together by saying a babe is born to you, a savior, who is Christ the Lord. They have all three put together, savior, Christ, Lord, put together in the angelic declaration to the shepherds. Here you have it put together in the apostolic declaration of the Apostle Paul Christ, Jesus, Son, all there in the first three verses. But there's more: “who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh.” That is according to how you would measure or trace his earthly lineage, by descent of David, that was foretold also in the Scriptures.  Then look at verse four, who this is, “the son was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ, our Lord.”  Just in case we missed it all put together in the first three verses, in the next verse, verse four, he puts it all together for us again: “who was declared the Son of God.” In other words, those who were alive at the time and who witnessed his resurrection, saw the Father's declaration, that this is his son. The declaration had come already at the baptism., “This is my son in whom I am well pleased.” But it was in the resurrection in particular that God universally said to the entire world, “This is my son.” And that is a theme that will come up again and again in the Apostle Paul's ministry, it is the resurrection that underlines for all time, universally for all peoples and all places, this is God's son. For Paul the resurrection is everything. That's why in 1 Corinthians 15, where we just read, he said, “I delivered under you that, which is a first importance, which I also received, that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures. And that he was raised from the dead, according to the Scriptures.” God raised him from the dead. Without the resurrection there is no fulfillment of the prophecy. Without the resurrection there is no power of God demonstrated in him. But with the resurrection, universally, throughout all time, categorically, unquestionably, he is declared to be the Son of God. And this was revealed to him. How? According to the spirit of holiness through Jesus Christ, our Lord. There you have Jesus, Christ, Lord–all put together. And we're only four verses into the book of Romans. It’s like he's loading it on the upfront, right as we get into the book with the serious theology, with all the serious doctrinal content, that's going to follow. He's writing to a largely Gentile church. And he said, I'm a Jew. We should have seen it. We'll declare it now to you. I'm the Apostle to the Gentiles. He's already said that I am an Apostle. I'm coming to you. And this is the message I send to you, that God showed his salvation, declared his power in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. He is the very Son of God. He is the Messiah, the savior Christ Jesus, according to the spirit of holiness, we know him as Jesus Christ our Lord.  Now in verse five, he's going to tell us that it is through him, through Christ, “we receive grace and Apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for his name's sake, among whom you also are called or the called of Jesus Christ to all who are the beloved of God in Rome called to be saints or called as saints, grace to you in peace from God, our father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”  This is where we'll pick up next week. Just let me make one comment here. If you wrote a letter in the ancient near east, in this time in the Roman empire, in the first century, you began the letter with your own name, but as you wrote the letter, you will give some kind of greeting. And the traditional greeting and the Greek language was karin, which is graciousness. It's just like today we would say something like, “dear,”  is kind of the same thing. Dear Fred, dear Hazel, dear whatever, dear you guys. That's a gracious thing. You know, the word dear is just kind of a throwaway thing now we don't give it a whole lot of attention, but it really was intended to mean something. “You are dear to me.” And so you would write the letter that way.  But in the ancient world, in the Roman world, you begin with something like “graciousness to you.” Well, remember that Paul is the Jew who is the Apostle to the Gentiles. He's going to show that the gospel is for Jews and for Greeks, it’s going to come very quickly here in Romans chapter 1. And by Greeks, he means Gentiles. He's going to show that he is a Jew, who is the Apostle commissioned to the Gentiles. He doesn't use the greeting charin. Instead he uses the greeting charis. Grace. Not graciousness, but grace. A different thing altogether, grace and peace, peace, shalom. So when you come to the end of verse seven, he greets the church, both Jews and Greeks. He greets them, both Jews and Gentiles. He uses not only grace, but shalom, grace and peace. Shalom was the traditional Jewish way of greeting. Grace, a traditional, or at least a modification of the traditional Roman way of greeting. And here, Paul kind of sets it all up before the church, Jews and Gentiles together, grace and peace to you through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Oh Lord. We pray that you would lead us into the study of your word in a way that will lead us to Christian maturity, to the expansion of your gospel. You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2004/04/04/deuteronomy-32/ Sun, 04 Apr 2004 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:01:10 http://www.albertmohler.com/2004/03/31/deuteronomy-32/ Audio, Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2004/03/28/deuteronomy-31/ Sun, 28 Mar 2004 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 46:10 http://www.albertmohler.com/2004/03/02/deuteronomy-31/ Audio, Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2004/03/14/deuteronomy-30/ Sun, 14 Mar 2004 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 51:27 http://www.albertmohler.com/2004/03/01/deuteronomy-30/ Audio, Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2004/02/22/deuteronomy-29/ Sun, 22 Feb 2004 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 58:48 http://www.albertmohler.com/2004/02/02/deuteronomy-29/ Audio, Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2004/01/11/deuteronomy-2832-68/ Sun, 11 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 54:14 http://www.albertmohler.com/2004/01/01/deuteronomy-2832-68/ Audio, Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2004/01/04/deuteronomy-281-31/ Sun, 04 Jan 2004 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 52:46 http://www.albertmohler.com/2003/12/31/deuteronomy-281-31/ Audio, Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2003/12/28/deuteronomy-27/ Sun, 28 Dec 2003 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 54:00 http://www.albertmohler.com/2003/12/02/deuteronomy-27/ Audio, Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2003/12/21/the-speaking-of-god/ Sun, 21 Dec 2003 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:50:55 http://www.albertmohler.com/2003/12/02/the-speaking-of-god/ Audio, Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2003/12/14/deuteronomy-2612-19/ Sun, 14 Dec 2003 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 00:54:06 http://www.albertmohler.com/2003/12/01/deuteronomy-2612-19/ Audio, Deuteronomy Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2003/12/07/deuteronomy-261-11/ Sun, 07 Dec 2003 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 51:47 http://www.albertmohler.com/2003/11/30/deuteronomy-261-11/ Audio, Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2003/11/30/deuteronomy-24-25/ Sun, 30 Nov 2003 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 56:28 http://www.albertmohler.com/2003/11/03/deuteronomy-24-25/ Audio, Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2003/11/16/deuteronomy-23-24/ Sun, 16 Nov 2003 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 49:36 http://www.albertmohler.com/2003/11/01/deuteronomy-23-24/ Audio, Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2003/10/19/deuteronomy-23/ Sun, 19 Oct 2003 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 50:08 http://www.albertmohler.com/2003/10/01/deuteronomy-23/ Audio, Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2003/10/12/deuteronomy-22/ Sun, 12 Oct 2003 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 47:29 http://www.albertmohler.com/2003/10/01/deuteronomy-22/ Audio, Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2003/10/05/deuteronomy-21/ Sun, 05 Oct 2003 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 55:21 http://www.albertmohler.com/2003/09/30/deuteronomy-21/ Audio, Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2003/09/14/deuteronomy-19/ Sun, 14 Sep 2003 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 54:50 http://www.albertmohler.com/2003/09/01/deuteronomy-19/ Audio, Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2003/09/07/deuteronomy-18/ Sun, 07 Sep 2003 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 46:43 http://www.albertmohler.com/2003/08/31/deuteronomy-18/ Audio, Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2003/08/31/deuteronomy-17/ Sun, 31 Aug 2003 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 48:39 http://www.albertmohler.com/2003/08/03/deuteronomy-17/ Audio, Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2003/08/17/deuteronomy-17-2/ Sun, 17 Aug 2003 11:53:31 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 54:50 http://www.albertmohler.com/?p=5031 Audio, Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2003/08/03/deuteronomy-16/ Sun, 03 Aug 2003 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 48:31 http://www.albertmohler.com/2003/07/31/deuteronomy-16/ Audio, Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2003/06/01/deuteronomy-15/ Sun, 01 Jun 2003 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 56:07 http://www.albertmohler.com/2003/05/31/deuteronomy-15/ Audio, Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2003/05/25/deuteronomy-14/ Sun, 25 May 2003 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu.
For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 51:17 http://www.albertmohler.com/2003/05/02/deuteronomy-14/ Audio, Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2003/05/18/deuteronomy-136-18/ Sun, 18 May 2003 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu.
For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 47:28 http://www.albertmohler.com/2003/05/01/deuteronomy-136-18/ Audio, Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2003/05/11/deuteronomy-131-5/ Sun, 11 May 2003 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu.
For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 38:49 http://www.albertmohler.com/2003/05/01/deuteronomy-131-5/ Audio, Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2003/04/27/deuteronomy-12/ Sun, 27 Apr 2003 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu.
For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 54:20 http://www.albertmohler.com/2003/04/02/deuteronomy-12/ Audio, Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2003/04/20/deuteronomy-1118-32/ Sun, 20 Apr 2003 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu.
For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 49:37 http://www.albertmohler.com/2003/04/02/deuteronomy-1118-32/ Audio, Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2003/03/30/deuteronomy-111-17/ Sun, 30 Mar 2003 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 43:07 http://www.albertmohler.com/2003/03/03/deuteronomy-111-17/ Audio, Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2003/03/16/deuteronomy-101-13/ Sun, 16 Mar 2003 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu.
For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 39:19 http://www.albertmohler.com/2003/03/01/deuteronomy-101-13/ Audio, Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2003/03/02/deuteronomy-91-29/ Sun, 02 Mar 2003 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 39:07 http://www.albertmohler.com/2003/02/28/deuteronomy-91-29/ Audio, Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2003/02/23/deuteronomy-84-20/ Sun, 23 Feb 2003 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu.
For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 41:33 http://www.albertmohler.com/2003/02/02/deuteronomy-84-20/ Audio, Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2003/02/09/deuteronomy-81-3/ Sun, 09 Feb 2003 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 38:45 http://www.albertmohler.com/2003/01/31/deuteronomy-81-3/ Audio, Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. https://albertmohler.com/2003/02/02/deuteronomy-712-26/ Sun, 02 Feb 2003 00:00:00 +0000 You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

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For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.]]> R. Albert Mohler, Jr. full 48:54 http://www.albertmohler.com/2003/01/31/deuteronomy-712-26/ Audio, Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy Series, Exposition noYou can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.