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Monday, July 20, 2009

Stone VII - Redemption: Grace

As we establish an altar of remembrance, we are half way through laying the 12 Stones of the testimony of God. We have heard the stories of Creation and The Fall and understand that we are made in the image of God, but because of the effects of sin in our lives, we are in desperate need of being reconciled to God. We left off our discussion of the Consequences of Sin with a brief look at the hope of Redemption from the book of Romans. Redemption is the idea of salvation used to express deliverance from sin. We will look at the hope of Redemption in the three parts that make up the oldest, most basic and fundamental statement of Christian belief that salvation comes by Grace alone, through Faith alone, in Christ alone.
After Paul explains in Romans 1:18-3:20 that no one will ever be able to make himself righteous before God, he goes on to explain in verse 23-26 that “since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 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’s Grace means His unmerited favor, or the giving of what we need that we do not deserve.
Since we are in desperate need of reconciliation to God and we are spiritually dead in our sin and unable to do any spiritual good, or unable to please God, the only way that we can ever be saved is for God to provide salvation for us by grace, totally apart from our work. Paul explains in Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Grace is clearly put in contrast to works (or merit) as the way God chose to reconcile us to himself.
Why did God chose to do this, and why would He chose to do it this way?

I. Definition of Atonement
Atonement is said to be the process of forgiving or pardoning a transgression. Jewish Atonement; was accomplished through rituals performed by a high priest on the holiest day of the Jewish year: Day of Atonement, which looked forward to the Messiah. Grace Atonement; refers to the forgiving or pardoning of sin through the death of Jesus Christ by crucifixion which made possible the reconciliation between God and creation. From this point forward, when we talk about the atonement, we will intend the work Christ did in His life and death to earn our salvation.

II. The Cause of the Atonement
We saw last week that God’s righteousness is the primary cause for the consequences of sin, but we may ask what is the ultimate cause of God’s offer of salvation by grace, through faith, in the atonement of Christ? To find this we must trace the question back to something in the nature and character of God. Here, Scripture points to two things: the love and justice of God.


A. God’s Love - The love of God as a cause of the atonement is seen in the most famous passage in the Bible, John 3:16 say, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” God was motivated by His own love for His creation, namely His great love for the crowning glory of that creation, man. He was so motivated by that love that He presented His Son as a way of atonement for man.

B. God’s Justice - The justice of God also serves as a cause of the atonement because it required that God find a way for the just consequences for our sins to be paid. This is the aspect that Paul focuses on in verse 25, “whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.”
Paul uses the word propitiation to explain how God could show justice toward our sin and unmerited favor towards us. We will talk more about it in a moment, but for now we can see that both love and justice serve as ultimate cause of the atonement. They work in perfect, unified harmony together as equal parts of God’s character, and both are equally important.

III. The Necessity of the Atonement
Was there any other way for God to save human beings than sending his Son to die in our place?
Before we answer that question, we need to be sure and be clear about something. When we talk about the necessity of the atonement, we mean the necessity of it in the cause of redemption, not the necessity of redemption itself. It was not necessary for God to save any people at all. Just as we talked about in creation, that it was not necessary for God to create mankind in the first place, it is not necessary that God save mankind. When we fully appreciate that “God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment;” in 2 Peter 2:4, we realize that God could also have chosen, with perfect justice, to have left us in our sins awaiting final judgment. He could have chosen to save no one, and in this sense the atonement is not absolutely necessary.

However, once God, in his love, chose to save some human beings to be returned to his image, we quickly see by the testimony of Scripture that there was no other way for God to do this other than the sacrifice of his Son. Therefore, the atonement was absolutely necessary as a consequence of God’s decision to save some human beings.


A. In Gethsemane - In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus prays, "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will," in Matthew 26:39. This prayer more than implies that it was not possible for Jesus to avoid the death on the cross and still accomplish his purpose.


B. In the Resurrection - After the resurrection Jesus makes it clear to the disciples on the Emmaus road, when he says in Luke 24:25-26, "O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?"


C. In the New Testament -
1. In verse 26 of our passage for today, Paul makes clear that if God were to remain righteous and still save people, he had to send Christ to suffer the consequences for 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.”
2. Hebrews makes it abundantly clear when it says, “he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people,” in 4:17, and “it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these,” in 9:23, when talking about how “it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” There was no other way to save us than for Christ to die in our place.

IV. The Nature of the Atonement
What is the nature of this atonement? We will consider two aspects of Christ’s work.

First, that he obeyed the requirements of the law in our place and was perfectly obedient to the will of the Father as our representative.
Second, that he took the penalty due for our sins and as a result died for our sins.
It is important, before we start, to notice that in both of these aspects the primary emphasis of Christ’s work of redemption is not on us, but on God the Father. Jesus obeyed the law of the Father in our place, and also paid the penalty for our disobedience that the Father demanded.

A. Obedience - Christ’s obedience for us gains righteousness for us. If Christ had only secured forgiveness for us, we still would not merit heaven. Our guilt would be removed, but we would only be returned to the position of Adam in the Garden again, only to eventually fail. We would still not be righteous before God.
For this reason, Christ had to live a life of perfect obedience to God in order to earn righteousness for us. He had to obey the law his whole life on our behalf so that the positive merits of his perfect obedience could be accounted to us. Paul says in Philippians 3:9 that his goal is that he may be found in Christ, “not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.”
It is not neutrality that Paul seeks, but a positive moral righteousness. He knows it can not come from within himself and that is why he proclaims in 1 Corinthians 1:30 that Christ has been made “our righteousness,” and that by his obedience we have been “made righteous,” in Romans 5:19. We ought to ask ourselves whose lifelong record of obedience we would rather rely on for our standing before God, our own, or that of Christ?


B. Suffering - Christ’s suffering for us pays the penalty of sin for us.
In addition to obeying the law perfectly on our behalf, Christ took on himself the necessary suffering to pay the penalty for our sins. Christ lived a life of suffering in that he walked in a fallen world, he suffered tremendously during the temptation in the wilderness, in growing to maturity as Hebrews 5: 8 says, “he learned obedience through what he suffered.” He suffered the intense opposition of the Jewish leaders, and he surely suffered grief at the death of his earthly father and of his close friend Lazarus. Isaiah would predict the coming of the Messiah by saying he would be “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” Christ suffered on the cross as the climax to all his suffering on earth. The testimony of Scripture reveals at least four different aspects of the pain of the cross.


1. The physical pain and death - Death by crucifixion was one of the most horrible forms of execution ever devised by man. We do not need to sensationalize it by going into great detail. We need only to know that the beatings and torture and blood-letting and suffocation were our suffering that he bore in our place.


2. The pain of bearing sin - More awful than any physical pain was the psychological pain of bearing the guilt of our sin. We know the anguish we feel when we know we have sinned. The weight of sin is heavy on our hearts and the taste is bitter in our mouths. The more we grow in our faith the more painful & repulsive that sense should be. Now multiply that by infinity and place it on the heart and mind of a perfectly holy Son who lived only to honor his Father. What he had hated most was poured out fully upon him.
Scripture says repeatedly that our sins were put on Christ. Isaiah 53 says, “The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” And that “he bore the sins of many.” Paul declares that God made Christ “to be sin” and that he became “a curse for us.” Hebrews 9:28 says that Christ was “offered once to bear the sins of many.” 1 Peter 2:24 says, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree.”


3. The pain of abandonment - The physical and psychological pain were aggravated by the fact that Jesus faced this pain alone. “All the disciples forsook him and fled,” in Matthew 26:56.
We must ask ourselves, who will stand with us on that last day. Will it be our earthly friends that we have lived so hard to impress, or will it be Christ himself who suffered in our place? Far worse than the desertion of earthly friends was the fact that Jesus was deprived the one thing he had never bee without, the perfect fellowship of his Father. He shows the anguish of having the deepest joy of his heart removed for our sake when he cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus bore our sins on the cross. He was abandoned by us and his heavenly Father. He faced the weight of the guilt of trillions of sins alone.


4. The pain of bearing the wrath of God - More difficult than all of the other suffering of Christ was the separation from God he experienced as he bore the wrath of God upon himself.
In Romans 1:16-18 Paul says that he is 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.” He says that it is the power of God because, “in it the righteousness of God is revealed.” However, what makes the gospel message urgent is that Paul says, “the wrath of God is (already) revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.”
God hates sin, and when Jesus bore the guilt of our sin alone, God poured out on Jesus the fury of that wrath. As we said earlier, verse 25 tells us that God put Christ forward as a propitiation for our sins. That word means; a sacrifice that bears the wrath of God to the end and in so doing changes God’s wrath toward us into favor.
God did this to show that in His righteousness He is both just and the justifier. He could not simply forgive and forget. In his divine forbearance, he seemed to have passed over former sins, but he had actually stored up his wrath. But on the cross, all of that stored up wrath was unleashed.
Many non-evangelical theologians have objected to this idea that Jesus bore the wrath of God against sin. Their basic assumption is, “since God is a God of love, it would be inconsistent with his character to show wrath against human beings whom he created and for whom he is a loving Father.” That is a great argument. It is just wholly inconsistent with Scripture.
Leon Morris writes in the Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, “The whole of the argument of the opening part of Romans is that all men, Gentiles and Jews alike, are sinners, and that they come under the wrath and condemnation of God.” (p.888) The New Testament refers to the wrath of God toward man over 30 times, and Hebrews 2:17, and 1 John 2:2 & 4:10 all refer to Jesus’ death as propitiation. This is important for us because it is the heart of the doctrine of the atonement. Without it, there can be no Redemption! It means that there is an eternal, unchangeable requirement in the holiness and justice of God that sin be paid for. Before the atonement could ever have an effect on us, it had to have an effect on God and his relation to the sinners he planned to redeem. His hurt and righteous anger regarding our sin had to be satisfied.

Apart for this central truth, the death of Christ can not be adequately understood, and if it be not understood, how can it be passed down from generation to generation. We will see the resulting errors in just a second, but for now we must be sure we understand how this propitious death of Christ works.


C. Penal Substitution Atonement
This view of the Christ’s death is called the “Penal Substitution Theory of Atonement.”
1. Christ’s death was penal in that He bore the penalty for our sins when he died.
2. Christ’s death was substitution in that He was a substitute for us when he died.
It is sometimes called the Theory of Vicarious Atonement, because a vicar is someone who stands in the place of another or represents them. Thus, Christ’s death was vicarious because he stood in our place, as our representative, and took the penalty we deserve. This has been the orthodox view, or established doctrine, of the atonement throughout church history.
However, there have been others.


D. Other Views of the Atonement -
In contrast to Penal Substitution, several other views have been advocated at various times in the history of the church. I would like to quickly present the main four because they are not all crazy. In fact they are good arguments, that some people here unwittingly believe, that simply do not comply with the testimony of Scripture. Thus, we need to be keenly aware of them, that they do not come into our homes and deceive our children.

1. The Ransom to Satan Theory - This theory was first held by Origen (185-254 AD).
According to this view, the ransom Christ paid to redeem us was paid to Satan, in whose kingdom all people were by virtue of sin. It thinks of Satan rather than God as the one who required payment to be made for sin. It views Satan as having power to demand a ransom from God. It implies that we as sinners owe Satan a wage or penalty for sin.

The only problem is that it has no direct confirmation in Scripture. Scripture clearly sets God’s justice as the cause for the need for payment with respect to sin. Scripture portrays Satan as one who has been cast down from heaven and subject to God’s authority, not as one who has any right to demand anything form God. Nowhere does Scripture say that we as sinners owe anything to Satan. This theory fails to deal with all the text we have covered regarding Christ death as a propitiation for us.


2. The Moral Influence Theory - This theory was first held by Peter Abelard (1079-1142).
According to this view, God did not require the payment of a penalty for sin, but that Christ’s death was simply a way in which God showed how much he loved human beings by identifying with their sufferings, even to the point of death. Therefore, Christ death is a great teaching example that demonstrates God’s love and draws from us a grateful response, so that in loving him we are forgiven.
The great difficulty is that it is contrary to so many passages of Scripture that speak of Christ dying for sin, bearing our sin, or dying as a propitiation. More importantly, it robs the atonement of its objective character, because it holds that it had no effect on God himself! Finally, it has no way of dealing with our guilt. You must deny original sin in order to hold this view.


3. The Example Theory - This theory was taught by Faustus Socinus (1539-1604) and his followers called the Socinians. This view also claims that God did not require the payment of a penalty for sin, but that Christ’s death simply provides us with an example of how we should trust and obey God perfectly, even if it leads to a horrible death. Instead of teaching us how much God loves us, like the moral influence theory, this theory teaches us how we should live - how to have our best life now. Support for this view can be found in 1 Peter 2:21, “For this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.”
The problem is that while it is true that Christ is an example for us even in his death, this is not the complete explanation of the atonement. It fails to account for the many Scriptures that focus on Christ’s death as a payment for sins. More importantly, the theory ends up arguing that a man can save himself by following Christ’s example and by trusting and obeying God just as Christ did. It fails to show how guilt can be removed, and therefore, must be rejected.


4. The Governmental Theory - This theory was first taught by Hugo Grotius (1583-1645).
This theory holds that God did not have to require payment for sin, but since he is omnipotent, he could have set aside that requirement and simply forgiven sins without payment of a penalty. Christ’s death was nothing more than God’s demonstration that his law had been broken, and that a penalty would have to be paid whenever his laws were broken. Christ did not actually pay any penalty for anyone, but suffered only to show that a penalty had to be paid.

Well, glory halleluiah - that accomplishes nothing! The only problem with this final theory is that it commits all of the same mistakes of all of the other theories. It makes no payment, makes no atonement, it robs the objective nature of Christ’s work, it gives us no forgiveness of sin, and steals all of the value from Christ’s sacrifice. It absolutely underestimates the absolute nature of God’s justice and love!

They all try to do away with the need for the payment of a penalty for sin. They will accept Christ as a moral influence or example, but never as a substitute and sacrificial atonement. These developed from 185 to 1645 AD, they represent a progressive attempt to remove Christ from the center of redemption, and have not gone away! We need to be aware of modern teachers who try this same thing.

V. Redemption - The Result of the Atonement
What is the result of the atonement? There are four consequences for sin and four satisfactions for those consequences made by the atonement. Let’s look at them as a way of review. Christ lived a perfect, sinless life and died a horrific, sinner’s death in order to “save his people from their sins” according to Matthew 1:21.
A. We deserve to die as the penalty for sin. He paid the penalty we deserved to pay for our sin in his sacrifice.
B. We deserve to bear God’s wrath against sin. He bore the wrath we deserved to bear as our propitiation.
C. We are separated from God by our sins. He overcame the separation our sin caused between us and God by his reconciliation.
D. We are in bondage to sin. He freed us from the bondage caused by sin through his redemption.
Because of Christ’s work on our behalf, God can “deliver us from the domain of darkness” and transfer “us to the kingdom of his beloved Son.” What a great salvation!
It is all about Grace and that display of grace is generational. That is why Paul says in Ephesians, “by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
What a Savior! “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, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.”
For this reason we bow before you, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant us to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in our inner being, so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.


Take These Stones Home
Stone VII - Redemption: Grace

Read John 3:16 and Romans 3:23-26 to your children.
Share with them the Definition of Atonement that we learned this week:
Atonement; the process of forgiving or pardoning a transgression. The work Christ did in his life and death to earn our salvation.
Talk with children about how God's love motivated him to save us.
Talk with Children about how God's justice made it necessary for God to send Jesus to pay for our sins.

Share with Children that Christ’s obedience to God was very important for us to be saved.
Point out that Jesus was obedient to his Father because he loved him.
Jesus tells us that if we love God we must obey him also, just as he did.
Tell children that we should be like Jesus and obey God and our parents out of love.

Share with children that Christ's suffering was very important for us to be saved.
Point out that Jesus also suffered in order to pay for our sin.
Jesus shows us that sometimes we must sacrifice in order to accomplish God's plan.
Tell children that we should be like Jesus and be willing to suffer for what is right.

Share with Children about how Jesus paid for our sins by taking our place on the cross.
Children need to understand that we deserved to be on the cross and that Jesus did not.
Talk with children about what it means to be a substitute.

Monday, July 13, 2009

Stone VI - Fall: The Consequence

We have set out together to build an altar of remembrance of the statues and testimonies of God, and endeavored to do so along the backdrop of the grand narrative of God’s story; Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Consummation. We looked at the first movement, Creation, in three parts, Creator God, Creation Out-of-Nothing, and Creation in the Image of God.
We have looked at the ominous second movement of our grand story, The Fall, by focusing on the context and events leading up to the Fall (a crisis of belief for our first parents), and on the action of unbelief, Original Sin! This week, as we look at Genesis 3:7-8, we will see that not only does belief always produce action, but actions always have consequences. We will look at the Consequences of the Fall.
Let’s read again together starting in Genesis 3:1 through 8:
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'?" And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'" But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.
We see clearly that Adam and Eve did come to know both good and evil by moral experience. Their eyes were opened to sin and they were ashamed. They immediately began to try to cover themselves in order to hide their shame. Then they were confronted with the presence of God. For the first time in their lives, they did not run to him. Instead they hid. Knowledge of evil always produces fear. Adam and eve were afraid of God because they understood who they had become.

I. Moral Nature of Sin;
Last week we defined sin as any failure to conform to the moral law of God in act, attitude or nature. We saw how the attitude of unbelief was in itself sin that produces in our lives the actions of unbelief that are also in itself sin. Our definition specifies that sin is a failure to conform to God’s moral law not only in action and attitude, but also in our moral nature. Our very nature, the internal character that is the essence of who we are as persons, can also be sinful.
Before we are redeemed by Christ, not only do we perform sinful acts and have sinful attitudes, we were also sinners by nature. As we will begin to see next week, that is the glory of the gospel, that as Paul says, “while we were yet sinners Christ died for us,” not just while we were sinning, but that while “we were by nature children of wrath.”

II. Inherited Sin;
What does this mean for us? How does Adam’s sin affect us? The Bible teaches that we inherit sin from Adam in two ways:
A. Inherited Guilt - The Bible says that we are accounted guilty because of Adam’s sin.
Paul explains as follows, “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” The context here makes it plain that Paul is not just talking about the sins we commit every day of our lives. The passage is taken up with a comparison between Adam as the first representative head of man and Christ as the second representative head.
He is saying that through the sin of Adam, all men sinned. Remember that as soon as God created a being less than himself, He knew there resided in that being a nature that was not perfect and given to fail. God gave the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil as a way to learn obedience through moral experience. However, the fall of Adam proved that the man God had made was sinful in his nature. In the fall, God thought of all mankind as having sinned.
The idea is affirmed in Romans 5:18-19 when it says, “Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.”
We were all represented by Adam in the time of testing in the Garden. As our representative, Adam sinned, and God counted us as guilty along with Adam. The technical term for this is imputation; which means to think of as belonging to someone and therefore to cause it to belong to them. Since God is the ultimate judge of the universe, and since His thoughts are always true, Adam’s guilt does in fact belong to us. God rightly imputed Adam’s guilt to us.
You may say that you did not choose Adam to represent you and that if you had been there you would not have sinned. Well, God says we would, and 1 John 1:10 says, “If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”
B. Inherited Corruption -The Bible says we have a sinful nature because of Adam’s sin.
In addition to the legal guilt imputed to us on account of Adam’s sin, we also inherit a sinful nature. David says, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me,” in Psalm 51:5. This is a strong statement about the inherent tendency to sin that each of us has in our lives from the very beginning. However, our tendency to sin, which we received from Adam, means that in the eyes of God, we are not able to do anything that pleases Him in at least two ways:
1. In our natures we totally lack spiritual good before God.
Every part of our being is affected by sin; our will, intellects and emotions.
Paul says, in Romans 7:18, “I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is , in my flesh.” And in Titus he says, “to the corrupt and unbelieving nothing is pure; their very minds and consciences are corrupted.” Jeremiah says, “the heart is deceitful above al things, and desperately corrupt; who can understand it?”
These passages do not deny that humans can do good in human society in some sense. This inherent tendency to sin does not mean that humans are all as bad as they could be. It is saying that none of that good is spiritual good; it is not righteous apart from Christ, it is not good in terms of a relationship with God, because it springs forth from a selfish heart and sinful nature.
2. In our actions we are totally unable to do spiritual good before God.
Not only do we lack any spiritual good in ourselves, but we also lack the ability to do anything that will please God in itself. Again, Paul says, “those who are in the flesh cannot please God,” in Romans 8:8. Even more, when talking about bearing spiritual fruit for the kingdom of God, Jesus says in John 15:5, “apart from me, you can do nothing.” No act, no matter how good, is pleasing to God when performed by an unbeliever because it does not proceed out of faith and love for God. Hebrews 11:6 says, “without faith it is impossible to please Him.” Though from a human standpoint people may be able to do much good, Isaiah affirms that “all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.”

III. Actual Sins
More than just the sinful natures that we inherit, that make us totally sinful in themselves, we also choose, volitionally to sin and actually do commit sins ourselves as the natural effect of the unbelief of our sinful nature. From this, two key understandings are clear from the testimony of Scripture:
That we all sin - Universal Sinfulness
That we are all responsible for our sin and will be held accountable by God - Universal Responsibility
A. Universal sinfulness - In many places, Scripture testifies to the universal sinfulness of man. Psalm 14:3 says, “They have all gone astray, they are all alike corrupt; there is none that does good, no, not one.” David said to God, “no man living is righteous before you.”
Solomon said, “There is no man who does not sin.” Paul makes an extensive argument in Romans 1:18-3:23 that all people stand guilty before God. He concludes with certainty in 3:23, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” John makes this point in the gospel exceedingly clear in 1 John 1:8-10, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”
B. Universal responsibility - Pelagius lived from about 354 – 420 AD and was a popular Christian teacher in Rome and later Palestine. He taught that God holds man responsible only for those things that man is able to do. He said that since God warns us to do good, we must have the ability to do the good that God commands. His interpretation of a doctrine of free will became known as Pelagianism. His position denied the doctrine of inherited sin, and he was later refuted by Augustine, and was declared a heretic by the Council of Carthage, because this position is contrary to the testimony of Scripture, which affirms both that we are unable to do any spiritual good, and also that we are guilty before God.
If our responsibility were limited by our ability, then extremely hardened sinners in geat bondage to sin, could be less guilty before God than a mature beleiver who in his daily striving to obey still falls short. The true measure of our responsibility is not our own ability to obey, but the perfection of God’s moral character. Matthew 5:48 makes this plain, “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

IV. Consequences of Sin
So sin has a moral nature in that it is a violation of the moral character of God, and we inherit the guilt and corruption of that sinful nature from Adam. As a result of that sinful nature we all sin and fall short of the glorious moral nature of God, and we are responsible for that failure and will be accountable to God, just as Adam was. So, what are the consequences of sin?
As we talked about last week, belief is always followed by actions, and actions always have consequences. Unbelief results in actions of disobedience, and disobedience results in disciplinary consequences. Just as we talked about two weeks ago, you are not being punished when you reap the consequences of your behavior or choices. When you choose an action, and you know there are consequences that come with that action, then the consequences are not punishment, they can only serve to deter you from the action or to prevent you from repeating the action.
That is what separation from God, through physical and spiritual death, and eternal Hell is, the known, just consequences for sin. Following our passage in Genesis, we see the consequences for the sin of Adam and Eve clearly marked out.
A. Separation - After God had given the specific and universal consequences for their sin to the serpent, Eve and Adam, we see in Verse 23 that, “therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken.” God removed Adam from His presence. Even though God's omnipresence is affirmed the Bible freely uses language about people departing from, or being sent away from God's presence.
So how should we understand the language of departing from God's presence? Not in spatial or physical terms, but in relational terms. Or, to put it another way, it is a spiritual separation that we experience because of our sin, not a strictly local separation. Here we are confronted with Isaiah's famous words from Isaiah 59:2, “but your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.” Judah and Jerusalem suffer the same consequences as Israel previously had known. As 2 Kings 17:18-23 says, “the LORD was very angry with Israel and removed them from his presence...he afflicted them and gave them into the hands of plunderers, until he thrust them from his presence...the Israelites persisted in all the sins of Jeroboam and did not turn away from them until the LORD removed them from his presence.”
Paul characterizes the gospel in these terms in Ephesians 2:12-13 when he reminds us that when we were sinners we “were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” Once we have received forgiveness in Christ, Paul goes on to tell us in Romans 8:38-39 that, “neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
B. Death - After they had been put out of the garden we quickly see in Verse 24 that they will surely die. “He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.” Remember, the Tree of Life was the source of eternal life in the garden. Now they have been removed from it and the way back has been guarded by an angel. The death of sin, though not immediate, is sure. And as Genesis 5:5 tells us, “Thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died.”
Adam died, and in Genesis 4:15 we see the consequences of sin passed from one generation to the next, just as we have talked about the blessings of generational faithfulness. “Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him.” This death is not just physical, but spiritual, in fact, this is Cain's fear, as Genesis 4:13 says, ‘Cain said to the LORD, "My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden.’”
Death remains as a consequence in the NT. Romans 1:32 says, “Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.” Paul affirms in Romans 5:12 that the consequence of death comes as a result of the action of sin when he says, “just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” In Romans 6:23 he famously makes death the clear consequential result for sin by saying, “For the wages of sin is death.”
In the end, access to the Tree of Life is granted to those who overcome, as it says in Revelation 2:7, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.” Access will be granted in Heaven to be a constant source of nourishment and healing to those whose names appear in the Lamb’s Book of Life. Revelation 22:1-2 says, “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”
C. Hell - For those who do not believe, who do not overcome and persevere, whose names are not written in the Blood of Christ, the final consequence of sin is eternal separation from God in Hell.
Is God present in Hell? We have to say that he is, because Scripture affirms that he is. Revelation 14:9-11 says, “In Hell there is torment day and night in the presence of the holy angels and the in the presence of the Lamb.” Secondly, to deny that he is present in all of his creation is to deny that God is infinite and immense.
When we turn to the Westminster Larger Catechism, Question 29 deals with the subject of God's relationship to those who will experience future judgment in Hell, we find a precision of thought on these matters that is often lacking today:
“Q. What are the punishments of sin in the world to come?
A. The punishments of sin in the world to come, are everlasting separation from the comfortable presence of God, and most grievous torments in soul and body, without intermission, in hell-fire forever.”
Hell is not spatial separation from God, it cannot be because God is omnipresent. No, Hell is separation from the comfortable presence of God. It is the unshielded experience of the presence of God in his holiness and just wrath, and the absence of his mercy and grace. R. A. Finlayson wrote: “Hell is eternity in the presence of God without a mediator. Heaven is eternity in the presence of God, with a mediator.”
Jesus himself readily uses the language of relational separation to describe the misery of eternal Hell. After all will he not say “I never knew you, depart from me, you workers of lawlessness,” as Matthew 7:21-23 informs us? Will he not on the last day as the enthroned King, say to those on his left “depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire,” as Matthew 25:41 affirms? Are we not right to think of Hell as exclusion from God's presence, and therefore as a state of eternal separation from him?
Although God’s discipline as a consequence for sin does serve as a deterrent against further sinning and as a warning to those who observe it, this is not the primary reason why there must be consequences for sin. The primary reason is that God’s righteousness demands it.
In Jeremiah 9:24 God says, “that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD." In order that the universe might fulfill the purpose for which He created it, that He might be glorified, God must display His moral glory; His steadfast love, His justice, and His righteousness in the earth!
Paul tells us in Romans 3:25 why God put Christ forward as a propitiation (or a sacrifice that bears the wrath of God toward sin and turns it into favor), “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested - the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is 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 forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 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.”
So God does not end the story without hope, but proceeds to Redemption, and so shall we.


Take These Stones Home

Talk with your children about how actions always have consequences.
One way to illustrate the point is by teaching them Newton's Three Laws of Motion:
1. If nothing happens, everything stays the same.
2. The force of an object is equal to its size and speed.
3. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Demonstrate by rolling balls across the floor. First one at a time, talking about how nothing changes unless it hits another object and how it is only as strong as the weight of the ball and how fast you roll it. Then, have them roll a ball and you roll a ball into theirs, talking about how the action of your ball caused a reaction in the other ball.
Share with them the rest of the story in Genesis 3.
Point out that the actions of the serpent, Adam and Eve all had consequences.
(It is important to point out that God punished the serpent.)
Ask them to share something they have done where they know there was a consequence.
Share with them Psalm 14:3 and Romans 3:23.
Explain that when we sin, we deserve the consequences of sin.
Share with them that the consequences of sin are:
Separation from the presence of God.
Spiritual and Physical Death. (It is important that they understand this is where death comes from - Romans 1:32; 6:23.)
Eternal separation from God in Hell.
Be sure to share the hope of the gospel to overcome the consequences of sin - John 1:8-10.
Close by praying with them and asking God to forgive them of their sins.

Monday, July 6, 2009

Stone V - Fall: The Action

We have set out together to build an altar of remembrance of the statues and testimonies of God, endeavoring to do so along the backdrop of the grand narrative of God’s story; Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Consummation.
We looked at the first movement, Creation, in three parts, Creator God, Creation Out-of-Nothing, and Creation in the Image of God. Last week, We began looking at the ominous second movement of our grand story, The Fall. We did so by focusing on the context and events leading up to the Fall; that in the midst of the Garden of God’s provision and protection, two sermons were preached; the Message of the Law, given by God to Adam in Genesis 2 and the Message of the Lie given by the serpent to Eve in Genesis 3. In that, we saw a crisis of belief for our first parents. They had to choose which message to believe. And we saw that they chose to exchange the truth of God for a lie!
This week we will focus on the action of unbelief, Original Sin! Genesis 3:1-6 says, Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made.
He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'?"
And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'" But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die. For, God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

I. Justifying Unbelief:
Eve chose to believe the serpent and justified it with her own eyes.
A. When the woman saw;
Like all the other trees in the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was, as Genesis 2:9 tells us, “pleasant to the sight and good for food.” The irony is that somehow the serpent has made the woman discontent with the permitted trees, focusing her desire on this one.
1 John 2:15-17 says, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world— the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.”
In warning against all that is in the world, John does not demonize the whole created order, which as we have seen was created good. Rather, he gives examples of what the believer should guard against. Human desires are part of God's creation and therefore not inherently evil, but they become twisted when not directed by and toward God. The enemy uses these three things, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, to entice us to sin.
Sin is any failure to conform to the moral standard of God (falling short of His glory) in act, attitude or nature. Just as much as our actions, sin consist in our attitudes that are contrary to the attitudes God requires of us. Scripture shows this process at work in the Garden.
B. The tree was good for food;
The idea behind the lust of the flesh is someone who lives to satisfy the desires of the physical body to the point of disobedience to God through habit, addiction or obsession. It is said that Eve took of the forbidden fruit when she saw that the tree was good for food. She thought about how good the fruit would taste, how it would satisfy her flesh. She went after the lust of the flesh.
C. The tree was a delight to the eyes;
The idea behind the lust of the eye is simply someone who lives to satisfy the desires of lust or covetousness that are provoked by visual stimulation, such as food, sex, cars, clothes, etc. It is said that she took of the forbidden fruit when she saw that the fruit was pleasant to the eyes. She saw how pretty and desirable it was, and it pleased her artistic sense. She went after the lust of the eyes.
D. The tree was to be desired to make one wise”
The idea behind the pride of life is someone who lives for superiority over others, mostly by impressing others through outward appearances - even if by deception. It is said that she took of the forbidden fruit when she believed that it was desirable to make one wise. Its deadly appeal to her, apparently, is its ability to make one wise—wise, however, not according to the “fear of the Lord.”
As we found last week, by their obedience or disobedience the human couple will come to know good and evil by experience. Experience gained by “fearing the Lord” is wisdom, while that gained by disobeying God is slavery. How smart the fruit would make her! How her husband would admire her! She went after the pride of life.
The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life: In these three things, John may have in mind the Eve’s first pursuit of worldliness.

II. Belief always results in Action:
Belief reveals itself in action. Just as much as our attitudes, sin consist in our actions that are contrary to the behavior God requires of us. James says that faith without works is dead. That is to say that we may claim to believe something, but if that belief does not produce action it is not true faith. When Adam believed what God said, he obeyed God and walked and talked with God in the Garden. When Adam believed the serpent, he disobeyed God and ate of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil.
Belief equals obedience. When I believe that Jesus is who He says He is and that God can do what He says He can do, then I will follow Christ in obedience.
Unbelief equals disobedience. When I do not believe that Jesus is who He says He is and that God can do what He says He can do, then I will not follow Christ in disobedience.
Eve believed the Message of the Lie of the serpent, in effect disbelieving God, and that unbelief resulting in an appropriate action of disobedience, “Eve took of its fruit.”
A. She ate it - The first thing we need to see here is that when Eve exchanged the truth of God for a lie, she acted on the lie. This was no mere philosophical debate with the serpent. We find that the modern proverb is not true that says, “it does not matter what you believe as long as you sincerely believe something.” Belief is always accompanied by actions and as we will see next week, actions always have consequences.
B. She gave some to Adam - The second thing we need to see here is that misery loves company. Eve ate of the fruit and she did not die, but immediately she knew evil by moral experience. Now the fruit did not look so good, taste so good, and she felt shame, she was not so wise, her husband would not admire her. What could she do, but urge him to eat as well. “See, I did not die! Have some!” Folly is the fellowship of fools . . .
C. Adam was with her - The fact that Adam was “with her” indicates a failure to carry out his divinely ordained responsibility to guard or “keep” both the garden and the woman that God had created as “a helper fit for him.” In short The Man failed to be A Man. He was there, and the Bible does not record that he says anything! He says nothing to the serpent who is actively deceiving his wife. He says nothing to his wife who is actively being deceived. He does nothing to defend his garden against the spiritual and physical attacks of Satan. Our culture, and yes our churches, are full of men like Adam, who stand by and allow their homes to be attacked, their wives and children to be deceived, and not only do they say nothing or do nothing, they partake right along with them.
D. Adam ate the fruit - The fact that Adam knowingly ate what God had forbidden indicates that Adam's sin was an act of conscious rebellion against God. Adam believed the serpent and his wife and disbelieved God. The resulting action was declaring war between God and the human race, of whom Adam was the representative head. The disastrous consequences of Adam's sin cannot be overemphasized, resulting in the fall of mankind, the beginning of every kind of sin, suffering, and pain, as well as physical and spiritual death for the human race.

III. Every Action Reveals What We Believe:
God cares about what we do, or do not do, only in that every action reveals what we believe about Him. He cares intensely about what we believe about Him. Paul said that “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved,” in Romans 10:9. That is that we believe that God is who He says He is and can do what He says He can do. If we chose to believe God, we will obey. When we obey, it shows we have chosen to believe God. If we chose to disbelieve God we will disobey.
When we disobey, it shows we have failed to believe God. Their eating of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil is in many ways typical of sin generally, in at least four ways.
A. Sin strikes at the basis for knowledge - Their sin gave a different answer to the question, “what is true?” Where God had clearly said they would die if they ate from the tree, the serpent said they would not die. They decided to doubt the veracity of God’s word and conduct and experiment to see if what God said was true. They believed that what God actually did say is not what is actually true, so they believed a lie. We also sin when we doubt God’s word and test to see for ourselves what is true; we exchange the truth of God for a lie.
B. Sin strikes at the basis for moral standards - Their sin gave a different answer to the question, “what is right?” Where God had said it was wrong to eat of the fruit of the tree, and right not to do so, the serpent said it was right to eat of the fruit of the tree. They trusted their own evaluation of what was right and good, rather than allowing God’s words to define right and wrong. They believed that it was good, so they took and ate. We also sin when we trust our own evaluation instead of God’s standard of right and wrong; we call evil good and good evil, darkness light and light darkness, bitter sweet and sweet bitter!”
C. Sin strikes at the basis for human existence - Their sin gave a different answer tot eh question, “who am I?” Where God had said that they were creatures of God, made in his image, always dependant on Him, and subordinate to Him as their Creator and Lord; the serpent said God that God was jealous of them, not for them, and did not want them to be like Him. They succumbed to the temptation to be “like God” instead of the “image of God.” They believed a creature rather than the Creator, so they exchanged the image of God for the image of Satan.
We also sin when we succumb to the temptation of idolatry and pride instead of trusting God’s best; we exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man.
D. Sin strikes at the basis for rationality - Their sin is like all sin in that all sin is ultimately irrational. It really did not make sense for Satan to rebel against God in the expectation of being able to exalt himself above God. It really did not make sense for Adam and Eve to think there could be any gain in disobeying the words of their creator.
These were foolish choices! Like Israel desiring to go back to Egypt an suffer slavery because they preferred onions to manna, they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal serpent! It really does not make sense for Satan to persist in his rebellion against God even today, knowing his defeat is complete and sure. It really does not make sense for any human being to persist in a state of rebellion against God, knowing the consequence is death. Psalm 14:1 says, it is not the wise man but the fool who says in his heart, “there is no God.” It really makes no sense for those who say they believe in God to continue to act in disobedience to what God has said, proving they have not believed.

Take These Stones Home
Read Genesis 3:1-6
as a family and discuss the importance of obeying everything God says.
Discuss this definition of Sin with your children and talk about how both our attitudes and our actions hurt God.
Sin; any failure to conform to the moral standard of God (falling short of His glory) in act, attitude or nature.
Desires of the Flesh;
Talk with children and explain to them that just because something feels good does not mean it is good.
Use examples like eating too much candy or getting a sun burn to make the point.
Desires of the Eye;
Talk with children about how our eyes make us want things that we do not need.
Craft Project - have your children cut pictures out of magazines of things they would like to have and glue them to a poster. Share with them about how advertising is designed to make things look good so we will want them, but things are not always as good as the appear.
Maybe share about a time when you suffered buyers remorse.
Pride of Life; Talk with children about how pride can cause us to do things that are wrong in order to please or impress others.
Tell the story of Nebuchadnezzar's Dream from Daniel 4:19-34 and how it was pride that caused this to happen to Nebuchadnezzar (5:20).
Play a Board Game with your children. Take special care in reading the instructions aloud to them. Ask the children if they believe the instructions are true.
As you play, point out when you obey the rules and talk to them about how when we believe something we obey what it says and when we do not believe something we disobey what it says.
As you play, obviously break the rules. When your children complain, or point out your violation, talk with them about how our actions reveal what we believe. Ask them what breaking the rules revealed about how you thought about the rules.
Share with them, "when we obey, it shows we have chosen to believe God, and when we disobey, it shows we have chosen to disbelieve God."
Make sure they understand that while it is very important to obey, it is most important to show that we believe God, because we love Him. Ask your children if they believe God has their best interest at heart and will do what is best for them.
Read with them Romans 8:28, Ephesians 3:20-21, Jeremiah 29:11.

Friday, July 3, 2009

Take These Stones Home

As we continue to focus a great deal of energy building a model of family ministry elements at Bush Memorial to use in helping other churches that are making a transition to a family equipping ministry model, part of that entire approach to the summer is the fourteen week series I am preaching on Memorial Stones. These stones of remembrance from Scripture represent the statutes and testimonies that we want to pass on to our children and grandchildren.

One of the key elements that we have implemented this summer that we want to use as a model is an idea called “Take These Stones Home.” The idea here is that every week we place a section in the worship folder for parents. The section includes an outline of the message for that week along with some ideas about how parents can interact with their children around the content of the message. They are normally simple conversation starter questions or craft projects that parents can do with children to help to teach the main concepts of the message.

Sometimes we are able to offer a little more help. For instance, when we talked about Creation out of Nothing, we challenged parents to talk with their children about how science reveals who God is and how many great scientist were believers in God. We were able to provide them with a list of biographies of some great Christian scientist to read with their children.
Here are some of the suggestions:
Men of Science Men of God: Great Scientists of the Past Who Believed the Bible by Henry M. Morris
Scientists Of Faith by Dan Graves
Scientists Who Believe: 21 Tell Their Own Stories by Eric C. Barrett

This week we will talk about the disobedience of the Fall and we will give parents instructions for playing a board game with their children that will lead to conversations about our beliefs resulting in actions. The notes from these messages, including the “Take These Stones Home” notes, are posted each week here on reidward.blogspot.com. Audio and video of the messages are also available through the Legacy office.

The big Family Ministry event of this month was the Family Mission to Sun Trace. Instead of investing so many resources in a traditional VBS that did not really fit the theme of the Family Ministry Summer, we would take the show on the road and provide a back-yard VBS to a missions area in our community.

Church members served together as families to lead the games, crafts, snack and teaching times for the families of Sun Trace. It was a three day event that allowed God’s people to serve their community by working together in family units to share the Gospel with those who are less fortunate and many who have never heard the Good News.

The best part is that our children got to experience the reality that it is not all about them. They also got to serve alongside their parents and watch them care for others and hear them share the Gospel. Parents got to watch their children be missionaries to the children in Sun Trace and cross every socio-economic and cultural barrier. Both parents and children were an example of the family of God to the residents of Sun Trace who participated.