Elizabeth Barrett’s parents disapproved of her marriage to Robert Browning so strongly they disowned her. Almost every week Elizabeth wrote letters to her mother and father pleading for some sort of reconciliation. Those letters were sent for years, but her parents never once replied. Then after a decade of letter writing, Elizabeth received a large box in the mail. She opened it, and her heart broke. The box contained all the letters she had written – and not one of them had been opened. Today, those love letters are among the most beautiful in classical English Literature. If her parents had only opened and read a few of them, they would have been moved to receive their daughter back again. That is a sad story, but not nearly as sad as humanity’s reaction to the steps taken by Jehovah to reconcile a world of sinners back to himself.
This is one of those scriptures so rich in gold that it could be mined for years without exhausting its wealth. This is without a doubt one of the great texts of God’s Word. It should be preached over, and over, and over again, in the all the churches of Christ. It would be ludicrous to think that I could exhaust this verse in one message. I refuse to try. Let’s briefly consider just one thing – “Christ Jesus died on Calvary to bring us to God.”
Before there can be a Heaven there is Hell, and before reconciliation there is repentance.
Before a man’s happy conclusion there must be a change of condition. We will get to more details in a moment, but Christ died for sin, for the unjust, for reconciliation. Turning those three words around, they point out our condition by nature – every one of us. We are sinful, unjust and desperately in need of reconciliation with God. But “Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God….”
We are all sinners – YOU are a sinner in the sight of God. We are not merely diseased of heart, mind and will. We have not been brought up spiritually deprived – the proper word is “depraved.” We are not just morally uneducated; we are so spiritually retarded that we incapable of education. We are sinners, with blackened hearts and corruption so severe that it runs into our very bones. Our spirits are dead……our souls are depraved…..and our bodies are dying. It cannot be uttered too often, “You are a sinner, you are a sinner, YOU are sinner.” Your finest righteousnesses are as filthy rags in the eyes of the Lord.
Having lived in Calgary during the years when our children were young, we grew to love the Calgary zoo. Correctly or not, we have considered the Calgary Zoo as one of the best in the world. There were a few years when it made economical sense to buy a year-long family pass. As you are probably aware Calgary, Canada, is a city with a potentially very cold climate. So the animals in that zoo have both indoor and outdoor compounds. If you visit the zoo in the winter, you’ll be ushered indoors to see the animals. But that just might be a shock to your nose if you are not prepared. Wild animals stink, and they reek on purpose; they try to stink. But to them, there is no stink and stench at all. They think that their smells are delightful – or at the very least useful. And so it is with stinking human beings – reeking of sin they may be pleasing to themselves, but they are an abomination to God. To their own noses, there isn’t the slightest hint that they are utterly repulsive, but to God they are disgusting.
This verse says that sinners are unjust, as compared to the just Lord Jesus. And just what does “unjust” mean? What does the word “just” mean when I just said, “just what does unjust mean?” As I just used it, “just” means – “precisely” or “exactly.” And what does “unjust” mean? In one sense, “unjust” means just or exactly the opposite of “exactly.” If you would look up the Greek word “adikos” you’d find it translated a couple ways in our King James Bible. Besides “unjust” you’d find it translated “wrongfully” in some verses. But more importantly, you’d also find it translated “unrighteous.” By nature man lacks the righteous character necessary for admission into the presence of God. Would you recommend bringing a family of weasels into a chicken coop? Are unrepentant whores and drug dealers, fit to teach kindergarten? Would garbage men, fresh from the dumpster, make good surgical nurses? So too an unjust, unrighteous man is unfit and barred from the throne-room of Jehovah – the holy God. BUT – “Christ died, the just for the unjust.”
And why? To reconcile those alienated sinners – to bring us to God. As long as unrighteous sinners live without Christ, they are without hope of eternal peace. “The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray as soon as they be born.” We may draw nigh unto God with our mouths, and honor Him with our lips, but our hearts remain farther away from God than Miami is from Seattle.
So here is our condition: sinners, unjust and alienated from God. Besides the fact that we are spiritually dead, no man or woman on earth has the right to walk up to God, asking admission into His presence. We don’t have justness – righteousness – sufficient even to pray or to worship Him. We must be “brought” to God the Father, with Christ and his shed blood on our one arm, and the Holy Spirit and His grace on the other. We are by nature “without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.”
But there is a solution: Christ hath once suffered for sins.
I notice, according to this verse, that Jesus didn’t die simply for sinners. While that is certainly true, in one sense, it falls short of the real need and the effects of Christ’s sacrifice. “Christ also hath once suffered for sins.”
I read an interesting article earlier in the week, entitled “Awareness is Good; Attention is Better.” The author began with the words, “As stores fill up with pink products, we know it must be Breast Cancer Awareness Month again. Never mind the fact that these products generate only minuscule donations to breast cancer research, screening or treatment. The pink ribbon is more of an advertisement for these “pinkwashed” companies than a genuine social good. Nearly every woman knows that breast cancer is a problem.”
The point is this – pink ribbons don’t solve the problem. And to say that Christ died for SINNERS, doesn’t necessarily meet those sinners’ great problem – sin. Christ died for SIN – He died to make an atonement – for SIN. “So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.” “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.” “He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.”
You might wonder what the word “once” is doing in this verse. It means exactly what you’d expect the word to mean. The one-time death of Christ on the cross, is the only sacrifice ever necessary to meet the demands of our sinful condition. A constant re-sacrifice, re-sacrifice, re-sacrifice of Christ is an abomination to God. And yet that is the practice of thousands of so-called “Christian” churches throughout the world. Hebrews 10 and 12 thoroughly emphasize Christ’s one time effectual offering for our sin.
Now, consider the word “suffered” – that is the Greek word “pascho.” It’s not “Pasco” as in Pasco, Washington, but “pascho” as in passion. As a child, my family vacationed in South Dakota, where we visited something called a “Passion Play.” And as a young married couple, Judy and I visited another “Passion Play” outside of Branson, Missouri. The most famous passion play, in Oberammergau, Germany has been running yearly since 1634. They are all were depictions of the final hours of the life of Christ culminated by His death – His passion. Christ suffered much and then He died.
There might be ten thousand ways though which people die. There are easy ways, quick ways, and I suppose, painless ways. But the death of Christ was not one of them – the Son of God “suffered” for sins when He died. And His suffering is beyond the capabilities of our imaginations. I once drove an object into and almost through my hand, and I remember that it was not comfortable. I have had a nail and shards of glass driven into my foot. I can’t tell you if the thorns driven into the scalp of the Saviour was more painful than shingles. I cannot precisely remember any of that pain, so I can’t fully imagine Christ’s suffering. But even if I could, there were other aspects of the emotional and spiritual sufferings of Christ, to which we human beings are not privy. None of us can begin to grasp Jesus’ sufferings.
Christ suffered and “died for our sins, according to the scriptures.” He didn’t just hurt over them; He wasn’t simply ashamed of them. He didn’t unjustly loose His job or friends because He was charged with our sins. “He SUFFERED for our sins,” and in the course of those sufferings, He died by way of what may be the most cruel of all executions. His blood was poured out under that cross. He suffered inexpressible pain and grief for our sins.
A man was once talking to his daughter about the sacrifice of the Passover Lamb. This little girl had recently been to a petting zoo and had come face to face with a month-old lamb. As she listened to her father, she began to bristle and fume – “I don’t like killing lambs!” Later that evening, Dad had time to reflect upon what his daughter had said. If she was repulsed by the thought of the bloody death of an innocent lamb, how much more must the Holy God been repulsed by the grisly death of the far more infinitely innocent Son of God? How God must be repulsed by the sins of men which necessitated that innocent death? There was no other way to reconciliation with God except through Christ’s sufferings.
But then too, “He was quickened by the Spirit.” Here we come to a different, hour-long message. I hope it is sufficient to say this morning “if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.” If Christ be not raised, those who are asleep in Christ have perished for ever. “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and he was buried and he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.”
And again, for what Purpose? To bring us to God.
This verse does not say, “So that we might be forgiven of our sins” – although that is the truth. This doesn’t say: That we might become the sons of God, adopted by the Lord. This doesn’t say: So that we might go to Heaven and escape Hell and the Lake of Fire. This verse says: “Christ died for our sins that He might bring us to God.”
If you took my wife away from me, I would be half a man, a shell, an empty pupa. But that is only looking at David Oldfield from a human point of view. This man’s spirit and soul were created to fellowship with its Creator. And so was yours. As long as we live without Christ, we live without God. And we live outside the purpose of our Creation. Without the Lord we are half men, shells, and empty pupae.
Yes, sin has made us aliens and strangers from the promises of God. But Christ suffered for sins that He might bring us back to God. He died that we might be reconciled to God. Paul wrote to the church in Colossi and reminded them of their salvation. “And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in our mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled.” And how did that occur? “Christ (established that) peace through the blood of his cross.”
I think that there is a serious mistake in evangelism today in its emphasis. Too much we put salvation in the context of heaven, escaping hell, forgiveness of sin. Too little do we talk about the prodigal returning to the homestead and to the Father. Too little do we talk about the Father, in the light of the prodigal son. “Salvation” is not just justification – an accountants’ declaration of balanced account. It’s not just regeneration – a new life and a new mansion in glory. What man needs is reconciliation and communion with Jehovah. To be like Adam in the garden in the cool of the evening with the Lord. Like David in the Psalms enjoying the Lord in the fullness of fellowship. Like the loved one in the Song of Solomon. That is the place where God wants His chosen people.
This morning I take up Paul’s theme in II Corinthians 5 – “Now then I am an ambassador for Christ, as though God did beseech you through me.” I plead with you in the name of Christ: “Be ye reconciled to God.” Cast yourself down before the cross of Christ and Jesus’ sufferings. Acknowledge your dependence upon Him for introduction and reconciliation. None of us will ever be anything until we once again in arms of our Creator. Will you repent of your sins and meet Christ in faith at His cross this morning?