November 14, 2025 • 61 mins
Ever wondered why entering the innermost holy place of the temple was fatal, yet stepping into a church service today is not? We follow that tension into the heart of atonement, showing how Leviticus, Passover, and the temple prepare us to make sense of Hebrews and the cross.
More information about Beyond the Walls, including additional resources can be found at www.beyondthewalls-ministry.com
This series included graphics to illustrate what is being taught, if you would like to watch the teachings you can do so on Rumble (https://rumble.com/user/SpokaneBibleChurch) or on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtV_KhFVZ_waBcnuywiRKIyEcDkiujRqP).
Jeremy Thomas is the pastor at Spokane Bible Church in Spokane, Washington and a professor at Chafer Theological Seminary. He has been teaching the Bible for over 20 years, always seeking to present its truths in a clear and understandable manner.
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Welcome to Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas and
our series on the New Testamentframework.
Today, the full lesson fromJeremy Thomas.
Here's a hint of what's to come.
SPEAKER_01 (00:10):
You remember the guys who touched the Ark of the
Covenant when it started totopple in the Old Testament as
they brought it back fromPhilistia?
What happened to them?
Dead.
Five minutes later, 20 minuteslater, no, instant.
That is what will happen.
And this is what I'm trying topoint up.
When the physical presence ofGod is on earth, you have to
(00:31):
have sacrifices that would dealwith these physical impurities
that we pick up just from beingmortals and walking around in
the world.
SPEAKER_00 (00:41):
We need to change our mind.
Each and every one of us hassomething we need to change our
mind about.
And if you think about it, youmust admit that that is true.
Why else would we study theBible?
If we thought we knew everythingalready, if we thought we had
everything figured out, therewould be no reason to study the
(01:02):
Bible because there would benothing to learn.
And yet we each pick up ourBibles, we read, we go to
church, we listen to our pastor.
We dig in because we want tolearn.
The most honest among us come tothe Bible and we come to
teaching and we say, Could thisbe true?
(01:25):
And then we look to the Bible tosee if it is.
And why doesn't the NewTestament talk about atonement
like the Old Testament does?
What has changed?
And like most topics, thereisn't a change per se.
(01:48):
It's just that the New Testamenttakes an Old Testament concept
and explains it and personifiesit and makes it more interesting
and reveals the nuances.
That is what happens within theNew Testament teachings.
And why we are looking atatonement in detail.
SPEAKER_01 (02:08):
I introduced something that was maybe not
very commonly taught, but that'suh the re usually it's just
taught that atonement means tocover that's based on older
well, it's this whole conceptyou have to go and do a lot of
research, but basically it dealswith word origins and what is
the origin of the Old Testamentword kipper, from which we get
(02:32):
atonement.
Remember, I said this word isonly used in the Old Testament,
it's not even used in the NewTestament.
New Testament breaks it downinto these three categories:
redemption, reconciliation, andpropitiation.
One of these words is very closeto the Old Testament word uh
kipper, as far as a Greekcounterpart, uh, but none of
them are really the exact word.
(02:52):
So I tried to describe thatkipper atonement really doesn't
mean cover.
Like what was happening in theOld Testament when they had Old
Testament animal sacrifices wasnot like a cover was being put
over those sins or somethinglike that.
Um, nothing can cover uhspiritual sins.
It even says this in the in thebook of Hebrews: the blood of
(03:13):
bulls and goats can't take awaysin.
Um, this whole concept that whatwas happening was you if you'll
back away from everything andstop thinking I know what I'm
talking about here, and I andyou'll come at this from the
vantage point of I don't reallyknow the book of Leviticus.
I mean, because I want to say topeople a lot of times, do you
really know the book ofLeviticus?
Do you know one verse in thebook of Leviticus?
(03:35):
I really want to say thatbecause uh how many people study
Leviticus?
Well, not many.
And then how many people studyHebrews in the New Testament?
Well, some more than Leviticus,but guess what?
The background of Hebrews iswhat?
Leviticus.
So if you don't have a goodhandle on Leviticus, how good of
a handle can you really have onHebrews?
(03:56):
Here's the thing.
In the Old Testament, when youwere a Jew and you had a
tabernacle or you had a temple,who was dwelling in that?
Whose presence was in the most,what they call the most holy
place or the holy of holies?
God's indwelling presence.
In the Old Testament, this iscalled Shekinah glory from the
Hebrew root shekan, which meansto dwell.
(04:17):
God had taken up residence onearth in the most holy place.
So if you're gonna go to thetabernacle or later the temple,
you're going somewhere that isquote unquote holy, right?
Because of his presence.
You know everything had to becleansed.
(04:37):
The altar had to be cleansed,right?
Or atoned for.
Everything the priests had to beatoned for because they're
working in God's presence,right?
So if you're gonna go there, orI'm gonna go there, we have to
be holy when we go into hispresence.
Now, um, this required thatcertain sins be, let's say,
(05:04):
atoned for, so that you couldactually be there, okay, without
dying.
You remember the high priestwould go in once a year on the
Day of Atonement, and there'sthis old story that they would
tie a rope around his leg, so ifhe did die, nobody'd have to go
in after him and possibly dietoo.
They could just drag him out,right?
So it was kind of a seriousthing.
(05:27):
You could in the Old Testamenthave physical contamination,
okay?
Like on your physical body.
There are certain what we callwhat they called unintentional
sins.
For example, if my grandfatherdies in Old Testament Israel,
and he's laying there on the bedin the home, he's dead.
And I we well, we've got to dosomething with the body.
(05:47):
I mean, we can't just leave itthere.
The moment you touch that body,you are physically defiled.
Okay?
You could not touch a deadcorpse.
But you've got to touch a deadcorpse, right?
Because you've got to get thebody out.
So, but this caused physicalcontamination, okay?
And you couldn't just go intoGod's presence now because that
had to be cleansed or atonedfor.
(06:10):
So there are, you have to thinkin the Old Testament, you've got
spiritual sins and you've gotphysical contamination.
And the physical contaminationis what was being taken care of
or atoned for, so that theycould go into God's presence at
the tabernacle or the temple.
Okay?
Now, what what what about allthe other stuff, as somebody
asked me last week?
(06:30):
Well, what if it if if it wasn'tcovering their sins, you know,
like in the spiritual sphere,um, what was happening to them?
Well, we'll see today, Romans 3says they were passed over.
Acts 17.
It wasn't covered, they're justpassed over.
Like God winked at it, okay?
(06:51):
He just winked at it.
Because none of that was dealtwith, none of it, until Jesus
Christ on the cross.
Okay.
So he was winking at it.
So this word, okay, atonement,means basically to smear, to
cleanse.
I said this is the first timeyou see this word is when they
built the ark, and it says theytook pitch and they covered it.
(07:12):
That's the word atonement.
Okay, they were smearing or uhputting this substance on it,
and it it signified something.
It signified that those thatwere inside the ark were
cleansed.
Okay, they were cleansed.
And so the idea in the OldTestament then, animal
(07:33):
sacrifices would cleanse theofferer and bring ceremonial
forgiveness in the physicalsphere so people could approach
God's presence, which wasindwelling the tabernacle
temple.
Now, these sacrifices didforeshadow Christ's sacrifice,
but look what Christ's sacrificedoes: it brings forgiveness in
the spiritual sphere.
As the book of Hebrews puts it,the blood of bulls and goats
(07:56):
could not cleanse theconscience.
But the blood of Christ can.
It deals with guilt in the humanconscience, which is a spiritual
context.
So that what?
So Christ's indwelling presencecould enter into spiritual
temples, that is, within us.
See, we don't have a physicalexternal temple that we go to,
right?
Like in Jerusalem, you know,like where we've got to go to
(08:19):
meet God.
No, God has taken up residenceinside of us, right?
We are a temple.
1 Corinthians 3.16, 1Corinthians 6.16.
Um, we are the temple.
So how can he come to indwellus?
Well, because Christ paid thepenalty for the spiritual sin,
(08:42):
that's the sphere, and so thatGod is free to enter into us,
and we, as individuals, as wellas corporately, become the
temple of God where God dwells.
Okay?
And where the world comes tomeet God is supposed to be
through through believers,through the church.
So that's the basic idea ofatonement.
(09:04):
The animal sacrifices did atonefor, and they did forgive sin.
It states this explicitly, uh,Leviticus 4, verse 20, and other
places, in the physical sphere,for those contaminations.
Okay, but here's the deal, andyou know this from Hebrews,
hopefully, the priest who whostood there among Israel and
worked in the tabernacle ortemple had to keep standing.
(09:25):
They could never sit down,right?
Why?
Well, because once the offererwas forgiven for those external
uncleanliness and blemishes, sothey could be in God's presence,
there were more sins thatthey're going to commit after
that.
And so more sacrifices had to beoffered, right?
And this went on and on and on.
Okay, but again, once whenChrist comes, right, and he um
(09:47):
offers himself, Hebrew says,once for all.
And the veil is torn, right,from top to bottom, and he's
sat, it says he sat down at theright hand of God.
Why does he sit down, whereasall the priests in the Old
Testament kept standing?
Well, because his work isfinished.
There's no more sacrifice forsin.
I mean, no nobody can do thatexcept Jesus Christ.
(10:10):
And so now we have immediateaccess to his indwelling
presence uh within us.
Okay?
So this is a little differentway of thinking about things,
but I think it well, it's clearsup what's going on in Hebrews
and especially Leviticus, butalso for the future messianic
kingdom when there's gonna be amillennial temple.
(10:31):
I mean, I was telling mydaughter before, this millennial
temple is gonna be one mile wideand one mile long.
So you've got one cubic mile orsquare mile temple that Jesus
Christ is gonna personallybuild.
And this is can you imagine howbig that is?
(10:52):
That's gonna be his temple, andthere's gonna be sacrifices.
People say, Oh, that can'thappen because Jesus.
Yeah, I we know Jesus is theonly one who could ever pay for
our spirit and deal with ourspiritual problem.
But what do you have in themillennial kingdom temple that
you we don't have now?
You have another physicaltemple, just like in Old
Testament Israel.
In that sense, it's the same.
(11:13):
So if people are gonna go upinto God's presence and they
have physical contamination andthey walk in that temple, guess
what?
Dead.
I did that for fun.
Because I saw some of you, okay?
Because y'all know I never dothat.
But you will literally die.
Okay, you will literally die.
Dead.
(11:33):
You remember the guys whotouched the Ark of the Covenant
when it started to topple in theOld Testament as they brought it
back from the sea?
What happened to them?
Dead.
Five minutes later, 20 minuteslater, no, instant.
That is what will happen.
And this is what I'm trying topoint up.
When the physical presence ofGod is on earth, you have to
(11:55):
have sacrifices that will dealwith these physical impurities
that we pick up just from beingmortals and walking around in
the world.
So it's in that sense, it's thesame, and this explains the
whole concept of atonement andthe differences in the physical
and spiritual sphere.
Now, um, this the picture ofatonement, the best picture in
(12:17):
the Old Testament of atonementis the Exodus, you know, the
12th, I'm sorry, not the 12th,the 10th plague.
Um and we said when we taughtthe Exodus event, we went
through the ten plagues, and wesaid there's five truths that
are taught there under theheading judgment, salvation.
Because it it's very clear thatif anything's happening in the
(12:38):
ten plagues, you've got judgmentand you've got salvation or
deliverance.
You know, you've got judgment onthe Egyptians, right?
You got salvation or deliverancefor the Israelites, they're all
in Goshen, you know, and they'reprotected and so forth and so
on.
So you go through those tenplagues.
When you get to the tenthplague, of course, you've got
the lamb, unblemished,one-year-old male, take it,
(13:00):
slaughter it at twilight, okay,put the blood over the door,
right?
And if the angel of death comesand sees he will pass over.
So this is the primary pictureof atonement in the Old
Testament.
It's involving blood, it'sinvolving a lamb, it involves
God passing over, so there's adeliverance for those that are
inside.
And so this kind of sets up inour mind how to think about it
(13:24):
so that when we come to the NewTestament and we see Christ, and
John the Baptist says, Beholdthe Lamb of God who takes away
the sin of the world, that weput two and two together and we
realize that he is the PassoverLamb, right?
And all becomes clear.
So we want to go into the NewTestament and talk about the
(13:44):
three words that the NewTestament authors use to
describe the atonement, becauseagain, they don't use the word
atonement.
The closest one is the thirdone, propitiation, but it's
still not a perfect um a perfectword to describe the Old
Testament words.
So this is common though.
We we do this in every area oflife that we study.
(14:05):
You start with really basicthings, and some of these terms
are just kind of all and youknow, all encompassing words
that capture an idea, and thenlater we flesh it out.
And that's how God teaches.
He teaches us on a very basiclevel, and then later he comes
along and he adds details.
As we go into this, you'llunderstand, of course, and you
may already understand, ofcourse, that when we talk about
(14:27):
salvation being simple, on onehand it is entirely simple.
I mean, it's so simple that akid can understand it and
believe the gospel, right?
A four-year-old.
Um, you just tell him, hey,Christ paid the penalty for your
sins.
If you believe in him, you know,you know you won't go to hell,
or you or you'll go to heaven,or whatever.
You just put it in simple terms.
It's not that complicated.
(14:48):
But then you it's salvation isso complicated you can spend the
rest of your life getting intothe details.
And this just shows us some ofthe some of the details as you
look more closely.
So I want to look at these wordsuh redemption, reconciliation,
and propitiation.
They're all aspects or developthe concepts of the Old
(15:08):
Testament atonement.
So redemption.
Let's talk about this term justin terms of our culture, okay?
It's an economic term.
I mean, if you get a coupon, youknow, when you take it and you
give it to the checkout lady,they do what to it?
Redeem it.
Okay, so it's an economic term.
It describes being an indebtedslave that's freed because the
(15:32):
debt has been paid.
Okay, so that's the backgroundof the term in economics.
And by the way, um, this termrelates to the concept of debt
in our society.
So, well, governments todaythey're real responsible.
They operate on debt.
Um, basically, they're likelittle children who have no clue
(15:52):
how to spend money.
Did y'all hear what happened inArgentina recently?
Uh, one of the guys that wantsto run the country or whatever
was proposing that Argentinathey're on uh the peso, okay.
Before COVID, the uh 20 pesoswas an American dollar, okay,
before COVID.
This guy wants to go over to theAmerican dollar.
He wants to get Argentina on theAmerican dollar as their
(16:15):
currency.
Um why?
Well, because now, after COVID,it's a thousand pesos for one
dollar.
Uh that's the kind of inflationthat they've seen.
Well, why why do they have somuch inflation?
Because they don't know how tospend money.
They don't know how to spendwithin limits.
Um we have many, most societiesaround the world, which are now
(16:38):
trending toward globalsocieties, include our own
society, uh, our governments,they have no idea how that, you
know, if if it says you havethis many dollars in your bank
account, that's all the moneyyou have.
But not for them.
Um we can just, you know, makemore money and spend more than
we have.
Um, you know, we we tell ourchildren you should be res well,
(17:00):
maybe we tell our children youshould be responsible spenders.
If you get a credit card, youshould pay it off every month
and so forth.
Uh, but don't you know runyourself into a lot of debt
because debt biblically isslavery.
The the borrower is indebted tothe lender.
Um and what most people do, ofcourse, is they just have a
(17:22):
piece of plastic and so theyjust they just spend wildly.
And because it's so wild anddebt is accepted as a pot as a
reasonable way to live, now wehave this thing called
bankruptcy where you can justget out of it all.
Well, um biblically this is whatwhat is happening is societies
(17:47):
like that are losing thecapability to understand what
Jesus Christ has done on thecross.
Because God doesn't allow you tojust file bankruptcy at the end
and say I messed up and it justgets erased.
No, like the debt actually hasto be paid, and that's what
Jesus Christ came to do.
(18:08):
He came to pay the debt.
But you can see how it getsincreasingly difficult to
communicate this concept topeople when they live in a
system that endorses debt andultimately just filing
bankruptcy.
So let's look at this word alittle bit and turn to 1 Peter
118.
We were slaves to sin.
Romans 6 says this, it was ourmaster, and we've been freed
(18:33):
because our debt has been paidby Christ.
1 Peter chapter 1, verse 18.
This this uh word focuses, or Isay this word redemption is
sinward.
Okay, reconciliation is going tobe manward, and propitiation is
gonna be godward.
(18:53):
So each of these words have adifferent direction or main
focal point.
And the focal point ofredemption is sin.
It's dealing with the sinproblem and the payment that's
made for sin.
So 1 Peter 1.18.
Knowing that you are notredeemed, there's the word
redemption, you are not redeemedwith perishable things like
silver or gold from your futileway of life inherited from your
(19:17):
forefathers, but you areredeemed with precious blood, as
of a lamb, unblemished andspotless, the blood of Christ.
Right?
The uh he's the Passover lamb,the fulfillment of Passover.
And so he made the payment.
This word is looking at apayment that's been made for our
(19:40):
debt, and that payment was hisown notice, not just blood, but
precious blood, because hisblood was unblemished and
spotless.
These are both figures.
I mean, they play off thePassover imagery of the lamb,
but they're talking about hispurity and his lack of having
(20:02):
any sin, right?
Which is what makes him qualifyto actually pay the debt, the
redemption price, to free usfrom being slaves to sin.
Uh so in order to redeem us fromslavery to sin, someone had to
make a payment.
It's it's his his preciousblood, which is his life in the
(20:23):
Old Testament.
The life is in the blood.
He gave his life to pay ourdebt, right?
And therefore give us or set usfree from being slaves.
Let's look at another passagethat talks about this.
Uh Luke 24, 21.
(20:45):
Luke 24, 21.
So back.
This is the road to Emmaus.
You remember the guys that had atalk with Jesus and they didn't
know it was him after theresurrection?
Um they're walking along theroad having a nice theological
uh conversation.
In Luke 24, verse 21.
(21:09):
They say to him as they walkalong, uh, we were hoping that
it was he who was going toredeem Israel.
Now they're talking to him.
They were just walking along.
We were hoping it was he who wasgoing to redeem Israel.
That is what to pay the pricethat Israel owed.
That's the concept ofredemption, to pay the debt that
(21:31):
Israel owed.
And he says, indeed, besides allthese, it's the third day since
these things happened.
Okay.
And so, you know, they'reassuming, well, he's dead.
He wasn't the guy who came toredeem Israel.
He died, you know, he gotcrucified, so we're all out of
luck here.
And uh verse 22, but some women,he said, they say, Well, some
women among us, they amazed us.
(21:52):
They went to the tomb early inthe morning and they didn't find
his body.
They came saying that he had uhthey had seen a vision of angels
who said he was alive.
And some of those who are withus, they went to the tomb to
check it all out.
They found it just exactly asthe women also said, but they
didn't see him, so I guess he'sdead.
That's what they're saying.
And Jesus says, Well, oh foolishmen, slow of heart to believe in
(22:13):
all that the prophets havespoken.
In other words, did all theprophets speak of the Messiah
having to die?
Sure.
Sure they did.
So that he asked in verse 26,was it not necessary for the
Christ, the Messiah, to sufferthese things and enter into
glory?
I mean, like, hey, have you guysread the prophets?
(22:35):
Well, remember what I said a fewweeks ago.
When the Jews looked at the OldTestament, they saw and they
focused their attention on theglorious kingdom when he would
reign.
And they didn't focus theirattention on the sufferings
which would precede his reign.
(22:55):
So there are two types ofprophecies in the Old Testament
that are messianic.
There are those that prophesyhis sufferings and those that
prophesy his glories.
Well, who wants to think aboutsuffering?
So you you they like to thinkabout the kingdom, the glory,
Israel's, you know, beingredeemed from all the nations
and coming into their fullnessand being the greatest nation on
(23:16):
earth.
Who doesn't want to think aboutthat with their nation?
We're the greatest nation onearth.
Do you want to think about yournation going down?
In the days of Jeremiah, theydidn't want to listen to it.
Jeremiah goes to the king and hesays, You guys are going down,
and the guy says, Burn all hisscrolls.
And so they burned all hisscrolls, and God said, Okay,
write it again.
See, because you can't destroythe word of God, right?
(23:37):
So he wrote it again, see?
What he has written, it stands.
I mean, that's it.
So you can try to fight God, butyou're gonna have a big L on
your forehead when it's allover.
I mean, he's God.
I mean, you're not competition.
I'm not competition.
He's going to win.
So he predicted the propheciesof suffering as well as those
(23:59):
that predicted the glories tocome.
And you can see these guys areonly thinking about you know the
glories to come when Israel'sredeemed.
Okay, when the their penalty,their debt has been paid and
they're restored to the kingdomand being first among the
nations.
Um that wasn't the full picture.
Titus 2.14.
(24:19):
More on redemption, so we makesure and get it down.
Remember, five T books alltogether, first seconds, first
second Timothy, and Titus.
So if you find one, you can findthe others.
Titus 2.14.
Eventually we'll all learn ourBible, right?
We have alternative to figure itout, but it's better to do it
now.
Titus 2.
(24:42):
One of the small theologicalsections that he puts in here
periodically, so verses eleventhrough fourteen go into the
great theology.
And one of the things that itsays he did here in verse 14 of
Christ Jesus, who gave himselffor us to redeem us, notice from
what?
From every lawless deed.
(25:02):
Nor normally we say sin, but sinis lawlessness.
Sin is lawlessness.
The Antichrist, when he comes,he's called the man of
lawlessness.
But one of the um variants inthe manuscript of 2
Thessalonians 2 3 says man ofsin.
But sin sin is lawlessness,right?
It's against what law?
The law of God's righteousness.
(25:23):
That's the definition of sin.
It's defined on the basis of whoGod is and his righteous
character.
But Christ gave himself for usto redeem.
That's to pay the economicpenalty of our sin or our
lawlessness, right?
And to purify for himself apeople for his own possession,
zealous for good deeds.
See, look, if he paid for yoursin, why should you go on living
in it, right?
(25:44):
Like me.
Why should I go on living in sinif he's redeemed me from that?
So that I, you know, live a tokeep on living a sinful life?
May it never be, right?
But to go on to live a purifiedlife to live a different life,
one that's zealous for gooddeeds.
Titus is the book of good deeds.
That's the key word of the book.
The Bible talks about gooddeeds.
(26:04):
Not so you can get saved, butbecause you are saved.
Right?
Um Matthew 2028.
Matthew 2028.
I figured if we didn't go overseveral verses with redemption,
we wouldn't really remember it,so we're doing a few more than
normal.
(26:24):
Matthew 2028.
Which is the same as Mark 10 45.
So if you found Mark, you can gothere too.
It's basically the same verse.
Just as the Son of Man did notcome to be served, that's always
so interesting because peoplesay, Well, I serve Jesus Christ.
Oh, I serve Jesus.
Guess what?
Jesus served you.
(26:46):
People are not comfortable withthat statement.
But that's exactly what it says,isn't it?
He did not come to be served byyou and to me.
He came to serve us.
Our creator came down here andserved us.
How did he do that?
It says to serve and to give hislife a ransom for many.
That word ransom is a word forpaying a price.
(27:07):
I mean, what do you do when youransom someone?
You usually have to pay somekind of price, some outlandish
price.
We'll take two million dollarsto release your son that we
kidnapped or whatever.
Um it's a you've got to pay aprice.
And that's what he did.
He gave his life.
That's the payment.
He's the, by the way, he's theonly one who had life to make a
payment.
(27:27):
The rest of us are dead in ourtransgressions and sins.
What are you gonna give?
You don't have you can't makethe ransom payment.
I can't make the ransom payment.
All the people in the worldcan't make the ransom payment.
We're dead, and I mean, you'regonna take somebody giving you a
dead body?
Is that a good payment?
That's nothing.
I mean, we need a lot, we needsomething that has life inherent
to it to be given on our behalfso he can pay our debt, our life
(27:49):
debt.
And that's what he did.
He paid our life debt.
And in exchange, when we believein him, guess what?
He gives us his life.
This is really good news.
That means we are in goodstanding with God.
Um, Luke 168.
A couple pages to the right.
Luke 168.
(28:12):
Redemption, money, payment.
Um, and then in this one, I'llmake a point that'll prepare us
for next week.
In Luke 168, this is Zacharias,John the Baptist's father, you
know, who he was told you're youknow, your wife is with child,
and he laughed.
Ha ha ha ha.
Whatever.
Okay, well, I guess I'll justshut you up for the rest of the
(28:33):
pregnancy.
And every woman said, Thank God.
Um, so he doubted, and becauseof that, well, he couldn't speak
for a while.
And so when it's all said anddone, uh Zacharias uh was filled
with the Holy Spirit andprophesied, verse 68, Blessed be
the Lord God of Israel, for hehas visited us and accomplished
(28:55):
redemption for his people.
There it is again, redemption.
The one who would make thepayment for Israel's sin debt.
Um, but here's the thing noticethe past tenses.
He has visited us, he hasaccomplished, but did you notice
this is a long time before thecross?
This is a long time before thecross, over 30 years before the
(29:17):
cross.
But see, it's a done deal inZacharias's eyes, right?
I mean, who's else is gonna paythe sin penalty for the world?
Is Muhammad gonna do that?
Is Joseph Smith gonna do that?
No, these people are sinners.
They died, they're dead.
They're dead right now.
They rotted away centuries andcenturies ago.
Well, century and a half forJoseph Smith.
(29:39):
But anyway, um Jesus Christdidn't rot.
He lives forevermore.
You're gonna believe in a deadguy?
Are you gonna believe in a guythat lives forevermore?
Which one is this?
I mean, this is a logicalchoice.
It's not a complicated choice,it's a very easy choice.
But he says he has visited us,he has accomplished redemption
for his people.
Now, when he Was on the cross,he he made the penalty in full
(30:02):
full.
The payments have been made,right?
Well, why isn't everybody savedthen?
If he already paid the penaltyfor everybody's sin, why isn't
everybody saved?
Because some people don't acceptthat he made the payment for
them.
They reject that he made thepayment for them.
They say, I'll do it myself.
I'll pay it myself.
Yeah, but you're a dead manwalking.
(30:23):
You don't have any life to give.
You can't make the payment.
Yeah, but I'm gonna try to do itmyself.
I got my good works.
Yeah, but all of our good worksare but filthy rags.
Yeah, but God's not like that.
God's really just gonna weighit.
He's gonna say, Well, you gotthese good works, you got these
bad works, your good worksoutweigh your bad works,
therefore I let you in.
Did they ever pay the life debt?
No, there's just some goodworks.
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What does that do?
That's what was required anyway.
Now you're telling me that'sgonna work?
What about all the bad works?
Are you saying God's gonnacompromise his justice?
That's not who God is.
See, it just doesn't work likethat.
People don't get to choose theway of salvation.
You know, God does.
He's the creator.
That's he did he said, you know,there's no other name under
(31:05):
heaven by which man may be savedin the name of Jesus Christ.
That's it.
That's only one name.
You can't choose the way.
Jesus said, I am the way, thetruth, and the life.
No one comes to the Father butby me.
People say, I don't like that.
Well, I mean, sorry.
I mean, you may not like it, butit doesn't really matter what
you like.
Matters what's true.
What's true is what matters.
(31:26):
Right?
So we got to deal with what'struth.
I mean, truth is truth.
It doesn't change.
Otherwise, it wouldn't be true.
So it's viewing it as acompleted act 30 years before it
ever happened.
But to have that enjoyment ofredemption, a person has to
believe.
They have to accept it forthemselves as true.
Uh 238, we might as well, it'sjust one chapter away, 238.
(31:49):
This is Anna the prophetess, whosaw him when they took him up to
the temple on, I guess it wasthe eighth day, I believe.
Um, verse 37, she is a widow tothe age of 84.
She never left the templeserving night and day with
fastings and prayers.
At that very moment, she came upand she began giving thanks to
God when they've got little babyJesus there in the temple, and
(32:11):
Simeon was there.
And uh she continued to speak ofhim to all those who were
looking for, there it is, theredemption of Jerusalem, which
Jerusalem is the capital ofIsrael, so this is just a
metaphor for the people ofIsrael.
Right?
They were apparently looking forthis, but by the end of the
Gospels, they're saying,crucified.
(32:31):
We have no king but Caesar.
So their sentiments didn'tcontinue 30 years later.
All right, so but redemption issinward, it focuses on the
payment due for our sin debt.
And uh, as I mentioned, the theproblem that we have with debt,
debt is a form of slavery.
You're enslaved to the debtor,uh, the lender.
(32:53):
And so, you know, because of theway that our world's economy is
working, which is on a debtsystem, and this concept that
you can just get out of it allby bankruptcy, filing
bankruptcy, then you know, itweakens our ability to
communicate the power of thecross and what Jesus was
actually doing.
He's actually had to pay thedebt.
(33:15):
God can't just forgive, okay?
He's not just gonna forgivepeople.
There had the payment has to bemade.
And what we're saying is JesusChrist made it, it's been paid.
And so we can freely bedebt-free spiritually by
believing in Jesus Christ.
The next word is reconciliation.
(33:36):
This is not an economic word,but this is a social term that
describes a situation where youhave two hostile parties, and
somehow they make peace bycoming to terms.
And so, by analogy, of course,it speaks, you know, the fact
that God and man are athostility toward one another,
(33:57):
but Christ made a peaceinitiative on the cross so that
God is now at peace with uh theworld, with man, but man is not
necessarily at peace with God.
Something has to happen for himto be uh at peace with God.
It's sort of like if you havetwo countries who are warring
one another, or two peoplegroups, let's just say Israel
(34:19):
and Hamas, whatever, okay,Ukraine and Russia, you've got
two people groups that are athostility with one another.
If one side's saying, hey, look,we we we want we want to be at
peace with you, but you know,you don't want to be at peace
with us.
Well, you've got one partythat's willing, you've got
another that's not.
You can't you can't come topeace on those terms.
(34:41):
Um, you have to have both sideswanting uh the peace.
And so um that's whatreconciliation is about.
And it's not sin word likeredemption, it's man word, it's
directed on man because God andman are in hostile, a hostile uh
situation.
The Bible says before webelieved we were enemies of God,
(35:02):
right?
It doesn't say we were friends,it says we're enemies, but those
who believe become friends ofGod.
We're at peace with God.
Romans 5, 1.
We have peace with God.
So um reconciliation is lookingat this peace initiative as it
relates to Christ and what hedid on the cross so that God
could be reconciled to man.
So let's look at uh 2Corinthians 5 first, 2
(35:25):
Corinthians 5, 18 through 21, uh20.
And then we'll look at some ofthese others.
Some of these others are just umpeople that are not reconciled
with one another, just humanrelations.
But why why aren't why aren'twhy is there war in the world?
That's kind of a big question,right?
Like, why is there war in theworld?
(35:47):
Why are people and people groupsfighting one another?
Uh well, very simple.
I mean, it's sin, right?
I mean, that's why, becausewe're selfish and we have sinful
ambitions.
Um, and so that's allconsequence of sin.
(36:08):
Which first our problem is withGod.
That's why we have a problemwith God because of our sin.
Then it becomes a problem withman.
Then we have a problem with man.
Uh so think think about the TenCommandments for a second.
We're okay.
Another cultural item in oursociety, you know.
We post those up on the SupremeCourt, you know, the Ten
Commandments.
But oh, we can't have that upthere.
It's a I guess we agree withmurder now, you know.
(36:29):
I don't know.
Take that down.
Adultery, oh, that's good.
Take that off.
We don't want to we don't wantto say that's wrong.
Um, silly things like that thatpeople do in our country.
But all this stuff is likeposted there in the Ten
Commandments.
We've got Ten Commandments,right?
We say ten words, the bar,Hebrew to bar.
The ten words that God gaveIsrael at Mount Sinai.
Now, the first three or four,depending on how you count them,
(36:51):
are all between God and man.
Like thou shalt make no othergods before me, right?
Thou shalt have no graven image,okay, and so forth.
They're all like thisrelationship, vertical, man to
gut, man and God.
Then after that, you see thingslike thou shalt not lie, thou
(37:11):
shalt not commit adultery, thoushalt not covet.
Now, those are all man-to-man,right?
What we call horizontal.
Now, why why is it in thatorder?
Um, why does it start with theGod word commands and then move
to the man word?
Because this is where theproblem starts.
In other words, we can look outthere at the world and say, man,
(37:32):
it's a mess out there.
I mean, somebody stole my car.
You know, why why do you guyssteal my car?
That's that's wrong.
You shouldn't do that.
Why do we have stealing goingon?
Well, because we have a problembetween man and God.
That's just, this is the rootproblem, man and God.
This is the fruit problem.
We say, well, we want a bettersociety.
We want things to be nice, wewant nice clean parks around
(37:54):
here, we want plenty of room ondivision so we're not having a
whole bus lane taken up and wewant to get places fast and we
want, we want a better life.
Yeah, well, guess what?
The way to a better life downhere is to get this straight.
When this gets straightened out,guess what?
Nobody has their vested interestin the politics of this city in
making stupid decisions.
(38:16):
They want what's best foreverybody else.
Why?
Because they have a rightrelationship with God.
That's why.
See, all the stuff that we haveto deal with down here, the
stupid stuff, is because peoplewon't get right with God.
Because once you get right withGod, then you're a condition of
humility.
That is necessary.
You have to.
To come to the foot of thecross, you can't come with
(38:37):
arrogance.
Arrogance says, I'm going to doit myself.
Humility says Jesus Christ didit for me.
Now, once you believe in JesusChrist, you have a humble
attitude toward everything.
That means you put everybodyelse ahead of yourself in your
own vested interests.
But if you're if you don'tbelieve in Jesus Christ, it's
all about you and your poweragenda that is usually played
out through the political agendauh political scene.
(39:00):
And that's why Americans hatepolitics.
We can't stand it that thosepeople up there are just really
interested in themselves and notinterested in us.
But why are they interested inthemselves and not in us?
Because they're arrogant.
This is the most obvious thingin the world, and it's driving
me absolute crazy.
(39:20):
Sorry.
A lot of rants today, but it'sthis is a is a problem that
really is only resolved by thecross.
It really is.
That's why the only people thatJesus is going to let into his
kingdom are guess what?
Believers.
He will not let one unbelieverin there.
Why?
(39:40):
Because they're spoiled, brats.
He doesn't want that nastinesscoming in there to do what?
Mess everything up that he setup that's perfect.
Oh my goodness.
So we've got this verse.
2 Corinthians 5.18.
And I'm still still inThessalonians.
2 Corinthians 5.18.
(40:05):
And this shows you both sides ofwhat happened when Christ died
on the cross.
Now, all these things are fromGod.
Oh, what things?
Well, the things he's beentalking about since 217, but we
won't go through all that.
All these things are from Godwho reconciled us to himself
through Christ and gave us theministry of reconciliation.
(40:25):
Now, all the salvation that wehave, it's it comes to us from
God, verse 18, who reconciledus.
There's the word.
We were hostile to him, but hereconciled us to himself through
Christ, his work on the cross.
And then he gave us, believersin him, the ministry of
reconciliation.
I just, that's so interesting.
(40:51):
He could preach the gospelhimself.
I mean, he's not a mute.
God can preach the gospel.
He can speak to the whole humanrace right now if he wants to.
But it says he gave us theministry of reconciliation.
He wants us to take the ministryof reconciliation and tell the
world about what Christ has doneto reconcile us to God.
Why does he want to do that?
(41:12):
Why, when you're working in thegarage or you're a mother,
you're working in the kitchen,do you take one of your little
kids beside you and you say,look, here's how you dice green
peppers.
Here's how you prepare thepasta.
Here's how you why do you dothat?
Because you want to involve themin the process and get to teach
someone something that they willtake them with them for the a
(41:34):
life.
You're investing.
That's what you're doing.
You're investing in the littlekid, right?
You're teaching them, you'retraining them.
Why does God want to involve usin the ministry of
reconciliation?
Because he wants us to get to bea part of what he's doing.
He wants to invest in us.
And so he says, I'm not going totake the ministry to the world.
(41:55):
That's for you to do.
I give that to you.
I reconciled you to me.
Now you tell others, and theycan become reconciled to me.
Verse 19 describes thereconciliation, namely that God
was in Christ reconciling theworld to himself.
Now, is that the world of theelect or is that all people?
We're going to start talkingabout this next week.
(42:15):
We'll get into the extent of theatonement.
For whom did Christ die?
God was in Christ reconcilingthe world to himself.
Is that all humanity or is thata subset of humanity?
Not counting their trespassesagainst them.
Well, why?
Well, because Christ alreadypaid for them, and he has
committed to us the word ofreconciliation.
He's given that to us.
And here it is in verse 20.
(42:36):
This is our this is ourministry.
Therefore, we are ambassadorsfor Christ, as though God were
making an appeal through us.
See, we he brought us in to thisprocess to be the ministers of
reconciliation, to be theseambassadors, but he's making the
appeal through us.
See, the gospel isn't from us,it's through us.
(42:56):
Right?
And so he says, we beg you onbehalf of Christ to be
reconciled to God.
Now that's the problem.
God has reconciled the world tohimself through Christ, but has
the world been reconciled toGod?
There's two sides to theequation.
If you have two countries andone side says, Oh, we're willing
to make peace, we want to makepeace.
We're at peace with you.
We don't want to attack youanymore.
(43:16):
We want to be at peace.
But you, but the other sidesays, no, we're going to keep
attacking you.
Then what you can't get peacebetween both parties.
You have one-way peace.
But you need two-way peace tohave true peace.
And that's what God has donethrough Christ.
He said, okay, it's a one-waypeace now.
He's paid it in full.
(43:37):
Okay, I'm friends with you.
I'm not angry.
I'm not counting your trespassesagainst you anymore.
I'm done with that.
I already put it on Jesus Christon the cross.
But what about you?
What's your response?
Do you want to be at peace withme?
If so, accept Christ's work onyour behalf, then we can all be
at peace, right?
So God does lay forth terms.
He says those terms are believein the Lord Jesus.
(43:58):
Then we'll have peace.
Because I'm good with you.
It's just, will you come intogood terms with me?
And it's a lot like Israel.
Israel's like, hey, look, wedon't want to attack these
people, but if we let them keepliving here, they're just never
going to leave us alone.
I mean, if we put a state there,what?
It's going to be a terror state.
That's what's going on.
I mean, we unearthed hundreds ofmiles of crazy tunnels that they
(44:19):
could drive vehicles through.
You know, these things are 60,70, 80 feet underground.
I mean, like, unbelievablelengths to do what?
If you built a tunnel, you wentto all that effort.
Are you going to keep thingsthat you want people to see down
there?
Or are you trying to dosomething secret and keep things
hidden?
(44:40):
I mean, it's pretty obvious thatwhatever you're doing down there
isn't good.
I don't know why the world can'tsee this.
Actually, I do know why, but wewon't go into that.
That's a whole lesson.
Um, so that's reconciliation,right?
God has reconciled the world tohimself through Christ.
Okay.
Now Christ just needs to, uhpeople just need to believe in
(45:03):
Christ to be reconciled to God.
Then there's peace.
Okay.
Um, which would is a good thing.
It's a good thing.
We want to be in peace with God.
You don't want him to be on theother side.
Uh the last word ispropitiation.
This is the one that's closestto the Old Testament word for
atonement.
Okay.
It's a personal term.
(45:23):
It's this one's Godward, okay?
The first one, redemption, issinward.
The second one is manward, andthe last one is Godward.
It's directed toward God.
It's a term that describes beingsatisfied with someone, okay,
due to some appeasement.
And of course, with us and God,it it speaks uh God being
(45:45):
satisfied with us because Christmade a sacrifice that was
pleasing to God.
Now, um here's an analogy fromuh our our lives.
Um I always have to pause if I'mgonna think about using an
example from somebody that maybe listening to this.
(46:08):
But um every one of us has insome sphere wanted to please
someone.
Maybe it was a parent, maybemaybe it was a teacher or a
boss.
You you want to satisfy them,but you never seem to be able
to.
Have you ever had thatexperience?
(46:30):
It's like it's like no matterwhat you do, they've just got
something critical to say.
And you're like, I mean, I mean,you're doing your best, and
you're just constantly uh letdown because you never seem to
be able to please this person.
This this doctrine is soimportant for overcoming that
(46:55):
feeling of falling short that weall have since try to please,
try to please, never can, nevercan.
Because guess what?
God is satisfied with you inChrist.
He's 100% satisfied with you inChrist.
Why?
Because Christ satisfied him.
(47:18):
He was perfect in every way andhe paid our penalty.
And so is God satisfied withyou?
I mean, I want I want you all tosay yes in your mind.
Yes, God is satisfied with me.
Why?
Because He is and also becauseso many times this week probably
(47:39):
you're going to on some in somerelationship feel like you can't
satisfy this person.
No.
That said, who really mattered?
Does it really matter what yourboss thinks?
I mean, in the grand scheme ofthings?
Does it really matter what yourwife or your husband think in
the grand scheme of things?
(48:01):
Does it really matter what yourparent thinks in the grand
scheme of things?
If God is satisfied with you andyou've done whatever you can to
please this other person and youdidn't please them, okay.
Get over it.
Get over it.
Move on.
God's satisfied.
(48:22):
Um, He sees what you wentthrough.
That's the other thing, is somany times when we're trying to
please someone else, there's alot of thought that went into
it.
There's a lot of time andeffort.
Maybe you're an artist, you'retrying to please your art
teacher, maybe you're amusician, you try to please your
music teacher, whatever.
They're not satisfied.
But think about how much timeand effort you put in that they
(48:44):
didn't see.
They can only see, well, yourresults are kind of eh.
But God sees, see.
God sees all that stuff thatyour teachers don't see, that
your parents don't see, thatyour brothers and sisters don't
see, that your boss doesn't see.
He sees all that.
And guess what?
You've done your best, you knowwhat?
(49:06):
He's totally satisfied with you.
And spiritually, of course, he'ssatisfied with you.
You're in Christ.
So propitiation is God word.
Okay.
Closest word to the OldTestament word atonement, okay?
The seat, when you had the Arkof the Covenant, right?
The seat of it was called thekipparet.
The kipparet was we call it themercy seat.
(49:28):
And it that's where they takeand they put the blood on the
annual, they'd smear it on thesurface of the Ark of the
Covenant, on the mercy seat.
So this word really focuses onthe location.
The location where satisfactionwas made.
So in the Old Testament, on theArk, it was on the mercy seat,
(49:51):
right?
In the New Testament at thecross, it's on the cross.
That's the location.
There were three crosses, right?
People say, well, you know,Jesus wasn't the only one to die
on a cross, right?
I mean, lots of people werecrucified on the sides of roads
in Roman Roman uh the Romanworld.
But something significant washappening at the specific
(50:12):
location where he was crucified.
It was more than just a criminalbeing um put on display for
people to be scared of goingagainst Rome, which is the point
of these crucifixions.
Say, don't do this, don't rebelagainst us, or this will be you.
But there was a lot more thanthat going on on the cross,
(50:34):
right?
There was a transaction going onthat was directed toward God,
and that God had been offendedby the human race, and here is
the God man who's come tosatisfy.
So let's look at um Romans 3.25,because this one, this passage
(50:54):
has a number of these words, hasredemption in it, has
propitiation in it.
So of all the passages, this onemore than any put together a lot
of these concepts around theatonement.
We know Romans 3.23, right?
For all have sinned and fallshort of the glory of God.
Well, that's somewhat, that'sthe problem that gives the
background for why you have tohave an atonement, right?
(51:16):
There's nobody righteous, no,not one.
We got a problem.
That's the problem.
Verse 24 being justified as agift by his grace through the
redemption, there's redemption,the penalty paid, which is in
Christ Jesus.
See, He He made the payment,okay, and we're justified just
as a free gift by grace.
Verse 25, whom God displayedpublicly as a propitiation.
(51:40):
See, the it's that this word isreally about the location.
Where did he display him as apropitiation?
Right outside the walls ofJerusalem on a cross, right?
That's where the satisfactionwas made.
So another word for propitiationthat's too big is typically the
word satisfaction.
Okay, so God displayed himpublicly as a propitiation by
(52:04):
his blood.
There it is again.
The life is in the blood.
So he's giving his life on thecross, and his life comes to us
through faith, right?
And this was to demonstrate hisrighteousness.
See, he's not going to just passover sins forever.
I mean, the sins they had to bepaid for.
He says, because in theforbearance of God, he passed
over the sins previouslycommitted.
(52:24):
See, that's what I said aboutthe Old Testament sins.
They weren't being covered byanimal sacrifices.
He just simply passed over them,he winked at them.
But Christ, he paid for them,and his offering satisfied God,
so that now anyone who believesin him is given his life in
(52:47):
exchange.
So we have eternal life.
Jesus Christ, this is the trueGod and eternal life.
Three words then, New Testament,all looking at the atonement,
developing aspects of it.
All three contribute to theconcept of the atonement as
being penal, that is legal,substitutionary, him in our
(53:08):
place.
The payment for the debt that weowe has been made by Christ.
That's redemption.
The peace of God with man hasbeen accomplished through
Christ.
And the satisfaction of God'sjustice or righteousness has
been met by the substitutionaryblood atonement or life-giving
of Christ on the cross.
(53:28):
That's propitiation.
Alright, so in that light, we'vegot a work of the atonement
that's sinward, man word, andGodward.
Is there anything else thatneeds to happen?
What what do we need in order tothen be saved?
(53:51):
Believe.
Jesus Christ is in all that'snecessary for a man to be right
with God.
There remains only one thing forevery human doing being to do to
get right with God, and that'sbelieve in Jesus Christ.
Now that said, um brief wordthat I keep seeing this about
repentance, so I'm gonna addressit.
(54:12):
Now first thing I'm gonna say isthe word repentance does not
mean to turn from sin or to feelsorry for your sin.
Okay, it just doesn't mean that.
But those who include repentanceas something that's required
that we have to do usually aredefining it as turn from your
(54:35):
sin or feel sorrow for your sin.
There's actually another Greekword for feel sorrow.
It's metamelami, it's not aGreek word repentance, which is
metanoia.
So those are actually twodifferent words.
If you want to look for the feelsorry word, that's over in 2
Corinthians 7, okay?
It's there.
Um but this word doesn't meanthat, okay, but people often
(54:57):
think it does.
Now, if you're if you think thatit does, mean that.
Like I gotta turn from my sin orI've got to feel sorry for my
sin.
What are you saying aboutChrist's work on the cross?
It's insufficient.
(55:20):
You have to do something else.
That God is going to on thatbasis, in addition to Christ's
death, which I'm sure they allsay is necessary, but it's not
quite enough because a personalso has to be willing to turn
from their sins or they have tofeel sorrow for their sins.
But isn't that taking everythingaway from Christ?
(55:42):
I mean, did he do everything?
I mean, was it really finished?
Just almost finished.
And we have to come along andadd our subjective feeling of
sorrow, or we have to add apromise or willingness to turn
from sin.
See, this idea that has creptinto so commonly in Christianity
(56:06):
today that we have to repent,meaning, in their view, turn
from sin or be willing to turnfrom sin or feel sorry for sin.
Is really just another way ofattacking the gospel.
It's a very does Satan come inthe room with a r with red horns
and a pitchfork?
(56:29):
Or does he come as an angel oflight?
Second Corinthians 12.
I mean, are his are hisdeceptions easy to detect or are
they difficult to detect?
Well, they're difficult.
That's why they're deception.
You don't it means you don'tknow.
You you've been tricked.
(56:51):
This idea is actually a very badidea that has crept in.
Metanoia, the Greek word forrepent, which is from Latin.
Repent actually is a Latin term,it's not Greek or Hebrew.
Um, it comes from penitentia,and in Roman Catholicism it's
called penance.
You've probably heard of it.
Do penance.
(57:11):
Again, is is penance a work?
If you're thinking in RomanCatholicism, yeah, it's a work.
Everybody knows that.
You've got to do penance.
But it's come over intoProtestantism as repent.
And we we tend to think thatmeans I've got to give something
back or I've got to be willingto turn from my sin or something
like that.
That is adding works.
(57:32):
That is adding works.
Do works mix with faith?
No, works eliminate faith.
Faith is only consistent withgrace.
And and believing is consistentwith grace.
Romans 4, 16.
Romans 4, 16.
Mark it down.
The only thing that's consistentwith grace is faith.
(57:55):
Works will not work in there.
So faith is not a work.
It can't be a work.
And it says that in Romans 4, 3and 4 and 5.
It says that.
It says, not to those who work,but those who believe.
He counted it to them asrighteousness.
There's no such thing as worksthat can be brought into the
equation of salvation.
And repentance, when youinterpret it as a turning from
sin or something like that, ismaking the basis for salvation
(58:18):
rest on Christ plus yourrepentance.
And that is not going to saveanyone.
It can't.
It's either Christ alone orthere's no salvation.
What does repent really mean?
Change of mind.
Meta, change, neuea mind.
Change mind.
Change, what does that mean?
Change your thinking, right?
(58:39):
Change your thinking.
Now, when you believed inChrist, did you have a change of
mind about Christ?
Yeah, of course you did.
Otherwise, you couldn't put yourtrust in him.
You had to at one moment bethinking, no, Jesus Christ is
not the way, the truth, and thelife.
And then another moment you werethinking, well, now he is the
way of the truth and the life.
So you had to change.
Now that's necessarily tied upin faith.
(59:00):
That's why John's gospel neverever says repent.
Not even once, not even used,ever.
In the whole gospel of John.
But every time it uses what?
Believe.
Hundreds of times it saysbelieve.
But then in the book of Acts,you see repent.
Why do they say repent overthere, but John doesn't say it
over there?
You know, people go, uh, they'reessentially synonymous or they
(59:22):
occur simultaneously.
You can't believe in somethingif you haven't had a change of
mind about it.
I mean, if you're going to siton a stool in one minute, you're
like, I don't know, that thinglooks pretty shaky.
Are you having faith?
No.
But let's say you change yourmind and sit down.
See, that happens together.
Now you believe the stool canhold you, and that's you've got
to change your mind.
(59:42):
So they they go together.
You can't separate them.
It's just a change of mind.
So not all this turning from sinstuff.
Now, should we turn from sinafter we believe?
Well, obviously.
That that should be obvious, butthat doesn't do anything to save
you.
That doesn't get you to heaven.
Jesus Christ does that.
He's the one who madepropitiation.
(01:00:03):
He's the one who reconciled theworld to himself.
He's the one who redeemed us bypaying our penalty in full.
And then all we got to do isbelieve in him.
If you mean repent, if you wantto say repent, fine.
Just as long as you just mean,well, it just means you have a
change of mind about Christ.
So you're not believing him, nowyou believe in him.
Then we're good with that.
We're all good.
SPEAKER_00 (01:00:22):
Thank you for joining us on Beyond the Walls
with Jeremy Thomas.
If you would like to see thevisuals that went along with
today's sermon, you can findthose on Rumble and on YouTube
under Spokane Bible Church.
That is where Jeremy is thepastor and teacher.
We hope you found today's lessonproductive and useful in growing
(01:00:43):
closer to God and walking moreobediently with Him.
If you found this podcast to beuseful and helpful, then please
consider rating us in yourfavorite podcast app.
And until next time, we hope youhave a blessed and wonderful
day.
Welcome to Beyond the Walls with Jeremy Thomas and
our series on the New Testamentframework.
Today, the full lesson fromJeremy Thomas.
Here's a hint of what's to come.
SPEAKER_01 (00:10):
You remember the guys who touched the Ark of the
Covenant when it started totopple in the Old Testament as
they brought it back fromPhilistia?
What happened to them?
Dead.
Five minutes later, 20 minuteslater, no, instant.
That is what will happen.
And this is what I'm trying topoint up.
When the physical presence ofGod is on earth, you have to
(00:31):
have sacrifices that would dealwith these physical impurities
that we pick up just from beingmortals and walking around in
the world.
SPEAKER_00 (00:41):
We need to change our mind.
Each and every one of us hassomething we need to change our
mind about.
And if you think about it, youmust admit that that is true.
Why else would we study theBible?
If we thought we knew everythingalready, if we thought we had
everything figured out, therewould be no reason to study the
(01:02):
Bible because there would benothing to learn.
And yet we each pick up ourBibles, we read, we go to
church, we listen to our pastor.
We dig in because we want tolearn.
The most honest among us come tothe Bible and we come to
teaching and we say, Could thisbe true?
(01:25):
And then we look to the Bible tosee if it is.
And why doesn't the NewTestament talk about atonement
like the Old Testament does?
What has changed?
And like most topics, thereisn't a change per se.
(01:48):
It's just that the New Testamenttakes an Old Testament concept
and explains it and personifiesit and makes it more interesting
and reveals the nuances.
That is what happens within theNew Testament teachings.
And why we are looking atatonement in detail.
SPEAKER_01 (02:08):
I introduced something that was maybe not
very commonly taught, but that'suh the re usually it's just
taught that atonement means tocover that's based on older
well, it's this whole conceptyou have to go and do a lot of
research, but basically it dealswith word origins and what is
the origin of the Old Testamentword kipper, from which we get
(02:32):
atonement.
Remember, I said this word isonly used in the Old Testament,
it's not even used in the NewTestament.
New Testament breaks it downinto these three categories:
redemption, reconciliation, andpropitiation.
One of these words is very closeto the Old Testament word uh
kipper, as far as a Greekcounterpart, uh, but none of
them are really the exact word.
(02:52):
So I tried to describe thatkipper atonement really doesn't
mean cover.
Like what was happening in theOld Testament when they had Old
Testament animal sacrifices wasnot like a cover was being put
over those sins or somethinglike that.
Um, nothing can cover uhspiritual sins.
It even says this in the in thebook of Hebrews: the blood of
(03:13):
bulls and goats can't take awaysin.
Um, this whole concept that whatwas happening was you if you'll
back away from everything andstop thinking I know what I'm
talking about here, and I andyou'll come at this from the
vantage point of I don't reallyknow the book of Leviticus.
I mean, because I want to say topeople a lot of times, do you
really know the book ofLeviticus?
Do you know one verse in thebook of Leviticus?
(03:35):
I really want to say thatbecause uh how many people study
Leviticus?
Well, not many.
And then how many people studyHebrews in the New Testament?
Well, some more than Leviticus,but guess what?
The background of Hebrews iswhat?
Leviticus.
So if you don't have a goodhandle on Leviticus, how good of
a handle can you really have onHebrews?
(03:56):
Here's the thing.
In the Old Testament, when youwere a Jew and you had a
tabernacle or you had a temple,who was dwelling in that?
Whose presence was in the most,what they call the most holy
place or the holy of holies?
God's indwelling presence.
In the Old Testament, this iscalled Shekinah glory from the
Hebrew root shekan, which meansto dwell.
(04:17):
God had taken up residence onearth in the most holy place.
So if you're gonna go to thetabernacle or later the temple,
you're going somewhere that isquote unquote holy, right?
Because of his presence.
You know everything had to becleansed.
(04:37):
The altar had to be cleansed,right?
Or atoned for.
Everything the priests had to beatoned for because they're
working in God's presence,right?
So if you're gonna go there, orI'm gonna go there, we have to
be holy when we go into hispresence.
Now, um, this required thatcertain sins be, let's say,
(05:04):
atoned for, so that you couldactually be there, okay, without
dying.
You remember the high priestwould go in once a year on the
Day of Atonement, and there'sthis old story that they would
tie a rope around his leg, so ifhe did die, nobody'd have to go
in after him and possibly dietoo.
They could just drag him out,right?
So it was kind of a seriousthing.
(05:27):
You could in the Old Testamenthave physical contamination,
okay?
Like on your physical body.
There are certain what we callwhat they called unintentional
sins.
For example, if my grandfatherdies in Old Testament Israel,
and he's laying there on the bedin the home, he's dead.
And I we well, we've got to dosomething with the body.
(05:47):
I mean, we can't just leave itthere.
The moment you touch that body,you are physically defiled.
Okay?
You could not touch a deadcorpse.
But you've got to touch a deadcorpse, right?
Because you've got to get thebody out.
So, but this caused physicalcontamination, okay?
And you couldn't just go intoGod's presence now because that
had to be cleansed or atonedfor.
(06:10):
So there are, you have to thinkin the Old Testament, you've got
spiritual sins and you've gotphysical contamination.
And the physical contaminationis what was being taken care of
or atoned for, so that theycould go into God's presence at
the tabernacle or the temple.
Okay?
Now, what what what about allthe other stuff, as somebody
asked me last week?
(06:30):
Well, what if it if if it wasn'tcovering their sins, you know,
like in the spiritual sphere,um, what was happening to them?
Well, we'll see today, Romans 3says they were passed over.
Acts 17.
It wasn't covered, they're justpassed over.
Like God winked at it, okay?
(06:51):
He just winked at it.
Because none of that was dealtwith, none of it, until Jesus
Christ on the cross.
Okay.
So he was winking at it.
So this word, okay, atonement,means basically to smear, to
cleanse.
I said this is the first timeyou see this word is when they
built the ark, and it says theytook pitch and they covered it.
(07:12):
That's the word atonement.
Okay, they were smearing or uhputting this substance on it,
and it it signified something.
It signified that those thatwere inside the ark were
cleansed.
Okay, they were cleansed.
And so the idea in the OldTestament then, animal
(07:33):
sacrifices would cleanse theofferer and bring ceremonial
forgiveness in the physicalsphere so people could approach
God's presence, which wasindwelling the tabernacle
temple.
Now, these sacrifices didforeshadow Christ's sacrifice,
but look what Christ's sacrificedoes: it brings forgiveness in
the spiritual sphere.
As the book of Hebrews puts it,the blood of bulls and goats
(07:56):
could not cleanse theconscience.
But the blood of Christ can.
It deals with guilt in the humanconscience, which is a spiritual
context.
So that what?
So Christ's indwelling presencecould enter into spiritual
temples, that is, within us.
See, we don't have a physicalexternal temple that we go to,
right?
Like in Jerusalem, you know,like where we've got to go to
(08:19):
meet God.
No, God has taken up residenceinside of us, right?
We are a temple.
1 Corinthians 3.16, 1Corinthians 6.16.
Um, we are the temple.
So how can he come to indwellus?
Well, because Christ paid thepenalty for the spiritual sin,
(08:42):
that's the sphere, and so thatGod is free to enter into us,
and we, as individuals, as wellas corporately, become the
temple of God where God dwells.
Okay?
And where the world comes tomeet God is supposed to be
through through believers,through the church.
So that's the basic idea ofatonement.
(09:04):
The animal sacrifices did atonefor, and they did forgive sin.
It states this explicitly, uh,Leviticus 4, verse 20, and other
places, in the physical sphere,for those contaminations.
Okay, but here's the deal, andyou know this from Hebrews,
hopefully, the priest who whostood there among Israel and
worked in the tabernacle ortemple had to keep standing.
(09:25):
They could never sit down,right?
Why?
Well, because once the offererwas forgiven for those external
uncleanliness and blemishes, sothey could be in God's presence,
there were more sins thatthey're going to commit after
that.
And so more sacrifices had to beoffered, right?
And this went on and on and on.
Okay, but again, once whenChrist comes, right, and he um
(09:47):
offers himself, Hebrew says,once for all.
And the veil is torn, right,from top to bottom, and he's
sat, it says he sat down at theright hand of God.
Why does he sit down, whereasall the priests in the Old
Testament kept standing?
Well, because his work isfinished.
There's no more sacrifice forsin.
I mean, no nobody can do thatexcept Jesus Christ.
(10:10):
And so now we have immediateaccess to his indwelling
presence uh within us.
Okay?
So this is a little differentway of thinking about things,
but I think it well, it's clearsup what's going on in Hebrews
and especially Leviticus, butalso for the future messianic
kingdom when there's gonna be amillennial temple.
(10:31):
I mean, I was telling mydaughter before, this millennial
temple is gonna be one mile wideand one mile long.
So you've got one cubic mile orsquare mile temple that Jesus
Christ is gonna personallybuild.
And this is can you imagine howbig that is?
(10:52):
That's gonna be his temple, andthere's gonna be sacrifices.
People say, Oh, that can'thappen because Jesus.
Yeah, I we know Jesus is theonly one who could ever pay for
our spirit and deal with ourspiritual problem.
But what do you have in themillennial kingdom temple that
you we don't have now?
You have another physicaltemple, just like in Old
Testament Israel.
In that sense, it's the same.
(11:13):
So if people are gonna go upinto God's presence and they
have physical contamination andthey walk in that temple, guess
what?
Dead.
I did that for fun.
Because I saw some of you, okay?
Because y'all know I never dothat.
But you will literally die.
Okay, you will literally die.
Dead.
(11:33):
You remember the guys whotouched the Ark of the Covenant
when it started to topple in theOld Testament as they brought it
back from the sea?
What happened to them?
Dead.
Five minutes later, 20 minuteslater, no, instant.
That is what will happen.
And this is what I'm trying topoint up.
When the physical presence ofGod is on earth, you have to
(11:55):
have sacrifices that will dealwith these physical impurities
that we pick up just from beingmortals and walking around in
the world.
So it's in that sense, it's thesame, and this explains the
whole concept of atonement andthe differences in the physical
and spiritual sphere.
Now, um, this the picture ofatonement, the best picture in
(12:17):
the Old Testament of atonementis the Exodus, you know, the
12th, I'm sorry, not the 12th,the 10th plague.
Um and we said when we taughtthe Exodus event, we went
through the ten plagues, and wesaid there's five truths that
are taught there under theheading judgment, salvation.
Because it it's very clear thatif anything's happening in the
(12:38):
ten plagues, you've got judgmentand you've got salvation or
deliverance.
You know, you've got judgment onthe Egyptians, right?
You got salvation or deliverancefor the Israelites, they're all
in Goshen, you know, and they'reprotected and so forth and so
on.
So you go through those tenplagues.
When you get to the tenthplague, of course, you've got
the lamb, unblemished,one-year-old male, take it,
(13:00):
slaughter it at twilight, okay,put the blood over the door,
right?
And if the angel of death comesand sees he will pass over.
So this is the primary pictureof atonement in the Old
Testament.
It's involving blood, it'sinvolving a lamb, it involves
God passing over, so there's adeliverance for those that are
inside.
And so this kind of sets up inour mind how to think about it
(13:24):
so that when we come to the NewTestament and we see Christ, and
John the Baptist says, Beholdthe Lamb of God who takes away
the sin of the world, that weput two and two together and we
realize that he is the PassoverLamb, right?
And all becomes clear.
So we want to go into the NewTestament and talk about the
(13:44):
three words that the NewTestament authors use to
describe the atonement, becauseagain, they don't use the word
atonement.
The closest one is the thirdone, propitiation, but it's
still not a perfect um a perfectword to describe the Old
Testament words.
So this is common though.
We we do this in every area oflife that we study.
(14:05):
You start with really basicthings, and some of these terms
are just kind of all and youknow, all encompassing words
that capture an idea, and thenlater we flesh it out.
And that's how God teaches.
He teaches us on a very basiclevel, and then later he comes
along and he adds details.
As we go into this, you'llunderstand, of course, and you
may already understand, ofcourse, that when we talk about
(14:27):
salvation being simple, on onehand it is entirely simple.
I mean, it's so simple that akid can understand it and
believe the gospel, right?
A four-year-old.
Um, you just tell him, hey,Christ paid the penalty for your
sins.
If you believe in him, you know,you know you won't go to hell,
or you or you'll go to heaven,or whatever.
You just put it in simple terms.
It's not that complicated.
(14:48):
But then you it's salvation isso complicated you can spend the
rest of your life getting intothe details.
And this just shows us some ofthe some of the details as you
look more closely.
So I want to look at these wordsuh redemption, reconciliation,
and propitiation.
They're all aspects or developthe concepts of the Old
(15:08):
Testament atonement.
So redemption.
Let's talk about this term justin terms of our culture, okay?
It's an economic term.
I mean, if you get a coupon, youknow, when you take it and you
give it to the checkout lady,they do what to it?
Redeem it.
Okay, so it's an economic term.
It describes being an indebtedslave that's freed because the
(15:32):
debt has been paid.
Okay, so that's the backgroundof the term in economics.
And by the way, um, this termrelates to the concept of debt
in our society.
So, well, governments todaythey're real responsible.
They operate on debt.
Um, basically, they're likelittle children who have no clue
(15:52):
how to spend money.
Did y'all hear what happened inArgentina recently?
Uh, one of the guys that wantsto run the country or whatever
was proposing that Argentinathey're on uh the peso, okay.
Before COVID, the uh 20 pesoswas an American dollar, okay,
before COVID.
This guy wants to go over to theAmerican dollar.
He wants to get Argentina on theAmerican dollar as their
(16:15):
currency.
Um why?
Well, because now, after COVID,it's a thousand pesos for one
dollar.
Uh that's the kind of inflationthat they've seen.
Well, why why do they have somuch inflation?
Because they don't know how tospend money.
They don't know how to spendwithin limits.
Um we have many, most societiesaround the world, which are now
(16:38):
trending toward globalsocieties, include our own
society, uh, our governments,they have no idea how that, you
know, if if it says you havethis many dollars in your bank
account, that's all the moneyyou have.
But not for them.
Um we can just, you know, makemore money and spend more than
we have.
Um, you know, we we tell ourchildren you should be res well,
(17:00):
maybe we tell our children youshould be responsible spenders.
If you get a credit card, youshould pay it off every month
and so forth.
Uh, but don't you know runyourself into a lot of debt
because debt biblically isslavery.
The the borrower is indebted tothe lender.
Um and what most people do, ofcourse, is they just have a
(17:22):
piece of plastic and so theyjust they just spend wildly.
And because it's so wild anddebt is accepted as a pot as a
reasonable way to live, now wehave this thing called
bankruptcy where you can justget out of it all.
Well, um biblically this is whatwhat is happening is societies
(17:47):
like that are losing thecapability to understand what
Jesus Christ has done on thecross.
Because God doesn't allow you tojust file bankruptcy at the end
and say I messed up and it justgets erased.
No, like the debt actually hasto be paid, and that's what
Jesus Christ came to do.
(18:08):
He came to pay the debt.
But you can see how it getsincreasingly difficult to
communicate this concept topeople when they live in a
system that endorses debt andultimately just filing
bankruptcy.
So let's look at this word alittle bit and turn to 1 Peter
118.
We were slaves to sin.
Romans 6 says this, it was ourmaster, and we've been freed
(18:33):
because our debt has been paidby Christ.
1 Peter chapter 1, verse 18.
This this uh word focuses, or Isay this word redemption is
sinward.
Okay, reconciliation is going tobe manward, and propitiation is
gonna be godward.
(18:53):
So each of these words have adifferent direction or main
focal point.
And the focal point ofredemption is sin.
It's dealing with the sinproblem and the payment that's
made for sin.
So 1 Peter 1.18.
Knowing that you are notredeemed, there's the word
redemption, you are not redeemedwith perishable things like
silver or gold from your futileway of life inherited from your
(19:17):
forefathers, but you areredeemed with precious blood, as
of a lamb, unblemished andspotless, the blood of Christ.
Right?
The uh he's the Passover lamb,the fulfillment of Passover.
And so he made the payment.
This word is looking at apayment that's been made for our
(19:40):
debt, and that payment was hisown notice, not just blood, but
precious blood, because hisblood was unblemished and
spotless.
These are both figures.
I mean, they play off thePassover imagery of the lamb,
but they're talking about hispurity and his lack of having
(20:02):
any sin, right?
Which is what makes him qualifyto actually pay the debt, the
redemption price, to free usfrom being slaves to sin.
Uh so in order to redeem us fromslavery to sin, someone had to
make a payment.
It's it's his his preciousblood, which is his life in the
(20:23):
Old Testament.
The life is in the blood.
He gave his life to pay ourdebt, right?
And therefore give us or set usfree from being slaves.
Let's look at another passagethat talks about this.
Uh Luke 24, 21.
(20:45):
Luke 24, 21.
So back.
This is the road to Emmaus.
You remember the guys that had atalk with Jesus and they didn't
know it was him after theresurrection?
Um they're walking along theroad having a nice theological
uh conversation.
In Luke 24, verse 21.
(21:09):
They say to him as they walkalong, uh, we were hoping that
it was he who was going toredeem Israel.
Now they're talking to him.
They were just walking along.
We were hoping it was he who wasgoing to redeem Israel.
That is what to pay the pricethat Israel owed.
That's the concept ofredemption, to pay the debt that
(21:31):
Israel owed.
And he says, indeed, besides allthese, it's the third day since
these things happened.
Okay.
And so, you know, they'reassuming, well, he's dead.
He wasn't the guy who came toredeem Israel.
He died, you know, he gotcrucified, so we're all out of
luck here.
And uh verse 22, but some women,he said, they say, Well, some
women among us, they amazed us.
(21:52):
They went to the tomb early inthe morning and they didn't find
his body.
They came saying that he had uhthey had seen a vision of angels
who said he was alive.
And some of those who are withus, they went to the tomb to
check it all out.
They found it just exactly asthe women also said, but they
didn't see him, so I guess he'sdead.
That's what they're saying.
And Jesus says, Well, oh foolishmen, slow of heart to believe in
(22:13):
all that the prophets havespoken.
In other words, did all theprophets speak of the Messiah
having to die?
Sure.
Sure they did.
So that he asked in verse 26,was it not necessary for the
Christ, the Messiah, to sufferthese things and enter into
glory?
I mean, like, hey, have you guysread the prophets?
(22:35):
Well, remember what I said a fewweeks ago.
When the Jews looked at the OldTestament, they saw and they
focused their attention on theglorious kingdom when he would
reign.
And they didn't focus theirattention on the sufferings
which would precede his reign.
(22:55):
So there are two types ofprophecies in the Old Testament
that are messianic.
There are those that prophesyhis sufferings and those that
prophesy his glories.
Well, who wants to think aboutsuffering?
So you you they like to thinkabout the kingdom, the glory,
Israel's, you know, beingredeemed from all the nations
and coming into their fullnessand being the greatest nation on
(23:16):
earth.
Who doesn't want to think aboutthat with their nation?
We're the greatest nation onearth.
Do you want to think about yournation going down?
In the days of Jeremiah, theydidn't want to listen to it.
Jeremiah goes to the king and hesays, You guys are going down,
and the guy says, Burn all hisscrolls.
And so they burned all hisscrolls, and God said, Okay,
write it again.
See, because you can't destroythe word of God, right?
(23:37):
So he wrote it again, see?
What he has written, it stands.
I mean, that's it.
So you can try to fight God, butyou're gonna have a big L on
your forehead when it's allover.
I mean, he's God.
I mean, you're not competition.
I'm not competition.
He's going to win.
So he predicted the propheciesof suffering as well as those
(23:59):
that predicted the glories tocome.
And you can see these guys areonly thinking about you know the
glories to come when Israel'sredeemed.
Okay, when the their penalty,their debt has been paid and
they're restored to the kingdomand being first among the
nations.
Um that wasn't the full picture.
Titus 2.14.
(24:19):
More on redemption, so we makesure and get it down.
Remember, five T books alltogether, first seconds, first
second Timothy, and Titus.
So if you find one, you can findthe others.
Titus 2.14.
Eventually we'll all learn ourBible, right?
We have alternative to figure itout, but it's better to do it
now.
Titus 2.
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One of the small theologicalsections that he puts in here
periodically, so verses eleventhrough fourteen go into the
great theology.
And one of the things that itsays he did here in verse 14 of
Christ Jesus, who gave himselffor us to redeem us, notice from
what?
From every lawless deed.
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Nor normally we say sin, but sinis lawlessness.
Sin is lawlessness.
The Antichrist, when he comes,he's called the man of
lawlessness.
But one of the um variants inthe manuscript of 2
Thessalonians 2 3 says man ofsin.
But sin sin is lawlessness,right?
It's against what law?
The law of God's righteousness.
(25:23):
That's the definition of sin.
It's defined on the basis of whoGod is and his righteous
character.
But Christ gave himself for usto redeem.
That's to pay the economicpenalty of our sin or our
lawlessness, right?
And to purify for himself apeople for his own possession,
zealous for good deeds.
See, look, if he paid for yoursin, why should you go on living
in it, right?
(25:44):
Like me.
Why should I go on living in sinif he's redeemed me from that?
So that I, you know, live a tokeep on living a sinful life?
May it never be, right?
But to go on to live a purifiedlife to live a different life,
one that's zealous for gooddeeds.
Titus is the book of good deeds.
That's the key word of the book.
The Bible talks about gooddeeds.
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Not so you can get saved, butbecause you are saved.
Right?
Um Matthew 2028.
Matthew 2028.
I figured if we didn't go overseveral verses with redemption,
we wouldn't really remember it,so we're doing a few more than
normal.
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Matthew 2028.
Which is the same as Mark 10 45.
So if you found Mark, you can gothere too.
It's basically the same verse.
Just as the Son of Man did notcome to be served, that's always
so interesting because peoplesay, Well, I serve Jesus Christ.
Oh, I serve Jesus.
Guess what?
Jesus served you.
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People are not comfortable withthat statement.
But that's exactly what it says,isn't it?
He did not come to be served byyou and to me.
He came to serve us.
Our creator came down here andserved us.
How did he do that?
It says to serve and to give hislife a ransom for many.
That word ransom is a word forpaying a price.
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I mean, what do you do when youransom someone?
You usually have to pay somekind of price, some outlandish
price.
We'll take two million dollarsto release your son that we
kidnapped or whatever.
Um it's a you've got to pay aprice.
And that's what he did.
He gave his life.
That's the payment.
He's the, by the way, he's theonly one who had life to make a
payment.
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The rest of us are dead in ourtransgressions and sins.
What are you gonna give?
You don't have you can't makethe ransom payment.
I can't make the ransom payment.
All the people in the worldcan't make the ransom payment.
We're dead, and I mean, you'regonna take somebody giving you a
dead body?
Is that a good payment?
That's nothing.
I mean, we need a lot, we needsomething that has life inherent
to it to be given on our behalfso he can pay our debt, our life
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debt.
And that's what he did.
He paid our life debt.
And in exchange, when we believein him, guess what?
He gives us his life.
This is really good news.
That means we are in goodstanding with God.
Um, Luke 168.
A couple pages to the right.
Luke 168.
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Redemption, money, payment.
Um, and then in this one, I'llmake a point that'll prepare us
for next week.
In Luke 168, this is Zacharias,John the Baptist's father, you
know, who he was told you're youknow, your wife is with child,
and he laughed.
Ha ha ha ha.
Whatever.
Okay, well, I guess I'll justshut you up for the rest of the
(28:33):
pregnancy.
And every woman said, Thank God.
Um, so he doubted, and becauseof that, well, he couldn't speak
for a while.
And so when it's all said anddone, uh Zacharias uh was filled
with the Holy Spirit andprophesied, verse 68, Blessed be
the Lord God of Israel, for hehas visited us and accomplished
(28:55):
redemption for his people.
There it is again, redemption.
The one who would make thepayment for Israel's sin debt.
Um, but here's the thing noticethe past tenses.
He has visited us, he hasaccomplished, but did you notice
this is a long time before thecross?
This is a long time before thecross, over 30 years before the
(29:17):
cross.
But see, it's a done deal inZacharias's eyes, right?
I mean, who's else is gonna paythe sin penalty for the world?
Is Muhammad gonna do that?
Is Joseph Smith gonna do that?
No, these people are sinners.
They died, they're dead.
They're dead right now.
They rotted away centuries andcenturies ago.
Well, century and a half forJoseph Smith.
(29:39):
But anyway, um Jesus Christdidn't rot.
He lives forevermore.
You're gonna believe in a deadguy?
Are you gonna believe in a guythat lives forevermore?
Which one is this?
I mean, this is a logicalchoice.
It's not a complicated choice,it's a very easy choice.
But he says he has visited us,he has accomplished redemption
for his people.
Now, when he Was on the cross,he he made the penalty in full
(30:02):
full.
The payments have been made,right?
Well, why isn't everybody savedthen?
If he already paid the penaltyfor everybody's sin, why isn't
everybody saved?
Because some people don't acceptthat he made the payment for
them.
They reject that he made thepayment for them.
They say, I'll do it myself.
I'll pay it myself.
Yeah, but you're a dead manwalking.
(30:23):
You don't have any life to give.
You can't make the payment.
Yeah, but I'm gonna try to do itmyself.
I got my good works.
Yeah, but all of our good worksare but filthy rags.
Yeah, but God's not like that.
God's really just gonna weighit.
He's gonna say, Well, you gotthese good works, you got these
bad works, your good worksoutweigh your bad works,
therefore I let you in.
Did they ever pay the life debt?
No, there's just some goodworks.
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What does that do?
That's what was required anyway.
Now you're telling me that'sgonna work?
What about all the bad works?
Are you saying God's gonnacompromise his justice?
That's not who God is.
See, it just doesn't work likethat.
People don't get to choose theway of salvation.
You know, God does.
He's the creator.
That's he did he said, you know,there's no other name under
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heaven by which man may be savedin the name of Jesus Christ.
That's it.
That's only one name.
You can't choose the way.
Jesus said, I am the way, thetruth, and the life.
No one comes to the Father butby me.
People say, I don't like that.
Well, I mean, sorry.
I mean, you may not like it, butit doesn't really matter what
you like.
Matters what's true.
What's true is what matters.
(31:26):
Right?
So we got to deal with what'struth.
I mean, truth is truth.
It doesn't change.
Otherwise, it wouldn't be true.
So it's viewing it as acompleted act 30 years before it
ever happened.
But to have that enjoyment ofredemption, a person has to
believe.
They have to accept it forthemselves as true.
Uh 238, we might as well, it'sjust one chapter away, 238.
(31:49):
This is Anna the prophetess, whosaw him when they took him up to
the temple on, I guess it wasthe eighth day, I believe.
Um, verse 37, she is a widow tothe age of 84.
She never left the templeserving night and day with
fastings and prayers.
At that very moment, she came upand she began giving thanks to
God when they've got little babyJesus there in the temple, and
(32:11):
Simeon was there.
And uh she continued to speak ofhim to all those who were
looking for, there it is, theredemption of Jerusalem, which
Jerusalem is the capital ofIsrael, so this is just a
metaphor for the people ofIsrael.
Right?
They were apparently looking forthis, but by the end of the
Gospels, they're saying,crucified.
(32:31):
We have no king but Caesar.
So their sentiments didn'tcontinue 30 years later.
All right, so but redemption issinward, it focuses on the
payment due for our sin debt.
And uh, as I mentioned, the theproblem that we have with debt,
debt is a form of slavery.
You're enslaved to the debtor,uh, the lender.
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And so, you know, because of theway that our world's economy is
working, which is on a debtsystem, and this concept that
you can just get out of it allby bankruptcy, filing
bankruptcy, then you know, itweakens our ability to
communicate the power of thecross and what Jesus was
actually doing.
He's actually had to pay thedebt.
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God can't just forgive, okay?
He's not just gonna forgivepeople.
There had the payment has to bemade.
And what we're saying is JesusChrist made it, it's been paid.
And so we can freely bedebt-free spiritually by
believing in Jesus Christ.
The next word is reconciliation.
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This is not an economic word,but this is a social term that
describes a situation where youhave two hostile parties, and
somehow they make peace bycoming to terms.
And so, by analogy, of course,it speaks, you know, the fact
that God and man are athostility toward one another,
(33:57):
but Christ made a peaceinitiative on the cross so that
God is now at peace with uh theworld, with man, but man is not
necessarily at peace with God.
Something has to happen for himto be uh at peace with God.
It's sort of like if you havetwo countries who are warring
one another, or two peoplegroups, let's just say Israel
(34:19):
and Hamas, whatever, okay,Ukraine and Russia, you've got
two people groups that are athostility with one another.
If one side's saying, hey, look,we we we want we want to be at
peace with you, but you know,you don't want to be at peace
with us.
Well, you've got one partythat's willing, you've got
another that's not.
You can't you can't come topeace on those terms.
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Um, you have to have both sideswanting uh the peace.
And so um that's whatreconciliation is about.
And it's not sin word likeredemption, it's man word, it's
directed on man because God andman are in hostile, a hostile uh
situation.
The Bible says before webelieved we were enemies of God,
(35:02):
right?
It doesn't say we were friends,it says we're enemies, but those
who believe become friends ofGod.
We're at peace with God.
Romans 5, 1.
We have peace with God.
So um reconciliation is lookingat this peace initiative as it
relates to Christ and what hedid on the cross so that God
could be reconciled to man.
So let's look at uh 2Corinthians 5 first, 2
(35:25):
Corinthians 5, 18 through 21, uh20.
And then we'll look at some ofthese others.
Some of these others are just umpeople that are not reconciled
with one another, just humanrelations.
But why why aren't why aren'twhy is there war in the world?
That's kind of a big question,right?
Like, why is there war in theworld?
(35:47):
Why are people and people groupsfighting one another?
Uh well, very simple.
I mean, it's sin, right?
I mean, that's why, becausewe're selfish and we have sinful
ambitions.
Um, and so that's allconsequence of sin.
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Which first our problem is withGod.
That's why we have a problemwith God because of our sin.
Then it becomes a problem withman.
Then we have a problem with man.
Uh so think think about the TenCommandments for a second.
We're okay.
Another cultural item in oursociety, you know.
We post those up on the SupremeCourt, you know, the Ten
Commandments.
But oh, we can't have that upthere.
It's a I guess we agree withmurder now, you know.
(36:29):
I don't know.
Take that down.
Adultery, oh, that's good.
Take that off.
We don't want to we don't wantto say that's wrong.
Um, silly things like that thatpeople do in our country.
But all this stuff is likeposted there in the Ten
Commandments.
We've got Ten Commandments,right?
We say ten words, the bar,Hebrew to bar.
The ten words that God gaveIsrael at Mount Sinai.
Now, the first three or four,depending on how you count them,
(36:51):
are all between God and man.
Like thou shalt make no othergods before me, right?
Thou shalt have no graven image,okay, and so forth.
They're all like thisrelationship, vertical, man to
gut, man and God.
Then after that, you see thingslike thou shalt not lie, thou
(37:11):
shalt not commit adultery, thoushalt not covet.
Now, those are all man-to-man,right?
What we call horizontal.
Now, why why is it in thatorder?
Um, why does it start with theGod word commands and then move
to the man word?
Because this is where theproblem starts.
In other words, we can look outthere at the world and say, man,
(37:32):
it's a mess out there.
I mean, somebody stole my car.
You know, why why do you guyssteal my car?
That's that's wrong.
You shouldn't do that.
Why do we have stealing goingon?
Well, because we have a problembetween man and God.
That's just, this is the rootproblem, man and God.
This is the fruit problem.
We say, well, we want a bettersociety.
We want things to be nice, wewant nice clean parks around
(37:54):
here, we want plenty of room ondivision so we're not having a
whole bus lane taken up and wewant to get places fast and we
want, we want a better life.
Yeah, well, guess what?
The way to a better life downhere is to get this straight.
When this gets straightened out,guess what?
Nobody has their vested interestin the politics of this city in
making stupid decisions.
(38:16):
They want what's best foreverybody else.
Why?
Because they have a rightrelationship with God.
That's why.
See, all the stuff that we haveto deal with down here, the
stupid stuff, is because peoplewon't get right with God.
Because once you get right withGod, then you're a condition of
humility.
That is necessary.
You have to.
To come to the foot of thecross, you can't come with
(38:37):
arrogance.
Arrogance says, I'm going to doit myself.
Humility says Jesus Christ didit for me.
Now, once you believe in JesusChrist, you have a humble
attitude toward everything.
That means you put everybodyelse ahead of yourself in your
own vested interests.
But if you're if you don'tbelieve in Jesus Christ, it's
all about you and your poweragenda that is usually played
out through the political agendauh political scene.
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And that's why Americans hatepolitics.
We can't stand it that thosepeople up there are just really
interested in themselves and notinterested in us.
But why are they interested inthemselves and not in us?
Because they're arrogant.
This is the most obvious thingin the world, and it's driving
me absolute crazy.
(39:20):
Sorry.
A lot of rants today, but it'sthis is a is a problem that
really is only resolved by thecross.
It really is.
That's why the only people thatJesus is going to let into his
kingdom are guess what?
Believers.
He will not let one unbelieverin there.
Why?
(39:40):
Because they're spoiled, brats.
He doesn't want that nastinesscoming in there to do what?
Mess everything up that he setup that's perfect.
Oh my goodness.
So we've got this verse.
2 Corinthians 5.18.
And I'm still still inThessalonians.
2 Corinthians 5.18.
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And this shows you both sides ofwhat happened when Christ died
on the cross.
Now, all these things are fromGod.
Oh, what things?
Well, the things he's beentalking about since 217, but we
won't go through all that.
All these things are from Godwho reconciled us to himself
through Christ and gave us theministry of reconciliation.
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Now, all the salvation that wehave, it's it comes to us from
God, verse 18, who reconciledus.
There's the word.
We were hostile to him, but hereconciled us to himself through
Christ, his work on the cross.
And then he gave us, believersin him, the ministry of
reconciliation.
I just, that's so interesting.
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He could preach the gospelhimself.
I mean, he's not a mute.
God can preach the gospel.
He can speak to the whole humanrace right now if he wants to.
But it says he gave us theministry of reconciliation.
He wants us to take the ministryof reconciliation and tell the
world about what Christ has doneto reconcile us to God.
Why does he want to do that?
(41:12):
Why, when you're working in thegarage or you're a mother,
you're working in the kitchen,do you take one of your little
kids beside you and you say,look, here's how you dice green
peppers.
Here's how you prepare thepasta.
Here's how you why do you dothat?
Because you want to involve themin the process and get to teach
someone something that they willtake them with them for the a
(41:34):
life.
You're investing.
That's what you're doing.
You're investing in the littlekid, right?
You're teaching them, you'retraining them.
Why does God want to involve usin the ministry of
reconciliation?
Because he wants us to get to bea part of what he's doing.
He wants to invest in us.
And so he says, I'm not going totake the ministry to the world.
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That's for you to do.
I give that to you.
I reconciled you to me.
Now you tell others, and theycan become reconciled to me.
Verse 19 describes thereconciliation, namely that God
was in Christ reconciling theworld to himself.
Now, is that the world of theelect or is that all people?
We're going to start talkingabout this next week.
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We'll get into the extent of theatonement.
For whom did Christ die?
God was in Christ reconcilingthe world to himself.
Is that all humanity or is thata subset of humanity?
Not counting their trespassesagainst them.
Well, why?
Well, because Christ alreadypaid for them, and he has
committed to us the word ofreconciliation.
He's given that to us.
And here it is in verse 20.
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This is our this is ourministry.
Therefore, we are ambassadorsfor Christ, as though God were
making an appeal through us.
See, we he brought us in to thisprocess to be the ministers of
reconciliation, to be theseambassadors, but he's making the
appeal through us.
See, the gospel isn't from us,it's through us.
(42:56):
Right?
And so he says, we beg you onbehalf of Christ to be
reconciled to God.
Now that's the problem.
God has reconciled the world tohimself through Christ, but has
the world been reconciled toGod?
There's two sides to theequation.
If you have two countries andone side says, Oh, we're willing
to make peace, we want to makepeace.
We're at peace with you.
We don't want to attack youanymore.
(43:16):
We want to be at peace.
But you, but the other sidesays, no, we're going to keep
attacking you.
Then what you can't get peacebetween both parties.
You have one-way peace.
But you need two-way peace tohave true peace.
And that's what God has donethrough Christ.
He said, okay, it's a one-waypeace now.
He's paid it in full.
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Okay, I'm friends with you.
I'm not angry.
I'm not counting your trespassesagainst you anymore.
I'm done with that.
I already put it on Jesus Christon the cross.
But what about you?
What's your response?
Do you want to be at peace withme?
If so, accept Christ's work onyour behalf, then we can all be
at peace, right?
So God does lay forth terms.
He says those terms are believein the Lord Jesus.
(43:58):
Then we'll have peace.
Because I'm good with you.
It's just, will you come intogood terms with me?
And it's a lot like Israel.
Israel's like, hey, look, wedon't want to attack these
people, but if we let them keepliving here, they're just never
going to leave us alone.
I mean, if we put a state there,what?
It's going to be a terror state.
That's what's going on.
I mean, we unearthed hundreds ofmiles of crazy tunnels that they
(44:19):
could drive vehicles through.
You know, these things are 60,70, 80 feet underground.
I mean, like, unbelievablelengths to do what?
If you built a tunnel, you wentto all that effort.
Are you going to keep thingsthat you want people to see down
there?
Or are you trying to dosomething secret and keep things
hidden?
(44:40):
I mean, it's pretty obvious thatwhatever you're doing down there
isn't good.
I don't know why the world can'tsee this.
Actually, I do know why, but wewon't go into that.
That's a whole lesson.
Um, so that's reconciliation,right?
God has reconciled the world tohimself through Christ.
Okay.
Now Christ just needs to, uhpeople just need to believe in
(45:03):
Christ to be reconciled to God.
Then there's peace.
Okay.
Um, which would is a good thing.
It's a good thing.
We want to be in peace with God.
You don't want him to be on theother side.
Uh the last word ispropitiation.
This is the one that's closestto the Old Testament word for
atonement.
Okay.
It's a personal term.
(45:23):
It's this one's Godward, okay?
The first one, redemption, issinward.
The second one is manward, andthe last one is Godward.
It's directed toward God.
It's a term that describes beingsatisfied with someone, okay,
due to some appeasement.
And of course, with us and God,it it speaks uh God being
(45:45):
satisfied with us because Christmade a sacrifice that was
pleasing to God.
Now, um here's an analogy fromuh our our lives.
Um I always have to pause if I'mgonna think about using an
example from somebody that maybe listening to this.
(46:08):
But um every one of us has insome sphere wanted to please
someone.
Maybe it was a parent, maybemaybe it was a teacher or a
boss.
You you want to satisfy them,but you never seem to be able
to.
Have you ever had thatexperience?
(46:30):
It's like it's like no matterwhat you do, they've just got
something critical to say.
And you're like, I mean, I mean,you're doing your best, and
you're just constantly uh letdown because you never seem to
be able to please this person.
This this doctrine is soimportant for overcoming that
(46:55):
feeling of falling short that weall have since try to please,
try to please, never can, nevercan.
Because guess what?
God is satisfied with you inChrist.
He's 100% satisfied with you inChrist.
Why?
Because Christ satisfied him.
(47:18):
He was perfect in every way andhe paid our penalty.
And so is God satisfied withyou?
I mean, I want I want you all tosay yes in your mind.
Yes, God is satisfied with me.
Why?
Because He is and also becauseso many times this week probably
(47:39):
you're going to on some in somerelationship feel like you can't
satisfy this person.
No.
That said, who really mattered?
Does it really matter what yourboss thinks?
I mean, in the grand scheme ofthings?
Does it really matter what yourwife or your husband think in
the grand scheme of things?
(48:01):
Does it really matter what yourparent thinks in the grand
scheme of things?
If God is satisfied with you andyou've done whatever you can to
please this other person and youdidn't please them, okay.
Get over it.
Get over it.
Move on.
God's satisfied.
(48:22):
Um, He sees what you wentthrough.
That's the other thing, is somany times when we're trying to
please someone else, there's alot of thought that went into
it.
There's a lot of time andeffort.
Maybe you're an artist, you'retrying to please your art
teacher, maybe you're amusician, you try to please your
music teacher, whatever.
They're not satisfied.
But think about how much timeand effort you put in that they
(48:44):
didn't see.
They can only see, well, yourresults are kind of eh.
But God sees, see.
God sees all that stuff thatyour teachers don't see, that
your parents don't see, thatyour brothers and sisters don't
see, that your boss doesn't see.
He sees all that.
And guess what?
You've done your best, you knowwhat?
(49:06):
He's totally satisfied with you.
And spiritually, of course, he'ssatisfied with you.
You're in Christ.
So propitiation is God word.
Okay.
Closest word to the OldTestament word atonement, okay?
The seat, when you had the Arkof the Covenant, right?
The seat of it was called thekipparet.
The kipparet was we call it themercy seat.
(49:28):
And it that's where they takeand they put the blood on the
annual, they'd smear it on thesurface of the Ark of the
Covenant, on the mercy seat.
So this word really focuses onthe location.
The location where satisfactionwas made.
So in the Old Testament, on theArk, it was on the mercy seat,
(49:51):
right?
In the New Testament at thecross, it's on the cross.
That's the location.
There were three crosses, right?
People say, well, you know,Jesus wasn't the only one to die
on a cross, right?
I mean, lots of people werecrucified on the sides of roads
in Roman Roman uh the Romanworld.
But something significant washappening at the specific
(50:12):
location where he was crucified.
It was more than just a criminalbeing um put on display for
people to be scared of goingagainst Rome, which is the point
of these crucifixions.
Say, don't do this, don't rebelagainst us, or this will be you.
But there was a lot more thanthat going on on the cross,
(50:34):
right?
There was a transaction going onthat was directed toward God,
and that God had been offendedby the human race, and here is
the God man who's come tosatisfy.
So let's look at um Romans 3.25,because this one, this passage
(50:54):
has a number of these words, hasredemption in it, has
propitiation in it.
So of all the passages, this onemore than any put together a lot
of these concepts around theatonement.
We know Romans 3.23, right?
For all have sinned and fallshort of the glory of God.
Well, that's somewhat, that'sthe problem that gives the
background for why you have tohave an atonement, right?
(51:16):
There's nobody righteous, no,not one.
We got a problem.
That's the problem.
Verse 24 being justified as agift by his grace through the
redemption, there's redemption,the penalty paid, which is in
Christ Jesus.
See, He He made the payment,okay, and we're justified just
as a free gift by grace.
Verse 25, whom God displayedpublicly as a propitiation.
(51:40):
See, the it's that this word isreally about the location.
Where did he display him as apropitiation?
Right outside the walls ofJerusalem on a cross, right?
That's where the satisfactionwas made.
So another word for propitiationthat's too big is typically the
word satisfaction.
Okay, so God displayed himpublicly as a propitiation by
(52:04):
his blood.
There it is again.
The life is in the blood.
So he's giving his life on thecross, and his life comes to us
through faith, right?
And this was to demonstrate hisrighteousness.
See, he's not going to just passover sins forever.
I mean, the sins they had to bepaid for.
He says, because in theforbearance of God, he passed
over the sins previouslycommitted.
(52:24):
See, that's what I said aboutthe Old Testament sins.
They weren't being covered byanimal sacrifices.
He just simply passed over them,he winked at them.
But Christ, he paid for them,and his offering satisfied God,
so that now anyone who believesin him is given his life in
(52:47):
exchange.
So we have eternal life.
Jesus Christ, this is the trueGod and eternal life.
Three words then, New Testament,all looking at the atonement,
developing aspects of it.
All three contribute to theconcept of the atonement as
being penal, that is legal,substitutionary, him in our
(53:08):
place.
The payment for the debt that weowe has been made by Christ.
That's redemption.
The peace of God with man hasbeen accomplished through
Christ.
And the satisfaction of God'sjustice or righteousness has
been met by the substitutionaryblood atonement or life-giving
of Christ on the cross.
(53:28):
That's propitiation.
Alright, so in that light, we'vegot a work of the atonement
that's sinward, man word, andGodward.
Is there anything else thatneeds to happen?
What what do we need in order tothen be saved?
(53:51):
Believe.
Jesus Christ is in all that'snecessary for a man to be right
with God.
There remains only one thing forevery human doing being to do to
get right with God, and that'sbelieve in Jesus Christ.
Now that said, um brief wordthat I keep seeing this about
repentance, so I'm gonna addressit.
(54:12):
Now first thing I'm gonna say isthe word repentance does not
mean to turn from sin or to feelsorry for your sin.
Okay, it just doesn't mean that.
But those who include repentanceas something that's required
that we have to do usually aredefining it as turn from your
(54:35):
sin or feel sorrow for your sin.
There's actually another Greekword for feel sorrow.
It's metamelami, it's not aGreek word repentance, which is
metanoia.
So those are actually twodifferent words.
If you want to look for the feelsorry word, that's over in 2
Corinthians 7, okay?
It's there.
Um but this word doesn't meanthat, okay, but people often
(54:57):
think it does.
Now, if you're if you think thatit does, mean that.
Like I gotta turn from my sin orI've got to feel sorry for my
sin.
What are you saying aboutChrist's work on the cross?
It's insufficient.
(55:20):
You have to do something else.
That God is going to on thatbasis, in addition to Christ's
death, which I'm sure they allsay is necessary, but it's not
quite enough because a personalso has to be willing to turn
from their sins or they have tofeel sorrow for their sins.
But isn't that taking everythingaway from Christ?
(55:42):
I mean, did he do everything?
I mean, was it really finished?
Just almost finished.
And we have to come along andadd our subjective feeling of
sorrow, or we have to add apromise or willingness to turn
from sin.
See, this idea that has creptinto so commonly in Christianity
(56:06):
today that we have to repent,meaning, in their view, turn
from sin or be willing to turnfrom sin or feel sorry for sin.
Is really just another way ofattacking the gospel.
It's a very does Satan come inthe room with a r with red horns
and a pitchfork?
(56:29):
Or does he come as an angel oflight?
Second Corinthians 12.
I mean, are his are hisdeceptions easy to detect or are
they difficult to detect?
Well, they're difficult.
That's why they're deception.
You don't it means you don'tknow.
You you've been tricked.
(56:51):
This idea is actually a very badidea that has crept in.
Metanoia, the Greek word forrepent, which is from Latin.
Repent actually is a Latin term,it's not Greek or Hebrew.
Um, it comes from penitentia,and in Roman Catholicism it's
called penance.
You've probably heard of it.
Do penance.
(57:11):
Again, is is penance a work?
If you're thinking in RomanCatholicism, yeah, it's a work.
Everybody knows that.
You've got to do penance.
But it's come over intoProtestantism as repent.
And we we tend to think thatmeans I've got to give something
back or I've got to be willingto turn from my sin or something
like that.
That is adding works.
(57:32):
That is adding works.
Do works mix with faith?
No, works eliminate faith.
Faith is only consistent withgrace.
And and believing is consistentwith grace.
Romans 4, 16.
Romans 4, 16.
Mark it down.
The only thing that's consistentwith grace is faith.
(57:55):
Works will not work in there.
So faith is not a work.
It can't be a work.
And it says that in Romans 4, 3and 4 and 5.
It says that.
It says, not to those who work,but those who believe.
He counted it to them asrighteousness.
There's no such thing as worksthat can be brought into the
equation of salvation.
And repentance, when youinterpret it as a turning from
sin or something like that, ismaking the basis for salvation
(58:18):
rest on Christ plus yourrepentance.
And that is not going to saveanyone.
It can't.
It's either Christ alone orthere's no salvation.
What does repent really mean?
Change of mind.
Meta, change, neuea mind.
Change mind.
Change, what does that mean?
Change your thinking, right?
(58:39):
Change your thinking.
Now, when you believed inChrist, did you have a change of
mind about Christ?
Yeah, of course you did.
Otherwise, you couldn't put yourtrust in him.
You had to at one moment bethinking, no, Jesus Christ is
not the way, the truth, and thelife.
And then another moment you werethinking, well, now he is the
way of the truth and the life.
So you had to change.
Now that's necessarily tied upin faith.
(59:00):
That's why John's gospel neverever says repent.
Not even once, not even used,ever.
In the whole gospel of John.
But every time it uses what?
Believe.
Hundreds of times it saysbelieve.
But then in the book of Acts,you see repent.
Why do they say repent overthere, but John doesn't say it
over there?
You know, people go, uh, they'reessentially synonymous or they
(59:22):
occur simultaneously.
You can't believe in somethingif you haven't had a change of
mind about it.
I mean, if you're going to siton a stool in one minute, you're
like, I don't know, that thinglooks pretty shaky.
Are you having faith?
No.
But let's say you change yourmind and sit down.
See, that happens together.
Now you believe the stool canhold you, and that's you've got
to change your mind.
(59:42):
So they they go together.
You can't separate them.
It's just a change of mind.
So not all this turning from sinstuff.
Now, should we turn from sinafter we believe?
Well, obviously.
That that should be obvious, butthat doesn't do anything to save
you.
That doesn't get you to heaven.
Jesus Christ does that.
He's the one who madepropitiation.
(01:00:03):
He's the one who reconciled theworld to himself.
He's the one who redeemed us bypaying our penalty in full.
And then all we got to do isbelieve in him.
If you mean repent, if you wantto say repent, fine.
Just as long as you just mean,well, it just means you have a
change of mind about Christ.
So you're not believing him, nowyou believe in him.
Then we're good with that.
We're all good.
SPEAKER_00 (01:00:22):
Thank you for joining us on Beyond the Walls
with Jeremy Thomas.
If you would like to see thevisuals that went along with
today's sermon, you can findthose on Rumble and on YouTube
under Spokane Bible Church.
That is where Jeremy is thepastor and teacher.
We hope you found today's lessonproductive and useful in growing
(01:00:43):
closer to God and walking moreobediently with Him.
If you found this podcast to beuseful and helpful, then please
consider rating us in yourfavorite podcast app.
And until next time, we hope youhave a blessed and wonderful
day.
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