Classic Christianity – Book of John Part 72 (09-16-19)
Transcript
Reconciliation requires total forgiveness, not partial.
Luke 23:34
34 Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
Do you think the Father answered that prayer? Christ died for sins, how many times? Once.
Hebrews 9:22
22 In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
Is there any more shedding of blood? No. Will he come back and die again? No. He died once and for all.
1 Peter 3:18
18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit.
Colossians 2:13-14
13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.
Romans 7:6
6 But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.
Jesus canceled the written code (the ten commandments), or the law. The law with the ten commandments was canceled and replaced with Christ Jesus. All law can do is kill you. Jesus came to give you life. He nailed the law to the cross, that written code that was against us, and replaced it with his resurrected life.
Galatians 3:15-17
15 Brothers and sisters, let me take an example from everyday life. Just as no one can set aside or add to a human covenant that has been duly established, so it is in this case. 16 The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. Scripture does not say “and to seeds,” meaning many people, but “and to your seed,” meaning one person, who is Christ. 17 What I mean is this: The law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise.
Recall what Paul had said.
Romans 7:7
7 What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead.
Paul was saying that the law killed him. Jesus took away the law in order to replace it with himself.
Acts 26:17-18
17 I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them 18 to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.
Jesus did come to cover sin but to take it away. Recall what John the Baptist said.
John 1:29
29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”
The only question God will ever ask you when you come into the presence of God, is what did you do with my Son? He will ask, “Did you walk by faith in what I did to come to save you?”
Hebrews 9:27-28
27 Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, 28 so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.
He appeared to take away sins.
1 John 2:1-2 (KJV)
1 My little children, these things I write to you, that you do not sin. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
Atonement is the shedding of the blood of a bull and a goat that only covered sin. Only Christ took it away. Jesus did not come to atone for sin. The blood of a bull and a goat did that. He came to take it away. What does that mean? If you are in Christ, then you have come by faith not only in what he did for you on the cross but also what he did for you in his resurrection. You have come to him for life.
Ephesians 1:7
7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace
Are you in Him? If you are, then you are a forgiven person. You are not a person who gets forgiven. You are a person who is forgiven.
There are people who function in guilt from their past all their life. Bob recalls meeting a person up in Canada in his late 70s burdened with guilt over past sins. He was bent over and wrinkled, and asked Bob, “Do you think God will forgive me for what I have done? When I was a young boy, I did something really bad. I keep asking God over and over again to forgive me.
Do you have any children? Yes. Did any of them ever do anything wrong? Did they ever ask you to forgive him? Yes. What if they came back every year and asked, “Dad, are you really sure you have forgiven me?” Your son comes back next year and asks, “Dad, are you really sure you forgave me?̵ How would you feel? It would break my heart. That is what you are doing to the heart of God. Why don’t you stop breaking the heart of God? You are breaking the heart of God by saying, “I do not think you did Jesus”. Are you willing to finalize that God has already forgiven you?
This man knelt down and did that. He finalized that forgiveness. I saw his countenance change and saw the weight of guilt fall off of him.
We accept forgiveness of God and yet not accept ourselves. If that is so, then your standard of righteousness is higher than that of Christ Jesus. Your standards are not higher than his. If God has forgiven you, then why don’t you forgive you. You are a forgiven person.
John 19:38-42
38 Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away. 39 He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. 40 Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. 41 At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. 42 Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.
That was customary the way they buried people, with spices and strips of linen. There was also a garden. If you visit Israel today, you will see the garden tomb, directly behind where Golgotha is. It was a beautiful tomb with underground wells providing water. It is no mistake where his resurrection took place.
John 20:1-10
1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. 2 So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved [John], and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”3 So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. 4 Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, 7 as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. 8 Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. 9 (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) 10 Then the disciples went back to where they were staying.
They saw the tomb was empty. They saw Jesus die on a cross. But even so they did not comprehend yet that scripture said he had to rise from the dead nor did they understand why he had to rise from the dead.
You ask people, “What is the meaning of the cross?” Everybody will say that is where Jesus died for your sins. You ask people, “What is the meaning of the resurrection?” There is silence. The best a person can come up with is, “that is where Jesus had to prove he is God”. The meaning of it is this. Jesus rose from the dead so that that life that raised him from the dead can raise you and me from the dead. We were born into this world spiritually dead. What is death? Death is the absence of life. If you do not have life, that is your problem. In order to give you life, he had to take away the cause of death. That is the preparation day of the cross. God’s provision. Saved by his life. You are not merely saved by the death of Christ but by the life of Christ.
Romans 5:10
10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!
You were born into this world reconciled to God through the death of His Son. You were born into this world a forgiven person, as far as God is concerned. Does that mean you are saved? No. If salvation was getting your sins forgiven, then that would be universal salvation. But that is not salvation.
This being an accomplished fact, you are saved by his life. You cannot have one without the other, but do not mistake one for the other.
The cross is what prepared you for salvation. If it had not been for the cross, you could not have been saved with eternal life. The consequence of sin is death. If he could have given you life apart from taken away the cause of death, sin, then the next time you sinned, you would die again, would you not? Then you would have a Dracula theology, dead today and alive tomorrow. In order to give you and me eternal life, he had to eternally take away the cause of death, which is sin. That is why the sins of the world was taken away at the cross. Preparation for salvation. Salvation is coming to faith in his resurrected life.
Colossians 2:13
13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins
John 10:10
10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
What do you need life for? You need life because you are dead.
John 1:4
4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.
Jesus identified himself as the bread of life.
John 6:35
35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
Jesus said to the Pharisees.
John 5:37-40
37 And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, 38 nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one he sent. 39 You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me to have life.
So do we in so many of our intellectual circles. We study the book to get to know the book and miss getting to know the author. I do not know any intellectual pursuit to read a book to get to know the author. I studied a book to get to know what was in a book to put it in a blue book and get a grade and get enough of those to get a degree. That is how tough it is to get a degree. You do not care if it is true or not, or who wrote it, or even if the guy had a brain who wrote it. You just regurgitate what is in a book and you get a grade. We carry that same mentality into our Christianity. I did that. There is only one reason to pick up the bible and that is to get to know Jesus.
John 5:39-40
39 You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me to have life.
John 14:6
6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
He did not say a way, or a truth, or a life. The only spiritual life available to us is Christ Jesus. It is not being dogmatic or narrow minded. It is just plain practical information. God saw His creation as dead and provided a way for us to come to life. There is only one source of that, and that is Christ Jesus. Buddha cannot give you life. Mohammad cannot give you life. The pope cannot give you life. Billy Graham cannot give you life. We cannot give you life. Only Christ Jesus can give life to the dead.
Romans 6:23
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Ephesians 2:4-5
4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved.
John 14:19-21
19 “Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. 21 Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”
John 5:24
24 Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.
Romans 8:1-2
1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.
Do you realize that, that there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus? Do you believe that? Have you been taught that God will get you or zap you when you sin? Many people have been taught that. But that is not true. It is true that you, who are in Christ Jesus, will not be condemned. These are not Bob George passages. This is truth as written down in the scriptures. Those are passages out of the scriptures. There is no condemnation. You will not be condemned.
What is the condemnation of God for sin? What is the wages of sin? Death. Have you been freed from the law of sin and death? Yes.
Romans 8:2
2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.
John 5:24
24 Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.
Jesus Christ came to identify with us in our death so we can identify with him and his resurrection. What is salvation? Salvation is restoring man to his true humanity. Paul said, “I became a servant by the commission God gave to me to present you the word of God in it’s fullness, not to stop at the cross, but to go onto the resurrection”.
Colossians 1:24-26
24 Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church. 25 I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness – 26 the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people.
Thank God for the cross. But that was preparatory. We have missed the dynamic of the resurrection. New life has been given to us. Christ was raised from the dead. He died for you then so He can live in you now. It is a mystery kept hidden but now revealed.
Colossians 1:26-27
26 the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people. 27 To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Christ in you is your hope of glory. What did God do? Restoring in us what we had lost in Adam, that being the Spirit of God living in him. God in the man is indispensable to the humanity of the man. Gasoline in your car is indispensable to the functioning of the car. Electricity in that bulb is indispensable to the functioning of the bulb. How come? It was made that way. Oil in an oil lamp is indispensable to the functioning of the lamp. How come? It was made that way. Take oil out of a lamp and you have a lamp on your hand and it cannot behave like one. You take gas out of a $60,000 car and you have a car that cannot run. Why? It was made that way.
Why does man need God living in him? He was made that way. Take the God out of the man, and what do you have? You have a man on your hands that cannot behave like one. He is not an animal so he cannot behave like one. He cannot behave like a man so he behaves like an idiot. Until you are indwelt by God you are not complete. You are always searching. Do you remember the days you were longing and searching? You were asking, “Is there any meaning and purpose to life?” Your meaning and purpose is to be indwelt by God, a body indwelt by Jesus to live his life in you and through you.
Mark 8:36
36 What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?
We are here to be available to God. God in the man is indispensable to the humanity of the man. That is what resurrection is.
The disciples went back home. Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been rolled away.
John 20:1
1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. 2 So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”
Some people believe in a “swoon theory”, that Jesus just passed out. Here is Jesus, beaten like no man, in an unbelievably weakened condition, nailed to a cross, wrapped with 75,000 pounds of stuff, then moves that stone, once nails are in your feet and hands? That does not make much sense. Maybe those Jews stole him? Then they are in worse shape than they were before. The last thing they wanted was the resurrection. Maybe the apostles took him away? How could you do that when the Roman government had a seal across that stone, with armed soldiers posted, that if you broke that seal, it was a certain death? I hardly believe anyone came by and stole his body.
Even if they did, can you imagine 11 or 12 guys, who knew Jesus was not raised from the dead, and got him and stole him? Peter, one of the disciples, being hung upside on a cross, dying on a cross for a lie? If I knew I had stole the body, and about to die, I would say, “the gig is up”. All the disciples died a martyr’s death except John, but he was banished to the island of Patmos, after escaping burning oil over his body. Who would die for a lie?
John 20:3-10
3 So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. 4 Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, 7 as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. 8 Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. 9 (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) 10 Then the disciples went back to where they were staying.
Jesus was raised from the dead. It is the only tomb that is famous for who is not in it. He was raised from the dead. Prophesied in the Old Testament and fulfilled in the new.
John 20:11-16
11 Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb 12 and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.13 They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”
“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” 14 At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.
15 He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.”
She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).
Sometimes there is a way you pronounce someone’s name so you know the one who is speaking.
John 20:17-18
17 Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”18 Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.
John 20:30-31
30 Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
He is risen. The most important fact in human history is the resurrection of Christ Jesus. Jesus said to Nicodemus, “you must be born again”. What is birth? Life. You were born physically from mom and dad. Now you must be born from above, spiritually. There is natural birth and then there is a spiritual birth. Only God can give you spiritual birth.
Nicodemus did not understand what Jesus said. “How can you enter a mother’s womb a second time?”
John 3:1-21
1 Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2 He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”
4 “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”
5 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
9 “How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.
10 “You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? 11 Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. 12 I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? 13 No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven – the Son of Man. 14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.
Jesus is saying, “You are thinking on human terms. I am telling you spiritual truth, that if you do not get a hold of, you will die in your sins. There is a consequence of sin, which is death. We know what death is. We have seen it. When I looked at my father’s casket, the first words that came out of my mouth is, “Dad is not there”. Father is in a casket. His body is there but he is not there. The real you is under the skin. The real you is what you cannot see. This is the house that we now live in. But the real you is the spiritual you.
