©2000 Larry Huntsperger
Peninsula Bible Fellowship
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7/30/00
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Look Who¹s Offering The Sacrifice
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Romans 3:25-26
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7/30/00 Look Who's Offering The Sacrifice!
We return this morning
to our study of the book of Romans.
We are studying the last 11 verses of the 3rd chapter,
which are also the first 11 verses
of the second major section of this
remarkable letter.
In the first section of the book
we saw Paul paint for us
a portrait of the human race without Christ.
It was a bleak, terrifying portrait
revealing to us a picture of humanity
standing justly condemned before God
on the basis of our offenses
against His clearly revealed moral
law.
It was a portrait painted for us by Paul
as his way of preparing us for his revelation
of what God has done for us through Christ.
Then, in the second section of the book,
the section we have just begun studying,
Paul begins with the words,
"But now, apart from the law...".
And, as he explains what it means
for a person to enter into a friendship with God
on the basis of faith in Christ Jesus,
he wants it clearly understood
from the very beginning of his message
that this agreement is founded
not in our ability to perform up to a
certain standard
as measured by the moral law of
God,
but rather founded upon God's ability
to perform both for us
and in us
those things we could never have done
for Him.
I love the way Paul said it
in Acts 13:39.
"...and through (Jesus Christ) everyone
who believes is freed from all things, from
which you could not be freed through the
Law of Moses."
We are in the process of walking through
this section of the 3rd chapter of Romans in 6
steps.
We took the first step in Romans 3:21
where Paul told us
that the righteousness our God offers us
through Jesus Christ
is the same righteousness
we would have achieved
if we would have kept the moral law of
God perfectly
from the day of our birth
until the day of our death.
Then, in 3:22-24,
we heard Paul explain how we receive this
righteousness.
Rom. 3:22 even the righteousness of God
through faith in Jesus Christ for all those
who believe; for there is no distinction;
Rom. 3:23 for all have sinned and fall
short of the glory of God,
Rom. 3:24 being justified as a gift by His
grace through the redemption which is in
Christ Jesus;
And as we studied our way through those verses
we looked at other related passages
that reveal to us how this righteousness of
God becomes a part our lives.
We saw that, in response to our faith in Christ,
God creates within us
a new heart,
a holy, pure, new spirit with in us,
a spirit that loves God and longs to please Him.
Now this morning
I want us to move on in this passage
to the 3rd step in Paul's presentation
of this good news from God.
It is found in 3:25-26.
After assuring us that the holiness being offered to
us through Christ
is in fact the real thing,
and then telling us that it is being offered to us
simply in exchange for our faith, our belief in
and acceptance of
what God has done for us through Christ,
the next thing Paul does
is to explain to us
why God is able to do this.
Here we are,
obviously flawed,
broken,
sinful created beings of God,
hearing our God offer us
total forgiveness,
and a recreated inner spirit,
and entrance into an eternal love union
with Him.
The natural question that must come up
is how this can possibly be.
In verses 25-26 Paul gives us the how.
And at the same time
he gives us a remarkable glimpse
into the very heart of God Himself.
He allows us to see something about our Creator
that, on our own, we would never have guessed
was there.
Speaking of Jesus Christ,
the passage reads as follows:
Rom. 3:25 ...whom God displayed publicly
as a propitiation in His blood through faith.
This was to demonstrate His righteousness,
because in the forbearance of God He
passed over the sins previously committed;
Rom. 3:26 for the demonstration, I say, of
His righteousness at the present time, that
He might be just and the justifier of the one
who has faith in Jesus.
Now, before we move into this passage
I need to prepare you a little
for what we'll be doing
during the next few minutes.
When our God communicates His truth to us
He does so in ways that reach
every aspect of our humanity.
If you were here last week
you will remember I shared with you
a story designed to help us relate
emotionally
to some of the truths we've been
studying.
There are many examples of this same kind of
feeling-oriented communication
throughout the Bible.
The parable of the prodigal son
is just one of many examples.
Even though most of us have heard that little story
countless times,
the mental image of that father
standing on that road
watching, waiting for the return of his
son
and then running to meet him
carrying a robe to cover his rags
and a ring to place on his finger,
that image cannot help but touch us deeply,
and all the more
when we realize
this is our God describing Himself
and His attitude toward us.
Or how about that other story
about the shepherd
and his one wayward sheep,
lost and alone.
When Jesus talked about that shepherd
searching until He finds the little sheep,
then carrying it back to safety in His
arms
it communicates to us at the feeling level
what our God wants us know about Himself
and His attitude toward us.
Such passages are designed
to reach out to us through our emotions.
But then there are other passages
given to us by our God
to communicate His truth
not to our emotions
but to our intellect,
to our logical reasoning processes.
That doesn't mean the truths we look at
will not affect us emotionally,
because they certainly can
and in fact at times do in a powerful way.
In fact, some of the most powerful emotional
responses we will ever feel
in our growing discovery of our Creator
come as the result of understanding
some previously unknown truth
about Him and His relationship with
us.
Take, for example,
those remarkable words of John
in his first letter.
1 John 5:11 And the witness is this, that
God has given us eternal life, and this life
is in His Son.
1 John 5:12 He who has the Son has the
life; he who does not have the Son of God
does not have the life.
1 John 5:13 ¶ These things I have written
to you who believe in the name of the Son
of God, in order that you may know that
you have eternal life.
Those words were written by John
to communicate a piece of truth to our intellect.
He wants us to know that if we have Christ,
with Him we also have eternal life.
No chance,
no doubt,
no fear,
no confusion...that you may know!
But when that truth becomes a part of our thinking,
it will also impact our emotions,
giving us an emotional sense of peace and
security.
I bring all of this up right now
because I want you to know
that our relationship to the verses
we are studying right now
begins not in our emotions
but in our mind,
in our logical reasoning processes.
Paul wants us to know
certain critical aspects of truth
in our interaction with our Creator.
Now, with that background,
let's take a look
at how God was able
to make to us
this remarkable offer of forgiveness
and righteousness,
requiring from us in return
nothing more than our faith,
our belief in and acceptance of
the truth of what He has done.
In the first phrase of this 25th verse
Paul tells us that God publicly displayed
Jesus Christ as a propitiation in His blood
through faith.
And for this phrase to make any sense
we need first of all to make some progress
with that strange word "propitiation".
And here again,
I believe the first readers of this letter
would have reached this point in the
document
and stopped reading in shocked
amazement.
You see,
prior to Paul's use of this word,
in this letter,
in this way,
propitiation had been used in the first century
culture in a very different context.
It was used to describe
the offering or animal sacrifice
that a man or woman would bring his or her
god
with the hope that it would cause that
god to look favorably on the one bringing the
sacrifice.
In the extreme case
this is the young virgin
tossed into the mouth of the volcano.
The propitiatory sacrifice
was man hoping to appease the wrath of an
angry god
and win his favor
through bringing him a gift.
Now, look what Paul does with this word.
He takes this word
and uses it to describe
not an offering brought by a man to his god,
but rather to describe
an offering brought by God to man,
and even more amazing,
the sacrifice God is bringing
is the offering of His own blood,
His own life sacrificed for us.
This is not us offering our god a sacrifice,
hoping through it to win God's favorable
response to us,
this is God offering Himself as His sacrifice for us
hoping through it to win our favorable response
to Him.
I mentioned a few minutes ago
that this passage right here
offers us a truly remarkable glimpse
into the mind and heart of our Creator.
I don't know what any of you here this morning
think about God.
I don't know how you view Him.
I know many people in our world
view Him as a wrath-filled deity
deeply displeased with His creation,
demanding from us what we can never deliver.
There was a movie that came out in 1972.
I think I remember it so well
because I saw it at a time
when I was deeply involved in building
the intellectual foundation
in my own relationship with God.
It was called The Poseidon Adventure.
It told the story of a group of people
trapped in a huge ocean liner
that had been turned upside down.
As I recall, this massive luxury liner
was flipped over
as a result of a huge storm.
Anyway, these people
were trying to make their way
up to the bottom of this ship
with the hope of then somehow boring
through the hull and being rescued.
The leader and hero of the group
was a very modern young priest
who was leading the group on to safety.
And there was a scene
near the end of the movie
where a steam pipe had burst
and the only way for the people to make
it to safety
was for someone to jump out over this great
chasm and turn the valve off.
Once he jumped out, though,
there was no way for him to get back.
In this great, dramatic scene
the young priest flings himself out to the valve,
turns it off so the others can pass safely,
and then, just before he drops to his
death he says in this really bitter voice,
"Alright, God - here's one more sacrifice for You."
I don't know what priest school that sad little man
supposedly attended,
but obviously the Bible was not required
reading.
You see, the truth is
God is not asking for the sacrifice,
He's offering it,
He's bringing it,
and that sacrifice is Himself - His
own body in the Person of Jesus Christ.
There is a subtle
but powerful misconception floating around the
Christian world
that man's sin made God angry with us,
it made Him not like us any more,
and that the blood of Christ,
the death of Christ somehow changed
God's attitude toward us
so that He started liking us again.
I want you to listen closely
to what I'm going to say right now,
because it is a truth
that is deeply imbedded in the passage
we are studying this morning.
The problem our sin created for God
was not that our sin made it
so that God didn't like us any longer.
The problem our sin created
was that it made it so that He could not be with
us
and we could not be with Him any longer.
His attitude toward us
has never changed since the day He created us.
He loves us.
Our God,
our Creator loves us.
John 3:16 ¶ "For God so loved the world...
But our determination to eject Him from our lives
and declare ourselves independent from Him,
our willful sin against Him
made it impossible for Him to communicate that love
to us personally.
And then,
having once entered into our rebellion against
Him
and created for ourselves
an approach to life that is in every way
offensive to Him
and even seeks to deny His existence,
it was only natural that we convince
ourselves
there is no way He could still love us.
If it helps,
picture a 16 year old boy,
filled with a heart of rebellion
against a father who loves his son more
than life itself.
The son, determined to take total control of his own
life,
leaves home
and enters a life-style and a world
that is in every way opposite
to his father's value system.
As the boy lives on the streets,
drunk and drugged day after day,
when he thinks of about his father
he tells himself,
"I know he hates me now
for everything I'm doing."
That's the human race
in its relationship with our Creator,
separated from Him,
unable to hear His love,
knowing that so much about our
lives
must be so very offensive to Him.
It is natural for us to assume
He certainly doesn't like us very much
anymore,
given the fact that our behavior
is completely inconsistent with the value
system He has clearly called us to obey.
But once again we got it all wrong.
For you see, God so loved the world...
that He gave His only begotten Son...
Now picture this teenager in jail,
picked up for theft and drug possession.
All his friends have deserted him,
he has no bail,
no money for his defense.
In one final desperate hope
he calls his dad,
and to his utter amazement
finds his father immediately at his side,
paying his bail,
paying his fines,
providing his legal defense,
and bringing his son back home.
John 3:16 ¶ "For God so loved the world,
that He gave His only begotten Son, that
whoever believes in Him should not
perish, but have eternal life.
Our sin did not alter our Creator's love for us,
it just made it impossible
for us to receive it.
The death of Christ
did not change the Father's heart toward us,
it simply freed Him
to be able ot express
the love He has always had for us.
And just another reminder here
that may help disarm
some of the lies Satan flings at us.
Every one of us who has ever come to God through
faith in Christ
has at times looked with disgust
at our own sins,
knowing their must be some payment,
some accountability for those sins.
Never forget that there has been
true wrath,
true judgment,
true condemnation and payment
required by God for our sins.
Christ truly did take our sins upon Himself
and as He bore our sins
He accepted the wrath,
the judgement,
and the condemnation they deserve,
and He willingly made the payment required.
God did not overlook our sins.
He personally paid the price for them Himself.
So, God the Father publicly displayed Christ
before the entire world
as the offering He Himself was bringing
for OUR sin.
And that's not all -
This was to demonstrate His righteousness,
because in the forbearance of God He
passed over the sins previously
committed...
Do you see what's happening here?
Do you think your Creator is out to get you for
your sins?
If He was out to get us,
none of us would live a day.
And here again we see
into the heart of our God.
He passes over the sins previously committed -
He postpones the natural consequences we
deserve
so that we have time to hear His voice
and He can call us to Himself.
...that He might be just and the justifier of
the one who has faith in Jesus.
That's Paul's way of telling us
that our God did not lower Himself to our level
-
He in no way compromised Himself
or His perfect moral character,
but rather He found a way
to raise us up to His level,
allowing us to share in His holiness
and live in the presence of His love
forever.