Crucifixion

Coming up next on this Friday addition of Renewing Your Mind with RC Sproul in Jewish categories that life was in the blood and the reason why the blood was required. It wasn't simply that I they could scratch the animal and get a little blood from a man that would take care of the sacrifice.

No, the blood was shed because the wife was required in payment for sin. The Old Testament tells us about the Jewish system simplifies people would bring sheep and goats in the temple where the priest would sacrifice the animals to cover the sins of the people that Old Testament practice pointed the way to the one who would be the perfect once for all simplifies in today's session were going to take a brief look at the crucifixion of Christ were all familiar with the apostle Paul's statement that he was determined to know nothing except Christ and him crucified. Of course, that was an example of apostolic hyperbole because Paul also knew considerably more and wrote on many other subjects. Besides the cross of Christ. But what Paul was saying with that comment was in the crucifixion we reached the zenith of the work of Christ, the act meets the high point of the mission. He was sent to accomplish now. Had we been eyewitnesses of the crucifixion on Good Friday is very doubtful that we would have realized that we were observing an active cosmic significance that we would be observing and atonement. The people who were gathered there dog SI had different perspectives on what they were saying from the viewpoint of Caiaphas, the execution of Jesus was a political expediency to keep the Romans off the back of the Jewish Sanhedrin for pilot. It was also an act of political expediency in order to calm the tumultuous crowd that was screaming for the blood of Christ for the thief on the cross he recognized the identity of Jesus. He sought as a miscarriage of justice but who, as an observer would see in this act, and atonement that would have such far reaching implications to understand the depth of what happened in the cross we have to look at the epistles in the New Testament wherein we receive the interpretation of the meaning of the event of the cross just briefly let me look for a second read Romans chapter 3 where the apostle Paul says these words in verse 21 but now the righteousness of God.

Apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe. There is no difference for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by his blood flow to comments that the apostle makes here in reference to our justification as it relates to the work of Jesus. One is with reference to the word redemption. The no observed more closely in a few moments, but the one I want to see initially is his reference to this act of propitiation that in Jesus death in the shedding of his blood.

There was an act of propitiation. What does that mean the Jew, who would read this material would understand it. In light of the Old Testament celebration of the day of atonement via an important system, which was the most important day of the year. The celebration of the Passover or the celebration of the day of atonement, but the annual day of atonement, Yom Kippur took place when the high priest was consecrated for a special task he himself added to make an offering of a bullock as a sacrifice. And then he was to take two goats, one that would be sent as the scapegoat into the wilderness and the other goat that was to be killed and then the high priest again after elaborate cleansing rituals was allowed to enter into the Most Sacred Pl. in Israel and of the Santos Santorum the holy of holies. Behind the curtain on the edge of the holy place where only the high priest could go and he would enter into the holy of holies, carrying with him the blood of the sacrifice that had been killed and what did he do with he would take this blood and sprinkle it on the mercy seat in the mercy seat which was in the holy of holies was the throne of God in the mercy seat was the lid of this throne and inside the throne were contained.

For example, Aaron's rod, and the 10 Commandments, or the law of God. And so, in this ritual blood is sprinkled on the throne of God indicating a sacrifice of blood in order to satisfy the demands of God's justice.

So what were involved with in an act of propitiation is an act of satisfaction.

This concept is somewhat foreign to us because we been told so often that God is a God of love is a God of mercy is a God of grace, who forgives us freely of our sins and the idea we have been of God is that all God has to do to reconcile us to himself is just simply to dispense his forgiveness upon us, but when we think like this. We forget that God is holy. We forget that God is just and at the end of that passage that I just read from Romans three he says that as a propitiation by his blood through faith in demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance.

God had passed over the sins that were previously committed to demonstrate at the present time his righteousness that he might be just and justifier so will and God justifies his people. He doesn't just do it by a unilateral active forgiveness because to do so without satisfaction without atonement without propitiation would be a complete violation of his own justice, God will not wink at sin. God will not simply pass over it without exactly a punishment for and so in the whole elaborate ritual of the day of atonement we see the symbolism of the blood sacrifice that is given to propitiate the wrath of God to satisfy his justice not we come. The New Testament we read the book of Hebrews in the book of Hebrews reminds us that the blood of bulls and goats cannot atonement for our sins.

All this elaborate business of killing the go and pouring his blood on the mercy seat isn't going to save anybody from their sins because there is no inherent intrinsic value in the blood of a goat to affect propitiation and so how were the people sins forgiven. In the Old Testament, not on the basis of the blood of the goat but on the basis of the blood of Christ, who was yet to come. All of these observations and rituals in the tabernacle, and later in the temple were pointing beyond themselves to the future reality that would come that in fact would satisfy the demands of God's righteousness and his justice. I also mentioned in here in this text that Christ was sent to bring redemption in this concept of redemption is also linked to the whole work of Jesus in the cross redemption has to do with redeeming something we have the experience in our past history in America having supermarkets and other stores that would give out savings stamps and that customer simply passed away in the last few years, but it used to be that in every mall there would be a little store that was called a redemption center and in that redemption center of the be all different kinds of appliances and tools bicycles whatever and for so many stamps that were saved. You could turn the stamps in for some real object of use could really use the stamps you redeem the stamps to purchase what it is the true wanted and that's what's going on here with redemption redemption is an act of purchasing economic act, as it were in Jesus in the cross is purchasing something is purchasing someone by redeeming them or paying the price of redemption again in the Old Testament you had the situation where people when they were not able to pay their debts couldn't give themselves to their debtor and enlist in the process of indentured servitude until the debt was paid and if a man, for example, became an indentured servant, and he had to work for five or six or seven years to pay off his debt and while he was in this servitude married a woman and the time came when his term of service was finished he was to be set free, but not the woman because in order to protect the woman from being married to an insolvent person who in the first place was not able to see to his own affairs, not to mention taking care of a woman earning children. The woman or the children would stay until or unless the freed servant paid the bride price to redeem his and when he would pay the money his bride would be set free, that in the jewelry also runs through the Old Testament where Jesus purchases his bride, who was in bondage who was in servitude to the world and the flesh and the devil. That's why Paul will say to his readers near here are not your Jeep and bought with a price you can purchased and the price time was the blood of Christ, we should say the life of Christ because in Jewish categories. The life was in the blood and the reason why the blood was required. It wasn't incessantly that I they could scratch the animal and get a little blood from him and that would take care of the sacrifice.

No, the blood was shed because the wife was required in payment for sin because in the beginning. The punishment for all sin was life again. In the Old Testament process of redemption. Many times the one who would make the purchase to buy somebody back out of slavery would be a relative and that relative would be known as the Kinsman Redeemer, the relative who would pay for the liberation of his brother, sister, mother, whatever. And so in New Testament categories geniuses is the supreme Kinsman Redeemer and he makes payment for that price on the cross. If we look then also at Paul's letter to the Galatians in chapter 3 of Galatians, we see an astonishing statement where Paul writes in chapter 3 verse 10 these words. For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse, for it is written curse that is everyone who does not continue in all the things that are written in the book of the law to do them, but that no one is justified by the law on the side of God is evident from the just shall live by faith that the law is not of faith but the man who does them shall live by them. And now we read this in verse 13. This is astonishing.

Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law may just pause there for second Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law no Paul has just already reached back into the terms of the Old Testament covenant that God made with Moses the mess it was renewed in the book of Deuteronomy.

You recall that God said to his people as he gathered them together and solemn assembly said if you keep these laws that I've given you obey my precepts and my commandments, then blessed will you be in the city blessed by you be in the country also will you be when you rise up blessed will you be when you go to bed at night blessed will you be all over the place but if you fail to keep them cursing. Shall you be in the city, cursing, shall you be in the country, cursing, shall you be when you rise up curse and shall you be when you go to bed at night but curse my curse will be upon you. One of the things I like about singing Christmas carols is in joy to the world. There is that phrase in the him referring to the efficacy of Christ's work of redemption. It takes place as far as the curse is found, that curse appears in the very beginning chapters of Genesis. As soon as sin enters into the world through the temptation of the serpent. The man is cursed.

The woman is cursed the serpent is cursed. The land is cursed and the whole creation groans together in travail. Until that occurs is removed. What is the curse I like to explain it in these terms, everybody knows that Hebrew benediction May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you and may the Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon you and give you his peace. There we have a case of Hebrew poetry is synonymous parallelism were each sentence means the same thing so that for the Jew. May the Lord bless you means the same thing as may the Lord make his face to shine upon because the supreme blessing to the Jew was to be able someday to see God face to face. May the Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon you the radiance of his space. May that radiance the send upon you and give you his peace. That's the supreme sense of blessedness, but the blessing is the antithesis if the polar opposite of the curse.

So what would it mean to be cursed and set aside. May the Lord bless you and keep you, it would say. May the Lord curse you and abandon you is that I'm making his face to shine upon you, may the Lord turn his back upon you and give you only judgment the Lord turn his face away and remove peace from your life.

Paul goes on to say here using these categories of blessing and curse says Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us, for it is written curse and is everyone who hangs on a tree that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. In order for the blessing that was promised Abraham to his seed to be received.

Sin must first be punished. And now Jesus not only takes a curse upon but he becomes the curse he embodies the curse he has to be completely forsaken by God the agony for which he screams on the cross, my God, my God, why has thou forsaken me happen when God turn the lights out.

The father turned his back on Jesus. Once Jesus had all of our sins imputed to him. He was the most loathsome site ever in the universe and God is too holy S even the look of sin, and so he turned his back but he might be cursed, that we may not be cursed, and instead we may be blessed.

Thanks be to God the cursing Christ did not last for eternity was only for a season. There Golgotha.

You know I've said this many times that when people talk about the crucifixion they go on and on about the physical pain endured by somebody who was subjected to the males in the thorns of the spirit in the side. I wonder of Jesus even felt the sense of thousands of people who died like that but only one received the fullness of the curse of God in the middle of his crucifixion, and finally, before he gave up the ghost. He said to tell a sly it's finished, and he committed himself into the hands of the one which is Kirsten and was received once more into the father's presence with humiliation.

The suffering, the curse was finished.

And yet Jesus still have more work to do. That's why the story doesn't end on Friday. The story doesn't end on the cross Sundays as the work of Sunday is coming. That is our hope as believers is in it. You're listening to Renewing Your Mind on this Friday I'm Lee Webb and this week we've been listening to portions of Dr. RC Sproul series. What did Jesus do understanding the work of Christ. We've examined several specific events in Jesus life and seeing why each of them played an important role in God's plan of redemption is 12 part series explains how the life of Jesus made him worthy of dying for our sins. We hope you'll contact us today and request this series by Dr. Spruill again. It's titled what did Jesus do call us with a gift of any amount at 800-435-4343. You can also make a request to give your gift online and Renewing Your Mind.org in terms of our redemption, we tend to think only of Jesus death and his resurrection but it's vital that we also consider his life is his perfect life is perfect obedience to the father that made his sacrifice perfect so we can request this series by Dr. Spruill is contained on two DVDs. Our phone number again is 800-435-4343 in our web address is Renewing Your Mind.org RC love to take the deep truths of God's word to Christians from every walk of life and that we here at Uighur ministries still believe that's important mission. We must proclaim the Lordship of Christ in our homes, our workplaces are our schools and communities. With that in mind, leaders committed to training growing Christians who can take God's truth and thoughtfully put it into practice wherever they are and whatever they do when you give a donation to this ministry are helping to spread the gospel all over the world. So we thank you next week to begin a series from Dr. RC scroll titled knowing Scripture.

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