The Necessity of the Divine Lamb of God: A Basic Study of Mt 12:38-50

1.  There are many Christians out there who approach God in an "unacceptable" way.  Let think of some example in how this is so.  Let us realize that we must follow the Divine Word of God.  It is the key to coming to God in an acceptable manner.  We must not be "familiar" with God.  We must not be "flippant" with God.  It is contrary to His blessed Word and we must stand on the Scriptures.  If a teaching does not correspond to the written Scriptures, it is based in all spiritual fraud.  We must understand that God is our Heavenly Father.  He is our Holy Father and only He deserves that title.  We must realize that God is also a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:29).  I submit it is right to call Jesus a Incarnate Consuming Fire as the Incarnate Second Person of the Trinity.  God is not simply "one of the guys."  God is not "the man upstairs."  God is to be approached with divine, holy and sacred reverence with contrite purity.   We are to adore Him in our worship services.  We ought to praise Him for His majesty and holiness.  Singing in divine worship should not be an unconscious reaction to the sound of music.  We ought to hear sermons in a way to obey the teachings from the written Scriptures and worship at the Lord's Supper.  We worship Jesus at the Lord's Supper because of His divine sacrifice of Himself as Savior and Lord.

2.  We ought not to dwell on "personal experience."  We ought to dwell on the "objective reality of Jesus at His Cross."   Everything is rooted in His Cross.  That is the center and main purpose of holy redemption.  The Cross must be the first and foremost of everything "we do and think."  Paul wanted to know nothing but the Cross of our Lord and Redeemer Jesus Christ ( 1 Corinthians 2:2).  Galatians 2:20 speaks about being crucified with Christ and that Christ lives in us, and its totally of Him, by Him, from Him, through Him and of Him alone.  We ought to have true and contrite faith in the eternal Son of God.  He loved us and gave Himself for us.  We ought to never equal "experience" with the "Cross."  They are too vastly different things.  However, we know our experience is true if it is validated by the written Word of God.  I gained assurance of salvation when I looked and beheld the written Scriptures that told me so.  We may think we are intimate with our Heavenly Father; however, we do not "come to Him on His terms."  We could be right with God but sin by not attending church.  We ought to always attend church; however, if we fail we ought to repent and believe the gospel.  The Christian life is with the body of Christ.  It is a "corporate enterprise."  We are called to love one another in the collective body of believers.  We may worship God with music but it may be unsound.  We ought to always repent, but have you repented where you have fallen?  We must come to God in an intimate way but it must first be established in His written Word.

3.  We ought to never presume upon the grace of God.  Divine and holy grace is a awesome truth taught in the Bible.  We are guilty sinners.  We are freely forgiven through the free gift of everlasting life by Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.  We are given forgiveness instead of condemnation and damnation and forsakenness.  He will never cast us out nor leave us.  We ought to never think that grace is deserving.  Grace is never deserving.  We do not deserve grace because we are sinners.  We sometimes think that sin is not serious.  We ought to never think this, because sin is always serious.  Jesus Christ is Lord of our lives; that is, we must obey Him.  Jesus Christ is also Savior of our lives; that is, we must confess our faults to Him and He is faithful and just to forgive us of all unrighteousness (1 Jn 1:9).  We may not worship God rightly even if we are Christians.  The Bible says we must examine ourselves in light of the Word of God's teaching.  We ought to practice personal accountability or responsibility.  This means we must obey Him and repent and believe the good news of Jesus Christ and He will surely forgive us.  We must always repent of our wrongful ways.  If we fail to repent, we are not walking as He walked.  We may not be really saved if we do not repent.  We must meet the holy standards of our Heavenly Father through His dear Son. We must follow His commandments of loving God wholly and our neighbor.  We live in a world that is wicked.  We live in a world that claims religion but fails to worship the God of the Bible.  What does God expect?  How have individuals gone into the board way instead of the narrow way?

Divine Scripture and the Fourth Member

In our day we hear of the false teaching of a fourth member doctrine.  The fourth member is allegedly the Blessed Virgin Mary or that she is an incarnation of God the Holy Spirit.  I suggest to you that both of these doctrines in Roman Catholicism is extremely harmful to the souls of the sons and daughters of Adam.  We must fight the spiritual fight with all diligence knowing by design God has promised us victory over it.  It is a dangerous doctrine or dogma and it is surely in any form contrary to the sacred faith of our only Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  The divine Word is silent on this subject of the fourth member; however, the Bible teaches that there is nothing new under the sun.  Those who teach the fourth member doctrine say that the Virgin Mary is the soul of the Holy Spirit.  I submit I have also dealt with this false doctrine elsewhere, but I also would like to point out what the Bible says that is contrary to this idolatrous and blasphemous teaching.  I suggest to you that it is after the working of Satan with lying visions and corrupt men in religious orders.  Let us look at the Divine Word in the OT that plainly refutes this teaching in Ezekiel 28:1-10.  I suggest to you that the degree of misery for a sinner to believe this is surely extreme.  The below Scripture passage teaches that it is wrong to say anyone is the heart of God or a god, because there is no one else besides the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

28 The word of the Lord came again to me, saying,  

²  “Son of man, say to the leader of Tyre, ‘Thus says the Lord God,

“Because your heart is lifted up
And you have said, ‘I am a god,
I sit in the seat of gods
In the heart of the seas’;
Yet you are a man and not God,
Although you make your heart like the heart of God—
³ Behold, you are wiser than Daniel;
There is no secret that is a match for you.
⁴ “By your wisdom and understanding
You have acquired riches for yourself
And have acquired gold and silver for your treasuries.
⁵ “By your great wisdom, by your trade
You have increased your riches
And your heart is lifted up because of your riches—

⁶ Therefore thus says the Lord God,

‘Because you have made your heart
Like the heart of God,
⁷ Therefore, behold, I will bring strangers upon you,
The most ruthless of the nations.
And they will draw their swords
Against the beauty of your wisdom
And defile your splendor.
⁸ ‘They will bring you down to the pit,
And you will die the death of those who are slain
In the heart of the seas.
⁹ ‘Will you still say, “I am a god,”
In the presence of your slayer,
Though you are a man and not God,
In the hands of those who wound you?
¹⁰ ‘You will die the death of the uncircumcised
By the hand of strangers,
For I have spoken!’ declares the Lord God!”’”

"Jesus, keep me near the cross"

Here we hear about the Cross of our Lord and Savior and Deliverer Jesus Christ.  Let us focus on the Cross of Jesus Christ.  When we are devoid of faith, let us call upon God for greater faith in the Cross.  Lets sing this hymn #704 in the Trinity Hymnal:

Jesus, keep me near the cross;
There a precious fountain,
Free to all—a healing stream—
Flows from Calvary's mountain.

In the cross, in the cross,
Be my glory ever;
Till my raptured soul shall find
Rest beyond the river.

Near the cross, a trembling soul,
Love and mercy found me;
There the bright and morning star
Shed its beams around me.

Near the cross! O Lamb of God,
Bring its scenes before me;
Help me walk from day to day
With its shadow o'er me.

Near the cross I'll watch and wait,
Hoping, trusting ever,
Till I reach the golden strand
Just beyond the river.

The Ultimate Scapegoat: Jesus Christ Our Righteousness: A Basic Study of Leviticus 16:7-10, Pt 2

6.  The redemption of the people of Israel was placed on God's people (Leviticus 16:20-22).  The sins of God's people were placed on the goat that went out into the wilderness.  The sins of the people were imputed to the goat and the righteousness of the divine Savior was imputed to the sinner.  Aaron symbolically transferred the sins to the goat.  Aaron released the goat into the wilderness and the transgressions will symbolically disappear out of the people's presence and never to be brought up again.  The scapegoat was offered in blood sacrifice, but not to offer it in blood sacrifice would be blasphemous.  Their sins were removed by the second goat and the people could rejoice.  The sins of the people were removed by the blood sacrifice in the first goat.  The goat propitiated the sins of God's people.  That is, the goat atoned for the sins of the people.  The second goat expiated the sins of God's people and removed them from God's people.  The sins of God's people were removed by God's people and most importantly the sins of God's people were removed from the presence of God.  There ought to be a transference of sin and virtue in progressive sanctification.  We ought to confess our sins and impart sin and punishment to the Cross through the application of the Holy Spirit, and by the Spirit the Son from the Cross imparts forgiveness, cleansing and virtue. 

7.  The separation of sin from God's people was a glorious concept.  The sins of God's people were cast all their sins behind His back (Isaiah 38:17).  The sins of God's people were tossed out of their sight.  The God of Jesus Christ will never remember my sins (Isaiah 43:25).  God has chosen to wipe the slate clean through and by and in Jesus Christ our Lord and Redeemer and Deliverer.  He elected to cast away our slate altogether.  God does not forget our sins but He chooses not to remember them.  O God, please never remember my sins in a condemning way (Romans 8).  Amen and amen.  God has casted our sins into the eternal depths of the sea (Micah 7:19).  God removes the sin of His people from His sight.  The sins of God's people are gone for good.  Psalm 103:12, "As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us."  The east and the west never meet because God's removal of our sins is infinite.  May You O Lord blot out my sins as far as the east is from the west.  Amen and amen.

8.  However, in the NT it says it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins (Hebrews 10:4).  Did God later change His mind?  Did God make all the blood sacrifices meaningless?  Did God have a higher intention in mind?  God made the blood sacrifices a foreshadow or a point to refer to all the blood sacrifices that would remove our sins through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ alone.  John the Baptist placed His eyes on Jesus Christ and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29).  Hebrews 9 says that the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of heirfer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for cleansing of the flesh, "how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" (Hebrew 9:13-14).  There was a day of atonement; that is, it happened on that first Good Friday.  The OT gave way to reality through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.  The animals were totally insufficient but who needed someone to be totally sufficient as a human being; that is, God became man in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.  Jesus Christ had two natures: He was fully man and fully God.  Jesus lived the perfect life to earn salvation for His people and He offered Himself on the Cross for a divine substitute.  The sin of God's people was placed on Jesus Christ alone and was punished by God the Father alone.  Jesus received the wrath that we deserved.  Jesus experienced the hell that we would take if it was not for His sacrifice.  The shedding of Jesus' precious blood made spiritual salvation available.  The work of Jesus Christ is finished at the Cross and the sin of His people is removed.   The sin and wrath are gone from us because by the Holy Spirit He has applied it to the Cross.  The wrath is taken away and now we are the recipients of God's awesome and precious and benevolent love.  The Lord has given us grace upon grace.  This bliss of the glorious thought of heaven!  Sin is taken out of the way!  The sin "not in part but the whole is nailed to the Cross and I bear it it no more: Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!"  (Horatio Spafford, "It is Well with My Soul").

9.  We learn with Jesus that the separation between man and God is over, because Jesus died on the Cross for His people (Mark 15:38).  We ought to draw near with confidence to the throne of grace (Hebrews 4:16).  We have complete access to God because we have been completely pardoned.  We find a loving Heavenly Father when we enter that throne room in heaven in the Spirit of God and we have a Faithful High Priest as our Divine Advocate.  Aaron transferred our sins on to the goats.  The gift of spiritual salvation is through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.  Jesus Christ alone died and shed His blood to remove our sins.  Deliver us O Triune God alone from pretenders!  The Christian faith is one true religion of grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone for God's glory alone because of Scripture alone!  O Triune God remove my sins from me through faith alone in Jesus alone. 

10.  Jesus made full atonement for the sins of God's people through the shedding of the God-man's blood.  The people of God are true Christians.  Jesus expiated our sins by eternally removing them from God's presence.  The sins of God's people have been drowned in the blood of our Lord and Savior and Deliverer Jesus Christ the Lamb of God.  The first goat has been killed and "imagine them loaded on the back of the second goat never to be seen again." (Pastor Randy Smith, "Jesus Is Our Scapegoat" April 02, 2010 on Leviticus 16:7-10 upon which most of this sermon has been based).

"Not all the blood of beasts"

Here is a Christian hymn from the Trinity Hymnal #176 on the precious blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Here we see the centrality of the Cross of Jesus Christ.

Not all the blood of beasts
On Jewish altars slain,
Could give the guilty conscience peace,
Or wash away the stain:

But Christ, the heavenly Lamb
Takes all our sins away,
A sacrifice of nobler name
And richer blood than they.

My faith would lay her hand
On that dear head of thine,
While like a penitent I stand,
And there confess my sin.

My soul looks back to see
The burdens thou didst bear,
When hanging on the cursed tree,
And knows her guilt was there.

Believing, we rejoice
To see the curse remove;
We bless the Lamb with cheerful voice,
And sing his bleeding love.

The Ultimate Scapegoat: Jesus Christ Our Righteousness: A Basic Study of Leviticus 16:7-10

1.  The 27 chapters of Leviticus deal with ritual purity, animal sacrifices and priestly practices.  The holiness of God and the reconciliation of man is revealed in this book.  It is not simply a unbiblical tradition somehow connected to the divine Word, but it is a biblical tradition handed down to us through the OT that is ultimately fulfilled in Jesus Christ.  This book is largely ignored by many in the Christian church today, but in it we find the simplicity of atonement and the removal of our sins.  The removal of our sins deals with the scapegoat that is given our sins.  At the Cross, Jesus was given our sins and He removed them from us.  He also removed the wrath of God from us through the Cross.  The sins of the people were imputed to Jesus at the Cross as the ultimate scapegoat and His divine righteousness was given to us as the divine purity of the glorious gospel of grace.  It is surely unbiblical to say that the scapegoat and atonement have no place in biblical history.  It is a biblical tradition or teaching to say that Jesus was the scapegoat that was punished in our place also as the divine Lamb of God.

2.  The book of Leviticus deals with God's total, utter and supreme hatred for sin, transgressions and iniquity.  We must regard God's holiness as supremely precious.  We also see that God's holiness is so supreme that Aaron's sons were killed for offering strange fire in Leviticus 10.  God is supremely holy.  It is a wrong thing to approach God in an unworthy manner.  I hear about the strange fire in the OT but it reminds me of the strange fire of purgatory; however, God is called a consuming fire but there is a counterfeit fire that men offered which was displeasing to God.  The Cross is where our unworthiness was placed, accounted or imputed upon our divine Substitute.  There is no way for our Lord Jesus to survive the punishment of the Godhead if He was not God in human flesh.  That is, He had to be man to visibly take upon Himself the sinful dread of humanity and God's wrath but He also had to be eternal God to endure the divine punishment.  The scapegoat is a picture of Jesus being taken outside the city and crucified.  He bore the sin of many upon the sacred tree of the Place of the Skull.  There is none other who could take upon Himself the full penalty for sin than our Lord and Deliverer Jesus Christ.

3.  The high priest had restrictions when He approached the Most High God.  It was because of holiness.  The message of the OT is that we are unclean people with unclean lips.  We need to be cleansed and washed in the blood of Christ.  If the priest violated, designated times, proper attire, ritual bath and blood sacrifice the result would be death.  The people had to be a holy people unto their God.  People sin today with impunity it would seem, but God will judge the ungodly; however, it seems because God is a good God He will judge us less for our sin deserve, but in and through Jesus Christ He poured out the full and immeasurable wrath and punishment of God that there could be.  There is no way that anyone could have endured the wrath of the Godhead except God Himself in His Incarnate Son as the Second Person of the Trinity.  This is why it is so absurd to say that the Virgin Mary suffered redemptively or meritoriously  in our place.  She could not bore the outpouring of the wrath of God.  Jesus took the wrath of the Godhead upon Himself to make full satisfaction for sins and pay for divine justice.  No saint could do this which is necessary to take away our sins.  The only credible answer is that the God-man alone took our sin upon Himself and only He could do it.

4.  We ought to consider this matter of the "Day of Atonement."  The people of God must have wondered if their high priest would emerge alive, because God is a God of holiness.  God must be treated as holy.  The God of the Bible will never compromise who He is.   Hebrews 12:29 says that God is the consuming fire that must punish sin; however, God looks at sin everyday but He also cannot tolerate sin.  God's people are a sinful people but we must have the Cross of Jesus Christ to save us from our sins.  Chapter 16 speaks of our impurities, transgressions and sins.  There is no way to get around the total and radical pollution and corruption of mankind.   Some say in our day that man is basically good, but we know that he is not basically good by the mere fact of violations of his mortal conscience and how it troubles the soul.   We must realize that we need desperate atonement for our sins.  Jesus Christ came to die on the Cross because He loved us with an everlasting love.  There is no greater love than when Jesus Christ loved us.   He bore our sins upon Himself and it was the ultimate obedience of the Son that brought the joy of the Father in crushing Him.  The Son bore our defilement, impurities, sins, transgressions and iniquities.  The God-man suffered in our place but He will never change His character; however, we must be willing to change ourselves.  The atonement of Jesus Christ is the greatest event in human history.  It was the ultimate act of love and removal of wrath from us.

5.  We recall that the book of Leviticus speaks of blood sacrifices.  This was for the impurities of the people.  We see that God in His rich and abounding mercy and grace and love saw a way for sin to be atoned.  This by far pictured the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.   Different animals were used on different occasions but for this study I like to bring your attention to two goats in Leviticus 16.  The two goats were presented before the Lord God Almighty.  It was placed at the doorway of the tent of meeting.  Aaron casted lots for the two goats.  One lot was for the Lord and another was for the scapegoat.  Aaron offered the goat on which the lot for the Lord fell.  He also made a sin offering.  The other scapegoat was presented alive before the Lord God Almighty.  It was meant to make atonement upon it.  It was sent into the wilderness as a scapegoat (Leviticus 16:7-10).  There is profound symbolism behind the two goats that should be realized.  The first goat was killed.  The goat stood as a substitute for the fallen sinner.  The blood of the goat was shed.   Why was this done?  (see Leviticus 17:11).  The blood was brought to the Most Holy Place.  It was sprinkled on and before the Ark of the Covenant.  The glory of the Lord hovered over it.  The law says that we are law breakers and God demanded justice.  The Ark had the "Mercy Seat."  The blood was sprinkled on and before the "Mercy Seat."  They made atonement for the sin of the people.  It was because of their transgressions and their sins.  He removed our sins by the Cross alone.  All of the OT pointed to its fulfillment in our Lord and Redeemer Jesus Christ.  The second goat was the scapegoat.  Jesus surely died upon the Cross and was crucified outside the city.  We still use the term scapegoat.  It means someone who bears the crimes of someone else.  That is what Jesus Christ did: in behalf of His people He bore their sin and was given their wrath in their place.  It was as if Jesus committed these sins but He was the spotless Lamb of God.  He committed no sin nor transgression but He was willing to die for His people as if He did the crimes they did.  What an awesome Savior!

"My Anchor Holds"

Here is a hymn about God holding on to us in His Triune eternal grip.  Nothing can undo His eternal grip and grasp on us.  We are His and He is ours to love and behold.

Though the angry surges roll
On my tempest-driven soul,
I am peaceful, for I know,
Wildly though the winds may blow,
I've an anchor safe and sure,
That can evermore endure.
And it holds, my anchor holds;
Blow your wildest then, O gale,
On my bark so small and frail:
By his grace I shall not fail,
For my anchor holds, my anchor holds.
Mighty tides about me sweep,
Perils lurk within the deep,
Angry clouds o'ershade the sky,
And the tempest rises high;
Still I stand the tempest's shock,
For my anchor grips the Rock.
I can feel the anchor fast
As I meet each sudden blast,
And the cable, though unseen,
Bears the heavy strain between;
Through the storm I safely ride,
Till the turning of the tide.
Troubles almost 'whelm the soul;
Griefs like billows o'er me roll;
Tempters seek to lure astray;
Storms obscure the light of day:
But in Christ I can be bold,
I've an anchor that shall hold.