Romans 3: 21-26; 6: 1-6; 8: 1-4
Galatians 5: 1 to “therefore”
I think it is a wonderful thing that what God has in His mind for men, He has in mind for all men. When you think of what that means, it is a remarkable statement. Even with the power of modern communication, there is no way that men can even count the number of people that there are in this world. They know roughly how many there are. I used to say there were six billion, but there are now seven thousand million people in this world. But men cannot actually know who they all are at any one time; so it is a most remarkable statement that Paul makes here, and it is still true. I do not know how many people were alive in the world when Paul wrote this, but God knew, because it was true then, and it is still true, “righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ towards all”. And another thing that Paul says here and which is true for everyone, whoever they are, wherever they live in this world, is “for all have sinned”. It says “all” twice here. “All have sinned” - you have sinned and I have sinned. And God is “towards all” in righteousness by virtue of what He has done to save everyone in this world. That is the tremendous thing about the gospel. No matter how many people there are, seven billion now, or however many people there were when Jesus died, what God did and what the Lord Jesus did in His work on the cross, it was done for all. God had blessing in mind for all men. And He has blessing in mind for you, because, whereas the gospel is available to all seven thousand million of the people in this world today, God is not speaking to them all as a group; He is speaking to each person individually, and He would speak to you in a meeting like this. He would speak in many different ways. You might say, ’I have heard the gospel before. I have heard God speaking to me in the gospel before; so I do not need to listen tonight’. Well, you do, and I do too. I need this as much as you do. I need to listen to what God might say to me in these scriptures, because I need the gospel just as much as you do.
There are two categories here. In one case all men have sinned, and God is towards all, and that is a blessed thing - “Righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ towards all”. That is an absolute statement, not towards all those who will listen, not towards all those who may be elected for blessing. This shows us that God does not elect for eternal damnation. That could not be the case. This is the power and love of God in righteousness, based on what Jesus has done, towards every single person; so that we all stand before God as sinners and God is “towards all”. And then there is a comma, “and upon all those who believe”. I simply want to ask you, dear friend, have you believed? That is different from, ’Have you heard before?’ or ‘Do you know the truth of the gospel?’. Everybody here might know the truth of the gospel down to the youngest child of intelligent years. You may have all heard it before, but God is towards you and the question is, have you believed? You remember when the jailor came into the prison that the earthquake had shaken, and all the prisoners’ bonds had been loosed, and Paul and Silas were there. That man came in with his drawn sword, ready to commit suicide, because he knew what would happen to him if the prisoners escaped, and he cried out to Paul, “Sirs, what must I do that I may be saved?”. There was one word, “Believe on the Lord Jesus” (Acts 16: 30-31). I want to ask you, have you done that?
What does it mean? It means, dear friend, that you put your trust in the Saviour that we speak of in the gospel, the Lord Jesus Christ, and you come to it that you cannot do without Him. It is not believing in a doctrine, it is not believing the terms of the truth or even in the terms of Scripture, although to some extent it is that. What I mean is that merely knowing the terms of Scripture will not save you. I have come across persons who knew the Scriptures better than I did, and yet they did not believe in the Lord Jesus as their Saviour. I would like, dear friend, to ask you sincerely, have you believed? Are you a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ? Because, if you are, it changes you. God counts you righteous. This righteousness of God that is spoken of here is available to you “by faith of Jesus Christ”. Now, I cannot give you faith: only God can give you faith, but I can ask you, have you believed in what you have heard again and again and again at these gospel preachings? Dear friend, I would urge you, open your heart to Christ tonight by believing in Him as the only One who can save you. You need Jesus. Have you ever come to that - that you cannot do without Him, this blessed Saviour that is spoken of here, “by faith of Jesus Christ …. for there is no difference; for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God”. Have you come to that? That is part of what believing in Him means. That jailor had come to the end of himself. He knew that there was no other outlet for him, “what must I do that I may be saved?” He did not say to Paul. ’Where are you?’ or ’What happened?’ He knew he needed salvation. Have you ever come to it, dear friend, that you need Christ, you need the Saviour, the One in whom God’s righteousness is personified, the One whose work on that cross was the basis for righteousness of God to be displayed there, and in His precious blood too. We will come to that in a minute, but have you come to it that you are a sinner, not just that “all have sinned”, but that you are a sinner. I am a sinner. ’Oh’, you might say, ’I am not as bad as some people. I have lived a good life and I have been brought up in a Christian household. I have come to the meetings’. That is good, but it will not save you. I would urge you to think about what believing in the Lord Jesus means. It means changing your man, putting your trust in Jesus because you realise that only He can save you. I would urge you to do it. If you have not done it before, come tonight to open your heart to this blessed One who is towards you in blessing. “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God”. The Philippian jailor realised that in some way in his heart, and he cried out because he knew he needed a Saviour, “what must I do that I may be saved?” Dear friend, I would urge you to come to that, to repent and believe. What a wonderful thing it is! The gospel is simple and God has done nearly everything. God has provided a Saviour, and the Lord Jesus, in dying on the cross, has done all that has needed to be done - except you must put your trust in Him. You cannot go on what you know, you cannot go on what you can do, or who your father or mother are, or what your circumstances are. You can only depend on a personal link with a living Saviour, the One who died for you. Oh that you might come to that if you have never come before! It is a very important matter.
We were hearing in the gospel last week of the way in which men like to categorise themselves, and I was struck by it. The story was about the Titanic. When the Titanic sailed from Southampton to America, there were three classes. There was first class, and some passengers could afford that; and then second class which was still very good and many passengers could afford that. But many could not, and they went third class, down in the lower decks of the ship. Some could not even afford third class, but they had appealed to get on and they were sleeping in the boiler-room and the hold of that ship. There were four categories of people, and then - we know what happened. The ship hit an iceberg and it sank, and many, many people were affected by that. This what the preacher said to us in the gospel: there were four categories of people in the ship, but after it sank there were only two categories, saved and lost. There are only two categories of people in this world. There are only two categories of people in this room; there are those who are saved, who believe through personal faith in the blessed Saviour, and if you do not have that, you are lost. It is my responsibility to tell you that. Charles Spurgeon once, when he was preaching, warned his hearers of what would happen to them if they did not believe, and he said to them, ’I do not want you to be able, after the Lord comes, to say to me, You remember that preaching I heard from you; you played with your subject, you did not emphasise the importance, the seriousness of the gospel’. The gospel is a joyful message. I do not want to be gloomy, I do not want to frighten you because these scriptures we have read in Romans, although there is an element of seriousness about them, are very, very wonderful scriptures. But what I have to do is put it to you that unless you believe in this blessed One, you are lost. I do not want anyone in this room to go out of here not having believed. You may have believed - I know that most of you have done that, but I cannot assume it. I have spoken to people who have gone to gospel meetings, to church services, who know the Scriptures, and you would look at them and say, ’That person is a Christian’, but they did not have a living link with the blessed Saviour who died for them. That is the only thing that can save you.
But, blessed be God, salvation is available to you tonight. Oh, that you might come in response to the attractiveness of the appeal that God would make to you! This is available towards all, and it is “upon all those who believe”, righteousness of God. What a wonderful thing it is, set out there at the cross, God’s righteousness proclaimed. Sin had come in and disrupted the relationship that God had with man, but everything was set right there at the cross. The Lord Jesus went that way, and so we can be comforted by that. Although “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God”, those who believe in this blessed One are “justified freely by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus”. That is where it is, that is Who it is in, and God would have you come and take it for yourself, just reach out and take it. I cannot make you do it, your parents cannot make you do it; but you can believe, you can decide that you need Christ and you cannot do without Him, this blessed Saviour. “The redemption which is in Christ Jesus.” Do you know what redemption means? It means purchase. The Lord Jesus has paid this price that you could not pay and I could not pay. I do not know how many times I have sinned, I have forgotten most of the sins in my life, but I do know that there is One who suffered on that cross for me and shed His blood for me, and every one of my sins is gone from the sight of God because of what Jesus did there on that cross, because He shed His blood for me. I thank God I can say that. Can you say it? Can you say in the reality of your living affection for Christ and in your link with Him, ’He did that for me. He paid that price. It was a price that I could not pay, a burden that I could not bear, a load that only He could carry, He bore that load for me’? Oh, what a wonderful thing it is. The believer in Him can be justified freely. There is no middle ground. Men like to graduate things from one extreme to the other. That does not happen in God’s system. You are either saved or you are lost. You cannot be partly justified. If you put your trust in Christ, then the good news is that you are justified freely by believing in Him “through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus … through faith in his blood”. Oh what a wonderful thing it is to be able to speak of that blood!
Not only did Jesus take a Bondman’s form in coming here to this earth; not only did He have to walk here for thirty-three and a half years - how His holy sinless soul must have suffered as He walked among men and saw the effects of sin on the race - but He was rejected by those to whom He had come. Think of what it meant for Him, “He came to his own, and his own received him not”, John 1: 11. Not only did they not receive Him, but they rejected Him. How much He suffered in His public testimony from men, and then in the hall of Pilate. You have heard the sufferings of the Lord Jesus described before. I just want to remind you of all that the Lord Jesus suffered from men, and then not only that, but He then endured these three hours of darkness on that cross. During that time He bore my sins. The Son of God bore my sins, the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. Oh what a power He has to save you, dear friends! The Son of God in all His greatness, and yet for three hours the consciousness of the relationship He had with His Father was interrupted. The Son of God, the One who loved me and gave Himself for me (Gal 2: 20), He endured during these three hours the forsaking of God, and not only that, He then yielded up His spirit. Then, as Jesus was hanging there dead on the cross, the soldier pierced His side, and immediately there came out blood and water. Why did that man do that? It was just wanton brutality, just the same as the Lord’s scourging. It says, “Then Pilate therefore took Jesus and scourged him”, John 19: 1. Why did he do that to the sinless One, the spotless One? An even greater question is, why did Jesus suffer on the cross? Why was He forsaken? He cried, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?", Matt: 27: 46, Mark 15: 34. Can you answer that question? He was forsaken for me, and if He had not been and if I had not put my trust in what He has done for me, I could not stand here because I would be lost. But I am not, and I do not want you to be, and God does not want you to be. He wants you to be among those who are justified by the faith of Jesus, “through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus”, justified through faith in His precious blood.
You might say, ’But what a stain my sins have left’. They stain deep; Isaiah speaks of the crimson stain (chap 1: 18); it stains into the core of a person, into their memory, into what you are. But the blood of Jesus blood washes it all away. And so you come before God and you know that He does not see these sins any more. They have been washed away by the precious blood of Jesus. What a wonderful thing it is that this is “for the shewing forth of his righteousness, in respect of the passing by the sins“. Oh, these words of Jesus on the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23: 34) show the spirit of the gospel, the spirit of the whole dispensation since then. God can forgive you because of what Jesus has done for you, but to get the blessing of it you must believe. Oh, that you would come to Him tonight in belief, “for the shewing forth of his righteousness in the present time so that he should be just” - so that God should be just - “and justify him that is of the faith of Jesus”.
Dear friend, I would just appeal to you again. You have heard what I have just said many times before, and maybe you have not responded. If you have not, just open your heart to Christ and ask Him to save you. Put your trust in Him. Repent; own that you need Him, that you cannot do without Him. You may have sung the words: we have all done it,
I could not do without Thee,
O Saviour of the lost,
Whose precious blood redeemed me
(Hymn 220).
How many persons have sung these words, and not been in the good of them? I have, at one time, and maybe you too, but surely not still. If you are still singing the gospel hymns and you know the words, you have heard the message, but you do not have this living link with a Man who lives in heaven for you, a Man who died for you and shed His blood for you, get it tonight. Do not wait any longer. Change your life, change your whole reason for being. Come and accept the Saviour into your life; give your life to Christ. You will never regret it. You need Him. Come to that first and foremost. You cannot do without Him and, in repentance, put your faith and trust in Him.
Now Romans 6 where we read brings something else before us. I have said that there are two categories of people, lost and saved, and that is right. I say again, I trust that everyone here is in the category of the saved and that no-one will go into an eternity without God, remembering the words of gospel preachings that they did not answer to. That would be terrible. You have an opportunity now to be amongst those who are saved. But I remember when I knew that my sins were forgiven, but I still was not free. I was under the bondage of sin. I knew that Jesus had borne my sins, but I was still under the bondage of sin. I come back to that description of Mr Raven’s as to what Christianity is, vol 20 p3. The second part of what he said was that Christianity establishes us in new relationships with God and gives us the affections that are proper to them. But the first part of what Mr Raven said was that the Christian is delivered entirely from bondage. Now, you might be under the bondage of your sins. I trust you are not - we have spoken about that. But you still might be under bondage to the principle of sin, of the world, of the law or even of self. In the gospel God would present to you the opportunity of getting free, and that is why I have read these scriptures, and the hymn -
Captivity is captive led,
Since Jesus liveth who was dead.
The hymn speaks of our sins, and it speaks of the wondrous work that Jesus has done, “The victory is won”. But this scripture speaks of something else. “Should we continue in sin that grace may abound?” Surely not. That is what is called a rhetorical question; you know what the answer is even as you ask the question. Surely not, “Far be the thought”. But I would just ask you, and the reason I do so is that I remember a time when I needed to be asked this question. I knew that Jesus was my Saviour, I knew that when He comes I would be with Him for ever, and yet I was not in the enjoyment of my Christianity because I could not help myself. I was in bondage to the principle of sin. “We who have died to sin, how shall we still live in it?” Is there anyone here under the bondage of sin, the principle of the thing? You want to do what is right, you know Jesus as your Saviour, you know you should not keep on doing it. You say, ’I will not do it again, I will try to do better’, and then you do it again. Oh, I would like to speak to any soul in this room who feels that that is their experience currently. “Are you ignorant that we, as many as have been baptised unto Christ Jesus, have been baptised unto his death?”. He died and was buried that we might be saved from our sins and that we might be saved from the principle of sin, and that is part of the gospel. The only way to get free of that bondage is to find the power of the Holy Spirit.
I have spoken about the Lord Jesus. I trust that everyone here has Him as their Saviour. There is something that affected me a long time ago, that God’s gift of the Spirit is just as great as the gift of His blessed Son as your Saviour. The gospel is about salvation. For salvation from your sins, you need Jesus. You cannot do without Him. For deliverance from the bondage that the enemy would keep you in, of course you need the Lord Jesus, but you need the power of the Holy Spirit of God in your life. Have you experienced that power to help you? You have been baptised, but have you come into the truth of your baptism. That is what Paul is speaking about here, “We have been buried therefore with him by baptism unto death”. We had in the reading the significance of the burial of the Lord Jesus. Why was He buried? Was it not enough for Him to die? We might think that God could have raised Him to glory from the cross. Jesus could have done the work on the cross and died there and saved me from my sins, and God could have raised Him immediately. But no, He was buried. Loving hands took the body of my Saviour and laid Him in that tomb. He was buried for me. He died for me, He was buried for me, He was raised too. What a blessed thing it is! I am speaking about a living Saviour.
I could not do without Thee,
O Saviour of the lost.
You can only say that if you know Him as living, but do you know the help of the Holy Spirit? Here Paul is speaking to these Roman believers of this One who “has been raised up from among the dead by the glory of the Father”, and he says, “so we also should walk in newness of life”. Then he writes in verse 6, “knowing this, that our old man has been crucified with him, that the body of sin might be annulled, that we should no longer serve sin”. I would just appeal to anyone here who does know their sins forgiven but feels that they are in bondage to sin. Ask the Father to give you the Holy Spirit, ask for the Holy Spirit’s help. I want to take these two scriptures together. In Romans 8, “There is then now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus”. I have been in bondage to the principle of sin and not been able to help myself. I once asked a brother, ’How did you know when you got the Spirit?’, and he said, ’I knew because things that I had not had any power to deal with in my life; I found that I could deal with them’. Now, this is where we get into the moral exercises of the believer, but it is part of the gospel, that not only has God made provision for your salvation from your sins, dear friend, but He has given you the power to “walk in newness of life”. That is a wonderful thing, so that not only is your eternal destiny secured, but you have the power in the Holy Spirit to be here for the pleasure of God and to know the satisfaction of being delivered from sin, the world, self, the flesh, the law, whatever it is. It is the truth of baptism, and Paul brings it before these Roman saints in chapter 6, “even as Christ has been raised up from among the dead by the glory of the Father”. He has been! That is the foundation of my faith. I trust it is the foundation of your faith, that the Lord Jesus has been raised up from among the dead. When Mary went to that tomb, it was empty. The resurrection of the Lord Jesus, the fact that He is alive, that He is not here, He is living, is the keystone of Christianity. You know what that means in architecture? You have an arch with stones all holding each other up, and in the top there is a wedge-shaped stone that holds the arch up, and if you take that out, the whole arch falls down. If Jesus had not been raised from among the dead, Christianity would be a mockery, a theory, an empty religion. But He has been raised, and He is living. Someone once challenged a believer ’You speak about God, but God is dead’, and that dear person said, ’He cannot be. I was speaking to Him this morning’. That is how real it gets, a living relationship with the blessed God, a living relationship with your Saviour. Someone who is alive, Someone you speak to, Someone who communicates with you. That is what the Holy Spirit brings you into, walking in newness of life. Oh, that you might know it for yourself. If there is anyone here struggling under bondage, then receive the Holy Spirit into your life. Ask the Father for the Holy Spirit and know that blessed power. I know we are tested, but I also know that the Holy Spirit is the power for these things and, “There is then now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free”. God would bring you into liberty in the gospel. If you are still under the dominion of your sins, God would set you free by belief in Jesus as Saviour. If you are still struggling under bondage and you need deliverance, God would give you deliverance in the power of the Holy Spirit, “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and of death”. There is "what the law could not do”, but God has “condemned sin in the flesh". He has done it in the death of Christ, “in order that the righteous requirement of the law should be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to flesh but according to Spirit”. Walking in newness of life is having communion with the Spirit every day, knowing that living link with the Saviour, but knowing too a living link with a divine Person who is in you. It is a wonderful thing, that there is no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus.
Well, in Galatians, Paul writes that “Christ has set us free in freedom”. That is God’s objective in the gospel, and Paul is speaking to those who have come into the blessing of liberty. “Christ has set us free in freedom; stand fast therefore”. I did not go on to read the last part of the sentence, “be not held again in a yoke of bondage”, but it is there. These Galatian saints to whom Paul was writing were in danger of slipping back into bondage, and I know what it is to slip back into bondage. Once you have believed in the Lord Jesus, no-one can take your salvation away. Be absolutely sure of that. That is true. If you put your trust in the work of Jesus, no-one can take that eternal blessing away from you, but we need to be maintained in this. “Christ has set us free in freedom; stand fast therefore”. Do not slip back. You can know the liberty of the Spirit, you can walk in newness of life, but you need the Spirit every day. You need to be kept in the blessedness of deliverance. Oh, what a wonderful thing it is, “Christ has set us free in freedom”, not only freedom from the guilt of sin, blessed as that is, an essential first step, but freedom from everything that would hold us in bondage. God has perfect liberty in mind for you, and I can tell you, dear friend, it is a blessed matter to know the power of the Holy Spirit in your life. There are fruits that are apparent in those who are walking in this way, walking in newness of life. That is what God has in mind in the gospel. May you know the blessing of it in your own life.
For His Name’s sake.
9th January 2011