Death of Christ

The point: Do not have a nebulous, woozy, undefined feeling of attachment to the man Jesus; you must be acquainted with the Christ of Scripture to have grounds for believing you are out from under condemnation.

A drunken man staggering in a bombing raid, thinking he's on a beach, illustrates false peace and euphoria that comes from being out of touch with reality, contrasting it with true peace found in Christ.

Yea, rather, that was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. That confidence that none will condemn him is a confidence based upon who Christ is. And we drew the, the inference, if you are ignorant of the Christ of Scripture, and yet you say you have confidence that your sins are pardoned, you're living in a fool's paradise. You're like that drunken man I described, staggering around in the midst of a bombing raid, thinking he's basking in the sun on the beautiful beaches of Bermuda.

7:42 - 8:17 Read in full sermon

The point: When you confess your faith in Christ's death, understand it as His position as your substitute, meeting all demands of God, and dare to lay both hands of confidence upon His head, not your own merit.

A person laying one hand on Christ as substitute and the other on their own efforts or perceived goodness illustrates the natural man's reluctance to wholly trust Christ, undermining true gospel faith.

He will do anything other than cast the weight of his guilty soul wholly, W-H-O-L-L-Y, wholly upon the work of another. He will naturally, as it were, lay one hand upon Christ as his substitute, but in case there's a little lacking, he wants to lay one hand upon his own sincere endeavors to do better.

16:29 - 16:56 Read in full sermon

The point: When you confess your faith in Christ's death, understand it as His position as your substitute, meeting all demands of God, and dare to lay both hands of confidence upon His head, not your own merit.

Singing 'Nothing in my hands I bring' but having 'a little change in my pockets' illustrates the subtle ways people try to add their own merit to Christ's finished work, hindering full reliance on Him.

He will lay one hand upon Christ as his substitute, but another hand upon his own areas where he doesn't feel he's quite so bad as some other people. And though he may sing, Nothing in my hands I bring, he says, but Lord, I've got a little change in my pockets in case what you have is not quite enough. But the person who has anything other than both hands, hands laid upon his substitute, as Bonar says in that beautiful hymn, my faith would lay her hands on that dear head of thine. Only the person who sees Christ in the position of a substitute, fully discharging all the demands of God against ...

16:58 - 17:59 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: This section details the Father's disposition towards Christ during His death: one of unmixed, inflexible justice and wrath, not indifference. Christ bore the Father's curse…

The cup of God's wrath, which Christ drank dry on the cross, illustrates that there is no more condemnation left for believers, as Christ exhausted it all.

though He is accounted as a criminal in the eyes of men, and bound and taken from one tribunal to another. But from that point on, the Lord Jesus had settled the issue, and that cup would be drained, so that, using figurative language, if someone should come to a child of God who is clinging to Christ in a living faith, the faith of God's elect, and say, Say to that person, Look, look, look what I found. I found that cup before which our Lord started and shrank in Gethsemane. I found that cup, and I'm going to bring it to you.

28:07 - 28:41 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Expounding Matthew 27:51-53, Martin presents the resurrection of the saints at Christ's death as a 'sacrament' or visible demonstration that Christ's death destroyed the power of…

A hypothetical story of Uncle Harry returning from the dead after his funeral illustrates the shock and eventual understanding of the mini-resurrection of saints in Matthew 27, demonstrating Christ's destruction of death.

Well, I don't understand everything that's behind it, but I think it involves at least this much. Can you put yourself back in that situation? You've gone to the funeral. You've gone to the funeral of your Uncle Harry.

37:45 - 37:54 Read in full sermon